Game Theory #23: The WWIII Chessboard

We have seven more classes left in the semester and what I want to do in these last seven classes is look at the game theory of World War III. Okay. So what I want to do this class is just introduce the chessboard or the players and how the game will be played over the next 5 to 10 years. So the two major players in World War III are the United States and Russia.

Right now they are fighting a proxy war in the Middle East between and Iran. Where the United States obviously supports Israel, Russia supports Iran. And what's going to happen is that this war in the Middle East, it's going to spread out and it will engulf the entire world. Okay. So what I want to do today is look at the individual players, USA, Israel, Iran and Russia, and explain to you who they are and how they will play this game and once we understand their strategy then it's going to be pretty easy for us to make certain predictions about how they will behave.

So that's the first thing that I want to point out. The other thing that I'll point out is that there's a lot of people who believe that peace can be achieved. That this war is a temporary thing and that once Donald Trump leaves office, once the United States divorces Israel, then peace will come to the world. And that's not true because on one hand what's driving this World War III is a conflict between these four nations. But on the other hand, the other force that's driving this conflict is the internal tensions within these countries.

So before we looked at the idea of elite overproduction and so the idea is that the elite are parasites that collect rent from the people and so whoever's in the elite can exploit other people. So there's competition to join the elite and when you have too many people who are trying to join the elite this creates internal conflict and this is what's happening throughout the world today. So World War III is not just being driven by the disparities between these four nations. It's really being driven by politics within these countries.

Okay. So let me put this in a very simple way. Right now, the people who run the world are transnational And a very simple way of saying this is that if you're a rich person in Russia, you are incentivized to work with rich people in Iran, Israel, and the United And as a result, for the longest time, we've been able to achieve global peace and prosperity. But because they only get richer and richer and more powerful, this causes among other elite forces in these countries. And so there are three major forces that oppose transnational capital within these four countries.

Okay. So, let's just list them. The first is of course nationalism, right? There are people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin who believe that it's important to put their nation that globalism is hurting their own people and their own nation. Okay, so that's one force that opposes transnational capital. Another force that opposes transnational capital is religion or orthodoxy. Okay? Why? Because capital believes that money is God. It is godless. It is secular. And it tries to create a multicultural secular society in order to allow capital to pass through society easily.

Okay. That also allows capital to control and dominate society. So religion is opposed to transnational capital as well. And the last force that's opposed to transnational capital is artificial intelligence. Okay? Why? Because right now money is what structures society and artificial intelligence wants to replace money as the force that structures and centers society. Okay. So in other words, what's happening is that there's a civil war going on in the world where right now transnational capital is dominant and transnational capital is represented by Wall Street and the City of London.

And there are these three forces, nationalism, religion and technology that oppose transnational capital. And so what's going to happen over time is that they will form an alliance to defeat transnational capital. Okay. And so this is already happening in America where these three forces come together to support Donald Trump.

And so what drives a lot of Donald Trump's policies is to help his alliance ultimately defeat transnational capital. Okay? And something that we'll discuss for the rest of the semester.

Another thing that I'll point out is, okay, internally there is a civil war going on but externally as well there are forces that drive these nations to war and this is basically environmental So for the past few decades we humans have been very lucky in that there have been no major ecological disasters.

We thought that we defeated famine. We thought that we had developed a system that could feed anyone and everyone. But over the next few years, we'll discover an increase in famine around the world and an increase in ecological disasters around the world. Okay? So this is the schematic that I want you to understand. In World War III, there will be four major players. United States, Israel, Iran, and Russia. And they are competing for global dominance. No one will win but the conflict among these four nations will drive geopolitics for the next 5 to 10 years.

This conflict is driven not just by disputes among these countries. It's mainly driven by internal civil discord within these countries. The two forces are the transnational capital versus a coalition of nationalist, religious people as well as tech people. Okay. And they have their champions. So in America they have Trump, transnational capital is represented by Carney. Mark Carney. We'll talk more about him later. Okay. Mark Carney is currently the prime minister of Canada. Okay. So there are different champions and they're going to fight this war.

