Policy experts and decision-makers can improve their ability to think about the future in a number of ways, including by admitting that future developments may invalidate current assumptions and actions. This Brief shows how applying the discipline of strategic foresight to the field of security and foreign policy would promote a greater awareness of changes occurring in the present and enhance the ability to take wiser decisions.

Concerns about the ero­sion of the ‘taboo’ on chemical weapons use have deepened in recent years, in particular following the chemical weapons attacks that have taken place in the Syrian conflict. The sanctions regime against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons which the EU adopted in October 2018 constitutes the Union’s first coercive instrument against chemical weapons, and is an attempt by the EU to support the multilateral chemical disarmament regime after efforts to frame a response via the United Nations Security Council failed.