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.

My forecast memory is decisive here: four closely related prior forecasts (continued Ukrainian refinery strikes, Russian energy-grid strikes, Russian diesel-export cuts, emergency fuel controls) all resolved CORRECT at P=0.88-0.95. This is a persistent attractor, and the event chain is in ESCALATION (12,467 clusters, 188 days). Power-dynamics logic is sound: refinery strikes (reportedly 45%+ of Russian refining capacity offline) are Kyiv's rare asymmetric leverage, which it will not surrender absent a verified enforcement mechanism that does not exist. The council was 'contested' only because Claude framed its 0.20 as the probability of a truce holding (agreeing with the no-truce thesis) — so all three analysts actually converge. Skeptic (risk 78, adjusted 0.73) confirmed the announced truce already failed within days and Peskov reported 'no progress.' I weight the geopolitician (sector weight 1.00, Brier 0.12) heavily. I hold below the 0.95 of past strike forecasts because memory case #5 (a specific fuel-price threshold) shows overconfidence risk on precise thresholds, and a broad 60-day claim carries some diplomatic-shock tail risk. Pillars: Power Dynamics + Psychohistory (historical parallels).