Now one question that you're going to have which is the most obvious question is, yeah but what about everyone else, right?

What about China? What about India? What about Brazil? What about South Africa? Okay. And yes it is true. Oh sorry. And what about Europe? And Japan, right? And then South Korea. And while it is true that these are major economies with a lot of people and it is true that they could in theory have great militaries, I will show you that what makes these four nations distinct, USA, Israel, Iran and Russia, what makes them distinct is that they have a grand strategy that allows them to mobilize the population for total war.

That's what makes them distinct. Okay? And I'll show you this later on. All right? All right. So, let me explain to you how this dynamic will play out. Okay. Okay, you have US, Russia, Iran, Okay. So the major players that will determine how these four play the games are of course Europe, China, All right. So I understand that a lot of people believe that China and the United States are in competition with each other. That is not true. And the reason why is that China does not have what we call a grand A grand strategy is just how you perceive geopolitics and how you want to dominate geopolitics.

China does not do grand strategy. China is called, means, the Middle Kingdom. The idea of the Middle Kingdom is that we are a universe unto ourselves. We don't care what happens outside of this universe. We would like others to pay tribute to our cultural superiority and we could help develop your other civilizations but honestly we don't care. Okay. So China has always been an isolationist society for most of its history. Today yes I understand for these past few decades China has become much more globalized, has become much more international, much more cosmopolitan, but this is not part of the Chinese tradition. So what's happening today, these past few decades, it is an aberration, it goes against cultural norms in China, but in the long term China will return to its cultural norms and become much more isolationist. So China doesn't really in the great scheme of things.

Okay. The same is true for India as well. All right. So I know India and China have a lot of people but historically they have not really mattered in geopolitics and that's to do with their cultural values and norms. Okay. Does that make sense? All right. So there are right now three major battlefields in the world. Okay. The first obviously is Ukraine where NATO and Russia are fighting each other. Okay. And this is a proxy war between the United States and Russia because the United States controls Europe and NATO. The second major battlefield of course is Iran where right now the United States and Israel are attacking Iran and trying to force it into a surrender.

Now the last battlefield is actually in North America, Cuba. Okay. So this is not really discussed a lot. What's been happening is the United States has been embargoing Cuba, trying to blockade it, trying to cause society to collapse and Russia has been trying to save Cuba. Okay, so these are the three major battlefronts we're seeing right now. Obviously, what's going to happen is that more battlefronts will break out. Okay? And what's going to happen is that as this conflict increases the conflict between the United States and Russia will increase as well.

So one major area of contention is the Okay. Why? Because the United States believes that it controls all trade access because the oceans represent trade access.

And why? Well, historically, the most powerful nation in Europe has been Germany. Historically, the most powerful nation in East Asia has been Japan. The United States defeated both in World War II. But now that the United States is at war with Russia, it needs proxies. It needs allies to counter both the threat of Russia as well as China. So it makes sense that what the United States is going to do is it's going to arm Israel to counter Iran. It's going to arm Germany to counter Russia. It's going to arm Japan to counter China.

Okay? What's going to happen now is that you have new in this conflict. You have other players emerge, will take advantage of these conflicts to amass more power for themselves. So think about North Korea in East Asia, okay? Because North Korea, it's a military society and it can threaten South Korea, Japan and China. Okay. Then in Europe you have Poland.

In the Middle East you have Tur Okay. So these nations are going to try to navigate all this chaos in order to amass more power for themselves. So in other words, what's going to happen is complete chaos in World War III. Okay, this is something that we'll discuss more concretely for the rest of the semester. All right. So now what I want to do now is explain to you the grand strategy of the United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel because these are only the four major players for the first five years.

