Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a political scientist and professor at New York University who uses game theory and rational choice theory to calculate the mathematical probability of future global events and their outcomes. His predictions have had remarkably specific and accurate. Some call him the ‘New Nostradamus’. Read about him and his three predictions about Iran. also see photos and a video of his lecture on Iran.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Not everyone is sold on the theories of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. While there are many who believe he’s the New Nostradamus, there are many others who thinks he’s a quack. He has spent over 25 years perfecting a computer model that he claims can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate. Evaluations by academics and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) have shown his predictions to have a 90 percent accuracy rate.

He recently explained his system at the TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design). This conference gives a forum for the world’s leading thinkers. In addition to explaining how he predicts war and political power shifts Mesquita had three predictions having to do with the future of Iran. The details of his study of options for negotiations with Iran are classified, however, he states that there is nothing the United States can do to prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear energy for civilian power generation. His assessment is that they are more likely to use nuclear weapons against other countries (the United States and Israel in particular), if they are dealt with aggressively. Since the documents are classified, Mesquita will only say that the international community needs to find a way to monitor Iran’s civilian nuclear energy projects thoroughly enough that we can ensure they aren’t developing nuclear weapons. (Good luck with that!).

Here are some of Bueno de Mesquita’s most controversial predictions that turned out to be accurate.

Forecasted the second Intifada and the death of the Mideast peace process, two years before it happened.

Defied Russia specialists by predicting who would succeed Brezhnev. “The model identified Andropov, who nobody at the time even considered a possibility,” he says.

Predicted that Daniel Ortega and the Sandanistas would be voted out of office in Nicaragua, two years before it happened.

Four months before Tiananmen Square, said China’s hardliners would crack down harshly on dissidents.

Predicted France’s hair’s-breadth passage of the European Union’s Maastricht Treaty.

Predicted the exact implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between Britain and the IRA.

Predicted China’s reclaiming of Hong Kong and the exact manner the handover would take place, 12 years before it happened.

The question seems to be, can human interactions and the actions of states be boiled down to a mathematical formula? The main stream of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s peers who don’t ascribe to his theories contend that game play theory and rational choice don’t allow for creativity and free will. In fact, they rail against the ‘mathematicization of political science’.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita received his B.A. degree in 1967 from Queens College, City University of New York; his M.A. degree in political science in 1968 from the University of Michigan; and his Ph.D. degree in political science in 1971 from the University of Michigan. In 1999, Bueno de Mesquita received an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

He has written numerous books and publications, has received many honors, awards and recognition for his work in mathematics and political science.

Mesquita is a specialist in foreign policy, international relations and state building. He is a leading scholar of rational choice theory. He has developed a computer model based on this theory in which every motive is assigned a number. In this theory, math underlies the nation-scale consequences of individuals acting for their personal benefit. His computer model uses the assigned numbers to motivations to predict future events and outcomes with uncanny accuracy.

He is a professor at New York University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His private company, Mesquita & Roundell, sells his predictions and analysis to government and private institutions.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita – Photos