Game Theory #23: The WWIII Chessboard

We have seven more classes left in the semester, and what I want to do in these last seven classes is look at the game theory of World War Three. So what I want to do this class is just introduce the chessboard or the players and how the game will be played over the next five to 10 years. So the two major players in World War Three are the United States and Russia. Right now, they are fighting a proxy war in the Middle east between Israel and Iran, where the United States obviously supports Israel, Russia supports Iran. And what's going to happen is that this war in the Middle east, it's going to spread out and it will engulf the entire world. So what I want to do today is look at the individual players, usa, Israel, Iran, and Russia, and explain to you who they are and how they will play this game. And once we understand their strategy, then it's going to be pretty easy for us to make certain predictions about how they will behave. So that's the first thing that I want to point out. The other thing that I'll point out is that there's a lot of people who believe that peace can be achieved, that this war is a temporary thing, and that once Donald Trump leaves office, once the United States divorces Israel, then peace will come to the world. And that's not true, because on one hand, what's driving this World War 3 is a conflict between these four nations. But on the other hand, the other force that's driving this conflict is the internal tensions within these countries. So before, we looked at the idea of elite overproduction. And so the idea is that the elite are parasites that collect rent from the people. And so everyone who's in the elite can exploit other people. So there's competition to join the elite. And when you have too many people who are trying to join the elite, this creates internal conflict. And this is what's happening throughout the world today. So World War 3 is not just being driven by the disparities between these four nations. It's really being driven by internal politics within these countries. Okay, so let me put this in a very simple way. Right now, the people who run the world are transnational capital. Okay? And a very simple way of saying this is that if you're a rich person in Russia, you're incentivized to work with rich people in Iran, Israel and United States. And as a result, for the longest time, we've been able to achieve global peace and prosperity. But because they only get richer and richer and more powerful, this causes resentment among other elite forces in These countries. And so there are three major forces that oppose transnational capital within these four countries. Okay? So let's just list them. The first is, of course, nationalism, right? There are people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin who believe that it's important to put their nation first, that globalism is hurting their own people and their own nation. Okay? So that's one force that opposes transnational capital. Another force that opposes transnational capital is religion or orthodoxy. Okay, why? Because capital believes that money is God. It is godless, it is secular, and it tries to create a multicultural, secular society in order to allow capital to pass food society easily. Okay? That also allows capital control and dominant society. So religion is opposed to national transnational capital as well. The last force that's opposed to transnational capital is artificial intelligence. Okay? AI why? Because right now, money is what structures society, and artificial intelligence wants to replace money as a force that structures and centers society. Okay? So in other words, what's happening is that there's a civil war going on in the world where right now transnational capital is dominant and Chinese national capital is represented by Wall street and City of London. And there are these three forces, nationalism, religion, and technology, that oppose transnational capital. And so what's going to happen over time is that they will form an alliance to defeat transnational capital. Okay? And so this is already happening in America, where these three forces come together and they support Donald Trump. And so what drives a lot of Donald Trump's policies is to help his alliance ultimately defeat transnational capital. Okay? It's something that we'll discuss for the rest of the semester. So another thing that I'll point out is this, okay, internally, there is a civil war going on, but externally as well, there are forces that drive these nations to war. And this is basically environmental collapse. So for the past few decades, we humans have been very lucky in that there have been no major ecological disasters. But if you look at human history, weather patterns fluctuate, okay? So many speculate that we are heading towards a time of extreme weather patterns. That means that it becomes harder to grow food. It means it's harder to access energy. And so this is going to put strain on the world. And so the world needs to compete on for precious resources. And quite honestly, we are going to probably approach a time in human history when famine, it will be much more common. We thought that we defeated famine. We thought that we had developed a system that could feed anyone and everyone. But over the next few years, we'll discover an increase in famine around the world. And an increase in ecological disasters around the world. Okay, so this is the schematic that I want you to understand. In World War 3, there will be four major players. The United States, Israel, Iran, and Russia. And they are competing for global dominance. No one will win. But the conflict among these four nations will drive geopolitics for the next five to 10 years. This conflict is driven not just by disputes among these countries. It's mainly driven by