The Red (Team) Analysis Society Logo

Good Morning!

Today I had the pleasure to being mentioned in a tweet by The Red (Team) Analysis Society (RTAS), via the Director Helene Lavoix (@HLavoix). Having just started my blog and associated media company on 06/14/15, I was honored to have been noticed already by such a globally acknowledged organization.

So in return, I’ve written a short synopsis over what defines them as a think tank, and included links to allow my readers the ability to check out the society for themselves. The tweet itself involved the release of their Space Resources Sigil, which acts as an un-editted daily scan on resources and mining in space. The Sigil itself acts as a part of a series of daily papers which are created relating to multiple geo-politcal issues with an emphasis on security and international relations. See Red (team) Analysis, The Sigils.

Dr. Helen Lavoix, who was responsible for including me (@beakersandbeers) in her announcement is, as previously stated, the Director of the RTAS and holds a PhD in Political science and an MSc in international Politics of Asia from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, as well as a Masters in Finance (Grande Ecole, France – valedictorian).

Prior she worked as an independent researcher and advised the institutional actors and researched commissioned reports. She “currently speaks at workshops and public conferences and publishes on anticipatory matters, from methodology to specific issues (e.g. methodology of strategic foresight, scenarios, indicators, timeliness, fragile states, Syrian conflict, social unrest and mobilization, war, genocide, energy security, etc.). She has served as Senior Scientific Advisory to the Global Futures Forum (a multinational partnership of intelligence and security organizations at unclassified level), after having been the coordinator of the GFF SF&W Community of Interest 2008-2011 and lead of the corresponding online community 2007-2008. She teaches SF&W at MSc level at the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, and previously in 2010 then in 2011 as Visiting Senior Fellow at the RSIS, NTU in Singapore, as well as for executive courses for example at Vesalius College in Brussels. She served as an analyst in International Relations (Eastern Asia and Globalization) for the European Commission, created and headed in Phnom-Penh the Cambodian branch of a NGO (Here is a link to one’s associated with the UN) in the field of Development and worked in finance, as a treasurer.

The following is an except from their page defining the RTAS:

The Red (Team) Analysis Society is a think tank devoted to strategic foresight and warning (SF&W), anticipatory intelligence and risk management for national and international security issues. It aims to promote the use of SF&W and to develop best practice, notably grounded in science. It is a non-partisan, non-profit research organization. It benefits from the guidance of an Advisory Council.

Its website and publishing platform, can be used by all readers to develop a better understanding of the world around them and of the challenges ahead, while getting acquainted with anticipatory approaches. Citizens and practitioners can learn through practical cases how to identify critical issues for the future, and, more generally, how to foresee and warn. For advanced users, the real life cases presented also aim at improving anticipation through the exploration of tools and methodologies, the development of lab-type experiments, and the discussion of challenges to anticipation.

The name Red (Team) Analysis is inspired by Red Team activity or Red Teaming, used initially in the U.S. Army to simulate the activity of opponents in war-gaming or strategic simulations (for more on red team and red teaming activities in general see the excellent website the Red Team Journal). By extension, Red (Team) Analysis aims at promoting a strategic foresight analysis grounded in science that struggles against our many cognitive, normative and emotional biases through various tools and methodologies, including not being limited by “politically correct” approaches. Interestingly in the Soviet Union, similar activities were called Blue or Green Team activity (courtesy of Levon Sevunts @LevonSevunts).

Download their presentations in English or French.

Thanks Dr. Lavoix for the shout out!