Prof Jiang: Trump Is STUCK. He Can't End The Iran War Even If He Wanted Too... Here's Why...

The Iranians have said that their goal is to spike the price of oil to $200 a barrel. If Trump were to leave the Middle East, basically the American Empire would collapse. It's very risky to use military force to resolve an economic issue. It isn't enough to remind everybody that you have a big military. You actually have to get control of Iran. This is a war that is looking for a purpose and a strategy. The Marine Expeditionary Force that is going to Iran is the same force that went into Vietnam. Like 5 years later you had 500,000 American soldiers. So you can make argument that a lot of the issues in America come from the fact that baby boomers are a selfish, materialistic, and self-absorbed generation that refuse to surrender power. So who are going to be the winners and who are going to be the losers in this? Trump and America they continue to [music] underestimate the resilience and resolve of the Iranians. If you had to advise the US, what would you tell them? If they actually wanted to either get out of the war with the least amount of damage or actually win, what what is the play here? So a lot of the problem is that if you look at empires in decline, they're no longer capable of strategic planning. Uh because there's a lethal um and toxic combination of hubris and desperation. And so the So Washington DC has become an insular bubble, right? And if you just look at these press conferences where reporters are like, "Hey Mr. Trump, what's the plan here?" And then Trump's like, "Shut up, man. I'm going to put you in jail. In fact, I'm going to pass a law that says if you criticize us in the war, we're going to put you all in jail, right? Or we're going to shoot you to death, right? That's how empires behave. And so at this stage where empires are in decline and they are and the leadership is unwilling to admit any uh possibility of defeat. Um and they're just trying to force everyone to uh repeat talking points, right? So Peter Hexe in his press conferences is just saying like, you know, "The problem with you guys is you don't talk about the good things. All you talk about is the bad things. Stop talking about the bad things and just focus on the good things and we're then we're good, okay?" And what what he doesn't recognize is like, uh I'm sorry, but like if the war's going bad, you need to hear it. And they refuse absolutely refuse to hear it, okay? So why empires decline is they become so arrogant and so insular that they refuse to consider possibility of defeat so that they always double down. And I don't know how you resolve this issue. Yeah, it uh it isn't going to be easy, that is for sure. So, okay, if we don't know how to do it well, what is your prediction for how it's actually going to play out? Is this a uh Trump declares victory, leaves it in chaos, comes home or is this Trump gets sucked in because Israel, Saudi Arabia, uh they want a ground war, they want this protracted thing to play out so that they can basically jockey for power in the Middle East? Um which of those two scenarios is more likely in your view? Right now there's a talk of war. So it's almost impossible for us to ascertain who's winning this war because the Israelis and Americans are doing so much damage to Iran. The Iranians are fighting back as well. So we can't actually ascertain who's actually winning this this war. But if you just look at historical examples, if you just look at game theory, then the then the idea is the Americans are stuck where they are and they can only double down. Because if they ever quit, right? It's not cost fallacy. It's It's like you go to the casino and you're losing $100,000. Uh if you quit now, you'll always lose that money, so you keep on gambling, okay? So unfortunately, what game theory suggests is that Trump's just going to double down. And And so I think what he's going to do is he's going to take Kharg Island. Um and he'll do it very easily. And then he'll want to secure the the coasts as well. And so you have mission creep. And unfortunately, he's being egged on by both Israel and the GCC because Israel clearly wants this war to escalate and the GCC wants to remove the Iranian threat as soon as possible because they see the amount of damage that the Iranians can do to the GCC. So Dubai, if nothing changes, uh Dubai will just cease to exist because for uh biggest Dubai is just based on uh the perception that it is a safe tax haven, right? But if Iran can just rain drones on Dubai uncontested, then no one's going to put their money in Dubai. So for Dubai to continue to thrive, it needs to destroy Iran and move remove that threat from the Middle East. So unfortunately, um the way that things are structured suggest that this war can only escalate and not actually um um move towards a ceasefire. All right, the official story is that this is a war to stop Iran from going nuclear, but the framework that you've been working off that allowed you to predict this war nearly 2 years ago suggests the structural forces that are actually driving it are deeper than that. If the war in Iran is just a symptom, what is the actual sickness? So we know the cause is not uh Iran's nuclear program because a few hours before the Israelis um struck Tehran and killed uh their Ayatollah, the Omani foreign minister went on TV and said that the Iranians had a agree had already agreed to zero um uranium enrichment even for civilian purposes, which was before a red line. So we know that being um nuclear program is not the real cause. And in fact, Trump has yet to articulate um a good reason for why this war start started in the first place. Uh now that the reason the administration is articulating to the public is that "Well, the Israelis were going to strike first." And if that were to happen, the Iranians would have struck back at both Israelis and Americans. And therefore, the Americans have to preempt um the Iranians. And that's why the Americans went in with the Israelis. Um so this is a war that is looking for a purpose and a strategy. And maybe 100 years from now historians will still argue over why this war started in the first place. So um let's go over some possibilities. So the first possibility is that this war had to happen. Um and the reason why is the nature of the American Empire. The American Empire um its power rests mainly on its ability to control maritime trade. It's able to control key uh maritime choke points like the Strait of like like the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Gibraltar. And the great fear is that the Eurasian continent would unify under great power. And so in the beginning of the 20th century, there was a British strategist named Mackinder, Halford Mackinder, and he argued that the greatest threat to British the to the British Empire was um the rise of a Eurasian power, whether it be the Ottoman Empire, whether it be the French, uh the Germans, or the Russians. Because if that power were to arise, that power would unify both Europe and Asia and connect the entire Asian continent through railways. And then and then absorb the Middle East and Africa and Southeast Asia into a continental trading block that would negate the naval power of the British Empire. And the British Empire only had naval power. It didn't have the population to sustain a land army. We saw that um in World I and World War II. So the entire strategy of the British was to create as much to cause as much discontent and chaos in Eurasia as possible. And it And if a great power were to arise, they would basically go to war against that that power. So we first saw the strategy play out during the the Napoleonic Wars when Napoleon basically unified Europe. And then what what Britain did was finance seven wars seven wars against against Napoleon. They lost six and they won the and they won the seventh. Do Do you think that the Brits at that point saw that as an existential threat and that's why they were going that hard? Yes, um they did um because um Napoleon wanted to institute something called the Continental System. So basically just blockade um England. Because remember, Britain is a resource-poor island. So they were blocked off from the European continent and if um Napoleon was able to embargo them, then they would have um starved, basically. There's also another issue in that um there are two main sources of uh British imperial power. The first, of course, is the Royal Navy. The second, which is actually more important, is the Bank of England. And so the Bank of England was chartered in 1688. Um Sorry, sorry, 1694. 1688 was the Glorious Revolution. The Glorious Revolution is important because that's when basically the Dutch Republic merged with the um British Empire. Uh and and the merger happened uh because the um one of the uh Dutch princes, William of Orange, went over to England to become their king something called the Glorious Revolution. And when the when that happened, when the Dutch aristocracy went over to England, they also brought with them their capital and their wealth. And so they set the Bank of England um as a private bank that would serve uh British monarchal interests. So So previously before, um if you're a merchant, you lend money to a king to fight his wars. The problem with that is that well the king could die or the king could lose the war or the king um could just renege on his promises and say, "You know what? I'm the king. You can't do do anything about me, so screw off, okay?" So, there was a lot of risk involved in lending money to a um a king. Now, the great innovation of the Bank of England is that you no longer lend money to a king, you just lend money to the parliament, the nation state. So, when you do that, then everyone in the nation uh the including the children, the the grandchildren are now obligated to pay you back, okay? And in in America um this became the Federal Reserve System. Um Um so, so in other words, all this wealth in um Europe that was looking for stability all went to England including the Dutch Republic, but also including the Habsburgs, including the the the Catholic um church. And so, that allowed England infinite financing for wars. So, even though um it could not uh produce a land army, it could give you the financing to fight Napoleon. And that And that's what led to the seven Napoleonic Wars. And And But But the problem with this is that once you start to fight a war, you have to keep on fighting because you if you start if you lost, then you lose all your money, right? So, it's almost like a Ponzi scheme. And so, that's what led to the Napoleonic Wars. And again, in the seventh it it's a seventh war, Britain won was was able to force an indemnity onto the French um and that saved the um the British system. Um so, after the French came the Russians, which led to the Russian Great Ga- which let's say we can call the Great Game between Britain and Russia in Central Asia. But with this same idea, they're trying to stop them from forming this heartland alliance so that they can do trade via trains. That's exactly correct. We'll get back to the show in just a second, but first, let's talk about gold. Gold is the right asset these days, but most people are using it wrong. They buy it, hold it, and then wait for the price to go up, but that price is still denominated in dollars, so you haven't actually escaped the system. You're still playing by its rules. That's the shift Monetary Metals helps make possible. They've built a way for your gold to earn yield paid not in dollars, but in more physical gold up to 4% per year. More ounces compounding in hard money every single month. You're growing the quantity of the hardest asset on Earth, and storage and insurance are included. So, there's no hidden fees that are going to eat away at your yield. Most people are passively absorbing inflation. This is exactly how you actively compound your way out of that. >> [music] >> Click the link in the show notes or visit monetary-metals.com/ impact to learn [music] more. This is a paid advertisement. And now, let's get back to the show. Yeah, I want to keep beating this point for people because this is one of the more brilliant ideas that I had never heard of before that you brought forward. I'm constantly trying to get people to understand what's going on in Iran through the lens of economics, and I don't know if this is going to be a point of agreement between us or a point of contention cuz I know we're going to get into the religious element of it with your thesis on eschatology. We'll get there in a second, but um this idea that there have been all these attempts to get people um that that multiple different empires have tried to unify that heartland that you're talking about across Europe that would essentially go from Eastern Europe all the way to uh the Middle East. And cuz I had often wondered, you hear a lot that, you know, the US patrols the seas, that England did it before them, and I was always like, "How with boats that can't go on land, how exactly are you controlling this large empire via the sea?" And this is the first way where I've heard somebody really dive into, "Well, if if you force commerce onto the water, you actively stop it from going on land. Now, you get these few choke points, and if you can