الحرب الأمريكية الإيرانية
قراءة في سلم التصعيد والخيارات الاستراتيجية

Game Theory #11: The Law of Escalation

Original Transcript

We continue our analysis of the US-Iran war. In this war, there are three major questions that will determine the outcome as well as the shape of the world afterwards.

Number one: will the US launch a ground invasion? Right now the United States and Israel are primarily focused on an air war, striking Iran from a distance — what in the past we would call siege warfare. As long as it remains an air war, the United States can choose to de-escalate and withdraw from the Middle East. They would lose this war, but the loss would not be catastrophic. Whereas if they choose to launch a ground invasion, it would escalate very quickly and they would be trapped in Iran for the next five to ten years. It would be a catastrophe whether or not they win or lose, because in order to fight a ground war the United States would have to institute a national draft where young men as young as eighteen would be forced to join the army and be sent to fight in Iran.

Number two: will nuclear weapons be used? There is a lot of concern that Israel is preparing a nuclear strike on Iran because the Israelis don't like how the war is going and they want to reclaim the initiative. Nukes are a taboo in geopolitics — the Americans used them at the end of World War II and no one has used them ever since. If Israel were to use tactical nuclear weapons, it would break this universal taboo and we might find ourselves in a nuclear apocalypse.

Number three: the Al-Aqsa Mosque — the third holiest site in the Islamic world. There is Mecca, there is Medina, and there is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Muslims believe it is from the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jews believe the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits on the site of their temple, which is the house of God. Religious Jewish extremists want to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque to rebuild the Third Temple. And if they do, then the two billion Muslims in this world would be religiously obligated to go to war against Israel.

So these are the three big questions that will determine the future of the world.

In this class I teach you game theory to make predictions about the future. So right now I'm going to make three predictions based on my analysis. These are only my guesses based on my analysis, and whether or not they turn out correct will determine the validity of my model. I don't have inside information. I'm just working from public knowledge and doing game theory analysis.

According to game theory: first, the United States will send in ground troops. Second, nuclear weapons will not be used. Third, the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be destroyed. Today I will explain number one and number two. Next class I will explain number three. I am one hundred percent confident that nukes will not be used at this time in this war. And if I'm wrong, I apologize to the world. But at the same time we'll all be dead anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

To understand what's going on, I need to teach some basic geopolitical theory. In military affairs and geopolitics there is a concept called the escalation ladder.

The dominant theory is that whoever has escalation dominance has the most advantage. In other words, let's say you and I get into a fight and I have a knife while you have a gun — the gun is more dominant than the knife, therefore you have a greater advantage and should win in theory. Applied to this war in the Middle East: Israel and the United States have escalation dominance because they have nuclear weapons and Iran doesn't. Therefore, the United States and Israel have a huge advantage over Iran. But what I will show you today is that this theory is incorrect — it doesn't actually work that way.

Let's start with a very simple example. Two people get into a fight — A and B. How the escalation ladder works: maybe A and B run into each other and there's a small conflict, no one knows who's at fault. So they start cursing each other. Then they start pushing each other. Then they hit each other. Then one pulls out a knife and the other pulls out a gun. In theory B, who has the gun, should win the fight.

But there are certain things we need to keep in mind. The fight is not contained in itself — you cannot perceive this as just a game between A and B of who is physically stronger. There are other players involved. There are spectators, there's a crowd watching. There's also the police — eventually the police will come and ask people what happened and whose fault it was. And for people who are religious, there's also God — if you die, you have to go up to God and explain how you died. So in this escalation ladder, there are three factors that drive people up the ladder: emotions, power, and reason or logic. And what drives people upward is adrenaline.

It is impossible to skip the escalation ladder — you don't go from "screw you" straight to pulling out a gun. You have to go step by step because adrenaline is rushing through your system, making you angrier, stronger, and more resolved. And it's telling you how to fight this battle. What's really important is that it's not about how fast you climb the escalation ladder. If you get too angry and overreact, then you are at fault. What you want is to climb it strategically — and that means remaining calm and controlled. If you remain calm and controlled, you have three advantages over your opponent: focus, clarity, and resolve. You know what you're doing, you have a strategy, you know how to achieve your goal, and you are determined to achieve it. But in order to have all three, you have to remain calm.

