Ukraine - more first drafts of history

Last year's Predictions compo invited short essays on Ukraine.  I largely ducked this one but there was a very decent effort by Caesar H, including: 

Trump comes up with a Big Deal that makes sense to him, Zelensky signs off on it begrudgingly, Putin doesn't. Trump, having paper thin skin, takes this badly ... by year end some of Russia's gains will have reversed, and there'll still be an embedded Ukrainian presence in Russia, and Trump will start suggesting giving them nukes in response to Russia's usual bellicosity about using them. Think of the geopolitical version of "I offered you a way out asshole, you slapped my hand away, so I'm going to crush your nuts until you cry like a little bitch".    I expect this theory to disproven by February of course 

Putting aside the nukes bit, it was actually a very fine prediction.  Putin seemed at first to be playing a decent hand with Trump, but his early political gains have been squandered (does anyone really know how to play Trump?  Even Netanyahu?).  I believe Ukr still holds a few square meters of Russian soil to this day; and although none of Russia's gains as of Jan 2025 have been reversed, several of their advances during 2025 have indeed been reversed - though the definition of "advances" changed during the year**.   

I have no idea what the collective western brainpower around the most recent "coalition of the willing" table thinks they've come up with this week.  They all know, for 100% certain  - even, or perhaps especially Witless, who's had several lengthy in-person lectures from L'il Volodya - that the idea of NATO boots on the ground / air patrols in Ukr airspace are an absolute Red Line for Putin, despite the endless red lines of his that the west calmly breezed through in 2022 / 23 / 24.  

Is it a Cunning Plan?  Designed to get a wholly predictable 'Неt' that will enrage the Orange One?  If so, the parallel Venezuela adventure is reinforcing the C-Plan nicely, forcing Putin to eat more shit as he is lamely reduced to asking that his tanker crew will be nicely looked after.  What a piece of serendipity that is!  Yep, lots of random shit happens on Planet Trump.

I don't have a conclusion on Ukraine right now, because a massive and fairly binary pivot-point looms (and of course may fade away again, as have several before).  Just a few observations:

• while there's still nothing to stop Putin having what he wants in terms of the Donbas (as I've said all along), he doesn't seem willing to pay the price (or at very least is understandably reluctant), and still hopes to get it on a plate via a 1-1 with Trump
• the only possible way he'll get more than just the Donbas (in terms of territory or in any other dimension) is also from Trump
• once again, both Russia and Xi are utterly dismayed, as ever, by the casual ease with which perfidious western nations sweep away years and even decades of patient strategic effort: this time Venezuela, the latest in a long series

We'll shortly have another post on this last point.

ND

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** Russia has more-or-less given up on even small-scale armoured thrusts (they all get eliminated piecemeal), or even the motorbike / quad-bike "dragoon" charges of 2024, settling instead for a pretty feeble doctrine of "infiltration on foot in 2s and 3s".  Sometimes this is genuine recce, but mostly it is simply for the sake of probing, and often for no more than raising a flag, having a quick photo taken by a drone, then the job's done, the map is updated, and nobody in the Russian command much cares for the subsequent fate of the probers.

On this last point, honest Russian milboggers are incensed by the endemic Russian practice of over-claiming territorial gains, in what they call "beautiful reports" from lower echelons to higher command and even to Putin himself.  They observe that "victories on credit" frequently result in carnage for the troops on the ground: they are either ordered to "make the maps true" by hurriedly and suicidally advancing into the falsely-claimed territory, and/or having resources taken away because, their having already "gained their objective", they no longer need them.  They also observe that promotions and medals are frequently awarded on the basis of "beautiful reports" alone.

2026 Predictions!

OK, so for 2026 we'll keep it easy ...

1.  FIFA World Cup:  winning team;  golden boots winner(s);  will Wales / N.Ireland / Rep. Ireland qualify? 

2.  Seeing as the man disappointed us last year: date of  Starmer's first Cabinet reshuffle, per last year's definition**, with BPs for names etc

3.  Name of UK Prime Minister on 24.12.26

4.  Results of US Mid-terms 2026, both Houses

5.  Prices of Brent oil in USD/Bbl; gold & silver in GBP/oz on 24.12.26

6.  Joker: anything you have a canny idea is going to happen on the world stage in 2026, that can be expressed in a single sentence of ordinary length.

