Stepping back and acknowledging uncertainty on the Wagner rebellion in Russia

 For a few moments yesterday, one could almost imagine Prigozhin storming into Moscow and turning the day, or the week, into something like the fall of a Soviet satellite, or the Soviet Union itself.  I reminisced, and while Prigozhin, himself, is too monstrous to be the hero of any such story, anyone who didn't have images of Putin being chased and gunned down like Ceaucescu doesn't have a sense of history.  It was not to be, and somewhere, in the creepiest corners of the internet, they are taking bets on how long Prigozhin lasts before Putin's assassins get him.

Right now, various journalists and curious parties are asking my kind-- political scientists-- what's the deal?  What happened, and what now?  Here, I turn to Philip Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment.  None of us saw this coming, and by "none," I do not merely mean, those of us with doctorates in political science, like me.  I mean, in particular, those who claim to be experts in Russia, which I most certainly am not.  Did the CIA see it coming?  Who knows, but none of my kind saw this.  And none know what happens next.

There are predictions we can make, which are often dull.  This is the kind of thing-- the vital thing-- about which we fail.  As I keep writing, the world is in flux, in so many ways, and my discipline is failing.  In the past, I have noted what Tetlock has to say here in a different way.  There are predictions we can make, about what we can call normal patterns, and then the black swan events, about which experts are no better than educated laypeople.  In a world not governed by the black swan events, we are still useful.

However, black swan events have become, if not more common, then more of a driving force.

My primary comment this morning, on this very strange morning, is caution.  We have no clue what happens now.  Anyone who claims to know is bullshitting you, regardless of the letters after their names.

And I had planned to write about a book this morning.  Next week.  I've got a backlog, at this point.  Oh, well.  That gives me time to go back through some Dostoevsky for a sense of decency and morality.

The Allman Brothers Band, "Nobody Knows," live from An Evening with The Allman Brothers.  Warren Haynes had just joined, but no Derek yet, so this was the Warren/Dickey era.