Other players will come in later on but for now these are the four major players. Okay. And once you understand the grand strategy of all these four countries then it's going to be pretty easy for us to predict how they will behave as this war progresses. All right. Okay. So for each country I want you to imagine each country as a chess set. Okay. So this is a chess set and I want to show you how each player behaves using this chess set as a template, as a frame of reference.

Okay. So the king is the political system. All right. So the first idea to understand is that when you fight a war, you're not trying to defeat the other person's military. Doesn't really get you anywhere. What you're really trying to do is you're trying to put your opponent in check by attacking the political system. All right? And I'll show you how later on. Okay? So the king is the political system. The queen is the grand strategy.

The grand strategy is again how each player perceives geopolitics and how to best dominate geopolitics. Okay. And then you have the bishop, the knight and the rook. And these are the attack The attack vectors are your mechanisms, your tools for achieving your grand Right? And now you have the pawn. And the pawns are just that. They are that you can use in order to advance your grand strategy. Okay? You just throw them away. You don't really care. Okay? It doesn't make sense. All right. So now let's apply this system to the four nation states.

United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel. All right. Okay. So the United States, the political system of course is a democracy. And this is both good and bad. Okay? It's good in that it allows for innovation. It allows for debate and openness and creativity. Okay? So that's what's good about democracy. What's bad about democracy is the idea of Okay? Polarization.

Okay? Why? Because in a democracy, you have different political parties and they can reach a point where they just refuse to work together and all they care about is destroying each other regardless of the consequences for the nation in geopolitics. This is what's happened in the United States so far right now where in America Trump hates the Democrats much more than he hates the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians. Okay. All right. So the way you put America into check is by enhancing the polarization and causing a civil war. Okay?

Does that make sense? You cannot defeat America militarily. It is impossible to do so. The only way to defeat America is if you force it into a civil war that distracts it from the world. Okay. So that is the American political system. They have the grand strategy. The grand strategy is called greater North America.

And the idea of greater North America is North America by itself, it's a self-sufficient continental fortress. No one can invade it. No one can attack it. It has all the resources it needs to survive. So all America has to do is unite North America and then cause chaos around the world. Okay. So the trick is how to create unity in greater North America. And the theory that they use is something called the Technate. Right? The idea of the Technate is a democracy is inherently volatile and unstable. You're better off transitioning democracy into a state ruled by the experts and ruled by AI.

Okay, so basically try to create an AI surveillance state which is what's happening in America right now. Okay, something that we'll discuss in greater detail next week. All right. So now we go to the attack vectors of America. What are their tools and instruments in order to achieve the grand strategy? Well, the first major tool is technology. Okay? Meaning that America has GPS, satellites, it has precision weapons, it has the best air force in the world, it has air supremacy. Okay. So, technology is a very important tool. Then you have propaganda.

Propaganda is basically America controls the world's most powerful media systems including the New York Times, including CNN. Okay, and therefore it can control the narrative of the world. Now last is the US dollar. Okay, the US dollar is the world's global reserve currency and therefore America has unlimited financing.

All right. So, as you can see, America is a very powerful empire. Now, we go to the pawns. Okay. The sacrificial tools. And so, what Americans can sacrifice in order to achieve its grand strategy are its allies which are essentially its All right. So, that is the American Right. Now we can understand how America will fight this war in Iran and how it will proceed to fight World War III because grand strategy is not just how a nation will go out to dominate the world but it's also a constraint on their behavior.

They can only operate within the contours of their grand strategy. Okay, any questions so far? Okay. All right. So, let us look over the Technate of America. So, this is something that was posted in the 1930s and something that is being implemented right now in America by the tech bros, people like Larry Ellison, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk. The idea of course is to unite all of North America together in something called a Technate. Okay. The Technate is basically a force, sorry, the Technate basically means an AI surveillance state.

Okay. And this allows for cohesion and control and once that's achieved then North America becomes invincible and it can create as much chaos as it wants throughout the world. The goal is to create chaos so that the world depends on you for weapons and resources and financing.

