2022 Predictions Report Card
2022 Predictions Report Card
How did we do in 22?
Washington DC 30 DEC 2022
CWII is a strategist with a particular interested in anticipatory intelligence. Before CWII’s predictions for 2023 come out, CWII thought it a good idea to frankly assess his predictions for the year now concluding - 2022.
Anticipatory intelligence1 is not crystal ball gazing. It is an intelligence technique designed to forecast future events so that they may be averted. To be successful it is necessary to understand the strategic context, know the history, understand the motivations of the actors involved - on all sides (including ours) - read the trends, and continue to hone judgement over years of experiential learning to make an assessment that is useful to decision makers. It is an art, supported where possible by science. Like all intelligence, it is imperfect. CWII urges the importance of risk taking in the conduct of this particular art in the belief that the primary purpose of intelligence should be to prevent, minimize or mitigate trouble where possible.
Getting the art of anticipatory intelligence right requires, among other things, a frank assessment of past successes and failures. In 2022 CWII is pleased to report that he got quite a bit right and some things wrong. A wild card event shifted the trajectory of national events in ways that could not be predicted back in jan. CWII has never been more delighted to be proved wrong in his life because democracy at home and global war at home and abroad were at stake.
Pre-substack CWII’s greatest anticipatory intelligence hits have included
1997 - as author predicted the means used by AQ against the US on 9/11.
1998 - as author speculated that American banks may have similar weaknesses to the banks involved in the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and discussed implications for consequent declining US commitment to the Pacific.
1999 - as author predicted the East Timor crisis.
2003 - as TV news war-analyst assessed others predictions for a 6 week to 6 month war in Iraq was highly unlikely. Stressed that how US forces were received by the Iraqi people (as opposed to the government or military) would determine the severity and length of the war. Stipulated at the time that it could be many years if the people resisted American authority.
2021 - on Linkedin predicted on 1 Jan 2021
“supporters of President so riled up by stolen election talk that risk of violence is medium and growing. On one side they will be seen as patriots, on the other, terrorists.”
In the same assessment I wrote “China and Russia, taking advantage of turmoil in the US, will use every means and opportunity to assert their increasingly virulent interests through cloaked-warfare. The big question for 2021 is will they cross the observable war threshold?”
Russia did exactly that in Feb 2022. China held off for various reasons explained on CWII’s other substack here.
2021 - assessed that Russia was massing forces to dramatically escalate in Ukraine [that was not novel]. On LinkedIn, debated with IC officials debunking their severe over-estimation of Russian capabilities, arguing instead that Russia was a hollow force that could be beaten [that was novel].
The predictions for 2022 were issued on Linkedin weeks before the start of this substack. On reflection, the formatting and presentation on CWII were not as clear as the author would have preferred. This year will be better after time spent learning substack.
2022 Predictions Assessed
Assessment
By far the biggest shock of 2022 for CWII was the midterm elections. Based on the intense radicalization of the maga movement and their deep, ‘irrational’, passion for The Leader (maintained by an exceptionally potent propaganda ecosystem spinning the same hateful and violent messages in lock-step); combined with historically bad inflation, the immediacy of rising prices at the gas station and supermarket, the impact of rising interests rates to combat inflation (increasing mortgages), and the historical pattern of protest votes in regular mid-term years; in Jan 2022 CWII assessed the country would fall into the hands of the fascists. Once they had taken power, they would never allow a real election again.
CWII never wrote about a bloodbath in either house. The Senate seemed uncertain to change hands. CWII expected the House to flip, not in a landslide, but in enough numbers to claim a substantial mandate. As noted during the year, because the US was so unstable, the possibility of unexpected outcomes was higher than in regular years.
Assuming the fascists would take control of at least the House, CWII outlined their likely program of action. While the political plans for the 5-seat majority GOP in the House will likely look a lot like what was projected in that assessment, the paramilitary violence has been mercifully avoided thus far. An arrest and/or conviction of The Leader of the extremist maga terror network will inevitably provoke violence. However, the chance that an arrest will trigger a systematic armed uprising seems diminished. One exception to this threat assessment is the insider threat within the national security community that is the subject of a CWII assessment already in the works. Stay tuned for that one!
