WW3 DEBATE: “We’re On the Brink of Global Collapse” - #1144

31:41I was also impressed President Xi basically asked Trump about the Thucydides trap. Are we going to go to war? So I believe these are the right questions. I don't think we're heading to a war with China if we're smart, because what we need to do is develop our industrial base. We need to develop and modernize internally. This is a choice. Back to your question. Will we be replaced as the world's number one in 20 years? This is a choice. If we keep fighting these horrible quagmires, if we don't develop internally here, if we don't catch up to China, the answer is yes. Given where we're at at the moment, looking at your respective crystal balls, which country do you think is the most powerful in the world in 20 years' time?

32:29The United States is the only global power. China is a regional power. You cannot push force into the Atlantic and so on. We can. So we're reaching a world that's very different. That doesn't mean that the United States is in decline. Okay? Certainly, I agree with you on many of these things, but I don't think it's fundamental to the position of the United States. It is the United States occupied a position in the world which costed a great deal in many different dimensions. And that backing off from that reduces tensions within the United States and so on. I was thinking that there would be some sort of seesaw, probably between China and the US, but maybe there was another player that I hadn't thought about.

33:12It sounds like both are in some form of mild decline. They're in flux. So my position is it's up to our leaders who's going to be number one in 2020. There's three dimensions of global power I would look at. Dimension number one is the country's GDP is a fraction of world product. Right now, we're 26 percent. China's 17. But if you look forward here, this could easily flip flop in 20 years. The second is allies. How many friends do you have in the world? Well, look at what's happened with the tariffs. Look at what's happening with Canada right now today. What is happening is in the middle of this gigantic war that we're having with Iran, we are deciding to alienate friends.

34:02Well, who's likely to pick up those friends? It's going to be China. And then issue number three is our technological base, our growth. If the world economy goes over a cliff with our$40 trillion in debt, I think the idea that we're going to invest our way out of this in the AI, I'm just, look, maybe that will all work out, Chris, okay? And we're gonna be fine with 40 trillion. I'm laughing my way through the apocalypse. I don't know about you. Well, I'm just trying to explain. These are the problems I'm worried about. Just one second. Let's hear it from Professor Chang. So I think that these past 30, 40 years of Pax Americana have been unique in human history.

34:41Never before had we had a power that could span the entire globe. For the first time, we had a global reserve currency. Never before had one nation been able to dictate the global economy. So I think Pax American has been unique in human history. And I think we're reverting back to the mean, which is more regional dominance. So the way that I examine how nation states thrive or die is using three basic criteria, which is going to be very different from yours. But first, I look at energy, basically how hardworking are the people? Second thing is openness, which is how open are people to change?

35:21How much are they willing to absorb new ideas? And the third is cohesion, which is how much do they value their own neighbor? If you actually use these three metrics, okay, energy, openness, and cohesion, you find that in each region, one nation will dominate above all else. So in East Asia, it would not be China that dominates. It would be Japan that dominates. It will be in Europe, it will either be Germany or Poland, one of the two. Germany is more powerful, but Poland is more cohesive. And you can tell me next week what you find. It's more dynamic by far. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's more in danger, it seems.

36:01That's much more energetic. Energy. That's right. And then in North America, it's the United States by far. The United States is so dominant that the United States could keep on electing Donald Trump. It could faceplant its way through the next few decades and still win. Unfortunately, that is the case for the United States. And then in the Middle East, I believe it is Israel that is most dominant. In other news, have you ever noticed how some websites make it ridiculously easy to buy while some feel infinitely harder? Back in my day, I had to walk 10 miles to the local store. Aren't you younger than me?

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37:06You can sign up for a free trial period by going to the link in the description below or heading to shopify.com slash modern wisdom. That's shopify.com slash modern wisdom. Interesting on the U.S.'s ability to put both of its feet in its mouth and continue to be a preeminent power. Does that help to smooth over some cracks and inefficiencies and instabilities inside of America? The momentum, just the sheer size of it, means that there can be issues burbling below the surface that don't get seen for a little while. And then eventually the sort of lid gets blown up. Obviously, you're talking about civil unrest.

37:43I don't know how likely you think civil unrest I proper civil unrest is going to be due to this so Um, I have coming out chris a book called our own worst enemies in america in the age of violent populism Uh, it's pre-order now on amazon. It'll be available in just a couple weeks to be in your mailbox And i've spent five years studying this problem because my work on political violence What I do, Chris, is I look at where is the biggest threat to America, the biggest threat. So it changes from time to time. And what I started to see after the George Floyd protests, which were mostly peaceful, but what does mostly peaceful mean with the George Floyd protests when 28 million are protesting and 7 % are riots and political violence?

38:29That's millions of people who are unrest. And then also January 6th, this is the first time in our history that we've had a violent mob supported by the president of the United States to try to stop the constitutional process of changing presidential power in the United States. Then we've had the rise of political assassinations and assassination attempts. I could go on and on. This is, I would say, akin to the 1960s. I agree. We've had some periods of violent populism before. The book covers that. But what's different is it's on both the right and the left. The number one fact today is tens of millions of Americans on each side, I don't mean total, each side of the political spectrum, support political violence for the goals that they also support.

39:19That's why you're getting support for very aggressive ICE tactics against Democratic protesters, even after ICE kills those Democratic protesters. I would argue that this is not the first time it happened. We had a civil war. In that civil war, we ripped ourselves apart and then came together again. There's a strangeness in the United States. most countries that have that kind of civil war could not accommodate itself again. We are historically, when we take a look at these various periods in history, at each other's throats, it is one of the dimensions of the United States which is based on the fact that we're an invented country.

39:59Invented not only in the sense that the Constitution was invented, but that the population was invented. there was no other nations have histories of culture and so on we constantly came together so one of the things that the united states is very good at from the founding is being deeply divided because as john adams said one-third of the people were for the revolution one third of people were against the revolution one-third of people didn't care that was his is reading so i see the divisions in a very different way than you do well i don't think it's good enough to say that we survived the civil war because 600 000 people died in the civil war so let's just be clear we are 40 trillion dollars in debt the idea that sure we'll just have a civil war and no problem we'll get out of this just fine this is the showing how he we've got to go to the civil war standard to to say we can survive a civil war no we will not be able to be anything like we won't even be a regional power i disagree profoundly there's a cultural nature china has a culture it has a history it has an evolution britain has a history and so on okay thank you when you take a look at what you used to well shut up dude all right shut up okay when you take a look at american history you measure yourself and your state of of a company against something.

41:28Otherwise, you're constantly in a feeling of this has never been so terrible. So you have to have a sense of proportion on what goes on. So when we look at the division in the United States between World War II, between the isolationists and the interventionists, we have constantly approached the world deeply divided. okay i saw that mentioned the civil war because i was the most extreme example but even the the revolution was not a joint universal uprising it was deeply divided and my wife's family had to move to canada because after that's a high price to pay well they were the point i'm making here is that put me in the wall one of the things about the americans is we're constantly having the feeling we're going to hell we have the ability to overestimate tremendously our weaknesses and underestimate the tremendous strengths this is where i have to respect you i disagree with you i look at the past as a measure of the culture and its flexibility and viability even under pressure Do you think America is a country permanently in strife internally, or is there something unique about the modern version of this?

42:52Well, let me also be clear. My book is explaining we're not heading to civil war. We are heading to violent populism, and we're in the middle of violent populism. Can you explain what the difference is, please? Yes. Civil war is where you have armies going toe-to-toe. Truly, this is battle after battle, so we start to see the movies on civil war. These are, I think, the extreme scenarios. And we can talk about extreme scenarios. I hope we would never get there. So I don't find them acceptable. But I don't think that's really what our future is. I think our future is we're more in danger of becoming Turkey, for example, where because we have normalized political violence, It starts to become normal for the president to absorb more and more powers under the presidency.

43:43And then also to sort of hide things. So this isn't just happening with President Trump. During President Biden's presidency, we had open borders, essentially. We had 10 million plus come into the country. And yet this was all the image was, oh, no, there's nothing happening at the border. It's literally not happening. and that was by a Democratic president. So what I'm trying to point out, Chris, is that we're in a world where because political violence is becoming normal and George is finding it, well, sure, it's just okay. It's just another day in America. This is what the book's about. It's about how political violence has become normal for tens of millions of Americans for the first time since the 1960s.

44:28And this has consequences because it's on both the right and the left. And we're coming to an election. And this midterms, we already have, and I was just on many podcasts, we have people who are terrified that President Trump is going to seize ballot boxes. Now, why would they be terrified of that? Because President Trump said he was going to do that in February. So this isn't just coming out of nowhere. there and and my and when i'm on those podcasts i'm trying to say yes that may happen but we will hold ourselves together and here's how we're going to do it so i'm not trying to tell you we're heading to civil war i'm also not trying to tell you civil war would just be fine what i am trying to tell you is uh the way you're going to see um powers absorbed by the federal government uh things like use of martial law and so forth is because political violence has become normalized.

45:25It's the normalization, which is the difference on your... What's your perspective on internal strife in America? Right, so I think the best historical analogy for the United States right now is the Roman Empire. And the critical turning point for the Roman Empire is maybe 150 BCE. And this is the Third Punic War. This is before the Third Punic War starts between Carthage and Rome. At this point, Carthage is basically destroyed and it's just an economic center. It's no longer a military power. And there's a huge debate in the Roman Senate about what to do with Carthage. Cato the Elder demanded the destruction of Carthage because Carthage would always be a threat to Rome otherwise.

46:06Everyone else was like, no, guys, we cannot destroy Carthage because if we destroy Carthage, what will happen is we will have no external enemy and we will start to tear ourselves apart. Cato the Elder won, and they destroyed Carthage in the Third Punic War. And then what happens afterwards? Complete civil strife. And after the Civil War starts, it starts about 100 BCE, something called the Social War. But it never really stops. Social War then leads to the rise of Julius Caesar, which then leads to the rise of Augustus Caesar, which then leads to all sorts of wars. So that's a problem with the United States.

46:48The United States is probably the most violent country on this planet, by far. There are more guns per capita. There are more guns than people. And America is the only nation to play football. Am I correct to say only Americans play football? So Americans have this tremendous energy. Hang on, hang on. You're going to have to draw the parallel between there's lots of guns in America, and America is the only country to play football. I feel like I missed something there. Right. What I'm saying is that America is a society that prides itself on the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. It's a society that is, by the standards of every other society, it's pretty aggressive.

47:28Right. Physical contact, violence. That's right. Like listening to Metallica and flying F-14s and shit. So this energy, you can either direct it outwards to conquering the world. or if you don't direct it outwards, then there's a fear that it becomes directed inwards, which could lead to civil war. It could be violent populism. It could be a civil war. It could also be an insurgency, very much like the movie One Battle After Another. But I do think that right now at this point, domestic violence is almost unavoidable. Really? Why? If you just, I mean, like, you can agree or disagree, but I think there are certain trends that are in place that make internal violence unavoidable.

48:17So the first is just the wealth inequality, the financialization of society. This is what I was talking about. That's one trend. But another major trend is the gerontocracy, the baby boomers. So what's happened is that baby boomers, I apologize to both of you, But the baby boomers have an uplies political power, economic wealth, and social status. And if you're a young person, you have absolutely no opportunity. So James B. Calhoun in the 1960s, he ran a very successful experiment called the Rat Utopia Experiment. He basically put rats in a paradise where there'd be no predators, free food every day.

49:03And all that happened was the rats just turned against each other and killed each other. And the reason why is young men, especially young men, they strive for social status. If you don't give them social status, if they're unable to climb the social hierarchy and find recognition and status, they turn violent. And this is just human nature. So we tried to get at this. So this book that I'm coming out with, it's a product of this five years of research that we've been doing at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago. 20 national surveys this is where all that millions of dollars so and why we did all that was to try to answer some of the why questions so we asked questions such as how worried are you you won't be as prosperous as your parents that kind of gets at the wealth inequality and the social mobility well we didn't just find out the general answer to that we wanted to know did that make you more likely to support violence, political violence?

50:04And it turns out the more you think you won't be as prosperous as your parents, the more you support political violence on the right and on the left. It's a wedge. It drives both sides up. We also asked, remember I mentioned the second social change? We're transitioning from a white majority democracy to a white minority democracy. Well, other countries in the world, this has played a huge role in political violence. That's why Lebanon, for instance, has had so much political violence over the years, over the decades. Well, this is not unique to America, but it's happening for us now, Chris, for the first time.

