Geo-Strategy Update #2: WWIII Begins, Let's Game Theory

Hi YouTube. Good morning from Toronto on a very muggy day. As you know, last night Trump ordered the bombing of three nuclear facilities, and this will mark the beginning of World War III. So I have both good news and bad news. The bad news is we are now approaching the end of the world. The good news is this morning I will tell you how the world will end. So I'm going to look ahead and ask the most pivotal question of this coming war, which is: will the United States use ground troops?

As we discussed many times before in previous videos, if the United States were to use ground troops then they would lose this war. It would mark the end of the American Empire and it would probably ignite the Second American Civil War. I think most people would be in agreement that using ground troops would be a disaster for the United States, and the United States should avoid using ground forces to the best of its. That said, I'm going to use game theory to explain to you why they will still use ground troops against Iran, even though it's a really, really bad idea.

In fact, it would be a catastrophe. Okay, so let's do some game theory analysis. In game theory, we look at the different players here: Iran, Israel, the United States. And we ask three questions. The first question is, how do they themselves perceive the game? What game are they playing? How do they see themselves? How do they see their roles in this game? That's the first big question. The second big question is, what are their interests? What are their motivations? What are they trying to accomplish?

What are their goals? The third big question then is, given their role and given their interest, what is their optimal strategy in trying to achieve their goals? Okay. So given these three questions, we're going to look at how Iran, Israel and the United States will play this game in this war.

Iran's probably easiest to do. Iran perceives this war as the opportunity to achieve really important national strategic goals. The first is to create national unity and to further legitimize the authority of the regime. As you know, because of sanctions and because of mismanagement and corruption, this regime in Iran is not very popular.

But if the Americans are coming to invade and overthrow the regime and sow chaos and destruction, then the people are going to solidly unite behind the government, no matter what government it is. Also, the Iranians see this as the best opportunity in a long time to finally destroy the American presence in the Middle East by forcing the Americans into a quagmire that they cannot extricate themselves from. As we discussed many times, supply issues in Iran will be a huge problem for the American military. They can get in, but it'll be very hard for them to get out.

And the third strategic national interest is to create global legitimacy by defeating the Americans. The Shia regime is trying to be the leaders of the global Muslim movement, and if they were to defeat the Americans in Iran then they would become the de facto leaders of all Muslims in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia. So those are the three major national strategic interests of Iran.

Now the question then is, how would Iran force Americans to invade? What is the optimal strategy in this regard? Because remember, the Iranians, they're not going to be able to beat the Americans in a conventional war.

They don't have the technology, they don't have the weapons, they don't have the financing that the Americans do. So they're going to have to trap the Americans in Iran, encircle them, cut off their supply lines and force a negotiated surrender. That's the optimal strategy of the Iranians.

So why would the Americans be lured into attacking Iran on Iran's terms? Well, there's a concept in geopolitics, in political science, called the escalation ladder. The idea of the escalation ladder is that before a full-blown war can start, there has to be a certain process of. And in this theory, the Americans have something called escalation dominance, which means that the Americans can always choose to use nuclear weapons if they feel they are losing this war.

They are the hegemon. They are the global hegemon, and the Iranians are the underdog. So in theory, what they teach you in political science is that the hegemon has the advantage of escalation dominance. What I want to show you today is that actually this theory doesn't really work, because escalation dominance, what it does is it forces you into reactions that may be against your best interest. So let me use a metaphor. Let's just say there's a bully in a high school and he's been bullying people for a year now and he's the biggest guy in the school.

He's really mean and everyone's afraid of him. He has a reputation for being a thug, and that's why he's able to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. Now, let's just say that you're, you know, half his size. You want to start a fight with him. Well, you would think that that would be against your advantage. But one advantage that you have in this fight is you can control the terms of engagement. You can calibrate your actions in order to elicit responses that are to the detriment of the bully.

Okay. What I mean by that is if the bully punches you, well, you have options. You can choose to go to the principal, you can choose to not do anything, or you can choose to fight back. You have some options. But if you were to punch the bully, the bully would have actually no choice but to punch you back. If he relents, if he compromises, then he loses all credibility in the school. So he has absolutely no choice in the matter but to punch you back, and punch you back harder than you punched him.

