Prediction is a fool’s game. Try scenario planning instead.

Policy makers often want to know what will happen. The problem: even experts aren’t very good at guessing.

People can be right for the wrong reasons, and wrong for the right ones. They can be either the proverbial stopped clock or suffer the fate of Cassandra. There is a lot of analytical shooting-from-the-hip out there, and plenty of people offer pretty awful predictions without any sort of mea culpa when they don't come true (I still remember a Chatham House event in the early days of Russia's war on Ukraine when a well-known expert stated that Vladimir Putin would definitely fall from power imminently...👏).

A big part of the problem is that it’s very difficult to build a solid evidence base for something that has not yet happened. An equally big part is that other things can happen that fundamentally change the equation. And some developments are inherently unpredictable, at least within our spheres of expertise. To give just one example: Epidemiologists might have been able to predict Covid-19, but not many political scientists would have had such a transformative event on their radar – and, even if they did, the political responses to it were not a given.

The urge to know the future is understandable – if you work with policymakers and those that serve them for long enough, they will eventually ask what's going to happen next. But a more useful approach is to reframe the question. Asking ‘what will happen?’ narrows the discussion to the search for one ‘right’ answer. Asking ‘what could happen?’ allows us to consider a range of scenarios, helping mitigate the risks of picking the wrong one.

Scenario planning also helps prompt some useful additional questions. We can ask ‘what would we expect to see before this happens?’ and ‘what would it mean if it did happen?’ Keeping an open mind as to what the future will look like prevents us becoming too blinkered in how we interpret developments en route.

We can apply this approach to a range of questions, from leadership succession to the prospects of a peace deal in Ukraine. And the answers are typically more informative than any effort to play Nostradamus (that well known contemporary of Cassandra…).

Here's a concrete example of where such a reframing is useful, relating to a question that I spend far too much time thinking about.

Ramzan Kadyrov and the succession question

One of the pressing questions of the moment, at least for those who follow the North Caucasus, is who will replace Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechen leader. He has been in ill health; he frequently disappears from public view; and he has engaged in personnel reshuffles that look distinctly like planning for the future. We don't know when his end will come, but we do know it's unlikely he'll be around as long as Putin. And, given that the Chechen regime – and Russian control of Chechnya – is built around Ramzan, understanding what will come next is a pretty important question.

The problem with the question 'who will replace Ramzan?' and the search for a singular, definitive answer is that multiple answers are equally valid. I've written about how State Duma Deputy for Chechnya and close Ramzan ally Adam Delimkhanov is in a particularly strong position, given that he has both the local and federal relationships needed to consolidate power. But Federation Council Senator for Chechnya Suleyman Geremeyev occupies an almost identical structural position, so much of the evidence for Delimkhanov applies to him too. Abuzayd Vismuradov has strong ties within Chechnya, as does Magomed Daudov, so neither can be discounted. Apti Alaudinov has built up his public profile through Russia's war on Ukraine, so he needs to be part of the conversation. And then there's the Kadyrov children –in particular, Akhmat and Adam – who represent the closest thing to absolute systemic continuity.

We can debate which candidate is more likely, but the truth is that a plausible case could be made for each. Moreover, there are enough unknowns – not least, the priorities of Kremlin decision-makers – for any of these, or a complete wildcard, to come to pass. As such, asking who will replace Kadyrov is helpful, but only for prompting debate, not for arriving at an answer.

If we reframe the discussion, however, to who could replace Kadyrov and look at different scenarios and their consequences, new avenues of enquiry open up. Of course, considering the candidates above forms part of scenario planning, so reframing the question simply means that we keep all options open, rather than narrowing our lines of enquiry to our chosen winner. For some candidates, like the Kadyrov children, this might not make a big difference. For others, however, it could prompt us to dig deeper in search of new evidence: the Geremeyev clan, for example, are no less important than the Delimkhanov's but attract only a fraction of the media coverage.

Examining what each choice would mean can lead to even more fruitful debate. If the Kremlin chooses Delimkhanov, it could mean that it is looking for continuity with the status quo, given how integral he is to the current system. If it chose Geremeyev, it could signal a similar desire for continuity, but with less of the bad press that accompanies both Delimkhanov and Ramzan. Daudov would arguably represent an effort to secure a more pliable, controllable Chechnya, given that he probably has the weakest independent networks within the current elite. Vismuradov would suggest maintaining a focus on security, given his professional background in the Chechen security establishment. And the Kadyrov children would all be long-term candidates: It could signal a desire to keep the current system going well into the future, but any of them would need considerable time to consolidate their positions, much as Ramzan did after his father's death.

These are just a few of the possible implications of each choice; there are many more we could flesh out. But hopefully this short exploration of the topic provides some food-for-thought and illustrates my main point: we are much better off asking open-ended questions than trying to predict the future.