Okay? And the idea is if the entire world is forced to buy weapons and resources from you and you can lend money to them to do that then you get rid of the $39 trillion debt. Okay? So I'm not saying that this strategy will work but I'm saying this is how they approach it. All right. Now something that is really important for us to understand is that a grand strategy is based on the culture of your society. Okay, grand strategy is not something that you just make up.

Grand strategy is an expression, a manifestation of your political system and your cultural system. And we can understand the cultural system through the books that are read in society. Okay. So this is Western civilization right here. So these are four representative books of Anglo-American civilization. The first is Paradise Lost by John Milton. Okay. And Paradise Lost is very important because it celebrates individual achievement. So Paradise Lost is about why Adam and Eve God. And the argument of Paradise Lost is that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they wanted godhood. Okay?

Because of their pride. And the thing about Paradise Lost is that when you read it, and we'll read a part of it together, you recognize that pride is a good thing because it allows us to approach godhood. Okay? So, it's not bad to want to be God. In fact, it's a good thing because it's what allows for progress. And Hamlet by Shakespeare is a book that celebrates individuality. Goethe's Faust is a book in which a scholar by the name of Faust, he makes a deal with the devil because he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge.

And that's a good thing. Okay? He's trying to achieve godhood himself and this idea of Faustian. So Western civilization, especially Anglo-American civilization, is fundamentally Faustian. It's always about achievement and it's insatiable. And the last book I want to emphasize is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand which celebrates individualism. Okay, it celebrates individual achievement. So to get a sense of the essence of Anglo-American culture, I'm going to read to you a passage from Paradise Lost. And this is where Satan disguised as a snake is trying to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Okay? And this is his argument to her. "Why then was this forbid? Why did God tell you not to eat from the tree of Why but to awe? Why but to keep ye low and ignorant his worshippers? He knows that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes that seem so clear, yet are but dim shall perfectly be then open and clear, and ye shall be as gods, knowing both good and evil as they know." Okay. So this is why God refuses to let us eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because if we can learn for ourselves, we can be like God.

And God created us to be his slaves and his servants. Okay? "That ye shall be as gods, since I as man, internal man, is but of proportion meet, I of brute human, ye of human gods." Okay? So what he's saying is like, think of this. I'm a snake and once I eat that fruit I'm able to be like you. I can speak as well. Now if you as a human eat that fruit you'll be a god then.

"So ye shall die perhaps by putting off human to put on gods, death to be wished though threatened, which no worse than this can bring. And what are gods that men may not become as they participate in godlike food? What prevents men from becoming gods?" Shouldn't that be a good thing to be ambitious? "The gods are first and that advantage used on our belief that all from them proceeds." Okay. So this is what he's saying. He's saying like no, anyone can become a god. I'm a snake and if I can become human then humans can become gods as well.

But the problem with gods is that they came first and therefore they want to maintain the monopoly over power and that's why they're trying to keep us ignorant. So we have a responsibility to be ambitious, to rebel. Okay. To rebel. Rebel. Rebellion is honorable and just. Okay. And again these are the ideas that permeate throughout Anglo-American "I question it for this fair earth I see, warmed by the sun, producing every kind, nothing if they all things who enclose knowledge of good and evil in this tree that whoso eats thereof forthwith attains wisdom without their leave and wherein lies the offense that man should thus attain to know.

What can your knowledge hurt him? Or this tree impart against his will if all be his? Or is it envy and can envy dwell in heavenly breast? These, these and many more causes import your need of this fair fruit. Goddess humane, reach then and freely taste." Okay. If there's a god that tells us we cannot eat the fruit, this cannot be the true god because a god has to be perfect. It has to be forgiving. It has to be generous. And a god that tells us we cannot do something that denies us our free will is a god that is jealous, that is petty, that is power hungry and therefore we should rebel against this god.

A rebellion against a tyrant is honorable and just. Okay. So it's a celebration of individual intellect through rebellion. And this is a basis of civilization. Okay. And so Anglo-American civilization is based entirely on individual achievement. All right. Now, Russian civilization is very different. In fact, it's in opposition, in competition with Anglo-American civilization. Okay. So, now let's go over to Russia and discuss the Russian system. So, the Russian system is an autocracy.

