[1] Initial conceptions of conflict early warning materialized in the 1970s and 1980s but the field really emerged on the international policy agenda after the end of the Cold War.
[6] Some approaches to conflict early warning combine both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, such as Swisspeace's formerly operational project called FAST.
The incident over the Falklands had taken the United Nations completely by surprise and it is said "no map of the islands was available in the Secretariat when the invasion began".
[8] The initial drivers, however, were humanitarian agencies "driven by the need for accurate and timely predictions of refugee flows to enable effective contingency planning".
The horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide also spurred increased interest in operational conflict early warning systems.