Lesson Report:
# Title
**Transition to Forecasting: From Causal Analysis to Probability, Signals, and Bargaining Theory**
This lesson marked the class’s transition from describing conflicts (“what is happening”) and analyzing them (“why is this happening”) into the final course unit on forecasting (“what happens next”). Through a guided workshop tied to students’ midterm case studies, the instructor introduced the logic of future-oriented analysis, the language of probability, and foundational concepts from game theory and bargaining theory that will structure the remainder of the semester.
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# Attendance
– **Absences explicitly recorded for this session in the transcript:** **0**
– **Administrative note related to attendance:**
– **1 student (name uncertain)** discussed previously accumulated absences and medical documentation (“sprovka”) covering two class days; this appeared to concern past attendance rather than absence from the current session.
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# Topics Covered
## 1. Opening administrative reminders: midterm deadline, extensions, and course pacing
– The instructor began by making clear that the **midterm was due at 11:59 p.m. that night** and stressed that the deadline could not be broadly extended.
– The reason given was course pacing:
– grading on the midterm needed to begin immediately,
– the semester was moving toward April,
– and the class could not begin the **final project** until midterms were submitted.
– The instructor clarified the **extension policy**:
– extensions would be considered only for **serious documented circumstances** such as a medical note (“sprovka”) or an immediate personal emergency,
– but **not** for a general request for “more time.”
## 2. Recounting the course structure before the shift into forecasting
– The instructor reviewed the overall architecture of the course as consisting of **three parts**:
1. **Sit rep** / explanation of **what is happening** in a conflict,
2. **Analysis** / explanation of **why it is happening**,
3. **Forecasting** / explanation of **what happens next**.
– Students were asked to recall the first broad task of the semester.
– The class identified the first phase as the **sit rep**.
– The instructor emphasized that this task trained students to explain what is happening in a given international conflict.
– The second phase was identified as **analysis**, framed in everyday terms as asking **“Why is this happening?”**
– The instructor then announced the course’s final transition into the third phase:
– **forecasting**, or
– in simpler terms, **“what’s next?”**
## 3. Guided forecasting workshop using students’ midterm case studies
The instructor used a hands-on exercise to introduce forecasting in a low-stakes way before formal theory.
### Activity instructions
Students were told to return to their **midterm case study** and, on a separate sheet of paper:
– write their **dependent variable** in the center of the page,
– do the exercise **without a computer**, Google, or ChatGPT,
– and work from intuition first rather than evidence.
### Step 1: Write the dependent variable
– Students wrote down the dependent variable from the midterm they were submitting that evening.
– The instructor emphasized that this was the starting point for thinking forward from their existing analysis.
### Step 2: Imagine a headline one year in the future
– Students were then instructed to imagine a **news headline dated roughly one year from now** — “the beginning of April 2027.”
– The prompt:
– What might a newspaper headline say about their issue one year in the future?
– The instructor explicitly said it did **not** need to be justified academically at this stage.
– It was to be based on “vibes,” prior class work, and intuition.
### Step 3: Identify the triggering event behind the headline
– Students then added **one or two sentences** explaining the event or action that would have caused that imagined headline to be written.
– The instructor stressed that:
– a headline presupposes that **something specific happened**,
– and students needed to distinguish between a broad process and an actual triggering event.
### Student examples and instructor feedback
The instructor then went around the room and had students share.
– **Adam Wyatt**
– Adam shared a forecast related to the **Russia-Ukraine war**, apparently involving **attrition**.
– The instructor pushed him to be more specific: if a headline exists, then one side must have reached the critical breaking point first.
– Adam was asked to **commit to whether Russia or Ukraine succumbed to attrition first**, rather than leave both possibilities open.
– **Albina Asankulova**
– Albina appeared unsure about the framing and asked for clarification.
– The instructor repeated that the task was to imagine:
– a headline **one year in the future**, and
– the concrete event that triggered that headline.
– Her exchange showed that students were being trained to move from vague thematic expectations to temporally specific forecast claims.