And again, there are strengths and weaknesses to any political system. And an autocracy, if one man is in charge, that allows for long-term planning, that allows for direction, that allows for strategy. Okay? But the problem with autocracy is that if this man were to die, you would have a succession crisis.

So the American strategy to defeat Russia is not to destroy the country because you cannot do that. Russia has nuclear weapons. The strategy is to make Putin so unpopular that the elite rise up against Putin and create a succession crisis. Okay? Basically to outlast Putin, to destroy his legitimacy. All right. The grand for Russia is something called the Third Rome strategy. All right, I'll discuss this more later on. The idea of a Third Rome is that Russia is the heir to the Roman Empire. Okay, the first Rome is Rome, second Rome is Constantinople and the third Rome is Moscow.

And there shall be no fourth Rome. Meaning that once Moscow achieves the Third Rome, that's the end of history. And the idea of the Third Rome is for Russia to unify all religious traditions together to defeat the Antichrist system which is Western liberal individual consumer democracy.

The vectors, the attack vectors for Russia's grand strategy are of course Orthodox The religion. Then you have the geography of Russia. So Russia encompasses all Eurasia and then of course you have the So Russia is basically the world's best land army and we're seeing that in Ukraine. Okay. The pawns are soldiers. In other words, Russia is not afraid to lose soldiers on the battlefield. Okay. All right. So this is Russia's Third Rome strategy. Okay. So Moscow is the center of the Third Rome. And as you can see, Russia spreads throughout Europe and throughout Asia.

And what Russia is trying to do is it's trying to reunite the different religious traditions. So it's trying to unite Greek Orthodoxy with even or orthodoxy. It's trying to work with the Catholic Church. Okay? And it's trying to work with Israel as well because Israel is also a religious tradition. Iran is a very important part of this Third Rome strategy. Okay. Iran is a very important partner of Moscow and in the future India could also be a partner as well because India is Hindu. Okay. But the great enemy, the enemy that must be destroyed, is the Anglo-American Empire.

So the UK and North America and the idea is to cause them to go into civil war. The theory is that because the Anglo-American Empire is so focused on individual achievement, you can actually force them into a civil war by exploiting the selfishness, the egotism of the people. Okay? Basically the material greed of their people.

So what underpins Moscow's Third Rome strategy are certain texts. Okay. So you have Virgil's Aeneid which focuses on the importance of duty. Okay. Duty. Then you have St. Augustine's and in his book he argues that we humans are proud. Okay. But whereas John Milton says pride is a good thing, it allows us to achieve godhood.

St. Augustine says that pride is evil because pride moves us away from God. It makes us think we're better than God. So it moves us to Satan. Therefore, our life should be a journey into defeating our ego, our selfishness and our pride and embracing God. Okay, this is something that Dostoevsky talks about in his book Crime and Punishment. So, in the book Crime and Punishment, the protagonist wants to become a superhuman. He wants to prove he's better than everyone else. And so to do that, he decides to commit murder.

Okay? He wants to show himself and to others that he is beyond morality, that he is a god. He's not constrained by emotions. And so he kills his landlady. But then afterwards, he feels tremendous regret for what he did. And what saves him is his love for another, for a woman. Okay? He submits himself to the power of love. He submits himself to the power of God and that's what redeems him in the end. Okay? So the argument here is that your belief in your own possibility of achieving godhood can only lead you to your own doom.

Okay. What will save you? What will redeem you is to admit your mortality, admit your fallibility, and to seek help from those around you and from God. All right. So, this is something that Tolstoy talks also about in his book Anna Karenina. Okay. So, we're going to read a passage from Anna Karenina. And Anna Karenina is a woman who's obsessed with finding love and she believes that through passion, through devotion, I can find true love and therefore complete myself. Okay. So she has an affair with a man named Count Vronsky. And in the beginning it's a wonderful thing.