50:39And so we asked the question, are you happy with the transition to a white minority democracy, or are you unhappy and want to reverse it? And what do we find? If you want to reverse it, you are far more likely to support political violence on right-wing issues. If you want to keep it going, you're more likely to support political violence on left-wing issues. These are not happening in isolation. They're not just swirling around. And gee, it's kind of random why we're having this rise of violent populism now. There are actual reasons, and they overlap with some of what Zhang's talking about. But we're able to get to the data to see, well, let's do some tests here and see, can we really see it in the data?

51:25And the answer is yes. And this is why, so it's been very worrisome, Chris, for some time. So a year ago, I published a big op-ed, June 2025, in the New York Times. I was explaining this data in this op-ed, and I was warning, we're on the brink of major political violence. And what happens? The Charlie Kirk assassination happens. What happens? We get the rise of Operation Midway Blitz and then Metro Blitz. And that wasn't the first time, Chris. So a year before that, this data was showing a rise of anger to the point of violence against President Trump. This was in June 2024. So I brought it to our National Sheriff's Association.

52:08So I'm connected with these. So remember, advised white houses etc and i warned them that there's a non-trivial possibility that we're going to see a assassination attempt against president trump when did you say this this was the last week of june 2024 now they listened i just want to say chris they listened and guess what happened on july 13th at and then what happened in my phone is it blew up because Suddenly people were, let's get that data. I literally blew up. What I'm trying to say is, Chris, this is – so just as my 20 years of modeling of the Iran war has led to some predictions about what might come in advance, we haven't – but that's, of course, been well known at this point.

52:58This is not the first time. My work has been studying political violence, not just in the rearview mirror, but with an eye toward giving real decision makers, whether it's chief of staff of the Air Force, West Wing of the White House, FBI, for I call it strategic intelligence. It's not tactical intelligence. It's where things are heading to see where probabilities of events in the future are shifting. That's my work. I don't disagree with you. We are in a violent time. I simply put that context of American history and American culture. So if we're doing something that we've never done before, and never done before and recovered from and so on, it's very different from this is unprecedented.

53:50So when I look at culture, I take a look at the culture itself and its history and ask the question, is there a precedent for this? Is this something we've never seen? If that's true, then there's a radical shift possible. If this is a cycle, a process of a cycle that periodically happens and comes and goes and is handled in the past, there's a high probability of a counteraction, of it subsiding. So this is why I go back to things that don't seem very relevant because they went away. But if you'd lived through the 1930s with the isolationists deeply, in some ways, anti-Semitic and everything else, and the tensions that were there, well, I've seen that.

54:41So when I talk about the Civil War, it's just to say this was the most extreme event of this sort, and we've survived. So I ask the question, not only is a crisis coming, which I completely agree with you on, but is it in the nature of the culture of the united states to withstand those crises yeah i suppose okay so your your point is this might not be terminal this might not be existential to the united exactly i mean does anybody think like even if it was a civil war there would be some people left right and then you've got a country afterward like from the ashes something can come back what What came out of that of civil war was the most dynamic development economically, perhaps in history.

55:24This is like an accelerationist argument. No, it has nothing to do with the causality or this is necessary. I'm simply saying to you that if you get a fever that you've never had before, well, that's really significant. If on the other hand you had another cold, you don't take that seriously. I'm trying to put this in the context of the American nature. So I'm arguing there's a culture, there's a nature, there's a history. I just want to make two points. And one thing is, every time we sought, we were finished. During the 70s, the idea, the killings, the kidnappings and everything that was going on, well, they went away.

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57:38They're driven on social change. Drange number one was we had a massive shift in migration of blacks to the north and the Midwest that were not getting political representation. That was underneath the black riots, Malcolm X, the ballot or the bullet. By the mid-1970s, you start to have the Black Caucus. You actually get some black. Now, it's not as good as it should be. I'm not trying to say it's perfect, but this is one of the big reasons why that violence comes down. There's a second driver of violence in the 1960s. It's the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement, conscription. What ends? It's not just the Vietnam War ends, Chris.

58:17Conscription ended. We end in 1973, conscription. So I never had to be conscripted. Something structural has changed. And that took the steam out of the anti-war movement. As soon as that's what ended the weathermen, the weather underground. that's what ended those uh that that violent protests here both of those issues end so my point is we can actually look today at the social causes and i can tell you we're likely to have this violent populism for another 10 years it's not just there's another decade of this yes because of the social changes we can talk about those shifts then i ask you the question how does it end this time.

59:02This is up to us. And that's my point. My point is that this is not all in historical inevitability and we shouldn't just throw the dice to the wind. We should understand what's happening to us so that we can make more intelligent decisions going forward. It's not just a prediction of doom and gloom. It's things are going in a bad direction. Let's take that seriously and then let's do something to offset it. That's been my world with mostly foreign policy elites for the last 30 years. I'm now trying to do that with the public. So you reckon there's going to be internal strife for the next 10 years?

59:40Right, so back to the young man problem. So right now there's a very popular phrase called hypergamy. I'm not sure if you know what hypergamy means, but I don't. You know what I mean. Why are you looking at me as hypergamy? Are you saying that's because I'm a high value male? That's right. So the problem is that the majority of young men are not able to find a suitable mate. Because one way to reduce young men's violent tendencies is to get married, have children, and then become productive members of society. But if the majority of young men cannot get married, then what's the solution? Well, you send them off to war, right?

1:00:23so um there are two possibilities ahead for the united states um how do you deal with these millions of young men who cannot get laid basically well you send off some of the war to die but if you did that if you had conscription it's possible they they would just rather fight you okay so another solution is to colonize uh north and south america to turn the entire western hemisphere into a U.S. colony. And they're doing that already with Venezuela. They'll probably do that with Canada. They're talking about Greenland. You think that realistically America would try and colonize Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela?

1:01:01Not just, oh, we're going to take a couple of leaders here and have soft power. They would actually try to do that. Yes, I do, because there's no one to stop the United States from doing this. Why wouldn't the United States just take Alberta? What's stopping the United States from just taking Alberta? Is that not war? is that not like can't ask what army yeah yeah yeah the reason he's saying alberta is that's where the oil is so one of the things so this is this is something i was right so with my classes at the university of chicago so not for the reason of the exact dynamic i won't quite go that far but what i um so having studied violent populism um i um watched over 200 of president trump's speeches as he was running for president, 200 all the way through.

1:01:46I went to four of his rallies, which didn't mean you just go to his rallies and listen. To a Trump rally, that means you get there at 8 a.m. You're already three hours late, and you can still barely see the stage, by the way, and you have to wait 10 hours, and you can't move. If you move, you lose your place in line, and you're all the way at the back. So that's why those hundreds of people are dropping over there. So what do you do? I surveyed them. I talked to them. I actually literally, that's what it surveys. And so I learned a lot about what was underneath the support for Trump. I also went to Harris rallies and it was easier to get there.

1:02:24You get a 330, you still get a seat. So it was a little different there. But nonetheless, what he is describing here, you could see a lot of, in some of what President Trump was saying, he was planting some seeds. Come on, bombastic, this guy, gregarious, talky-talky, like isn't this a cool talk? Like realistically he's going to go to China? Hold it, hold it. That was all fine, Chris, until after the election. It wasn't just talky-talky. It got seriously-seriously. Okay, so I'm not telling you I immediately jumped to the conclusion, oh, that would be a 99 % likelihood of happening. I work in percentages.

1:03:06OK, what do you think is the percentage likelihood that Greenland or Canada or Venezuela are brought into the American remit? I think it turns hugely on what happens with this election in 2028. So if we are internally divided, as I think there's likely to be, I think this external expansion is likely to go down. however if it turns out that this is not just we're not internally divided but we see the MAGO red wave get stronger and stronger and stronger there's a very good chance that what um Zhang is talking about will come to be uh because these are this is what I mean by it's up to us Chris this is wild I did not think that I was going to find out that we were maybe going to invade Canada and Greenland and Venezuela why not I just it seems so intense it's so absurd and and and and this would be it would be invasion i'd agree with you well i'm not i'm not again the probabilities here so let's be clear i'm not saying this is 70 likely so i deal in the world of probabilities but if we're talking about where there is a world where this is even a 20 probability this changes everything the idea then if it's even 20 likely and notice what's happening with Carney.

1:04:26Notice what's happening with the leaders. I don't think Carney believes it's 80 % likely, but if you watch his speech, listen to his speech in Munich this year, he certainly thinks there's something on the horizon. And President Trump has been talking directly to him about moving the border with Canada and the treaty and abandoning the 1908 treaty with Canada. This has been a direct conversation with the prime ministers of Canada in the last year and a half. I don't say it means it's a certainty, Chris. That's going too far. But to ignore that this is then translating into taking Venezuela's oil, serious war planning now for Greenland.

1:05:11The war planning doesn't equal conquest, Chris. But I think we're making a mistake to just simply dismiss it as, oh, this is just talk on the side. I wasn't dismissing it. I didn't even know that it was an option on the table. What do you think is more likely, China into Taiwan or the U.S. into one of Canada, Greenland, Venezuela? Oh, I vote for the latter with the U.S. So I think that - 100%. No way. All of this talk, all of this talk that people, the processors, the microchip, all of the China into Taiwan and - So I've been arguing for decades. More likely that we're going to go into Canada, Venezuela or Greenland.

1:05:46If China plays its cards right, Taiwan is going to fall right into China's lap. I've been so President Chen brought me to Taiwan in January 2003. I was one of five air power experts. This was the president of Taiwan. Okay, for a two day conference with the president of Taiwan, he wanted the answer to the question. This is January 2003. What should Taiwan do if China preemptively attacks Taiwan? Well, the United States is preemptively attacking Iraq. So remember, we had this thing called the Iraq War. Well, for Taiwan, that was a very scary situation. So for two days, I was with the president and also with the top of the Air Force.

1:06:27And we were discussing the no kidding discussions here. And I also got windows into their national security. And I got the polls, that is the internal polls, which there was nothing classified inside. No NDA. So I'm not revealing anything that I'm not supposed to be. But I'm telling you that one of the absolute issues here with Taiwan is there's a large part of the population that sees growth over there. And they're happy to get some growth called Taipei 101. So there's a whole lot underneath this, Chris. It doesn't mean Taiwan is certain to sort of go in China's way. But what I've been arguing for some time is that if China just continues to grow, then what's going to happen is it will eventually dwarf Taiwan even more than it does today.

1:07:17And a lot of folks in Taiwan are going to want to make money in China. I already talked about that. What I want to do is not deny any of these things, but in perspective, take a look at a community like the United States, which is a community, common value, so on and so forth. Has there ever been deep divisions? How did we handle them? So when we take a look at, for example, immigration, right from the beginning of the founding, there was a dread of migrants. The Scotch-Irish that came here were marginalized profoundly and so on and so forth. Along with these evolutions of immigration and so on and so forth, which we were built on, we needed.

1:08:03Okay. There's also tension within though, between those who wanted it and didn't want it. The businessmen wanted cheap labor. The others didn't want it. The workers didn't want it. Okay. So we have to enter these from my point of view, and I agree with you absolutely on what's coming. I simply have a different sense of proportionality that it's not as profoundly serious as we who've never experienced it before would want to make it be. There's precedent for it. There's a manner in which the Americans have historically gone through this. My pointing to the Civil War was simply the point of the most extreme situation that even that we recovered from.

1:08:46When was the last time that you saw something you would say was unprecedented? Internally in America, I see a long line of continuum, including the tensions and everything else but eventually you break you're using so much artistic license to say well you know this thing has been it's analogous to something that's occurred before is there a time like i'm trying to work out when that's not that cycle hasn't well my point my point is before i say this is catastrophic unprecedented and so on i have to look back most stable countries go through vast cycles, periods of economic, social unrest. So it's not a smooth flying anywhere, not even Iceland.

1:09:34Do you think it's perfectly normal for a United States president to invade a country with no reason, with no strategy, with no plan at all to win the war? I will say, let me see in three months what happens. First of all, there was a reason. What was the reason? basically, he keeps going after nuclear material. Why? Because I was on staff at times after 9-11 doing scenarios. What is the worst-case scenario? And it was a nuclear country like Iran getting nuclear weapons, putting them on board a French ship, and sailing to New York Harbor. At this point, we've had very few casualties on the American side.

1:10:25And two days ago, a commander of the IRGC, a very senior commander, stood up and said, we've got to stop this war. The people are suffering and everything else. All I'm saying about this war is, when you're in the middle of it, it's extraordinary. On the other hand, we see, one, it's been a very short one. There's been, on the American side, very small losses. on the, you're seeing evolutions in Iran with very different outcomes. So I simply say, okay, step back from this extraordinary event and ask the questions and then ask, is it really extraordinary? So if the reason was a nuclear weapon, why assassinate it?