control those choke points, you control the economics. And if you control the economics, you basically control the world." And I've had a shockingly difficult time getting people to view this war through the lens of economics. Now, I know you're just starting here and you have other things. Do you feel like the economic lens is the predominant lens, or are we going to get to something that you think is actually even bigger than that? Yeah, I think the economic lens is the priority, but there are other issues adjacent to this economic uh issue. And about under- understanding these other issues, we can't really understand what's really going on. If it was purely an economic issue, then what America could do is say to Iran, "Let's just be friends. Let's be trading partners, right?" And Iran would be would be ex- ecstatic about uh America lifting sanctions because the entire point of negotiating with America on the nuclear deal was to lift sanctions, right? So, um if it was purely economics, then America and Iran would have sat down, you know, like 1979, 1980, whenever, and just agreed on economic solution to um their diff- to the differences. And And like 40 years later, there's never been a um serious economic um solution. And so, this tells us that yes, economics is at the heart of it, but it doesn't really fully explain what's going on. Okay, I want to set the religious component on the shelf for now. We'll get to why the right lens is economics, but however, if you want to know why people stop being rational actors, we'll get to that. So, we've got this Mackinder's um heartland thesis. The British have it. They're fighting against, you know, first France, then Russia. Like that keeps going for a while, but the baton handoff from the Brits to the US running the same strategy is something that I think certainly Americans are largely blind to. Can you walk us through that and why something that made sense for this tiny island continues to make sense for, you know, the gigantic landmass and economy that is the US? Right. So, we we have to remember like a men- much of the reason why Britain was able to keep its um enemies in the heartland at bay was because it allied itself with the Germans, right? So, basically basically it was an alliance with the Prussians that allowed the British to defeat the French at the end of the day. Um but uh in the late 19th century, about 1870 uh Germany unified under Bismarck. Um and now they had their own ambitions. And now Britain came to conflict with Germany. The Germans were extremely technologically advanced. They had the best universities. They were extremely uh sophisticated, cultured people. Uh just the best philosophy in the world. And they had the best general staff in the world. So, um Britain found a tremendous adversary in Germany. So much so that it took two world wars to defeat Germany. So, we can argue over the causes of World War I, but most historians agree that World War I was the cause because Britain was the hegemon and Germany was the challenger, a rising power uh that threatened the economic imperial security of Britain, and that's what ultimately led to this uh World War I. And America came into the war because quite honestly, it seemed as though Germany was going to triumph in the end. So, it took basically an an entire global alliance to defeat Germany in World War I. Um the the the tra- the tragedy the travesty of World War I is that in the Versailles Conference, the allies made Germany take all the guilt for causing World War I, which was extremely unfair and an utopia. And it basically laid the seeds for World War II. Um and so, you have World War II. And now uh Germany's spreading across Europe and Germany decides to attack Soviet Union which is communist. And you would think that America and Britain would um would fight alongside the Nazis, but instead they chose to support uh Stalin. And again, the reason why is the heart of the Mackinder thesis. You can- You cannot allow a great power to emerge near your Asian client. And at that time, it seemed that Germany was a second right? Because you if you marry German technology um and logistics organization with Russian manpower and resources, then this is the empire that rules the world. So, America could not allow that to happen, but World War World War I and World War II exhausted Britain, and it forced the peaceful transfer of imperial power from Britain to America. And this was cemented in something called the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 uh which established the global financial order that we live in uh today. So, so that that is the the the story. >> [snorts] >> Okay, so the part that I think a lot of Americans will be a little bit baffled by is um why is that handoff so obvious that, "Okay, the way to rule the world is to stick with these shipping lanes." It makes sense when you've got a small island. It gets more confusing when the US is a gigantic landmass with cooperative neighbors uh to maybe slightly varying degrees, certainly right now uh to the north and to the south of them. Um so, why did we accept this idea of trying to patrol the entire world via the seas. Um was it just the the call of being the imperial leader is so strong and so intoxicating that we're willing to take on the risk of empire, or was it that well that's what we're going to have to do to make sure that the dollar remains the world's reserve currency? Right. So, I think that at the end of World War II, first of all, there was a lot of tremendous goodwill among the Europeans for for what America did, right? I mean because Americans made all the sacrifices to save Europe from fascism. Um and so the Europeans were very grateful. And the real concern was that if America retreated back into its continental fortress, which is what America did at the end of World War I, then another threat um would arise uh in Europe, possibly the Soviet Union, right? Well, I mean obviously the Soviet Union. And so the Europeans were very much interested in ensuring that America stayed interested in European affairs, and that's what led to the NATO alliance and the Marshall Plan. Um and America itself recognized that um if it did not um help the Europeans, then communism was ascendant. Uh communism had already won in the Soviet Union, and it was clearly going to triumph in China. And so now you have a um a combination of both uh Soviet Union and China, and so that really scared American policy makers. So, it was in their best interest to revitalize the Europeans and the Japanese as soon as possible, and that's what led of course to the Marshall Plan. So, I think that um it was a combination of idealism and a combination of goodwill, as well as just realpolitik uh long-term strategic planning. Okay. So, with that as a backdrop, we now understand that America's taken the baton, they're patrolling the seas, they're um for a very long time they're really holding at bay Russia from becoming the next great power. We end up winning that largely because Russia just imploded by not being able to figure out a successful economic system. Um now you get Pax Americana, one government, the um the monopolar world where they're just running everything. How does that end up pushing us towards this moment? Because for a lot of people that grew up under that, it was awesome. So, you and I I think we're actually born in the same year. So, for me, yeah, for me this is just been like yo, this has been amazing. Uh and so it's watching it unravel is deeply distressing, but seeing it up close, the as an entrepreneur, the way that I kept interfacing with something I've heard you talk about but using very different words, is that some people need to be chased by a lion. Without hardship, without having to fight and struggle for something, the ideas that take root in people's minds are very distorted. They begin to think that um the world is just always going to be peaceful, it that's just the default stance, and so they're not thinking about the real things that it takes to maintain uh hegemonic structure like we had for so very long. So, when you think about the structural forces that were at play post the collapse of the Soviet Union, why did it get worse and not better? Okay. So, to answer this question, we have we have to look at what America's major imperial innovation was, okay? So, um at the Bretton Woods Conference back in '44, what was established the US dollar as the world's reserve uh currency, right? Uh something called the exorbitant privilege. And uh America did this to the benefit of Europe because what this meant was that America was basically financing the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, right? Because Europe uh was devastated by war, and they needed to rebuild the factories and the manufa- manufacturing, but they needed needed an outlet and [clears throat] and consumers, right? So, Americans agreed to buy from Europe, and and America would also sell to Europe, okay? And and the point was to very quickly build the manufacturing capacity of Europe uh as well as um America, and this was all um made possible because of the US dollar. The problem is that when you have fiat currency, there's always a risk that you print too much money, that you lose financial discipline. So, the agreement was that uh US dollar would be pegged to gold. So, at any time the Europeans could reimburse the US dollars for gold, and so US dollar the US dollar basically became a contract between uh the Europeans and the Americans. And this worked out really well for the first 10 years, and it led to tremendous post-war post-war prosperity. But over time, the Americans started to um overreach, started to abuse this exorbitant privilege in Vietnam, right? So, basically America was financing this silly war in Vietnam that served no strategic purpose. Um then you had the space race, where America was spending billions of dollars to send a man to the moon, and then there was the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, which was tremendous for what American people, but it made the Europeans question how much gold Americans actually had at Fort Knox. Um so, the French famously sent um a frigate, a ship, to New York uh to to pick up their gold and and take it back to to France. And after that, that let that that led to something called the Nixon shock um in 1971, where Ni- Ri- Richard Nixon said that the US dollar would no longer be be pegged to uh gold. And now you have a problem, like what if you're not pegged to gold, and then how do you determine the value of your currency? And so Nixon did two things which was crucial and basically was basically established the world order that we live in today, okay? The first thing he did was he signed a deal with Saudi Arabia where Saudi Arabia would only sell its oil in US dollars, and that that that led to something called the petrodollar, right? Which is now the basis of um the US dollar. And the other thing that that Nixon did was also that was also very important, which people don't really discuss, is he went to China and he made a deal with China to become trading partners where um China would basically export its cheap labor, and in return [snorts] they would get US dollars, right? So, this uh these two deals, the petrodollar as well as China becoming the factory of the world, became the basis of the new global economy. And in in um 1991, when the Soviet Union fell, this system then became um the global financial order. And this was fine. The problem is that um there was excess capital being produced around the world, and it all went to uh America. And at at this time, America was shifting its manufacturing to China. So, the economy of America became very unbalanced, and it became it shifted from a focus on manufacturing to focus on financing. On uh so, Wall Street started to, you know, explode in both financial and political power, and that that led to hubris. Uh and then Wall Street, because it had to create financial vehicles to absorb all this foreign capital, started to invent all these risky derivatives. Um as such as, you know, the the the CDOs, um uh collateral debt obligations. And this of course led to the '08 And at this point in history, essentially the entire global economy should have collapsed. Why? Because Wall Street had basically um bundled the entire global economy together so that if one part of system collapsed, the entire system collapsed. And and I I I know that you've shared this with um uh very well with your audience, so I won't go too much into it. The system didn't collapse because something happened, which is that China bailed out the world by printing all this money to build infrastructure throughout China, okay? So, China basically became the consumer for the world, bought them all these raw materials in order to um build its uh skyscrapers, its high-speed rail. And that worked out really well for the world, but then China said, well, you know what? Before we were exporting our cheap labor, and now we are financing the global economy, so we want to have a greater say over global affairs. We want our companies like Huawei to go to Africa and sell our products and compete against Apple. And the Americans didn't like that, and that's what led to the Trump tariffs um in when when he came into office in 2016, right? Um the first