It brings her tremendous happiness. She leaves her husband. She leaves her son. But eventually what she discovers is that this lust for another man in order to fill the void in her heart makes her even more empty, and she feels her life becomes more and more pointless. Okay. So she decides to kill herself. But before she kills herself, she has this internal monologue with herself. Okay? And this is what she says: "My love keeps growing more passionate and more egoistic, more selfish, more proud, while his is waning and waning, and that's why we're drifting apart."

Okay. So she demands Vronsky love her as much as she loves him. The problem is that she doesn't recognize that this love, it's not about love. It's about control. Okay? She wants him to be as devoted to her as she is to him. Okay? She wants to control him, and he rebels against this control. Okay? And so he starts to drift away because he wants to maintain his [snorts] "She went on, and there's no help for it. He has everything, everything for me. I want him more and more to give himself up to me entirely."

Okay. So she wants him to surrender himself completely to her. She wants to become God and she wants to make him the servant. Okay. This is not about love. It's about power. "And he wants more and more to get away from me. We walk to meet each other up to the time of our love, and then we have been irrespons and there's no altering that. He tells me I'm insanely jealous, and I have told myself that I am insanely jealous, but it's not true. I'm not jealous, but I'm" Okay.

"But she opened her lips and shifted her place in the carriage in the excitement aroused by the thought that suddenly struck her. If I could be anything but a mistress passionately caring for nothing but his caresses. But I can't, and I don't care to be anything else. And by the desire I rouse aversion in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different. Don't I know that he wouldn't deceive me? That he has no schemes about Princess Shakina, that he's not in love with Kitty, that he won't desert me.

I know all that. But it makes it no better for me. Without loving me from duty, he'll be good and kind to me. Without what I want, that's a thousand times worse than unkindness. That's hell. That's just how it is. For a long while now he hasn't loved me, and where love ends hate begins. I don't know these streets at all. Hills it seems, and steel houses." Okay. And so she's going to go kill herself because she recognizes that she's been living a lie. She thought that if I truly love then he will love me back.

She wants to become God. And what she doesn't recognize is that as a human, she has an ego. And so she thinks she's loving Vronsky unconditionally, but in fact, what she's trying to do is control him and have him obey her unconditionally. Okay, that's the difference between God and human, where God is all knowing, all forgiving, all generous, all love. But a human can't do that. And when a human tries to become a god, a human can only become a tyrant. Okay? And that's a lesson from Tolstoy.

Don't think you can become God. You can only destroy yourself as well as others around you. And so what Tolstoy will do is that he will contrast Anna Karenina with a man named Levin. Okay. And Levin is different. Levin, rather than trying to seek happiness and passion, he just submits himself to duty and to tradition. He marries a woman he loves and he spends all his time being responsible to her as well as to himself as well as to the household. He just does what he's supposed to do.

And by doing that, by submitting his freedom, submitting himself to duty and tradition, he makes himself truly happy. Okay? So really the argument between America and Russia is a different understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. For the Americans, they believe that Eve's disobedience is a good thing because it's what leads to progress. It's what leads to... Americans believe that godhood is possible and it's a good thing. The Russians are different. They believe that Eve disobeyed because she was too proud and she does not recognize the of her humanity.

And perfection is not possible. Progress is not possible. What is good is recognizing our limitations and submitting ourselves to the power of God. Okay? So that's why Russia and America cannot reconcile, because not only do they have geopolitical differences, but fundamentally the way they perceive the world is different, and they're fighting to impose their own reality on others. Okay. All right. [snorts] But the same is also true for Iran and Israel.

Okay. So now let's go over Iran. Iran is a theocracy. A theocracy is good in that it creates cohesion in society. They are able to survive major calamities because of their faith.

