Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Think Forward Ep 111 - The Future of Defense with Dr. Jake Sotiriadis
In the latest episode of the Think Forward Show, I sit down with Dr. Jake Sotiriadis, Executive Director of Global Foresight and Strategy at Phaedrus Engineering, to discuss the future of defense and national security.
We explore how strategic foresight, threatcasting, and systems engineering are shaping modern warfare and decision-making. Plus, Jake gives us a sneak peek into his upcoming book The Revenge of Ideology, which dives into the forces driving global instability.
Tune in to hear how foresight tools and AI are transforming defense strategies and what the future of conflict might look like. Don’t miss this insightful conversation!
#Foresight #Defense #FutureOfWarfare #NationalSecurity #ThinkForwardShow
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Jake, welcome to the podcast.
Jake:Thanks for having me, Steve. Great to be here.
Steve F:So Jake, now you are talking before the recording here and you've been on this journey for a long time. I think those who are on LinkedIn, you're very prolific. So many may know you in the field, but for those that don't can you share your background and how you became a futures fluent, if you will, and got into the field.
Jake:Sure.. Absolutely Okay. and short of it is I've been In the national security space, specifically the defense department, the air force, the intelligence community for the last 21 years. So that's been the main thrust of my efforts has been trying to build futures literacy use strategic foresight to help the United States, help our national security strategy. And then on my last position before I retired from active service last month. Also in the academic world as the director of the center for futures intelligence at the national intelligence university. So it's been a really fun journey. Now I've got to I think I have the best job in the world running being the executive director of global foresight of strategy at a firm called Phaedrus engineering which is based in Columbia, Maryland. Where we're looking at systems engineering, but bringing foresight and systems engineering together for not only government partners, but private sector clients as well. So it's come full circle.
Steve F:That's great. I know that your academic backgrounds in political science, international relations, how does that influence your approach to foresight and what you do as a futurist?
Jake:Well, Steve, to be honest, I've often felt that what I really do is strategy. I've always considered myself a strategist and, I use foresight essentially to inform better strategy, to help us develop an anticipatory mindset. And so really as a, as an international relations guy, somebody who's looked really hard at geopolitics, how the world hangs together understanding those kinds of theories. That's really where foresight to me helps us. Look beyond sort of the expected outcomes and gives us that capacity to do some really deep thinking but not just the what's coming out in the news, these deep seated issues of geopolitical transformation, global politics and then you overlay the technological developments. The scientific developments, the societal developments. So it's this holistic view that I think Foresight allows you to employ, which really is there's no substitute for it.
Steve F:So where did your interest kind of start, like where did it spark, like where everyone seems to have a story somewhere their life, they found this kind of field and this discipline., where was it for you?
Jake:For Me academic program for foresight in the United States that was started by Jim Dator. So I feel like it was a, just a foundational opportunity for me. And then there was just a perfect combination because I had already been an intelligence officer in the air force for about 15 years. So I had been doing a lot of these things, just not knowing what I was doing was perhaps foresight. Getting into the academic piece of it really gave me, I think, the other half of the equation. And it just jumpstarted this interest. And then when I could see the application of how I would be able to put to work in the intelligence community of the DOD and now in industry, it it just, the light came on for me.
Steve F:So when you mentioned national security, so what do you find is most effective? And before I have you answer that question, foresight really in modern futurism became future studies and futures work. Came from the defense industry and war gaming ran corporation things in the 50s for dealing with nuclear war Fast forwarding to today with national security defense. What do you find is most effective when doing this type of work with them?