1:11:13Why assassinate on the first day the Alatola? Who had it just fought against nuclear weapons? because he wouldn't, his president wouldn't listen to intelligence. The head of counterterrorism resigned saying that he will not allow me into his office. He's listening to Israelis. And presidents make massive mistakes. He confused the people there as a government of Iran. He confused them, killed them. That's not the government of Iran. It's the IRGC. On the other hand, it's very important to say this war has lasted a few months. Okay? We are far from understanding how it will end, but that it will end is certain, and so on.

1:12:03So when I take a look at this, yeah, he did a very stupid thing. He profoundly. He's not the first president to do some very stupid things. The only thing I'm saying is that we tend to overreact to things when we don't put them in context. How big of a deal is the Iran war? Well, it is the biggest deal since going up against Germany in World War II. So Iran is the most difficult challenge we've had since Germany in World War II. So let me give a different window into this. So I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for 20 years. and in the modeling of the bombing of Iran, I started to do this in 2005.

1:12:44And here's where I partly agree with George. I do this in 2005 because once it is known that Iran is enriching uranium, that's when the military planning of going against Iran really jacks up. And I know because I was teaching for the Air Force in the 90s. I had a lot of experience. So from 79 to about 2002, we have political tensions. Yes, we occasionally do a war game. But after 2002 and three, things get much more serious. I start to model the bombing of Iran in 2005. And I did it every year for 20 years. I did this in my classes at the University of Chicago. And what I'm doing, I lay out the target set.

1:13:24I lay out what, there's all changes, of course, the target set changes. Fordow comes on. We get the Moab. So we get the different technology changes. And so forth. But the big thing that the modeling always showed is that once we meaning America bombed the Fordow facility, which only we could do because the Israelis didn't have the large precision ordinance to be able to do it. Once we did that, we would be 90 % likely to destroy the centrifuge industrial, the enrichment capability of the facility of Fordow, but we would have virtually no knowledge of whether we destroyed the 60 % enriched uranium, the actual fizzle material.

1:14:14And that's critical, Chris, because building a bomb is a piece of cake. Once you have the enriched material, most people don't know that. I also teach my students how to build a bomb. So, so like take them through the soup to nuts. So they really understand it's the fizzle material and then the modeling. And this is what I told my class and I have the slides and so, so forth. And I put them on my sub stack. And I said, then what would happen is if we bomb Fordow, then a year or two later, we would do regime change bombing, not just come back and bomb in general, we would literally do regime change bombing.

1:14:50And why would you do regime change bombing back to your question kind of link and connect all the dots it's because you would become once you bomb for dough you couldn't track for it with high confidence the dispersal of that fizzle material and we know we have civilian satellites showing that a couple days before we bomb for dough stuff's coming out of for dough we have civilian satellites showing that s if on another site in February of this year, a month before we do the bombing. Iran is digging stuff out. We think that maybe they moved the stuff from Fordow to Estefan and now they're digging it out.

1:15:28So this issue of a nuclear weapon, I think is really quite serious. Now, Israel, I think, is playing a role, but I, in my mind, I think it's secondary because they have been arguing to do this for every year for 20 years. What makes the difference here, I believe, was the concern that we couldn't track the fizzle material. And that's still going on to this day. That's why we're worried about pickaxe mountain, very specific. So what all that means, Chris, is we're in an escalation trap. The trap didn't just start with killing the leader on February 28. It starts with the bombing of Fordow. And that's the stages I published literally several days before we killed the leader.

1:16:16Escalation trap, I laid out the stages of what would come, would kill the leader. Is it following your predictive game plan thus far? Yes. And that's what's so scary about this. And what I'm really concerned about is we are coming now to a serious stage of the escalation trap that's going to start next week and the following week. So I've been laying out on my sub stack, the escalation trap, the nightmare scenario for how this is going to escalate to get worse. And that nightmare scenario, which I started laying out in July, was the rise of gas prices in the United States. Well, I don't know if you've been tracking it, but in Chicago, they're going up.

1:16:58And what that is doing and what this is doing is it creates the opportunity for Iran to really close and try to shut down Hormuz. Why? So that they can try to damage Trump politically in the midterms to irrevocably destroy his presidency. And why is, and what did I say that was going to do? That was going to energize the Trump administration to start fighting back. And what is, what are we going to see literally tomorrow with Scott Besson is D-Day. Okay. Now it's an economic D-Day, but that economic D-Day is the Iran's already talking about further escalation here. If Iran escalates, are we really just going to sit back and say, oh sure, we're going to, no, there's a real danger.

1:17:46We're in the spiral phase of the escalation trap. As those gas prices went up, this created a window of maximum leverage for Iran. They're using that maximum leverage to wreck Trump's presidency for the midterms. And I think that what President Trump is doing is trying to figure a way to, it's not just how to deal with Iran now, it's what does he do to show he is going to do something as Iran is really doing great damage to our economy and his presidency. We're seeing the collapse of the global economy because for the past 30, 40 years, there's a very simple deal that governed the world, which is that the United States would provide protection to the GCC and to Japan, and in return, Japan and the GCC would buy U.S.

1:18:37treasuries. And that was the deal that made the American economy so vibrant. The GCC now is being destroyed by this war, and because Japan gets most of its oil from the GCC, the Japanese yen is weakening, which means that these two regions of the world that provided most of the world's liquidity, especially in the United States, they can no longer do so. So what Scott Bessing is worried about is the GDC and Japan can't buy U.S. treasuries. And so what that means is the United States cannot refinance its$40 trillion debt. This is the apocalypse. This is a catastrophe. This is not just a short war.

1:19:17We should also take a look at the other side. what Iran is experiencing, what is happening in Iran. This is not simply the United States. There's a significant split happening in Iran. A speech the other day made by a major leader said, look, our people are starving. We cannot continue this war. Okay? The Artesh is there, which is the secular army. So in other words, look at this war, not just from our side and the consequences to us. See the pain on the other side. OK, so we assume that the RGC is super powerful, can continue to do anything it wants, has no resistance. We forget that there was about 20 ,000 people killed in an uprising before the war.

1:20:05That division is not gone. Iran has been understretched for the past 50 years. It's a poor place. People are used to being poor. Are Americans going to put up with$10 gallon gas prices? If you're going to spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. And honestly, who wants to be in the background of a TikTokers highlight reel dressed like a chump? Gymshark makes some of the best men's and women's training gear on the planet. And something that I realized a few years ago is that when you actually like what you're wearing in the gym, you show up differently.

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1:21:12That's jim.sh slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom 10 at checkout. So for 30 years, I've been studying air power, economic sanctions, blockades. I've focused on American political violence. So again, it's the intersection of these military action and politics. One thing that's very important to know in advance of what Scott Besson is about to tell us is since World War I, not going back before World War I, since World War I, even heavy economic pressure alone, I mean alone without other military force, has never won a major war. Never won a major war. All I want, and there's going to be a big substack tomorrow as I put this out, all I want is I want the reporters at that news conference to ask a very simple question.

1:22:07So the British blockade on Germany in World War I did not defeat Germany, even though it killed over 700 ,000 German civilians. And we still had to have ground power to end that conflict. So the economic sanctions on Japan before World War II and then during World War II itself did not stop us from bombing its cities using the atomic bomb and then also Russian entry into the war with ground forces. That's how we defeated Japan. If we look at Iraq from 1990 to 2003, it was our American military that kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. And once Saddam was out of Kuwait from 91 to 2003, we had sanctions that crushed the Iraqi economy by 50 % each year for all those years.

1:22:59And what did we have to do? 150 ,000. You see, you get my point. Every time you speak, I feel like I'm treading on eggshells. I'm like, I don't want to know what comes next. I don't want to know what comes next. Now you see what it was like when I taught for the Air Force. Fucking awful. That's how they describe it, the prison of pain. He gets you in the data, so you can't get out. We see Iran as a completely united country, no factions and so on and so forth, okay? That's obviously an illusion because there are always factions and so on and so forth. So I'm not saying that it's economic force, but there were great divisions that we saw before.

1:23:37Those divisions are still there in some ways. So the question is not just the economic consequences. But also the fact that it's very rare to have a country that is totally united in this way. And this is not the country like that. So, George, the external force is bringing those divisions closer together. They're not breaking them apart. I profoundly disagree. They can sometimes push them together. Sometimes I say, as we did in the Vietnam War. All I say is, what's the case since World War I? All I need is one case. One case? One case where our external pressure, our economic pressure, where we had, and again, I just gave you four, you can have another five.

1:24:22I particularly said, and I'm meaning economic pressure. I'm talking about the inherent differences within this vast country. Why does that matter? It matters because when the attacks start to happen and the pain starts to rise, they become more powerful in the sense that others look at them and say, you were right. This was not the government we should have. Did they not already try and uprise before and that didn't work? Of course. No, they killed them all. Now under these circumstances. Is that going to stop? Well, this is the fundamental question. And all we need is a case, George. Just give us even a case of bombing.

1:25:04So let's widen it beyond military pressure. Where is the case that without ground forces, bombing alone wrecked the government? And the answer is that the question in my mind is not bombing, okay? It is the disunity of the country itself, which we saw the weeks before the war began. Is your suggestion that if Iran had sufficient disunity inside, that the government would choose to give up because it's got so much pressure happening internally? What I'm saying is the government itself, the statement that was made and was transmitted all over the world by this leader of the IRGC, a former head of the IRGC, that we must not continue this.

1:25:49so i'm saying that the the as in vietnam the government was u.s government is complete frequently divided on what should be done i at least from what i know tiny amount i know about iran i don't get the sense that the government is going to be too concerned about the quality of life of its citizens to give over to what trump's pressures are going to be am i right or wrong all i have is one speech from the former president that was published he is still alive apparently. So when you take a look at a country, take a look at the fragments within our own country, and don't assume that this country is totally united or simply afraid of the regime.

1:26:31The regime itself is divided. We've seen it. Unless this speech that I saw and everything is translated was made up by somebody, this represented a significant thing. Now, the Pakistani head of the military is coming to talk to the Iranians. He may already be there, okay? There has been talk this morning about Iran being allowed to become part of the entity that was created. In other words, wars don't end because of the bombings. I totally agree with you. They grin through political processes sometimes within countries. You don't totally defeat them. But we have to be aware that these are human beings.

1:27:23They're not all fanatics to really die. Well, I think there's a difference between do we see all of the citizens of Iran as supporting a regime that we are concerned about that might be part of global terrorism or something like that. I don't think anybody's making that claim. I think the concern is no matter what's going on internally, whether it's divided or cohesive, whether they're in support or against, like the war is going on from the people at the top of Iran and the people at the top of America, regardless of what the people below that are. But somebody who is at top of Iran, this man, made this speech.

1:28:02But he's no longer in power, right? No, he's not in power. He's not in power, but he has tremendous influence. hmm that's what that's look here's the since world war one starts with julio duhay he wrote a book command in the air mostly has to do with air power there's been a hope with either economic blockades or air power that air power or blockades without a ground force could incite a popular revolt to topple the government so that we don't want to do it you do it for us exactly and this has been a hope so no one i have not talked about toppling the government i am saying that the government itself is split in various ways the rgc is not totally unified as we go into wars we are not totally unified and sometimes disunification you have to take a look at the internals so so one factor that we need to look at is that right now the iranians have chosen to adopt something called the Mosaic Defense, which is a decentralized command and control military warfare, which means that it's entirely possible no one is in charge of Iran right now.

1:29:15So it doesn't really matter what the people want. It doesn't really matter what the leadership wants because you have 31 commanders spread out all over the country. And as long as one of them wants to keep on fighting, the Shed of Hormuz will remain closed and this war will continue. you. That's a problem. Sounds like decentralization, but it might just be leaderlessness in that way. It's they run the government through consensus. We saw this with the Taliban in Afghanistan as well. So it's there's different models for how you govern. Some are very rigid top down. Qaddafi ran his government very rigid top down.

1:29:51That's absolutely the case. Others are more very, very decentralized, fragmented almost. I don't think that's where Iran is. Iran is in this middle of consensus. And it's hard to see because this is where the Supreme Leader, when he made a statement, remember the MOU? The Supreme Leader made a statement saying that he personally didn't agree with the MOU, but he was going to give it a chance and support those who did, which meant there was a division, just as George is saying. And that side of getting a negotiated outcome won on June 17th. That has now been replaced, I believe, by the other side, the Supreme Leader's side.

1:30:32And that's what you see with the replacement of the whole command structure of the IRGC in the last several weeks. It's all in one direction. The MOU was a major turning point because before the MOU, I think George is right, there were these factions. I agree. And the MOU was a compromise. And what the Americans have shown is, for the reason, they will not abide by the terms of the MOU. And so the Iranians at some point said, screw this, we are not going to negotiate, we are not going to compromise, we're going to fight this to the end. So now the Hufis have been brought into the war, and this war is expanding very rapidly.

