Reaffirming my forecast.

The question is stated as delivery of a "S-300 or S-400 missile system." A "system" requires all the major operational components to be delivered (search radar, targeting radar, missile launcher, command post, etc.). Regarding hiding the system, while I agree that generally you don't want to give away the exact location of your military assets, it is important to credibly signal your enemies if you expect to deter them. Most of the Iranian comments to this point are probably inward directed, to create a sense of strength in the aftermath of the nuclear deal with the West. Outward directed statements (to Israel) will come when the system is actually functioning.

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jeremylichtman
made a comment:

@cmeinel My gut feeling is that GJ.com simply doesn't have access (right now) to the resources at IARPA that produced high quality questions and high validity resolutions for GJP (whoever was doing those jobs had effectively infinite resources at their command). I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to recreate that relationship, given how well it worked.

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Inactive-43
made a comment:

Note to everyone: out of respect for CIA folks who risk their lives abroad: they are not "agents" as described in the header for the Geopoltical Challenge. They are operatives. There is nothing like having a pair of them and a jeep show up within minutes of a mob trying to burn down your hotel to impress a person with what they do. I feel that I owe them big time. The ones who work in an office analyzing information are analysts. They save lives, too, and they always have depended in part on information provided by people who sift through open source info. See the CIA's Open Source Center, for example. The more we could do for them via open source, the more time these people have to do what is essential. Contact me via Twitter @cmeinel if you believe you might have something to contribute to CREATE.

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Inactive-102
made a comment:

@cmeinel, some items:

1. Nice Wolf of Wall Street clip! Full disclosure and boast: One of the characters portrayed in that movie, a shoe salesman who did well, had his daughter in my son's fancy private school kindergarten a few years ago when I was trying to keep up with the Manhattan uppercrust. The cagey old crook never said Hi next to the cubbies when he was dropping his daughter off. His wife, his former secretary, was marginally more friendly.

2. I think CIA prefers the term "officer" for their employees, and "agent" for anybody taking the bait, which may have included Saddam Hussein [1] and Osama (or "Usama" depending on if you work for the Gummint) BL. [2] I don't know about the term "operative", which could apply well to contractors, of which there are many, such as the choir boys at Academi (formerly Xe Services (formely Blackwater)). [6]

3. The jeep scene. Yes, I saw that scene in Season 4 (of Homeland, not GJP) Episode 1. [3] Although caveats. [4][5]

@jeremylichtman, one item: It is not clear that in Season 4 (of GJP), IARPA had any direct input into the questions or the resolution. They could simply have been observers. Since the whole process was extremely public (participants from many countries with relatively uncontrolled/unverified identities), it makes sense to have the working spooks out of the loop. Otherwise you are compromising a mental map of US concerns to pretty much everybody. That especially holds for GJOpen: My blog, for example, has readers from 21 countries including 2 with moons on their flags (Pakistan and Turkey), and several behind the Iron Curtain (Estonia, Romania, and Bulgaria). (Note to everybody: Start a Wordpress blog and hook it to your Blog button. It's easy!) So my claim is that one single very clever, well read and highly educated person made up the questions and did all the judging. Maybe someone from GJP can enlighten us on this point. @kmcochran or @GJDrew, care to shed some light?

[1] http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/Saddam's_Hidden_History.html
[2] http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/07/former-fbi-translator-bin-laden-worked-for-u-s-right-up-until-911.html
[3] https://youtu.be/qSWtIT0ssmI?t=6s
[4] http://www.thenational.ae/business/the-life/homelands-portrayal-of-lebanon-is-damagingly-misleading
[5] http://www.hebaamin.com/arabian-street-artists-bomb-homeland-why-we-hacked-an-award-winning-series/
[6] https://www.academi.com/

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jeremylichtman
made a comment:

@000 Yeah, I would like to know who was doing questions and answers for Season 4.

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Inactive-43
made a comment:

@000 I'm not talking about a jeep scene from some TV show. I'm talking real life, example, personal experience, New Delhi, Nov. 1966. There are thousands of U.S. citizens who can thank these courageous operatives for their rescues, decade after decade.
@jeremylichtman: In GJP 1 and 2, IARPA posed the questions and vetted the resolutions. I know this both from reading GJP literature, news stories and interviews with key players. GJP3,4 provided questions based upon a team they recruited, as publicized in their blog. I know that IARPA had final say on question resolution because I was in an experimental cohort where we received alerts that they were waiting to either score or reopen a question on the basis of feedback from IARPA.

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jeremylichtman
made a comment:

@cmeinel I was consistently amazed at their choice of question options (as in: how did they know that 'x' and 'y' would be the relevant numbers), and in how they were able to close some of them.

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Inactive-102
made a comment:

Excluding South Stream which would have been closed as "Yes" last year based on the standards used to close this question.

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Heffalump
made a comment:

@000 and don't forget my favorite, Russians in Ukraine...

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redacted
made a comment:

Iran to Drop Lawsuit against Russia before S-300 Missile Supply: Report
http://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2015/12/22/949948/iran-to-drop-lawsuit-against-russia-before-s-300-missile-supply-report

The implication of this article is that the system has still not been delivered.

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Inactive-136
made a comment:

The resolution sure looks very premature now:

http://tass.ru/en/defense/846876
"The deliveries of Russian S-300PMU-2 air defense systems to Iran will begin in January, a source in the military and technical cooperation system told TASS on Friday.

"It is planned to begin the process of delivery of the first regiment of the S-300PMU-2 air defense systems in January and to complete it in February. Iran is due to receive the second regiment of these systems in August or September 2016," the source said.

"Russia will thus fulfill its obligations to supply the S-300PMU-2 air defense systems to Iran," he added.

According to the source, about 80 Iranian specialists will be trained to use the S-300 missile systems (NATO reporting name SA-10 Grumble) at the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy.

"About 80 military specialists from Iran in January, 2016 will begin a training to use S-300 at the training centers of the Mozhaisky Academy," the source said. "The training program will be four months long. Its cost is a part of the contract. After the course, supposedly in May, the Iranians will return home.

In September the parties signed an additional agreement to the contract on the S-300 air defense systems, the source recalled. The first batch of the S-300PMU-2 systems under the contract — one regimental set — was immediately sent to the Kapustin Yar range. Currently these systems are completing tests there to confirm their stated specifications. Then they will arrive at the port of shipment in the Russian part of the Caspian Sea from where they will be delivered to Iran by maritime transport," the source said."

Happy Festivus, fellow forecasters!

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