In action movies, "don't look back" may be good advice, but it doesn't fly here at Stratfor. As a geopolitical strategic forecasting company, we naturally spend a lot of our time looking forward, using our analytical framework to tell readers and clients what really matters in the long run. After all, our company was founded on the idea that with an advanced understanding of geopolitics and the employment of empathetic analysis (by which we envision what it may feel like to be in a world leader's shoes), we can anticipate the path that major global trends will follow. But for us to write intelligently about the future, it's just as important that we look at the past -- especially our own past performance....