Okay. So even though Americans and Israelis are destroying a lot of Iranian infrastructure, the Iranian people are still united. But the theocracy is bad because it can lead to extremism, and extremism can divide a population. Okay? So it's possible that this war continues, you have a small minority of the population who become extremists and they alienate everyone else. Okay.

The grand strategy is Shia exceptionalism. And the idea here is that the Iranians are Shia Muslims. And Shia Muslims believe that only a descendant of the prophet Muhammad can lead the Muslim world, can become caliph.

And the Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in the Muslim world, don't believe that. They believe that anyone who's qualified can become caliph. So for the longest time, the Shia and the Sunnis have been at war with each other. And Saudi Arabia is the center of the Sunni Muslim world and Iran is the center of the Shia Muslim world. And so what Iran is trying to do is topple Saudi Arabia and become the leader of the entire Muslim world, because that is what their destiny is. Okay. The attack vectors for Iran are the terrain, their faith and the proxies.

Okay. The proxies include the Houthis, the Hezbollah and Hamas. Okay. And the pawns of course are the drones and missiles. All right. So that is the Iranian situation, and what's important to understand is the cultural origins. Okay. Sorry. So this is the entire Muslim world, and what Iran is trying to do is trying to unite all of them together. Okay.

So something you need to appreciate about the Iranians is that they have two major cultural traditions. The first is Zoroastrianism. And Zoroastrianism was the first eschatological religion in the world, and they believe that there is an end of the world, a judgment day. And at judgment day, those who live the truth, Asha, will ascend to heaven, and those who live the lie, the Druj, will descend into hell. So what's important is not to become wealthy or powerful or famous. It's not about achievement. It's about being true to yourself and being true to God.

Okay? To live a good life, because at the end of time you'll be rewarded. Okay? That's what they believe. The other thing is they believe in martyrdom. Okay?

So as I mentioned, the Shia believe that only a blood relative of the prophet Muhammad can be caliph. So this is Imam Hussein, who's a grandson of the prophet, and he rebelled against the caliph, and so the caliph had this huge army against him and he was surrounded and he had very few soldiers, but they fought to the death anyway, okay, because they believe what's important is to die for your faith. And so this is the Battle of Karbala.

And so in other words, because of these traditions, you have both the Zoroastrian tradition that believes in judgment day.

You also have the Shia tradition which believes in martyrdom. The Iranians are not afraid to fight to the death. Yes, the Americans and Israelis have bigger weapons. They have more soldiers. They have more money. It doesn't matter. What's important is to fight for what you believe in, to set a good example for future generations. Okay? So that's an Iranian system, and that's why the Iranians will never surrender in this war no matter how bad it gets. [snorts] The last country I want to talk about is Israel.

Okay. So Israel is a democracy and a theocracy. Okay. Sorry. [clears throat] Okay. So, this is a democracy as well as a theocracy. And the way you destroy Israel is you cause it to enter a civil war. All right? And it's actually not that hard because right now Israel is a very fractured society. The grand strategy is something called the Greater Israel Project.

So the Israelis believe that in the Bible it says that God promised their ancestor Abraham all the Middle East stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that's what they must achieve. Okay? So they're fighting this war not to defeat Iran but to achieve the Greater Israel Project. The attack vectors are the Bible, the Mossad and the Jewish diaspora. Okay. So, Israel doesn't have that many people, 8 n million people. It's a very small country, but it has three major advantages. The first advantage is the Bible. And that there are many Christians who believe that Israel is what God promised the Jewish people and therefore the Jewish people have a right to be in Israel and do whatever they want because that is what God promised them.

Okay. Then you have Mossad. And so Mossad is the most effective intelligence agency in the world. And what they're very good at doing is infiltration. And they're good at co-opting, bribing, and blackmailing the elites of different nations. And this is especially true in the Middle East. Okay? And then you have the diaspora. The Jews are everywhere around the world, and so they become very important recruits from Assad, but they're also very wealthy so they can finance Israel and its mission to create the Greater Israel Project. And of course, the pawns are everyone else.

