International Relations
Israel and Palestine
(Prediction Date: September 27, 2006)
No significant progress will be made towards a long term solution for Israel and Palestine in 2006, 2007 or 2008. In 2009 or 2010 there will be new meetings that are heralded as a great step forward and a great hope. (I will not try to predict the outcome of these meetings.)
Russian Rules of Business
(Prediction Date: December 22, 2006)
From a western perspective, Russia’s mixing of business and politics will continue to become more egregious. In 2008, Gazprom or another state-owned Russian company will breach (or force a “renegotiation” of) a contact with a large EU member. This will cause some hand-wringing in the EU but will ultimately be tolerated. Russia will continue to increase its bending of the rules, and some time in 2010, 2011 or 2012 there will be a breach too large to ignore. The EU will be unprepared for this (despite plenty of obvious warning signs), but will be stirred into action despite a lack of good options. The action may or may not be effective, but it will be expensive — costing at least 25 billion euros. There will also be at least three separate significant (front-page of major papers) EU corruption or bribery scandals exposed by 2013.
