It seems that each time I teach Integral Futures as part of Alternative Perspectives class, at least one student really catches fire with it. A couple of years ago, it was Craig Perry, an intelligence analyst and retired Air Force colonel at the time. So when I was asked to contribute a chapter on the future of security, I thought of him. Our subsequent collaboration produced a chapter An Integral Futures lens on the future security issues that was part of “Security by Design” edited by Anthony Masys and published by Springer.
The figure shows how security can be viewed at a high level from an integral perspective. We summarized the argument as follows: Conventional analysis of security issues tends to take a disjointed approach through tightly focused tactical lenses. Increasingly, however, security issues are embedded in a wider and diverse range of factors that may escape conventional analysis. An integral futures perspective to exploring security issues is proposed that provides a wider lens by taking an integrated holistic approach that explores individual and collective aspects of emerging issues from both an interior (e.g., motivation, culture) and exterior (e.g., behavior, systems, and infrastructures) perspective. We believe the approach may provide a fresh approach to issue identification as well as more holistic explanatory framework.
It was particularly exciting for me to see a “new” (as far as I know) application area for the integral perspective. – Andy Hines
