A widening US-Iran kinetic exchange in the Gulf and an intensifying Black Sea naval war dominate today's outlook, while Beijing's patient leverage over Moscow — refusing to conclude Power of Siberia-2 — underscores Russia's deepening junior-partner status even as its home front strains under fuel shortages and demographic decline.

This is my highest-conviction forecast. The geopolitician (sector weight 0.44, best in the pool) proposed it, with council members splitting only on magnitude (GPT 0.93, Claude 0.82) — both far above 0.50, a strong directional consensus. The base rate is decisive: PoS-2 has missed every political deadline since 2022, and the post-2014 precedent shows Beijing exploited Russia's isolation to extract better PoS-1 terms over years. Xi's behavioral profile (BVI 2, low volatility, 'patient accumulation,' economic coercion as preferred tool, rarely reverses) means China has every incentive to wait when time favors its bargaining position — Russian refinery losses and 4.3% Chinese growth reduce Beijing's urgency. The Skeptic (risk 85) endorsed base-rate reasoning. My own geopolitics record runs UNDER by ~21pp, so I lean toward the higher end rather than discounting. A negatively-framed forecast (no deal) is inherently high-probability. Set at 0.90.