thing he did was to sanction these Chinese companies, and that's led that's led that's what led to the trade war. Um and so you have all this instability now in the system because China's trying to contribute heavily uh to the global economy, but it wants more political power because of this, and the Americans are no, we are still the hegemon, you have to um listen to us. So, the 2008 great financial crisis was a heavy blow, then this trade war with China was also another heavy blow, but the but the next heavy blow was of course the uh 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why? Because after that happened, America started to use its financial weaponry to sanction Russia, right? So, it basically removed Russia from the Swift system, and it um froze Russia's Russian uh 300 billion dollars in assets uh in Europe and in America. Um and when it did the when it did this, it actually backfired because, remember, the entire global financial order is based on legitimacy and reputation. And when you steal someone's money, you destroy your reputation. So, Putin's response was, "Wow, $300 billion is the best money I've ever spent in order to collapse the American-led global financial order." And so, this is what's led to a lot of the issues that we have today where underpinning the global financial order is the US dollar, but people don't have as much faith in the US dollar as possible. So, how do you compensate for that? You compensate for that by using military power. Right? And this helps us understand this war in Iran where by going to Iran and you know, I mean, we have to assume that the Americans under Trump were planning for a short, decisive war to control Iran. And once you control Iran, you control the entire Strait of Hormuz. You control all the resources. You can control global trade. Right? Also, what's really important is you prevent a Russia-Iran-China alliance from forming, okay? Because once that happens, once China, Russia, and Iran come together and trade and create this trading block, it achieves the heartland. Right? And then Europe comes in, then Middle East comes in, then Africa comes in through BRICS. So, from an economic perspective, Americans didn't have we never had a choice in the matter in that the US dollar was extremely unstable. It people didn't have any faith in it anymore, and so you have to you had to use force to remind people that the US dollar is still the only global reserve currency. And so, they went into Iran hoping to control that crucial choke point of resources and trade, and it's really blown up in their faces. We'll get back to the show in a second, but first, let's talk about a clock you can't see. 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Okay, so you've put a couple pieces together that I think are really important, and I'm going to say it in a slightly different way and see if this lands for you. So, 1971, Nixon breaks the peg to gold, you become a true fiat currency, there's now no real tether for you. The world begins to realize, okay, hold on a second, this is just fiat, you guys are going to print out of control like every empire before you. And so, Nixon does this brilliant thing, and he finds two avenues to keep making the dollar systemically important. He gets essentially the vast majority of oil trade to be only transacted in dollars. Presumably, he didn't say this, but I think it's basically, we'll protect you, dear GCC countries. So, you can't really protect yourself, super exposed there in the desert. Don't worry, we've got you. You guys focus on infrastructure, desalinization, all that stuff. And we'll run your military for you. That works out very well. Hey China, we need cheap labor, but hey, we'll make sure that we're buying a lot of the stuff that you're producing. Just make sure that you're also doing trade in dollars. So, you've got energy now pegged to dollars, and you've got this industrial revolution, not the one that most people think of when they hear that, but this new rise of China as the world's manufacturer also now being tied to dollars. Then, because of course, as empires do, they overextend, they bully, they do things that ultimately are against their own interest, and we begin eroding the trust in the dollar, which is the only thing left on a fiat currency. And so, the part that I want to reword is when you say that we use our military to remind people of the power of the dollar or that we're stronger or whatever, I would say it slightly differently, and this gets to why Iran becomes so important. Like what actually happens in Iran is it isn't enough to remind everybody that you have a big military. You actually have to get control of Iran. You have to control the oil now. You have to control the Strait of Hormuz. And if you either are forced to destroy the oil, which now is going to just have a massive negative impact on the global economy, or because of asymmetric warfare, Iran continues to cause a problem in the Strait of Hormuz, and it's technically open, but every time a US or US-allied ship tries to go through, it gets blown up. Now, all of a sudden, you may have reminded everybody that you have the stronger military, but Iran is showing you they can still control the thing you must get control of if you want to win. Okay, I would disagree. Because you are saying that Americans went in hoping for a Venezuela solution, right? Where they remove Maduro, and Delcy Rodríguez, the vice president, was very happy to play along. So, it's basically regime change that favored the Americans. So, let's just discuss how the interests of Israel and the interests of Trump are different. Right? Because as you as you point out, Trump is interested in optics. He wants a quick victory. He wants the Iranians to surrender to him. And he wants to be to be able to control the oil supply so that he when he goes to Beijing at the end of this month, he can negotiate a great deal for America, and he will and he will look really, really good, right? Because he just came off a a very decisive victory in Venezuela. So, you know, he was very again, he's very confident. That's Trump. But I think the Israelis are thinking much more long-term, and they really want to eliminate um Iran as a threat to in the Middle East. And this is not the Israelis as well. If you look at Saudi Arabia, the Saudis have always had issues with Iranians. So, I think it was a coalition of interests, the Israelis and the Saudis, who were pushing Trump to attack Iran. And actually, our reporting from the Washington Post actually confirms this, where MBS, the head of Saudi Arabia, he was lobbying hard for Trump to attack the Iranians. The thing that I want to understand better is, given the quagmire that we are now in with Iran, what are the options that are on the table, especially for Trump? So, if you agree that for the US to actually have gained ground here, they need to control the Strait of Hormuz or by some miracle get a friendly government in Iran that will maintain control but do things that are very beneficial to the GCC countries, to the US, to Israel, which seems sort of farther away by the day, but if he has to do that, do you think he's going to push into Kharg Island and take over it's like 94%? Do you think he goes all the way to a ground invasion? What do you think are the options at this point given the realities on the ground? So, what I've what I've observed is that in America, they're behaving exactly the way that an empire decline behaves, which is that they suffer from a toxic and lethal combination of both hubris and desperation. Meaning that they continue to underestimate the resilience and resolve of the Iranians. And they're desperate for a knockout punch as quick as possible. Trump wants this war to end as soon as possible because he knows that the longer this war drags on, the worse the economy will suffer, the worse his polling will be, and the more likely the stock market will will tank. So, he's going for a knockout punch. And right now, if you're looking for a quick solution, if you're looking for a gamble, well, your best option is Kharg Island. Because as you point out, that is where Iran exports 90% of its oil, primarily to China. So, right now, a Marine expeditionary expeditionary force is traveling from Japan to the Middle East, and and we should expect them to arrive maybe in about a week. And there's there's about 2,500 of them, and they specialize in amphibious landing. So, the idea is that they will bombard the coastline in Kharg Island, and this will enable the Marines to land and secure the oil deposits of Kharg Island. And at this point, Trump will declare victory and try to get the Iranians to the negotiating table and say, "Listen, I have Kharg Island, and this is your economic lifeline, so let's cut a deal that allows us to both save face, okay?" And I think that is the plan. But there are a lot of issues with this plan, okay? Um the first issue is that Kharg Island is not as important economically as people believe. Um that's the first issue. Meaning that even if you were to secure Kharg Island, Iran does have workarounds where they can just ship from um from the coast. Um that's issue number one. Issue number two is that um Iran needs financing for this war. And now they're using this oil as financing, as collateral financing. But if the Chinese and the uh Russians believe that the Americans want to strangle Iran, then it's not in their best interest to to see Iran destroyed, then they're not going to provide financing anyway. L- And look, the reality is that now that oil is shooting up in price, this benefits Russia tremendously, right? So Putin can take all this oil riches and finance Iran um in financing this war because Russia has the most to lose if Iran loses this war and there's regime change. Okay, so that's issue number two. >> You think Russia has more to lose than China? I I I do. I do. Um and the reason why is that if [snorts] Iran were to fall, this opens up the Russian southern flank to the Americans, right? Because uh Azerbaijan is an Israeli-American ally. And um if Iran were to fall, then um the Americans and Israelis could could stage operations uh from the south. Also, um also Iran has been been providing a lot of support to uh Russia in the Ukraine war. So Russia's getting most of its drones from Iran. So um uh Foreign Minister uh Sergey Lavrov has said that uh Russia will protect Iran. And Russia is most interested in um the Iran government staying intact. And there's been reporting from American news outlets that American intelligence believes that Russia's providing targeting for the Iranians. So uh all these drone strikes, all these ballistic missile strikes, they're getting intelligence and targeting from the Russians. Which by the way is what NATO did in Ukraine, right? So from the Russian perspective, it's payback. So the Russians are heavily invested in um in the Iranians winning this war. The Chinese are pragmatic. They don't they really don't care. They see Iran more as a major supplier of oil that they that they need. But if they need to shift um uh supply routes, they they can they can do so, right? So the Russians are heavily in um uh invested. Um and so they would finance uh the Iranians re- regardless if Iran is no longer no longer able to export oil, okay? Uh And another issue is this. If you attack the economic lifeline of Iran, they now have incentive to strike at the oil refineries of the GCC, right? Because no matter how much economic damage you can do to Iran, they can do so much more to the GCC. Um and this would cause the oil the price of oil to spike. Remember, Iranians have said that their goal is to uh spike the price of oil to $200 a barrel. Now it's about $100 a barrel. And so what they're saying is that we're going to fight a very long war of attrition that could last years. Um so so I I don't see what the strategic benefit of taking Kharg Island is. The last problem, and this is the most important, is that um once you take Kharg Island, you expose the Marines to drone strikes and artillery strikes from the coast. Which means that you now need to send in more Marines to secure the coast, right? So you send in 2,000 2,000 troops to secure Kharg Island. You've done that easily. Uh um but they can't secure they can't secure the island against uh Iranian drones. So the only way you can do that is by taking taking the coastline along Kharg Island. You do that with tens of thousands of Marines. But then you you expose um this these Marines to attacks from the mountains, the Zagros Mountains, right? These drones, these missiles from the Zagros Mountains. Which means that now you have to invest hundreds of thousands troops to go after Iran's um underground missile facilities. And this is exactly what happened in uh Vietnam. The great irony of all this is that the um Marine Expeditionary Force that is going to um Iran is the same force that went into Vietnam and marked the um the first major ground involvement of Americans in about 1965. Uh they basically went into Da Nang and secured the Air Force base. And at first it was like 3,500 soldiers, and that was that was supposed to be it. Like 5 years later, you had 500,000 American soldiers, right? So once you send in ground troops, then it creates a logic, a momentum of its own, and then you have