ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Friedberg
← Back to hostEpisode
Friedberg @ 00:21:23Wrong
conflictpoliticseconomy
During 2022, given the then-current (early 2022) U.S. economic conditions, the United States will be more likely than not to enter into some form of external military conflict if an opportunity arises, using conflict as a tool for political and economic cohesion.
I did say, you know, at the end of the year, I do think that we're in this kind of economic status right now, that if there were an opportunity for conflict, we're probably more likely to want to engage in conflict than not, because it does create something that we all get behind. It creates, you know, kind of a political unity. It creates economic unity. It creates driving forces that maybe might help us through what is clearly a very volatile and difficult time at home. So let's see what happens.View on YouTube
Explanation

The prediction was that, during 2022, given U.S. economic volatility, the United States would be more likely than not to engage in some form of external military conflict if an opportunity arose, using conflict as a tool of political/economic cohesion.

Key 2022 events:

  1. Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine (Feb 24, 2022) created an obvious "opportunity for conflict" involving a U.S. rival. The U.S. responded with massive sanctions and unprecedented military aid to Ukraine, but repeatedly and explicitly refused to enter the war directly (no deployment of U.S. combat troops to Ukraine, no U.S.-Russia direct fighting). President Biden and other officials publicly ruled out direct U.S. military engagement to avoid a wider war with Russia.

  2. The U.S. continued limited overseas counterterrorism activities (e.g., the drone strike killing al‑Qaeda leader Ayman al‑Zawahiri in Kabul in August 2022, plus ongoing operations in Syria/Iraq), but these were extensions of long‑running missions, not new, large‑scale external wars introduced as a tool of domestic economic or political cohesion.

  3. There was no new U.S. invasion, major new theater war, or formal entry into an existing interstate conflict in 2022. Policy and public messaging emphasized avoiding escalation with Russia while supporting Ukraine indirectly.

Given that the clearest “opportunity for conflict” (the Ukraine war) did not lead to direct U.S. military engagement, and no other major new external conflict was initiated for domestic cohesion reasons during 2022, the core forecast—that the U.S. would likely choose such a conflict under those conditions—did not come to pass.

Therefore, the prediction is best judged as wrong.