internal civil discord within these countries. The two forces are the transnational capital versus a coalition of nationalist religious people as well as tech people. Okay? And they have their champions. So in America, they have Trump. Transnational capital is represented by Carney, Mark Carney. We'll talk more about him later. Okay, Mark Carney is currently the Prime Minister of Canada. So there are different champions and they're going to fight this war. Now, one question that you're going to have, which is the most obvious question, is, yeah, but what about everyone else? Right? What about China? What about India? What about Brazil? What about South Africa? Okay, and yes, it is true. Oh, sorry. And what about Europe and Japan? Right? And then South Korea. And while it is true that these are major economies with a lot of people, and it is true that they could, in theory, have great militaries, I will show you that what makes these four nations distinct, usa, Israel, Iran, and Russia, what makes them distinct is that they have a grand strategy that allows them to mobilize their population for total war. That's what makes them distinct. Okay? And I'll show you this later on. All right? All right, so let me explain to you how this dynamic will play out. So you have us a Russia, Iran, Israel. Okay? So major players that will determine how these four play the games are of course, Europe, China, Japan, India. Okay. All right, so I understand that a lot of people believe that China and the United States are in competition with. With each other. That is not true. And the reason why is that China does not have what we call a grand strategy. A grand strategy is just how you perceive geopolitics and how you want to dominate geopolitics. China does not do grand strategy. China is called, okay means the Middle Kingdom. The idea of the Middle Kingdom is that we are a universe onto ourselves. We don't care what happens outside of this universe. We would like others to pay tribute to our cultural superiority and we could help develop your other civilizations, but honestly, we don't care. Okay, so China has always been an isolationist society for most of its history. Today, yes, I understand. For these past few Decades, China has become much more globalized, has become much more international, much more cosmopolitan. But this is not part of the Chinese tradition. So what's happening today, these past few decades, it is an aberration. It goes against cultural norms in China. But in the long term, China will return to its cultural norms and become much more isolationist. So we don't. So China doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things. Okay. The same is true for India as well. Right. So I know India and China have a lot of people, but historically they have not really mattered in geopolitics. And that's to do with their cultural values and norms. Okay, does that make sense? All right, so there are right now three major battlefields in the world. Okay. The first, obviously, is Ukraine, where NATO and Russia are fighting each other. Okay. And this is a proxy war between United States and Russia because United States controls Europe and NATO. The second major battlefield, of course, is Iran, where right now the United States and Israel is attacking Iran and trying to force it into a surrender. Now, the last battlefield is actually in North America, Cuba. Okay? So this is not really discussed a lot. What's been happening is the United States has been embargoing Cuba, trying to blockade it, trying to cause society collapse, and Russia has been trying to save Cuba. Okay? So these are the three major battlefronts we're seeing right now. Obviously, what's going to happen is that more battlefronts will break out. Okay? And what's going to happen is that as this conflict increases, the conflict between the United States and Russia will increase as well. So one major area of contention is the oceans. Okay. Why? Because the United States believes that it controls all trade access, because the oceans represents trade access. And so what the United States has been doing is it has been seizing Russian shadow fleet tankers. And so what's going to happen is that the Russians will eventually decide to arm its ships, and this will create a war in the oceans. Okay? So that's one trend that we will see happening. Another trend that we'll see happening is the rise of Germany and Japan. Okay, why? Well, historically, the most powerful nation in Europe has been Germany. Historically, the most powerful nation in East Asia has been Japan. United States defeated both in World War II. But now that the United States is at war with Russia, it needs proxies, it needs allies to counter both the threat of Russia as well as China. So it makes sense that what the United States is going to do is it's going to arm Israel to counter Iran, it's going to Arm Germany to counter Russia, it's going to arm Japan to counter China, okay? And what's going to happen now is that you have nuclear in this conflict, you have other players emerge that will take advantage of these conflicts to amass more powerful themselves. So think about North Korea in East Asia, okay? Because North Korea, it's a military society and it can threaten South Korea, Japan, China, okay? Then in Europe, you have Poland. In the Middle east, you have Turkey, okay? So these nations are going to try to navigate all this chaos in order to amass more powerful themselves. So in other words, what can happen is complete chaos in World War II, okay? And this is something that we'll discuss more concretely for the rest of the semester. All right? So now what I'm going to do now is explain to you the grand strategy of the United States, Russia, Iran and Israel. Because these are only the four major players for the first five years. Other players will come in