This analysis explores the potential outcomes of a US-Iran war by examining three critical questions: the likelihood of a US ground invasion, the possibility of nuclear weapon use, and the fate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It argues that understanding these dynamics requires applying game theory and the concept of "escalation control" over "escalation dominance."
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We continue our analysis of the US Iran war.
war.
And in this war, there are three major questions
questions
that will determine the outcome of this war
war
as well as the world afterwards. Okay,
these three questions are number one.
Will the US launch a ground invasion?
So right now the United States and issue
are primarily focused on a air war
striking um Iran from a distance. In the
past, we'd call this siege warfare.
And as long as it remains an air war,
the United States can choose to
de-escalate and withdraw from the Middle
East. They would lose this war,
but the loss would not be catastrophic.
Whereas if they choose to
launch a ground invasion,
it would escalate very quickly
and they would be trapped in Iran for
the next 5 to 10 years. It would be a
catastrophe whether or not they win or
lose. Because in order to fight a ground war,
war,
the United States would have to
institute a national draft where young man
man um
um
as young as 18 would be forced to join
the army and be sent to fight in Iran.
Okay? So that's the first big question
for us. Will the United States send in
ground troops? Remember, this there's
the idea of mission creep where maybe in
the beginning you're like, "I'll send in
a thousand
troops to do a small mission."
But then it doesn't go well, so you send
in 2,000. Okay? It slowly creeps up.
It's all called mission creep. That's
how the United States embroiled itself
in Vietnam.
All right, so that's the first big
question. Second big question is will
There's a lot of concern
online that Israel is preparing a
nuclear strike on Iran because Israelis
don't like how the war how how the war
is going and they want to reclaim the initiative.
initiative.
Nukes are a taboo in geopolitics.
The Americans used them at the end of
World War II and no one's used them ever since.
since.
If Israel were to use tactical nuclear
weapons, they would break this universal
taboo and we might find ourselves in a
nuclear apocalypse, okay? So, that's a
great concern that everyone has right
now. And the third question is the
Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This is the third holiest site
in the Islamic world. There's Mecca,
there's Medina, and there's the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Mosque.
The The Muslims believe that it is from
the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem where
Muhammad ascended to heaven.
And the Jews believe that the Al-Aqsa
Mosque sits on the site of their
temple, which is the house of God. So,
religious Jews, extremists, want to
destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque to rebuild
And if the religious Jews, the
extremists, destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque,
then the 2 billion Muslims in this world
would be religiously obligated to go to
war against Israel.
Okay? So, these are the three big questions
questions
that um
uh will determine how this war will
determine the future of the world. Okay.
Okay.
So, um in this class, I teach you game
theory to make predictions about the future.
future.
So, right now I'm going to make three predictions.
predictions. Um
Um
and then I'm I will show you my analysis
as to how I make these predictions,
okay? Now, what's what's important to
understand is that these are only my
guesses based on my analysis.
And whether or not they turn out to be
correct will determine the validity of
my analysis. >> [snorts]
>> [snorts]
>> I don't have inside information. I don't
know more than you do, okay? I'm just
working out of public knowledge and
doing game theory analysis. So,
according to game theory, this is yes.
The United States will send in ground
troops. According to game theory, this
is no.
And number three is yes. Okay?
Okay?
So, what I'm going to do is spend the
next two classes explaining to you my
game theory analysis as to how I come to
these conclusions.
And we can watch how world events
unfold. Now, I want you to understand
something, which is that for my theory
to be valid,
for my analysis to be valid, I have to
be I have to be correct on all three,
okay? If I miss one,
then all my theory is wrong. Um
Um
I know there's a lot of concern
from around the world that nukes will be
used. And I am 100% confident that nukes
will not be used at this time in this war.
war.
And if I'm wrong, I apologize to the
world, okay?
But at the same time, we'll all be dead
anyway. So, it doesn't really matter,
right? Okay. All right. So,
So,
let me explain my analysis, okay? So,
remember, today what I'm going to do is
do number one and number two, explain to
you why Israel will not use nuclear
weapons, and why theory, there'll be a
ground invasion. And then next class,
I'll explain number three to you, okay?
That's a plan for this week. >> [clears throat]
>> [clears throat]
>> All right.
So, to understand what's going on,
I need to I need to teach some basic
geopolitical theory, okay?
So, in military
um affairs and geopolitics, there's a
concept called escalation ladder.
And
the dominant theory is that whoever has
escalation dominance
has the most advantage.
Okay, so So, what this means is let's
just say you and I get in a fight, okay?
I have a knife, you have a gun. Well,
gun is more dominant than a knife.
Therefore, you have a greater advantage
over me, and therefore you should win in
theory, okay?
And applied to this war in the Middle
East, Israel and the United States have
escalation dominance because they have
nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't.
Therefore, the United States and Israel
have a huge advantage
over Iran.
Okay? But, what I will show you today is
that this theory is incorrect. It
actually doesn't work that way.
Right? So, let's start off with a very simple
simple um
um
example. Let us say that two people get
into a fight, okay? A and B. >> [applause]
>> [applause]
>> And how the escalation ladder will work
is that maybe A and B run into each
other, okay? And then A says, "Hey, man,
say sorry." And then B is like, "It's
not my fault. You say
um sorry, okay?" So, there's a conflict.
