The Calm Before the Storm.

The article discusses the relationship between volatility and stability in political and economic systems, focusing on how volatility and stability can be used to help predict one another as well as how they can help understand how a system would react to change. Other topics of the article include information on markers of a fragile state including centralization of government, no economic diversity, and lack of political variability, examples of volatility and stability in countries including Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and speculation on the fragility of countries including Egypt, Russia, and China.