Skip to main content
  • Current Issue
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe
  • Subscribe
Foreign Affairs
  • Newsletters
  • Log In
  • Log In
  • Subscribe
  • Current Issue
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletters
  • Log In
  • Log In
  • Subscribe
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Newsletters
  • Log In
  • Subscribe

Browse by Section

  • Issue Archive
  • Most Recent
  • Most Read
  • All Regions
  • Audio Content
  • Author Directory

Recent Issues

  • Jul/Aug 2025
  • May/June 2025
  • Mar/Apr 2025

Browse by Topic

  • Trump Administration
  • War in Ukraine
  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • US-China Relations
  • Tariffs
  • Geopolitics
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • U.S. Foreign Policy

Since its founding in 1922, Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs. The magazine has featured contributions from many leading international affairs experts.

More About Us

More Resources

  • Feedback
  • Institutional Subscriptions
  • Gift a Subscription
  • About Us
  • Events
  • Issue Archive
  • Advertise
  • Audio Content
  • Account Management
  • FAQs
November/December 2020 Issue

What Are We Missing?

What Are We Missing?
  • What Are We Missing?
  • 01 A Better Crystal Ball
  • 02 Heads in the Sand
  • 03 The Lawless Realm
  • 04 As the World Burns
  • 05 Coming Storms

What’s Inside

How can responsible policymakers prepare for the next crisis while grappling with current ones?

November/December 2020
Sign in and save to read later
Share
Print this article
Save
Send by email
Share on Twitter
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Get a link
Request Reprint Permissions

Responsible policymakers try to plan ahead. But how can
they know what the next crisis will be, let alone prepare for it while still grappling with current ones? People are notoriously bad at anticipating the future, and countries aren’t much better. Our lead package this issue explores whether they can improve.

Peter Scoblic and Philip Tetlock kick things off by pulling together decades of research on forecasting world politics. They argue that people and governments can indeed train themselves to make better predictions. The catch is that it requires robust discourse and intellectual accountability—a flock of open minds asking lots of sharp questions and following the answers wherever they lead.

Next, Elke Weber shows how psychology works to undermine reason, both individually and collectively. Cognitive biases, emotional reactions, and mental shortcuts result in poor decisions and bad policy—but they wouldn’t have to, if we could somehow corral our minds and our decision-making processes.

Finally, top experts explore three issues on which today’s complacency could easily lead to tomorrow’s disaster: Marietje Schaake on cybersecurity, Michael Oppenheimer on climate change, and Christopher Layne on U.S.-Chinese relations.

Pessimists don’t expect much, and they are rarely disappointed. Certainly, the world’s pitiful performance in handling the coronavirus pandemic gives little reason to believe that future threats will be called earlier or dealt with better. But optimists can point to the obvious, easy gains that would demonstrably flow from individual and organizational self-discipline and hope that future generations are wise enough to recognize and seize them.

U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower liked to say that “plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” What he meant was that the process of planning forced policymakers and institutions to anticipate, prepare for, and train for a range of possible scenarios that might emerge—and thus develop the skills and muscle memory to respond calmly, flexibly, and sensibly to whatever challenge actually appeared.

At some point, there will be another catastrophe. It will probably involve something we already worry about now but don’t take seriously enough or consider to be urgent enough to address. When the crisis hits, people will do what they can and say, “It is what it is.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. Unless the next crisis really does involve a stray meteorite, the fault for screwing it up will lie not in the stars but in ourselves.

—Gideon Rose, Editor

More:
China United States Climate Change Strategy & Conflict Cybersecurity U.S. Foreign Policy

Most-Read Articles

The Islamic Republic’s New Lease on Life

How the U.S.-Israeli Strikes Empowered the Iranian Regime

Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar

North Korea’s Second Chance?

How Trump Could Bring Kim Back to the Negotiating Table

Andrei Lankov

Ukraine’s Drone Revolution

And What America Should Learn From It

Jon Finer and David Shimer

AI and the Trust Revolution

How Technology Is Transforming Human Connections

Yasmin Green and Gillian Tett

Published by The Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.

© 2025. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy Terms of Use

About
  • About Us
  • Events
  • Work at Foreign Affairs
  • Podcast
  • Staff
  • Download App
  • Graduate School Forum
Contact
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Account Management
  • Submissions
  • Subscriptions
  • Permissions
  • Advertise
  • Leave Us Feedback
Explore by Topic
  • Authoritarianism
  • Vladimir Putin
  • Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Xi Jinping
  • Globalization
  • Diplomacy
  • U.S. Politics
  • Economics
Explore by Region
  • United States
  • Russia
  • China
  • Israel
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Latin America
  • Africa

From the publishers of Foreign Affairs

Trump’s New Tariff Announcements
CFR.org Editors
China-Russia-Ukraine: June 2025
Molly Carlough
China in the Taiwan Strait: May 2025
Natalie Caloca
Council on Foreign Relations

From the
publishers of
Foreign Affairs

Trump’s New Tariff Announcements
CFR.org Editors
China-Russia-Ukraine: June 2025
Molly Carlough
China in the Taiwan Strait: May 2025
Natalie Caloca
Loading Loading