Chapter 9

Conclusions and Recommendations

The 2025 alternate futures provide six distinctive and stressful operating environments for future air and space power. These six worlds form the framework for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the many systems and concepts identified by the various 2025 writing teams. Systems and concepts which promise a high leverage capability applicable to many or all of the alternate futures are targeted to ensure the US maintains its current air and space power dominance. Successful targeting of the right concepts is the most immediate contribution of 2025, and that success depends on the richness and comprehensiveness of the alternate futures.

Alternate Futures Applications

The alternate futures described in this monograph also have tremendous utility beyond the 2025 study. During the course of their development, several organizations requested and received briefings on the alternate futures process and a description of the 2025 alternate futures.¹ These organizations are now using the alternate futures process and the alternate futures themselves to aid in their long-range planning efforts. Other organizations could similarly capitalize on the thousands of hours that went into producing these six visions of the future. This work should be harvested for years to come.

Alternate futures provide an excellent framework for conducting systems analyses. Any set of systems, concepts, or technologies being considered by the US for security purposes can be evaluated for utility relative to the six alternate futures presented in this monograph. These six alternate futures fully cover the US security strategic planning space and should prevent rude surprises.

Another application of these futures is to provide context for evaluation of world events. Although each of the futures discussed above is equally plausible, each of them has distinctive milestones or events. Understanding these indicators allows one to quickly "place" world news in a specific "world" and understand some of the potential implications.² For example, possible secondary and tertiary effects of a breakthrough in a human-nerve/computer-memory interface could be explored in Digital Cacophony.

Recommendations

The Air Force should carefully consider the challenges presented in the six alternate futures and use the alternate futures process and products to aid its long-range planning efforts. For instance, the Air Force Long Range Planning board of directors could use the six alternate futures described in this monograph in their long-range planning seminar games.

The Air Force and the other services should continue to use Air University and the 2025 study approach to conduct intense studies of interest to US security. Some of the best minds in the Department of Defense are available at Air University for a year as students or members of the faculty. To not take advantage of that resource is to miss a rare opportunity to do "out-of-the-box" creative thinking. Year-long projects of intense importance are tailor-made for Air University.

This study also provides a well-developed and tested method for conducting year-long studies on major issues facing large organizations. The study built upon, improved, and synthesized long-range planning processes from a variety of sources. This synthesis has created what the authors believe is the most robust and comprehensive futures methodology developed to date within the US government. Several consulting scientists have concurred with this assessment.³ The 2025 alternate futures study should serve as a template on which US government futures analyses are based. Use of this study and its methodology will enable large government organizations to avoid future strategic surprise.

Finally, the Air Force should conduct another long-range planning effort in three to five years. This study broke new ground, but it will take a few years for the dust to settle and to determine if the original vector was correct or if a steering command is needed.

Conclusion

This monograph sought to accomplish two tasks. First was to produce a detailed vision of the future. This vision needed to be suitable for stress-testing the concepts and technologies contained in the white papers authored by other 2025 participants, while being robust enough to prevent strategic surprises. The second task was to create a study methodology that would enable other organizations to accomplish similarly detailed long-range planning.

George Santayana wrote, "He who does not learn from the past is destined to repeat it." The authors have attempted to produce a document which reflects past wisdom and forges a framework for looking towards the future. If they have done their work correctly, then their customers and those who learn from this study will see 2025 as a year of hope and possibilities.

Notes

1. The Alternate Futures team briefed a host of organizations. The following is a partial list of those organizations: vice commanders of Air Force major commands, 2025 advisors, Eighth Quadrennial Review on Military Compensation, National Reconnaissance Office, AF/LR (special assistant to the chief of staff on long-range planning), Symposium for Modeling and Simulation, Air Force Academy faculty involved with "Education in the Information Age" symposium, and various futurists who vetted the work.
2. Peter Schwartz referred to this method by the following analogy: A well-prepared and experienced actor is given the dialog for three plays. He does not know which scene will be played out when he arrives onstage tonight. Instead, he relies on key details in the scenery to determine how to react. See Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1991), 199-201.
3. Carl Builder referred to the 2025 Alternate Futures study as "the finest research project ever to come out of Air University." Meeting of the 2025 Strategic Air Warfare Study International, Maxwell AFB, AL, January 1996.

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