International
Risk Assessment & Horizon Scanning
Symposium, 19-20 Mar 2007, Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore
Organized by
The Centre of Excellence for National Security
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Nanyang Technological University
In partnership with
The National Security Coordination Secretariat
And
Defence Science Technology Agency
Introduction: The Changing Threat Environment
The current threat environment is marked by complexity
and uncertainty and this has rendered the traditional
responses of national intelligence and security
agencies less effective than before. Today, thanks
to what Thomas Friedman calls the “democratizations” of
finance, information and technology many nations
are vulnerable to a range of threats including
transnational terrorism, financial shocks and
supply chain fragility.
Key Trends
The spread of dangerous technologies means
that terrorists and insurgency groups have
greater access
to cheap,
highly destructive weapons. Even relatively small
groups can and do exploit new information technologies
to create their own crude but effective intelligence
capabilities – including high resolution
space based imagery.
At the same time, the Jihadists appear to
dominate the “battle space” of the Internet
and use it increasingly for training, recruiting,
funding,
intelligence, planning and execution. Consequently
future terrorist strikes may well be more lethal
that what was witnessed on 11 September 2001.
Religiously-motivated transnational terrorism
moreover is only part of the problem. As
the SARS case in
Singapore demonstrated, increasingly hard
to foresee threats like pandemics may even
pose
a greater risk
to entire societies than more traditional
threats. The question is, how do national
governments
inform themselves about these threats in
a timely manner?
The
Problem With “Silos” and “Mindsets”
The bottom line is that strategic assessments
must provide leaders with the foresight
to anticipate the latest problems. Without
being
able to anticipate
the nature of the threats they face,
leaders cannot
react intelligently. Unfortunately, most
of the intelligence changes made in the
US and elsewhere
after the 11
September 2001 attacks have merely reflected
the changes of the past. Reduced to the
most general
level, the most recent round of changes
has done little more than rework previous
organizational
wiring diagrams. Worse, often they have
added another layer
of bureaucracy to organizations that
are already
hindered in their effectiveness by over-centralized
systems.
Intelligence failures have always been
grouped around two main causes. The
first, repeated
by the 9/11
Commission in the United States, is
the lack of information sharing between
government
agencies, commonly referred
to as “stove-piping” or silos. The second
problem is common to the national structure of most
states. A stubborn “mindset” in analysts,
managers and leaders - who believe that only their
way of working is the right way - means that making
changes is difficult without a cataclysmic event
to prompt it. The problem is that the next cataclysmic
event may be so terrible that no one would be around
to study the “lessons” afterward.
One Way Out: Risk Assessment
and Horizon Scanning (RAHS)
In July 2004, the Singapore government
introduced its new Strategic Framework
for National
Security. This document outlined
the long-term policy response
to the challenges posed by transnational
terrorism and other threats. It called
for the development
of a networked and coordinated approach
to the fight against terror, one
linking the
government,
the people
and all sectors of society together
in a common effort. This is why Singapore
has
embarked on
the Risk Assessment
and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) program.
The RAHS program, encompassing a
unique combination
of
cutting edge
concepts, methodologies and technological
solutions, will seek to empower governments
to effectively
detect faint signals, expedite inter-agency
sharing and
foster informed analysis.
The RAHS program offers an excellent
opportunity for national governments
to surmount the
two major obstacles to effective
policy advice to
senior leaders:
stove piping and mind sets.
The IRAHS Symposium,19-20 March
2007, Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore
On 19-20 March 2007, Professor
S Jayakumar, Singapore’s
Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating
Minister for Security and Defence
and Mr. Peter Ho, Head
of the
Singapore Civil Service and among
other things, Permanent Secretary
for National Security and
Intelligence Co-ordination, will
host a two-day International
Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning
(IRAHS) Symposium in Singapore
to introduce the new ground-breaking
RAHS system. The Symposium will
be organized
by
the
Centre of Excellence for National
Security (CENS), which is part
of the world-famous S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies,
Nanyang Technological
University.
CENS will be supported in this
effort by its partners, the National
Security Coordination
Secretariat
(NSCS) and the Defence Science
Technology Agency (DSTA) as well
as corporate sponsors, IBM, Hewlett-Packard
and Intel. The IRAHS Symposium
will feature a stellar international
and local
list of presenters to explain
the concepts,
methods and technology that will
drive this first-of-its-kind
RAHS system. In addition, there
will be an update of the progress
to date, of the Singapore RAHS
project, to an audience of invited
senior government officials and
private sector CEOs from Singapore
and overseas. As an added attraction,
the Symposium will be complemented
by a technology showcase to profile
recent developments and advances
in horizon scanning technology.
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With
the support of: |
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Click here to download
Programme Hightlights and Speaker Profile in
PDF Format
Click
here for
video on the RAHS Project