– **Ainazik Turdueva**
– Ainazik proposed a forecast concerning **Greenland** and ongoing **geopolitical competition**.
– The instructor responded that “geopolitical competition” was too broad to count as an event.
– He asked her to specify a concrete trigger, suggesting an example such as **another Trump demand or escalation connected to Greenland**.
– **Azamat Baktybekov**
– Azamat also worked on a **Greenland/Arctic** scenario.
– After clarification that the exercise was about April 2027, he proposed a more concrete trigger:
– the **U.S. military going to the Arctic / taking action in Greenland**, including the idea of **“boots on the ground”** or U.S. Marines arriving there.
– The instructor treated this as a good example of a usable forecast event.
– **Hermine Fontan**
– Hermine shared a case involving the **Houthis** and **Red Sea shipping/trade routes**.
– Her forecast envisioned the Houthis continuing to disrupt shipping and thereby imposing economic costs.
– The instructor helped translate her broader phrasing into a cleaner forecast statement:
– **one year from now, the Houthis are still firing missiles at ships crossing the Red Sea.**
– **Uncertain student**
– One student presented a forecast about **Iran**, describing the country as still unstable under **U.S. pressure/sanctions**, and mentioned the possibility of new agreements or hardened sanctions.
– The instructor again insisted on a **specific event**, not just a general state of tension.
– The eventual framing centered on the idea that **Trump/the U.S. would continue pressuring the Iranian regime**, which would still remain in power.
– **Uncertain student**
– Another student worked on **China and Taiwan**.
– The forecast suggested that **China still would not have invaded Taiwan** one year from now, though it would continue threats or pressure.
– The instructor accepted this as a legitimate forecast outcome: no invasion is still an outcome if it is framed as the continuation of a strategic pattern.
## 4. Core lesson from the exercise: how causal chains extend into the future
– After students shared, the instructor drew out the main conceptual point:
– the **dependent variable from the midterm** becomes an **independent variable** for the next stage in the causal chain.
– Examples used included:
– the Houthis still firing rockets in the Red Sea,
– boots on the ground in Greenland,
– continued U.S. pressure on the Iranian government.
– The instructor explained that forecasting does not require inventing a wholly new logic:
– instead, it means **lengthening the causal chain** students already built earlier in the course.
– This was linked back to work done “on Tuesday,” when students had built causal chains starting from broad international relations premises and moving step-by-step to their dependent variables.
– The forecasting task, then, was framed as asking:
– what does that chain look like **one year further forward**?
## 5. Why forecasting matters professionally
– The instructor explicitly tied forecasting to **job-market relevance**, especially for students training in international relations and politics.
– He stated that employers or supervisors will want analysts to do three things:
1. collect and organize facts,
2. explain why something is happening,
3. and — most importantly — argue persuasively about **what is likely to happen next**.
– Forecasting was therefore presented not as fortune-telling, but as a **professional analytical skill**.
## 6. Language discipline: banning certainty and replacing it with probability
To prepare students to speak about the future responsibly, the instructor introduced a rule about wording.
### Phrase banned in class
– The class was told to avoid saying:
– **“X will happen.”**
– The instructor explained that the word **“will”** implies certainty and unjustified authority.
– Because analysts cannot see the future with 100% certainty, the class should not speak in those terms.
### Replacing certainty with probability
Instead, students were instructed to use the language of **probability**.
The instructor defined four simplified categories:
– **Highly unlikely**
– **Roughly even chances**
– **Likely**
– **Highly likely**
He then assigned rough percentage ranges:
– **Highly unlikely:** about **10–20%**
– **Roughly even chances:** about **40–60%**
– **Likely:** about **60–80%**
– **Highly likely:** about **80–99%**
Additional emphasis:
– there is **no 0%** and **no 100%** in this framework,
– because students cannot fully rule things out or guarantee them.
### Student task: assign a probability to the imagined headline
– Students were then asked to return to their forecast headline and assign a probability to it.
– The scenario was framed as if they had to **brief a president** the next day and recommend how likely that event was.
