Posts

UK Riots, Ukrainian Troops Strike Deep into Russia and a New Leader in Bangladesh[ Decis SITREP for August 12 2024 Andrew Sheves Good morning. This week, we’re looking at the recent violent anti-immigration protests by far-right mobs in the UK alongside Ukraine’s surprise offensive deep into Russian territory. Plus, things have calmed dramatically in Bangladesh as the new Prime Minster settles in. (By the way, this week’s newsletter is a bit of an experiment as I am letting the AIs do the majority of the writing for the updates. Let me know what you think.) ...

Too Quiet in the Levant, Nigeria’s 10-days of Rage and What’s Hungary Up To?[ Plus Changes in Bangladesh. Andrew Sheves Good morning. A tense weekend in the Levant has given way to an anxious week as everyone waits to see how Iran and Hezbollah respond to recent attacks by Israel. Meanwhile, Hungary’s Victor Orban continues to be Europe’s most troublesome family member, while youths in Nigeria are staging ‘ten days of rage’ to protest economic conditions. ...

🇮🇱 Israel: Downgraded to WEAK[ 🇮🇱 Israel: Downgraded to WEAK 🇮🇱 Israel: Downgraded to WEAK Internal and External Pressures Are Pulling Israel Towards Instability Andrew Sheves Good morning The increasing pressure on Israel has made me question the ongoing rating of STABLE for several months now, but events over the last week — both internal and external — have led me to the conclusion that the country’s stability rating should be downgraded to WEAK. ...

Israel / Hezbollah Heats Up, Maduro Declares Victory and Bangladesh Protest Effects[ Decis Monday Briefing & Weekly Country Stability Matrix - July 29, 2024 Andrew Sheves Good morning. A Hezbollah attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday significantly ratcheted up tension on Israel’s northern border. Israel has yet to respond (as of Mondat am ET), but careful calibration is needed to avoid this boiling over into all-out conflict, which would be disastrous for Israel. ...

Eyes On Bangladesh, America and Venezuela[ Decis Monday Briefing & Weekly Country Stability Matrix - July 22 2024 Andrew Sheves Good morning. Here’s a quick round-up of some significant stories to help you prepare for the week(s) ahead. But first, the stability matrix. Apologies but you’ll need to turn your phone and zoom in if you’re reading this on a mobile - I’ll work on enlarging the matrix over time. ...

Better Decisions, Faster[ Welcome to Decis Intelligence I’ve never met a capable decision-maker who didn’t want the best available intelligence. Nor have I met a slow team that excelled. However, too much data — an excess of noise — drowns out the vital signal decision-makers need, so more isn’t better. And in a faster-paced, more connected world, there isn’t the time to wait for tomorrow’s morning brief or for an analyst to be available to hop on a call. ...

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld February 12, 2002. ...

Lloyds recently announced that they’re cutting a large number of risk managers because the group was hindering “intelligent risk-taking” (Bloomberg). This will pan out in a couple of years either in the bank’s earnings results or fines from the regulators but, whatever the outcome, this is a good example of the risk manager’s dilemma: how to balance: The law and regulatory requirements The business’s objectives and culture The individual’s sense of what’s right The dilemma is that these three won’t always be in alignment. And often, they shouldn’t be: a risk management system works best when it’s under a healthy degree of tension. We want a robust back-and-forth between an aggressive COO and a cautious CRO. That’s going to help the firm take manageable risks without getting into too much trouble. ...

Before we jump in, don’t be put off by the technical aspects of this: the overall concept is pretty straightforward and something you can put into practice yourself (I explain how to at the end). Using the Right Tool for the Job Despite their incredible capabilities, even the best LLM*-based AI suffers from a tendency to exaggerate or make up facts – AKA hallucinate. That’s not such an issue when you’re asking it to help tweak some text or brainstorm ideas, but it’s a big problem when you’re trying to use AI for analysis. (*Large language model.) ...

We are moving too slowly The existential threat that businesses and many countries are facing currently is not from artificial intelligence, climate change, the danger of another financial meltdown or a conflict. The threat they need to address most urgently is an inability to move quickly and the events that we are facing far outpace our ability to understand, orientate, make decisions, and act. (Spoiler: it’s impossible to plan your way out of a problem. At some point, we have to take action.) ...