In earlier centuries kings and governments employed astrologists to help them take the best decisions. Present-day governments no longer employ astrologists but still have no clear analytical tool to replace them. Over the past two decades we have developed a methodology for the scientific investigation of recurrent historical events. It consists in two steps. (i) Identification and comparison of historical episodes driven by a common mechanism. (ii) Under the reasonable assumption that what has happened several times in the past is likely to happen again, one then derives testable predictions. This of course is nothing other than the protocol used in experimental science when exploring new phenomena. We believe such a tool can give decision makers much better insight ...