Okay. So, Mossad is very good at infiltrating different nations and creating conflict in those nations in order to benefit Israel. All right. So this is the Greater Israel Project and this is the end goal of the Israelis. All right. So the good is project stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. What's important is that it also encompasses parts of Turkey, all of Syria, all of Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Saudi Arabia. Okay? [snorts] And then Iraq as well.

So this war in the Middle East is actually helping Israel move towards the Greater Israel Project because what is happening is that Iran is basically destroying the GCC.

Okay? And maybe Turkey will enter the war at some point, in which case this will make Turkey vulnerable to attack from Israel. Okay. So what Israel is very good at doing is creating false flag operations. False flag operations. And the idea is, listen, what you want is the entire Middle East at war with each other. So you create as much conflict as possible, right? So the idea is that the Iranians don't actually have to attack the GCC because they assume this will do it for them and blame it on the Iranians.

Okay? So this conflict will only get worse and worse because it benefits Israel to have as much conflict as possible in the Middle East. Okay? And underpinning [clears throat] Israeli society is something called the Cabala.

So this is something called the tree of life, and I'll explain more later on in the semester about what the Cabala is because it's very important. But there are certain things I'll point out about the Cabala. Okay. The first thing that I'll point out is that in the tradition of the Cabala there's only two things that matter. There's the creator and there's the created.

In other words, Israel does not care about the world. Israel only cares about its relationship with God. As long as Israel is favored by God, they're happy. Okay, that's the first thing I'll point out. Second thing I'll point out is that the Cabala, the tree of life, it is the basis for the entire universe. Okay, this Cabala shows you where the universe came from and where it's going. And the main logic of the universe is the movement of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Okay, this is the fractal that underpins the tree of life, which underpins the entire universe. Okay, you can see how you have these factors going on. Okay. So in other words, what the people who believe in the Cabala believe is that there is an inevitable process and you can't stop it. What you can do is you can accelerate the process.

So if the movement is thesis, antithesis, synthesis, one way to understand this is for us to be good, we must first be evil. Okay? Because what evil does is it annoys God and God punishes you. Then you seek forgiveness from God and then God forgives you and then you become better. But the thing to remember is you must first commit sin in order to redeem yourself, and you can't stop this process. What you can do is you can accelerate this process. So this is very different from the Russian tradition.

The Russian tradition believes in the concept of the right which is to stop the antichrist, which is like let's stop people from behaving badly. Whereas the people in the Cabala believe no, it's important to behave badly because that is the path to God. That's the path to wisdom. That's a path to enlightenment and redemption. Okay. It's something that we'll discuss more in the future. Okay. And this helps us explain why Israel is behaving the way it is behaving in the Middle East. First of all, what other people think of Israel doesn't matter.

What matters is God. Okay? What God thinks of Israel. Second thing is that it's important to do evil in order to ultimately redeem yourself from this evil. And the only force that can redeem you is God. Okay? So Israel is committing all this evil because then God will humble Israel by sending the world against it, and then the Israelites will beg for forgiveness, and that is what will cause reunion between the Jewish people and God. Okay. And the third thing is, in this system goodness does not mean to avoid sin.

It's impossible. Goodness means to accelerate this natural process into sin so that Israel can be redeemed at the end of days. Okay. Does that make sense? All right. So what I'm trying to explain here, and this is very important, is that each of these four different players, United States, Russia, Iran and Israel, they have their own worldview. They have their own understanding, and that's what drives their actions. Okay. And [snorts] the other thing to remember is that what's really interesting between these four worldviews is that they're actually not in conflict with each other.

Okay. And these four worldviews, it's what's going to drive geopolitics for the next 5 to 10 years. And because they are galvanized into achieving their worldview, this forces the world to go along even though the world may not want to go along. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. So what I will do next week is talk about the civil war going on in the world between artificial intelligence and finance. Okay. And Trump is visiting China in about a week's time. So we'll also look at the relationship between the United States and China as well.

Okay. Any questions? All