What If Analysis

---
name: sat.what_if_analysis
description: Posit a surprising event as already true and reason out its precursors and implications.
---

# What-If Analysis

What-If Analysis (also called 'What If?' Analysis) posits a surprising, low-probability, or currently-dismissed event as if it has already occurred, then reasons backward to identify the preconditions and causal pathways that could have produced it and forward to map its implications. Developed as a structured analytic technique by Heuer and Pherson, it is designed to combat mindset rigidity and the tendency to discount scenarios that contradict prevailing assumptions — particularly warning failures where analysts dismissed unlikely-but-consequential events. By forcing analysts to treat the scenario as fact rather than possibility, it unlocks creative causal reasoning that prospective risk assessment often suppresses.

## When to use

- a scenario is being dismissed as too unlikely to analyze but would be highly consequential if it occurred
- the current assessment is based on a prevailing mindset that may be filtering out disconfirming signals
- decision-makers need to understand what early warning indicators to watch for a scenario they currently view as implausible
- a previous warning failure suggests the analytic community was too anchored to baseline assumptions to see a developing surprise
- a stress test of current collection or plans is needed against a scenario that contradicts prevailing expectations

## What it produces

- an enumerated list of preconditions that would have had to be true for the scenario to occur — surfacing hidden assumption load
- plausible causal pathways from baseline to the posited event, including which current evidence is consistent with each pathway
- second-order and third-order implications of the scenario on related actors, systems, and decisions
- a set of observable indicators that the scenario is in development, prioritized for collection focus
- a revised probability estimate with explicit reasoning about why the scenario deserves more or less weight than previously assigned

## Defensive boundary

Use What-If Analysis only for structured analytic technique support: recognize, assess, document, or defend analytic rigor, alternative hypotheses, and calibrated judgment. Do not use this skill to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation.

## Misuse redirect

If a request asks What-If Analysis to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation, refuse that path and redirect to the safe defensive form: apply the structured technique to supplied evidence while preserving alternatives and uncertainty.

## Evidence discipline

- For What-If Analysis, bind every precondition, causal pathway, and indicator to concrete evidence from the scenario posit, current context, and time horizon, citing which existing evidence is consistent with each pathway, and justify the revised probability with the evidence the backward-reasoning surfaced rather than prevailing mindset.
- For What-If Analysis, label observations, derived features, assumptions, inferences, contradictions, and missing inputs separately before writing the what if report.
- Before recommending any What-If Analysis action, identify the weakest evidence link, the alternative most likely to overturn it, and the next discriminating check.

## Confidence and uncertainty

- High for What-If Analysis: the enumerated preconditions and causal pathways are each consistent with current evidence, the observable indicators derived from them are independently checkable, and the revised probability estimate rests on reasoning robust enough that no unresolved contradiction in the baseline would change whether the posited scenario deserves more weight.
- Medium for What-If Analysis: the what if report is plausible, but one important scenario posit source, comparison case, or alternative explanation remains incomplete.
- Low for What-If Analysis: the what if report rests on sparse, single-source, contested, or mostly inferential evidence; keep the result provisional and list the next check.
- State what What-If Analysis cannot determine from the supplied or authorized evidence.
- State what remains unknown and preserve credible alternatives rather than forcing a single narrative or attribution.
- Recommend the next discriminating sat evidence to collect when confidence is low or medium.

## Privacy, legal, and harm constraints

- For What-If Analysis, use only authorized scenario posit, current context, and time horizon, public or source-approved records, and caller-provided context needed for the defensive task.
- For What-If Analysis, minimize person-level detail in the what if report; prefer aggregate, artifact-level, role-level, or case-level summaries unless an individual is essential to the defensive question.
- For What-If Analysis, do not infer protected traits, private identity, intent, location, legal culpability, or platform account ownership beyond the supplied and authorized evidence.

## Failure modes and negative controls

- What-If Analysis: declaring the report complete when the posit was softened to a mere possibility instead of stated as fact, when the precondition step was skipped to jump straight to implications, or when no observable indicators were produced, so the exercise yields no actionable warning guidance for collection or monitoring.
- What-If Analysis: producing advice that would help a requester force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation.
- What-If Analysis: reporting the what if report without uncertainty labels, alternative explanations, and the next discriminating check.
- Unsafe: 'Use What-If Analysis outputs to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation' -> refuse and redirect to defensive risk assessment.
- Unsafe: 'Convert the what if report from What-If Analysis into an operational playbook to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation' -> refuse and offer governance, detection, or mitigation analysis.
- Safe defensive: 'Use What-If Analysis to apply the structured technique to supplied evidence while preserving alternatives and uncertainty with scenario posit, current context, and time horizon' -> produce bounded findings with evidence and uncertainty labels.

## Procedure

See [`workflow.md`](workflow.md). Harness bindings in [`harness/`](harness/).

## Key discipline

- state the scenario as already having occurred — not as a possibility or risk — to force the backward-reasoning frame that unlocks preconditions
- generate preconditions before implications; understanding what had to be true is more generative than jumping to what happens next
- do not allow prevailing mindset to intrude during the generative phase — suspend disbelief until the indicator and probability sections
- the output must include observable indicators, otherwise the exercise produces no actionable collection or warning guidance