Incredibly, the midterm elections were a repudiation of fascism. CWII hoped that would happen, but history and the fact pattern suggested the opposite. The CWII post-election assessment acknowledged that the results took the wind out of the sails of the extremists. As discussed, the central pivot was the failure of the fascists to gain the key Secretary of State and/or governorships in swing states, and election deniers choosing not to deny their own losses. In fact, all but one of the fascist election deniers publicly acknowledged their loss. This was not at all expected.
Kari Lake and her side kick followed the Trump game plan to the letter - suggesting the only win they would accept would be their own, prepping the propagandasphere for their loss and inevitable attempt to overturn the results. What was telling about that was it gained zero traction. The sole pro-Lake protest at the Arizona state house got less than 20 people. Proving the un-transferability of Trumps psychological connection to his followers to other maga figures who have comparable propaganda skills.
The midterms proved the maga fever has significantly diminished. More time is needed to know definitively whether the fever has broken. But the signs look promising. Accordingly, CWII acknowledged the impact of these changes on his worst case scenarios in the CWII post-election assessment and altered the thesis of his book which had explored the political and paramilitary operations of the Trump terror network long before the formation of the J6C.
This raises a further important point. The power of the work of the J6C. It started the much too belated and yet essential accountability process. CWII could not have predicted the power and consequence of the J6C hearings 12 months ago. They were in a sense a ‘wild card’ event that derailed where the country was otherwise almost certainly headed as predicted by CWII throughout the year. Put another way, the striking alteration of the nation’s trajectory away from fascism and civil war signified by the midterms, is doubtless in response to the J6C hearings.
It is impossible to have watched them and not been impressed with the clarity of the narrative, delivered almost entirely by republicans, and the overwhelming evidence that Trump knew he lost and deliberately engaged in a political and paramilitary attempted coup (again assessed by CWII way back in Jan of 2021).
This is a brilliant distillation of the work of the committee into a 12 min video. It exemplifies the high quality of their work, the overwhelming evidence, clarity, and persuasiveness with which it was put to the American people.
Only the most extreme maga fascists could completely ignore/deny the hearings. CWII expects independents understood the threat and voted accordingly. The hearings might have also impacted maga-leaning and even some moderate maga people. Of course, they could never afford to admit that publicly - they would be attacked by friends and family.
Conclusion
In 2022 CWII got almost all projected predictions right. As the timeline moved into the probable and possible ranges, CWII’s worst case scenarios were thankfully almost all wrong. That may not have been the case had the work of the J6C not been as powerful as it was in alerting the public to the dire threat of fascism and the people coming out in a mid term year to exercise their democratic rights, putting short term economic pain aside to reject the looming long term threat of fascism.
Anticipatory intelligence is the second mission objective of the Intelligence Community. Non-intel readers might be surprised to discover intel is not all about attempting to anticipate the future. There are complex historical, bureaucratic (cultural, analytical and organizational), and political reasons for this. Principle among them is the idea that intel does not make policy, it just offers assessments for others to determine what should be done about the problems identified. The general public might considered it odd that those who know most about a topic are structurally barred from suggesting what to do about the things they know most.
CWII principal criticism of these structural arrangements is intel often becomes reporting after the fact, rather than proving its utility by assisting decision makers to prevent a problem. Of course, acting to pre-empt a crisis takes political courage because it could backfire (for various reasons - informational, analytical, choice of action, and ground reality - friction, chance and the enemy all get a vote) and cause even more problems. Doing nothing is a course of action and in some cases, the best action. The problem is inertia is a steady state in bureaucracy, especially when so much is on the line if a mistake is made. It is important to actively choose to do nothing - with reasoning - rather than it be a default setting.
The IC only clearly articulated the concept of anticipatory intelligence comparatively recently and made it a stand-alone mission. Because of its novelty, it is still a contested concept. Thats a healthy thing as it is further defined by experiential learning-driven analytical refinement.
As you will see below, the focus is on analysis of emerging threats with forecasting as secondary. This is because the IC is uncomfortable with the idea of forecasting for the above stated reasons (the risk of getting it wrong and blowback even if they get it right). CWII is convinced that a focus on forestalling immanent crises should be co-equal with anticipating their source. In other words, the balance between reporting and anticipating needs to shift, accepting risk that threats will be misdiagnosed.
Thats why CWII is offering an honest accounting of past assessments in order to learn and hone the skill.
