Our lives are rife with predictions. The variety is unlimited, whether the weather, sports, business, politics, or any number of other things. When I was young, my mother predicted the weather with much better accuracy than I could imagine was possible; she called herself the Weather Witch. In reality she was watching the evening news and relaying their predictions, which though worse than current meteorologists, were nevertheless pretty impressive to a five-year old.
Some predictions are easy to make. For instance, I predict right now, before the 2016 Stanley Cup finals have finished, that the Detroit Red Wings will make the 2017 NHL playoffs. They have made the playoffs 25 years in a row and there is no reason to think they won’t increase their streak to 26. Predicting the price or oil or gold is markedly different. They have both shown remarkable volatility over the years. For instance, according to a spreadsheet I found on-line (http://www.gold.org/research/download-the-gold-price-since-1978), the price of gold was $667 per ounce on 9/30/1980, then meandered in the $300-$400 range for years, before nadiring at $255 on 8/31/1999. Thence it soared to $1813 on 8/31/2011 before dropping to $1212 on 5/31/2016. Gold bugs almost always predict that gold will rise, but on 8/31/99, they were actually and truly right because from the low gold rose at a compounded rate of return of roughly 19.5% to the high. The gold bugs were not so perceptive on 8/31/11, since which gold’s rate of return has been a compounded negative 8% or so.
The prediction game is fun, pervasive, and fraught with potential to humiliate the predicter. All of this is prelude to a brief discussion about a book I read recently.
The book is Future Wars, subtitled: The world’s most dangerous flashpoints, by Col. Trevor N. Dupuy, U.S. Army (Ret.), published in 1992. The good Colonel passed away in 1995. He predicted ten future wars and very little of it happened the way he expected. My intention isn’t to impugn him because he knew more about military matters than almost anyone alive then or now. His preparatory discussions about each war showcase his encyclopedic knowledge about military history and history in general. These vignettes are worthy reading even today.
That someone as knowledgeable as Col. Dupuy can be dead wrong in predicting the future concerning his specialty, a topic to which he devoted his entire life, should cause us to take pause. And yet we don’t, we listen to young commentators on Fox News or CNN as if they have special insight into what will happen in this or that election or business cycle. They can’t, and we shouldn’t listen – fight the 24-hour news cycle. Some of their predictions will necessarily be right, but that is more about randomness than prescience.
Accordingly to a quick survey of Wikipedia, there have been dozens of wars in the past 30 or so years, many of them civil wars, many others asymmetric wars. Col. Dupuy predicted only one civil or asymmetric war. Now a quick look at the ten wars predicted by Col. Dupuy:
- Sixth Arab-Israeli War. This has not happened. Peace is not assured but there have been no organized assaults on Israel by any of the national armies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Syria as predicted by Col. Dupuy. There is the on-going Intifada, but that is not more a war than the Wars on Poverty or Christmas are.
- Fourth India-Pakistan War. This war did happen, though on a lesser scale and in a different place than predicted, and Pakistan was the aggressor, not India. An obvious problem with predictions is that you can be right and still be wrong, as here, where, though there was a war, it was not the war predicted.
- Civil War in Russia. The prediction here called for a coup and subsequent conflict between rivals in the armed forces for control of the country. The war was to involve large scale troop movements, mutinies, and assassination; none of these ensued. The conflicts that have occurred in the Russian sphere have not been internal, but external, directed at reasserting control over areas that had been part of the greater Russian/Soviet empire. Some of these conflicts continue, but Russia has been spared a full-scale civil war.
- Second War for Africa. Dupuy envisioned a large-scale conflict between South Africa and its immediate neighbors and Angola, essentially the renewal of an earlier conflict. It never happened. South Africa has been involved in various peace-keeping missions and in hostilities with less immediate neighbors, such as Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. But it has not renewed its old battles with Angola or Namibia.
- Third Gulf War. There was a third Gulf War that continues to smolder. Though it started with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the United States, it is now more in the nature of a civil war or insurgency. It is not the large scale continuation of centuries-old hostilities between Shia-led Iran and Sunni-led Iraq. The rivalry remains, but warfare has not been renewed.
- Second Korean War. Hasn’t happened.
- Sandinista War. Col. Dupuy imagined a full-scale conflict between the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and the allied forces of Honduras and El Salvador, assisted by the United States. Col. Dupuy foresaw that the United States would be preoccupied with a Second Korean War and, therefore, slow to react to hostilities in Central America. None of this happened. Instead Central American and north South American have been embroiled in drug wars, both internal and external, that continue to this day.
- War for Transylvania. The envisioned war between Hungary and Romania never materialized. And likely never will.
- Egypt’s War with Libya and Sudan. Instead of warfare between these countries, there has been much conflict within each of the three. Governments in Egypt and Libya have been overthrown and Southern Sudan has been severed from Sudan. Egypt has aided the forces that arrayed against Libya and attacked the Islamic State in Libya, but it has not fought a war with either Libya or Sudan.
- Sino-Russian Conflict. The border disagreements that led to armed conflict between China and Russia in 1969 bubbled for years without escalating into armed conflict. The disagreements have largely been settled at the negotiating table.
The difficulty of making predictions is obvious from this brief recap of Col. Dupuy’s predictions. He had extensive knowledge of the historical underpinnings of each war that he predicted. He had intimate knowledge of the various military and political leaders. He knew why war in each instance was possible and where and how it could be fought. With all this information and his vast store of experience and historical knowledge, he still only batted 1 for 10. (I’m giving him India/Pakistan.)
Given what we know, what wars would we expect to take place. Sadly, many of Col. Dupuy’s predicted wars remain entirely possible. There still is not lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors or between Pakistan and India. Russia is not satisfied with its current position in Europe and has even suggested that it wants to reacquire Finland. Africa remains a continent riddled with conflict both between and within countries, though South Africa is relative quiescent. The gulf simmers and the Koreas remain officially at war, though a truce has been in effect since 1953. Egypt and its neighbors remain somewhat antagonistic. Even though wars didn’t break out, conflict percolates.
The three predicted war zones where peace seems relatively secure are in Central America, and along the Hungarian/Romanian and Russian/Chinese borders. And who knows what might happen in these places.
Making your own predictions and hearing those of others is entertaining, it is provocative, and it is great conversation fodder. Just don’t confuse predictions with knowledge or insight. The gap between most predictions and subsequent reality is as great as the gap between Col. Dupuy’s wars and what happened on the ground.