One thing the U.S. government loves to do is gamble with the taxpayers money. The latest long shot marker that has to be paid is courtesy of the spooks in the Pentagon.
Over the past several years, approximately $125,000,000 has been spent by the "Wizards of Washington" in an attempt to predict political unrest and upheaval around the globe using various computer modeling software. This is not a new dream by any stretch of the imagination, and has been going on for decades. For the U.S., predicting geo-political trends is big business - especially when one of your biggest exports is death, via military hardware and munitions.
Whoops - hello CIA - is anybody home?
So, what's the track record? ICEWS (Integrated Crisis Early Warning System) a Darpa created prediction program, was able to predict 4 of 16 rebellions, political upheavals or mass ethnic violence accurate to the quarter in which they occurred. Not bad, but Egypt was no where on the radar screen.
"All of our models are bad, some are less bad than others" said Mr. Mark Abdollahian an executive at Sentia Group (one of the companies behind the Pentagon's undertakings) whose efforts have offered the following:
"But think of this like Las Vegas. In blackjack, if you can do four percent better than the average, you're making real money."
Ahhh, money. Something the U.S. needs a hell of a lot of before China turns us over to a collection agency.
©Sharky&Sharky
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