1:31:12What do you think is the likely outcome of the Iran war? It doesn't end. And what's going to happen is eventually the Ukraine war and the Iran will emerge. Already we're seeing that after Zelensky bombed an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea. And Zelensky was very proud of this. Like, you see, I can do this for the Americans. So it is very likely that all the world powers are brought in. China is brought into the war. Russia is brought into the war. This sounds a lot like the World War III that we said wasn't going to happen at the top of this episode. Except it's not the world. I didn't say that.

1:31:48Did I say that? No, he actually thinks World War III is kind of coming quickly. Here's where I would – so I see the trends that Zhang is saying. I don't want to disagree with the trends. I think January of this year is going to be a focal point moment. January of next year. Of next year. I mean January 2027 will be a focal point moment where all the actors, The United States, China, Iran have a chance to reset. Now, where they go, here's what I, but why January? Go back to what I just said, which is Iran has a strategy for the U.S. midterms. It sees the oil inventories running down. It sees its period of maximum pressure.

1:32:32The opportunity here is to destroy Trump's presidency politically. not to knock him out of office, but so that he is the lamest of lame ducks. Well, will that happen or not? We'll know quite a bit in the first week in January. Now, we won't necessarily know 100%, but we'll know a lot of information. And I believe what's going to happen is once we get to the first week in January, everybody will be recalibrating for a post-Trump world or a future Trump world. How do you feel about this? Look, the problem is we're trying to see this from an economic lens. And the reason why the MOU fell apart is Israel refused to abide by the terms.

1:33:20One of the major terms of the MOU signed between the United States and Iran is that all terms, all peace terms that apply to Iran would also apply to Iran's allies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. And that required Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon. Israel refused to do so and Israel has only accelerated its attacks on Hezbollah. So we think that it's entirely between the United States and Iran, but Israel has a lot of options. And right now, for whatever reason, we can discuss this, Israel is choosing to escalate the war. And also the Hufis have been brought in. And the thing about the Hufis is that they are religious fanatics.

1:34:07They are very poor people. They live in mountains, and they're not afraid to die. And right now, they're fighting this war against Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia, Arabical facilities are being hit. The other strait in the Middle East, the Bab el-Mandad Strait, has been closed by the Houthis. So we're seeing this war escalate. And again, we're trying to see this from an economic lens. But if you look at what the Houthis are doing, if you look at what the IRDC and the Israelis are doing, I would say this is almost like a religious war. It's a crusade. It's an ethnological war. But there's another dimension we have to see.

1:34:43The alliance between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Now, if you take a look at a map, all around them, these countries, Saudi Arabia has no use for Iran. the Turks are seeking to evolve themselves into a major point scaring the Israelis to death and Pakistan itself is evolving dramatically in this war into a very sophisticated state so when you take a look at the situation of Iran let's not just talk about the bombing and everything but the geopolitical development now today there was a story I don't know if it's true or not that Iran is going to be asked to join this coalition. In other words, submit, whether they do it or not, whether this is an actual offer, I have no idea, but it was there.

1:35:37But this created a new structure in the Middle East, this alliance, a very different one with a very powerful country. Israel is terrified of Turkey because they know they do. No, it's not. It is bombed. Turkish officials in Syria. Yes, and that was part of it, because this is a country they cannot defeat. They've only fought countries along their borders, and they were able for, since the founding of Israel, to hold those borders. The Turkish army is three times as large as the Israeli army. And while I don't believe that the Turks really have any desire to fight them, these Israeli, shall we say, society is built around a commitment to the belief that they're going to try to destroy us.

1:36:37There is a built-in paranoia. So when this ends, you know, this problem ends a little bit, they bomb Syria. They then tell the American ambassador they didn't bomb Syria. Then they say, Turkey is our greatest fear built into Israel by history is a paranoia. Who is my greatest enemy? I have one. Now they're facing for the first time An enemy that they cannot Because of both geography And military capability Defeat Now When Rundsen was asked What to do after the Battle of Bulgur He said, make peace you fools And this is the situation That Israel is in It's an internal crisis It has reached a point where its military capability Is not enough So the reason I think the midterms are a decisive threshold, not just a minor threshold, is it will determine whether the Democrats control Congress.

1:37:50If the Democrats control Congress, which is still an if, but we'll know in January, there is going to be two things that are going to happen. And we see this in the Democratic policies already. Number one is there'll be tremendous pressure to literally end the Iran war. So we saw this in 1974 by Congress. Congress has not played much of a role in foreign policy. The last time it got involved was 74 with Vietnam to truly constrain the executive. There'll be a battle about this, of course. But number one is the Democrats wanting to shut down this, and that would stop it from becoming a forever war.

1:38:26One more point, and then I'll let you. The second point is they're going to want to constrain Israel. There's a huge push in the Democratic Party to shut down all of the, look at all the Democrats that are, that were pro-Israel that are losing. And they're losing because there's a huge movement inside of the Democratic Party to zero out the budgets to Israel. And that means that come January, Israel is going to have to calibrate. Others are going to calibrate based on the results of whether the Democrats control Congress. Now, we don't know whether the Democrats will control Congress. But what I'm saying is it's too soon to truly project out beyond January because come January, we'll know.

1:39:16Are we in a forever war? And by the way, if the Democrats, even though they control Congress, support the war, oh, yeah, we're in a forever war. So which major Democratic leader has come out against the Warrens and which leader has said we must end this war right now? Which leader? Oh, geez, almost all of them. I mean, just watch CNN. They come on all the time. So if you listen, Zhang, to the Democratic leaders, this has just been a mantra to end the Iran war. And the real question is going to be, Zhang, whether or not once they control, will they take responsibility for that? Because right now, it's easy to run against the Iran war because gas prices going up, bad mistakes by the Trump administration, which they hate anyway.

1:40:12Where it will become difficult will be once the Democrats assume power. Because if it turns out that the Democrats stop the war and Iran gets a nuclear weapon, think about that for the Democratic Party. that could bring the republicans right back in in 2028 so i think these are the real issue and that's why it's about not just what you claim you're going to do but what you do when you're in power so so i must have missed the news but can you name me one major democratic leader with with this joe jeffries was just on cnn i think it was three days ago arguing that the war should end now um i just listened to the woman who just ran um the progressive who just won uh the senate for the senate seat in the primary here on ford i was just on a um a podcast with her on the joy reid show just two days ago uh talking about this issue and she was hugely uh uh against the uh against the war and thought it was a total mistake and it should end so i mean those are at least two people right there so so how can jeffrey say that if the democrats were to win the house in november they would immediately try to restrict Trump's war powers and try to I haven't said anybody has gone that far that's the next step that's the real issue here and that's what I'm saying is you won't be able to know whether they'll do it until they're in power Zhang and if they're in power and they support the war for fear that they will lose their political viability as Hillary Clinton was worried about with the Iraq war then this will that's how you got a forever war you You get both parties in favor of the war because neither one will stop it.

1:41:53Now you have a forever war. But in this particular case, both the Republicans opposed the war because that's one of the bases on which he won the election was not to get into these forever wars. Democrats also are doing it. When you take a look at the poll numbers on this war, they're enormously unpopular. Congress tends to do what's popular. and ending the war is popular, not only in the Democrats, but with the Republicans. This is the fundamental difference that I've never seen, which is that his own party feels betrayed. So I think there's one of the things I think the Iranians are saying, let's wait.

1:42:37Let's wait to see if they come apart. The same way I'm talking about Iran having internal problems, we have enormous internal problems. I'm seeing the Iranians trying to put this off as long as possible and then try to make a deal in September or October before the election. It's so fascinating that Trump's positioning and his desire to be seen as a competent president and obviously the last couple of years of his legacy, that is being used as a geopolitical tool. that's almost a weapon that other people can insert themselves into because they know that this is going to be it's a point of weakness or it's a point of leverage that can be used to play with the incentives that the u.s has got do they want to push further do they want to pull back this is something i've seen and again advise four white houses 2001 to 24 two democrat two to Republican.

1:43:39Legacy matters to, let's call it the White House, if not the president. I also think the president, but let's just make it that legacy is beyond just getting the next win. Legacy is what you're remembered for. And I think this is what is important that we miss when we talk about presidents in the United States. We think, well, you can't run for reelection again, Therefore, you don't care anymore about anything. No, I think what I see is even in their first term, they're thinking about their legacy going forward. And that legacy, there have only been 47 presidents in our history. There's not that many presidents.

1:44:24Not a big sample size. So I really, well, it's not that. It's that they know they're one of 47 or 48. It's the other way around, Chris. It's because it's a tiny club. Their legacy is going to be with them after they're dead for 100 years plus. But if he's so worried about his legacy, why did he attack Iran in the first place? I think, again, back to the modeling. I'm just going to keep going back to the modeling because I made a prediction to my classes for 20 years in a row that once we bomb Fordow. But why? We would panic about Iran getting a nuclear weapon in a way we couldn't see, and we would get intel, whether it's Israel or somebody else, that was showing us they were getting intelligence, and we would try to resolve it through regime change.

1:45:13Not because regime change was magically thought to be a better strategy, but it was really the only way you could come up with even a half-plausible idea. Was there a question about why to do the bombing in the first place, though? So I want to present another theory, okay, besides your modeling. No, please. So 1996 is a clean break memo, right? And you probably know the people who wrote that, right? Richard Pearl. Paul Wolf was from my department, Jank. Okay, all right. 71 PhD, University of Chicago. So I know these people pretty well. So just for some context. For the idiot in the room, thank you.

1:45:49Yeah, the clean break memo was a proposal to Benjamin Netanyahu. And the argument is that Israel, under Netanyahu, should withdraw from the Oslo Peace Accords. Because in order to assure peace in the Middle East, Israel had to be strong. It had to conduct regime change in Iraq and Syria. Also, Israel needed to be self-sufficient economically and militarily. It needed to basically stop being dependent on the United States. and if you want to resolve the Palestinian issue, then you beat the crap out of them. Rather than try to compromise and give them land, that would just make them more greedy.

1:46:30Instead, you establish peaceful strength. Those are the exact terms, peaceful strength, okay? So that's the 1996 Clean Brick Memo. Why that's important is, if you look at the Clean Brick Memo and look at today, they basically implemented every single point of the Clean Brick Memo, right? Every single point, that's number one. Number two is, what's interesting is, the people responsible for the Olympic memo, Richard Perle, Douglas V, went on to work in the Bush administration. And they were, along with Paul Wolfe, which is your friend, the architects. No, not a friend. Okay, sorry. No, no, no, that's going too far.

1:47:05But the three of them, okay? The three of them in the Pentagon were the architects of the Iraq War, right? And then after 9-11, Wesley Clark appears on stage with Amy Goodman. And Amy Goodman is like, what's the plan? And Wesley Clark is like, we're going to go after seven nations in five years. And these seven nations include Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia. And there's one more, Iran. So if I'm just looking at it from like a top-down bird's-eye view, I would say that this was always a plan ever since 1986, a clean book memo, to attack Iran eventually. because they've been saying this for the past 30 years.

1:47:56And so isn't that a good reason to attack Iran? Because that was always the plan. So let me, first of all, number one, I agree with your characterization of the Korean break plan. Number two, I agree it was a plan. What I see from 2005 on, and I was working with the Bush administration about how to essentially calm down the Iraq war. So I had many, many interactions here with the Bush administration because I was warning before we did Iraq that we would touch off the largest suicide terrorist campaign in modern times. We did invade Iraq. We did touch off the largest suicide terrorist campaign in modern times.

1:48:35And who started my center at the University of Chicago, the Chicago Project, used to be on suicide terrorism. It was actually the Bush administration. Think about that for a moment. Because suddenly somebody made a unique prediction. None of their terrorism expert was predicting that. And I gave it directly to Paul Wolfowitz here. He did Iraq anyway. It touched it off anyway. And so now suddenly I'm engaging with them. We never put an army in a certain African country. Think Somalia. That was a possibility. That did not happen. Certain things that did not happen also are important to know. So one of the things that happened during this period after the Iraq war became a disaster is all that influence by Wolfowitz left, Fythe left, Pearl left.

1:49:28And it's because it became widely understood what the real dangers were of going into Iran. I mean, Iraq was already a problem, but Iran is a much bigger, I said, the biggest challenge since Germany in World War II. This was widely understood at the time. And it's widely understood by the military. It's widely understood in both Democrat and Republican White Houses. This is not a unique situation here. I think you really run into an issue with why did President Trump bomb Fordow? So I've talked to the people from the administration who have left in detail about this in May. I think you have to understand one thing, which is although President Trump decided to reject Netanyahu in his first administration, President Trump has become his own national security advisor, his own secretary of defense, his own secretary of state.