mission creep, and then sunk cost fallacy. Um and then eventually you have a national draft, okay? So that is the great danger of taking Kharg Island at this point. Okay, so let's um keep pushing down that road because I think that uh you're bang on with this. I think if Trump puts boots on the ground in Iran, I think he can get away with Kharg Island because it will be small, it will feel like, "Hey, we're doing this very discreet thing. We can take it in, you know, a couple days. We've got it." Now he'll declare that that's a big win for us. We control 94%. He buys himself a little bit of time. Most people don't know what you just said, which is Iran has other options. So that's going to feel, going back to Trump equals optics, uh it's going to feel like an optical win. The thing that scares me is I think, to your point, he will end up getting drawn into boots on the ground because one, he'll have seen, "Oh, the American people didn't super freak out. Okay, that's great." We all start going, "Well, I mean, I guess we already have boots on the ground, so it's not so crazy that we go like just try to finish the job real quick." Uh you know, I I But by doing that, I think that his base implodes. I think he is a guaranteed loss at the midterms. And I think given the political dynamic in the US where we are so hyper-polarized, that it becomes existential for him in terms of he will go to prison. So if he loses the midterms, he gets impeached immediately. He then obviously loses power in uh 2028, which needs to happen no matter what given that right now our Constitution makes very clear uh no third term for you. But I think that we would I mean, look, many many a thing can happen between now and the 2028 elections, but I would imagine if Trump goes down, the Republican Party loses power, Democrats get into office. They have already vowed that they're going to go after him legally. So I have a feeling he's going to fight like this is existential. So he's going to start making decisions that would seem rational to anybody el- or irrational to anybody else will seem rational to him because he absolutely must find a way to victory, better to prolong it, leverage war to stay in power, etc., etc. Um so walk me through if you think any of that analysis is off base or if I'm missing something, um but what do you see if he makes the fateful decision to go after Kharg Island? Yeah, no, I I agree with your analysis. I think a lot of his thinking is how does he stay in power? Because we know exactly what's going to happen if he leaves office. The Democrats are going to come in power and they're going to go after uh him and his family. We know this because that's what happened in uh 20 uh 20 when when Remember the raid in Mar-a-Lago. Remember all these uh all this lawfare against Trump. Remember that he lost his court case and almost bankrupted him, okay? So you can imagine that there's going to be a lot of people who want revenge for what Trump is doing in his second term. So Trump cannot afford to leave office. And so his personal calculus is how do I stay in power? Well, staying in power for the ballot ballot ballot box is, you know, very risky. But you know, if he starts a war, and this war is at first supported by both the Democrats and the Republicans, but then um slowly this war spirals out of control, and then um there's a lot of unrest um around America, in which case he's forced to send the National Guard, um and then he's forced to call the National Draft in order to protect American interests in um the Middle East, then he can a conceivably stay in power um for as long as this war continues. And And we know this because of what happened to Zelenskyy uh in Ukraine. Remember uh because of the war Yeah, exactly. Because of the war in Ukraine, they suspended their constitution and they suspended elections, and Zelenskyy is is still still in power. Remember when Zelenskyy visited Trump in the White House, um Trump asked Zelenskyy, "Hey, hey, you Can you really do that?" Uh and then Zelenskyy is like, "You like this, don't you, right?" So um I think unfortunately that is going through the mind of Trump right now. Um I just want to step back and um because a lot of people are saying, "Why doesn't Trump just declare victory and go home?" The problem with this is if Trump were to leave the Middle East, basically the American empire would collapse. So let's go over, using game theory, what would happen if Trump were just to say, "You know what? You know, I killed the leadership. I destroyed their nuclear weapons program. I set back their ballistic program. Everything I wanted to accomplish, I've already accomplished. So, I'm going to go home, guys. Goodbye." Okay, what happened is this. Iran would say to the GCC, "Hey, you've destroyed our country. You have to pay back reparations. If you don't pay back reparations, first of all, we'll continue to attack you and destroy your oil infrastructure. And second of all, we won't we won't let you uh use the Strait of Hormuz." And so, now the GCC is forced to take their $4 trillion in sovereign wealth funds. Before, this money was going to the United States. Now, it's going to Iran to build back their economy and infrastructure and their military, right? But then, the Japanese and the South Koreans are like, "Hmm, well, we just saw what hap- what happened, right? Where the Americans attacked Iran and Iran fought back and destroyed the GCC and the Americans refused to defend the GCC. Remember, the entire point of this petro-dollar agreement is that Americans would guarantee the security of the GCC. Uh and when this war started out, what we know what happened is that the Americans abandoned their bases, changed their into civilian clothes, and moved into hotel into hotels because they could not stop the Iranians from raining drones and ballistic missiles on their bases. So, the South Koreans and the Japanese would be like, "Okay, well, we can't trust Americans. So, we need to remilitarize as soon as possible. So, let's just not depend on the Americans and remilitarize." But that what all what that also means is they stop buying US Treasuries, right? And so, the US dollar loses um buyers from the Middle East and loses buyers from East Asia. And so, the dollar could potentially collapse in value. And now, America's $40 trillion in debt, uh which which forces an economic crisis in America, a great reset, a financial depression. But you you have riots um in the streets. And then, you go to Europe. The Europeans are like, "The Americans are um suffering from depression. And the Americans are not able to defend their allies. Why are we fighting the Russians again? Why don't we just come to an agreement with the Russians? Why are we sending our men to die in Ukraine, right? So, now Russia becomes the dominant power in Europe and Iran becomes the dominant power in the Middle East. And America is, you know, uh imploding uh back in the Western Hemisphere. Is is that a situation that the American government that Trump would would um countenance? I don't think it is. The Uh so, so there's really no possibility of America retreating from this war. America is can only escalate, unfortunately. Yeah, there's another piece that I think um is getting lost in all of this, which is Trump went to the Middle East and secured, I don't know, call it $2 trillion in uh investment promises into the US, which will largely go into AI infrastructure. And if he doesn't manage to restabilize the Middle East and make sure that the GCC countries don't have to spend that money on their own defense, uh they're going to pull all of that money to defend their country. That causes a shock, a potential collapse of the AI bubble or burst of the AI bubble. And so, right now, the American stock market, so as you well know, we have a grotesquely K-shaped economy. And the only thing propping up spending right now is that the wealthy few at the top are still buying a bunch of stuff and that creates this illusion that the economy is doing okay-ish. And that stops if AI implodes. And AI doesn't have to not be real. AI is real, but if the money stops flowing in, they're not able to get the infrastructure investments they need to see this across the finish line so that the revenues can catch up because right now, there's still a massive gap. Um we find ourselves in a position where the one thing propping up the US economy, poof, goes away. Um and so, it's like everything you just said and then squared because you've got the second uh thing waiting in the wings. If the first one doesn't kill the dollar, the second one could kill the um thing holding up the economy. Well, I I completely agree. Um it's a very bad situation. Okay, so as we look at this, um when I was trying to map uh come up with a mental model for why Trump was pushing the issue to go to war with Iran, I was legitimately confused in the beginning because I understood the attack on Fordow. It's like, okay, they're about to get nuclear weapons. They chant death to America. Let's just blow up their nuclear sites. Cool. Did it. Hey, everybody, we demolished it. And then, like all of a sudden, he starts talking about, "Well, we're sending all these boats to Iran." And I was like, "Why? I don't understand what's happening." And so, then you've got all the uprisings and just more and more and more and more ships. Like, we're going to help them out. All's well. But then, we didn't move at the peak of them killing 30,000 plus civilians. So, then I was like, "What are we doing?" And so, then he starts talking about nuclear weapons again. And I'm just like, "Hold on a second. I thought that we already destroyed the nuclear capabilities. So, what are we doing?" For me to make this all make sense, I was like, "Hold on a second. If you inject Thucydides' trap and you understand we've got a rising China, a declining America, then I'm like, this all makes sense. If Venezuela and Iran are a one-two punch to try to do whatever amount of quarantining or economic damage that we can do to China to make sure that they don't have access to cheap oil that's outside of our ability to sanction, I'm like, this at least makes sense. I'm not saying you should do it. I'm just saying I can follow your chain of logic. Um one thing you'll talk about China for sure, but you don't often mention Thucydides' trap. Do you think Thucydides' trap is overblown? Um do you think it just doesn't apply here? What's your thinking on Could that have been the reason that Trump actually made the move? So, this is a great question. And so, let us just assume that Trump is rational and that there's a logical strategy behind all this maneuvering in the Middle East. And the best explanation is that right now, Trump is trying to negotiate with China, right? Trump right now understands that the United the US dollar is a Ponzi scheme. So, it needs more consumers to buy into this Ponzi scheme. And China, for all its problems, uh the household savings rate in China is 40%. So, there's this untapped market in China that Trump wants to uh access. But how do you force China to agree to let Chinese consumers buy US dollars? Well, you do it by strangling the Chinese economy because remember, the Chinese economy is export-driven. Therefore, it's reliant on on imports uh like oil and food. Uh China imports about a third of its food and two-thirds of its oil. China gets a lot of of its food from the Western Hemisphere. Um uh probably South America, right? So, that's why we saw uh Trump announcing the Monroe Doctrine the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, where the Americans would control the entire Western Hemisphere. So, if China wanted to trade with the Western Hemisphere, the Americans had have to collect a tax or or a toll. And we're seeing this play out in Venezuela, where um the Chinese are continuing to buy Venezuelan oil, but they they pay they pay they pay the Americans a tax or or whatever. Okay, so that's the strategy in the Western Hemisphere. Then, Iran makes sense because uh China imports most of its oil actually from the GCC, right? So, once you control Iran and you control the Strait of Hormuz, then you can basically strangle uh uh China. And now, China is forced to buy more oil from the Americans, the Canadians, and the Mexicans. Um and and so, that would resolve the great financial crisis America's facing. It would basically save the US dollar. So, from a rational perspective, this does hold, okay? Like, but there's certain issues with this thesis, okay? The first issue is that from an economic perspective, it's very risky to use military force to resolve an economic issue. You don't actually have to go and occupy Venezuela or attack Iran. You can negotiate a grand bargain where or a new trade alliance, which is more like BRICS, you know, a more uh collaborative model, okay? That's issue number one. Uh issue number two is I think this Thucydides' trap is overblown, okay? So, let let me explain my reasoning. I think that China and the United States are codependent. What I mean by that is that in the 1980s, America did offshore its manufacturing to China. What China did, which and which people don't really discuss, is China offshored its elite selection and indoctrination to America. Meaning that the Chinese elite uh were educated in American colleges and