[0:00]I hope everyone had a nice break and welcome back to the end of the world. So, as you know, World War 3 has started. The United States and Israel have started to attack Iran. And we are now in the fourth day of this war and we can expect this war to last for many weeks, possibly also for many years. But I promise you that after this war is done, the world will never be the same again. So what we'll do these next few weeks is use game theory and understand and analyze the geopolitical situation. And so I'm going to teach you the ideas, the theories, the techniques to understand the world around you and make predictions. And we can know if our analysis is correct because all this is happening in real time. And so we can test it against reality. All right, so let's go over some basic facts about what's happened so far. So, in the early morning of Saturday, uh in Tehran, the Israelis and Americans launched a decapitation strike against the Ayatollah, uh Khamenei, who is the Supreme Leader of Iran. Now, there are arguments and disputes about as to what happened. The Americans and Israelis said that they had real intelligence about where the leader was, and so they sent airplanes to just bomb the crap out of the place. They also had a spy who's able to record the body of the dead Atollah, and then this was announced. At first, the Iranians denied this and the Iranians insisted he was still alive. But eventually, state media, um admitted that he did die in the air strike. But then what they also said is that the Ayatollah, he's 86 years old and he chose to die. He could have gone to Moscow, but instead, he chose to stay in Tehran and die for his people. But not only that, but he died along many of his relatives. He died along with his daughter, his son-in-law, his grandchildren. So the entire, so many of the family died in this assault. Also, there's been reporting that he had prostate cancer. He was going to die fairly soon as well. So what you need to understand first about the war is that even though the Americans and Israelis claim great success in decapitating the leadership of the Iranians, from the Iranian perspective, this is a martyrdom. Martyrdom, okay? And so the religion of the Iranians is called Shi Muslim. And this is different from Sunni Muslims. So Sunnis are the majority. They're about 9% of all Muslims in the world. The Shia have always been the minority. And as such, they've always been persecuted. So in the Shia faith, the core value, the force that binds everyone together and gives them purpose and meaning in life, that galvanizes them into action is the idea of martyrdom, which forces Jihad, to sacrifice yourself for your religion, sacrifice yourself for the common good. So think of the death of Khamenei as a sacrifice, a self-sacrifice in order to motivate the Iranians in this war, okay? So that's the first thing you need to understand, that for the Iranians, this is not a geopolitical war. This is not an economic war. This is not a war of resistance. This is a jihad, okay? It's a war against the great Satan to avenge their leader. They will fight to the death. All right? That's number one. Number two is this. Also that morning, when the Atollah was killed, the Israelis struck a school in the south of Tehran, killing about 150 school children. These are girls in primary school. And again, there's not debate and argument as to what happened. The Israelis said that first of all, the school was next to a military base. We are targeting the military base. And second of all, it wasn't us which struck the school, it was a air defense missile that went off course, okay? And the Iranians insisted, no, they, the Israelis purposely attacked the school to kill the school children. And then you're like, why would the Israelis do that? But then these few years, what we've seen what they've done in Gaza, in Palestine to the Palestinians, it's pretty consistent what the Israelis have been doing. All right? So this action against the Israelis, it's meant to show to themselves and the world that we are now all in, okay? We've made the sacrifice. We are now committed to this war, to winning this war at all costs. And this action has also provoked the Iranian people to resist with their full might, okay? So I want you to keep this in mind. And again, we don't have complete evidence that it's the Israelis who did this, but given past actions from the Israelis, this is fairly consistent with what they've done, okay? So we can assume that this is what the Israelis do, did. Why they did this, what the purpose is, is something we will we will discuss as we move on, okay? It's very complicated. Next, I want to show you this. This is Dubai and Dubai is considered one of the wealthiest, safest cities in the world. There are thousands, tens of thousands of Westerners who moved to Dubai because it's clean, you don't pay any taxes, you make a lot of money and you there are great restaurants. And this is the economic model of Dubai. It's one of the Gulf, the GCC countries, okay, the Gulf, uh coastal countries. And for the longest time, Dubai had a really good deal because they were under the protection of the American military. So they didn't have to pay for defense. They, and then they were in the Middle East, which is the oil producing, um, center of the world. And so they focus on aviation, they focus on logistics, they focus on finance, on tourism. And it makes them extremely wealthy, right? I'm not sure if you've taken Emirates, one of the best airlines in the world. So their airport, Dubai Airport is