In a world rapidly churning out unpredictable political shocks, intelligence analysts occasionally need to clear their heads of the daily barrage of newsworthy events and instead work with simple theories that discern the direction and speed of trends and help predict their outcomes. Political demography, the study of population age structures and their relationships to political trends and events, has helped some analysts predict geopolitical changes in a world that, from time to time, appears utterly chaotic.

More than 40 years ago, the Soviet Union attempted to harness hydropower to modernize Afghanistan. Between 1960 and 1968, they poured money and technical knowledge into the 100-meter Naghlu gravity dam outside Kabul and a village for its workers called Sharnak. Although the town has been damaged and the boons of modernity remain elusive for many Afghans, the dam remains a crucial source of power for the capital and is the largest power plant in the country with an installed capacity of 100 megawatts.