1:50:30If you look at all the decisions that are happening, everybody else is essentially executing his policies. And occasionally he'll get mad at them and blame them for something. But he's not really following closely the advice of any of those people around him. I think what's happening is that our system gives the president inordinate discretion when it comes to the use of force. You're saying that this was a personal bias and a whim. I think it was, yes, largely so. But I would say that what you're seeing here is that this style of president, what, it doesn't matter, if he fires Pete Hegseth next week or he fires Scott Bessent next week, do we really think the style of the president is going to change?

1:51:25I think that we need to understand that we, in our system of government, we have given inordinate power to the president. I'm not calling for a change of the constitution, but I am saying that that means if the president wakes up one day And by the way, there's famous Abraham Lincoln, a famous story in Doris Korn Goodwin's team of rivals where Abraham Lincoln goes around the table, asks the entire cabinet, and they all say, no, no, no, no, no. And Lincoln says, I, and gentlemen, the ayes have it. This is what happened. What does Trump have against Iran? He can't even find Iran on a map. I mean, he can't.

1:52:09Well, look, I have not. I guarantee you cannot do it. Well, look, I think we've pushed. I like to talk to people directly. I've never, in this case, everybody I've talked to who's been around this, who've actually briefed the president on this, they only go so far in willing to say why he did certain things. And I'm saying it's because of the way he has chosen to make his decisions. There's not the process we're used to seeing here. So what that would mean is, and I've never talked to President Trump, is unless I could actually talk to Trump, I won't go further than I've currently said. Because I do think that this is, though, how we got here.

1:52:50And once he did Fordow, I don't know that at all he understood the consequences. But I think then he was sunk, Zhang, because once he did that and he sees the satellite imagery I'm seeing in the civilian world, and there's probably more, He knows if they test nukes on his watch, man, he's sunk for all of his. What's your psychoanalysis of this? So let's just look at his pattern of behavior in both his first term and his second term, right? First term, he comes to office. He cancels the JCPOA, which is the Iran nuclear deal under Obama, right? He's like, we're not doing this anymore, guys. That's number one.

1:53:27Then what he does is he transfers the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is one of the most provocative acts an American person has ever done in the Middle East. You don't do that. That's number two. Number three is he recognizes Israel's control of the Golden Heights. then the most dramatic thing he does is in January 2020 he orders the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani who was Iran's de facto ambassador in the Middle East so Fardou this seemed a logical extension of his actions he is the most pro-Israel president the United States has ever had right it seems like if you just look at the clean brick memo of 1996 and you look at what Trump is doing in the Middle East, it seems like he is trying to create the Greater Israel Project.

1:54:21Sorry, do you know what the Greater Israel Project is? Right. So the Greater Israel Project is the idea that Israel should occupy all biblical lands, or the lands that Yahweh, God, promised to Abraham. And these lands extend from Egypt, sorry, extend from the Nile in Egypt, all the way to Euphrates and Iraq. So if you look at the entire map of what the United States has been doing for the past 20 years, attacking Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now this war, which promised to engulf Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, it seems like this is all to achieve the Greater Israel Project. But if he was only interested in Israel, why Venezuela?

1:55:12why Greenland why Canada what I have something to do in the week well what I'm just what I'm pointing out when I'm pointing so I agree with you that's the second most important reason Israel I'm not saying it doesn't matter at all I think that what we need to see is that first of all President Trump is really enthralled with the use of violence enthralled with the use of violence he's part and parcel of violent populism he's both a cause and a symptom of it at the same time and it's not just in the term he did not start a war well he kept his promise I will not start new wars and violent and after January 6th I think uh the process leading up to January 6th and then in chapter 5 the book I track I trace this out that in aftermath of January 6th this has radicalized MAGA MAGA is not the same uh sort of group political movement international policy not just internal.

1:56:07Yes, but once you have norm, once political violence is normal for you at home, it's a lot easier to use it abroad. He was in office from way before. Well, what I'm trying to tell you is that there's a trajectory that's emerging. It's not that he comes in planning on 2017 to do January 6th. There is a trajectory that emerges. And I think that we need to see that, yes, Israel's playing a role, but there's a lot more that he is doing. So you think the number one reason is this escalating acceptance? Normalization of political violence. It is the thing that is underneath him. But there's something else to look at.

1:56:45I think there is also in Trump a fear of the 9-11. And there's in ways it should be, okay? So when you take a look at Iran and their relationship with al-Qaeda, ruined but still there, something comes to mind at times, which is what would happen if instead of 9-11 happening with aircraft, a ship sailed in with a nuclear weapon to New York Harbor and detonated. So given the ideology of Iran, given the fact that they have nuclear materials and the presence of al-Qaeda, we can say all the various things we say about Trump in various ways, and I agree with much of them. There's also a rational fear that can evolve.

1:57:35This is why his fundamental demand has been the nuclear weapons. Now, he attacked them first. He claimed it succeeded. It failed. Okay? And we really don't know, I think, for sure where the nuclear capabilities are. We don't know how to destroy them, and we're looking at that. But I think that underneath it, if you take a look at the question of what happens if there's a nuclear weapon, especially the secret one, developed in Iran, given the ideology, what might happen? And I think in many ways, when you look at, you know, how we will be viewed in history, from that, if that were allowed to happen under his watch, would be also driving him?

1:58:26Do you think the JCPOA was working? But it didn't fail. What was working is another matter. The fundamental thing was to denuclearize these areas. So if Trump is most concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon, why did he withdraw from the JCPOA? Because he wanted more control, I think. I have no idea what has been through his mind. He wanted to have direct American control on that. He thought that would be more effective. When you take a look at his practices, okay, he clearly doesn't go through line systems. He doesn't want to have dependence on others. He wants that power at his own hand.

1:59:09He can't have it. He does it as well. I can't psychoanalyze him, but what I see happening is that, and this is something I wrote on and spoke about, the fundamental fear was the nuclear 9-11. And he keeps coming back to that. So if he was afraid of a nuclear weapon, he should have avoided three things, okay? One is withdraw from the JCPOA. Second is do not assassinate the Aleut Kemenai because he refused to ever use a nuclear weapon. And number three is do not attack Iran. And Trump did all three things. Yes, but that doesn't mean that the operational action didn't have a certain end in mind. So in other words, it was rational to be concerned about it.

1:59:57He proceeded irrationally in action. Yes, and I think the choice set is interesting here. So I agree, by the way, with George that there's a rational fear of a nuclear weapon with Iran. There is an element of a rational fear of that. I think we can learn to live with it, by the way. So I don't think it means that once you're concerned about an Iranian nuclear weapon, And the solution is the force direction. And I certainly agree with that. But yeah, I thought you might. But let me say that what we saw with the JCPOA was not just that Trump ripped up the JCPOA, but he replaced it with a maximum pressure campaign.

2:00:36So what President Trump has done very often in his career, and this is what I would say is, and this is before January 6th, but he has, there's a trajectory here, which is he is more and more comfortable with force domestically and internationally as he becomes, as he goes through his presidencies, his two presidencies. And I, that's what I mean by the normalization of it. It becomes more normal. You, you, um, uh, because he didn't just rip it up the JCPOA. He thought a pressure campaign would be better. And I think that he, uh, learned from that failure because it didn't stop Iran that he should have more pressure a lot of others of us would say you should learn from that by seeing that the pressure campaign is making things worse and i think that this is what we're we're seeing with our president he finds a lot of comfort in the use of political violence he also doesn't really understand power he overestimates what he has he went into that war expecting it to be readily done.

2:01:43He did not understand the mosaic system. He did not care about responses. So, one of the problems have, I don't necessarily disagree with pressure as a measure. He doesn't understand how to apply the pressure, nor does he have a clear understanding of just how much power he has. My question is, if this is complete chaos, if this is one guy behaving irrationally, why are all events helping to create the greater israel project that's that's my question well and my challenge to you is that explain the western hemisphere because if you really want to build the greater israel project and you look out here over time what you would like is you'd like president trump um completely focused on the middle east and yet president trump starts out with his tariffs Again, very, which is not quite violent, but again, very aggressive against our own allies.

2:02:40Then he moves to actual military ideas with Greenland and our allies, Canada. And so what he's doing, Zhang, is it's not that I just, again, I want to be very clear. I think that Israel is the second most important driver here. This is where I just, I think also with the 2003 Iraq war, some of the people I most respect in the world believe the number one reason we did the Iraq war in 2003 was Israel. I think it's what happened after 9-11. I think 9-11 created an enormous fear of Muslims in the United States, including the people at the very top. It wasn't only Israel. Right. So one thing that people don't appreciate about the Great International Project is the major impediment to that thing is actually the U.S.

2:03:30military. because the U.S. military provides balance of power in the Middle East. The U.S. military provides protection to the GCC. So if Israel were to become the dominant nation, it would need a way to remove the United States from the equation, right? And this Iran war, it is a solution to this problem because if the Americans stand in ground troops, which is part of the escalation trap, then the United States would probably lose this war and the United States will be forced to withdraw back into the Western Hemisphere. Hang on. Are you saying that Israel managed to convince Trump to go into Iran to do the bomb, which then gets into the escalation trap, which means that you need to put boots on the ground, which means that America ultimately loses, which means that America then has to withdraw to make room for Israel?

2:04:18I do not know if this was intentional. I don't know if this is planned, but it's turning out this way. But if you're right, John, if you're right, And I did a piece on my Professor Pape substack on this. What will happen if America truly, truly withdraws is a much smaller Israel. It becomes a nuclear sparta. It doesn't quite get wiped off the map, but a much smaller. Yeah, Israel is much weaker. What if Israel took over CENTCOM? What if all of America's military apparatus, okay, the planes, the troops, all then became under the control of Israel, which is happening right now, right? Because you have debasification right now in the Middle East, which means that all these planes, all this weaponry is now forced to go to Israel because it's the only safe space.

2:05:12Under that hypothetical, I agree with you. But what you see with, let's take the Democratic Party and about a third of the Republican Party is they're not having that. So what you see is as that, Exactly your scenario, by the way, is one of the big reasons why there's been so much anger against Israel. So there's two actors or two actors that are getting blamed for this war in Iran, which is wrecking the world's economy. It's number one, President Trump, and number two, it's Israel. And both of those are in deep trouble as we go forward. And Israel's in trouble with the American public. Israel is losing the American public in droves.

2:05:53Israel is losing profoundly because Israel has always faced enemies that it could defeat. With this alliance that occurred, with Turkey evolving, Israel is much too weak to do this. Therefore, Israel has to change its fundamental strategy, which to face the fact that it's a small country in an area that doesn't welcome it, make peace, try to find ways to enter it. So when Israel takes a look at this alliance that was formed There are two ways to look at it One, it might restrain non-state actors Other, it is a massive alliance that threatens Israel So at this point, Israel is making very strange sounds like You know, we're going to do something about Turkey They can't do it This is a situation in which Israel has not found itself in Where it does not have the military power to deal with a threat.

2:06:53So you look at this from two sides. One, yes, I think the Israelis manipulated Trump's thinking. That was very clear. At the same time, Netanyahu has made massive mistakes in overestimating his influence and his power. Do you think Congress will pass the NDAA, which will allow Israel to access data and intelligence from the U.S. military? Not if the Democrats. take Congress. I can't imagine that happening. Not if the Democrats, and I don't even think if the Democrats don't, because I think that this is, and you've been part of the reason that your attention, bringing this attention on social media, I think has been very important, Chang, because I think that the more sunlight that falls on that, the much less likely this is to happen.

2:07:42Israel's grand strategic problem from the beginning, and to this day is, it is 7 million Jews, surrounded by nine million i think well nine million seven million jews yeah sorry yeah you've got two million who don't that's right that's right seven million jews that is 71 miles wide at its widest point yeah but seven million jews surrounded by three to four hundred million muslims depending on how far you out you want to count with pakistan so that ratio the only way you can have Israel the greater project is with American power. So if you have American power withdraw completely from the Middle East with the way Iran wants it to be, and that may end up being the outcome, then Israel's in deep trouble.

2:08:32If they can't stop Iran now and those missiles coming into Iran now, with America's presence still there, what's going to happen a year or two from now when there's no military from america there israel those seven million are going to be on their own up against those three to four hundred million i don't think this means israel by the way gets wiped off the face of the map but i do think it becomes a at least a set it'll be a second tier power at best israel was successful in wars it gave it an illusion of power what is evolving now geopolitically in the Middle East is terrifying to the Israelis, particularly with the rise of Turkey.