What this means is there are ways for you to calibrate your attack so that the bully is trapped. So, for example, you might say some bad things about him behind his back, then he responds. And anyway, the point of the matter is, even though the bully is supposed to be the stronger player, he's forced by his reputation to respond in a certain way that you can control and calibrate.

Same situation here with Iran versus the United States. The United States is a global hegemon. If Iran were to close off the Strait of Hormuz, if it were to attack Saudi Arabia, if it were to attack American bases in the Middle East, then the Americans must respond in a way that demonstrates escalation dominance.

And so by slowly and methodically and steadily provoking the Americans in a way that seems fair and reasonable, Iran can slowly force the Americans into invading Iran. It's going to be a gradual process, but the Iranians can do this. Remember, it's the Americans who first launched the first strike against the Iranians, and so the Iranians can now calibrate their response in order to slowly trap the Americans in the Middle East. So from the Iranian perspective, the optimal strategy is to force Americans to use ground troops to invade Iran.

They can accomplish that by carefully calibrating responses in a way that forces the Americans to respond more harshly until finally the only option really is to use ground troops. Okay, that's the Iranian case study.

Now, let's look at the Israelis. The Israelis and the Americans seem to be allies in this war, but the reality is the Americans and the Israelis have divergent interests. America is the global hegemon. Therefore, it wants to be able to balance forces in the Middle East. Yes, it supports Israel right now, but if Israel were to become too powerful over time, then the Americans would start to back Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt.

The Americans must maintain a balance of power in the Middle East. The Israelis, on the other hand, want to be the dominant hegemon in the Middle East. There's something called the Greater Israel project that among certain circles in Israel is an extremely influential idea. The idea is very simple. They believe that in the Bible, Yahweh, their God, gave the promised land to Abraham. That's a covenant. The promised land, though, extends from the Nile to the Euphrates. Basically the entire Middle East is supposed to be what Yahweh promised Abraham.

And there's a fanatical faction within the Israeli government that seeks to accomplish the promised land. And of course, if that were the case, then the main adversaries to this project would not be the Iranians or the Saudis. It would actually be the Americans. Because to accomplish the Greater Israel project, Israel needs to remove America from the Middle East. So how can Israel do this? Well, let's just say, just hypothetically speaking, the Americans were to invade Iran with ground troops and they're stuck there for years and years and they get nowhere.

Now the American Empire collapses. The American people revolt against the invasion of Iran. They refuse to serve. They burn their draft cards as they did in Vietnam. There's civil chaos. There's an emerging civil war in America. And now the American military is forced to retreat from the Middle East. What would happen in that situation? Well, the moment that the American Empire dies, the empire of Israel is born. Why? Because controlling the Middle East, the American military controlling the Middle East, is called CENTCOM, Central Command. They have bases, they have weapons, they have soldiers.

If the American nation were to retreat from the Middle East, it does not mean the American military goes away. All it means is the American military will now become absorbed into the nation state of Israel, making Israel the de facto hegemon of the Middle East. That's the long-term play of Israel. It does Israel absolutely no good to defeat Iran. They need to defeat both Iran and America. The best way to do that is to entangle both into a war that will destroy the militaries of both nations. That's the optimal strategy for Israel.

And that requires the Israelis to persuade the Americans to use ground troops to invade Iraq. Okay, that's the case study.

Now, let's look at America. Obviously, America does not want to use ground troops, because the moment that Americans start dying in the Middle East, the moment that they institute a draft, it will create chaos in America. People are going to protest, people are going to revolt.

Politically speaking, it will be a quagmire. What the American Empire wants to do is use bombing, propaganda and financing, and this is something we discussed in the last video, to overthrow the Iranian regime, the Ayatollah and his mullahs, and install a more friendly regime that they can control. In that way they can control all the resources, the oil of the Middle East, and they can control global trade as well. And they have to do this as a response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which really put the American Empire on the back foot.

Okay, so that's the optimal strategy of the American Empire: to overthrow the regime with as few casualties as possible, hopefully through bombing, decapitation strikes, killing the Ayatollah, special forces strategies basically.