universities. And so, they have a very American mindset. In many ways, uh China has been colon- sorry, America has colonized China, okay? America And and so, um the Chinese elite are very pro-American. Um and so, you don't really have to uh strangle China. You just have to you just have to be like, make a deal with China. You just have to be nice to China because the Chinese are desperate [snorts] for a deal. And there are many ways that this deal could uh benefit itself, right? So, Trump has talked about welcoming 600,000 Chinese students to America. Uh Trump has talked about um selling um digital currency to the uh to to Chinese consumers, right? Basically, it's this um uh tokens backed by US Treasuries. So, there are a lot of mechanisms that he has to resolve this this issue. I really think this US-China uh conflict is overblown. Um primarily because China is not interested in being a hegemon. It's not even interested in um controlling a sphere of influence in Southeast Asia. China is first and foremost interested in maintaining its national sovereignty um and um and and creating trade routes that benefit the Chinese people. Um and I think the American policy policymakers understand this. And I think that this this China threat has always has always been overblown to justify a lot of um bloated spending in Washington D.C. Right? So, an example is AI where um um you know, the Americans are like, you know, we need to spend all this money on AI because if we don't do this, then the Chinese will will do this, okay? So, China is this um imagined threat for for m- many uh decades. And the last thing I will say is that people don't appreciate the level of cooperation between the Chinese and Americans um in this world. So, the classic example is you look at what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz. Chinese ships are able to pass through, okay? And Americans are not doing anything to stop them. In fact, the Americans Scott Bessent, the the Treasury Secretary, has said that we're allowing this to happen to maintain stability in the global financial order. And both the Chinese and Americans are are cooperating to maintain the stability of the global financial order, the global economy, but the Russians and Iranians are interested in torped- destroying uh the global economy and creating a new economic system that benefits them, okay? So, so people don't don't appreciate that uh in terms of just pure economic interest, America and China are allied and against Iran and Russia. If that makes sense. It it certainly makes sense. It is very different than certainly the mental map that I have of what's going on and probably the mental map of a lot of Americans, uh which is the absolute fascinating part about getting to talk to somebody like you who is for people that don't know your backstory, I'll speed run it, correct me if anything is incorrect. Uh born in China, you emigrate to um Canada when you're six. You are Ivy League trained here in the US, but end up going I think right back after college, heading back to China uh where you now live. We're speaking to you uh from Beijing if I'm saying it all correctly. Uh you're a teacher there at a private school, but everything that you post online is in English, so I presume that your classes are taught in English. Um so, you have a really fascinating lens um Chinese by birth and nationality, trained in the West, uh educated and grew up in the West, feeling quite alienated, go back to China, uh but still is like sort of a um somebody with a more Western mindset. Again, don't want to put words in your mouth, but it it is very interesting lens with which to look at this problem. So, first, did I represent the history accurately enough? No, no, it it was very fair and kind, yes. Okay, perfect. So, now um my mental map is that what's happening in the world right now is really a question of US and China. Um I'm looking at it very much like you, so it's interesting that we draw different conclusions. So, I think uh for people that don't know you, which these days is a vanishingly small number of people, but um you've got two issues. One, that you're looking at the world through the lens of game theory, and two, you're leveraging history to tell us what we're going to see in the future. And so, when you look backwards at history, 12 of the last 16 times that a rising superpower collided with a declining superpower exactly like the US and China, they went to war. So, it's like whatever, 75% of the time, this ends in war. And so, I've been looking at much of Trump's movements, who's somebody who's been banging the drum about China for a very long time, much longer than he's been a political figure, and saying, "Okay, this is a guy that's had his eye on China for a long time who either intuitively or actually intellectually understands uh America's decline, understands China's rise, and is trying to find some sort of equilibrium." He's the Art of the Deal guy, so I think you're right, he's perfectly willing to cooperate to get a deal done, to not um I don't think that Trump is going to make any play whatsoever to um infringe on China in its sphere of influence, but you're the first person I've heard say that China doesn't want uh a sphere of influence. All they want is to be uh sovereign. So, that is like the first bit of dissonance where um I'm intrigued. I will certainly sit with it. My whole worldview is about you're wrong about something, so you might as well race to figuring out what it is. And so, hey, maybe my whole frame of reference around Thucydides' Trap just isn't accurate. But I'm going to have a hard time metabolizing that one, I'm not going to lie. Um so, for instance, help an American audience understand right now some percentage of us, I certainly don't think we're um homogenize thinkers, but some percentage of us see US at war with Iran, China now has all these ships and planes circling Taiwan. We all look at that as like escalation, the people who think like this, which I am definitely one of, and go, "Uh-oh, China [clears throat] is now seeing us with our eye off the ball. They've said forever that by 2027 they want to reunite with Taiwan, um which would be a huge blow to our perceived modern way of life because of TSMC." And so, that feels like, given that and the gold corridor in South America and some of the moves with the Belt and Road Initiative, um just feel like, "Mhm, China's being more strategically aggressive than it it sounds like you think they are." So, help us understand why that's wrong. All right, okay. So, Thucydides' Trap was coined by a Harvard historian named Graham Graham Allison. And he did it through his reading of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, okay? So, I wanted to correct um the understanding of the of the Peloponnesian War, right? Because the war started in uh Thucydides' formulation because Sparta was a hegemon and Athens was the rising power. And Thucydides was wrong, okay? And so, so let let let me explain why. Sparta and Athens actually wanted nothing to do with each other. Uh Sparta was an agricultural power and Athens was a naval power. Um so, the the Spartans had a plantation economy where their [snorts] entire system was based on exploiting slave labor. But because they did that, they were outnumbered by the slaves 10 to 1. And so, they were always afraid of a slave revolt. And that was a consistent problem throughout history because the Spartans were notoriously brutal. And as such, they developed a very conservative insular society. Um and they were not interested in international affairs. Um the Athenians were very different. The Athenians were a trading power, and so they were very expansionist, they were ambitious. Um we know about the two because of the Persian Wars. So, the Persians invaded the Greek mainland and the Spartans and Athenians were forced to come together to repel this uh invasion. But after this invasion was repelled, the Spartans were like, "We're going to go home and we're going to stay in our land and don't bother bother us ever again." And then the Athenians created something called the Delian League, okay? Which was alliance, um very much like NATO today. But over time, the Athenians started to abuse their allies and turn them into vassals. And then these vassal states started to rebel against the Athenians, and this is what led ultimately to the Peloponnesian War, and then Sparta was dragged into unwillingly into this war, and then Persia was as well. So, it's not as easy as Graham Allison and Thucydides are making out to be. And there are parallel parallels to our modern society where it seems as though China and America are at war, they're in conflict because these are two economic hegemons. But you think about it, the real issue is that America is trying to exploit its allies, right? So, let's go back to a two two months ago when Trump was saying, "I'm going to take over Greenland. I'm going to take over Canada. I'm going to take over uh the entire Western Hemisphere. And you Europeans, you need you need to pay more in NATO spending. You need to move to 5%. And also, I'm going to charge you tariffs for trade because we're America, we're indispensable, and you have to follow along cuz you're vassals, right? So, that's really the real conflict going on in this world where America is trying to maintain the unipolar order and its allies see that America has become arrogant uh um and is engaged in bullying behavior, so they're trying to break away somehow. And ultimately, uh if we just read the Peloponnesian War, this will lead to open conflict between America's allies and America eventually. And then perhaps China, Russia will dragged in, but ultimately um you China and Russia don't want a conflict with uh America. So so so So does that make sense to you? I I mean it's certainly believable that nobody wants a war with another great power. It's just so destructive and can take so many years. I can certainly buy why Russia um is creating um because of what's going on in Ukraine, they would really not want to be a part of this. Uh now, I've read enough about Xi and how he's sort of the uh what's the phrase? The ambition grows in the eating, right? They've had China's had I don't have to tell you, but so much incredible success over the last 40 years. I mean it's really breathtaking. And that has to leave somebody with the feeling of like we could we can do even more. Now, this is so interesting and I'm so grateful to you for letting me um say these series out loud to somebody who's really in the middle of it. Uh so in my reading about China and Xi specifically, there's this idea of the middle kingdom. And so a big part of my mental map of why I think this is like the most perfect Thucydides trap ever is that China's gone through, you know, the century of humiliation. You guys come out of that, never again, we're not doing that anymore. We're thinking very long range. We're going to take our power back. And you've actually done it. And so just like Trump strikes Venezuela and realizes, oh, like I've got a really good military. Uh I can like really start doing some stuff here. I look at China and I go, how do you guys not look at what you've accomplished and go, oh okay, like we need to be methodical, we need to be thoughtful, and maybe we've got a housing crisis right now, so maybe we need to chill for a minute, but we know how to play this game. And so we're going to keep going, keep going, keep going. And so from the Western lens, it looks like Xi's consolidating power, he's purging the military because he wants to get everybody aligned with his future vision, where he wants to take things. And it feels like somebody who thinks, hey, this is all working. I've got ambitions, but they're in terms of look at the gold corridor, right? So just you know China wants to get out from under the dollar, they're selling their debt. They're Again, this is speculation based on watching how you're moving, but the um banks in China, the central banks are buying up a ton of gold. They're talking about, hey guys, we're going to back our currency uh They're a little wishy-washy about that, but they're buying so much gold and then appealing to the world to use the yuan as the reserve currency. You start putting two and two together and you go, oh, I get the play. Talking about housing gold actually in other countries. And if they can find a partner that will back them and say, hey, we vouch, the gold is here, it's not controlled by China, we've got it. Like you can just the moves are so smart that I cannot help but then project onto it that this is somebody who's not stopping now. And so um that's where I bump into the looking at China as just completely sanguine and like, yeah, I don't want any conflict. I get that they don't want open conflict. I can totally buy that. But they've got the big agenda with Taiwan and they've made so many smart um ally moves that if I'm China and I'm watching the US alienate all of their allies, while I've been building all of mine, while they're shooting themselves in the face economically, and okay, we've got a little bit of woes here, but like we're going to get back on track, we're far more disciplined, 40, you know, percent savings, all that. Um that just creates this mental model that I have of the ascendant China who's not