2:09:17At the same time, the United States now wants to withdraw from these various conflicts and even wants to reduce its reliability on Israel as well. And there's movements in the United States in the public and also in strategists and stuff. the fundamental crisis in Israel is one that the Americans can't solve because the American public is not going to go that deeply into it. But there is the possibility of accommodation by Israel. Now Netanyahu does not believe in accommodation and believes he must use force in all cases. He can't. Now he's had a peace treaty with Egypt for many years and it's held.

2:10:01the theory that Antonio has that no agreement with the Arabs will ever be honored. In this particular case, he's wrong, because the Egyptians did. Certainly Saudi Arabia has nothing hostile to Israel. They've been quietly working with them on intelligence matters and a range of things. Pakistan has no fundamental interest in Israel. And Turkey really has many bigger fish to fry as it evolves than Israel. At the same time, Israel does not know how not to call attention on itself. It somehow always gets into it because its grand strategy has been since its founding, always attack, be stronger than the other guy, but they've reached a point where they're not, and they won't be.

2:10:51So the question is, how does Israel evolve in this situation, along with how does the American relationship with Israel evolve? Very deep questions for these areas. But I think you're absolutely right that Israel is at the heart of this as a problem. But at this point, it's profoundly weakening, hour by hour almost. Why is it that Israel's got so much influence over the UN? Oh, money. It's money. It's AIPAC. This is in the Israel lobby, John Mearsheimer and Steve Waltz's book. They lay it out. And it's fundamentally, it's a very simple story, which is that although anybody can give money to elections, it's a free and open process.

2:11:33It just turns out, if you look at all the data, that Jews as a group give more money than any other group per capita. And as a group overall, about a third of all money in elections is coming from Jewish America. There is a very different reason. During the Cold War, the Soviets had relations with Syria, had relations with Egypt, and so on. The Cold War was fought there as well. When the Arabs attacked Israel in 1973, it was with Soviet weapons, Soviet training, many cases Soviet tactics imposed. Israel at that point was one of the few countries that was pro-American and who had a strategic point that it could undermine Egypt it could undermine these things so remember ever since the Suez crisis the Soviets had gotten involved in it the Cold War is over now these are not relevant to this thing but it's not simply money or something that was there too but that when the Cold War you take a look at the situation that the russians had and the amount of influence that even in lebanon and so on and so forth this destabilizing it was deeply involved in the region and the united states didn't have very firm lies that it had iran as a lie had israel as a lie and they were players so they were so that that situation is obsolete the soviets are not longer there And so it's irrelevant.

2:13:12So to answer your question, why Israel has so much power, there's an alliance between Zionist capital, basically AIPAC, as well as Christian evangelicals, which is about a quarter of the population. Among these Christian evangelicals, maybe a minority are Christian Zionists, and they believe that Israel is God's plan to save the world. So Israel has to be protected on all costs. So you have this massive alliance between Zionist capital, and then you have these fanatical Christian evangelicals. So one of the most powerful organizations in the United States is something called Christians United for Israel, run by someone named John Hadji, and about 7 million members.

2:14:02And all they care about is Israel. So if you're a congressman and you say anything bad about Israel, you have like millions of people literally calling up every single day bitching at you like literally these are the people who are funding the West Bank settlement settlers and they are the main cause of friction between the Israelis and the Arabs because these West Bank settlers are just complete nutso they're they're they're crazy um so um you say that okay in november the issue will be taught a lesson but if you got like this alliance in place right between zionist capital and we're talking like a lot of money right they put in like 30 million dollars to defeat thomas mass in kentucky they put in 70 million dollars to defeat um abdul al-sayyad in michigan that's a lot of money for a primary right they almost have access to unlimited capital they have someone like um laryn david ellison who was able to buy up cbs news and install barry weiss so this alliance is almost unprecedented in american politics so i don't see how just disgust with israel can um um negate the power of of the israel well you're seeing that um jewish representatives running for Congress are losing right and left.

2:15:25And also the, so it's not just whether they are Jews running for the American Congress, whether they are the Christian Zionists running for the Congress. And one of the big things that's underneath that is that there is a large movement among the right. So most of the evangelicals are on the right. They're not on the left. They're not Democrats. They're conservatives. Many of the folks supporting, say, Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent has run for office several times. They are folks that are extremely unhappy with the role of Israel in driving the foreign wars as they see it. I see it as a secondary factor.

2:16:07They agree with you, Zhang, that it's a number one factor. And what they're doing is they're voting the bums out. They're literally voting the bums out and replacing them with new people who they think are going to zero out the money for Israel. And I think they're going to hold those people to account. They want Israel's money to be zeroed out. Not realizing that the primary use of Israel is obsolete. Syria does not have Russian bases, Soviet bases. Egypt is not a Soviet power, potentially blocking the Suez Canal and so on and so forth. So Israel was once a vital asset for the United States under the circumstances.

2:16:51Surely as long as Israel has money, it's a vital asset for the United States. No, the answer is a lot of countries have far more money than Israel. Can they put it into American politics as easily as Israel can? If that was the only thing that was doing it, that would be true. On the other hand, if you go back to the Cold War and how desperate it was, the relationship between the U.S. and Israel isn't based on money, and nobody challenges it, because the Soviets are so powerful there. The reason this is happening now, this anger against Israel, is not just it's another forever war, it's because this is the war that's hurting the American pocketbook in a serious way.

2:17:36If you go back since 1991, and you can even go back further, But if listeners will just go back to 1991 and call up on Google and say, give me a chart of annual GDP growth or decline in the United States since 1991 to today, they're going to see some great patterns. They're going to see, number one, GDP growth goes down during the 2007, say, housing crisis, COVID. But it does not go down during the Gulf War in 91. It does not go down in Kosovo. It does not go down in 2003 when we invade Iraq. It does not go down during the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This war is different. And the reason it's different is not just it's another war in a long period of time.

2:18:22It's different because this is the war that Americans are feeling it in their pocketbook for real. So if it is a case that the American public is turning against Israel, and I certainly hope so, how did Thomas Massey, who was one of the most ardent anti-Israel voices in Congress? Oh, Trump. Trump went after him in a big way. So Trump targeted Massey. He targeted Marjorie Taylor Greene. He targeted Massey. And when you're targeted by Trump, and we know this most from Marjorie Taylor Greene, this means assassination attempts against you and your kids and your families. So this isn't just a small, this isn't just a political targeting we're talking about.

2:19:06So let's summarize what you're saying. Number one is you believe money has a significant impact on American politics. And Zionists have a lot of money to spend. Okay, that's number one. Number two is Trump is very powerful within the Republican Party. So if he targets you, whether you be Thomas Massey or MTG, you will lose. Right, but I think Trump's influence is waning. I think it's up for grabs between now and January. That's what I'm saying, and it's what's driving the escalation trap. His desire to hold on to power is what's really driving the escalation trap between now and January. And I am willing to, I definitely agree, it's an uphill battle because of all the money and all the sort of institutionalization, as you are explaining it.

2:19:55that's all true however that can crumble within a period of just a couple of years i don't think this idea that that it will take five or ten years in fact by 2028 i'm expecting there will be a candidate for the democratic presidency of the united states that will be avowedly anti-zionist not just kind of on the edges and i think this is just that's what they'll almost run on i think at least one person because yes almost run on because somebody's going to be blamed for all the wreckage of this iran war and who are you going to blame why wouldn't you just blame trump because uh trump will already be toast by that point you're going to this isn't this this wreckage is going to go on for a while you need you need an active candidate i'm just saying we don't we're not going to be done blaming people because you know iran this iran war is one of the biggest messes in modern history it's the biggest mess it's the biggest mess since we have had in our country since since since really all the go back to all the way world war one there's no bigger biggest mess in 100 years yes because not because of the casualties so we were used to basically been at least on it's the economic consequences that are so big and as you're hearing and i agree deal with his economic analysis here.

2:21:18He's talking about massive economic. Oh my gosh, it's massive. And I, I hope he's wrong. I mean, this is where I'm predicting the S you're predicting. And I think we each hope the other is not quite right. But I am really concerned with his analysis because I can't chip away. I brought Jeff Curry on my sub stack to do these, you know, sort of like what you do here, here, because I think he's just an amazing economist and so forth. He's right there. So he's right with him. Can I like to say I agree this will be the biggest crisis if it doesn't end. If it ends, it'll become like those other wars that we've had in the past and it goes on.

2:22:04The fundamental question is how does it end? How could it end? And so on and so forth. We don't understand And I don't understand fully the nature of political systems in Russia or in Iran and how they continue the wars. So before we're ready to say this is the biggest disaster, I would say, yes, if it continues, it will certainly be that. So far, it has not created the kind of crisis in the United States, for example, that Vietnam did by far. So it's a question of how does this end? How long would it have to go on for? If it goes on for another year, would you say it's the biggest crisis? I have no way to see it because I don't know the consequences, nor do I know how to formally fought or what will happen in the Straits of Hormuz and so on.

2:22:56So if they were in the Straits of Hormuz and so on, if they were secured and the war went on, it might have one path. There's another path. But don't you see, George, that Trump's effort to end the war quickly with a victory for Trump is what is likely to create the Pyrrhic victory? that's going to go on and on? The answer is, I probably agree with you, but I'm not certain, because I'm not certain about how Iran is evolving. So I agree with you certainly that if this war continues, the consequences will be massive. I also agree with you that Trump will have a great deal of difficulty ending it on his own terms.

2:23:39But there's a variable there that we have to take seriously. the internal capabilities are in. But we do have to put some probabilities between now and November, which is what, 75 days? I think between now and November to expect Iran to implode, which is possible. I would say possible, but I wouldn't even give it a 10 % chance between now and November. I think they're using the election to try to force Trump into a position that he has to end it, even by making massive concessions. We agree. there we agree the question the likelihood of trump voluntarily ending it well i think this without more all right zero percent zero percent yeah i think that what you're seeing is the opposite he he is more likely to use force or and it's starting with economic force to get a symbolic victory and i don't think iran is going to play their part iran is just not willing to give him the victory that he can yeah they're giving him so in the same way that we say Trump doesn't have the power to do these things.

2:24:44We have to take a look at the power of Iran as well. So one of the things that Trump wants is to end the war and not be a crippled president above all else. Iranians seem to be operating, trying to push it out. Now, come October, the president cannot make a deal. they're trying to force him into a position to negotiate and they're succeeding because he understands he's going to lose power if he continues this so now we ask the question psychologically that I can't answer does Trump care more about remaining powerful as president or more about beating the Iranians because he started the war and he wanted to be successful I have no idea which way he goes but the Iranians I think are sophisticated and are using it and using the election as a bargaining chip.

2:25:41If Trump wants to win this war and bring world peace and prosperity, he needs to do two things, okay? If he does these two things, I guarantee you, this war will end. The United States will come up on top. And these two things are, one, give$2 trillion to Iran. $2 trillion in Iran. Excuse me. $2 trillion to Iran. The United States is$4 ,200 in debt. Give$2 trillion to Iran. not a big deal. The second thing is control Israel. Embargo Israel. Saying like, if you misbehave, we will cut off arms to you guys and we'll no longer support you. Right? So withdraw from Lebanon. Stop these seven wars you're fighting right now.

2:26:23Come to peace with the Palestinians. So if he does these two things, he will be remembered as the greatest president in U.S. history. No, no, no. Zero percent. No, no, no. First of all, first of all, I think So I think that the problem with the plan, first of all, I think that containing Israel is becoming more and more part of President Trump's repertoire. He's not doing as much as I think he should be, but it's become. The bigger part is your first point. The key problem President Trump faces is he's trying to end this conflict between now in the midterms or now in, say, January, but really now in the midterms.

2:27:04and if he were to give two trillion dollars what would happen is iran would say sure we also want you to pull all your forces out fine trump pulls all the forces out and it's only happening now hold it hold it and two trillion dollars and what then is iran going to do it's going to likely topple the governments in the gulf states it's not going to sit back and say oh sure because They've got free reign because there's no oversight. Because there's a power vacuum. What's been created now, and this would make it even worse, is a power vacuum where it used to be America preeminent, Israel on the rise, Iran declined.

2:27:43Well, now the power vacuum is because this is changing. And what's going to fill that power vacuum is critical for the future. Iran if under your plan they will fill the vacuum uh for Iran and this will wreck Trump future this is it's not just Trump won't viscerally do it this is just going to wreck Trump's future I did not say give Iran two two trillion dollars of gold I said give them two trillion dollars two trillion U.S. dollars which means oh it's going to be worthless anyway yeah that's the point If you want the$2 ,000, you need to participate in the global economy. You need to make sure the Middle East is able to send oil to East Asia.

