Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century

THE METAFORE PROTOCOL• Parameters are defined as the key attributes of the future nature ofconflict that are likely to change in the future. The main question askedhere is: what is it about conflict that is likely to change in the future.• Drivers are defined as the forces that are likely to trigger changes in theparameters. The main question asked here is: what is likely to drivechange in the nature of future conflict.Again, as for the search queries, we made a conscious choice not to preimposeany taxonomy on the coders but rather to develop that taxonomyin a few ‘spirals’. 8 On the basis of a close reading of a subset of texts, apreliminary list of parameters and drivers was developed inductively bythe Chinese, Russian and English Metafore teams. The initial list wascomplemented and refined on the basis of a number of in-house HCSSexpert sessions. The list that was thus obtained was consequently tried outon a small number of texts to determine whether it was possible to applythe coding scheme in practice with some degree of consistency across thelanguage domains. Once the team felt confident both about the list itselfand about its ability to code the texts consistently, the following list wasagreed upon.Parameters – what is it about conflict that is likely to change inthe futureActors – Who are the main parties that may get involved in futureconflict?• Blocs of states• Pairs of states• State and non-state actors vs. any other actor• State vs. non-state• Non-state vs. non-state8 We remind the reader that our ambition in this study is to avoid ‘presentist’ and other biases. Alltoo often in the past, our preconceived categorizations, almost invariably based on the past andthe present, have been an important reason we were blindsided for unexpected events. NassimTaleb calls these ‘crisp categories’ and sees it as an important reason why we miss sources ofuncertainties. Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, 1st ed. (NewYork, NY: Random House, 2007). On this point, also see our own work De Spiegeleire et al.,STRONG in the 21st Century. Strategic Orientation and Navigation under Deep Uncertainty..HCSS Report 27