How Do we Manage Weaponised Uncertainty in a Fractured World?

A City Reimagined

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Years ago, when teaching Communication Studies, I asked my students to consider the world around them. "Look at the city," I said. "The buildings, the institutions, the streets themselves. They feel solid, dependable, like permanent fixtures in our lives. But consider this: war, natural disasters, disease—in an instant, all of it can be destroyed. Nothing is permanent. Learn the lessons from history" At the time, the thought was a hypothetical one, an intellectual exercise. Today, it feels disquietingly real.

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We stand on shifting ground.

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The inauguration of Donald Trump as president in January 2025 does cast uncertainty over global politics, compounded by escalating climate disasters such as California’s wildfires and Spain’s devastating floods. The UK, reeling from bond market shocks, faces higher borrowing costs and the resultant fallout, while political turmoil grips nations as diverse as Canada, France, and Germany. Scandinavia grapples with immigration challenges, Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on, and China’s ambitions toward Taiwan remain ever-present. Meanwhile, tensions flare in the Middle East, extremist movements challenge old systems, and trust in established institutions erodes.

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Uncertainty is not new of course. But what happens when it is weaponised and therefore deliberately deployed to destabilise, confuse, or gain advantage? How do we navigate a world where uncertainty itself has become a tool of power?

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Part 1: The Anatomy of Weaponised Uncertainty

At its core, weaponised uncertainty involves leveraging ambiguity to create doubt, delay action, and destabilise opponents. It manifests across multiple domains:

• In Politics: Ambiguous policies, mixed signals, and strategic unpredictability keep adversaries off balance. The U.S.-China trade war exemplified this, with sudden tariff announcements and shifting demands undermining global markets.
• In Geopolitics: Russia’s hybrid warfare blends misinformation, military ambiguity, and energy leverage to destabilise Europe.
• In Economics: The UK’s recent bond market volatility highlights how financial uncertainty can ripple through entire economies, creating insecurity at both governmental and individual levels.

Uncertainty, when weaponised, becomes more than a condition; it becomes an active force, reshaping the dynamics of power and trust.

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Part 2: The Broader Context of Uncertainty

Weaponised uncertainty thrives in an environment already rife with instability. Consider the accelerating pace of change:

• Climate Change: From California’s wildfires to catastrophic floods in Spain, climate-related disasters underscore the fragility of human systems.
• Geopolitical Tensions: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s ambitions in Taiwan, and unrest in the Middle East exemplify a fractured global landscape.
• Societal Disillusionment: Faith in long-standing institutions: democratic systems, global organisations, financial markets, is crumbling. The gap between expectations and reality grows wider by the day.

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Amid these pressures, uncertainty itself becomes a narrative force, shaping how we perceive risk, opportunity, and hope.

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Part 3: The Fallacy of Control

One of the most troubling aspects of weaponised uncertainty is the illusion of control. Institutions, whether governments or corporations, often pretend to subdue uncertainty through risk frameworks or predictive models. These mechanisms reduce messy, complex realities into calculable risks, ignoring the inherent indeterminacy of nonlinear systems.

This fallacy is more than a technical error; it’s a political one. The ability to claim control over uncertainty is a source of legitimacy. Governments build trust on promises of stability. Corporations justify their authority through claims of predictive power. But as climate disasters, financial crises, and geopolitical upheavals reveal, these claims are often hollow.

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Part 4: Living with Uncertainty

If control is a myth, what remains? A different paradigm for understanding uncertainty. We need one that views it not as a problem to be solved but as a reality to be navigated.

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• Embrace Plurality: Uncertainty demands diverse perspectives. Subaltern and minoritarian modernities offer alternative ways of framing and responding to unpredictability, challenging hegemonic systems of control.
• Foster Reflexivity: Recognising the relational nature of uncertainty forces societies to reflect on the conditions of their own existence. Uncertainty becomes a space for creativity, collaboration, and care.
• Redefine Hope: While uncertainty brings danger, it also brings possibility. Imagining hopeful futures requires engaging with uncertainty, not retreating from it.

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Conclusion: A Contemplative Reflection

Too often, our approaches to transformation and sustainability rely on narrowly defined solutions shaped by technical expertise and constrained imaginations. Concepts like ‘smart cities’, ‘green growth’, or ‘zero-carbon economies’ are often framed as universally beneficial, yet they obscure many layers of uncertainty. Presented with overconfidence, these ideas compress complex, multifaceted challenges into simplistic visions of progress. Such frameworks frequently prioritise control and predictability, sidelining the political and social debates that should remain open.

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This approach marginalises alternative perspectives and allows dominant voices to dictate what constitutes ‘progress’. In contrast, frameworks like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals offer a rare example of a shared global discourse. Yet when Trump talks about ‘tariffs’ he has little interest in what the World Trade Organisation would like to happen.? Although the UN and the WTO invite diverse perspectives and encourage deliberation about what progress should mean and how it can be achieved, who is listening? ?Some don’t even care. While oriented toward equality, well-being, and ecological balance, they acknowledge that the pathways to these goals are inherently uncertain and contested.

In navigating weaponised uncertainty, we must reject the seductive fallacy of total control. Instead, we need to embrace the messiness of uncertainty as an opportunity for innovation, inclusivity, and resilience. As institutions, communities, and individuals, our task is not to eliminate uncertainty but to engage with it thoughtfully, using it as a catalyst for new possibilities.

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What emerges from uncertainty, then, is not merely vulnerability but also agency. By resisting narrow visions of control, we can co-create futures that are equitable, sustainable, and genuinely hopeful, even in a world where nothing is guaranteed. If we don’t, what other attractive options are there exactly?

Vivienne Neale is a Honorary Research Associate at Hull University. UK

At its core, weaponised uncertainty involves leveraging ambiguity to create doubt, delay action, and destabilise opponents. It manifests across multiple domains:

In Politics: Ambiguous policies, mixed signals, and strategic unpredictability keep adversaries off balance. The U.S.-China trade war exemplified this, with sudden tariff announcements and shifting demands undermining global markets.

• In Geopolitics: Russia’s hybrid warfare blends misinformation, military ambiguity, and energy leverage to destabilise Europe.
• In Economics: The UK’s recent bond market volatility highlights how financial uncertainty can ripple through entire economies, creating insecurity at both governmental and individual levels.

Uncertainty, when weaponised, becomes more than a condition; it becomes an active force, reshaping the dynamics of power and trust.iv

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Bibliography

1. Adam, B., Beck, U., & Van Loon, J. (2000). The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory. London: SAGE.
2. Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: SAGE.
3. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1981). "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science, 211(4481), 453-458.
4. Stirling, A. (2019). The Politics of Uncertainty: Opening up and Closing Down." Science, Technology, & Human Values, 44(3), 463-490.
5. Wynne, B. (1992). Uncertainty and Environmental Learning. Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 111-127.
6. Knight, F. (1921). Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
7. Lenton, T. M., Rockstr?m, J., Gaffney, O., et al. (2019). Climate Tipping Points. Nature, 575(7784), 592-595.
8. Scoones, I., & Stirling, A. (2019). The Politics of Uncertainty. London: Routledge. This book is highly recommended.

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