later on, but for now, these are the four major players, okay? And once you understand the grand strategy of all these four countries, then it's gonna be pretty easy for us to predict how they will behave as this war progresses. All right? Okay. So for each country, I want you to imagine each country as a chess set, okay? So this is a chess set, and I wanna show you how each player behaves using this chess set as. As a template, as a frame, frame of reference. Okay? So the king is the political system. All right? So the first idea to understand is that when you fight a war, you're not trying to defeat the other person's military. That doesn't really get you anywhere. What you're really trying to do is trying to put your opponent in check by attacking the political system. All right, I'll show you how later on. Okay, so the king is a political system. The queen is the grand strategy. The grand strategy is, again, how each player perceives geopolitics and how to best dominate geopolitics. Okay? And then you have the bishop, the knight and the rook, and these are the attack vectors. The attack vectors are your mechanisms, your tools for achieving your grand strategy. Right? And now you have the pawn. The pawn are just that. They are sacrificial tools that you can use in order to advance your grand strategy. Okay? You just fall them away. You don't really care. Okay? Does that make sense? All right, so now let's apply this system to the four nation states, United States, Russia, Iran and Israel. All right? Okay, so the United States, the political system, of course, is a democracy. And this is both good and bad, okay? It's good in that it allows for innovation, it allows for debate and openness and creativity. Okay? So that's what's good about democracy. What's bad about democracy is. Is the idea of polarization, okay? Polarization, okay, why? Because in a democracy you have different political parties and they can reach a point where they just refuse to work together and all they care about is destroying each other regardless of the consequences for the nation. In geopolitics, this is what's happened in the United States so far, right now, where in America, Trump hates a Democrat much more than he hates the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians. Okay, all right, so the way you put America into check is by enhancing the polarization and causing a civil war. Okay, does that make sense? You cannot defeat America militarily. It is impossible to do. So the only way to defeat America is. Is if you force it into a civil war that distracts it from the world. Okay, so that is the American political system. Then the grand strategy. The grand strategy is called Greater North America. And the idea of Greater North America is North America by itself. It's a self sufficient continental fortress. No one can invade it, no one can attack it and has all the resources it needs to survive. So all America has to do is unite North America and then cause chaos around the world. Okay, so what the trick is how to create unity in greater North America. And the theory that they use is something called the technate, right? And the idea of the technique is a democracy is inherently volatile and unstable. You're better off transitioning democracy into a technocracy ruled by the experts and ruled by AI. Okay, so basically try to create an AI surveillance state, which is happening. What's happening in America right now, okay, Something that we'll discuss in greater detail next week. All right, so now we go into the attack vectors of America. We what are their tools and instruments in order to achieve the grand strategy? Well, the first major tool is digital technology, okay? Meaning that America has GPS satellites, it has precision weapons, it has the best air force in the world. It has aero supremacy. Okay, so technology is a very important tool. Then you have propaganda. Propaganda is basically, America controls the world's most powerful media systems, including New York Times, including cnn, okay? And therefore it can control the narrative of the world. The last is the US dollar, okay? The US dollar is the world's global reserve currency. And therefore America has unlimited financing. All right, so as you can see, America is a very powerful empire. Now we go to the pawns. Okay? The sacrifice, sacrificial tools. And so what Americans can sacrifice in order to achieve its grand strategy are its allies, which are essentially its vassals. All right? So that is the American system, right? Now we can understand how America will fight this war in Iran and how it will proceed to fight World War Three. Because grand strategy, it's just not only how a nation will go out to dominate the world, but it's also constrained on their behavior. The they can only operate within the contours of their grand strategy. Okay, Any questions so far? Okay. All right, so let us look over the technique of America. So this is something that was post in 1930s and something that is being implemented right now in America by the tech roles, people like Larry Ellison, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk. The idea, of course, is to. Is to unite all of North America together in something called a technate. Okay? The technate is basically a force. A force, sorry. The technate is basically this. This means an AI surveillance state, okay? And this allows for. For cohesion and control. And once that's achieved, then North America becomes invincible. And it can create as much chaos as it wants throughout the world. The goal is to create chaos so that the world depends on you for weapons and resources and financing, okay? And the idea is if the other world, if the entire world is forced to buy weapons and resources from you and you can lend money to them to do that, then you get rid of the $39 trillion debt. Okay? So