2:28:29Well, no, this is a version of J.D. Vance's idea of pay for performance. And as I argued before when the MOU was coming up, Vance's whole approach to this as a business deal I think was completely misguided. What Iran is doing is not a business deal, pay for performance like playing a football player. What they want is power. Power is what's at issue. So that's why I'm describing is there's a power vacuum. Who's going to fill the vacuum? It's not about the money per se. It's about power because in international politics, that's what determines outcomes. 20 years ago, there was a philosophy in Washington called neoliberalism.

2:29:08I'm not sure if it's still around. Oh, it's fading fast. Well, the idea was that trade would promote peace, right? So if you wanted peace and mental ease, you just trade it with Iran. Iran has a lot of oil. You let them sell the oil, and then you have peace. Is there anything wrong with that idea? There's nothing inherently wrong with it as long as you had a big protector like the United States that could enforce the stability on which that deal rested. And this is your point about how globalization is coming unglued. So I agree. I wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs laying out that what's happening with the Iran war is America as protector of the global rules of power, meaning stability for commerce, is simply coming unglued.

2:29:55So it's not just here in the Middle East, it's going to be around the world. And in 91, when America won this stunning victory in the Middle East, it wasn't just confidence that America could police the sea lanes in the Middle East. There was confidence America could police the sea lanes globally. That's why trade went from 38 % of world product to 62 % of world product. Think about that. Because it became cheaper to trade. You didn't have to worry about instability as much. now instability is back. What does that mean? Trade is more expensive, more risky insurance rates. And what does that mean?

2:30:35Anything that becomes more expensive, you get less of it. Do you think Trump's really serious about pulling out of NATO? Oh, I don't think it even, I think NATO's already dead in terms of the key element of NATO. Is it not symbolic to do that? It's not about that. NATO at its core is not just a political alliance. What's in Article 5 is that once Article 5 is declared a U.S. general, there's no other decision. It's a U.S. general, Sack Yor, who commands all the NATO troops, not just U.S. troops, all the NATO troops, the British troops, the German troops. France not in NATO for this reason. and that is what NATO is.

2:31:17NATO is a unified, it's a war fighting unified alliance where you decide in advance the Americans call the shots for everybody. Who's gonna be in Europe after what they've been through? Who's gonna let America run British troops? But you also remember that the Americans don't wanna be exposed there. Always when you're looking at Trump, okay? and he was serious about these forever wars. That he clumsily, stupidly got involved in one is true, but he hid out of a fundamental principle in the United States. We did not want to be involved in these wars, these endless wars that we lost. It never helped.

2:32:02There's actually a much simpler reason. Trump really hates the Europeans. He hates the Europeans much more than hates the Iranians. I'm serious. He blames the Europeans for his 2020 election loss. He thinks that Obama conspired the Europeans to defeat him. That's why he went out of NATO. I'd be doing a patriotic disservice if I didn't bring it up. Is the UK ever seriously going to be considered in discussions of world powers moving forward again? Well, so I look at percentages of a country's world product compared to world product. If you look at the UK in 1990, that was around six to six and a half percent of world GDP.

2:32:39What is it today? Just under 4%. So what's happened since 1990? So again, I track power with some key metrics that we can observe. And in 1990, America was 26 % of world's GDP. China was 2%. And the Europeans varied from about 5 % to 7%, Germany the highest. You look today and America's flat at 26. China's up from two to 17. And what's happened to all those Europeans? They're down by a third or more. Who's the sucker here? So people say we've been uncle. So this is my one of my complaints against this argument that America's uncle sucker. No, we played the Europeans here, not the other way around.

2:33:25And Japan, so this is why I don't worry about Japan, was over 10 % of world's GDP at that point. Where are they today? 4%. 4%. So if you just, this is all World Bank numbers. People listening can go and Google it. You will see that we have been inordinately privileged by this period called the Cold War, which this war is ending. At the expense of other countries. One of the things you should point out, however, is Japan responded by massively increasing its military power. So it did not simply look at us, at the United States, and say, where are you going? It took action, and China now worries a great deal about Japan.

2:34:14The Europeans thought it was in a moral act improper to want to pull back and depend on it. The American point of view was the EU is larger than China economically. There is no possible reason why we should be the primary defender of Europe. That was a fundamental reason for many years. But why now? So I don't think this should be put in a Trump load. I think with or without Trump, this questioning of whether or not we should remain exposed in NATO and what NATO should evolve into would have been put on the table by any president at this point. The China example is very much what Europe should have done.

2:35:03And we pulled back from that. The Japanese is creating a much greater force along with the Australians and along with the Vietnamese who are now involved in that too. So many things are happening. So I think there are limits to what we can blame Trump for. We mentioned this earlier on. I wasn't really blaming Trump. I was just showing the hole in the argument. I understand that. I'm simply saying that there's a very reasonable redefinition of Europe after Ukraine defeated, essentially, Russia. We mentioned this earlier on, changing demographics, specifically in China, but this is happening globally.

2:35:46Looks like global population is going to peak 2100, something like that. And white decline is happening, not just in the United States, but in Europe as well. Kiss the bottom of 10 billion, maybe, and then it's going to do this, unless there's some intervention that we can't yet foresee. When it comes to you guys planning out how you think about the future geopolitically, how much of a curveball is the potential changing demographics? Obviously, we've got AI and robotics and automation coming in at the same time. But what it seems like China is doing is basically trying to speed run using humans to build robots so that the robots can replace the humans once the humans have fucked off.

2:36:29How do you think about global population decline playing into your models moving forward? So this war in Middle East, people don't really appreciate the geopolitical consequences. So right now, we're about 8 billion people. But if you talk to economists, they'll tell you that the earth by itself can only support about 2 billion people. The way we get around this is with fertilizer, right? So Middle East is important, not just because it provides cheap energy, but also provides a lot of fertilizer to the world. I can't remember the exact number, maybe a quarter to a third of the world's fertilizer.

2:37:03So if a quarter to a third of the world's fertilizer goes offline for a year, then you're going to have millions of people starve to death. So there's no way we'll reach 9 billion people. You will see massive starvation throughout Africa at some point. Hang on, you think this is going to happen? You don't think... Oh, I think it's baked in already. So I agree, maybe for a slightly different angle on this, which is, so I think about power, balance of power. You're hearing me come everything from a balance of power perspective. That's why I sometimes agree, disagree with the other. But from the balance of power, what's happening?

2:37:40America was preeminent from 1991 until this war. America's being knocked back because for the first time since 91, a state beat America. Just think about that. And everybody's learning that lesson, that America can be beaten. Well, that means America's global influence, that we call it the world empire. You can call it American hegemony. This is now fading fast. What's going to replace it? We could say it's multipolarity. I think it's going to be more fragmented than that. I think you're going to see, you might even call it an emerging anarchy that's going to occur. And under those conditions here, this is because the states that used to be under America's protection, they're not under America's protection before.

2:38:30We're talking about Japan building force. And notice we're not saying Japan getting America to come and help it. We're talking about Japan on its own. Many states around the world are thinking this way. That's what I mean by an emerging anarchy. It's not really quite a multi-polar world. It's more fragmented than that. Who would be the poles? It'll be a center. U.S. and China have aligning interests fundamentally. And we are seeing that diplomatic process playing out. I think it will succeed with an understanding. But at the same time, China is not the Soviet Union. It doesn't occupy countries.

2:39:11It uses economic influence in those countries, investment and so on and so forth. So it's a very different country, not too different from the United States in the way it operates as well, although the United States actually operates with more military power. But in this emerging anarchy, you will see greater incentives for nuclear proliferation, for example. With greater incentive, and you already saw that with Iran, Saudi Arabia, you will see these incentives start to spread as a result of this war. What will also happen as a result of the incentives for proliferation is concerns about preventive wars, preemptive wars to stop that.

2:39:55So we've worried about for some time, Poland might start to think about going nuclear. People are already noticing Putin has been focusing on Poland. Why would Putin focus on Poland? I'm going to Poland next week to meet the president. There you go. Ask him if he's got any nukes. The answer is Poland is the Eastern Front of Europe. It cannot trust the Western Front because it's the alliance of the willing. Okay? And with that statement, that shows it. Poland is evolving dramatically, and it has the capability and is discussing becoming a nuclear power. There you go. So the question of, because when I talk to them, I constantly hear back, you know, we're not counting on the United States.

2:40:44We have 10 ,000 troops there, but we're not counting on the United States. So it's evolving dramatically, and it's going to be looking at that. So I agree with you that the need to have nuclear weapons, okay, or the supposed need to have nuclear weapons will create it. But at the same time, I see the economic alliance between the United States and China, and I think that's going to happen, is going to create a strange pole between the two because they have very similar interests. I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with Zhang. What I'm saying is we're moving to a more war-prone world. Yep.

2:41:26Well, the world is fairly full of war for a while. But this is about to get much worse. What are the places that you're keeping an eye on with regards to conflicts that aren't just going to expand from existing ones now? North Korea. North Korea's the big one. Why? If I'm North Korea and I'm, you know, I'm poor, but I've got nuclear weapons and Japan, China, South Korea are all distracted, why don't I just extort everyone? Right? Why don't I just, like, you know, hold a gun to everyone's head and I just say pay up or I'll just blow you all up? China itself has tensions with North Korea. That's right.

2:42:02Why is it the case of this, whatever you want to call it, global quasi-anarchist world? Why? Why is that happening? Because we have lived under a certain amount of stability from 1991 when the Cold War ended, that Cold War conflict receded. It was immediately followed by the first Gulf War, which showed America could easily beat Iraq, which was a power trying to control the world's economy. Now people know that daddy can't look after everybody. Daddy can't take care of you anymore. Daddy's either too old, baby boomer, so maybe, you know, too old. Daddy's too old. He's not got the sauce anymore.

2:42:44And he doesn't have all his barbles. And I'll also assert the other thing. The United States doesn't want that role. So it's not only they can't do it, it doesn't want to do it. So it's strange to think that you can have a globe with a bunch of different nation states, individual countries who are competing with each other and sometimes in tension with each other, but you still kind of need somebody in charge. Yeah. And now there's nobody in charge. So, yeah. You know what? If you go back to 2000, the world was perfect. But then, I'm serious, the world was perfect in 2000. It was pretty perfect.

2:43:17And then the United States decided to go invade Iraq, Libya, Syria, and create all this chaos in the Middle East. And then it started to sanction Russia. NATO started to expand westwards. And then you have this conflict in Ukraine between Russia. So, I mean, I think it's hubris. So it's not just the United States becoming exhausted and doesn't want its power. I think it's also hubris. So this makes the Iran war even more stupid. Oh, yeah. It sort of expedited something that was already kind of quite predictable. I've modeled other wars and conflict for years. This was the one I modeled for 20 years, year after year, in and out.

2:44:05Why? And it was because this was the next German. This was the biggest problem, if we took it on, that we would find for the United States since Germany. What the fuck do you do? That's what I'm asking. right we're we're trying to we're trying to tell you the reasons but we will be debating this chris for decades if it's some i i will agree with you that if it extends it will become that it has not extended let's not overestimate it yet i i understand on that but if you say this is a insane move which if you give it enough time and it's not that much time presumably 18 months or two and a half years or something like that.

2:44:46It's a really big deal. Like if you, we don't need to worry about it. It wasn't that big of an error if we don't reach the end of the gangplank. It's like, no, no, no. Like you're already on the plank. You're walking. There's water either side of you. If you just about managed to turn around and then reverse your direction. And the difference between life and death is how far you go down the plank. Oh, I agree. So that is it. I disagree. It doesn't make me think that I'm less confident about the decision. Because you get a little wind that pushes you off. But it really is like, oh, this was the worst thing you could do.

2:45:20This was absolutely, yes. And I think this was where the real issue with President Trump walling himself off from anything like strong advisors. So if you just look at the advisors around Trump, I'm sorry, this is just an extremely weak group of advisors. And Natalie Harp as well. I don't want to get into the Vietnam was far worse than this war from the American point of view on a global point of view. It was not that terrible. But for the Americans, this was the moment. That's why after Vietnam, we could just shift over to deal with Europe, try to defend the Europe from the Soviet Union. This war, we're not shifting.

2:46:03Dude, if this turns out, if history looks back and does its analysis and finds out that one guy one morning just decided to press the button. Yes. Like, what was the motivation? Was it some deeply sought-after, analyst-fueled thing? It's like, no, some guy just woke up and decided to press a button. You will think, how was it that we allowed power to be centralized so much behind one human who's got bias season? There's an infamous commercial by Hillary Clinton in 2016, which is the red phone is ringing. It's 3 a.m. And that means that was the phone to the nuclear weapons. Who do you want to answer that phone?