Jake:Let me just start off by saying that I think. There's a bit of a misnomer when we talk about futurists today, because if you look after the pandemic, there's been a surge of interest, which on the one hand is a good thing. You would have looked on LinkedIn, let's say 10 or 15 years ago, and you put in the word future, you probably wouldn't find very many people. Now that's the complete opposite. But we may have a different problem now because in my opinion, I think doing this work. Means that she's got some deep expertise somewhere, right? So for example, I'm a national security expert, geopolitics intelligence. I've got some other friends in the space who are economists who are tech experts, these kinds of things. So I think it's important to ground oneself in some deep expertise, because then you're able to overlay the foresight methodology to really get after some wicked problems. I think with the national security space right now, where foresight really helps us iterate is this realization of the complexity of the world that we're living in today. And it's not just the fact that we have this U S China competition, that we have new ideological models, that we have this technological breakthrough, which is going to transform how wars are fought in the future surveillance, all of these kinds of issues. So I think. Against that backdrop, the linear way of thinking of just, let's just go from point A to point B to point C and then reevaluate, it just, we're going to come up short doing that.
Steve F:So in your writings, you've talked about the concept of threat casting, can you share an explanation of that? Cause you talk about the evolution, how we apply that and different people have come at, the field with different expertise, but yours specifically, what, yeah, so we're grounded in that concept where, and when is it useful? What is it about?
Jake:Yeah. Thread casting is a methodology that was developed by my colleagues. Brian David Johnson and Sidney Kuhn out at Arizona State University. And it's something that we are using at Phaedrus to be able to combine data trends and expert insights to be able to basically envision future threats and opportunities. So where a lot of foresight work ends up doing what I call left of scenarios. So a lot of trend analysis, a lot of horizon scanning. Yeah. A lot of, that kind of work just filling, filling up, how we got here, historical sources of disruption, which is all really important. And it, where threat casting really helps us differentiate is that we're able to blend the quantitative and the qualitative data that we're able to get from an audience in some cases in real time use things like speculative storytelling. And it doesn't just predict, one solitary future it's. Looking at multiple possible futures, and then we're looking at, winners and losers in each of these scenarios. And it's also very multidisciplinary, because we're bringing experts with a wide range of portfolios to the table, so that it can inform the overall outcome of our exercise or study.
Steve F:That's a great explanation. With the work and, you talked about Phaedrus and linking systems engineering with futures and foresight, does that systemically impact things like geopolitical work as well? Because you think about the systems of defense, right? The systems of how we defend and how we coordinate work. Because warfare's changed. How would you make the connection to support the work that you do like how does that work together and then we'll talk about some of the geopolitical parts of this but how it applies.
Jake:So let me talk first about how we're employing threadcasting. At Idris, yeah, absolutely. So at Idris. going broader foresight portfolio and that addresses different focus areas, depending on our clients. We've got clients in the national security space but also private sector clients which I think is a really important differentiator. There are lessons, important techniques, and important trade craft that we can uniquely tailor to each one of these clients, depending on their particular focus area. We're able to do with thread casting as one tool in our toolkit is to help organizations identify off the radar risks. So help them build resilience against unforeseen disruptions. And then hopefully craft strategic plans that are agile and adaptable. So we're giving them a proactive type approach rather than just waiting for something to happen. And we're actually trying to get them into this idea of turning uncertainty into a strategic advantage and not looking at ambiguity as a liability. We want them to be able to actively shape those aspirational futures. And that's where we can, this has applications into concept development time to market. It's, so it's not all just about profitability. It's really the whole systems engineering cycle. So I think that is a very unique way of us bringing this strategic model to the table. To the second part of your question about geopolitics, Steve, it's September 11th today. So it's hard to believe 23 years ago. Yeah, here we are 23 years ago, right? We, this country went through such a horrific experience and, it was something that shaped my life very profoundly. And I'm sure many, oops. We're listening and watching today as well. And, let's be very honest the United States didn't really do a great job of the post 9 11 foreign policy strategy, global strategy, right? We tried to turn what was essentially a manhunt operation into a strategy, right? Which we saw come up really short. We, we saw us not employ this kind of anticipatory mentality, which is where we ended up with being surprised by the Arab spring the rise of populism, the worst pandemic since 1917, and now we're sitting in the middle of biggest conflict in Europe since 1945. So I think, all of those things I just laid out there, I think are, should be a wake up call that the status quo doesn't work. We've got to have a better way of doing business and crafting history.