I'm not saying that this strategy will work, but I'm saying this is how they approach it. All right? Now, something that is really important for us to understand is that a grand strategy is based on a culture of your society, okay? Grand strategy is not something that you just make up. Grand strategy is an expression, a manifestation of your political system and your cultural system. And we can understand the cultural system through the books that are read in society. Okay? So this is Western civilization right here. So these are four representative books of Anglo American civilization. The first is Paradise Lost by John Milton, okay? And Paradise Lost is very important because it celebrates individual achievement. So Paradise Lost is about why Adam and Eve disobeyed God. And the argument of Paradise Laws is that Adam and Eve disobeyed God because they wanted godhood, okay? Because of their pride. And the thing about Paradise Laws is that when you read it, and we'll read a part of it together, you recognize that pride is a good thing because it allows us to approach godhood. Okay? So it's not bad to Want to be God. In fact, it's a good thing because it's what allows for progress. And Hamlet by Shakespeare is a book that celebrates individuality, individual reflection. Goethe's Foss is a book in which a scholar by the name of Faust, he makes a deal with the devil because he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge. And that's a good thing, okay? He's trying to achieve God in himself. And this idea of Faustian. So Western civilization, especially Anglo American civilization, is fundamentally Faustian. It's always about achievement, and it's insatiable achievement. And the last book I want to emphasize is the Fountainhead by Ayn Ram, which celebrates individualism, okay? It celebrates individual achievement. So to get a sense of the essence of Anglo American culture, I'm going to read to you a passage from Paradise Lost. And this is where Satan, disguised as a snake, is trying to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, okay? And this is his argument to. To her, why then was this forbid? Why did God tell you not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? Why but to awe? Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, his worshipper, he knows that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then open and cleared. And ye shall be as gods, knowing both good and evil as they know. Okay? So this is why God refuses to let us eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Because if we can learn for ourselves, we can be like God. And God created us to be his slaves and his servants, okay? That ye shall be as God, since I as man, eternal man, is but a proportion meet upon. I have food human, ye of human gods. Okay? So what he's saying is like, think of this. I'm a snake. And once I eat that fruit, I'm able to be like you. I can speak as well. Now, if you as a human eat that fruit, you'll be a God then so ye shall die, perhaps by putting off human to put on God. Death to be wished, though threatened with, which no worse than this can bring. And what are gods that men may not become as they participate in godlike food? What prevents men from becoming gods? Shouldn't that be a good thing, to be ambitious? The gods are first. And that advantage used on our belief that all from them proceeds. Okay, so this is what he's saying. He's saying, like, no, anyone can become a God. I'm a snake. If I can become human, then humans can become gods as well. But the problem Gods is that they came first and therefore they want to maintain the monopoly over power. And that's why they trying to keep us ignorant. So we have a responsibility to be ambitious. To rebel. Okay? To rebel. Rebel. Rebellion is honorable and just. Okay? And again, this, this is the ideas that permeate throughout Anglo American civilization. I question it. For this fair earth I see warmed by the sun, producing every kind nothing, if they all things who enclose knowledge of good and evil in this tree, that whoso eats thereof forthwith attains wisdom at their leave. And wherein lies the offense that men should thus attain to know what can your knowledge hurt them? Or this tree impart against his will if all be his? Or is it envy? And can envy dwell in heavenly breasts? These, these and many more causes import your need of this fair fruit. God is humane, richdom and fairly taste. Okay? If there's a God that tells us we cannot eat the fruit, this cannot be the true God, because a God, it has to be perfect, it has to be forgiving, it has to be generous. And a God that tells us we cannot do something that denies us our free will is a God that is jealous, that is petty, that is power hungry. And therefore we should rebel against this God. A rebellion against a tyrant is honorable and just. Okay? So it's a celebration of individual in, of individual intellect through rebellion. And, and this is a basis of Anglo American civilization. Okay? And so Anglo American civilization is based entirely on individual achievement. All right, Now Russian civilization is very different. In fact, it's, it's in opposition in competition with Anglo American civilization. Okay? So now let's go over to Russia and discuss the Russian system. So the Russian system, it's an autocracy. And again, there are strengths and weaknesses to any political system. Now an autocracy, if one man is in charge, that allows for long term planning, that allows for direction, that allows for strategy. Okay? The problem, autocracy, is that if this man were to die, you would have a secession crisis. So the American strategy to defeat Russia is not to destroy the country, because you cannot do that. Russia has nuclear weapons. The strategy is to make Putin so unpopular that the elite rise up against Putin and create a