Remember: it's not just about beating your opponent. It's about justifying yourself to your friends, to the police, and to God as well. You might win the fight, he goes to the hospital, but then you go to prison for ten years — in which case you've actually lost.

So the main idea I want you to remember is this, and it is a very important law in my game theory model: control is more important than dominance. Why? Because control is the idea of calibration. Calibration means that you time and structure and strategize your response in a way that helps you achieve your strategic objective. You're not just throwing punches — you're throwing a punch in a certain way that allows you to defend yourself, strikes fear in the opponent, and also allows you to appear as the good guy among spectators. So that when the police come, you can justify why you threw that punch and you don't go to jail.

Another way of saying this: calibration is ultimately about strategic flexibility. And the idea of strategic flexibility is that in a fight, the person who has the most options, the person who has the most flexible strategy, will usually win. And I'll explain how this applies to the US-Iran war.

Let me do a thought experiment to examine what's going on between the United States and Iran. Let's say there's a bully — the biggest guy in the school, with a gang of four friends. They prey on everyone at the school, maybe a hundred people. They make everyone in the cafeteria pay a tax — a dollar, whatever. The bully's friends go collect the tax and give him all the money. At first, people are okay with this because they think the bully is keeping peace and order in the cafeteria, keeping everyone safe. So yes, I pay a dollar, but it's not much money and we can all enjoy our lunch in peace.

But then over time the bully gets more and more arrogant because he feels invincible — everyone obeys him. He develops hubris. No one has the courage to challenge him, everyone's afraid, so he can do what he wants. He charges more money from everyone — the tax goes up and people are disgruntled. And he starts paying his friends less so he can keep more for himself — he wants to buy a car or go to Paris for the summer. Everyone's unhappy but there's nothing they can do, so people just put up with it.

One day a new kid comes into the school. He doesn't understand the rules — he goes to the cafeteria and doesn't know he's supposed to pay a tax. The bully's friend comes over and says: "Hey man, where's the dollar?" And he says: "What dollar? I just got here." And he refuses to pay. So the bully and his friends decide to teach him a lesson by ostracizing him — making him sit alone in the cafeteria, no friends, because he doesn't know the rules and refuses to play along. And the new kid is like: "I don't care. I'm happy not having any friends."

The bully and his friends start to discuss how to get this new kid to play along. They decide they're going to curse him and bully him. The new kid is eating his lunch and the friends come and start calling him names — "You're a wimp, do you want to fight us?" And the new kid just ignores them. And these guys are confused — why isn't he afraid of us? Slowly, the other kids notice. Wow, maybe it is possible to rebel against the bully. Maybe it is possible not to pay these stupid taxes. They start talking to the new kid secretly — give him presents, smile at him, say hi. But he just ignores everything and stays focused.

Then the bully's friends start to think: "You know what, we don't actually benefit that much from this relationship anyway. Maybe if this new kid becomes the new boss, he'll treat us better." And other friends think: "This bully is fat and ugly. Maybe I should be the boss." So just because a new kid shows up who doesn't know the rules and is willing to challenge the assumptions of the cafeteria, now there's dissent, there's rebellion. Different people are talking to him, trying to form alliances.

Then one day a bully's friend comes over and says: "You're a wimp." And the new kid finally says: "I'm not afraid of you." The friend goes back and tells the bully, who gets really angry and says: "I'm going to go punch his face." The bully confronts the new kid: "If you don't apologize, I'm going to punch you in the face." The kid says: "What did I do wrong? What should I apologize for?" The bully is confused. He comes back next day: "Apologize now." The kid says: "Okay, for what? Tell me what to apologize for." This goes on for a long time. Eventually the bully gets so angry he punches the new kid in the face — so he started it. The new kid punches back. The bully is stronger and beats up the new kid. But what's happened is that everyone in the school has seen that the bully is not that strong — actually pretty weak. And they recognize that if they stand alongside the new kid they can beat the bully. Eventually the bully is defeated.

