What does it mean to be a professional futurist, and what does it take to be a good one? For Florence Gaub, research director of NATO's Defense College, it's not about predicting the future, but about stretching the imagination of decision-makers so they can understand possible risks and act today to shape the future.

Speaking on ASPI's Stop the World podcast, Gaub explains that strategic foresight is less about making concrete forecasts and more about being prepared for the unexpected based on the key idea of 'weak signals'. Gaub explains:

We look at all the information that's out there, on what do we have certainty over. We have a lot of data like climate change, demographics. And then where we don't have data, we try to fill in with plausible scenarios, what leads to what, and then we develop scenarios.

For NATO, those scenarios range from nuclear detonations in space to Russian manoeuvring in Europe. They're not about a futuristic 2050 or 2100: 'Our decision-makers want to influence something within their reach ... so we are looking maximum five years into the future.'

That focus on plausibility distinguishes foresight from fantasy. 'We don't imagine aliens coming to earth,' she says. 'It has to be rooted in reality.'

Nonetheless, Gaub embraces the usefulness of science fiction writing and films such as The Matrix as tools for innovation and imagination, and to help with some what-if questions. When NATO marked its 75th anniversary, she invited science fiction authors to imagine NATO in 2099. To ensure patterns were identified, her team commissioned an incredible 40 authors. One common theme was that NATO would still be around. The end product -- a graphic novel -- wasn't a blueprint, but a provocation. 'Science fiction takes people out of their day-to-day thinking, which helps overcome bias,' Gaub says.

Everyone carries biases, Gaub notes, including futurists. The key is recognising them. 'Whenever you have a very strong emotional reaction, you should be aware: maybe there's a bias here,' she says. Gaub looks to define in advance the conditions under which she would change her mind, and encourages decision-makers to do the same. The goal isn't to overturn a worldview built over decades, but to prompt reflection. 'You can't get people out of their bias, but you can invite them to self-reflect. Ask them: under what conditions would you change your mind?'

Gaub also notes the importance of humility. Good foresight, she argues, isn't measured by whether forecasts come true. 'A successful foresight shouldn't be judged on whether they were right, but whether they were heard,' she says. Some of her most effective interventions meant potential threats never eventuated precisely because decision-makers were empowered to act.

That requires advisers to check their egos. 'A lot of us are guilty of wanting to be right and wanting to have influence,' Gaub reflects. 'My most successful scenarios never came about because somebody did something about them. But you can't prove that you were right because it never happened.'

Gaub also warns against underestimating the role and influence of national leaders. Western education, she argues, focuses collective decision-making. Yet in authoritarian regimes, individuals can wield extraordinary influence. 'In a European country, the context is more important than the person... but in an authoritarian system, the individual will have an outsized influence.'

That doesn't mean removing Russian President Vladimir Putin would automatically transform Russia's foreign policy, or that Chinese President Xi Jinping governs without constraints. Rather, it highlights what Gaub calls 'the combination of the individual and the context'. She urges democracies to take leaders' profiles more seriously or else risk making decisions on inaccurate or incomplete data.

While the key distinction is between democracies and authoritarian regimes, Gaub notes that 'in presidential systems, so the [United States] but also France for instance, you will have to spend more time on thinking about that individual because they have a lot more power than in a parliamentary system, for instance.'

Technology and data are just as important as the human element in Gaub's work, and a key question is whether technological advances could finally give us a working crystal ball. Gaub says, so far, AI lacks human imagination and 'can't really tell good stories', so the immediate answer is no. But data still plays a vital role in forecasting, including in revealing telling patterns: for instance, Russian conscripts sent to fight in Ukraine disproportionately come from regions that didn't vote for Putin's party.

We need to understand the strengths and limitations of technology and, currently, Gaub sees such tools acting more like a 'junior assistant'. AI is 'very good at just getting a lot of material in and then finding the most probable patterns'. But, crucially, strategists and forecasters can't just deal in high probability: some of history's greatest shocks have come from low-likelihood, high-consequence events.

That's why human imagination -- including science fiction -- remains indispensable. 'Even innovators take cues from science fiction,' she observes, noting how science fiction media such as Star Trek anticipated today's technology.

It's also why diverse thinking is mandatory. For Gaub, forecasting is a team sport, and NATO is, by definition, made up of different nationalities and personalities who may occasionally disagree. Yet that is vital in strategic foresight as different people will notice different trends and issues.

Finally, Gaub cautions against complacency. Strategic foresight tends to 'ebb and flow', flourishing in crises and fading in calmer times. Yet countries that embed it consistently are better prepared. Finland, she points out, has institutionalised foresight across its government since the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, it is among Europe's best-prepared states, and is also one of the happiest. 'The more you think about the future in a structured way,' she says, 'the more optimistic you become.'

So, is there reason to be optimistic about the next 10 years?

The one certainty is that there will no shortage of plausible scenarios for futurists such as Gaub, who says we need to study and forecast a wide range of trends. These include technological developments in areas such as geoengineering; AI's effect on labour markets; the re-emergence of space as an exploratory field; and how demographic changes such as shrinking populations in China and Russia may affect those countries' disruptive decisions and actions.

For Gaub, strategic foresight isn't about getting the future right; it's about equipping leaders to face it with agility, humility and imagination. As she puts it: 'Even a fuzzy image is useful.'