We'll skip Ukraine this time: strong likelihood of being too complicated to adjudicate.

Have at it below !

ND

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** "Cabinet reshuffle" = two or more changes to the Cabinet roster, unforced by resignation or death.  Splitting of an existing Cabinet post into two or more new positions doesn't count per se - only if accompanied by reshuffle as defined above.  By this definition there hasn't been one yet.

2025 Predictions Compo: results!

This one was probably inviting too many qualitative answers for easy adjudication, but here goes.  First, the factual aspects:

1. Name of first sitting MP defecting to Reform   Ans:  Danny Kruger

2. Date of Starmer's first Cabinet reshuffle, as defined. One bonus point for each correctly-named departure or clear-cut demotion. Two bonus points for any complete change precisely identified (named outgoer and named replacement) 

Ans:  there hasn't been one according to the definition, which excluded shuffles forced by resignation.  There was one of that type on 5 Sept (Angela Rayner).  It's arguable, surely, that the lack of a reshuffle is yet another signifier of Starmer's political weakness.

 3. Anything you care to predict about the German Fed elections    Ans:  the vanilla results may be found here.

 4. Composition of German government coalition by year-end   Ans: CDU/CSU and SPD

 5. Dollar / rouble exchange rate on Christmas Eve    Ans:  78 - 79 range

 6. FTSE100 on Christmas Eve   Ans:  9,890

Results:

1.  Nobody got this one.  (Wonder if any Tory MPs guessed?)

2.  Nobody technically on the money here either.  Several of us mentioned Miliband and it is rumoured he was indeed for the chop, but dug in furiously - and here he still is.  Mr Cowshed saw Rayner as perilously positioned, but not the cause of her exit.  He also saw Lammy as highly vulnerable - an excellent call.  SubOptimal got the timing right.

3 & 4.   Mr Cowshed correctly had AfD second, and Caesar H had the first three in the correct ranking.  CH and Sobers both called the coalition correctly.

5.  Sobers a comfortable winner here with 87 (though on incorrect reasoning, viz a Trump-enforced peace deal): everyone else had it higher & most had it >100.  The exact state of the Russian economy is a highly vexed issue, of course, with good data hard to obtain (FX, at least, is transparent).  Nabiullina is under colossal pressure from Putin to reduce the interest rate to 10%, which she has resisted thus far: it's at 16%, having blipped above 20%.  If she succumbs, and/or quits or is fired, let's revisit that FX rate again ...

6.  Nobody saw the FTSE rising!  Nul points.

From the above, there's a 3-way tie: with two ranking mentions each, it's Anomalous Cowshed, Caesar Hēméra and Sobers !  Well done all.

*   *   *   *   *

There was also a bonus wildcard essay question : at headline level, what will be the state of play in Ukraine at year-end?  We'll return to that one in a few days: but next up - the 2026 compo ...

HYN!

ND

Blogstats in a year of intense LLM "training"

Last year I noted the Top Six locations for C@W hits, as follows (in descending order):

Hong Kong / China / USA / Singapore / UK / Norway

2025 has been a bizarre year for blogstats.  Much as I'd like to think the upsurge represents long overdue global recognition for this blog, many other blogs have found the same and the widely accepted explanation is that the latest generation of LLMs, ever hungry for new "training" material, have been voraciously "reading" new bodies of text.  Obviously, the nearly two decades of flawless prose and compelling reasoning to be found on C@W make us a highly suitable educational experience for these eager students.

Anyhow, the "readership" has increased six-fold over 2024, with a mighty spike in June.  Someone in the LLM industry could doubtless explain this in detail.  Interestingly, while the spike has long since receded into the rear view mirror, it has left a pronounced tail in its wake**.  Presumably, the said LLMs keep coming back periodically to check on our latest gems: and I wonder if also their initial burst of reading resulted in a wider dissemination of C@W as a cited source, which ordinary ("human") www-browsers now access more than previously.

Anyhow, here is the Top 10 for 2025. 

1. Brazil - first by a good distance
2. Singapore
3. USA
4. Vietnam
5. China
6. India
7. UK
8. Japan
9. Bangladesh
10. Norway

Questions:

• Does this mean that electricity is cheaper in Brazil?  Or is it the cost of bandwidth?  I haven't heard of a rash of data centres being built there.

