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!”

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This is a point that Prof Jiang makes in that for it to be a science it must be able to predict future events. Hence why game-theory analysis must be an added layer in geopolitics.

My criticism with this is that you can't game theory 8 billion individuals. Even if you were to disregard the importance of all but the 1000 most influential/poweful people, there is enough coinflip decisions every year that entropy compounds exponentially. Some of his analysis is good but it's impossible to effectively predict even the vaguest state of the world more than 40 years in the future.

I genuinely believe that 1-10 motivated individuals could make the difference between the US or Nigeria being the dominant world power a century from now and even if we were in the timeline where that happens, we wouldn't know any of those individuals today.

Even with game theory you can only map out broad trends, not even the change of trends. There's too much entropy for anything more.

On point. I would rather study the underlying forces and understand how they played out a role in history than trying ever so hard to predict the details of what's next. It's impossible to predict what's next if an analyst does not have all the cards shown.

This is why I like the style of analysis that Wadah Khanfar takes. It looks at history as a human action through geography. The geography doesn't change over time, and it will always force humans in a certain way.

Or as he puts is "Geography is Allah's creation on earth, but history is Humanity's creation in geography"

ibn Khaldun mentions this geography/environment aspect. Very important to consider!

Do you have any reading recommendations for an overview of Khanfar's possitions?

He has a couple of series on YouTube in Arabic.

- الربيع الأول.. Which is a Seera of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH with this perspective. He published a book with the same name, gave me a whole new appreciation of the Seera and the genius of the Prophet PBUH.

-موازين which more contemporary world I'm still going through it.

I have yet to to read Ibn Khaldun, although its on my shelf.

This is why I'm a firm believer in [Great Man Theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory). There is so much entropy inside of every person's mind, and the world is so volatile, that very few decisions (rational or irrational) from a few people (sometimes just one) can change the course of history drastically. We'd live in a very different world, had a lot of improbable things we saw hadn't happened, and there's just as many potential events that you can't even consider, that could change the future we will see. This makes all geopolitical predictions impossible if your trying to predict more than a single black swan event in the future.

This should be the biggest whitepill for everyone. Literal nobodies have changed the course of history completely and utterly, many times. The only thing it takes is dedicating your life to it. You have the power to change the future for the whole world, but it ain't a part time gig. You will die in the process or become a household name, no in between.

I want to change the world but not have anyone know who I am. As long as Allah is pleased with me.

As long as you have influence, you can be killed. A lot of the journalists killed by CIA or Israel were unknown, but they were fighting against them and intelligence services notice opposition before the normie masses.

We can't predict the outcome of the butterfly effect.