Today's outlook is dominated by structural inertia in active conflicts: the US-Israel-Iran theater holds in aftermath despite escalatory rhetoric, while Russia's grinding Donetsk offensive is unlikely to seize Pokrovsk or Kostiantynivka within 90 days. Cyber and information-warfare risks rise as Pentagon AI contracts publicly disclose a high-value attack surface to APT actors.

Strong base-rate forecast. Russia has been pressing Pokrovsk since mid-2024 without seizing it; ISW's late-April 2026 assessment explicitly flags Gerasimov's 'greatly exaggerated' claims of advances. The reported 11.9% MoM drop in territorial gains alongside a 2.2% rise in assault actions implies declining marginal efficiency — the textbook attritional signature. The Russia-Ukraine war chain is in ESCALATION stage with 2,710 clusters, but escalation in tempo ≠ operational decisiveness against fortified urban nodes. Dominant density-matrix interpretations ('Ukraine Expanding Strikes Under Strain' 35% and 'NATO-Russia Brinkmanship' 35%) are both consistent with continued grind, not capture. Skeptic risk 82 confirms strong logical structure. My military Brier is weak (over by 21pp), but the bias correction works in this forecast's favor: a 'will NOT happen' framing against a low-base-rate event (urban capture in 90 days) is precisely where my overprediction tendency would have pushed me too low on probability of 'no capture' — so I held analyst's 0.69 and nudged slightly upward to 0.74 given the unusually strong base rate. Pillars: force balance + military doctrine.