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After 9-11 the futurists Peter Schwartz (Dearlove, 2002) and Richard Slaughter (Else, 2002) were asked if the terrorist attacks on America could have been predicted in advance. Their consensus (which echoed critiques of the 1997 Asian currency crisis) was that 9-11 was predicted in advance but that an effective response was blocked by fragmented information, territorial policymakers and inadequate organisational capabilities. Geopolitical crises like the Asian meltdown and 9-11 have repopularised scenario planning and threat assessments as pragmatic futures methodologies. International risk management has become a lucrative niche for management consultancies and futures practitioners.Two recent books have highlighted divergent responses to international risk management. Mark Daniell's World of Risk (2000) described the 'opportunity evaluation' of the volatile risk environment, summarised Bain & Company (Asia) 'best practices' ('Next Generation Strategy'), surveyed the 'litany' of geopolitical problems, and responsive strategies. Daniell's methodologies included corporate strategy tools, risk/threat assessment, visioning and soft systems modelling. His book is both a 'social causes' response and a 'near future context' map (Slaughter, 1997) of capability gaps in the global architecture (Daniell, 2000, 22-23). Ulrich Beck's World Risk Society (1999) was a sociological meditation on the interlinked forces of 'globalization, individualization, gender revolution, underemployment, and global risks (as ecological crisis and the crash of global financial markets)' (Beck, 2000, 2). Beck examined the 'risk calculus' concept, the power dynamics and sociology of risk (why groups profit from 'manufactured uncertainty'), the 'sub-politics' of global dissent (anti-globalist and environmental campaigns), and how reflexive modernity uses conjecture in response to crises. The two books have implications for practitioners and how futures methodologies will be applied to global risk management.

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