the busiest in the world. And Dubai for the longest time was flourishing under American protection. And Dubai said to the world, listen, we're like Switzerland. We're neutral. We don't want any involvement in any wars. We're here just to take our citizens, to make sure everyone has a good time, to make money. And then right after the war started, the Iranians attacked the GCC, okay? Dubai, Abu Dhabi, uh Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait. They attacked these places. And these places were like, what's going on? We're neutral, man. We're not involved in this war. And the airport was shut down in Dubai. At at one point, rich, the rich people in Dubai were willing to pay about $25,000 just to get a plane and get out of there, okay? So, um the reality is this, for the longest time, Dubai had a reputation for being safe and that's why people move their money there. Guess what guys? After the Iranians did, it's dead. Dubai as a city, in the long term, it is dead because you're wealthy, you're not going to move to a place where you can be attacked anytime by the Iranians. You might move to Singapore, you might move to Hong Kong, Japan, South America, but you're not moving to Dubai, okay? So the big question for us is, why do the Iranians do this? It was the Israelis and Americans who attacked you, why go after the GCC? All right? And not only that, but they're escalating the attacks against the GCC. So there's something that we will look at very closely today. Well, the short answer is, because these places, even though they they pretend to be neutral, they house the American military. They allow the Israelis and Americans to use their air space to attack Iran from. All right? So this is Bahrain. Now Bahrain is interesting, okay? Because I I I want you guys to remember this. But Bahrain will probably be one of the major centers of this conflict. Because first of all, this is the um American Fifth Fleet, all right? This is their naval base in the Middle East. And as you can see, the Iranians are attacking it with missiles. And it's being blown up. Bahrain is interesting because it has about 50% or even more of Shia, which is the religion of the Iranians. But the people in charge are the Sunnis. And so what is the what what makes this strike really important for for our perspective is, first of all, not only are the Iranians attacking US military assets, not only are they destroying the economies of the GCC, but they're also also trying to ignite a religious war, right? Because you're Shia, you're loyal to the Ayatollah. And if he's dead, then you must, as a religious obligation, now commit jihad against your enemies. It's no different in other religions where, listen, listen, if you want to kill the pope, the Catholics would be really angry at you and they would want to kill you, right? So now you have the Shia who will probably eventually arise, creating a revolution in Bahrain, okay? So I think Bahrain will be the first to fall. Dubai will probably go bankrupt, okay? But in the long term, we can expect the entire GCC area, including Saudi Arabia, to eventually collapse, okay? And so, there's something we'll use game theory to understand. All right. Let's continue. So, we will know how this war develops, just based on geography, okay? So this is a map, and this map, even even if you don't really know the war, even if you don't know the participants, even if you don't know the weaponry, this map will tell you exactly how this war will progress. All right, so some simple things to keep in mind about this map. This is what we call this area, okay? Really small about, it's really 33 km wide, okay? People can swim across it. It's really, really, um, uh narrow, okay? This small area, guys, it's called the Strait of Hormuz. All right? And it's important because it's really the center of the world. This one area is the nexus, the pivot of the world. Let me explain why. First of all, from the GCC, you have 20% of all the world's oil flowing through this narrow strait. Where does it go, guys? It goes to Asia, India, Pakistan, South Korea, China, Japan. India depends on 60% of its oil from this area. China depends on 40%. Japan, 75%. Prime Minister Takeichi of Japan has said that, listen, if the Strait of Hormuz closes, we will run out of oil in about eight, nine months. The entire Japanese economy will collapse in eight, nine months if the Strait of Hormuz were to close. And guess what? The Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz, okay? So we can expect that the entire global economy will suffer greatly over the next few months. All right, So that's point number one. Point number two is, okay, so the GCC sends oil across the Strait of Hormuz, and what do they get back in return? Food, guys. All right? So people don't appreciate the GCC, but it is really the lynchpin of the American Empire. Because what is the American Empire? The American Empire is the petro dollar, all right? The idea of the petro dollar is this: the US dollars are worth nothing. It's only valuable if people want it. But the GCC says that if you want oil from us, you have to pay us in US dollars. Then that is the basis of the value of the US dollar. So, if the GCC collapses, the American economy and the American Empire both collapse at the same time. The problem, though, is the GCC is an artificial construct of empire. It does not exist naturally. Why? Because there's no food, there's no oil, no water, okay, guys? No food, no water. So these cities are able to grow up in the millions because of all these petro dollars flowing in. If you close off the Strait of Hormuz, there's no food coming in, right? They're all going to starve. How much food does the GCC get from overseas? 