But the person leading the American empire right now is Donald Trump, and if we look at what he wants, it's actually different from what the American Empire wants. Let's ask ourselves a question. What game is Donald Trump playing? Does he really care about Iran? Does he really care about the Middle East? Does he really care about Israel and Zionism and the Greater Israel project?

My guess is he does not care. What he cares about is maintaining his political authority and power within the United States. He also cares about destroying the global elite that in his mind robbed him of power in 2022. Remember, for Trump the 2020, sorry, the 2020 elections were stolen from him. It's something that he's been adamant about for the past four years. In fact, he stews over it. So he wants to get back at the global elite who stole the American election from him, and also wants to make sure he stays in power.

That means destroying the global elite and the American empire. So it's really a struggle between America First, represented by Donald Trump, and the American Empire. Now, you would think that this war between the America First people and the American Empire would mean that Donald Trump would not use ground troops in Iran. But what better way to destroy the American Empire than to give it all that it wants? What better way to destroy the American empire than by giving it all it wants and by putting it in a situation that it cannot possibly win.

So the idea is this. At first Donald Trump will seem to want regime change in Iran, and he may even commit ground troops, but as the American people start protesting, as there's violence and civil strife within America, as American soldiers start to die in Iran, as the global economy collapses, then Donald Trump's going to want to change his mind. But the American Empire is fully committed to winning this war. It's all in, it refuses to surrender. And now a conflict emerges between the American Empire and America First.

And Donald Trump can now aggravate this tension by standing with America First over the American empire. This would lead to a civil war. You would think this is a bad thing, but the civil war and an unwinnable war in the Middle East are going to greatly enhance the power and authority of Donald Trump, so much so that he would probably be able to capture a third term.

So it's really interesting that all three major players, Donald Trump, Israel and Iran, want America to use ground troops in Iran for their own selfish, individualistic purposes.

And that's why I think ground troops will eventually be used in. I think what will happen is that basically all three players, Iran, Israel and Donald Trump, will get exactly what they want. Israel will be able to remove America from the Middle East and become the empire of. Iran will unite the Muslim world behind its leadership, and Donald Trump will probably get his third term. Okay, that's what I see the upshot of this war being.

Now, this raises a lot of questions though. I mean, if Israel becomes Greater Israel and it becomes the empire of Israel and dominates the Middle East, controlling oil and trade, then wouldn't the world unite against Israel?

And unfortunately, that's part of the plan. That's part of the prophecy. And this is something that we will discuss in the next video, because using game theory itself is not enough to fully understand what's going on in the Middle East. To fully understand, in my next video I'm going to explain to you the religious ideals, the religious obsessions driving this war in the Middle East. I'm going to explain to you the idea of eschatology, which means the of how the world ends.

Basically all the major players in the game, Iran, Israel, even to a certain extent the United States, the Christian Zionists in the United States, see this war in Iran as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. They really see this as the end of the world, and that's why this war is so scary for all of us. And so in my next video I will reveal to you the religious dimensions of this war.

Some other points before I conclude this video. Some of you have reached out in my last video and said that I should not reveal my public information. I shouldn't put my family in front of the camera. And you're absolutely right. Upon reflection, I want to thank everyone who voiced their concerns. Honestly, this is all new to me. I was a high school teacher teaching my students and now I'm internet famous and everyone's looking to me for some guidance as to this US-Iran war. I'm flattered, but I'm also overwhelmed by the attention.

I'm an educator. I want to continue to educate people on how this war is going to unfold so that you will be better prepared. I see that as my mission. And so I'm going to continue making videos. I'm going to continue, as this war progresses, explaining to you using game theory how this war, how the hell, how this war might unfold. But I now understand that the internet can be a scary, crazy, insane place. So I have to be much more careful about my public profile, and I have to be a lot more careful about protecting my family.

Okay, so I'm going to keep on making videos, but I apologize if you reach out and I don't really answer you. I'm being overwhelmed right now. I apologize if you reach out and you want to have coffee and I can't do it. Again, my focus right now is on studying this war, trying to figure out what's going on, and to the best of my ability, try to explain and clarify what's going on. Okay, so I will see everyone next time. Goodbye.