🟡 Trump threatens Iranian power and desalination plants, aviators from downed F-15E rescued, Claude Code leak, updated ASI timelines || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #14/2026

Executive summary

Geopolitics: Trump threatened to bomb power and desalination plants in Iran if they do not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after indicating that he’d be willing to walk away from the war without its reopening earlier in the week. Pakistan submitted a fresh ceasefire proposal to both parties.

• Will the US and Israel end hostilities against Iran by April 21, 2026? Our forecasters give this a 20% (8% to 42%) probability.

• Will the US place more than 1,000 troops on the ground in Iran before July 2026? We think there’s a 39% (20% to 55%) chance.

  • If so, when will the US end hostilities with Iran? Our aggregate estimate is August 12 2026 (80% CI: May 24 2026 - June 3 2030).

  • If not, when will the US end hostilities with Iran? Our aggregate is May 30 2026 (80% CI: April 20 2026 - Sept 13 2027).

• Will Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party win the Hungarian parliamentary election? We think there’s a 44% (35% to 60%) chance.

Technology and AI: The authors of AI 2027 updated their forecasts. Anthropic accidentally leaked the source code to Claude Code.

• Conditional on no government or self-imposed slowdown and precluding catastrophes, in which year will artificial superintelligence (ASI), an AI system that is much better than the best human at every cognitive task, be achieved? Our aggregate estimate lies at 2028 to 2050, with a median of medians of 2039.

• Will at least two Democratic and two GOP Senators cosponsor an AI bill that mentions existential or extinction risk from AI before January 20, 2029? We give this a 39% (15% to 60%) chance.

  • What about a bill that mentions widespread job loss from AI before January 20, 2029? We give this a 61% (35% to 80%) chance.

Economy: Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz increased over the past week, but is still well below pre-war levels.

• If the US places more than 1,000 troops on Iranian soil before July 2026, will the price of Brent crude oil exceed $200 before August 2026, according to Trading Economics’ hourly average? We give this a 40% (10% to 75%) probability.

• Conversely, if the US does not place more than 1,000 troops on Iranian soil before July 2026, will the price of Brent crude oil exceed $200 before August 2026? We think there’s a 18% (5% to 35%) chance.

Geopolitics

Middle East

Donald Trump gave conflicting signals as to whether the Iran War is set to escalate or wind down. In favour of the idea that the war could end this month, some of his aides said he is willing to end the war even if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened, and Trump himself suggested it would be the responsibility of other nations to reopen the Strait. On March 31, Trump also said that the war could end in “two to three weeks”, which would mean the war lasts longer than the initially stated timeline of “four to six weeks”.

On the other hand, Trump later posted that there would be no ceasefire until the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. On Saturday, he reiterated the 10-day deadline that he set on March 26, warning that “all Hell will reign [sic] down” on Iran if they didn’t agree to a deal by Monday; he later appeared to extend this deadline to Tuesday evening.

Power plants have consistently appeared in these threats, but Iranian desalination plants and bridges have also been singled out. On Easter Sunday, Trump posted: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah. DONALD J. TRUMP”. Attacking power plants is considered a war crime unless they are also used to support military objectives, while attacking desalination plants is a war crime as they are considered “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population”.

Trump did not rule out deploying ground forces but said, in remarks that were likely meant to be private, that it’s unfortunate that Americans don’t have the “patience” to take Iran’s oil, by which he likely means seizing Kharg Island. He later posted that with more time, the US could “TAKE THE OIL” and asked “KEEP THE OIL, ANYONE?” Some of our forecasters interpret this as Trump trying to talk himself into a ground assault, though others suggest it’s a sign that he is still able to hold himself back, seek others’ advice and use social media for popular feedback. Overall, the dynamic seems to be that Trump can neither accept a defeat nor force the Iranians to grant him a win, and so might feel forced to escalate or to come up with a third option.

Very crudely, if we hypothesize that the price of Brent rises to $150 if the war continues and escalates, and falls to $80 if it ends, and if we take the current price at $110 as an expectation over those two scenarios, with $110 = p * $150 + (1-p) * $80, then the market is pricing a 43% chance of escalation and an 57% chance of Trump backing off. This is a simplification that does not take other options into account, such as hostilities continuing sporadically, US and Israeli hostilities against Iran ending but the strait remaining partially closed, or a massive increase in attacks on energy infrastructure in Iran and other Gulf States before hostilities end.

Taking stock of these developments and of the latest attempt by Pakistan to broker a ceasefire, our forecasters think there’s a 20% chance (8% to 42%) that the war does indeed end within Trump’s new timeline, on April 21. They also think there’s a 39% probability (20% to 55%) that the US will place more than 1,000 troops on Iranian territory before July 2026. Conditional on this happening, their aggregate estimate for when the war will end is August 12 2026.