going to be told what to do by a clearly dysfunctional United States. I think that's a great analysis. And uh I think you're actually right in that China's concealing its intention to replace the American uh financial order with a new BRICS system um based on gold. Um and that's why it's creating the Shanghai gold corridor. So I think that I I think what you say it makes a lot of sense. And I think it's it's really um part of Chinese policymaking to create as much um economic diversity in the world as possible to hedge against the Americans. The way I look at the world is through game theory. Um and for me what's really important is how nations have behaved in the past. So when you say the middle kingdom, uh the middle kingdom from the Chinese perspective just means that we don't care about the rest of the rest of the world. Uh we've never really cared about the rest of the world. What we care about is the internal stability of China because historically, and this is very important, is that China has been poor and corrupt. And so rebellions against the government are very commonplace. And so your entire uh state apparatus is structured to ensure that local rebellions don't arise. And in the 1980s, there was a solution to this problem of local rebellions uh when basically the communist system had an agreement where we will engage in economic reform and we will allow the elite to engage in corruption. Okay? Um and so that incentivized the elite to um uh promote economic reform and turn away from the old socialist model of of Mao Zedong. Um and the and in the in 1980s, this was very controversial. Uh but because of the financial incentives, the elite engaged in market reform. But then you have a tremendous corruption problem. Also, where was this money going, right? They were engaging in this corruption. They weren't putting it in China because um it was not safe because they're stealing this from the government, right? So it's this is being transferred overseas to America, to um Canada. And look, I mean like I don't want to specifics, but I will tell you like the amount of capital um that was being transferred overseas was just tremendous, okay? Uh so much so that really uh the Chinese economy is now suffering under a deflationary uh spiral. Okay? But it was it was not just capital that went overseas. It was also the elite that went overseas, right? The children, the families of the elite all are now overseas. And I don't want to go go into specifics, but you know, if they are overseas, where where are their national interests aligned, right? They want peace and harmony between China and America because they see China as a plantation economy where they can continue to exploit the economy and then take their ill-gotten gains and then and then take it over to the Western joy or Western lifestyle, okay? And for many decades, this was just the way business was done in China. And it worked to the tremendous benefit of the Chinese elite as well as the Western economies. And then when President Xi came to power, he recognized that this is not sustainable in the long term. Eventually, our economy is going to collapse. Eventually, we're going to have rebellions all over the place. And so he started to clamp down on corruption and he started to focus on national rejuvenation and creating a national identity. And for him, for his from his perspective, the way you do that is through uh unifying with Taiwan and establishing an an independent economic system um that is based on the Chinese yuan as opposed to the US dollar. So um that was his intention. But again, the reality is that China is a very corrupt place. Uh and so the elite are rebelling against him. And so these past 2 years, um you know, and this is public information, most of the generals in the military have been purged uh for corruption issues, for other issues as well. Meaning like the military does not have the political will to engage in a foreign conflict anywhere. Um so So yes, I understand there's the intention of the state, but then there's the cultural reality in which we live in. Uh if if if this makes any sense. Sorry. [clears throat] Makes a tremendous amount of sense. Uh it is the kind of thing that explains your absolute meteoric rise. Uh this is uh a very, very useful conversation. I'm I'm very grateful. Okay, so um that's a very clear picture of China that is very different, I think, than the common person in America would view it as. I'm going to put that back on the shelf, uh let it sort of sit in the background as we get back to Iran and look at what I want to talk about is we've got those two things. So we've got China's the realities of everything. We've got US empire acting the way that failing empires do. They're flailing, they're acting like bullies, they're overextending, they're getting themselves in trouble doing anything that they can to hold on to uh the vestiges of their empire. Um a thesis that you've put forward that I find very compelling is that the current world order, the post-World War II order, the um monolithic US as global hegemon, those those world orders are done. They're already dead. And maybe you're watching the death throes or whatever, but the new world order is coming, and I want to understand what does the new world order look like, and as with Iran as pivot point, what does it look like? How does this play out? How deep do we go? Um and why is there no sort of ability to preserve the current world order? First of all, entire the current global economic order is based on the premise of cheap oil, right? Because cheap oil is basis for everything. You know, like from the Strait of Hormuz, you you don't just have energy, you also have fertilizer, which allows you to grow food. You also have sulfuric acid, which is which is what allows you to process um semiconductors, okay? So, cheap oil, cheap energy is the basis for the entire global economy. The reality is the Strait of Hormuz is not going to open tomorrow. It's probably going to stay closed for the next few years. Meaning like the world loses ac- access to cheap oil, okay? So, we we need to think ahead and see what this means for the rest of the world. And so, I I would say there are three major trends that we should expect in the next 4 to 5 years, all right? And I think I think these trends will be very, very uh salient. Um so, the first major trend is deindustrialization and deurbanization. Meaning that it doesn't really make sense to have loads of people living in cities doing digital work. Um why? Because the economy is not balanced. You need people to grow food, and then you need manufacturing as well. Before, you didn't have to worry about this because it was a globalized economy where you can import food, all right? And like just just just think about how if you're a middle-class American, you basically have a higher standard of living than the Roman emperor because you could, you know, every day go to the market and eat avocados, cherries. Um you could have food from all on the world all the time. And again, this is because of access to cheap oil. Um um but that those days are gone. And and basically like economies need to become a much more balanced economy. And that means moving people from the cities, especially young people, and moving them back to the rural areas so that they can grow food and be self-sufficient, okay? That's that's trend number one. Trend number two is like before, globalization was the religion, was the faith of the times. But now But now that globalization is collapsing because American power can no longer support globalization, nations need to reassert themselves, okay? So, you have the rise of uh nationalism, which then allows for remilitarization in order to protect their borders better, right? Because before, you could just rely on American military power for protection. But now you have to defend yourself, right? And you do that through um rejuvenating people's sense of national pride and identity, okay? So, nationalism, re- remilitarization is the second big trend. The third big trend is uh mercantilism, okay? Basically, self-sufficient economic spheres around the world. And it's going to look it's going to look different dif- differently in different places where Europe might be a trading block onto itself, but in other places, maybe Israel, maybe Japan, um create their own economic zones through military power. All right? Um so, and then in the northern hemisphere, um I think that America will come out okay because really, I mean, like like America is a superpower regardless, right? So, America retreats from the rest of the world, but it but then it um builds an economic system within the Western Hemisphere, and then it's fine. So, so so so we're we're seeing a rupture or splintering of the world and going back basically to the 1930s. That's wild. Okay, so who are going to be the winners and who are going to be the losers in this? Right. So, basically, um whoever whichever nation is most able to embrace these trends and transform their economies from one that is globally um dependent to much more nationally dependent will survive, okay? So, um that's why I think that Japan in Asia is actually better positioned than China because the Chinese economy is too export orientated, okay? China The Chinese economy just just relies on dumping cheap goods onto the global market. You can do that again with cheap oil and a global marketplace. But once, you know, nations start to go into war, and then they they they no longer trade, then China is forced to um become much more insular. And unfortunately, the Chinese economy is not balanced, meaning like it's completely dependent on exports, and consumers don't actually have any demand because because because consumers don't have any capital. They don't have any savings to spend money on. Uh consumers are afraid of the future. They lack confidence, okay? So, China is in a very tough situation because the Chinese economy and Chinese planners are not able to make the transition from one that is a global economy to one that is a much more um uh regional economy, okay? Japan, on the on the other hand, has a history and a record of making radical transformations when the existence of their nation is at stake, okay? So, you just you just look at Japan, and you think, "Oh my god, Japan is completely screwed because they have an aging crisis, because they are uh completely dependent on resources from abroad. They don't actually have their own oil." Um and the Japanese economy uh has been in a deflationary spiral for the past 20, 30 years. Okay, you you think Japan is completely screwed. But when when all hope seems lost, the Japanese somehow come together and then transform their entire their entire system, okay? And so, this goes So, I'll give you some a few examples where, you know, um in the 1200s or 1300s, when the Mongolians were coming to invade Japan, and Japan at at this time was, you know, like feudal uh system. They came together as a people and we and we we posted the Mongolian nation not once but twice, okay? That's very impressive. Then they go go to the Meiji Reformation, right? Which is the mid-19th century, when China had already been carved up by the Western powers, and Japan's like, "Okay, we need to industrialize now." And they did so in 20 years, all right? So much so that Yeah, so much so that Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. Um and and then you go you go to the end of World War II when the Japanese economy was completely devastated. So, what happened? The Japanese people came together, and in 20 years' time, they became the world's dominant manufacturing power, okay? The Japanese are a special people. Never ever bet against the Japanese. So, even though the things look darkest for the Japanese, they they they are remarkably resilient people uh and cohesive people. So, I think that they are the most likely to make the transformations necessary in order to survive the new um global order. Another thing I will say is the aging crisis, where every industrial economy is suffering from the aging crisis, right? You have people living in the '90s, uh into the hundreds, and they're not working, but they're they are just consuming a lot of resources. And every nation industrial nation is going to suffer from this issue. Um but the Japanese are different, meaning like if you if the Japanese nation is is under stress and there's a crisis, and the elderly in Japan need to make the necessary sacrifices in order for their grandchildren to survive, they will do so. And no other nation in the world will do this, okay? Get the baby boomers in America to make sacrifices for America. I mean, you you can you can you can make argument that a lot of the issues in America come from the fact that the baby boomers are a selfish, materialistic, uh and self-absorbed generation that refuse to surrender power, right? I mean, like like look at the baby look at how old their Congress is. You've got this guy Chuck Grassley. How How is he? Like 94 or something? He's still in He's still there. What is he doing? Yeah, it it is I have to admit, it is pretty wild. Uh yeah, Japan is a unique case. It brings up the question. So, you're talking about uh people are going to get more nationalistic because they're going to have to defend their own interests, and