The Political Problems of Forecasting Structural Change

15 Nov 2011

The controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program perfectly illustrates how forecasts can be used to serve the distinct political interests of policymakers.

Government-supported future forecasters invariably bristle when told that their work is politically tainted. With genuine and heartfelt conviction they will claim that if anyone is to blame it is their political (or political-appointee) overlords and not them. Whoever might be at fault, the unfortunate truth is that future-oriented policy assessments do get “tweaked” to help justify reduced defense expenditures, to strengthen bargaining positions in ongoing negotiations, to secure greater cooperation with partners and even competitors and much more.

Additionally, governments are not always as transparent in their forecasts as they might be, either by design or necessity. Politically sensitive projections, for example, often rely on classified information, which then makes it hard for the public to evaluate the assumptions behind expected trends. As a result, political forecasts are often not evaluated or appraised as three-dimensionally as they might be. As Philip external pageTetlock rightfully observes, history has no ready control group available. Policymakers can (and do) rely on foggy rhetoric to justify their forecasts and limit the opportunities to be proven empirically wrong.

To illustrate the politically self-interested problems that can befall future forecasting, we don’t need to look further than the controversy surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. This eyebrow-raising case, perhaps more than any other one today, highlights the numerous opportunities policymakers have to encourage assessments that serve their distinct political interests or ends.

Forecasting a nuclear Iran

In 2009, New York University Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita used his well-publicized computer model, based on his work in game theory, to forecast the future direction of Iran’s nuclear policies/strategy.

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In order to build on Bueno de Mesquita’s insights, let’s look at three of the key players in this controversy and briefly see how their predictions of Iran’s future behavior are indeed being shaped by their underlying interests.

Israel, to no one’s surprise, continues to work on multiple contingency plans on how to deal with an unwanted nuclear Iran. Whether Israel would attack Iran on its own initiative, however, remains uncertain. What is clear is that such an attack would have a profound impact on relations between Washington and Tel Aviv. To manage this potential problem properly, at least from an Israeli standpoint, exaggerating the imminent threat posed by Tehran has its charms. But is Israel pursuing this end? According to cables released by Wikileaks in 2010, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak claimed that Iran was going to achieve nuclear capability external pagewithin a 6 to 18 months timeline, despite a welter of countervailing facts (and potential fictions) that have always complicated how confidently anyone can predict Iranian intentions. Barak’s prediction, at a minimum, implied that after this must-act timeframe the U.S. and Israel would no longer be able to launch a strike against Iran without resorting to nuclear weapons. Whether such a prediction at the time was sincere or an example of deliberate brinksmanship remains difficult to tell, which indeed may be the whole point when it comes to politicized forecasting.

In contrast to Israel, who has fewer fears about being portrayed as a puppet of the U.S., Saudi Arabia has remained discrete about its Iran problem. It nevertheless shares Tel Aviv’s view that the United States must play a leading role in trying to halt Iran’s nuclear program. With the upcoming withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Saudi Arabia additionally worries that some of the war-induced strategic imbalances that now exist in the Gulf Region will inevitably pressure it to seek a modus vivendi with Tehran. That it is loath to take this unwanted step goes without saying, and may help explain why it has instrumentalized its future forecasting to warn of an ever-consolidating “Shia crescent” that will extend from Lebanon to Afghanistan. The only frontline state that can, contradictorily, prevent this from actually happening is Saudi Arabia, or so the future-mongering argument goes. It may be a self-serving Messianic role, as some have argued, but that Saudi Arabia desires will depend, just like Israel, on unstinting American support if it is to come about.

And yet, despite the future-tainted pressures being exerted by the above two states, there are two reasons among others why the United States should exhaust its diplomatic options before making the political decision for direct confrontation with Iran. In the first case, the Saudi and Israeli pre-scripting is loudly silent about an obvious truth – conflict is not unilateral. The forecasting doesn’t adequately acknowledge that you seldom get to pummel an opponent while he or she merely endures. No, that opponent “gets a vote.” He or she gets to turn that conflict, as Carl von Clausewitz has notoriously described it, into a collision of two living wills, a duel, or an interplay of primordial violence, chance, and actual policy. Note the interactive nature of these definitions, which the Israeli and Saudi forecasts quietly ignore. More independent analysts, however, including STRATFOR’s Dr. George Friedman, present us with an unappetizing alternative scenario where an America-supported assault against Iran would lead to wide-ranging reprisals and a series of action-reaction cycles that would most likely get increasingly out of control.