## 7. Follow-up question: why your prediction is not 100%
– After students assigned a probability, the instructor asked them to identify why their prediction was **not** certain.
– The goal was to make students think about:
– variables they cannot control,
– actors whose behavior may change,
– and hidden contingencies that can derail forecasts.
### Student examples and discussion of uncertainty
– **Hermine Fontan**
– Hermine’s Houthi/Red Sea case prompted discussion about **Iranian support**.
– The instructor asked where the Houthis get missiles, money, and resources.
– The class identified **Iran** as a major source.
– This led to the point that if Iran cannot keep supplying weapons, the Houthis’ future behavior may change.
– The instructor also mentioned that the Houthis’ motivation could shift depending on developments in **Gaza**.
– **Uncertain student (Iran case)**
– A student estimated roughly **65%** probability for their Iran forecast.
– They identified uncertainty on both sides:
– whether the **Iranian regime** would remain stable,
– and whether the **Trump administration/U.S.** would continue applying the same pressure one year later.
– The instructor affirmed these as important forecast variables.
– **Uncertain student (China/Taiwan case)**
– Another student put a possible China move against Taiwan at a low probability, around **20–30%**.
– The student argued that an invasion would be a huge risk for China and not something Xi would likely attempt casually.
– The instructor expanded this into a longer discussion about:
– **window of opportunity** logic,
– the international risks of a failed invasion,
– Taiwan’s dependence on **U.S. military support**,
– and the possibility that China might assess U.S. missile/interceptor stockpiles as depleted or insufficient.
– The instructor emphasized that what matters is not only what the U.S. actually has, but **what China believes the U.S. can credibly do**.
## 8. Transition into formal theory: game theory and bargaining theory
– The instructor told students that the rest of the semester would focus on two connected theories:
– **game theory**
– and **bargaining theory**.
– He asked whether students had heard of either before.
### Student prior knowledge
– **Uncertain student**
– One student said they had encountered **game theory** through a University of Pittsburgh professor on YouTube.
– The instructor identified this as likely referring to **William Spaniel** and recommended the **Lines on Maps** channel as a useful international relations resource.
– **Uncertain student**
– Another student described game theory as involving **interactions and decisions** and said they remembered the **prisoner’s dilemma**.
– The same student also asked how this connects to **two-level games**, where leaders must satisfy both domestic and international constraints.
– The instructor replied that two-level games are a **subset** within the larger universe of game-theoretic models.
## 9. Prisoner’s dilemma recap: uncertainty about the other actor
– The instructor reviewed the standard prisoner’s dilemma setup:
– two suspects are separated,
– police offer each incentives to confess,
– mutual silence would be best collectively,
– but mutual confession is often the most likely outcome.
– A student explained the logic clearly:
– it is too dangerous to assume the other person will stay silent.
– The instructor used this to state a central principle for international relations:
– states often do **not know** what the other side will do,
– so what matters is not only objective reality, but **what each state believes about the intentions and actions of its rival**.
## 10. Truck analogy on a narrow road: a simple bargaining model
To simplify these ideas, the instructor introduced an extended analogy.
### Setup
– He described the rough, narrow road around the **south shore of Issyk-Kul**, especially after passing villages where the road leaves only limited usable asphalt.
– Students were asked to imagine:
– two trucks driving toward each other on a road wide enough for only one vehicle,
– one driven by **Ataybek** and the other by **Temir**,
– with enough distance to see each other and react.
### What are the possible outcomes?
The class identified outcomes such as:
– one vehicle moves aside and lets the other pass,
– both stop and wait,
– or they collide.
### Factors that help predict who yields
Students proposed several possible variables:
– **Size of the vehicles**
– A student said the smaller vehicle would likely yield because a large truck is harder to maneuver and more dangerous in a collision.
– **Driver mood/disposition**
– Another student proposed that the mood of the driver matters.
– **Signals**
– The instructor asked how one driver might know the other’s intentions.
– **Azamat Baktybekov** had earlier supplied the key idea of **signals**, which the instructor praised and reused here.