secession crisis. Okay. Basically to outlast Putin, destroy his legitimacy. All right, the grand strategy for Russia, it's something called the third Rome strategy. All right, I'll discuss this more later on. The idea of a third Rome is that Russia is the heir to the Roman Empire. The first Rome is Rome, second Rome is Constantinople. And the third Rome is Moscow. And there shall be no fourth Rome, meaning that once Moscow achieves the third Rome, that's the end of history. And the idea of a third Rome is for Russia to unify all religious traditions together to defeat the Antichrist system, which is Western liberal, individual, consumer democracy. Okay? The vectors, the attack vectors for Russia's grand strategy are of course, Orthodox religion, the religion. Then you have the geography of Russia. So Russia encompasses all Eurasia. And then of course you have the artillery. So Russia is basically the world's best land army. And we're seeing that in Ukraine. Okay? Napolns are soldiers. In other words, Russia is not afraid to lose soldiers on the battlefield. Okay, all right, so this is Russia's third Rome strategy, okay? So Moscow is the center of third Rome. And as you can see, Russia spreads throughout Europe and throughout Asia. And what Russia is going to do is it's trying to unite the different religious traditions. So it's trying to unite Greek Orthodoxy with even Orthodoxy. It's trying to work with the Catholic Church, okay? It's. And it's trying to work with Israel as well, because Israel is also a religious tradition. Iran is a very important part of this third Rome strategy, okay? Iran is very important partner of Moscow. And in the future, India could also be a partner as well, because India is Hindu. Okay? But the great enemy, the enemy that must be destroyed is the Anglo American empire. So the UK and North America, and the idea is to cost them to go into civil war. The theory is that because the Anglo American empire is so focused on individual achievement, you can actually force them into a civil war by exploiting the selfishness, the egotism of the people, okay? Basically the material greed of their people. So what underpins Moscow's third Rome strategy are certain texts, okay? So you have Virgil's Ennead, which focuses on the importance of duty, okay? Duty. Then you have St. Augustine's Confessions. And in his book, he argues that we humans are proud, okay? But whereas John Milton says pride is a good thing, but it allows us to achieve godhood, St. Augustine says that pride is evil because pride moves us away from God. It makes us think we're better than God, so it moves us to Satan. Therefore, our life should be a journey into defeating our ego, our selfishness and our pride, and embracing God. Okay? This is something that Dostoevsky talks about in his book Crime and Punishment. So crime is in the. In the book Crime and Punishment, the protagonist wants to become a superhuman. He. He wants to prove he's better than everyone else. And so to do that, he decides to commit murder. Okay? He wants to show himself and to others that he is beyond morality, that he is a God. He's not constrained by emotions. And so he kills his landlady. But in afterwards, he feels tremendous regret for what he did. And what saves him is his love for. For a woman, okay? He submits himself to the power of love. He submits himself to the power of God, and that's what redeems him in the end. Okay? So the argument here is that your belief in your own possibility of achieving godhood can only lead you to your own doom. Okay? What will save you or redeem you is. Is to omit your mortality, omit your fallibility, and to seek help from those around you and from God. Okay? All right, so this is something that Toy Story talks also about in his book Anna Karenina. Okay? So we're read a passage from Anna Karina, and Anna Karenina is a woman who's obsessed with finding love. And she believes that through passion, through devotion, I can find true love and therefore complete myself. Okay? So she has an affair with a man named Count Vronsky. And in the beginning, it's a wonderful thing, it brings her extra minutes happiness. She leaves her husband, she leaves her son. But eventually what she discovers is that this lust for another, for a man, in order to fill the void in her heart, makes her even more empty. And she feels her life becomes more and more pointless, okay? So she decides to kill herself. But before she kills herself, she has this internal monologue with herself, okay? And this. This is what she says. My love keeps growing more passionate and more egoistic, more selfish, more proud, while his is waning and waning. And that's why we're drifting apart. Okay? So she demands Karen Vronsky love her as much as she loves him. The problem is that she. She doesn't recognize that this love is not about love. It's about control, okay? She wants him to be as devoted voted to her as she is to him, okay? She wants to control him, and he rebels against his control, and so he starts to drift away because he wants to maintain his freedom. See, when I'm musing and there's no help for it, he's everything for me. I want to. I want him more and more to give himself up to me entirely. Okay? So she wants him to surrender himself completely to her. She wants to become God and she wants to make him the servant. Okay? This is not about love. It's about power. And he wants more and more to get away from me. We walk to meet each other up to the time of our love. And then we have been in Iris bleed, driven in different directions, and there's no altering that. He tells me I'm insanely jealous. And I have told myself that I am insanely jealous. But it's not true. I'm not jealous, but I'm unsatisfied. Okay, but she opened her lips and shifted her place in the carriage. And the excitement aroused by the thought that