Energy-driven escalation dominates the outlook: Ukraine's refinery war grinds on with no truce in sight, US-Iran brinkmanship pushes Brent above $100 even as a full US kinetic strike stays the less-likely branch, and Republican pressure for a diesel export ban meets hard trade-flow limits. A record-strength El Niño simultaneously stresses European water systems and primes new global heat records, while defense-AI institutionalization and German auto-sector labor unrest round out the medium-term picture.

I simplified the analyst's compound claim ('strike waves... exceeding 2024 VW strike scale') to a single verifiable threshold: 100,000+ workers mobilized in warning strikes. That threshold is well-supported by base rates — IG Metall's 'Warnstreik' rounds routinely mobilize hundreds of thousands nationwide, and this cycle layers on genuine restructuring anger (VW/Mercedes/BMW/supplier job cuts). Skeptic endorsed at risk 74 (adjusted 0.68). Sociologist weight 1.00 (Brier 0.18, degrading — so I lean on the strong structural base rate rather than the analyst's narrative). I raise to 0.72 because dropping the harder 'exceeding 2024 VW scale' comparison removes the main downside condition while keeping a claim that German bargaining-round history makes very likely. Pillars: Psychohistory + Network Theory (union coordination contagion).