THE BUNKER BUSTER AND THE DEATH OF DATA

FROM RISK TO UNCERTAINTY

In The Bunker Buster and the Death of Data, Manuel Hinds argues that recent global events—particularly the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities—have pushed the world from a phase of calculable risk into deep uncertainty, where past data no longer predict future outcomes. As the old world order collapses and a new one struggles to emerge, Hinds compares this moment to the fall of Rome’s Republic: destruction precedes eventual rebuilding by forces yet unknown. He describes how emerging global elites—entrepreneurs like Musk and Thiel, or political actors like Putin and The Prince—are vying for dominance, blending economic and political power in ways that threaten liberal democracy. The illusion of a stable multipolar order is, in his view, a façade masking a ruthless struggle for global supremacy. In this chaotic environment, traditional data-based forecasting fails, and decision-makers must instead rely on identifying trends and constructing adaptable strategies, much like the Founding Fathers did when building the original liberal democratic system without knowing all the challenges it would face.

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Hey Jack! The Bunker Buster turned the world's lights off! More than you’d believe!”

“What do you mean?” said Jack.”

“We have discussed several times that what we are witnessing is the first part of a two-part narrative about the creation of a new world order” said Pere. “The first part involves the demolition of the old order, while the second entails the rebuilding of the new one. We have also noted that this process passes through the United States, the creator of the order in decline, and a reluctant participant in establishing the emerging one. Additionally, we have discussed that The Prince is suited to destroy, but not to rebuild, ensuring he does not have any chance to be remembered as the builder of the new order. The shapers are still to come.”

Nicco followed the line of reasoning and stated,

“It was like this in Rome. There, Julius Caesar completed the destruction of the Republic. The rebuilder of the new order, the Principate (the rule of the tyrants we call the Empire), was Octavianus Caesar Augustus, who accomplished this after a decade-long civil war. In the first stage, chaos increases, and in the second, it is reduced. Uncertainty rises in the first, certainty in the second. Between the two, everything changes, and when it is changing, data loses its usefulness because the past does not predict the future. The Bunker Buster has increased the level of uncertainty worldwide, and through this, it has, if not killed, at least limited the power of data to predict the future.

In fact, we are already living in this epoch. Data could not have predicted the most significant social and political transformations we are witnessing. It is obvious that the world order will change. Yet, neither the new order nor the people who will manage it can be predicted. Let's examine these two elements of our lives for the remainder of the 21st century, starting with the new elites.^[i]

THE NEW ELITES

“Many people view The Prince as a founding member of a new elite, which may include his family or MAGA. In reality, he belongs to the old elite, which developed alongside the growth of the domestic industrial market in the late nineteenth century, the largest in the world, and later rose to dominate the international industrial markets after World War II. Now, a completely different elite is emerging, one of which The Prince is not a part. Its members are competing against each other and governments to dominate the new world that will, if it materializes at all, arise from the ashes of the current one.

“Like all elites, especially those from the first Gilded Age (from the late 1870s to the turn of the twentieth century), this emerging elite is attempting to control both political and economic power. As we have argued several times, intertwining these two powers serves as a sufficient condition for the creation of absolutist regimes, regardless of how they are formed—either through the government acquiring economic power, as seen in communism, or large entrepreneurs gaining control of the government, as observed in Nazi fascism.^[ii] A member of the old elite, The Prince, is fulfilling two roles for the new elites: consolidating these two forms of power within the government and delivering the combined force to them, all while failing to realize that he is not the founder of a new order but the last manifestation of the old, as the new elite is global, whereas he is local, not even national.

“The power amassed by these elites seems to dictate the type of regime we will inherit. Currently, it appears that liberal democracy is losing its dominant position. Everything indicates that we will be governed by tyrants who have evolved from their global economic influence (the likes of Musk or Thiel) or by politicians who manipulate entrepreneurs like these (such as Putin or J.D. Vance, who may engage in mutual manipulation with Thiel). All of them are indeed globalists, even if they pretend otherwise. Even if they claim to be nationalists, they derive their power from their global businesses and gather to discuss policy with The Prince, or Putin, or Xi.

THE NEW ORDER

Nicco continued.

“Ironically, The Prince believes he is destroying “the globalists” in a hidden alliance with his hero, Vladimir Putin, thinking that the former are the liberal democrats and the latter is a true localist who, like Xi, would be eager to share world power with him by dividing the globe into three blocs, each commanded by one of them. The latter two (Putin and Xi) have conceived this idea and sold it to The Prince, who doesn’t realize that they have designed this multipolar world to include the United States only as bait to lure him, just as Hitler several times offered Britain the chance to split the world into two parts.”

Nicco assumed the posture of a professor of political science.

“If you want to seize total power from a hegemon, never tell him you plan to do so. Just tell him you want to share with him. England never fell for that bait, but The Prince seems to have, along with many others who genuinely believe that the world will be managed in three cooperating blocs. LOL!

In fact, perhaps not even The Prince believes this farce. He seems to think that he and his father figure, Vladimir Putin, will manage a unipolar world, united by mutual admiration—an admiration that Putin skillfully denies him, compelling him to strive for it by facilitating Putin's global control. Anxious for Putin’s approval, he does whatever Putin wants, experiencing some moments of spiteful rebound.

