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2025
OUTLOOK
STRATEGIC
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Editor-in-chief: Henry Wilkinson
Managing editor: Matt Ince
Design: Clarice Lam, Lindsay Lombard, Matteo Zanre, Syennie Valeria
Editors: Hannah Poppy, Joel Gulhane, Pierre-Louis Le Goff
Contributing analysts: Anton Macfadyen, Barbara Kelemen, Ben Hiorns, Byron Cabrol, Carl-Johan Carlstedt, David Dalton, Eddie Bejarano, Emma Campos-Redman, Flavien Baumgartner, Hannah Poppy, Henry Wilkinson, Hossam Abougabal, Ilias Koutroulis, Jim Kerres, Joel Gulhane, John Sunerton, Kirsten Phelps, Lauren O’Loughlin, Maria Harrison, Matt Ince, Megan Campbell, Paolo Napolitano, Pierre-Louis Le Goff, Sebastian Bruhn, Seyoung Jeon, Zoe Ciaccio.
Dragonfly would also like to thank the many industry colleagues, on-the-ground sources, contacts, external analysts and partners who contributed their insights to Strategic Outlook 2025.
STRATEGIC OUTLOOK 2025
First published in November 2024 by Dragonfly Eye Ltd
SQB, Canary Wharf, London, E14 9SH, United Kingdom
© 2024 Dragonfly Eye Ltd
Dragonfly is a private intelligence service to professionals who guide decision-making in the world’s leading organisations. From the highest risk environments to the boardroom, we enable our clients to make confident decisions and put them ahead of security and crisis risks.
www.dragonflyintelligence.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be printed or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be printed or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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It is my pleasure to present Strategic Outlook 2025: The Grey Swan Problem.
In the 11 years that we have produced Strategic Outlook, geostrategic risks have never been so significant. A recurring theme over those years has been the warning that we were on a trajectory to the global disorder that we now see. And with it a higher likelihood of crises, including wars and major disruptions to societies, economies, politics, and indeed business.
The key message of Strategic Outlook 2025 is not just to anticipate further crises, but to be alert to high-impact risks that, in years past, might have been overlooked because they seemed improbable. And in some cases, precisely because their impacts were seen as so great, they were assumed to be unlikely, such as a Russian invasion of Ukraine. In forecasting, these are known as grey swans. In the geopolitical future we forecast here, grey swans are prone to turning white at unsettling speed.
Preparing to deal with many complex and significant risks flaring at an unrelenting tempo in 2025 will be a major challenge for global businesses. Staying ahead of such risks involves balancing strategic forecasting and scenario analysis with current intelligence on geopolitical risks, and ensuring that key insights are integrated into business strategy. Our hope is that Strategic Outlook 2025 will contribute to that effort.
As ever, I express my thanks and appreciation to the outstanding analytical team at Dragonfly for their contributions to Strategic Outlook. And for their unwavering commitment to our clients to enable them to succeed and achieve foresight and clarity amid the intense pressure of crises and insecurity.
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Welcome to
Strategic
Outlook 2025
Henry Wilkinson
Editor-in-chief & Chief Intelligence Officer, Dragonfly
