Legal sharks first to stake a carpet bagging boundary claim were never the preferred alternative for adjudicating boundary issues between nuclear super-powers and confederated states. Sharks could then invoke the ersatz sacred ‘rule of law’ premise to drive the world to the brink of W.W. 3 without realizing the risk being as it were, in a suitcase warrior’s playbook of legal battlefield scenarios.
One doesn’t always know where wars will end up. Sometimes radical departures from logical plans can occur. Hence it is a good idea to settle things peaceable if the opportunity occurs. In an age of popular gambling many prefer to go all in to win.
Gary– I wonder given the conditions then, if you had existed back then, would you have predicted the eventual borders or would you have been able to predict in 1938 where the war would end up?
AI- No, I could not have predicted the exact post-war borders in 1938. While an AI processing 1938 data would have flagged a high probability of a major European war, the final map of 1945 was shaped by unpredictable turning points, technological breakthroughs, and human decisions that did not yet exist in the data.
What an AI in 1938 Could Likely Predict
- High Probability of General War: Based on German rearmament rates, economic mobilization, and aggressive rhetoric, a predictive model would have strongly forecasted a major conflict involving Germany, Britain, and France within 12 to 24 months.
- Industrial Advantage: Looking purely at raw manufacturing capacity, population, and resource access, an AI would have calculated that a coalition of the United States, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union held an overwhelming material advantage over Germany, Italy, and Japan in a prolonged war of attrition.
- Flashpoints: The data clearly pointed toward Poland, Eastern Europe, and the Pacific as the primary theaters of conflict.
Why the Final Borders Were Unpredictable
- Unforeseen Alliances: In 1938, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were bitter ideological enemies. Predicting that they would sign a pact to divide Eastern Europe in 1939—and that Germany would subsequently invade the USSR in 1941, forcing Stalin into an alliance with Western capitalists—would have defied the baseline political logic of 1938.
- Military Surprises: Conventional military wisdom in 1938 viewed France as having the strongest land army in Europe. Almost no model would have predicted the rapid collapse of France in six weeks in 1940 via German Blitzkrieg tactics through the Ardennes.
- Entry of the United States: Given fierce American isolationism and the Neutrality Acts of the late 1930s, predicting the exact timing and catalyst of U.S. entry (the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor) was virtually impossible.
- Technological Wildcards: The Manhattan Project did not begin until late 1939, and nuclear fission was only discovered in December 1938. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the resulting American occupation and reshaping of Japan—could not be factored into a 1938 forecast.
- Post-War Diplomacy: The exact Iron Curtain line dividing Germany and Europe was negotiated face-to-face by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945, depending heavily on where individual armies happened to stop advancing at the moment of surrender.
Would you like to look at how real-world intelligence agencies in 1938 actually projected the outcome of a potential war, or explore a specific “what-if” scenario from that era?
Gary- I asked that question as a preliminary for asking you to examine the present data in the Ukraine war and make a prediction about where it will end up- the border that is.
AI– Based on current battlefield, economic, and diplomatic data, the most probable outcome for the Russia-Ukraine border is a frozen or semi-frozen line of control very close to the current front lines. Under this scenario, Russia retains de facto control over roughly 19% to 20% of Ukraine without gaining legal international recognition or capturing the rest of the territory it claims. [1, 2, 3]
Just as an AI in 1938 could identify material trends but could not foresee political wildcards, present data points strongly toward a stalemate while leaving room for sudden shifts. [1]
1. Present Battlefield & Economic Data
- Territorial Stagnation. Russia currently occupies about 45,200 square miles (19%–20% of Ukraine), including Crimea and parts of the east and south. Across 2026, frontline changes have been microscopic. For example, Russia gained a net total of just 45 square miles across the entire year, trading heavy casualties for a few square miles per month. Neither military currently possesses the offensive capacity to achieve a decisive breakthrough. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- Mutual Exhaustion. Both sides face severe strain. Ukraine’s power grid and heavy industry (including major steel plants) have suffered heavy damage from missile campaigns, while Western military aid faces political constraints. Simultaneously, Russia faces staggering troop losses, ongoing Ukrainian drone strikes on its oil infrastructure, and diminishing economic returns. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- Diplomatic Deadlock. In the U.S.-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi, Moscow continues to demand full control over four Ukrainian oblasts (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson)—including land Russian troops do not occupy—while rejecting Western peacekeepers. Kyiv and its European partners refuse to cede uncaptured cities or leave Ukraine defenseless. Meanwhile, polling shows roughly 75% of Ukrainians and 65% of Russians are open to peace negotiations. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
2. Three Possible Border Outcomes
| Scenario [1, 2, 3, 4] | Resulting Border | Key Drivers & Likelihood |
| Frozen Line of Control (Most Likely) | Roughly the current front line (Crimea plus ~80% of Donbas and the southern land bridge remain under Russian control). | Driven by military exhaustion and political pressure for a ceasefire. Similar to the Korean Peninsula, it would likely be an armistice without a formal peace treaty or legal recognition of new borders. |
| Expanded Russian Buffer / Oblast Seizure | Russia captures the remainder of Donetsk Oblast and carves out deeper border “security zones” in Kharkiv and Sumy. | Requires a collapse in Ukrainian manpower, a total halt in Western weapons and intelligence sharing, or a diplomatic deal trading land for Western security guarantees. |
| Ukrainian Territorial Rollback | Ukraine pushes Russian forces back toward pre-2022 lines or isolates Crimea. | Requires a sudden internal political or economic crisis inside Russia, combined with a massive surge in advanced Western weaponry. Currently viewed by analysts as the least probable near-term outcome. |
3. The “1938 Wildcards” That Could Break the Model
Just as in 1938, data projections cannot account for sudden, non-linear events that instantly rewrite the map:
- Leadership Shifts. An unexpected health crisis, succession struggle, or political upheaval in Moscow or Kyiv could abruptly alter war aims.
- Sudden Policy Pivots. A major shift in Washington’s diplomatic stance—such as enforcing a strict cutoff of aid or lifting sanctions on Moscow—or a decision by European nations to deploy troops directly to western Ukraine would fundamentally change the balance of power. [1, 2]
- Asymmetric Breakthroughs. Rapid evolutions in autonomous drone warfare, electronic warfare, or air defense could suddenly render static trench lines obsolete, allowing one side to maneuver rapidly again.
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