– Examples included:
– honking,
– flashing lights,
– or otherwise showing refusal to yield.
– **Rules / right of way**
– A student also suggested that formal traffic rules and norms would influence expectations.
– The instructor used this to show that people often predict behavior partly by assuming others will follow rules.
## 11. Foundational bargaining theory: weakness as a source of strength
– The instructor then moved to what he called one of the core paradoxes of bargaining theory.
– In the truck scenario, he asked students to imagine that one driver — Ataybek — **rips the steering wheel out of the truck and throws it out the window**.
– The question:
– what does the other driver do now?
– The answer:
– the other driver must yield, because he now knows with certainty that Ataybek **cannot turn away even if he wants to**.
– This illustrated the key concept:
– **weakness can become a source of strength** when it credibly shows that retreat is impossible.
### Related historical/strategic examples
– The instructor connected this to familiar strategic sayings:
– the most dangerous opponent is one with **their back against the wall**,
– or troops fighting with **a river behind them**.
– The logic:
– an actor with no avenue of retreat will often fight harder,
– and the rival must take that lack of flexibility seriously.
## 12. Signals of inability to back down: how states communicate resolve
– Students were asked to think of ways states signal that they **cannot retreat**, **cannot compromise**, or **must act**.
### Student example
– **Hermine Fontan**
– Hermine gave the example of the **U.S. after 9/11**, saying that George W. Bush’s public commitment to retaliation signaled that the U.S. could not politically back down after such a large attack.
– The instructor accepted this as an example of a **statement** functioning as a signal.
## 13. Cold War application: alliances, deterrence, and mutually assured destruction
– To end the lesson, the instructor connected bargaining logic to the **Cold War**.
### Why the USSR and U.S. did not directly invade one another
The class discussed several reasons:
– **Alliances and collective security**
– A student noted that because states had allies everywhere, an attack on one would trigger others.
– The instructor named **NATO** and the **Warsaw Pact** as examples of treaty commitments that force escalation.
– **Nuclear weapons**
– A student identified the **nuclear bomb** as the major additional constraint.
– The instructor then developed this into **mutually assured destruction (MAD)**:
– if one side launches nukes, the other launches in return,
– so neither side can expect to survive or “win” a full nuclear exchange.
### Dr. Strangelove and the “doomsday device”
– The instructor referenced **Dr. Strangelove** as a way to think about signals of irrevocable commitment.
– He described the logic of a **doomsday device**:
– a system that automatically launches retaliation if key personnel are incapacitated,
– thereby signaling that the state literally has **no ability not to retaliate**.
– This brought the lesson full circle:
– the most important issue is not only capability,
– but what one state believes the other state is committed to doing.
## 14. Closing and preview of homework
– The instructor told students that the next reading would be an **older foundational text on bargaining theory** from roughly the 1950s/Cold War tradition.
– He said students should focus especially on the idea of **signals** and how states interpret rivals’ likely responses.
– He appears to have referred students to **Schelling** as the framework they would be reading into next.
– The class ended with another reminder:
– **submit the midterm tonight and do not forget the deadline.**
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# Student Tracker
– **Adam Wyatt** — Shared a Russia/Ukraine forecast focused on attrition; was prompted to specify which side would break first rather than leaving both possibilities open.
– **Albina Asankulova** — Asked for clarification on the forecasting exercise, especially the requirement to imagine a headline and triggering event one year in the future.
– **Ainazik Turdueva** — Proposed a Greenland-related future scenario and helped surface the distinction between a broad trend (“geopolitical competition”) and a specific event.
– **Azamat Baktybekov** — Contributed a Greenland/U.S. military deployment scenario and introduced the useful concept of “signals,” which became central to the later bargaining-theory discussion.
– **Hermine Fontan** — Presented a Houthi/Red Sea shipping forecast and later gave the post-9/11 U.S. response as an example of a state signaling that it could not back down.
– **Uncertain student (Iran case)** — Estimated a moderate probability for an Iran-related forecast and identified regime durability and continued U.S. pressure as key uncertainties.