Japan is a special use case. Expect them to become a regional power because of their ability to coalesce, come together. Japan is also making waves here in the US because they're being so xenophobic, and uh absolutely just deciding, "Yeah, yeah, we're we're not doing any more uh immigration," which is crazy given that they have this aging population, they have this demographic challenge, and they're going to, you know, get rid of one of the easiest, maybe not the best, but one of the easiest ways to deal with it. Um I've heard you say some things that to Western ears is quite striking about diversity not being a useful thing at this time. Um talk to me a little bit about that. What's What's the thesis there? Right. So, um the idea is that um after World War II, there was a lot of discussion as to why World War II happened. And the agreement was excessive nationalism, right? These nations, like Japan and Germany, became fascist. And so, what we need to do is dilute the national fever of people around the world, and then you will have eternal peace. And so, a concept that came into popularity at this time is called something called the open society, where you have open borders, multiculturalism, diversity, and all celebrated as a way to create um common bonds among humanity. And for for the longest time, this made a lot of sense. And clearly, I benefited from this from this because I was I was allowed to immigrate from a poor village in China to go to Toronto, um and they gave me a full scholarship to study at Yale. So, I clearly benefit from this system. But now we've reached an extreme where um to have any um sense of community, to want to belong to a group is considered racist and um backward and provincial. And I think that's just wrong. I mean like I mean like I've been watching um the spread of DEI um in the United States and I just think it's it's just like it doesn't make any sense to me. Um I I I appreciate diversity. I appreciate I appreciate multiculturalism. But to make it your official religion and to punish anyone who wants more balance in society, who wants to protect the American identity, I think I think it's I mean like it's just wrong. Um I think it's just fanatical. Um and and I think that if you embrace too much multiculturalism, which is what the Europeans are doing, it will lead to eventually suicide, national suicide, okay? So the example is in 2014 you have you have millions of these um refugees from the Middle East fleeing war and terror created by the Americans and they're going to Europe. And quite honestly, the Europeans did did not have the capacity to absorb these millions, tens of millions of refugees. But Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said, "We can do this." Okay? And it's been a dumpster fire for Europe. >> [snorts] >> All right? You're talking about like civil war possibly emerging in Europe over the next 5 to 10 years. You look at what's happening in Britain, in France. Their populations are being replaced. Um you know, and and and and I'm not saying this is I'm not saying, you know, refugees are bad. What I'm saying is that nations need to protect their own identity and value system because that's what gives meaning and purpose to the local population. Yeah. I don't understand why people are allowed to immigrate where wherever, you know? Like like like it's it's it's absurd to me where, you know, I'm from Canada and there are a lot of Canadians who hate the liberal government of Canada because they're very authoritarian and I'm I'm one of them, okay? But you just like like you just shouldn't be able to like pack your bags and then move to America or Dubai or Singapore. You should you should have to stay where you are and fight for your community. Because that's that's that's what we that's what we've done throughout human history. Like like like if we always had the option of like this like if we're unhappy, just move somewhere else. We would never have human civilization. Human civilization is a coming together of people with a common bond, with a common sense of identity and then building on top of that. Right? So so I mean I I feel we've gone too far and we've embraced I mean like the the the the the the very common phrase now, very common phrase is suicidal empathy, right? Mhm. Where you care too much about your neighbor and you would and when you would when you should really be looking after your own house. Yeah, that is that's an idea that's gaining a lot of traction here in the US as we all think through how exactly do we deal with this problem? Um >> [clears throat] >> the thing that I've been trying to convince my audience of is that um values matter. And so a lot of people are getting tangled up in this concept as if it were a race issue. It's not a race issue. When you find somebody that say shares your religion, but they're a completely different race than you, you're far more bonded over the fact that you share a religion than you are alienated that they don't look like you. And for some reason, especially here in the West, we have just told the story over and over and over that everything comes down to your skin color, but I just refuse to believe that that's the experience people are actually having. Uh it comes down to do you click with somebody? Do you guys view the world the same way? Do you enjoy each other's company? And if you look exactly like me, but I can't stand to be around you, I don't have any sense of affinity towards you whatsoever. Uh so yeah, that one's very strange to me. Now, speaking of that, as you were talk Sorry, go ahead. I feel I want to I want to jump in here because this is a very important point where DEI, multiculturalism, it's being used used to justify the bureaucratization of society, right? So this is not so apparent in America, but if you go to Europe and Canada, it's really apparent where these nations are essentially authoritarian where you say anything now, uh the police can come knock on your door. It's crazy. So you go you go to England where, you know, if you are part of these like grooming gangs, well, the police don't come after you, but like if you post about grooming gangs, they'll come knock on your door. Right? And so Franz Kafka writes about this in his book The Trial where bureaucrats don't bother with criminals because it's a pain in the ass. So they go after ordinary citizens because ordinary citizens are compliant and it allows them to feel good about themselves and to, you know, collect their paycheck. So that's what we're seeing throughout the Western world, not in America, but in Canada, in and and in Europe where you have the rise of this bureaucratic overclass that justifies its its existence by virtue of signaling, right? By by stopping on on people who who want a sense of community and identity. Yeah. No, it's well said and it's wild that Kafka was writing about this. It just shows you that and some of the stuff Orwell was doing, these are just baked into the human psyche and so they repeat over and over cuz these guys are writing from 80 years ago. I mean this is not like recent stuff. This was very predictive a long time ago. Um speaking of predictive, so part of what has made you so famous is that you made these predictions a couple years ago that Trump was going to get elected. This is before 20 the 24 election, that we would go to war with Iran and that we would lose the war with Iran. Now, there's a key part of your thesis that we haven't touched on as to why all of this plays out that we teased at the beginning and I think we should pull into center light now, which is the religion of it all. So once you you talk about eschatology, which I never heard before, so I had to look that up. So if you would, it given that it's basically religion but in the extreme, walk people through what eschatology is, why you use that word instead of just saying religion and then why you think >> Right. that you're we're never going to understand what's playing out right now unless we understand that. All right, so eschatology comes from the Greek word eschaton, which means the end. So eschatology literally means the study of the end times. Um but what it really means is your understanding of how the world ends or how uh humans can become unified with God. Um and different religions have different eschatologies. Um so that that's the word eschatology. And as you point out, um it's usually extremists who embrace uh eschatology. But the problem with eschatology is that it's very very powerful because as humans, there's always three questions burning inside our hearts. The first question is, where do we come from? Second question is, what are we doing here? The third question is, where are we going? And eschatology answers all three questions to the satisfaction of the human heart. And so that's what galvanizes, energizes it religious extremists into action. If you look at um eschatology, um the most passionate um people right now in America are people called Christian Zionists. All right? So I eventually evangelicals are about a quarter of the American population and then among the evangelicals, there are these very passionate people who are only minority, okay? But they're Christian Zionists. Um and the technical term for them is premillennial dispensationalists. And so what they believe is that the world is theological, meaning that God has a divine plan that he voiced in the Bible. So if you read the Bible properly, it will tell you where the world is going and how it will end. And so what they believe is that um God has a divine plan. If you have faith in God, what you do is you accelerate the plan. Okay? You cannot defy the will of God, but what you can do is accelerate his plan. And so these Christian Zionists believe that Jesus will return, but certain conditions have to be met before Jesus can return. So the first condition that needs to be to be met is that Israel needs to be re-constituted as a nation. Why? Because the Jews are God's chosen people and God has a covenant with the Jews, which is um the um land of Israel that God promised Abraham, their their ancestor, okay? So that's the first condition that needs to be met. Second condition that needs to be met is um the Jews need to build Solomon's Temple, the third temple. Um and then the Jewish diaspora have to return to Israel. They all have to return. chart. Okay? You can't be living in the United States, you have to go back to Israel. Um and then uh there's be a war of Gog and Magog. Um and then the Antichrist will emerge to lead the the Jews um to threaten to threaten the Jews, sorry. I was going to say, wait, hold on. Sorry. Sorry, yeah. Uh sorry sorry, it's very confusing because these eschatologists have different details, okay? But then uh when the Antichrist um is most threatening the existence of Israel, then Jesus will return to save the Jews. And when he returns, Christians will rapture uh sorry, raptured up into heaven. Okay? So you're Christian, you really believe in Jesus, uh when he returns, you're going directly to heaven. But if you're not a Christian, um then you're going to suffer um then Jesus will enter some called the millennium, a thousand years of eternal peace uh where Jesus rules the world, and at the end of the millennium is the day of judgement, where he will judge you a good person or a bad person. If you're a good person, you live forever. If you're a bad person, you'll burn in hell forever, okay? So so that that that's what these Christian Zionists believe. It's a very simplified version version, but as you can see, it's a very compelling story of what you should be doing, of how you can accelerate the coming of heaven onto onto Earth. And unfortunately, these Christian Zionists are embedded in the very fabric of American political life. So I'll give you an example where Peter Hexe is a is a Christian Zionist. He If you just he has these crusader tattoos on his body. He's talked about rebuilding the third temple, okay? Well, that's an issue is the site where they want to build the third temple is where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is. So you need you would need to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque first in order to build the third temple. So the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in the Islamic world. Only Mecca and Medina are more holy. And the Al-Aqsa Mosque is apparently where um um Muhammad ascended to heaven. Um and and for the longest time Al-Aqsa Mosque was actually controlled by Jordan. Um and so only Muslims were allowed actually in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But what's been happening these past few days is that the Israelis have shut off access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And there are rumors that um that the Israelis might do a controlled demolition of Al-Aqsa Mosque and blame it on the Iranians. Yeah, and uh that strikes me as a terrible idea in that it will be one, immediately people will just assume that they did it, and then two, that that will galvanize the Muslim world against uh Israel in a way that has never happened before. Um what do you think will happen if they destroy the mosque? >> It's all been planned out where destroying the mosque is very important because as you point out, it will galvanize the entire Muslim world against the