When the Future Becomes the Present: Why Declining Foresight Capacity Should Alarm Every Leader

We are living in a moment when the future refuses to stay “in the future.” On one front, major disruptions like geopolitical, technological, and environmental are cascading faster than our traditional planning cycles. On the other, the institutional capacity to “look ahead” is visibly contracting.

Consider two developments since September:

• The federal government entered a 43-day shutdown beginning October 1, 2025, marking the longest in U.S. history. The consequences are tangible: agencies and government operational support contractors furloughed, statistical data delays, weakened forward-looking analysis, and citizen confidence in government reduced.
• At the same time, the U.S. announced it would share sensitive nuclear-submarine technology with South Korea, and intensified military strikes against alleged narco-traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.  These are high-stakes strategic moves made in an environment of compressed decision-cycles and rising uncertainty.

What connects these? Both point toward increasing urgency, but with less time and fewer resources to anticipate what comes next.

The latest report recently published by the Federal Foresight Advocacy Alliance (FFAA), showed that across U.S. government foresight units, 73% experienced declines in funding, staffing, or influence, with 15% eliminated altogether. This reduction includes long-standing analytic and strategic functions that once served as early-warning systems.  These teams are designed to stand at the edge of the horizon, scan for the threats and opportunities that haven’t yet made the news.  When you combine that with the fact that external shocks are arriving faster, you start to see the problem: the gap between “what could happen” and “what we’re prepared for” is shrinking, at a time it should be expanding.  How and where are we being left vulnerable?

Link to FFAA Post

Why this matters for senior leaders

• Blind spots expand: Foresight isn’t forecasting. It’s not about predicting “what will happen.” It’s about preparing leaders for what could happen, especially under conditions of uncertainty. It’s the discipline that helps organizations stress-test decisions, challenge assumptions, and build resilience into systems that must endure.
• Risk multiplies: When organizations can’t sustain horizon-scanning, scenario development, and early warning, the likelihood of surprise or cascading failure rises.
• Opportunity vanishes: Foresight isn’t just about risk avoidance; it is also about positioning for advantage and shaping the future. When you lose the ability to see into the future, you surrender the space where innovation lives.

The FFAA report highlights what many federal practitioners already know: when an organization is in survival mode after downsizing or restructuring, long-term thinking is often the first thing to go. One participant put it bluntly: “Survival takes up all the space and energy, so planning—especially for the future—is not within the organizational capacity right now.”

That quote could have been written about almost any sector this year.

Despite the overall decline, several agencies stand out for doing the opposite—investing more deeply in foresight. DHS, the Joint Staff J7, the Coast Guard, GAO, and the Department of Veterans Affairs are demonstrating that foresight isn’t an academic exercise; it’s strategic infrastructure. Their leaders use foresight to reduce risk, shape policy, and navigate uncertainty with intention rather than reaction.

They’re showing the country what it looks like to build preparedness into the system rather than scramble for it later.

The execution imperative

If you are a leader in government, national security, critical infrastructure, or corporate strategy, you need to decide whether foresight remains a peripheral activity or becomes part of the operating system.

1. Audit your foresight capacity now. Who sits at the edge of the horizon in your team? Are they funded, visible, connected?
2. Anchor foresight in decision-cycles. Without integration into management routines like budgeting, resourcing, and governance, foresight becomes disconnected and less effective.
3. Stress-test decisions under Alternate Futures.  Grid investments, airport expansions, satellite programs, everything with a 5- to 40-year horizon must be evaluated against multiple futures with broad aperture, not a single projected trajectory.

Closing thought

In 2025, the future feels less “over the horizon” and more “just beyond the corner.” For leaders who believe in navigating uncertainty rather than being blindsided by it, the question is simple: will you leverage foresight capacity to anticipate and build resilience, or will you let the future happen to you?