– **Uncertain student (China/Taiwan case)** — Argued that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan remained low-probability and raised the importance of risk, timing, and a possible “window of opportunity.”
– **Uncertain student (game theory / William Spaniel)** — Brought up prior exposure to game theory through William Spaniel/YouTube resources.
– **Uncertain student (two-level games / prisoner’s dilemma)** — Described game theory as a decision/interactions framework, recalled the prisoner’s dilemma, and asked how two-level games fit into the theory.
– **Uncertain student(s) during analogy discussion** — Contributed possible predictive variables in the truck-road model, including vehicle size, driver mood, and right-of-way/rules.
– **Uncertain student(s) during Cold War discussion** — Identified alliances/NATO and nuclear weapons as reasons direct great-power war was deterred.
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# Actionable Items
## Immediate / High Urgency
– **Midterm due tonight at 11:59 p.m.**
– Extensions should be granted only for **serious documented circumstances**; general requests for extra time were explicitly denied.
– One student who said the midterm might be **1–2 days late** was told to **email the instructor that night** so the request/documentation would be in the inbox.
## Next Class Preparation
– Assign/read the **foundational bargaining theory text** referenced in class (Cold War-era/Schelling framework).
– Students should prepare to discuss:
– **probability language** in forecasting,
– **signals**,
– **credible commitment**,
– and how states act based on what they think rivals will do.
## Course Planning
– Begin preparing the transition to the **final project** once midterms are submitted and grading starts.
## Attendance / Student Follow-Up
– **1 student (name uncertain)** discussed prior absences and medical documentation; instructor warned that **two more unexcused absences** would be a serious problem.
– **1 student (likely Albina, but uncertain from transcript)** mentioned an **extra-credit issue** involving another instructor/course; instructor invited the student to report back if further problems arise.
– A student considering **continuing a topic from the sit rep into the midterm** was told they could do so, but would need **stronger factual and literature support** if they kept the same case.
Homework Instructions:
ASSIGNMENT #1: Read the foundational bargaining theory text
You are beginning the course’s final transition from explaining what is happening and why it is happening to forecasting what happens next. This reading introduces you to the core logic of bargaining theory that will help you think more carefully about prediction, probability, signaling, and how states make decisions based on what they believe their rivals will do.
Instructions:
1. Read the assigned older foundational text on bargaining theory by Schelling that was introduced in class.
2. As you read, keep in mind the big transition discussed in class: you are now moving from the first two course tasks—explaining what is happening and analyzing why it is happening—into forecasting future outcomes.
3. Pay special attention to the idea that you cannot say with certainty that an event “will” happen. Instead, focus on how bargaining theory helps you think in terms of probability, likelihood, and uncertainty.
4. Look for the text’s explanation of how states make choices under conditions where they do not know for sure what the other side will do. This was the central point of the class discussion of game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma.
5. Focus especially on the concept of signals. As discussed in class, a signal is something a state shows or communicates—through words, commitments, or actions—that reveals what it may do or what it may not be able to avoid doing.
6. Watch for the paradox the instructor emphasized: weakness can sometimes become a source of strength. In class, this was illustrated through examples such as:
1. the truck driver who throws the steering wheel out the window,
2. the person fighting with their back against the wall,
3. the idea of a river behind an army,
4. Cold War nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction.
7. As you read, try to identify how the text explains commitment and inability to back down. The key question is not only what a state wants, but also how it convinces its rival that retreat is impossible or too costly.
8. Keep in mind the instructor’s final reminder from class: what matters is not just what a state will do, but what the state thinks its rival will do. As you read, pay attention to passages that explain why beliefs, expectations, and perceptions shape political behavior.
9. Connect the reading back to the forecasting exercise you completed in class with your midterm case study. Think about how bargaining theory could help you evaluate the likelihood of your imagined headline, the event that would trigger it, and the variables that could prevent it from happening.
10. Come prepared to use the reading in future class discussions as the foundation for the unit on forecasting, bargaining theory, and game theory. No separate written product was specified in class, so your main task is to complete the reading carefully and be ready to apply its concepts.