Steve F:Cyclically, yeah I'm a cycle theorist as a futurist. So I look at pattern and we're coming to the end of a cycle. You can call it the fourth turning. You can call it a couple of different versions out there. I have my own, theory of macro history. So I see the institutions that have been around for 70 years, that the trust is eroded. They're being, they're having, and people who are still in power, the larger, the older age group are desperately trying to stay around and desperately trying to keep what's there and it's crumbling. It's going to shift. So much of the world BRICS might completely take the dollar as the petrodollar off the table. And that's, that would be perilous for the United States economy. And when economies go bad, that's when civil unrest is usually most palpable, right? People are all sitting around at home and, you're Your assessment of things. I agree with you. And we all have our own stories and we all know where we were and, not to get into the personal side of that, this that's for this podcast, but we're taping, it's 10 30 right now. At this point, the first tower has fallen, and , I remember talking to my father. We woke up because nobody could figure it on the internet. We had to go up and watch TVs in a bar and we walked up from work and It was like, Pearl Harbor again, you just didn't know you're just this systemic shock of change And you thought things were at peace for a long time and to your point. I was very I'm, very patriotic. I'm, very pro constitution and I think but i've become more anti war in that way because of the way we handle things I agree with your assessment and it makes me think as a futurist like when you Talk with clients and you're exploring things. What do you believe are future conflicts? Like, how do you talk about future conflicts and what they'll look like?
Jake:So when we talk about future conflicts with clients or just as a conceptual framework, I think it's really important to give people a way of thinking about what the global strategic environment will look like first, and then they can drill down from that a thousand foot low, it's really sexy and cool and exciting to talk about all the new technological gadgets that we're going to have, the tools. And that's a part of it. But we have to also remind ourselves that sometimes things like ideas still matter and they're going to matter into the future. So we can't just say, for example, the cold war is over and ideology is dead. Because guess what? That was not a good surprise for us. It, history didn't end. It's still very much alive and we're a city here in the middle of what I would call, a renewed multipolar competition. And. We've got the same people who led us into the catastrophic results of the last two decades telling us about the way ahead. And so it's, it fascinates me that, people who have a track record of policy failure, just keep getting up to bat again and again. So clearly we need to do things differently. The, the challenge of our time, I think is the U S China competition. Yeah. We need to continue looking at that, but not just through a material or hard power way of thinking. We've got to look at multiple lenses of this competition, which is all encompassing. It's not just a military problem. I would argue it's far bigger than that. So we got to figure out how we can reinvent the idea of American deterrence, right? In the wake of all of these negative policy actions that have eroded the United States leadership role in the world. And we can see the results of that, which is the fact that we have all of this global chaos. Foresight has to be at the center of all of it. If we're going to develop a strategy that puts us back into driving an agenda and ultimately getting us towards a more peaceful and stable world.
Steve F:You, that's great. And you had done some previous work. I wanted to dive deeper into scenario planning. But many of us are look, are exploring generative AI as our, to complement our work and how we drive. It really is a, is amazing. There's always the human element. I look at it as a collaborative partner and it definitely to me. Powers the processes and the activities we do. You had done some early work with Claude and generative AI as some scenario models, and you also put out an HBR article and I'll put a link in the description so people can find the article. It's really fascinating. I've been doing a lot of similar work and I found what you all did. Could you walk the listeners through the, the where kind of the idea sparked, how you went through the process, what you looked at, how you built the, rag, so for those that don't know, it's like you built, use some private data, some other data sources in addition to the cloud API to create your own scenario LLM, if you will, or environment LLM or environment rag to do that, if you could, that would love to hear more about
