---
title: "What the Data Showed 72 Hours Before a Geopolitical Shock"
description: "A reusable 72-hour retro template for investigating whether signals were visible before a chokepoint, conflict, market, cyber, or humanitarian event escalated."
metaTitle: "72-Hour Geopolitical Event Retro Template | WorldMonitor"
keywords: "geopolitical event retro, intelligence after action review, 72 hour crisis analysis, early warning template, OSINT workflow"
audience: "Analysts, risk teams, OSINT researchers, security leads, editorial teams"
heroImage: "/blog/og/72-hour-geopolitical-event-retro-template-worldmonitor.png"
pubDate: "2026-06-13"
---

After a major geopolitical shock, the same question always appears:

> Could we have seen this coming?

Sometimes the honest answer is no. Sometimes the warning signs were there but scattered across shipping, news, market, advisory, cyber, or conflict signals. Sometimes the data was visible, but the team had no repeatable way to turn weak signals into an escalation discussion.

This guide is a reusable 72-hour retro template for answering that question after the fact. Use it for a maritime disruption, conflict escalation, cyber incident, market shock, humanitarian crisis, or infrastructure outage.

It is deliberately framed as a template, not a claim that every event has a clean early-warning trail. Retros should reduce hindsight bias, not manufacture certainty.

## The goal of a 72-hour retro

A good retro answers four questions:

1. What changed in the 72 hours before the event?
2. Which signals were visible before the main headline?
3. Which signals were noisy, stale, missing, or misleading?
4. What monitoring rule should change for next time?

The final output should be short enough for a team to reuse: a timeline, evidence table, missed-signal notes, and updated trigger rules.

The goal is not to prove that the team "should have known." The goal is to improve the next watchlist.

## Step 1: define the event boundary

Start by defining the event clearly.

Bad boundary:

> "The Hormuz crisis."

Better boundary:

> "At 09:00 UTC on June 10, the team decided to treat Hormuz as a critical shipping-risk event because tanker traffic, advisories, and conflict context crossed the escalation threshold."

The boundary needs a time, a decision, and a reason. Without that, every signal can be backfilled into the story.

For WorldMonitor data, possible event boundaries include:

- chokepoint score crossing red
- forecast probability crossing a review threshold
- travel advisory level changing
- disease alert entering ALERT or WARNING
- market implications creating a high-confidence hedge or long/short note
- cyber or internet-outage signal appearing near a watched geography
- displacement or humanitarian summary changing materially

## Step 2: build the T-72 to T+0 timeline

Create four bins:

| Window | Purpose |
|---|---|
| T-72 to T-48 | Baseline and weak signals |
| T-48 to T-24 | Confirmation or contradiction |
| T-24 to T-0 | Escalation and decision pressure |
| T+0 to T+24 | Immediate aftermath and model review |

For each bin, record only what was visible at the time. Do not add sources that were published later. Do not use revised narratives as if they were contemporaneous.

Useful fields:

- timestamp
- signal type
- source or panel
- observed value or qualitative note
- freshness
- analyst interpretation at the time
- whether the signal confirmed, contradicted, or had no bearing on the eventual event

This is where source freshness matters. A stale "no warning" feed is not the same as a fresh calm feed.

## Step 3: separate signal families

Do not mix every observation into one timeline without labels. Separate signal families first, then compare them.

For a chokepoint or supply-chain event:

- chokepoint status and flow
- navigational warnings
- AIS or vessel anomalies
- freight and commodity prices
- conflict and military context
- scenario template relevance
- country and route exposure

For a humanitarian event:

- conflict and humanitarian summaries
- displacement flows
- disease outbreaks
- natural disasters
- advisories
- logistics and access conditions
- country resilience and instability context

For a market event:

- event headlines
- market radar
- commodities and rates
- prediction markets
- forecast changes
- stablecoin or liquidity stress
- central-bank and macro context

The purpose is to avoid one dominant narrative. A conflict headline may be loud, but the early market signal might have been in freight. A disease alert may be visible, but the operational trigger might be a road or advisory change.

## Step 4: score evidence quality

Use a simple three-point evidence score:

| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | Interesting but isolated |
| 2 | Confirmed by another signal family or fresh source |
| 3 | Actionable because it crossed a pre-defined threshold |

This keeps the retro honest. A weak signal can be useful without becoming "obvious in hindsight."

If the team did not have a pre-defined threshold before the event, say so. The output can be a new threshold for next time.

## Step 5: write the missed-signal section

Missed signals usually fall into one of five categories:

- The signal was not monitored.
- The signal was monitored but stale.
- The signal was visible but not escalated.
- The signal was escalated but contradicted by another source.
- The signal was visible only after the event.

Each category produces a different fix. Adding a dashboard does not solve a stale feed. A new threshold does not solve a missing source. A better handoff does not solve a genuinely unavailable signal.

## A compact retro template

Copy this structure:

```text
Event:
Decision time:
Operational decision:
Watchlist affected:

T-72 baseline:
T-48 signal changes:
T-24 escalation:
T+0 event:
T+24 aftermath:

Top confirming signals:
Top contradictory signals:
Stale or missing sources:
What we would escalate next time:
New threshold:
Owner:
Next review date:
```

Keep the final document short. The point is to update the monitoring system, not create a museum piece.

For the pre-event side of this workflow, pair the retro with the [supply-chain scenario engine](/blog/posts/stress-test-supply-chain-scenario-engine-worldmonitor/) and the [country risk monitoring workflow](/blog/posts/country-risk-monitoring-workflow-for-analysts/).

## Source transparency

WorldMonitor can support retros through chokepoint status, Scenario Engine templates, country risk, forecasts, market implications, disease and disaster panels, displacement summaries, security advisories, and news context. But the retro owner still needs to record which data was actually visible at the time.

Retros become dangerous when they turn hindsight into certainty. The better habit is humility: what was visible, what was missing, what was stale, and what threshold will make the next review less subjective?

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Why 72 hours?**

It is long enough to catch weak signals before many crises and short enough to keep the review operational. For slow policy or sanctions changes, use a 30-day retro instead.

**Should every event get a retro?**

No. Reserve retros for decisions that mattered: field movement, market exposure, route changes, executive briefings, or missed alerts.

**What if there were no early signals?**

Say that. A useful retro can conclude that the event was not reasonably visible from monitored sources, then identify whether new sources would have helped.

---

**A 72-hour retro should make the next decision cleaner, not make the last one look obvious.**