And it's usually a very small conflict.
No one knows uh
uh
why, and no one knows who's who's at
fault, okay? So, they start cursing each
other, okay? So, the first step is a
conflict. Second step is they start
cursing each other, right? Screw you.
Screw you.
And then they might start pushing each
other, right? Push.
Push. Push.
Push.
And then they
hit each other, okay? Punch.
Punch. And then they start the fight.
And then one pulls out a knife,
and the other pulls out a gun.
All right? And then B shoots dead A.
Fight over, right? Okay.
Okay.
So, there are certain things that we
need to keep in mind about this example.
First of all, the fight is not contained
in itself, okay? You cannot perceive
this game as just one between A and B,
who's physically stronger.
There are other players involved as
well, okay? So, for example, there are
There's a crowd watching you, okay?
This is important because there's also
the police, right? Eventually, the
police will come,
um the government, and they'll ask
people, "Hey, what happened, man? Whose
fault was it?" Right?
And also, for people who are religious,
there's also God, right? If you die, you
have to go up to God heaven, and God's
going to ask you, "Hey, man, how did you die?"
die?"
So, you have to explain
how you died.
All right? So, in other words, in this
escalation ladder, there's three factors
that you have to consider that drive
people up this escalation ladder. These
Second
is power,
And the third is reason, or logic.
Okay? And what drives people up is adrenaline.
adrenaline.
In other words, it is impossible to go
to skip the escalation ladder, right?
You don't go from like, "Hey, screw
you." to like the guy pulling out a gun
and shooting you, okay?
You have to go up step by step by step,
because adrenaline is rushing in your
system. And this adrenaline, it's making
you more angry, but it's also making you
stronger and more resolved. And it's
also telling you
how to fight this battle, okay?
And the thing to remember about this is
this is really important is that
it's not about how fast you climb up the
escalation ladder, okay? If you get too
angry and you overreact,
then you are at fault, right?
What you want to do is climbing up
strategically. And that means you have
to remain calm and controlled. Because
if you remain remain calm and
controlled, you have three advantages
over your opponent. The first is
um focus.
Second is clarity.
And the third is um
um focus.
focus.
Uh you're you're clear and resolved,
okay? Sorry, resolve.
Okay? What this means is that you know
what you're doing, you have a strategy.
You are clear about how to achieve your
strategy and your goal, and you are
determined to achieve it, okay?
But in order to have all three, you have
to remain calm. And therefore, you need
to control yourself as you climb up this
escalation ladder. Because remember, it
is not about beating your opponent, it's
about justifying yourself to your
friends, to the police, and to God as
well. Because you might hit that person,
he might go to hospital, and you won the
fight, but then you go to you go you go
to prison for 10 years, in which case
you've lost the fight. Okay?
Okay?
All right?
So, the main idea I want you to remember
is this, and this is the law of escalation.
And this is a a very important idea in
my game theory model. Control
Control
Okay? Control is more important than
dominance. Why? Because control is the
Calibration means that you time or you
structure or you strategize your
response in a way
that helps you achieve your strategic objective.
objective.
You're not just going to punch, you're
you're throwing a punch in a certain way
that allows you to defend yourself, that
strikes fear in the opponent, and also
allows you to seem as the good guy among spectators.
spectators.
Okay? And then when the police come, you
can justify why you threw that punch in
a certain way to the police so that you
don't go to jail. Okay?
Okay?
All right. So, another way of saying
this is that calibration is ultimately
And the idea of strategic flexibility is
in a fight, the person who has the most options,
options,
the person who um
um
has the most flexible strategy will
usually win the fight. Okay? This is the
law of escalation, and I'll explain to
you how this applies to the US Iran war. Okay?
Okay?
All right.
So, before I actually talk about the war,
war,
what I what I want to do is do is what I
want to do is do a thought experiment
to examine how we're going to understand
what's going on between the United
States and Iran, okay? So, let's do a
thought experiment. And the thought
experiment is this.
Let just say that there's a bully, okay?
And he has a gang, okay? These are his friends.
And there's like
And so, what they do is
they basically prey on everyone at the
school, okay? And there's maybe 100
people at the school.
AND SO, WHAT THEY do is they make everyone
everyone
in the cafeteria pay a tax, okay? If you
want to go in the cafeteria and eat, you
have to pay a tax. Maybe a dollar, who
knows, okay?
And the friends of the bully go collect
the tax and then give him
all the money, okay?
And that is the structure of the school,
where if you want to eat lunch in the
cafeteria, you you have to pay a tax,
and the bully's friends collect the
money, and the bully shares the money
among amongst his gang, okay?
Now, at first, people are okay with this
system because they think that it's
actually beneficial because
the bully is keeping the peace and order
in the cafeteria, right? He's keeping
everyone safe. So, yeah, I pay a dollar,
but it's not that much money, and we're
all safe so that we can all enjoy our
lunch in peace in the cafeteria, okay?
But then what happens over time is that
the The gets
gets
more and more arrogant because he feels invincible.
invincible.
Everyone just obeys him. So, he develops
the idea of hubris.
And the idea of hubris is that no one's
no one has the courage to challenge me.
Everyone's afraid of me and therefore I
can do what I want. So, what does he do?
Well, the first thing he does is that he
charges more money
from everyone, okay? So, the tax goes
up. And so, people are
disgruntled about this.
Okay, they don't they don't they don't
understand why they're paying more
to the bully, okay? But, knowing that
but what he will also do is pay less
money to his friends so that he can have
more money because he wants to buy a car
or he wants to go to Paris for the
summer, okay?
Does that make sense? Okay, so
everyone's not happy about this, but but
this is the reality that they live in
and there's nothing they can do about it.
it.
And so, people just put up with it.
One day, a new kid comes in the school, okay?
okay?
And he doesn't really understand the
rules of the game. He goes to cafeteria
and he doesn't know he's supposed to pay
a tax.
Right? So, the bully's friend comes over
and says, "Hey man, where's where's the
dollar?" And he's like, "What dollar? I
just got out of here."
And he refuses to pay.
And so, what they decide to do is teach
him a lesson by ostracizing him, by
making him sit alone by himself in the cafeteria.
cafeteria.
Okay, you have no friends because you
don't know the rules and you refuse to
play along. And the new kid is like, "I
don't care.
I'm happy not having any friends."
Okay? And so, then the bully and his
friends start to discuss, "How can we
get this new kid to play along?"
And so, they decide what they're going
to do is they're going to curse him.
They're going to bully him, okay? So,
the new kid goes to lunch and he's
eating his lunch and the friends come
down and start to curse him. He says,
"You're a wimp. Do you want to fight
us?" And what the new kid does is he
just ignores
the these these guys. And these guys are
like, "What's going on, man? Why isn't
he afraid of us?"
And slowly what happens is that the
other people, the other kids, RECOGNIZE
THAT, "WOW,
MAYBE IT IS possible to rebel against
the bully. Maybe it is possible not to
pay these stupid taxes."
And so they start talking to him
secretly, okay? They give him presents,
they start to say smile at him, say hi
to him, okay? But the new kid just
ignores everything. Right?
Right?
And then the friends are like, "You know
what? We don't actually benefit this
much from this relationship anyway.
Maybe if we appoint this new kid as
the new bully, the new boss, he'll treat
us better."
And then you have other friends who are
like, "You know what? This bully, he's
he's fat, he's ugly. Maybe I should be
the boss, okay?"
So, just because the new kid
comes in, doesn't know the rules, and
he's willing to challenge the reality,
challenge the assumptions and values of
this cafeteria, now there's dissent, now
there's rebellion going on, okay? And
different people are talking to him and
and
um trying to form alliances with him.
But what he does, and this is really
really interesting, is that he just
ignores everyone and keeps focused, okay?
okay?
And then one day, um
um
the bully's friend comes over and says,
"You know what? You're a whip." And the
new kid finally says,
"I'm not afraid of you, okay?" And then
this friend goes back and tells his
boss, "Hey, this new kid said he's not
afraid of you, man. What are you going
to do about it?"
The new The bully gets really angry and
says, "I'm going to go punch his face,
okay?" So, the bully goes in front of
the new kid and says, "If you don't apologize,
apologize,
I'm going to punch YOU IN THE FACE." THE
new kid is like, "What did I do wrong?
What should I apologize for?"
And the bully is kind of confused, so he
goes away, comes over the next day AND
SAYS, "YOU APOLOGIZE NOW, MAN." THE NEW
KID IS LIKE,
"OKAY, for what? Tell me Tell me to
apologize for what?" And this goes on
for a long time, okay? And then
eventually, the bully gets so pissed off
that he punches the new kid in the face,
okay? So, he started it. The new kid,
he's He's He's He's um
uh hurt, but he decides to punch the
bully back in the face, okay? The bully
is stronger, so he beats the bully up.
I'm sorry, he beats up the new kid.
But, what's happened now is that
everyone in the school has seen that the
bully is not that strong. Everyone's
seen that the bully is actually um
um
pretty weak. And so, they recognize
that, "Hey, if we stand alongside the
new kid, we can beat the bully."
All right?
And eventually, what happens is the
bully is defeated.
Does that make sense to you guys?
All right. So, some of things to
understand is that yes,
the bully has has this dominance cuz
he's stronger and he's the biggest kid
in the school. He He He can beat up everyone.
everyone.
But, what wins the fight is control.
What wins the fight is collaboration
Sorry, collaboration. Shows you the flexibility.
flexibility.
The fact that the new kid has many
different options and he's picking the
option that is most strategically
advanced to him. Okay?
Okay?
Now, what you will notice from this
example is the bully doesn't have that
many options, actually. Because he needs
to maintain the idea of face or
This is the essence of his power.
The His power lies in the fact that if
you do not listen to him, if you do not
obey him, he will come and beat the crap
out of you.
Right? That's credibility.
And he has to be But the moment that you
show that it's not actually it's
actually not that big of a deal to be
punched by him. He's not that strong.
Then he loses all credibility, okay?
Which means that he either retreats or
he's forced to strike harder to kill you.
you.
Okay? To maintain his credibility.
So, another way of saying this is that um
um
by calibrating your movements
strategically, you can manipulate the bully
bully
into self-destruction.
Does that make sense to you guys?
All right?
Any questions?
Okay, so that's the theory. All right?
So, now what we're going to do is we're
going to apply this theory,
the law of escalation, to what's
happening in the Middle East. Okay?
We're going to do that by looking at the
escalation ladders of both Iran and the
United States.
All right. >> [clears throat]
This is the US.
This is Iran. Okay.
Okay.
So, let's look at the escalation ladder.
So, the first thing the United States
does, of course, is something called decapitation.
decapitation.
What is decapitation? Decapitation is
like, I just kill your leaders, you
don't have any more leaders, and
therefore, you don't know what to do,
and therefore, you surrender, okay?
That's the first thing the US did. It
didn't work. So, now the United States
is doing is attacking military targets,
And military bases, okay?
That's the second second step.
And the idea is that you beat the crap
out of the military so they surrender.
But that didn't work either, okay? So,
then what you do next, of course, is
economic embargo.
Iran from trading with the world, right?
Prevent Iran from selling oil to China,
basically, by blockading
the seas.
And the idea here is that if the
government doesn't have any money to pay
its soldiers, its soldiers will just not
fight, okay?
But that didn't But that's not working
either. So, then what you do, of course,
is you attack civilian infrastructure,
infrastructure, okay?
okay?
Which is primarily water
and oil.
So, you may have seen the news that the
Israelis attacked an oil depot in
Tehran. And now, if you look If you look
at a picture of Tehran, it's all black,
okay? And this is a war crime, or this
goes against international law, because
you're attacking civilians. But that's
But that's what you do when you feel as
though you need to apply more pressure
to win this war, okay? And so, you can
keep on escalating.
Um and then what you do is that now the
Now that you've attacked the civilians
and they still refuse to surrender, what
Secret weapons might be advanced
missiles that no one's ever seen before.
Okay? And and the point of these secret
weapons is to scare the crap out of
people and say, "You see how dominant we
are?" Okay? If that doesn't work, then
what you do next is use biological and
chemical weapons. Okay? Biochemical weapons.
Doesn't work either? Then, guys, nuclear weapons.
All right.
So, what we need to first understand is
that you must follow this escalation
ladder if you are to use nuclear
weapons. And the reality is that, first
of all, we have not seen
secret weapons. We have not seen
biochemical weapons and therefore
nuclear weapons comes later, okay?
Unless I see biochemical weapons being
used, I refuse to believe that nuclear
weapons is on the table, okay?
All right. So, I think we are here,
which is the beginning of attacks on
civilian infrastructure. But already
we're seeing um arguments
in the American political system against
the use
of um weapons against civilians, okay?
The reason why is that if you do this, okay?
okay?
If you destroy civilian infrastructure,
you unite the people behind the government.
government.
Because the idea is that you use air
strikes to split apart the government
and the people and you want the people
to overthrow the government for you, okay?
okay?
That's that's the idea here.
Um so, we are at this stage, meaning
that we have a long way to go before we
hit nuclear weapons, okay?
All right.
So, now let's look at the
uh Iranian
um escalation ladder. So,
So,
what's happening is that in the
beginning Iran does um
um um
um
two major things, okay? The first is attack
attack
uh military targets, okay?
And what they're basically targeting are
US radar systems and air defenses.
Because once these two things go,
then Iran can attack whatever it wants,
okay? It's also close to Strait of Hormuz.
All right?
And by closing the Strait of Hormuz, you
put pressure on the economies of the GCC,
GCC,
as well as East Asia. The hope is that
um by blockading the economies, the GCC,
uh UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar,
Kuwait will put pressure on Donald Trump
to end this war as quick as possible. Also,
Also, um
um
East Asia receives most of its oil from
the GCC, from the Strait of Hormuz,
right? So, China gets about 40% of its
oil, Japan gets 75%,
um that's a lot of oil. So, the hope is
that these countries will put pressure
on the United States to end this war as
soon as possible, okay? So, that is the
uh Iranian strategy. But, if they're
forced to go up the escalation ladder,
what will happen is this. If you attack
their economy, they will attack your
economy as well, okay? With missiles.
If you attack their civilian
infrastructure, they will attack your civilian
civilian
infrastructure as well. And what is the
main weakness in these GCC countries?
Desalination plants, okay? Desal-
And that's it, okay? That's extent of
the Iranian
escalation ladder. With Because it
doesn't have
nuclear weapons. It doesn't have
biochemical weapons.
Okay? It doesn't have intercontinental
missiles that it can target the United
States with.
So, as you can see, oh, the US and
Israel have escalation tolerance because
it can go up way up higher in the
escalation escalation ladder than Iran.
But that's the wrong way to understand
this. Okay? Because if you look at their
strategies, Iran has much more
flexibility, much more calibration
than the United States, okay? When the
United States attacks you, it's pretty
blunt. But look, if I close the Strait
of Hormuz, I can be strategic
in how I close the Strait of Hormuz. For
example, if you're a Chinese ship, I'll
let you pass.
For example, if you are a GCC nation and
you want to bribe me, if you want to you
want to pay me a tax, I'll let you pass
as well.
If you're a GCC GCC nation and you're
like, you know what? Forget the United
States, I want to be your friend, Iran.
I'll let you pass as well. You
understand? So, by closing the Strait of
Hormuz, it creates a calibration
strategy. It allows Iran to selectively
and strategically apply pressure to the
friends of the United States so that
they become the friends of Iran, okay?
Same thing with these drone strikes
against oil fields and military
and military targets, right?
If you attack me, I attack you with
drones. But if you don't attack me, then
I don't attack you. Okay?
Okay?
So, in other words, okay? This is a
really important idea.
and Iran
have different military
military
Okay? All right?
So, let me explain how. Because the
United States and Israel, they're just
attacking Iran.
Okay? And they attack with air power, so
that's more blood. All right? Okay? So,
you go from one step to the next to the
next to the next, okay? This is this the
classic escalation ladder.
Iran is not like this. Their decision
tree is different, okay? Because their
strategy is to force the United States
to admit defeat and retreat from the GCC.
GCC.
Okay? To close down on the military
bases in the Middle East so that Iran
has control over the Strait of Hormuz
and therefore it can control all world trade.
trade.
All right? So, that's a strategy. So,
this strategy means that
you have different options.
All right?
Your options are um
um
attack Israel,
um you know, military targets,
civilian targets,
Tel Aviv, okay? All right? So, I don't
want to spend too much time on this, but
as you can see,
um if you think about it, Iran can be
much more selective in its targeting
than the United States and Israel.
And therefore, the options that it has,
it is much more diverse,
which gives Iran
escalation control
over the situation.
Okay? Do you guys Do you guys Do you
guys understand this? All right.
So, let's So, let's look at why Iran has
um advantages over the the escalation
ladder, okay? US
US Iran
The first major difference is that Iran
Whereas the US is passive. >> [applause]
>> [applause]
>> Okay? Another thing is this, go back to
the bull example where the bully has to
maintain credibility. He has to show
that he's more powerful than the other
than the other kids, right? So, if you
provoke him, he has no choice in the
matter but to hit you, okay? But you,
the new kid, can choose whether or not
to provoke him or not.
You can choose the timing of when to
provoke him. Therefore, you are active, okay?
okay?
The second big difference is that Iran
has a clear strategy.
It knows what it wants to accomplish and
and
uh it knows how to accomplish what it
wants. Remember, what what Iran wants is
control of the Strait of Hormuz and the
United States out of the Middle East.
That's what it wants to do and it's
calibrating its attacks in a certain way
to achieve this end goal and it's
working out very well for Iran, okay?
The United States, on the other hand,
doesn't know what it wants. It wants to
destroy Iran. What does that mean, okay? Destroy.
Destroy.
It could mean regime change. It could
mean economic collapses. It could mean
um the civilian population starves,
okay? It It could mean anything. But
because there's so much ambiguity, so
much confusion about what it means, it
confuses military strategy. Right?
Right?
And the last thing is, of course, is
that Iran is flexible
OKAY?
SO, BY STUDYING the escalation ladder,
we discover that Iran has far more
advantages than the United States. Okay?
Okay?
All right. So,
what So, what does this mean?
All right.
It means that Iran will probably win
this war ultimately. But,
But, um
um
it has There has to be major changes to
its society in order to win this war.
All right? So, remember, to win a fight,
you have to have three things: focus,
All right? >> [applause]
>> [applause]
>> You have to know what your purpose is.
You have to know how to achieve it. And
you have to have You have to be
determined to achieve it, okay? So, what
does this mean
for the Middle East? What does it mean
for Iran?
What First thing is focus means unity.
Meaning that
you have to unite your population, which
means basically crushing all dissent.
You can't We can't argue anymore. We
have to unify for a purpose, okay?
The second thing, clarity, is to
uh censor people. Censorship.
Censorship.
And we're already seeing that in Israel,
where you're not allowed to film
military strikes, okay? If a drone comes
and attacks Tel Aviv in Israel, you
cannot film that and put on on social media.
media.
Okay? The government will come and
arrest you. Same thing in Dubai. You
cannot show uh Dubai being attacked,
okay? So, massive censorship going on.
Where the Middle East moves towards
total war.
Total war just means that every citizen
now is recruited into the war effort. It
just means that the entire economy is
geared towards
um war. Okay?
Okay?
And one last point I'll make is this.
What we need to understand about the
escalation ladder is that as it moves up,
up,
we have to remember that this war is
being fought multi-dimensionally.
Okay? What does that mean? It means that
the military is just one dimension, but
there are four major dimensions. There
are others, but let's focus on four
major dimensions, okay?
Second,
um is political.
Political just means the relationship of
nations to each other. The relationship
of the of the government to the people,
okay? Political. The third dimension is economical,
economical, economic.
economic.
And the fourth is military.
military.
What's really important to understand is
that the military dimension is probably
the least important. There are other
dimensions that are much more important.
Therefore, these four factors determine
how the United States and Iran move up
the escalation ladder.
Okay? Because your purpose is to control
the narrative and justify why you're
doing what you're doing.
Uh political means you got you still
maintain good relations with other
states, right? So, as the United States
is fighting this war against Iran,
the United States is is still talking to
China. The United States is is still
talking to Russia, okay? So, that
discussion, that political discussion,
determines the contours of this fight.
Economic means that as this fight is
still happening,
nations are still trading with each
other. And that factors into how the
military is fought. Okay?
Okay?
Does that make sense? So, I know this is
very complicated, but you need you need
to understand how complicated war is.
It's not as simple as saying, "You know
what? Let's nuke that guy." Doesn't work
that way, okay? There are a lot of
constraints. There is a lot of factors,
a lot of stakeholders involved to
constrain the use of nukes. Okay? All right.
right.
All right. So, let's now discuss ground
troops. All right, the first question we
look at is, will ground troops be used?
And the answer, unfortunately, is yes,
they have to be used. And it has to do
with how the military works, okay? Of
how wars are fought.
Basically, when you fight a war,
you have to have a correct cost pyramid, okay?
okay?
And the most
simple cost pyramid, okay, is is this.
All right? They're at the bottom. Why?
Because they're the cheapest.
What's above them? Armor.
They're more expensive to produce. You
need more resources. You You need more time.
time.
Then you have
naval, right? Then you have air.
Okay? Does that make sense? This is a
cost pyramid. And cost pyramid just is
this question like, how much energy, how
much time, how much resources do you
need do you do you need to produce a
certain product, okay? It costs you very
little to just produce a soldier, but it
costs you a lot to produce an airplane.
This is important because wars are
usually wars of attrition. Meaning that
you have to put all your resources into
winning a war, okay? So, this is just um
And this is
the most standard model that you have of
a cost pyramid for a military war. Okay?
Does that make sense, guys?
The problem is that the United States
have an inverse pyramid. Okay?
Okay?
Meaning that air is what's dominant,
then naval, then
then
uh armor, then soldiers.
You can't fight a war like this.
I mean, the moment you choose to fight a
war like this, you've lost the war
because you either take out the country
in like 2 days or you scoot over. But
you cannot replenish your forces.
Now, I I I know this is hard to
understand, but 1991, the Persian Gulf
War, 2003, the Iraq War, these are not
real wars, okay? Because the Americans
were so dominant and Iraq was so weak
that it was basically a video game. All
right? You just see these these pilots
flying around, just bombing everything,
okay? It's like guys in tanks just
running over the the Iraqi army. Those
were just video games. But this Iran
thing is a real war.
And therefore, you cannot fight a war
like this. If you want to win this war,
the only thing you can do is return
return
to a realistic cost pyramid. You don't
have a choice in the matter.
Right? Because again, your cheapest um
um
product are soldiers. Right?
Right?
And your your most expensive are
airplanes. You cannot afford to lose an
airplane in order to say to save a life
of a soldier.
Eventually, this cost-benefit analysis
will blow up on you, okay?
Okay? Does that make sense, guys?
All right? So, if the United States
wants to win this war, then they have no
choice but to use ground troops, to use
soldiers as the main force of its military.
military.
Any questions so far?
All right. Okay. Now, the question then is
is
will the United States use ground
troops? I already said that if the
United States is to win this war, it has
no choice but to use ground troops. But,
will the United States use ground troops?
troops?
And a lot is determined by the game
theory or strategies of the different
You have US,
you have Israel,
and you have Iran. Okay?
Okay?
All right.
So, United States and Iran, they're
pretty easy to understand. What the
United States wants to do is destroy Iran.
>> Okay? Why?
Because if you destroy Iran,
the United States would have complete
control over Middle East oil.
And it would control global trade for
the Strait of Hormuz.
And therefore, the United States can
maintain its empire, okay? So, a really
simple objective, let's destroy Iran. We
don't care how, we don't care why, let's
just go do it, okay?
Iran has another strategy, which is control
control
and destroy
destroy
CENTCOM. CENTCOM is basically
uh the American military in the Middle
East, called Central Command, okay? So,
those those are two major military
objectives of Iran. And we can
understand why, because if the CENTCOM
is destroyed, Iran has complete control
over the Middle East. Now,
Dubai, now uh Oman,
Bahrain, Kuwait have to pay taxes to
Iran. Now Iran, the new kid, is now the
bully of the Middle East, right? Now
it's a hegemon. That is the local
objective of this war. Okay?
Okay?
Um Israel is a bit more complicated.
All right? For Israel, oh sorry sorry
sorry, what The other thing is humble Israel.
That That's the other thing, because
even if you even if you defeat the
United States, you still have to deal
with Israel, okay? And Israel is the
great military power of the Middle East.
So, you want to humble them. You want to
weaken them. You can't destroy Israel,
because Israel has nuclear weapons,
right? You piss off Israel, those nukes
start flying. You don't want that,
right? So, those are the three major
political objectives for Iran. Control
the Strait of Hormuz, destroy CENTCOM,
and humble Israel. Okay? If you are
Israel, actually for you, >> [snorts]
>> [snorts]
>> the strategy is different. What you want
to do is this. You want to destroy CENTCOM
Okay?
Those are your objectives. Why? Because
if you destroy both the United States
and you destroy Iran,
then you are the sole hegemon in the
Middle East, okay? Also, destroy the GCC.
Destroy Saudi Arabia as well. Why?
Because once Saudi Arabia is destroyed,
all its resources belong to you, okay?
And this creates something called the
Greater Israel Project, which is what we
will discuss next class. But as you can
see, what's really important is that
even though the United States and Israel
are allies,
their ultimate strategy is different.
Their objectives are different. In fact,
they're in conflict, okay?
Then you have Saudi Arabia. What does
Saudi Arabia Arabia want to do? Well,
destroy Iran.
Because if you destroy Iran, you have
complete control of the Strait of
Hormuz. Then you you can be the bully,
okay? But you also want to destroy
All right? Does that make sense?
All right? So, by understanding how each
player perceives the game, we can now
understand how they will go about their strategy.
strategy.
Right? So, the United States just wants
to destroy Iran. But as you can see,
Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all want
to destroy the United States. And how do
you do that? You do that by forcing the
United States into a long
ground war. Right?
Right?
Therefore, if you're Israel, you don't
want to use nukes. Why? Because nukes
would end the war too quickly. You want
to drag this war out as long as possible >> [snorts]
>> [snorts]
>> to force the United States to send in
ground troops.
And then you're like, "Well, why doesn't
the United States use nuclear weapons?"
And the answer I is is already told you,
the escalation ladder. It needs to
justify justify itself to the to the
people, okay? When you do anything, all
Sorry.
When you do anything, you have to worry about
about
certain factors, okay?
You have to worry about
troop morale.
Your soldiers have to believe that they
are fighting for a good cause, okay? You
You have to make sure that the world is
on your side. You have to worry about
politics, political will.
You have to make sure you the people are unified
unified
Uh uh
and you have to worry about enemy morale.
morale.
You don't want to piss off the person's
your enemy so much that they go into an extreme
extreme
uh they jump the escalation ladder to to
extreme beyond your beyond your control.
Okay, does that make sense?
Okay? So, as you can see, war is
extremely complicated. It's not just
about weaponry. It's not just about
um resources. It's ultimately about controlling
controlling
the narrative, controlling the political landscape.
landscape.
Okay? Marshalling the resources in a
proper way that is strategically beneficial.
beneficial.
All right?
Does that make sense to you guys?
Okay. So, um
um
Yeah. So, we we just answered two
questions. Will the United States use
ground troops?
Yes, it will because Iran, Saudi Arabia,
and Israel will work together
to force a ground invasion. Even though
the United States doesn't want to do so,
but unfortunately the United States
doesn't have a clear, coherent strategy.
It's passive. Therefore, it it can be
manipulated into sending a ground
invasion, okay?
And the second question is,
will Israel and the United States use
nuclear weapons? And the answer is no,
because it's not in their best interest
to use nuclear weapons.
Okay? Israel wants the United States to
lose this war.
And that means a long war that destroys
the American political will to fight any
more foreign wars. If America loses,
Israel becomes the dominant
power in the Middle East. Okay?
Okay?
And so, the last question is
the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we will answer that
that
Will
Will Americans take over Iran like
what they did to Venezuela?
Like they captured their president. Okay.
Okay. Look.
Look.
The strategy in the beginning was to do
a Venezuela in Iran.
Meaning you go in,
you kill the leader, a new leader
emerges, negotiate with you,
and and surrender to you because you're
too powerful. Okay?
But Venezuela and Iran are two very
different countries. The Venezuelan
elite is very pro-American, meaning that
their their wealth, their children,
their family is stored in America.
Therefore, the Venezuelan elite have a
vested interest in negotiating a deal
with America to protect their own interests.
interests.
But for uh 40-plus years, America has
sanctioned the Iranian elite, and Iran
has become poor and angry and
disgruntled because of that. Therefore,
they have They lose nothing by fighting
you, okay? So even though you've killed
the supreme leader, and you've killed
many other leaders, in fact, the elite
themselves are unified in opposing you.
Okay? Does that make sense?
Okay. Any more questions?
Uh yep.
Um Alan. So
So
I in fact have a question about the
motivation of US to involve in this war.
Like uh as you said that US want to
control the oil the oil. So like they
must destroy Iran. But I I think this is
like a bit a little bit confusing because
because
uh I think US know that this war is
really uh highly risk, and it can
potentially even like destroy the whole
systems. So why US risk the the the the
risk of like whole system collapsing to
like control the oil that Iran had?
Okay. All right.
So this is the um key question that
everyone's arguing about. Quite
honestly, we're going to argue this for
the rest of eternity, okay? We're going
to We're going to argue this for
eternity because like no one knows, and
there's never going to be a clear
answer. In fact, there are multiple
possibilities, okay?
What What I'm going to do today is offer
you the most simple explanation. In the
next class, I will offer you a much more
complicated explanation, okay? But, the
simple explanation is this.
Again, this goes back to military doctrine.
doctrine.
Um how the United States military works,
okay? And the military doctrine is
prevent the heartland from arising,
right? So, United States is here.
This is Europe.
This is Russia.
This is Iran, India,
India, China,
China, Japan,
Japan,
this is um
um
Middle East,
and this is Africa.
All right. So,
the American military doctrine is this.
The greatest threat to American power is
the heartland unified by land. Okay?
Okay?
Why? Because if the heartland unifies,
But, America is primarily a naval power.
Therefore, it requires people to trade
by sea. Okay?
Okay?
And so, its strategy is to make sure
there's never any cohesion
in the heartland.
Either by making sure that no great
power arises
in the heartland, and that's why America
went went to war in World War I and
World War II because there's a great
fear that Germany would conquer the
world or Europe and Asia, and create the
heartland, okay? Therefore, America has
Um so, you either make sure no great
power arises, or you create so much
conflict that they're always fighting
each other.
And that used to work before, okay?
Now, there's a problem. The problem is
the uh BRICS nations. Russia, Iran, and
China are coming together. And if they
come together, guys,
that's a major piece of the heartland.
