🟡 US and Israel strike Iran, Iran retaliates against US allies, Anthropic designated a supply chain risk || Global Risks Weekly Roundup #9/2026

Executive summary

Geopolitics: The US and Israel attacked Iran and killed Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran retaliated by striking US bases and allied countries in the region. Also, an arms sale to Taiwan has been paused by the US to ensure that Trump’s April visit to Beijing goes smoothly.

• Will Iran’s regime fall by the end of 2026? Forecasters assign a 45% (32% to 70%) probability thereof.

• Will there be >50 US fatalities (civilian or uniformed) anywhere in the world linked to the conflict in Iran or attributed to Iran or its proxies by the end of 2026? Forecasters think there’s a 48% (35% to 60%) chance.

• Will there be >100 Israeli fatalities (civilian or uniformed) linked to the conflict in Iran by the end of 2026? The team believes there’s a 58% (45% to 70%) probability.

• Will Israel’s airspace reopen before April 2026? With Israeli authorities saying they may very gradually reopen their airspace over the next week, most forecasters are now at >95% here.

• Will the Houthis seize or sink at least one ship before May 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 42% (20% to 68%) chance.

Technology and AI: Anthropic was designated a supply chain risk by the Pentagon. The company accused three Chinese companies of carrying out “distillation attacks” on their models. And they updated their Responsible Scaling Policy, dropping a pledge not to train or deploy systems without adequate safety measures.

• Will the designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk be reversed by the end of 2027? Forecasters estimate a 72% (65% to 80%) probability that this occurs.

  • If not, will Anthropic raise funding at a higher valuation by the end of 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 34% (19% to 60%) chance.

  • If not, will Anthropic collapse by the end of 2027? Forecasters think there’s a 24% (5.0% to 50%) probability.

Economy: Oil and gas prices spiked in the first trading day after the US-Israel attack on Iran. Stock markets opened lower.

Geopolitics

Middle East

On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran. Multiple high-ranking officials in Iran’s chain of command were killed, including Ayatollah Khamenei and Ali Shamkhani. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and missile sites were also targeted, while dozens of civilian casualties were reported. US President Trump said that the strikes on Iran could continue for “four to five weeks”. Last week, we estimated a 66% chance that the US would strike Iran before April, well above the Polymarket aggregate of 20.5%. At the beginning of February, we gave a 31% chance that Khamenei would cease to be the Supreme Leader of Iran before April, above the Polymarket estimate of 19.5%.

In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on US bases and allied countries in the region. US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have been hit, with at least four US servicemembers killed and at least four others seriously injured. A French base in the UAE and a British base in Cyprus were also struck, and civilian areas in Dubai suffered damage. At least ten people in Israel have died as a result of Iranian attacks, and fighting between Hezbollah and Israel broke out again. Even so, Israel says it is preparing to very gradually reopen its airspace over the next week. The conflict has resulted in deaths and wounded in other countries as well.

Oil and natural gas prices spiked on the first trading day following the outbreak of war. The Houthis said that they would resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20% of global oil supply and large volumes of liquefied natural gas move, has come to a near standstill. At least three tankers in the Gulf region have already been damaged by debris and projectiles, while certain energy facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been hit or shut down.

Looking ahead, forecasters think there’s a 45% (32% to 70%) that Iran’s regime will fall by the end of 2026, operationalized as the IRGC no longer being in power. On the one hand, Trump said that Iranians should “rise up” against the regime and told the Washington Post that “freedom” for Iranians is the goal of the war. On the other hand, Trump said he is interested in talking to the regime and cutting a deal with them, citing Venezuela as a model. One Israeli outlet reports that the US asked Iran for a ceasefire over the weekend.

Trump says he has three “very good choices” regarding who should take over in Iran, but it’s unclear whether they are affiliated with the current regime or not. Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament who has reportedly been in charge of day-to-day operations since January, appears to be alive at the time of writing and said that Iran is not currently willing to negotiate with the US.