Jake:Yeah, absolutely. So this was a really fun collaborative project that was done with some brilliant colleagues of mine who were already working in this space and, we had all been approaching this issue of generative AI and scenario development from different fields. So we just thought, Hey, how about we try to combine our our collective efforts here and see what, what comes out of this. And so to be honest, it was. I think about a year long back and forth, just trying to figure out, what are we going to look at, how are we going to model this and. Ultimately, do we have something useful to say beyond obviously all the buzz that's out there surrounding generative AI, right? So what we wanted to do was differentiate and cut through just the buzzwords and actually get to some substance and give people something useful that they could actually put to work in their own businesses or their own organizations. So we went back and forth for about a year, thinking through how can we show the utility of generative AI and scenario planning or scenario development for And why scenario development? Because that's really where I think people use futures thinking the most is communicating a narrative, right? Telling a story.. And it cuts through some of the, just the quantitative stuff and gives people a clear picture of what's happening. So we're able to do that. And we set up and let's pick broader framework about how to do this. And I thought about trying to put together what's called a cognitive operating system. So very much like the operating system that's already on our computer at the interface between the actual rate that the system hardware and the user, and the software is something that's regulating you try to put it into that and that kind of conceptual model. We moved out on that and we use a notional company, that we basically created. So the HBR article actually came about as the result of a collaboration between three brilliant colleagues of mine who had been working in this space. But. Each one of us had a little different approach, right? So we have folks that were in the private sector some who were in the academic world, some who were in the defense industry. And then at the time I was in the intelligence community. So I think it was a really great authorship, a powerful authorship so that the article, the intent was to cut through some of the noise and just the buzz of generative AI and give people something useful. So what we said was look, scenario development, scenario planning is one of the bigger outcomes that people use foresight for, so how can we use generative AI to not only build a, scenario or build a narrative for us how can we maybe even simulate a contingency exercise where people in their own jobs or organizations. So what we ended up doing was simulating this contingency exercise at a fictional company that we essentially made up. And this was a, global consumer electronics manufacturing that had a worldwide supply chain. So we were trying to pick something that was relatable to most people. So what we ended up doing was identifying some of the key resources external forces that affected the company's business. And then what we did was use the tool to categorize the trends that would affect the company's business and clients and operating environment. And then, for example give us some estimated probabilities of the occurring impact of these items And then what we did is we instructed the system after to create a narrative scenario that would give us a richness to our original baseline data so that we could flesh out the nuances of the scenario. So for example, here it gave us a title called smart future AI and electronics manufacturing so that it started talking about financial implications the kinds of upgrades the company would need to make. And then also we asked to give us a an appropriate strategy that was going to be based on the narrative that we create. People can dive into the article to get into a little bit more of the nitty gritty and see, how we actually work this. But I think the the bottom line is that, this really can help simplify decision making for us. And it can really help evaluate strategies because there's lots of pattern recognition. There's lots of identifying either anomalies that we hadn't thought of or just giving us a really full comprehensive sense of the contingency planning process. So I think there's a lot of utility for people who want to use these tools. But maybe don't know how to jump in. So I would reference this article as I think a good prime if you're interested in doing that. And, we were really pleased because HPR came out and published it last month in the print edition which was was just a great development for us.
Steve F:Yeah, I know. A lot of leaders will read this. So if you were to be able to Add your voice to the article itself for leaders listening to this. And many do like, how did they navigate complexities, with an uncertain future and like, how can they use this, like, how do they integrate foresight into their strategic planning? How do you counsel clients and how could they learn from this?
Jake:So obviously number one, they thought of using homework, right? You've got to familiarize yourselves with these tools That's sometimes the barrier for entry because people are already overwhelmed in their jobs. And that's usually a barrier to futures thinking or foresight in the first place. But we really can't afford not to take this kind of felicity. I would say with regard to AI. The capabilities that it can bring to the contingency planning process as we demonstrated in the article really just helps companies. It helps firms explore a very wide range, variety of scenarios. It can also generate, I think, probably more scenarios and maybe even strategic factors than that we as individuals might be able to. So that's a useful element of generative AI in this space. I think that at the same time, we want that, human factor grounding us in the analysis because some of the more strategic outcomes, and this was a weakness of some of the LLMs that we used, was that their strategies that they developed for us were sometimes thin they weren't, super comprehensive in scope. They tend to focus in on one, one area and we were looking at the broader picture. So again, I think this is going to improve, as the models are further developed. I think the utility is getting to that sweet spot of, you employing the technology with a team can really fire for effect best.
