Institutional guardrails hold as the Supreme Court shields Fed independence, while a fragile US-Iran de-escalation pulls oil lower and eases spike risk — even as Iran's currency and streets stay under inflation stress. Meanwhile confrontation grinds on at the edges: Russian energy-cyber retaliation against Ukraine, armed shadow-fleet tankers in the Baltic, and tightening tech decoupling across Europe and East Asia.

The confirmed sighting of an armed Gazprom tanker shows the practice has already begun; the question is institutionalization. Putin's behavioral pattern is to 'stabilize at a new equilibrium and resist rollback,' which fits normalizing armed escorts once NATO boarding pressure rises — and the Russia-West chain is in ESCALATION. The military analyst (weight 0.27) and Skeptic (0.62) support the direction. My military forecasts run ~9pp OVER, which would argue for a discount, but the confirmed doctrinal signal plus escalation dynamics offset that: I set 0.65. The binding uncertainty is 'publicly reported' additional vessels within 90 days, which depends on NATO surveillance disclosure — a real but modest constraint. Game Theory (deterrence signaling) + Network Theory pillars apply.