Certain things to understand: yes, the bully has escalation dominance because he's stronger and the biggest kid in the school. He can beat up everyone. But what wins the fight is control — calibration, strategic flexibility, the fact that the new kid has many different options and is picking the most strategically advantageous one. And what you'll notice is that the bully doesn't actually have that many options, because he needs to maintain face, to maintain credibility. His power lies in the fact that if you don't obey him, he will come and beat the crap out of you. That's credibility. But the moment you show that actually it's not that big of a deal to be punched by him, he's not that strong — he loses all credibility. Which means he either retreats or he's forced to strike harder, to kill you, to maintain his credibility. By calibrating your movements strategically, you can manipulate the bully into self-destruction.

Now let's apply the law of escalation to what's happening in the Middle East. Let's look at the escalation ladders of both Iran and the United States.

The United States escalation ladder: the first thing is decapitation — kill the leaders so they don't know what to do and surrender. It didn't work. So now the US is attacking military targets — air defense and military bases — to beat up the military so they surrender. That didn't work either. So next is an economic embargo — prevent Iran from trading with the world, prevent it from selling oil to China by blockading the seas. The idea is that if the government doesn't have money to pay its soldiers, soldiers won't fight. That hasn't worked either. So then you attack civilian infrastructure — primarily water and oil. You may have seen that the Israelis attacked an oil facility in Tehran. This is a war crime against international law because you're attacking civilians. And you keep escalating: if that doesn't work, you use secret weapons — advanced missiles no one has ever seen before to scare the opponent, to show dominance. If that doesn't work, biological and chemical weapons. And then: nuclear weapons.

What's really important to understand is that you must follow this escalation ladder in sequence before reaching nuclear weapons. We have not seen secret weapons used. We have not seen biochemical weapons used. Therefore nuclear weapons come later. Unless I see biochemical weapons being used, I refuse to believe nuclear weapons are on the table. We are currently at the beginning of attacks on civilian infrastructure, and already there are arguments in the American political system against attacking civilians — because if you destroy civil infrastructure, you actually unite the people behind the government. Your goal with airstrikes is to split the government from the people and have the people overthrow the government for you. Attacking civilian infrastructure works against that goal. So we have a long way to go before we hit nuclear weapons.

Now let's look at the Iranian escalation ladder. Iran begins with two major things: attacking US radar systems and air defenses, because once those go, Iran can attack whatever it wants. And closing the Strait of Hormuz. By closing the Strait, Iran puts pressure on the economies of the GCC and East Asia. China gets about forty percent of its oil from the GCC through the Strait. Japan gets seventy-five percent. The hope is that these countries will pressure Trump to end this war as quickly as possible. And the GCC countries, under pressure, will pressure the United States directly.

If the US escalates by attacking the Iranian economy, Iran will attack the GCC economy with missiles, targeting oil fields. If the US attacks civilian infrastructure, Iran will attack GCC civilian infrastructure — primarily desalination plants. That's the extent of the Iranian escalation ladder, because Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, doesn't have biochemical weapons, and doesn't have intercontinental missiles that can reach the United States.

So yes, the US and Israel have escalation dominance because they can go much higher up the ladder than Iran. But that's the wrong way to understand this. If you look at the strategies, Iran has much more flexibility, much more calibration than the United States. When the United States attacks, it's pretty blunt. But look at how Iran can close the Strait: it can be strategic — if you're a Chinese ship, let it pass. If you're a GCC nation willing to negotiate, let it pass. If you're a GCC nation that wants to align with Iran, let it pass. By selectively and strategically closing the Strait, Iran can convert the friends of the United States into the friends of Iran. Same with drone strikes against oil fields and military targets: if you attack me, I attack you. If you don't attack me, I don't attack you. Iran has a decision tree, not a ladder.

Because the United States and Israel are just attacking Iran with air power — that's blunt, going from one step to the next. Iran's decision tree is different. Its strategy is to force the United States to admit defeat and retreat from the GCC — to close down military bases in the Middle East so Iran controls the Strait and therefore controls all world trade. This means Iran has diverse options: attack Israel, attack military targets in GCC countries, attack civil targets, target Tel Aviv. Iran can be much more selective in its targeting than the United States, which gives Iran escalation control over the situation.

