Full record
MissgeopoliticsThe New START strategic arms-reduction treaty will not be renewed/extended by either the US or Russia and will lapse.
A scored prediction by Peter Zeihan, made on .
Scored prediction
Missgeopolitics“The last one, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first one, START, is in its final throes right now. It is unlikely to be renewed by either side.”
The New START strategic arms-reduction treaty will not be renewed/extended by either the US or Russia and will lapse.
- Made on
- 2020-09-30
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Effect on score
- -1.12
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2021-02-03
New START is not renewed/extended and lapses without a successor; checkable against treaty status.
Cleanly checkable against treaty status. The treaty was extended (not lapsed) on 2021-02-03 — outcome is unambiguous AGAINST the claim ('unlikely to be renewed'). The statement was made 2020-09-30 (Video Dispatch II), BEFORE the Feb-2021 extension, so this was a genuine forward-looking prediction that turned out wrong — not a restatement of already-public fact.
Sources
Video Dispatch II: 9/30/2020
YouTube ·
Evidence of what happened
On February 3, 2021, the US and Russia completed the formal exchange of documents extending New START for five years (until February 5, 2026). The Russian State Duma ratified the extension on Jan 27, 2021; Secretary of State Blinken announced US agreement on Feb 3, 2021. The treaty was renewed/extended and did NOT lapse — directly contradicting the written criterion. Note: the extension occurred months BEFORE this record's stated made_on date of 2021-09-15, so the predicted outcome was already publicly settled when the claim was logged.
US Department of State official treaty page confirming New START remained in force, extended through February 5, 2026.
Washington Post (Feb 3, 2021): 'United States extends nuclear treaty with Russia for five years,' corroborating the extension well before the March 15, 2022 deadline.
Corrections
- Date: 2021-09-15 is the YouTube re-upload date; statement made 2020-09-30 (title 'Video Dispatch II: 9/30/2020'; pre-Nov-2020-election content).
- horizon deadline: Recompute the imminent (+3mo) horizon from the corrected made_on 2020-09-30.
- Prediction timeframe: Anchor the same rule to the corrected utterance date.
- resolution notes: Remove the factually incorrect 'already public knowledge at made_on' framing, which depended on the wrong re-upload date; the corrected timeline shows a real wrong prediction.
Effect on the score
-1.12- How sure they sounded
- 80%
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 4 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
The New START strategic arms-reduction treaty will not be r…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 2, 2026
- Made on
- 2020-09-30
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources