Original subtitles

We continue our analysis of the US Iran

war.

And in this war, there are three major

questions

that will determine the outcome of this

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,

the United States would have to

institute a national draft where young

man

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

nukes be used.

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.

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.

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.

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

the third temple.

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

that um

uh will determine how this war will

determine the future of the world.

Okay.

So, um in this class, I teach you game

theory to make predictions about the

future.

So, right now I'm going to make three

predictions.

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]

>> 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?

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

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.

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,

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]

>> 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.

Escalation ladder.

Okay?

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

um

example. Let us say that two people get

into a fight, okay? A and B.

>> [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

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.

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.

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

spectators or friends.

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?"

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

three factors are, of course, emotions,

Second

is power,

And the third is reason, or logic.

Okay? And what drives people up is

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

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?

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

is more important than dominance.

Okay? Control is more important than

dominance. Why? Because control is the

idea of calibration.

Calibration means that you time or you

structure or you strategize your

response in a way

that helps you achieve your strategic

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.

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?

All right. So, another way of saying

this is that calibration is ultimately

about strategic flexibility.

And the idea of strategic flexibility is

in a fight, the person who has the most

options,

the person who

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?

All right.

So, before I actually talk about the

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's the biggest guy in the school.

And he has a gang, okay? These are his

friends.

And there's like

uh maybe four of them.

And so, what they do is

they basically prey on everyone at the

school, okay? And there's maybe 100

people at the school.

ALL RIGHT?

AND SO, WHAT THEY do is they make

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

more and more arrogant because he feels

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.

And so, people just put up with it.

One day, a new kid comes in the school,

okay?

The new kid.

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.

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?

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

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?

And then one day,

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,

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

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.

But, what wins the fight is control.

What wins the fight is collaboration

Sorry, collaboration. Shows you the

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?

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

credibility, right?

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.

Okay? To maintain his credibility.

So, another way of saying this is that

um

by calibrating your movements

strategically, you can manipulate the

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]

>> Okay.

This is the US.

This is Iran.

Okay.

So, let's look at the escalation ladder.

So, the first thing the United States

does, of course, is something called

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,

air defense.

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.

Where you basically prevent

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,

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

you do now is you use secret weapons.

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?

If you destroy civilian infrastructure,

you unite the people behind the

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?

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,

what's happening is that in the

beginning Iran does

um

um

two major things, okay? The first is

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,

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,

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.

Basically targeting oil fields.

If you attack their civilian

infrastructure, they will attack your

civilian

infrastructure as well. And what is the

main weakness in these GCC countries?

Desalination plants, okay? Desal-

desalination plants.

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?

So, in other words, okay? This is a

really important idea.

The US

and Iran

have different

military

decision trees.

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.

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.

All right? So, that's a strategy. So,

this strategy means that

you have different options.

All right?

Your options are

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

Iran

The first major difference is that Iran

is active.

Whereas the US is passive.

>> [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?

The second big difference is that Iran

has a clear strategy.

It knows what it wants to accomplish

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.

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?

And the last thing is, of course, is

that Iran is flexible

and the United STATES IS INFLEXIBLE.

OKAY?

SO, BY STUDYING the escalation ladder,

we discover that Iran has far more

advantages than the United States.

Okay?

All right. So,

what So, what does this mean?

All right.

It means that Iran will probably win

this war ultimately.

But,

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,

um clarity, and resolve.

All right?

>> [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.

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.

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.

And resolve just means militarization.

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?

And one last point I'll make is this.

What we need to understand about the

escalation ladder is that as it moves

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?

The first major dimension is narrative.

Narrative is basically world opinion.

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,

economic.

And the fourth is

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?

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.

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?

And the most

simple cost pyramid, okay, is is this.

Infantry, soldiers, okay?

All right? They're at the bottom. Why?

Because they're the cheapest.

What's above them? Armor.

Okay? Artillery, tanks.

They're more expensive to produce. You

need more resources. You You need more

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

production capacity.

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?

Meaning that air is what's dominant,

then naval,

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

to a realistic cost pyramid. You don't

have a choice in the matter.

Right? Because again, your cheapest

um

product are soldiers.

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.

Any questions so far?

All right. Okay. Now, the question then

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?

And a lot is determined by the game

theory or strategies of the different

players, okay? So, let's look at

the four major players in this war.

You have US,

you have Israel,

you have Saudi Arabia,

and you have Iran.

Okay?

All right.

So, United States and Iran, they're

pretty easy to understand. What the

United States wants to do is destroy

Iran.

>> [applause]

>> 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

Strait of Hormuz,

and

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?

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]

>> the strategy is different. What you want

to do is this. You want to destroy

CENTCOM

and destroy Iran.

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

the US and you want to humble Israel.

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.

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?

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]

>> 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

right? When you do anything,

Sorry.

When you do anything, you have to worry

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

have to worry about public opinion.

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

Uh uh

and you have to worry about enemy

morale.

You don't want to piss off the person's

your enemy so much that they go into an

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

the narrative, controlling the political

landscape.

Okay? Marshalling the resources in a

proper way that is strategically

beneficial.

All right?

Does that make sense to you guys?

Okay. So,

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?

And so, the last question is

the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we will answer

that

next class on Thursday. Any questions?

Will

Will Americans take over Iran like

what they did to Venezuela?

Like they captured their president.

Okay.

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.

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

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

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.

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,

China,

Japan,

this is

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?

Why? Because if the heartland unifies,

it can trade by itself through railways.

But, America is primarily a naval power.

Therefore, it requires people to trade

by sea.

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

to stop Germany from rising.

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?

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

to destroy Iran,

the heartland fractures.

There's no way that they can now trade

together anymore. They're still reliant

on American

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.

All right? Any more questions? Yep.

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?

>> 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.

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?

And it's a huge issue because Saudi

Arabia is the home of Mecca Medina, the

two holiest sites in the Islamic world,

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

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.

Right?

All right. So, Saudi Arabia and Iran

hate each other.

Saudi Arabia has a huge problem in that

it is an oil economy.

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.

That's about your future.

If you just sit back and wait,

eventually

your nation is going to run out of oil

and therefore it's going to cease to

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,

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, any more questions, guys?

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

happening and where this war is going,

okay? Again, the three big predictions I

make

um and we'll know in the next year or

two if these three three things happen

or not is United States will send in

ground troops. It has no choice in the

matter if it wants to win this war or

continue this war.

There'll be no nuclear weapons weapons

being used. Again, I will apologize to

the world if nuclear weapons are used,

okay? The third is that the Al-Aqsa

Mosque will be destroyed at some point.

And that's something I will talk about

next class.

>> Mhm.