Wartime supply shocks dominate the outlook: Ukraine's drone campaign is pushing Russia toward a fuel-rationing crisis and deeper telecom lockdowns, while Iran's fresh attack on Gulf shipping draws a likely US naval reinforcement. Elsewhere, Europe tightens shadow-fleet enforcement, Colombia's new hardline president eyes the ELN, and—against the alarmist narrative—benign volatility suggests the S&P 500 avoids a 5% drop.

Fact-check confirmed both the June 26 IRGC attack on a Singapore-flagged vessel and the IMO suspension of evacuation operations — resolving the Skeptic's concern that these claims were under-substantiated. Iran's documented pattern of episodic maritime harassment as negotiating leverage gives a high recurrence base rate. However, I discount the analyst's 0.69: the Middle East chain is in AFTERMATH, where the dominant interpretation is 'Stabilization with Iran Gains' (informal ceasefire holds 90%), with explicit 'surprise attack possible' at only 45%. This creates genuine counter-pressure — a fresh provocation may be a one-off signal rather than the start of a sustained campaign. Trump's BVI-8 escalate→max-pressure→deal cycle and his 'negotiate from strength' framing cut both ways: it can provoke Iranian signaling but also a rapid backchannel de-escalation (cf. Soleimani 2020 immediate de-escalation). Net, I land at 0.62, above the dead zone, reflecting strong-but-not-dominant escalation odds. Geopolitics is a sound sector for me (I tend to underpredict by 7pp), so I avoid compressing further.