Two key differences between Iran and the US position. First: Iran is active, the US is passive. Like the bully — the bully has to maintain credibility. He has to show he's more powerful. If you provoke him, he has no choice but to hit you. But the new kid can choose whether or not to provoke him, and can choose the timing. Therefore the new kid is active. Second: Iran has a clear strategy — control the Strait and get the United States out of the Middle East. That's what it wants, and it's calibrating its attacks to achieve that end goal. The United States on the other hand doesn't know what it wants. It wants to "destroy Iran" — but what does destroy mean? Regime change? Economic collapse? Civilian starvation? This ambiguity confuses military strategy. Third: Iran is flexible; the United States is inflexible.

By studying the escalation ladder, we discover that Iran has far more advantages than the United States. Iran will probably win this war ultimately. But there have to be major changes to Iranian society in order to win. To win a fight you need focus, clarity, and resolve. Focus means unity — uniting the population, which means basically crushing all dissent. Clarity means censorship — we're already seeing this in Israel where you're not allowed to film military strikes and put them on social media. Resolve means militarization — the Middle East moves toward total war, where every citizen is recruited into the war effort and the entire economy is geared toward war.

And one last point: we have to understand that this war is being fought multi-dimensionally. The military is just one dimension. There are four major dimensions. First: narrative — world opinion. Second: political — the relationships between nations, and between governments and their own people. Third: economic. Fourth: military. And the military dimension is probably the least important of the four. Your purpose is to control the narrative and justify why you're doing what you're doing. Politically, you have to maintain good relations with other states — as the US fights this war, it's still talking to China and Russia, and those conversations shape the contours of the fight. Economically, nations are still trading with each other throughout the war. War is extremely complicated. It's not as simple as saying "let's nuke that guy." There are a lot of constraints, a lot of stakeholders, a lot of factors that constrain the use of any weapon.

Now let's discuss ground troops. The first question we're looking at is: will ground troops be used? And the answer unfortunately is yes. It has to do with how wars are fought and what we call the cost pyramid. The most simple cost pyramid places infantry soldiers at the bottom because they're the cheapest. Above them is armor — artillery, tanks — which are more expensive to produce and require more resources and time. Then naval. Then air. This cost pyramid reflects the question of how much energy, time, and resources you need to produce a certain military capability. Wars are usually wars of attrition — you have to put all your resources into winning. This is the standard model.

The problem is that the United States has an inverse pyramid: air power is dominant, then naval, then armor, then soldiers. You cannot fight a war like this. The moment you choose to fight this way, you've lost, because you either take out a country in two days or you're screwed because you cannot replenish your forces. The 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War were not real wars — the Americans were so dominant and Iraq so weak that it was basically a video game. This Iran conflict is a real war, and you cannot fight it with an inverse pyramid. If you want to win, the only thing you can do is return to a realistic cost pyramid. You don't have a choice in the matter — your cheapest product is soldiers, and your most expensive is airplanes. You cannot afford to use an airplane in order to save the life of a soldier indefinitely. Eventually this cost-benefit analysis will blow up on you.

So, the United States wants to win this war, it has no choice but to use ground troops. But will it? A lot is determined by the game theory strategies of the different players.

There are four major players in this war: the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

The United States wants to destroy Iran. Why? Because if you destroy Iran, the United States would have complete control over Middle East oil and therefore control global trade through the Strait of Hormuz, which allows it to maintain its empire. A simple objective: destroy Iran.

Iran's strategy: control the Strait of Hormuz and destroy CENTCOM — the American Central Command in the Middle East. If CENTCOM is destroyed, Iran has complete control over the Middle East. Dubai, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait would have to pay taxes to Iran. Iran becomes the new hegemon. Also: humble Israel — you want to weaken Israel but you can't destroy it because Israel has nuclear weapons. Provoke Israel too far and those nukes start flying. So those are Iran's three political objectives: control the Strait, destroy CENTCOM, and humble Israel.

For Israel, the strategy is different. What Israel wants to do is destroy CENTCOM and destroy Iran. Why? Because if you destroy both the United States and Iran, then Israel is the sole hegemon in the Middle East. Also destroy the GCC — destroy Saudi Arabia — because once Saudi Arabia is destroyed, all its resources belong to you. This creates what we call the Greater Israel Project, which we will discuss next class. And notice that even though the United States and Israel are allies, their ultimate strategic objectives are different — in fact, they are in conflict.