Steve F:How do you feel that incorporating ethical considerations, cause many of the ethics of AI is not at the forefront yet. It's okay right now, but it very much reminds me of the openness of social media and the. I would say utopian dreams of what it could be to connect others that it's become quite a toxic mess now because it wasn't and I'm not one for regulation, but at least it didn't have more of the oversight. And I do wonder what do you think ethically should be considered when leaders are mindful, when they're planning for the future and using this type of work, especially in your space of defense and the security space?
Jake:Look, you pointed out, I think very rightly what happened with social media, which if you look back to, let's say 2008, 2009, 2010, how social media was going to be used, this actually was a weak signal. We want to put it into the future's parlance. So where we are right. So where we are today with AI, I think is, where we were aviation probably like in the early 20th century, we're just scratching the surface on where we're going to go with this. From an ethical perspective, a lot of the same issues disinformation which essentially we're, we're populating these tools with data sets, right? So we're, what are the data, who gets to control the data inputs, whose perspectives are listened to. All these kinds of issues are, are going to be palpable as we move forward. So I think as we're developing the technology and using it it's. Who's who was going to own the data, which is, I think that the currency of our time, there's no question. And and how are they going to be using it? That, and you can't regulate everything away, right? You can't I would say rather pessimistically, I think that a lot of the issues we dealt with, with social media are going to still be present as we move forward with AI, so I think it's a combination of education, sound policy. And frankly, some trial and error.
Steve F:This leads me into, your new book, which is coming out next spring. The Revenge of Ideology, if we think about the polarization, I know this, we have a fairly large international audience, but here in the United States, we have definitely, and you're seeing it in Europe too, is a real divide between, and there's a lot of people have based their whole worldviews, their whole living styles on that. All of this your work has read, it's a fascinating topic. Could you share what the book's about? What inspired you to write to all of this?
Jake:Sure. I'll try to make this quick because it's there's a lot to
Steve F:We're going to have some more time in another podcast to dive deeper into this book. I can't wait to read it.
Jake:yeah, no, and I appreciate that. I would look forward to doing that. So the, I think that the short version of the book is basically, this has been a project I've been working on now for five years, so I'm really excited to be done with it, to be very honest, but idea is. Is looking at ideology itself is actually bigger than just something that's floating around in the it's asking a question about, is there something called ideological power actually forces states do things, sometimes even distorting their ideas of what their own self interest is. So it's, you could almost say that the book looks at, why countries do stupid things. I try to look at ideology and reconceptualize it instead of something that's floating around in the air. I say, it's actually a living, breathing network. And so I call these ideological power networks. And these things are basically complex adaptive systems within a state. And you got things like the general population of a country and socio political elites. And what I call the state's control apparatuses. So the army, the police, the educational system the media, all these things together these networks are living, breathing organisms that actually generate a profound influence on how countries make decisions. And in some cases and in many cases, I look at China, look at Russia, Turkey as three core examples of this. And how ideological models over the last 10 to 15 years in each of these countries, actually is driving their foreign policy actions. And in many cases, pushing them towards I think poor strategic decision making that's going to have major implications for the United States, but also just for the international order at large and for the future.
Steve F:So with thinking about that, where does the field of Futures in foresight go within the defense space, it's obviously had a storied past and you're saying it's, if you could get into these countries and give them like they could use this, does that, how would you see it being used looking forward?
Jake:Yeah. I think futures and foresight is probably more important today than it has ever been. Based on the level of complexity that we're faced with in the world today. And I know, and I mean that from a from a systems thinking point of view, from all of the multifaceted challenges that we have to deal with today, the fact that we have individuals that can transmit narrative warfare as one person, as an individual across the world, that's never happened in human history. That's going to complicate government's approaches to dealing with this, and it's going to, I think, be a further source of conflict and tension moving forward. We're seeing it's okay again to use military force to solve problems. Just look at what's happening. Look at Ukraine, look at Gaza look at conflicts happening in Africa and look at the footprint I think if we're not careful. What we're marching towards with the U S and China strategic competition. We got to place foresight at the center of our strategic approach as the United States to redefine what American deterrence is going to be in the 21st century, but also to create more opportunities perhaps even a new grand bargain for the 21st century. I think if we're going to go back to that. American strategic thinking at its core, we've got to start with an approach that takes into account the world in which we live today. And frankly, just too many of our policymakers are stuck in a world that doesn't exist anymore.
