A few days ago the Minister of the French Armed Forces, Madame Parly, announced the launch of a program which aims to constitute the Red Team, a mixed team of thinkers who should help identify the military and technological challenges of the future and help build the military capabilities needed to meet those challenges.
From Red Team as well specified in the message, some “prospectivistes et d'auteurs de science-fiction pour 'imaginer au delà'” will be part. For those who do not know French, let's immediately say that the "prospectivists" are, to simplify, specialists in the analysis of future scenarios1.
But what is most striking is the use of science fiction writers. The minister had already spoken of this a while ago when he established the Defense Innovation Agency.
A few months ago this initiative had probably raised a certain hilarity of those who, in all this, saw a bit of eccentricity of our French cousins but in my opinion things are very different and must be taken seriously.
Let's start by saying that France is not the only country to have done such a thing, let's see who preceded it. Let's start with the United States of America. There is an interesting document in which to find different historical information, entitled "The role and status of DoD Red Teaming activities"2 which mentions the composition of the Red Team concluding that there is no ideal Red Team but that its composition depends on the purpose to be achieved and citing the so-called "futurists" among the specialists. In 2004 the USA began to standardize the use of Red Team to observe their internal processes from different points of view, to see how it was possible to improve them, finding the flaws (another meaning of Red Team, used as an enemy point of view) and to understand how technology can influence the future. Of course, over time the United States has gone so far as to give the Army Directed Studies Office the skills and the task of helping Operational Commanders to analyze operational plans.
Similar examples could be found in Russia, China or closer to Great Britain, with its "Red Teaming guide" (link), published in 2010 and currently available on the internet in the 2013 version. From this guide we extract the definition of for simplicity Red TeamingThese are: "The independent application of a range of structured, creative and critical thinking techniques to assist the end user make a better informed decision or produce a more robust product".
We could go on with the analyzes but I prefer to stop here to give the most curious the opportunity to deepen personally, having given, in my opinion, sufficient food for thought on the importance of creative thinking in the analysis of the future ...
Who hasn't read Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert as a boy ?! Those who have done it can undoubtedly realize how these two great authors have sometimes come very close to our current reality, so close as to suggest that, perhaps, imagining the future serves to build it.
1 The Prospective is defined as the "Science ayant pour objet l'étude des causes techniques, scientifiques, économiques et sociales qui accélèrent l'évolution du monde moderne, et la prévision des situations qui pourraient découler de leurs influences conjuguées.
2 It is very interesting to note that the document gives several examples of successful uses of Red Team in history and states that "ideal team members are most likely nonexistant. The art is to mix quite different skills. Technology is often an issue; should an engineer, scientist, specialist, systems type, or futurist be the team member? "
- https://www.defense.gouv.fr/dga/actualite/lancement-de-l-appel-public-a-...
- https://www.defense.gouv.fr/aid
- https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/prospective/64476
- https://www.suasnews.com/2016/08/army-science-technology-systems-adaptiv...
- https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/138/Docs/PL/PLU/Mulvaney.pdf
Photo: Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China
