Geopolitical Forecasting

Geopolitical forecasting applies structured analytical techniques to predict political events, conflicts, policy changes, and their cascading effects on economies and societies. Drawing from intelligence analysis, political science, and superforecasting, this discipline combines qualitative judgment with quantitative methods to navigate the inherently uncertain world of international relations, elections, and governance.

## Key Points

1. ACH (Analysis of Competing Hypotheses) forces consideration of alternative explanations, reducing confirmation bias
2. Structural risk factors (regime type, economic level, recent conflict history) provide a quantitative baseline for conflict prediction
3. Election forecasting combines polls (informative close to election) with fundamentals (informative far out) using time-varying weights
4. Geopolitical scenarios should cover the full range from cooperative to conflictual, with assigned probabilities that sum to 1
5. Policy impacts cascade through domains; second-order effects often matter more than first-order and are harder to predict
6. The DIME framework ensures analysis covers all instruments of national power
7. Key Assumptions Check identifies which assumptions, if wrong, would invalidate the entire assessment
8. Anocracies (mixed regimes) face the highest conflict risk; stable autocracies and stable democracies are both more peaceful