And everyone else, Europe, Middle East,
Africa, with India, would probably
follow, okay? Because it is easier to
trade in the heartland than it is to
trade with America, especially with the
US dollar declining. Right?
Right?
So, in other words, the United States
has no no choice but to fight this war,
because that's their entire strategy to
maintain hegemony in the world, to
prevent the heartland from unifying.
All right?
Does that make sense? Because I want you
the heartland fractures.
There's no way that they can now trade
together anymore. They're still reliant
on American um
um
maritime routes, okay?
America has maintains a head head is
still the hegemon because it controls
world trade. Whoever controls world
trade controls the world. Whoever
controls the heartland controls world
trade, okay?
Does that make sense? Okay? But, this is
just one explanation. There's actually
other explanations, and I'll go into a
more complicated explanation next class.
So, you mentioned Saudi Arabia, and how
it wants to see the downfall of both uh
the US and Iran. It wants to see the see
the downfall of Israel, US, and Iran.
>> And yeah. And to me, that sounds like a
pretty big goal. And how would you say
how would they possibly
use their strategy to achieve that goal?
Or how would it possibly be for Saudi Arabia?
Arabia? >> Okay.
>> Okay.
All right.
So, it's very confusing to people why
Saudi Arabia is actually against Iran,
okay? But it actually if you go back and
look at their history, they have major
conflicts with each other. All right, so
let's go over some some of the conflicts.
conflicts.
All right. So,
uh Saudi Arabia, Iran.
The first major conflict is that Iran is
a theocracy.
And Saudi Arabia is a monarchy.
A theocracy just means that you're ruled
by clerics
who represent God. The monarchy is a
king who represents God. And for the
Iranians, that is blasphemy. That's
heresy. That's against the religion,
okay? So, Saudi Arabia and Iran hate
each other.
Saudi Arabia sees Iran as a threat and
trying to induce a revolution within
Saudi Arabia.
Iran sees Saudi Arabia as blasphemous. Okay?
Okay?
And it's a huge issue because Saudi
Arabia is the home of Mecca Medina, the
two holiest sites in the Islamic world, okay?
okay?
Second issue is that
Saudi Arabia is Sunni
and Shia
and Iran is Shia.
So, these are two different sects of the
same religion, but it's like Protestants
and Catholics. They just hate each
other, okay? Um
Um
Okay. And the last thing is that Iran
is anti-US.
And Shia and Saudi Arabia is pro-US.
What this means is that Saudi Arabia has
military bases, American military bases,
inside of of holy land.
And for the Iranians, that is
the worst crime.
Right? Because it's infidels who are
protecting the holy land. Infidels are
not allowed in the holy land.
Right? You're not If If you're not a
Muslim, you're not allowed to go to Mecca.
Mecca. Right?
Right?
All right. So, Saudi Arabia and Iran
hate each other.
Saudi Arabia has a huge problem in that
It's most of its GDP comes from oil
exports. And for the longest time, it
was trying to build a knowledge economy.
It was trying to build tourism. It was
trying to promote games, okay?
Does not work.
So, if you're Saudi Arabia and you see
the future, it's a pretty dismal future
because eventually your oil is going to
run out. Eventually, people are going to
switch to electrical vehicles,
digitalization, which means that oil is
no longer so important. Okay?
So, what you need to do is if you're
able to control the Middle East, right?
So, where where you get your money now
is from trade access, the Strait of Hormuz.
Hormuz.
That's about your future.
If you just sit back and wait, eventually
eventually
your nation is going to run out of oil
and therefore it's going to cease to exist.
exist.
Okay? So, Saudi Arabia needs to act now.
And it needs And the way that it wants
to act is it wants to create a
uh conflict between United States,
Israel, and Iran, where they destroy
each other. Once they destroy each
other, Saudi Arabia can come up on top. Now,
Now,
I- Israel cannot be destroyed because
Israel has nuclear weapons. But, the
goal is to negotiate a peace with Israel
after the war is over.
Right? Does that make sense?
To split the Middle East between Israel
and Saudi Arabia.
But, will Israel agree to this deal?
Probably not. But, according to game
theory, Saudi Arabia has no choice in
this matter because it is so far behind
everyone else, okay? You can only hope
that this chaos leads to new
possibilities. Because given the
structure of the game so far,
it does not have a very good future,
okay? Does that make sense?
All right, okay, great questions. So,
please continue to follow the war, okay?
So, you have to follow the war and
understand what's going on. And in this
class, what I'm doing is I'm providing
you the game theory analysis for you to understand what's happening and why it's
understand what's happening and why it's happening and where this war is going,
happening and where this war is going, okay? Again, the three big predictions I
okay? Again, the three big predictions I make
make um and we'll know in the next year or
um and we'll know in the next year or two if these three three things happen
two if these three three things happen or not is United States will send in
or not is United States will send in ground troops. It has no choice in the
ground troops. It has no choice in the matter if it wants to win this war or
matter if it wants to win this war or continue this war.
continue this war. There'll be no nuclear weapons weapons
There'll be no nuclear weapons weapons being used. Again, I will apologize to
being used. Again, I will apologize to the world if nuclear weapons are used,
the world if nuclear weapons are used, okay? The third is that the Al-Aqsa
okay? The third is that the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be destroyed at some point.
Mosque will be destroyed at some point. And that's something I will talk about
And that's something I will talk about next class.