Meanwhile, Iran shot down a US F-15E fighter jet, resulting in two airmen having to be rescued by US special forces operating on Iranian territory. Reports initially indicated that hundreds of US personnel may have been involved in these operations, though it was later claimed that fewer than 100 were. Initial reports also suggested there was a firefight between US and Iranian forces, but US and Iranian sources later denied this. A US A-10 Thunderbolt II was likely also hit by Iran, and the pilot was successfully rescued. Two US C-130 J Super Hercules transport planes and and two MH-6 Little Bird helicopters were destroyed by the US near the site of the rescue in Iran to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.

Also: Iran hit a desalination plant in Kuwait, making it at least the third to be hit since the war began. More petrochemical facilities were targeted by both Iran and Israel, and the US destroyed Iran’s tallest bridge.

Europe

While railing against Europe’s lack of involvement in the Iran War, Trump suggested that he was seriously considering withdrawing from NATO, which he called a “paper tiger”. While a two-thirds majority in the Senate would be required for the US to formally exit the alliance because of bipartisan legislation signed into law by former President Biden, Trump could leave NATO in all but name if, for instance, he makes it clear that the US wouldn’t respond to an Article 5 request.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party continues to trail in the polls, though pollsters aligned with his government suggest he is ahead. If Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party wins power, relations between Hungary and the rest of the EU and NATO will likely improve in the short term.

Our forecasters think there’s a 44% chance (35% to 60%) that Fidesz will win the parliamentary election. On the one hand, Orbán’s party outperformed the polling in 2022, in what was generally considered to be a free and fair election. On the other, the economy has been struggling since then and a child abuse scandal was uncovered. As a centre-right politician and a former member of Fidesz who has united the opposition, Magyar may be well positioned to win over some disenchanted Orbán supporters as well as more liberal voters. If Orban doesn’t get re-elected, its branch of illiberalism and closeness to Russia would be very weakened inside the EU.

The Americas

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff. George worked closely with Army Secretary Driscoll, and clashed with Hegseth because the promotions of two women and two black men to one-star general had been blocked. Hegseth also fired two other generals. Our forecasters generally think the firings were the result of disagreements over internal policy rather than over a potential ground invasion of Iran, noting that Hegseth has shuffled out a number of other high-ranking personnel since Trump took office.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired, reportedly because Trump was dissatisfied with her attempts to prosecute his opponents and her handling of the Epstein files. Todd Blanche is now the acting attorney general.

Asia

The leader of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party will visit China on what she says is a peace mission, the first by a KMT leader in around a decade.

Economy

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz rose over the past week, with 15 or more ships getting through on some days, likely the result of negotiations with the Iranian government. However, traffic remains substantially down from pre-war levels of around 130 per day.

With some analysts warning that $200 per barrel oil is increasingly likely if the Iran War persists, our forecasters think there’s a 40% chance (10% to 75%) that the price of Brent crude oil exceeds the $200 threshold before August 2026 if the US places more than 1,000 troops on the ground, and an 18% chance (5% to 35%) if the US does not.

Emirates Global Aluminum, the Middle East’s largest aluminum producer, said that it could take up to a year to restore its aluminum output in Abu Dhabi to previous levels, following an Iranian attack on its plant last week.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Eli Lifland and Daniel Kokotajlo, authors of the AI 2027 scenario and forecasts, published an update to their timelines to superintelligence, Over the last 3 months, their expectation of when superintelligence will arrive has shortened by about 1.5 years, primarily due to faster time horizon growth, and better than expected coding agents. Our forecasters’ aggregate estimate of when we will have “an AI system that is much better than the best human at every cognitive task” is 2028 to 2050, and with a median of medians of 2039. The shortest 10th percentile includes 2027, and the longest 90th percentile includes “never”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that will require companies seeking contracts with California to provide safeguards against AI misuse.

Anthropic accidentally leaked the source code for Claude Code, their AI agent scaffold, their second leak in a week. One forecaster views this as very significant, because it gives actors access to the scaffolding, which they can now use with current and future open-source and self-hosted models. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) wrote to CEO Amodei after this, warning of potential national security risks. Also, Anthropic launched a new corporate political action committee (PAC), which will be funded by employees on a voluntary basis. And the Trump administration appealed a judicial ruling that blocked Pentagon action against Anthropic.

Axios, a popular javascript library for sending http requests, was hacked. Researchers at Google Threat Intelligence said that the attack may have been carried out by a hacking group with ties to North Korea.

Mercor, an AI recruiting startup, says it was affected by a cyberattack. Reporting estimates that terabytes of data were stolen. Meta paused its work with the company, which some observers say could result in an approximately 75% reduction in Mercor’s revenue.

And: The US state of Maine could become the first to enact legislation to pause the construction of large new data centers. With cybersecurity vulnerabilities being discovered at a faster pace, Markus Anderljung suggests that state actors will attempt to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities more quickly to get ahead of their discovery by others.

Biorisk

The Democratic Republic of Congo says its mpox outbreak is over after 2 years and more than 2,200 suspected deaths. The mpox virus is still present in animal reservoirs in the region and can be expected to continue to cause zoonotic infections.