• To what body of hitherto untapped sources in the digitised world will the LLMs go for their next training binge?  What's left that is broadly literate, extensive, ignored thus far - and free?  The complete speeches of Stalin, Mao and Castro?  Might it be something of unspeakably awful content, such that LLMs will soon be effing and blinding like a docker and sharing pictures of nudified politicians ..? 

• May we hope that the wholesome diet of C@W wit, wisdom and literary excellence will raise the whole tone of AI output?  (*ahem*)

ND

PS: start thinking about your 2026 predictions ...

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** A company of my acquaintance that publishes a notable blog (as a promotional exercise) has suffered the opposite effect.  Its content having been extensively devoured in the same way, it now gets fewer hits, because AI searches give answers based on the LLM's reading and summarising of that blog.  These days, such searches do at least give links to the original source; but most lazy bastards go no further than the AI summary.  Which, to be fair, characterises much of my own use of AI - given the excellence of the summaries!  (Which is not necessarily a crass, circular assessment: when full reasoning & explanation are incorporated, you can pretty much judge that nothing salient has been omitted or "misunderstood".  And it's self-regulating, too: if the search is for an important purpose, obviously you dig deeper.)      

Some established business models are of course being actively trashed by the phenomenon - not to mention the upcoming fate of many professional, semi-professional and clerical-type jobs ... 

When the King invests in the bubble

Not only do human beings have a marked propensity to believe in perpetual motion machines, nuclear fusion, price forecasts and sure-fire betting scams wheezes, they love investing in a good bubble.  When a bubble really gets going - the classic case study being the South Sea variant - almost everyone with any spare cash piles in, accompanied by eejits who've even borrowed to do the same.  And by 'everyone', we mean (in the South Sea case) the King, the Court and, for good measure, Isaac Newton.  Yep, the suckers' propensity has little to do with brainpower or status.

So now we learn that a Trump family enterprise is getting into nuclear fusion, with the AI bubble in mind and the correspondingly vast putatively future demand for electricity.  Has the Orange One finally taken leave of his senses?   Well, note that the story says "the move would 'create one of the world's first publicly traded fusion companies'" which speaks more to making a killing on the share price rather than actually producing anything tangible like, errr, electricity.  So maybe it's quite canny.  What's more, who'd be surprised to learn that the Trump "50% share" is in the form of carried equity?  I'm just guessing here: but after all, his big contribution is surely to act as the pedlar of the snake oil** to his millions-strong legion of sucker-followers for whom he can do no wrong.

Needless to say, the announcement goes on to claim: "the combined company planned to begin constructing the 'world's first utility-scale fusion power plant' next year, with further plants to follow".  Well of course it does: what else would they say?  "Starting construction", as any dodgy building firm will tell you, doesn't need to mean anything more than clearing a site.

Publicly traded, hmmm ... does this mean we'll be able to short the Hell out of this thing?   

Merry Christmas to all !

ND

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** The so-called Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, a dreadful scam that ran 2012-2018 before HMG finally put it out of its misery, provides a sobering lesson on such matters.  The promoter, one M. Shorrock, was evidently very good at getting people to part with their money.  Some of his investors were high-rollers (who definitely ought to have known better, shame on them) but he also persuaded hundreds of small investors to take a punt, frequently on the heartwarming pitch that it would provide lots of jobs and cheap electricity for the benighted town of Swansea.  In this way he raised, and spent, somewhere between £37m-£50m before the scheme went bankrupt.  You won't be surprised to learn that many of these millions went to others of M.Shorrock's companies in the form management fees and loan interest paid at 20%.  He has a very nice house in Gloucester.

Oh, and for his own shares in the enterprise (he held approx 23%), how much did Shorrock himself pay?  Answer:  £70.  Not £70,000.  £70 (seventy).  PS, had the scheme ever reached financial close (which, had HMG given it a 'green' subsidy, it probably would have - the banks were lined up), Shorrock would have been paid £14m.

It is not known whether he currently acts as financial adviser to D.Trump.  Possibly not, since he was last sighted selling solar panels in, errr, Vietnam.