2:46:41This is the way we built our Constitution, Chris. One person makes that decision. But I would argue that don't overestimate. okay if you extrapolate all the way forward okay but see the forces that are making iran itself consider what to do and so on so yes if this war continued it would have massive effects it's already had significant effects on the other hand do not assume that we understand at this point just how far Iran can go as well. Yes, one man started this war, okay? He's failed to win it, but do not assume that this war cannot end except go on forever. I very much hope that it does.

2:47:33Well, when I say January, we all know the answer to that. Is January kind of a point of no return for you? It's a point, it's an inflection point because in January, either President Trump will have the wherewithal to be able to continue the war, or he won't. And that's because of the Democrats in Congress. So the Democrats will either win Congress or not. And if they win Congress, they'll either act to shut down the war or not. We will know this in January. The damage has already been done. A lot of the facilities, the energy facilities of the G.C. have been shut down. It's going to take them six months.

2:48:10Let's assume the war ends today or tomorrow. It takes them six months to restart all these facilities. Yes. Well, then six months, it'll get better then. So we're talking about a fundamental shift in the nature of life on Earth, which could happen, but not in this shorter run. Well, wait a minute. But I don't think the two of you are as far apart because, remember, you're speaking in very, very broad strokes. What he is saying is that even by January, my threshold, he's very concerned about the debt crisis. He's very concerned about the world. He's worried about the world economy. So, and your point is, even if we have a world recession or depression, we'll recover.

2:48:54You two are not as far apart as you might think. But the point is, I think that we are at a bookend with this war. The one thing that won't come back is confidence in America as the protector of that global system. That's not coming back for decades. What I'm saying to end it is this is exactly what we in Texas want because we served during the Cold War at the Folder Gap. and there's really a desire of the United States in the public not to have this role, okay? Among those of us working this, this is a natural thing, we should have this role. But when I talk to my neighbors, the idea that we are responsible for the world and one of the reasons there's hostility from the Texas Republicans toward Trump, very much so is that he did what he promised he wouldn't do get us involved again yes and i'm not arguing for taking care of the world to take care of the world i'm saying that america's primacy is not coming back is there a and again i will say that means that's a tragedy for america well the economy losing the if if we are if this is right then the future of social security is is not long for this world.

2:50:24And that's a tremendous problem. I have a 97-year-old mother-in-law. And I am seeing already that we are horrendous in this country at taking care of people in their 90s. And we're going to have more people living in their 90s. What if Social Security goes away as a result of this war? I don't know how the connection had been made that would be possible. Well, this is more his area than mine. Well, I would argue that the American production and trade and everything else is critical to the world. It's the debt, it's these financial underpinnings that are being stressed. And they're crucial. When you look at world trade, you look at who consumes it and who can't consume it.

2:51:10The United States still has a role. Okay. Artificial intelligence now accounts for 50 % of GDP growth in the United States. 50 % of GDP growth or these AI data centers. Guess who's financing these data centers? The GCC. So imagine a scenario where this war continues. The GCC is no longer able to provide any financing. The bubble, the AI bubble burst. You have like millions of unemployed Americans. I mean, the consequences will be very dire. There's different models that may play out. That may be one of them. But I see it happening somewhat differently, which is that the United States, dominating the Western Hemisphere, not having the price to pay in terms of defense and everything else, may well get by.

2:52:08So the issue here is not that the world isn't changing. I think we all agree that a radical new system is emerging. Okay? We may not agree on what it would look like, but it's certainly going to be different. At the same time, I don't view this evolution as catastrophic from the American point of view or from the global point of view. Is there a conflict or a war or an area of focus that everyone's preparing for right now that probably won't happen? Is there something that a lot of attention is being paid to nuclear war nuclear war will not happen why? because there's no incentive for these nations to blow themselves up mad it's madness which is why we haven't had any such wars so I don't see any scenario where nuclear weapons are used even tactically I think that before the war started on February 28th I put the odds of a nuclear weapon being used by the United States in this conflict, because I modeled for 20 years, as under 5%, by Israel at about 15%.

2:53:22So just to tell you where this has been. I've now essentially been doubling those over time because the nature of the players. So the modeling is agnostic to the decision makers right over time because you have different presidents come in. But what we've already seen is that President Trump is already inordinately looking into nuclear weapons. A dolphin, which is a nuclear arms carrying submarine by Israel, Israel moved it into the Red Sea within firing range of Tehran. Now, these are not by themselves dispositive. These are just movements. So I understand that. But nonetheless, these are encouraging Iran to move forward to do nuclear tests.

2:54:10So as you look at, I'm not saying, so as you just look at strategic interaction, so that's what a model is. It's not just one player, it's strategic interaction. The reason I've upped my percentages is because I've seen actions by Israel and the United States that I believe are increasing Iran's incentives to do nuclear tests. And that once Iran would actually literally prepare to do nuclear tests, if we see those coming, that is another interaction. So that's my dynamic that I'm concerned about. But it's not at the level of 50, 70 percent. Right now, Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon because of a fat one place.

2:54:54So for the fatwa to be rescinded, the supreme leader would need to organize a council, and they would need to— There's no chance that they could subvert the religious doctrine. It's a theocracy. It's like saying, like, let's ignore the First Amendment of the Constitution. Yeah, but that could be arranged pretty quickly. And they're about to withdraw from the NPT, possibly. So they're already talking about— Right. So these are these— They first need to evoke that fatwa, according to their system. So Iran would only develop a nuclear weapon If Israel and the United States were to attack first But if you're Israel and the United States You use a tactical nuclear weapon Maybe on Pickaxe Mountain What do you achieve?

2:55:36Building a deliverable nuclear weapon Is much more complex than testing one You have to have all sorts of elements come together It would take time Well that's true for hydrogen generation 2 weapons but not atomic weapons, Fat Man and Little Boy. So Fat Man and Little Boy are undergraduate. Well, no, Fat Man and Little Boy was delivered on aircraft. This was not put into a, the second generation was miniaturized to put into the missiles. But once we look. I simply am saying that developing a nuclear weapon and testing it and making certain works takes a bit of time. Well, if North Korea, the 212th poorest country on the planet, can do 60, pretty sure this country can conquer this problem.

2:56:26Over a period of time, yes. Well, just pointing out, you're raising it to the bar. It must be miniaturized and look like our, if once we go back to World War II level nuclear weapons, which just have to keep in mind, killed well over 100 ,000 people in those two explosions. North Korean nuclear. Plenty of problems. Nuclear program in North Korea had lasted many years. Well, that's because they went to miniaturize I'm just pointing out that Iran may go much more quickly to atomic weapons. The thing I want to do is I see the risk of nuclear war, even with Iraq, down the road with plenty of time to do it.

2:57:04We're talking about things you're afraid of. If Iran tests two nuclear devices, I think that the odds that we're going to look at those two nuclear tests, let's say it's an October surprise. I totally— If they test two nuclear weapons in October, are you telling me, George? No. We're going to look at those two nuclear tests and say, don't worry, folks. If they test two nuclear weapons in October. Two nuclear devices. You're absolutely right. I am saying, however, knowing something about developing nuclear weapons, that first test will probably fail and so on and so forth. There is time is all I'm saying.

2:57:42Okay? Nothing more than that. what should people be paying the most attention to let's say the next two years something like that people that are listening what are the uh warning signs nuclear tests coming out of iran one of those uh what are the little hurdles in terms of timing you mentioned november you also mentioned january what are the bad signs or some of the good signs just what should people be paying attention to if this is the sort of uh change which occurs what would be the big inflection points that you guys are paying attention to over the next two years or so? Well, the number one inflection point I'm tracking, and again, building on what I just told you about January, is whether we will see the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress and seated peacefully, seated peacefully.

2:58:30So we need to understand that what we saw in November 2020 was an election did not go President Trump's way. Now, we have not seen President Trump as president have that happen again. He is about to be president. And we're going to see in November 2026, will an election not go President Trump's way? And if it doesn't go President Trump's way, is he going to do anything to disturb the process of it going? And that will go on for months because the election is November 3rd. Seating the Congress is January 3rd. If that's what I'm really focused on, because if that goes south, all of these issues are going to get much, much, much worse.

2:59:13I see the positive one evolving is the U.S.-China economic entente and reducing tensions within that. If those two countries get together, the global system changes, possibly with proper presidents, stabilizes in a different form. So I'm looking at that as the most critical thing coming. My question is, will the United States target critical civil infrastructure in Iran next one or two months? If the United States starts targeting power plants or desalination plants en masse, this war is now out of control. We are now beyond the escalation trap. It's complete madness. Even if it's done remotely, it doesn't need to be boots on the ground.

3:00:00It doesn't need to be nukes. if the united states targets iranian power plants iran will target in any way in any way iran will target all of the middle east energy infrastructure the pipelines the energy fields and it's easy to do with drones i i agree with this i just put the internal problem a little bit higher but i agree with his assessment that and this is part of my nightmare it's not like these two things are existing separately they actually go to get that's what i'm trying to say these things actually go together. And then I gave this presentation to my sub stack about the four steps that would be the nightmare scenario just in the Iran war.

3:00:37And this is, this is the critical step because once you hit and I, when I taught for the U S air force in the 1990s, targeting electric power plants was one of the critical things we studied for months and months. We have fortunately did it in the unclassified world so that I was able to talk about this. We brought in people that ran the power plants, the engineers that built them. So I have a fair idea of the different places you would target the plants, what the consequences are. And there's a great paper that people are listening by Thomas Griffith called Targeting Electric Power. He was a military officer when he wrote this paper.

3:01:17It is the best paper on the consequences of targeting military power. And on my sub stack, I wrote a lengthy piece, what targeting Tehran would really mean for the people of Tehran. When you take out the electric power in Tehran for a month and I walk through it. Not good, I imagine. Starvation. Oh, my God. Starvation. Oh, yeah. It's much because all of the, so much of the food, 25 % of the food in Tehran is under refrigeration. And that includes all the supermarkets. There's so much that is. And then you really start to run out of the ability to pump water. So things like water pumping stations in the Middle East where you depend on water.

3:02:06So there's so much of detail underneath this summary of droughts, starvation, mass evacuations of the city. But where do these 10 million people go? it's not like they just run to some other place and turn on the faucet so this is the the targeting of electric power is much worse than most people oh my gosh it's actually worse than a nuclear option to do that would be worse than using a tactical nuke on pickaxe in terms of destruction quality of life change in terms of the escalation ladder of oh right oh the escalation ladder civilian no way so if you hit you're saying if you hit power plants with any kind of missile that's more well well just to be super clear there's two aim points on the electric power and and this is a target set that we've uh the american air force has hit many designed it yeah so well in order to understand why not to do it to be and by the way from the moment of tom griffith's paper and we did this in the mid 90s until right now we've not targeted electric power so that paper for 20 years has been the it was a warning to of the warning to all the generals and cencom this is what it means to target electric power and it shows and so what you are um uh what you are seeing in the plan itself so if we could imagine i don't see a good thing to use as a plan But you can hit the cables that connect the plant to the grid, the electric power grid.

3:03:43That's like blowing a fuse in your home. That knocks it out for like a four. Pretty easy to fix. Yeah, about a week. Okay, maybe two at most, but maybe, it's really about four or five days. But if you hit the hulls, the actual generating hulls, those are each special made. They're gigantic. They're much bigger than this whole building. and it takes six months to even design them and produce them, much less bring them back in. So once you go after the halls, so when President Trump, his rhetoric here is worrisome because he's talking about, when he's talking about these massive consequences, this would fit with the description of going after the halls and you're not bringing this back with the Red Cross and you're not going to come in and you're not going to support this with a giant Berlin airlift of massive water to all these people.

3:04:36This is this is going to this would be much more horrendous. And if you take out Tehran, that's 10 million people. It wouldn't be long before you took out another like 10 different nodes and the entire 70 percent of the population would be without electric power. It's a it's a a much bigger problem than people realize. That is scary. That is terrifying. Gentlemen, I appreciate you all. I don't know whether I'm reassured, but I'm definitely more educated, which is nice. Where should people go to check out everything that you've got going on? I'm on YouTube and Substack, Predicative History. I'm on Substack here, Escalation Trap, Professor Pape, and starting tomorrow, a brand new YouTube channel that's coming tomorrow afternoon, Pape on the Politics of Force, so stay tuned.

3:05:25And a new book. And a new book coming, Our Own Worst Enemies, America in the Age of Violent Populism. And my nightmare scenario was always that we'd have an election as discontentious with an international crisis, and they're both happening. Thank you. And for me, geopoliticalfutures.com is what you can visit. and I'm of the pain humanity will survive again as extremely probable as it might seem. Beautiful. Gentlemen, I appreciate you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Goodbye, my beauties. Thank you. That was great. Thanks so much. George, thank you very much. That was awesome. That was awesome.

3:06:06I enjoyed that. Thanks, Chris.