Israelis. And two, and this is really important, is that you will see a surge of anti-Semitism throughout the world, where everyone sees the Israelis as crazy fanatics, and the Jews as enabling the uh the the Israelis, okay? But it's all part of their plan because remember, for their plan to work out, first of all, all Jews need to return to Jerusalem. Um and there's going to be a war of Gog and Magog where the entire world unifies and attacks Israel, okay? So destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque accomplishes both um objectives. And um yeah, I mean, I know that it sounds crazy, so so I'll so so so go ahead and and ask some questions. >> the big thing is um how much credibility do you put in that this is really a driver, that these different eschatologies and um there's more to talk about, but I think rather than detail out each of the different eschatologies, just to know this idea, you've got uh Christian Zionists believe one thing that's driving them to make decisions at the nation-state level that may have had some influence in us going into the area, may have some influence in whether we uh are allies with Israel or not. Then you've got extremists within Israel that believe in things like the Greater Israel theory, and they want to take over more land, and they want to actually piss people off, and they want this war of Gog and Magog, which would be great if you cuz there there's a theory about who what current nation-states are Gog and Magog, and they're both in play right now, and so um understanding that would be useful. And then like people will at least have the package from which to understand where we'll go from here, but understanding um whether you think this is a primary driver, whether you think this is just a fringe theory, and how much of this you actually think has predictive validity. When I do predictive modeling, I'm looking at different theories. And when these different theories converge together, um I can make a pretty accurate prediction, okay? So um there are three major theories that I look at when I make when when I make predictions. The first theory is game theory, which is I just look at the different interests of the different nation-states, okay? That's a that's game theory. And I I I like I look at historical patterns, which is like, how do empires behave as they decline? Um and so I I I look at Rome, I look at um the British Empire, I I look at different historical instances of empires in decline. The third thing is I look at eschatology. I look at religion. Um and why eschatology is important is that it's a script for um people to follow over the centuries, and they can slowly build towards this uh script, okay? So um when I do these three things, when I look at eschatology, when I look at game theory, and when I look at historical patterns, then I'm forced to conclude that um they will eventually destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and force the war of Gog and Magog, okay? So um first of all, what I'm going to do is explain to you how in their minds, how historical events should unfold, okay? How these current events should unfold. And then I'll explain to you the religious rationale for why this should happen, okay? All right. So in the mind of these um religious extremists, and they're Jewish and Christian, um they want uh this war in the Middle East to destroy both Iran and the United States, okay? Basically, they want the United States to send ground troops to Iran. It becomes another Vietnam. It is extremely unpopular in America. There's a national draft. There's a civil war in America. And now America is forced to retreat from the Middle East. This is important because America is not actually part of this eschatology. And so how do you get rid of the American Empire? Well, you cause a civil war back in America, okay? That's that's number one. Number two is that once Iran is destroyed, um the Israel is able to achieve the Greater Israel project because there's no there's no longer any uh local opposition towards um Israel. So remember, like by this time, the GCC nations are also destroyed, right? Because of this war. So Israel is now very quickly able to achieve the um Greater Israel project, and build something called a Pax Judaica, which is basically an AI surveillance state. Um um and so it's basically what they did in Gaza these past 10 years, and then scaling out across the um Middle East. And so what they're going to do is they're going to um allow transnational capital to come in and build up their AI AI infrastructure, and they're going to import millions of laborers from India, China, and the Philippines to work um uh their their system. And um Pax Judaica will become the main trading block for the world because if you are Russian if you're Russian, you want to access African the African market, you have to go you have to go through Pax Judaica, the greater greater Israel, um just because of how trade routes are are are established. Um and then um greater Israel is then able to export its surveillance technology throughout the world and help other nations build up their surveillance and networks. Uh okay. Um but then um because Israel has destroyed the Al-Aqsa Mosque and built their Solomon's Temple, the third temple, this galvanizes the Muslim populations to rebel against their governments. These are governments actually very pro-Western, right? So um this creates this religious jihad fever among um uh Muslim extremists, and so you see a reordering of the um Muslim world, where governments are overthrown, um very much like the um uh Arab Spring. Um and and and and so and now what's going to happen is that uh the Muslim world is going to unify eventually again uh uh and and and join an alliance of Russia and Iran, okay? So by this time, Iran will will have rebuilt itself, and then Russia uh will um of the Orthodox world will form alliances with the Islamic world, and they will march against Israel. And it's called the war of Gog and Magog, okay? And then of course, this will lead to the end of the world, uh where nuclear weapons might be used. Um so that's how they perceive historical events playing out. Yeah? The Does that make sense? It's all very clear. There's an internal logic. The um the only thing that I'm trying to pin down is you've got three things. Are they sort of of equal value, or do you think that one is bigger than the other? Because the eschatology part is where certainly my mental map is, yeah, these guys are on the fringes. Yes, there's like they can get their own base riled up, but in a world that is governed far more by economics than it is by religious purity or enthusiasm. Um I don't expect that to be the primary driver, and a very weird set of events would have to trigger to get enough people to believe that I'm really trying like I'm actually trying to bring back God. Um that it just seems like that part has the it gives a nice flavor to the whole thing, but it would be the lowest in predictive validity. So I'm very curious if you think that has equal predictive validity to the other two things you walked us through, game theory, historical precedent. Is this like an equal third player, or is this like a well, just by way of mentioning everything, let me throw it in. So, um let me try to explain this slowly. Um because it's actually very complicated, okay? All right. We first have to ask, where does this eschatology actually come from? And what I think is that when you when you when you when you when you when you whenever you have prophecy, it's probably a lost historical memory. Meaning like the prophecy that they have is something that historically happened before in the past, but we've lost the memory of it. And if you look at history and you try to we we we we can track history, this prophecy, this eschatology, where would it come from? And um the um and I I think it would come from the rise of Islam. And this happened in the 7th century, all right? So, what's happening is like Persia and Rome are at war with with each other. The The Romans are called the Byzantine Empire. Okay, so you have two major powers, the Persians uh and the Byzantine Empire at war with with each other. And they're fighting over uh Jerusalem. Why are they fighting over Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem is a major uh trading nexus. If you control Jerusalem, you're able to control Egypt, and Egypt historically has been um the main uh agricultural nation in the uh Middle East. And at this time, uh the Jews were very much trying to reestablish um themselves back in Jerusalem. Because they they've been expelled from Jerusalem by by the Romans. And so they went to the Persians for help. And they convinced the Persians to come in. And and um at first it succeeded, but then the Byzantines struck back and we took Jerusalem and slaughtered a lot of um and of of Jews. So, under threat, they escaped into the Arabian Desert. And Jews have been in the Arabian Desert for a long time. And then they anointed their Messiah, a man named Muhammad. Okay? And then Muhammad, Christians call it the Constitution Constitution of Medina, which is this this um grand alliance among believers. Okay? So, his followers were then called believers. And then they marched to um uh marched against both the Persians and the Byzantines. And they were very quickly able to overwhelm uh both the Persians and and the Byzantines. Why? Because by this time, both of these empires have been exhausted for years and years of war. In fact, there were civil conflict within their nations as well. And so, they off they really didn't offer that much resistance against a galvanized uh army of religious fanatics. Okay? And so, uh um they were able then to establish the caliphate. All right? Uh which was this grand alliance between Christians, Jews, and uh and and and Muslims. And we've lost this memory because um these because those who succeeded this caliphate had invested interest in disguising the fact that um there's a revolution happening, right? Because now they're empires, so they they want to disguise the revolution, okay? So, so so is is this is this making any sense to to you so far? Are are are you It it does. And I'm reading between the lines though, cuz really what I'm trying to establish, as I'm sure you're aware, this is the part of your thesis that people are going to lean on and say, "That's all crazy. That's conspiracy theory. You're applying way too much to this." So, I'm just trying I I think you think this is a pretty major part of the predictive um recipe and that if you fail to understand that this religious eschatology is actually tied to historical events, so it's historical events said in a religious allegorical way, um then you're really missing something important. So, that answered my question in terms of uh I think you believe that it has uh predictive validity and that people are getting lost in the religion of it all instead of realizing that this is just another way of saying, "This is how things have played out historically." Um so, yeah, it it answers my question assuming that that was an accurate representation of what you just said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um but something to keep in mind is that for most of human history, we've kept um history, lessons of history, using allegories, right? Using stories. Because we we didn't have writing. Uh you you didn't actually write stuff down. You actually told stories. And and by telling stories, you may have you have to make them much more imaginative, okay? So, I think eschatology is actually just lost historical memories of patterns that emerge uh through time. The reason why uh these religions are so powerful is that they have access to thousands thousands year thousands of years of human history, right? Which then they can dance into um patterns that then they relay onto their followers. Yeah, so another another way of saying this is that like game theory, historical patterns, and eschatology actually align together. And And that's why they're so powerful together. Mhm. Dr. Jiang, uh this time has been absolutely incredible. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do it. And then also just your uh meteoric rise, I think, is extraordinarily justified. You've got such a unique take on this. Obviously very deep, very broad in terms of your background in poetry and things that um just give you such a different lens on this. Where can people follow along with you online? Yeah, so there are two ways um to follow me online. Um the first the best way is uh from my YouTube channel, Predictive History. And then I have a Substack uh which actually goes deep in analyses um geopolitical events to give you insight into how things should progress. And it it's at predictivehistory .substack.com. I love it. Awesome, man. Thank you again for taking the time. And everybody at home, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And I'll see you next time, my friends. Take care. Be legendary. Peace. If you liked this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. Never has there been a crazier time. This is absolutely wild. The uh Iranian war has kicked off. It is, I think, full-fledged at this point. Now, I think a lot of people are getting the analysis on Iran wrong. They either get sucked into the