Forward Engagement is a term coined by Leon Fuerth, former National Security Advisor to Vice President Al Gore, to describe the process of thinking systematic about long-range issues in governance.
As a concept, Forward Engagement draws heavily on the fields of Futures Studies and Complex Systems Research.
Forward Engagement asserts: (1) that major social change is accelerating at a rate fast enough to challenge the adaptive capacity of whole societies; (2) that governments ought to address such possibilities as far in advance as possible; and (3) that there needs to be a system to help governments visualize more consistently what may be approaching in order to deliberate sufficiently about responses.
The project recently examined three massive global contingencies—anthropogenic climate change, a geopolitical power-shift to Asia, and the attainment of means to rapidly and drastically alter human evolution through technology—through a series of working groups led by Fuerth, along with Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr., Philip Rubin, and others.
Forward Engagement is additionally the subject of a graduate course at the Elliott School of International Affairs.