It’s possible that regime change was at most a secondary goal, and that the primary objective was to speed up negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program or neutralise an imminent threat. Cutting against this idea is the fact that Oman’s foreign minister, who was mediating the US-Iran nuclear talks, said on Friday that significant progress was being made and that Iran had agreed to get rid of its existing stockpile of enriched uranium. In addition, the Pentagon reportedly told Congress that Iran was not planning to attack the US.

Forecasters also believe there’s a 48% (35% to 60%) probability that there will be >50 US fatalities (civilian or uniformed) anywhere in the world linked to the conflict in Iran or attributed to Iran or its proxies by the end of 2026, and a 58% (45% to 70%) chance that there will be >100 Israeli fatalities (civilian or uniformed) linked to the Iran war in the same time period. To some extent, this is a proxy for how long forecasters think the war will go on; most also think it’s >95% likely that at least some flights to and from Israel will resume before April. Before May 2026, they think there’s a 42% (20% to 68%) probability that the Houthis will seize or sink at least one ship in the Red Sea.

Asia

Pakistan declared that it is in “open war” with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, accusing it of aiding and abetting the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which has escalated its violent campaign within Pakistan over the past year. Airstrikes were carried out on targets within Afghanistan, while the Taliban deployed drones, anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems in response.

The US State Department reportedly delayed an arms sale to Taiwan that was recently approved by Congress, to ensure that Trump’s April visit to China goes smoothly.

Latin America

Trump said that the Cuban regime is currently in talks with the US and suggested that the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba. One administration official says that Trump hopes to change the regime in Cuba one way or another and feels that he’s “on a roll”.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic updated its “Responsible Scaling Policy”, dropping its central safety pledge not to train or deploy AI systems without adequate safety measures to keep the risk of catastrophic harm within acceptable levels. Responsible Scaling Policies represented the idea that AI companies could set “if-then” commitments such that increased risks from training ever-more powerful AIs would result in safety measures up to and including pausing development. They were pushed hard by the AI industry around the AI Safety Summit in 2023, when there was more political appetite to regulate AI companies to address the worst risks of AI.

On Friday, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, saying the decision is “effective immediately” and the “decision is final”. Trump also ordered federal agencies to stop using the company’s AI models. Nevertheless, Anthropic could still be used by the Pentagon for up to six months, and their Claude model was reportedly used during the US attack on Iran. Anthropic says it will challenge the designation in court.

Later that day, Sam Altman announced that OpenAI agreed a deal with the Pentagon that supposedly provided exceptions to the use of their AIs for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic says that these activities could have fallen under the “any lawful use” policy that was being requested of them by the Pentagon. The details of the exceptions and the enforcement mechanisms that OpenAI and the Pentagon agreed to appear to be a bit weaker than what Anthropic was pushing for.

Forecasters estimate a 72% (65% to 80%) probability that the designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk will be reversed by the end of 2027. By then, Anthropic could have reconciled with the administration or won in court. Conditional on the designation not being reversed by 2027, forecasters estimate that there is a 34% (19% to 60%) chance that Anthropic would raise funding at a higher valuation by the end of 2026, and a 24% (5% to 50%) chance that Anthropic would collapse by the end of 2027.

Earlier in the week, it was reported that xAI and the Pentagon reached a deal to use Grok in classified systems. Officials at multiple federal agencies have raised concerns about the safety and reliability of Grok in recent months.

Senior OpenAI safety employees were summoned for “urgent talks” in Canada after a school shooting in which the attacker had described violent intentions to ChatGPT to the extent that they were flagged by OpenAI’s systems, discussed by employees, and caused the attacker’s account to be banned. OpenAI did not alert authorities in advance of the shooting. Canadian ministers told OpenAI that if they do not quickly upgrade their safety protocols, they will force them to through legislation.

A study finds that prefill attacks, where an attacker predefines initial response tokens before generation begins, are consistently effective for bypassing safety mitigations across all major contemporary open-weight models.

And: Anthropic accused three Chinese AI companies of large-scale “distillation attacks” on Claude. In simulated wargames of current frontier AIs, at least one AI in every wargame escalated the conflict by threatening the use of nuclear weapons. OpenAI raised $110B at a $730B valuation, although some of it is conditional on hitting milestones. Hackers used Claude in an attack against the Mexican government. Meta partnered with AMD.