I’m starting to think geopolitics isn’t even a real science or discipline. Whenever I read or listen to it, the “analysis” usually boils down to the practitioner explaining how their favorite country or region is secretly playing 4D chess.

It rarely feels objective. The frameworks are loose and the predictions are vague and the explanations almost always read like elaborate storytelling. It seems more like narrative-building than science where they try to make unpredictable human/state behavior fit into a neat (and often flawed) theory after the fact.

I mean how often has geopolitical analysis actually predicted major shifts? Almost never it seems. And yet after the fact the same analysts will retroactively claim “Oh, but the signs were there!”