By José Ramón Cabañas May 30, 2022
José Ramón Cabañas, photo: Bill Hackwell
For more than a decade, the Center for International Policy Research, attached to MINREX, in conjunction with several Cuban research centers, has annually developed the Foreign Policy Scenarios exercise.
The construction of scenarios is a technique associated with the discipline of foresight, which is dedicated to the study of processes of various kinds, in order to try to know and foresee the evolution of events and the situations that may arise from them.
There are as many definitions of foresight as there are methodological tools to support different scenarios, from which the most probable one is usually chosen in order to make recommendations and propose actions.
Knowledge of these techniques, and the associated availability of resources, allows some countries to build the future and condition the present for others. Those that do not have the training, information and resources will have no choice but to be surprised with each sunrise.
There are nations that despite having all the capabilities to make predictions and build a path towards them, lack the social fabric to implement projects that depend on the support of the whole society.
One of the disciplines that for years has built scenarios and saved millions of lives is meteorology, where not only radars and other sophisticated equipment exist, in addition to human capacity, but where the mechanisms for early evacuation, resilience and collective ability to recover are created.
Climate change is measurable, palpable, its effect can be projected over time, however, to have any ultimate success it would be necessary to go against the tide, in the elimination of large corporate profits either by the use of fossil fuels, or by the real estate business that is developed right there where it should no longer be built.
Political science, as is well known, is not an exact science and, therefore, the number of variables that must be considered to be able to conclude who can win the elections in a country, how a draft resolution will advance in international organizations, or how a regional entity will be weakened or strengthened, can be enormous.
Undoubtedly, the exercise requires a certain specialization, volume of information, knowledge of sources, ability to put aside the secondary and willingness to learn from the mistakes made in previous exercises.
The greater the knowledge in these techniques, the more scenarios will be built, eventually of an exclusive nature, although for a minimum need of preservation as a species they should complement each other. In other words, it will be increasingly difficult for their probable scenario to be fulfilled and for the recommendations that have been made in this regard to be realized.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to keep trying. Science, technology and innovation emerged and developed to transform reality. Due to the existence of social classes, these transformations increasingly benefited particular interests. To the extent that the poles resulting from the redistribution of social wealth have been separating, there is a significant sector of the world’s population that is increasingly unable to build a future for its family, its city or its country.
Events have greater speed in their occurrence and outcome, are more distorted in their social evaluation and are more influenced by elements that seemed secondary.
Between 2020 and 2022 a series of events have taken place, affected by the load of technological virtuality, which are creating new abysses between human groups, or groups of countries. Undoubtedly, they will have to be interpreted in their full extent in order to understand what kind of world we will have tomorrow.
In the world’s leading economy, a country that is still considered to have the greatest amount of material resources on the planet, it seems that, just as a spaceship detaches from its carrier rocket, there is a high-income class that is disconnected from the fate of those at the base of the social pyramid and who are falling further and further down the pyramid.
There seems to be no political force, nor project, that has the possibility (even if it were to try) to save everyone in that country that is on a journey in which there will be less and less health, education, housing, dignity, security and economic resources to have a decent life.
Why is there a figure of more than one million deaths as a result of a pandemic, which could have had a much lesser social impact, if everyone had been given the same possibilities, organized, protected and prepared in the same way.
The same phenomenon of disconnection of one group from the rest seems to be happening in the international community as a whole. The until recently great hegemon can no longer build a globality projected on the basis of its military, technological, financial and other domains. In its place are privileged associations of fewer members where those who are willing to follow the leader without question, those who fear him and those who firmly believe that they cannot build their own future on their own, would participate.
It would seem that suddenly the content of concepts such as interdependence, food sovereignty, integration, sustainable development, resilient economy, social investment is changing.
This context naturally presents new questions for Cuba as a country, even more so in the unique conditions in which it must survive and try to move forward in the midst of so many imponderables.
But the beginning of the road is there again, in the ability to build the future from a deep knowledge of history and the present, from the ability we have to understand the solutions that are proposed, to assess the skills we have as a country, strengths and weaknesses. Read the world and make it read us with the same interest.
Cuba continues to be a country of enormous international prestige, even there from where the greatest hatred is projected, the country has one of the highest rates of education and social health, with a resilience perhaps only comparable with its sense of solidarity, with a culture that unites us and makes us unique in the way it is nourished by others.
We will return again and again to the construction of scenarios, an exercise in which we will have greater chances of success, as long as everyone from wherever they are, whether in the field, mining, or the classroom, do this exercise of collective intelligence, raise their eyes, set a goal in the future and help build with all their energies the road to get there.
José Ramón Cabañas served as Cuba’s Ambassador to the US from 2012 – 2020
Source: La Pupila Insomne, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English