Saudi Arabia wants to destroy Iran because if you destroy Iran, you have complete control of the Strait and can be the new bully. But Saudi Arabia also wants to destroy the United States and humble Israel. Because Saudi Arabia is an oil economy — most of its GDP comes from oil exports — and it's trying but failing to build a non-oil economy. Tourism, gaming, entertainment — none of it is working. The future of Saudi Arabia is dismal: eventually the oil will run out, and people will switch to electric vehicles and alternative energy, meaning oil is no longer so important. What Saudi Arabia needs is to control trade access in the Middle East, which gives it a viable future beyond oil. So what Saudi Arabia needs is to create a conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran where they destroy each other, and then Saudi Arabia comes out on top. Israel cannot be destroyed because of nuclear weapons, but the goal is to negotiate peace with Israel after the war and split the Middle East between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Will Israel agree? Probably not. But according to game theory, Saudi Arabia has no choice in this matter because it is so far behind everyone else — it can only hope that this chaos creates new possibilities.

So looking at all four players: the United States wants to destroy Iran. But Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all want to destroy the United States. And how do you do that? You force the United States into a long ground war.

If you're Israel, you don't want to use nukes. Why? Because nukes would end the war too quickly. You want to drag this war out as long as possible to force the United States to send in ground troops. And why doesn't the United States use nuclear weapons? The escalation ladder — it needs to justify itself to people. When you do anything in war, you have to worry about certain factors: troop morale — your soldiers have to believe they're fighting for a good cause; public opinion — you have to make sure the world is on your side; political will — you have to make sure your own people are unified; and enemy morale — you don't want to provoke your enemy so much that they jump to an extreme of the escalation ladder beyond your control.

War is extremely complicated. It's not just about weaponry and resources. It's ultimately about controlling the narrative, controlling the political landscape, marshalling resources in a way that is strategically beneficial.

So we've now answered two questions. Will the US use ground troops? Yes, it will — because Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel will work together to force a ground invasion even though the United States doesn't want to launch one. The United States doesn't have a clear coherent strategy, it's passive, and therefore it can be manipulated into sending in a ground invasion. Will the US or Israel use nuclear weapons? No, because it's not in their best interest. Israel wants the United States to lose this war — to be dragged into a long war that destroys the American political will to fight any more foreign wars. If America loses, Israel becomes the dominant power in the Middle East.

A student asked about the American strategy — does the US hope to do to Iran what they did to Venezuela, removing the leader and having a new one emerge and negotiate? The strategy in the beginning was exactly that — a Venezuela model. But Venezuela and Iran are two very different countries. The Venezuelan elite is very pro-American: their wealth, their children, their family are all stored in America, so the elite have an invested interest in negotiating a deal with America to protect their own interests. For over forty years, America has sanctioned the Iranian elite. Iran has become poor, angry, and disgruntled. They have nothing to lose by fighting. Even though you've killed the Supreme Leader and many other leaders, the elite themselves are unified in opposing you.

Another student asked: why does the US risk the collapse of the entire system just to control Iranian oil? The simple explanation — and I'll give a more complicated explanation next class — is military doctrine: prevent the heartland from arising. The United States is primarily a naval power. It requires people to trade by sea. Its strategy is to make sure there is never any cohesion in the Eurasian heartland — either by making sure no great power arises there, or by creating so much conflict that they are always fighting each other. That's why America went to war in World War I and World War II — there was great fear that Germany would conquer Europe and Asia and create a unified heartland. The BRICS nations — Russia, Iran, and China — are now coming together. That is a major piece of the heartland, and if they come together, everyone else — Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and eventually India — might follow, because it is easier to trade within the heartland than across American maritime routes, especially with the US dollar declining. The United States has no choice but to fight this war because destroying Iran fractures the heartland. There's no way they can then trade together anymore. They remain reliant on American maritime routes, and America maintains its hegemony because it controls world trade. Whoever controls world trade controls the world. Whoever controls the heartland controls world trade.

A student asked about Saudi Arabia — how can it realistically achieve the goal of seeing the downfall of all three opponents? The answer is it can't control outcomes directly. But according to game theory, Saudi Arabia has no good options given the current structure of the game. It is so far behind everyone else that it can only hope this chaos creates new possibilities. It can only try to play the different powers against each other and position itself to benefit from whatever emerges.

The third big question — the Al-Aqsa Mosque — I will answer next class.