Behind the Scenes of RANE's 2nd Quarter Forecast

By Sam Lichtenstein, Director of Analysis at RANE

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At the end of March, we publish our Second Quarter Geopolitical and Threat Intelligence Forecasts. Unique among our competitors, RANE not only publishes Annual Forecasts, but also three quarterly updates to serve our readers and clients who have access to our geopolitical and threat intelligence platforms. Ahead of our upcoming second quarter release, we thought it would be useful to provide some behind-the-scenes understanding of how we formulate our flagship forecast products.

The short answer is: it’s not easy. Our analysts spend weeks brainstorming, engaging with each other, reviewing each others’ work, and editing their own – all using our time-tested methodology and a variety of structured analytic techniques. But no matter how hard we work, there is often at least at least one challenge. In the first quarter of this year, that came in the form of the U.S. operation in Venezuela, which occurred just two days before we were set to publish our forecasts. Our Annual Forecasts for both the geopolitical and security platforms both had correctly forecasted the strong likelihood of a U.S. military operation on Venezuela soil, even as soon as the first quarter, but we were not anticipating it occurring a mere 48 hours before we were set to publish. Thankfully, because we had already planned for this outcome, we were relatively easily able to make the necessary adjustments to both the Geopolitical and Security Forecasts, instead focusing them on the aftermath of the U.S. operation.

This quarter, the big challenge is the war in Iran. With U.S. President Donald Trump frequently changing his rhetoric about the trajectory of the war, suffice to say it’s not the easiest thing to forecast how the war will evolve in the coming days, let alone weeks and months over the second quarter. Thankfully, this is far from the first time we’ve encountered this challenge. While I’ll be the first to admit that we don’t always get things right, I do truly believe we have strong analytic tools we can use to provide a helpful framework for our readers, even if we can’t say with precise certainty what will happen and when. It’s the reason we call it forecasting, not predicting. In this case, our analysts have spent weeks considering the internal and external forces that are exerting influence on the situation to judge that, overall, the sum of forces point to eventual deescalation, but with a key caveat.

In this case, we have given a lot of thinking to what is likely to happen before this eventual end to high-intensity fighting. In this case, we call out the high risk of further escalation – namely via potential U.S. ground operations – that could keep the conflict going for at least a few weeks in the first half of the quarter. And, when we encounter a forecast that is so important that it’s important to consider all angles, we will be transparent in providing our baseline case, as well as alternatives that we feel are important enough for readers and clients to understand so they can prepare accordingly – meaning we consider both a sudden deescalation as well as a prolonged, protracted conflict. And our work doesn’t stop there because we also forecast how, even following a deescalation, tensions are likely to evolve for the remainder of the quarter, and beyond – just as we correctly forecasted following the June 2025 Iran war that another round of fighting was likely in the coming year given the unresolved aims of Israel and the United States, and the negotiating impasse with Iran.

And because our forecasts are global, we also always ensure we consider how developments in one country not only affect the wider region, but the entire world. It’s for this reason that we ensure we consider what the trajectory of the current Iran war means for other key developments in the Middle East, for instance in terms of Israeli military operations against Lebanon, as well as the wider world, for instance in terms of the U.S. appetite for military intervention in Cuba.

This recap offers an understanding of our forecasting process, as well as some of our analytic judgments about the ongoing Iran war and its impacts. To read more about those and see our assessments about a whole variety of other topics – ranging from U.S.-China trade tensions to violent extremism in the Sahel – be sure to check our Second Quarter Geopolitical and Threat Intelligence Forecasts.