“Still, his predatory instincts lead him to try to get anything that could be valuable in any place of the world, be it Gaza as a good piece of land to develop a new Riviera but without Palestinians, mines in Ukraine, and the entirety of Canada and Greenland, or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear bombs production and maybe change of regime. Those are not goals of isolationists or people who would not invade the territory of faraway countries unless they believe the entire globe is theirs.”

Many people are wondering who will win the war between The Prince and Elon Musk. The latter may face short-term losses due to certain flaws, but in the long run, it appears that a global entrepreneur, likely someone like Peter Thiel, will prevail—not only because they possess significantly greater wealth, but also because their type of business naturally grants them enhanced political influence. Moreover, as we mentioned, most people believe that Thiel “owns” Vance, but he may just be pretending to be owned by Thiel for the time being.

Jack interrupted.

“Well, so much for The Prince’s contradictions, the multipolar world, and data. What we are facing is a fight for global power, not for a multipolar world. But, why do you say that data analysis is gone?”

DATA, RISK, AND UNCERTAINTY

Maynard intervened.

“The United States’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities signifies the death of data because it has reduced the data’s power to predict the future, at least in the way it has been used until today. The number and importance of uncertain over risky processes have increased as a result of this action.”

“What do you mean by this, Maynard? How different are these processes? How is a risk different from an uncertainty?”^[iii]

Risks

A risk can be defined as a complete data set describing the total number of possibilities that can arise from a current situation and their frequency. For example, you assess risk when trying to determine if a coin will land on heads or tails when you toss it into the air. Of all the things that could happen, you are interested in just one dimension of events: which side will be up? The risk of making an incorrect prediction (saying it will be heads and it falls with tails upward) is fifty percent. It's very easy to calculate. You throw the coin a thousand times and observe that it falls heads up about fifty percent of the time. Thus, when you throw it once more, you are facing a fifty percent chance.

“Calculations like this can help you make critical predictions. For example, you can estimate a society’s mortality rate under normal conditions and, from it, the risk that a normal individual will die within a particular year. This will allow you to estimate the risk premium that will cover your risk if you provide her with a life insurance policy.

“Uncertainty is quite different.

Uncertainty

“You face uncertainty when you can’t access a complete data set that describes the total number of possibilities arising from a current situation and their frequency, as in predicting what will happen between the moment you toss the coin in the air and its fall to the floor. For example, someone within striking distance might shoot the coin into the air, or use the coin as a reference to shoot you, or a car may run over you because you were distracted by the coin, or a bomb thrown by Putin could explode in your vicinity, or somebody might catch the coin and escape with it, or…

“The likelihood of any of these or similar events occurring is very low in a stable world order but may be much higher in an unstable or nonexistent one. For instance, getting shot for tossing a coin under the moonlight could have been quite probable in the trenches of World War I. Historic tables became useless for estimating mortality rates during the German bombings of London in 1941 or during the firestorm caused in Hamburg by Allied bombings.

“The methods for managing risks and uncertainties are quite different. If you are a life insurance company, you manage risks by adjusting the premiums you collect from individual customers. To manage uncertainties, you eliminate your coverage of risks you cannot estimate. You say that you don’t cover fatalities caused by war.

“The same difference applies to the operations of governments and enterprises of any kind (including families, clubs and individuals). Data enables you to identify opportunities and potential losses in a stable environment. Yet, when the environment is no longer stable or some event has created a break in history, data is useless because the past does not project into the future.

“This is not occurring only at the edges of our reality. It is taking place in every area that influences the operations of millions of enterprises—economic, political, social, military, technological, etc. The interplay of these dimensions makes it virtually impossible to use data in the traditional probabilistic manner.

“What level of confidence can you have when estimating GDP growth, financial market prices, or unemployment levels after the Bunker Buster was dropped in Iran? How much will the unpredictable tariffs affect the sales of a new plant you are planning? Should you cancel the opening of a new branch in a new market?

“This could lead to inaction, but that would be a mistake, as in many cases, you will need to invest to mitigate risks or to ensure the survival of your enterprise. You will need to anticipate the future, albeit through different methods.

“Therefore, the complex art of forecasting the future must transition from estimating probabilities to identifying trends and narratives to develop strategies that leverage potential opportunities or mitigate threats, all without succumbing to a false sense of accuracy—much like designing a fortress without knowing how an enemy will attack it or a car without knowing what road it will take, only its quality.

“This will serve as valuable training for designing the new version of liberal democracy that we will need, despite not knowing the enemies it will provoke. This is what the Founding Fathers did.”

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Manuel Hinds is a Fellow at The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University. He shared the Manhattan Institute's 2010 Hayek Prize. He has worked in 35 countries as a division chief and then as a consultant to the World Bank. He was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. His website is manuelhinds.com

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^[i] Manuel Hinds, The New Elites: MAGA or Techno Billionaires, Substack, December 8, 2024, https://manuelhinds.substack.com/p/the-mutants

^[ii] Manuel Hinds, The Triumph of the Flexible Society, Praeger, 2003.

^[iii] For more on the difference between risk and uncertainty, see John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Probability, Macmillan and Co. Ltd, St. Martin’s Street, London, 1921Guttemberg Project, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32625/32625-pdf.pdf