80%. 80% of all the food consumed comes from overseas, that they imports, it does not grow by itself, it imports, all right? So the Strait of Hormuz is really key. And again, the Iranians will close it in order to strangle the global economy and therefore bankrupt the American Empire. All right. Second thing you will notice is these mountains. These mountains is what we call Iran. All right? This is Iran. This is GCC. Okay, this is not a fair matchup, right? Because these are mountains. And what can you do in mountains? We can hide rocket bases. You can hide drone bases, you can hide missiles. And that's the entire Iranian offensive strategy. All right? From here, they can hide missiles and drones from which to attack the GCC. And what are they attacking? They're attacking, um, three things, right? They're attacking American military bases. That's number one. Is it possible for the Americans to fend against these attacks? The answer is no. No, it's not. It's a silly, stupid way to do it. You have all these bases in the Middle East, but you cannot defend them against the Iranians. That's kind of strange, okay? But that's number one. Number two is oil and energy. How hard is it to blow up an oil field with a drone? Not hard at all. Can you defend these oil fields? No, you cannot. All right. Number three, this is most important, is water. Okay? You guys don't know this, but the GCC has little access to fresh water. So the only way that it can produce water is what what we call desalination plants, okay? These factories that take salt water and then through electro-chemical process, turn it into fresh water for the population to use. 60% of the water supply in the GCC comes from these desalination plants, okay? 60%. Is it hard to blow up the desalination plant using a drone? The answer is it's very easy. You understand? So you have this absurd situation where Iran is a mountain fortress, where it can hide its offensive capacity, and the GCC, it's just this desert, this flat desert. And it is exposed to attack and there's nothing it can do about it, okay? So at any point, in this war, the Iranians can choose to just destroy the entire GCC,
[17:09]and there's nothing that anyone can do about it, okay? But Iran also has a weakness, okay? And this is fundamental. So Iran also has a water problem, okay? So for the longest time, they they suffered a drought issue, okay? Just climate change. And so what the plan of the Israelis and Americans is, is to destroy the water supply of the Iranians. Because the fortress, it's it's a mountain fortress, but it can also be a mountain prison as well where people are trapped inside with no access to water, okay? So what what we're going to see right now, we're we're already seeing attacks on civilian infrastructure. Hospitals. In the future, you will see attacks on water supply, on dams, on reservoirs, on power plants. The point, the idea is to make Iran so inhabitable that the people will will have to rebel against the people, or there'll be a refugee crisis in Iran, okay? So, as you can see from this map, this war, it is the end of the world, okay? Both sides have the potential to destroy each other. It's really a question of how far do they want to go. All right? We we can also say this is almost a game of chicken.
[18:41]Okay? We can blow, we can blow each other up. How far do you want to go? And the problem is this. The problem is that the Iranians are Shia, which believes in martyrdom, and you've killed the religious leader, the Ayatollah, Khamenei. So they're willing to go very, very far. The GCC, the GCC countries are Muslim, but they're materialistic. They love money. And also, most of the population are expatriates, foreigners. 90% of Dubai are foreigners. Guess what? Guess what's going to happen if they suffer? They're all going to run away, okay? So this is not a fair match up. The big question that people have is, first of all, all the Americans going to use ground troops? Because the only way that you can defeat Iran is by using ground troops, okay? That's the big question we'll look at over the next few weeks. Will the will America send its army? Half a million, two million soldiers to topple the government, okay? That's question number one. Question number two, nuclear weapons. If you lose the war, would you choose to use nuclear weapons, okay? That's another big question that we have, okay? Now, the big question that we have is, who gets involved? Because this situation is so dire that Europe, okay, specifically Germany, France, and Britain are talking about entering this war. And guess what? If that happens, it is possible that Russia and China will also enter this war on the side of the Iranians. This is World War 3, okay? Because of the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, because of the importance of the Middle East, everyone has to get involved at some point. And we're going to use game theory to really try to understand what what's happening on the ground and where this could lead us, okay?
[21:01]All right, let's continue. Okay, so again, there are American bases all over the Middle East. And originally, these bases were established to protect them from basically their own people, okay? These are monarchies that were imposed on these nations by the Anglo-American Empire. The British first, and then Americans came to support these monarchies. And so they provide defense.
