Dispatch from The Front Line: If it keeps on raining, the levee is going to break

On cascading failures, worst-case scenarios, and whether NATO's failure in Afghanistan encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine

Hello Line readers, 

Are you having fun, yet? No. Ok, that’s fine; buckle up and sit down for another over-long, profanity-laden Friday dispatch because it's been A Week. 

We want to start today's missive by talking a little about cascading failure, or cascading collapse. If you are familiar with the intricacies of network analysis, or computing, or biolo…