[mikegi]

You know, back in the days immediately after 9/11, when the news media was saying there was 10,000+ dead in the WTC attacks), I read an analysis on stratfor.com saying that the dead would be 3,000 to 5,000. They turned out to be correct and, importantly, for all the right reasons. That gave them a lot of credibility IMHO. Shortly afterwards, their analysis of our military options in Afghanistan was excellent and basically spelled out what we would do. Again, more credibility.

Unfortunately, about midway through 2002 they really blew it. They fell for the "US losses in Afghanistan are far larger than officially reported" scam. Then the gloom and doom on Iraq.

What happened to stratfor? Did they hire a bunch of morons or did they just get lucky post-9/11? I mean, their 9/11 stuff was amazing. I hadn't heard of them before and yet, after reading their stuff, I knew what was going to happen ahead of time and could watch it unfold with few surprises. Did they just have a lucky analysis streak?

[kosciuszko]

Stratfor gained its credibility during the Kosovo war. Its analysis were usually dead on and an excellent check on the Clinton Admin's rosy pronouncements.

They're not gloom and doom. They just look at all of the options. Like our War Planners in the Pentagon, they have to present the most difficult possible scenarios and analyze how US forces might overcome.