The Methodology of Foresight and Forecasting in Soviet Military Affairs

In spite of a growing body of Soviet military literature which expressly addresses the problem of foresight and forecasting in military affairs, very little has been written on this important topic in the West. Professor John Erickson has pointed out that Forecasting has become something of a favourite Soviet pasttime indeed more than that, for it has been endowed with a certain ideological rectitude.... Forecasting prognozirovanie, which includes highly sophisticated techniques employed in operations research and systems analysis, in this context, has become a basic tool in the exercise of foresight predvidenie, and foresight in the political and military realms is viewed as a weapon, which the skilled commander wields against his opponent. While Soviet authors freely acknowledge all the difficulties associated with foresight in military affairs, making it much more difficult than in other realms, they still see the skill as a key to victory over an opponent.