[21:35]But then you're like, wait a minute here. I mean, they were just say that these American bases can't actually defend these people, that they're exposed. And the and the reason, and the answer is yes, that's true. But remember that the American military was built during the Cold War. Okay? And the Cold War was a war between the Soviet Union and um America. And so, the Cold War was was defined by something called MAD, mutually assured destruction because both had nuclear weapons, okay? So they didn't really go to war against each other. And so in other words, these bases aren't really meant to defend these nations from other enemies. They're really meant to impose American authority in the Middle East. Okay? And it's the idea of this. It's the idea that Empire, it is really a an image. It is a hallucination. It's an idea. Empire is the is an aura of invisibility and invisibility, okay? If you fear it, then you'll obey it. But it's not really designed to fight a war, okay? And so that's why we have this absurd situation. And because there are so many bases in the GCC, that gives the Iranians the perfect pretext to attack them in order to destroy the GCC economy, which will destroy the American Empire. All right. So this is how the war is shaping out, okay? So so the red is the Israelis and the Americans, the yellow are the Iranians. And as you can see, the Iranians are attacking everywhere. Primarily Israel, okay? But also as you can see, a lot of focus on Bahrain and Qatar. And again, the intention is to destabilize the economy and the government, okay? It's it's to try to as much instability as possible. All right? Okay? And as you can see, the Americans and Israelis are focused on Tehran. And so the Americans and Israelis use some something we call shock and awe. And the very idea of shock and awe is you decapitate the enemy. You cut off the head, the body will fall down, okay? The problem, though, is again, the Iranians see this as a religious war. And so the Iranians have have announced total war. Okay? And so what this means is that right now command and control in in Iran is decentralized. There's no one person telling anyone what to do. Every region has its own orders, has its own strategy. And so if you knock out Tehran, everyone else keeps on going. It doesn't mean, so if you knock off the, take off the head, it doesn't change anything, okay? But unfortunately, the, um, Israelis and Americans use this as a military doctrine. Military doctrine just means how you design your military for what purpose. And so the even though the Americans seem like an invincible army, they are not equipped to fight a 21st century war against drones, against desalination, against religious fanatics, okay? They're just not. All right. But unfortunately, because of military military doctrine, they're going to keep on attacking Tehran. Now, the great irony of all this is that the Iranians who would be most supportive of you, of regime change, are actually in the cities, because they are educated, they're progressive. The people who are most fundamentally against you, who will fight you to the death, are religious fanatics, the Shia militants living in the rural areas, okay? So, this is a really silly thing where you are actually destroying those who will who will most likely support you and you're leaving alone those who are most likely to commit jihad against you. All right? Any questions so far, guys? Are you clear? All right. So, another idea that I want you guys to understand is the idea of asymmetry. Asymmetry. All right? So, what is asymmetry? Asymmetry means that the two sides are choosing to fight different wars, using different techniques because one is much stronger than the other, okay? America is the great empire. It has unlimited resources, it has the USD. It has it controls the world, right? Iran, uh, is a country that has been under economic sanctions for the past 45 years. It's poor, it's technology is very limited, okay? But as we learn in this class, actually, those nations that are poor actually have more energy, they're more open and they're more cohesive. All right, so let me give an example. This is what we call the Shahed drones. Each of these drones cost $50,000 at most, okay? At most. It can go as cheap as $35,000. But one of them is one of them is $50,000. As you can see, you can fit a lot of these drones to a truck that can go anywhere in Iran. And they can hide anywhere. All right? So the thing to to understand is, first of all, these drones are cheap. They're they're easy and they're easy to make. They make about 500 a day.
[27:26]Okay? And that's about there's 80,000, um, right now that the Iranians have. So they're going on for a long, long time. Okay? And one of these drones again can knock out the desalination plant, it can knock out an oil field, it can knock out a hotel, it can do a lot of damage, okay? And it's easily transportable. You can hide it anywhere. You you can you can use it from anywhere, okay? And that's what the Iranians are using as an offensive weapon. And how do the Americans defend against this? They use some called the THAAD. Right? This is what they use. THAAD stands for thermal, high altitude, air defense. And they also have the Patriot systems, there's a lot, okay? The thing that you will that you need to know, know about this system is, it's really expensive. This missile, guys, costs $1 million.