If the pre-scripting of the future by certain politically-minded states is dangerously silent about the possible consequences of a military clash with Iran, there is yet another reason to suspect it or avoid it. Those who pre-script have the embarrassing possibility of being contrasted with previous and perhaps more nuanced analyses of the same problem. For example, consider the U.S. intelligence community’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which determined external pagewith high confidence that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. The subsequent downgrading of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program could be seen as erroneous or even politically willful in its own right. (Some have argued that the downgrading was an attempt by members of the U.S. intelligence community to recoup its reputation for untainted impartiality in the wake of the Iraqi WMD controversy in 2002-2003.) A more nuanced view, however, might allow that 1) an Iranian program had existed, 2) proving it still existed had become problematic (primarily because Iran has long invested considerable effort in obscuring the exact nature of its activities), and 3) the possibility still remains that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is ultimately a external pagepiece of political theatre designed to extract more political concessions and guarantees rather than plutonium. This they’re-not-going-to-take-the-last-final-step argument has not yet been trumped by recent developments and therefore highlights in bold relief the dangers of nation-states pre-scripting the future for political ends rather than building their analyses on a nuanced present.

 

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Iran SanctionsMany U.S. and international officials appear to agree that the sanctions targeted against Iran have not, to date, hurt its economy enough to make it want to honor the West’s counter-nuclear objectives. Nuclear talks in December 2010 and in January 2011 made virtually no progress, but in September 2011, Iran showed a fresh interest in new proposals that could form the basis of revived talks.

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How Reliable Is Intelligence on Iran’s Nuclear Program?Collecting intelligence about Iran's nuclear program has never been easy and has been hurt by Iran’s spotty cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in recent years. Iran also has a long history of telling less than the whole story about its nuclear work. It is not too late, however, for Iran to climb down the nuclear ladder, answer the IAEA’s questions and start again with a clean slate.

[Image:134088] Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy ResponsesThe Obama Administration views Iran as a major threat to U.S. national security interests, a perception generated not only by Iran’s nuclear program but also by its military assistance to armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the Palestinian group Hamas, and to Lebanese Hezbollah. [Image:134090]

Iran's Nuclear Programme: An Update
This note looks at Iran’s nuclear program, the effects of UN, U.S. and EU sanctions and possible alternative approaches to the problem. Shortly after taking office, US President Obama gave negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program one year to produce results, promising to push for a new set of United Nations sanctions if there was no progress.

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Israel and Iran's Nuclear Weapon Programme: Roll Back or Containment?
Preventing the Islamic Republic from becoming nuclear is the most important issue on Israel’s agenda, and Jerusalem will do everything it can to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear capability. Considering the limited impact of international sanctions and covert operations, it is therefore possible that at some point in the next 12-15 months Israel’s policy-makers and military officials will decide whether or not to act militarily to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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Engaging Iran: First, Break the Rules
The relationship between Washington and Tehran has been bound by a set of rules that has perpetuated mutual mistrust for more than 30 years. Ultimately, the only way to break the stranglehold of these rules is through dialogue that cuts through the fear, hostility and stereotyping that have come to paralyze U.S.-Iranian relations.

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New Players in the Dispute over Iran's Nuclear ProgramThe Iranian government has attempted to frame the debate over its nuclear program in the context of an ‘inalienable right to technology’, flowing from Article IV of the NPT. Non-nuclear weapon states often emphasize the discriminatory nature of the NPT, which allows only some nations to have specific rights concerning nuclear technology and armament, and thereby divides up the world into nuclear ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

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Rethinking American Options on Iran
Public discussion of potential attacks on Iran’s nuclear development sites is surging again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were designed to intimidate the Iranians and facilitate a settlement favorable to the United States and Israel.

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So What if Iran Gets the Bomb?
In this ISN Podcast, Dr John Mueller argues that while the Western powers have decided that a nuclear armed Iran would be a disaster for international peace and security, history suggests it would make little difference for the Islamic Republic or even the world.

[Image:101943] Iran, U.S.: The Intelligence ProblemDespite on-again, off-again rumors of an American or Israeli airstrike against Iran, considerable challenges remain for carrying out such a campaign. Among them is the problem of gathering and sifting through the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear efforts while Tehran engages in a concerted effort to deny and deceive. It all turns on the unknowns.  

In case you have missed any of our previous content on Future Forecasting and its Challenges, you can catch up here on: Changing International Structures

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