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hi my name is Stephan De Spiegeleire and I'm a senior scientist at the The Hague Centre
for Strategic Studies
On behalf of the entire team that has been working on this project I am delighted
to welcome you
to this online workspace that was set up to conduct an interactive policy analysis
on the topic of missile defense
Now many of you are probably aware that we are running a fairly sizable
security foresight program at HCSS
in which we try to anticipate various risks and threats
against The Netherlands
over the years to come.
Now we've already looked at geographical topics such as the future of
Russia or the future of the Indian Ocean
We've also looked at a number of functional issues - technological issues
especially -
such as
the future of nanotechnology
or of social networking or of biometrics and what those all mean for national security
but we thought it was particularly useful and timely to devote a special
exercise to the topic of missile defense
This is a topic that has ebbed and waned in importance for the past few decades
based on changing threat assessments;
on technological breakthroughs or also disappointments;
changing politics both within individual countries and across the
alliance and also outside of the alliance; a number of legal aspects
especially arms control; and changing financial realities
but in November of last year, of 2010, NATO took an important
decision of missile defense that we think
warrants some additional attention in the Netherlands
The decision that was made of course was the idea that nato should expand
its focus on missile defense from a
primary focus on
protecting the troops in theater towards also protecting the various national
homelands and
the populations that live on those homelands. That's an expansion of the scope of
missile defense with NATO that we feel in many European countries
has not really received the attention that it probably merits.
Many of us feel these are decisions that are made above our heads - even the
policy communities have that feeling -
but we strongly feel that on every topic like that
we also have to do our own homework. The Netherlands might be a small country
but that is not dissolve it from the obligation to take a hard look at what
some of those topics mean for The Netherlands in specific
and that's all we're trying to do with this particular exercise.
The purpose of this video is that I am just going to walk you
through the various steps
that we've set up to generate some new insights hopefully
into what this might also means to The Netherlands.
and it should not take more than ten minutes for the entire video.
so let us then focus on the main deliverables that we're trying to
produce in this exercise and there are essentially two of them
and they're both quite
visual
in line with the focus that we have at HCSS on very visual
or at least increasingly visual products
The first product is essentially a risk diagram in which we try to position missile
threats
with respect to their likelihood of occuring in The Netherlands - not just in a general but
in The Netherlands
and secondly also with respect to the impact they might have on The Netherlands again.
A fairly standard approach to risk assessment but one that is not
usually done
as vigorously as it probably could be. So that's the first particular uh...
deliverable
the second deliverable takes us a step further
and tries to look at what are the options: if those are the risks
that the Netherlands might confront with various likelihoods or
impacts;
if those are the threats - then what are the options - the policy options - that this
country has
to deal with it.
So we will generate a list of options as you see on the vertical axis
of the matrix that you see here
and then we will also assess those on the basis of a number of different criteria which
we will ask you to generate
so those criteria could be things such as
how expensive is it,
how effective is it in the short term and in the longer term
how much
political acceptance might there be for various options within The Netherlands
So we will essentially ask you to generate a list of options and a list of criteria
and then to vote on those in those cells
So two deliverables: risk assessment and policy analysis
There are of course many studies
on uh...
missile defense but the main idea behind this particular exercises is that
we want to look at the big picture
We want to try to put missile defense in the broader national security picture for the
Netherlands and also to look at the specific policy options
that we might have
to deal with those particular issues. In many ways this is just regular policy
analysis: a sort of more rigorous risk assessment and a more systematic
policy analysis than we usually do, but we feel is important that we push the field in
that direction.
And the two most innovative parts of this particular project are a) that we are
trying to do it with a much larger and broader group of stakeholders
We have not just invited the usual suspects:
both military and non-military, defense and economic interests
but also some of the broader communities that might be interested in these sorts of topics
and you'll will see more we move on into this project.
And the second innovative part of this particular project is that we're trying
to do this in a collaborative way and also online
we sometimes run similar exercise on different topics in-house at HCSS
but we always find it very difficult to get people together in a room at the same
time
and that's why we decided to essentially run this experiment with a much larger group
and also to do it online, therefore hopefully making a broader
discussion possible. So that's the main idea
of this particular exercise.
Now the steps we are going to walk you through are first of all on the
issue of risk assessment
is we're are going to ask you to walk through three substeps. First is to generate the
scenarios - we will brainstorm all together in a forum as you see on the right up
outside of this chart.
see what he invited to add various insights which we will then cluster
and we will ask you to vote on the list of ideas that you will generate.
and the voting will be done on the basis of the number of scenarios is that you
feel are useful or representative of the voters that set of standards that are
out there and that you want to uh... carried out
extensive house
at further risk assessment for the next phase of the houses will be eighty
a closer look at the wedding
but the speaker's hurt
and piano so that in fact we will give you a set of criteria on the base of which
you can
packaged impact observers carriers annual begat passes sort of every
individual criteria
for every individual scenario don't you find became boundless
and that would lead to the diagram picture of the boat there
for the second part of policy analysis again there are a number of steps that
will take you through but what are the ones that we've already got little
there's something to find a topic and we've also identified stakeholders
but i would like to draw your attention to the three ref parts of the trial
chart
which is personal to construct a policy analyst alternatives which will ask you
once again to make a list style
too close to the that took a little bit will also has to be the same thing for a
surplus of criteria everything apply tuesday response
battle that you'll both the critical access and a horizontal axis of the
matrix which already
uh... presented to you
and he will not be asked to vote on every individual style
but this will then give us an overview of the relative pros and cons other
options which respect individual criteria to certain options my score
very well on certain criteria
and corporeal others essentially what the picture
will generate that would allow us to present the findings
to the dutch about two dash forty
estan publication
we have struck his exercise in such a way system minimize the amount of time
that you will have to spend on it
so we will have five rounds of interactions with you it will always be
one week between two different interaction
and you should not have to spend more than fifteen or twenty minutes
in two weeks that you will be asked to participate
so for this particular week frances we have two questions i will ask you used
to write here on the left side of this that diagram so will ask you onto photo
on the overall unlikely who did you see it
of the missile attack of various animals will also ask you to provide the first
includes
and to the list of generate concept of scenarios rule
uh... lessons with you
this will give you a chance for me to play with the system both in terms of
his brainstorming function generating the list attitude for the voting option
the system
its affiliates who didn't user-friendly system as you will find out a few
minutes
so basically not you very much doesn't your time
and we also hope that you see this as an opportunity uh...
this might prove to be a question instructional at potentially even a
joyful exercise for that at best in the next few weeks
i wasn't looking forward to impose
so that they don't waste any more time but let me just invite you to move on to
the next stage of which will be allowed to uh...
participate in the actual online system
and we're really looking forward to the first results coming in over the next
ah... few days
and the best of luck and thank you very much for participating in this because
we cannot stop his without
thank you