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Q&A
A Conversation With Michael F. Oppenheimer,
Clinical Associate Professor, NYU-SCPS Center for Global Affairs
In Spring 2008, Preview featured a conversation with Michael F. Oppenheimer about
his development of “scenarios” as a
foreign policy tool. Since that time, he
has conducted a number of additional
workshops examining countries in which
U.S. foreign policy interests lie. Preview
caught up with him to talk about why
he conducts these exercises and to look
back at his initial CGA Scenario project,
“Iraq 2010.”
PREVIEW: You have described Scenarios
as a project that “encourages us to
think about the future in the presence
of uncertainty.” How do you identify
the regions where uncertainty has the
greatest potential to affect U.S. foreign
policy?
OPPENHEIMER: Uncertainty characterizes
much of the world—a consequence of
globalization and its mismanagement,
which has exposed all populations to
a combination of global change and
economic stagnation. Some governments
and institutions have the legitimacy and
resilience to deal politically with frustrated
expectations, but many don’t. So it’s easy
to identify countries/regions subject to Michael F. Oppenheimer
uncertainty, and choosing countries for
scenario study is mostly a matter of their importance—now and in the future—for U.S. foreign
policy. Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, Turkey, Ukraine, Pakistan—all meet these criteria. They are all
important, and all are facing economic stresses and political uncertainties. Some will survive
in their present form, and some won’t.
PREVIEW: Your first Scenarios project at CGA examined some alternate futures for Iraq post
2010. Now that we are looking ahead to 2012, have you re-assessed the results of that initial
project?
OPPENHEIMER: Iraq post 2010 was the first study we did, in 2007, and I’ve had another
look at it in light of recent and disturbing news, of renewed sectarian strife in the wake of
U.S. withdrawal. The scenarios hold up very well, bringing real insight to the shape of Iraq as
it potentially reverts to its authoritarian and/or violent past. The scenarios we described in
our report suggest that internal conflict will escalate, and that recent political upheavals in
the Arab world will make it more difficult for regional powers to act collectively to prevent
Iraqi violence from spreading across its borders: in other words, the worst case scenario of
[4] scps.nyu.edu/cga