Steve F:When we have many people entering the field, as we've talked about yeah, you're right, 10, 15 years ago, it would have been me and 500 other people that if you had looked up futurist, right now there's, I think tens of thousands, whether they are practicing or they just like the name I don't know, but there's a lot more in a good way. There's more people that are futures aware. The question is we need to make them future fluent and really adding to helping the their respective fields, not just using it as a moniker. Those who are starting, who, this is about kind of career question, we've all got the, if I were to be 20 again, what would I tell my 20, but it is also an opportunity. What have you learned from this amazing career in the air force now in the private sector and really being really on the front, the, really the tip of the spear in terms of this field and foresight, what would you wish you knew when you started all of this what would you know, what would you wish you could tell yourself?
Jake:Yeah, I think Steve, you know what I would tell somebody that's looking at getting into this field first is You've got to develop some deep expertise somewhere. I think this is something we were not seeing enough of, and I think more people need to talk about it. And I think we've got an obligation to inform this next generation who's coming up to develop some deep expertise somewhere, whether that's technology, whether that's economics whether that's the scientific discipline, whether that's geopolitics, international relations, right? It develops some deep expertise so that you're able to bring that to the table and then you're going to see that foresighted futures really is the icing on the cake. It's going to take your knowledge and it's going to transform it in a compelling way and let you have this anticipatory mindset builds on your existing knowledge. I think that's the most important thing. For me, when I was, I think getting into this initially I always kept to try trying to relate it back to, okay, how can I use this? Specifically, for this task maybe, now as I'm hopefully a little bit older and wiser I think, not necessarily having to force it into a particular job function, but as a broader thought exercise as a way of thinking and expanding my worldview I think that would have been a different type of approach, right? I think I kept trying to bring it back to a practical application, which, it's not a bad thing at all. And ultimately that's what most people want from this. But I think I was very fortunate to be able to have some dedicated time as a research fellow at the Manoa center for future studies to really get into the discipline. From an academic perspective and then combine the experience I had in national security and intelligence. And I think that set me up later on to be able to develop the academic research center for the intelligence community. And also work to create the air forces foresight team at the Pentagon and hopefully change some of that cultural mindset of how we do strategic planning.
Steve F:That kind of comes to our kind of closing question is I always like to ask the legacy question. How do you want, looking back, say now you're looking 20 years and this more in this field and your work, how do you want it to be remembered? What impact do you hope it has on the world?
Jake:Look, I think the greatest gift, the greatest satisfaction that somebody could have really is just recognizing that maybe, Hey, this guy made us think, this guy made us questions. He questioned the status quo and and gave us a framework to try to understand a lot of these complex issues in a different way. I think if, if it's as simple as that are you helping Expand the body of knowledge and hopefully you're passing along this way of thinking so that you're making a network that really can have him and not just for national security, across the board, across all industries and all sectors, because I really feel that that's the beauty of foresight is that it's a really universally applicable discipline that frankly, anybody can get it. That's, that would be my hope moving forward.
Steve F:That's great. So how can people find you? You're prolific on LinkedIn. So they definitely should find you there. So where else can people how can people find you?
Jake:Yeah, absolutely. LinkedIn for sure. They can also take a look at my website, www. jakesotriadis. com where I've got all my articles, updates if they want to book me as a speaker, if they want to see what I'm working on, everything there, that's the hub to connect.
Steve F:That's great. Thanks for the time today and it was great to have you on and we'll have you back very soon. Thanks a lot, Jake.
Jake:This was fun. Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it.
