Entropy:

I think we are back to an old conversation.

Tracking raw numbers like population changes, migration pressures, poverty indexes, political/administrative boundary disputes, and political instability provides great ballpark markers for "hot spots."

Hot spots should trigger further analysis and monitoring both for tipping points and triggers (often non quantitative like the vegetable vendor setting himself afire in Algeria), and tracking (How are the new regimes in Libya, Egypt aligning with the "will of the people" driving changes.

But all of this presumes we have a robust and systematic analytical core for essentially Worldwide Monitoring (which we do not), and that that core has effective participation, resources and profile in the feedback loops.

Potentials for instability do not always trigger actual threats, so who decides how to target limited resources?

Personally, I monitor the limited news scrawls of economic, trade and business news in Iraq for indications of whether actual stability is returning to the population as a whole versus the political theatre which, in part, has many old actors playing out old themes.

IMHO, public political instability is often not a threat so much as an exercise in threat diffusion (surfacing of grievances).

Stability, in many ways and areas, can be monitored through the nature and content of vehicle flows as a proxy for broad trade patterns, underlying cross-regional and cross-national linkages, and population success (prosperity, willingness to overcome obstacles).

Stability, in many ways and places, is driven by the integrity of land tenure for a permanent population (and thus economic rights and commitments to an area), for which population tracking is key.

To my knowledge, this stuff is just to esoteric, and not being done.