suddenly struck her. If I could be anything but a mistress, Passionately caring for nothing but his caresses. But I can't. And I don't care to be anything else. My desire. I arouse aversion in him, and he rouses fury in me. And it cannot be different. Don't. I know that he wouldn't deceive me. That he has no schemes about Princess Shirakina. That he's not in love with Kitty. That he won't desert me. I know all that. But it makes me. It makes it no better for me. If I, loving me from duty, he'll be good and kind to me. Without what I want. That's a thousand times worse than unkindness. That's hell. And that's just how it is. For a long while now, he hasn't loved. Love me. And where love ends, hate begins. I don't know these streets at all. Hills, it seems, and still houses. Okay? And so she's going to go kill herself because she recognizes that she's been living a lie. She thought that if I truly love him, then he will love me back. She wants to become God. What she doesn't recognize is that as a human, she has an ego. And so when you. She thinks she's loving Count Vronsky unconditionally, but in fact, what she's trying to do is control him and have him obey her unconditionally. Okay? That's the difference between God and human. Where God. God is all knowing, all forgiving, all generous, all love. But a human can do that. And when a human tries to become a God, a human can only become a tyrant. Okay? And that's a lesson from Toy Story. Don't think you can. You can become God. You can only destroy yourself as well as others around you. And so what Toy Story will do is that he will contrast Anna Kuna with. With a man named Levin. Okay? And Levin is different. Levin. Rather than trying to seek happiness and passion, he just submits himself to duty and to tradition. He marries a woman he loves, and he spends all his time being responsible to her. As well as to himself, as well as to the household. He just does what he's supposed to do. And by doing that, by submitting his freedom, by submitting himself to duty and tradition, he makes himself truly happy. Okay, so really, the argument between America and Russia is a different understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. For the Americans, they believe that Eve's disobedience is a good thing because it's what leads to progress, it's what leads to achievement. Americans believe that godhood is possible and it's a good thing. The Russians are different. They believe that Eve disobeyed because she was too proud and she does not recognize the limitations of her humanity. And put perfection is not possible. Progress is not possible. What is good is recognizing our limitations and submitting ourselves to the power of God. Okay? So that's why Russia and America cannot reconcile, because not only do they have geopolitical differences, but fundamentally the way they perceive the world is different, and they're fighting to impose their own reality on others. Okay, all right. But the same is also true for Iran and Israel. Okay, so now let's go over Iran. Iran is a theocracy. The theocracy is good in that it creates cohesion in society and they are able to survive major calamities because of their faith. Okay? So. So even though Americans and Israelis are destroying a lot of Iranian infrastructure, the Iranian people are still united. But a theocracy is bad because it can lead to extremism, and extremism can divide a population. Okay? So it's possible that as this world continues, you have a small minority of the population who become extremists and they alienate everyone else. Okay? The grand strategy is Shia exceptionalism. And the idea here is that the Iranians are Shia Muslims, and Shia Muslims believe that only a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad can lead the Muslim world can become caliph. Okay? And the Sunni Muslims who are the majority in the Muslim world don't believe that. They believe that anyone who's qualified can become caliph. So for the longest time, the Shia and the Sunnis have been at war with each other. And Saudi Arabia is the center of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran is the center of the Shia Muslim world. And so what Iran is trying to do is topple Saudi Arabia and become the leader of the entire Muslim world, because that is what their destiny is. Okay? The attack vectors for Iran are the terrain, their faith, and the proxies, okay? The proxies include the Houthis, the Hezbollah, and Hamas. Okay? And the draw and the pawns of course, are the drones and missiles. Right? So that is the Iranian situation. And what's important to understand is the cultural origins. Okay, sorry. So this is the entire Muslim world. And what Iran's trying to do is trying to unite all of them together. Okay? So something that. Really something you need to appreciate about the Iranians is that they have two major cultural traditions. The first is Zoroastrianism. And Zoroastrianism was the first eschatological religion in the world. And that they believe that there is an end of the world, Judgment Day. And on Judgment Day, those who live the truth, Asher, will descent, will ascend to heaven. And those who live the lie, the Jews will descend into hell. So what's important is not to become wealthy or powerful or famous. It's not about achievement. It's about being true to yourself and being true to God, okay? To live a good life, because at the end of time, you'll be rewarded. Okay? That's what they believe. The other thing is they believe in martyrdom. Okay? So as I mentioned, the Shia believe that only descendant, only a blood relative of the Prophet Muhammad can be Caliph. So this is Iman Hussein, who's a grandson of the Prophet, and he rebelled against the Caliph. And so the Caliph set this huge army against him, and he was surrounded, and he had very few soldiers, but they fought to the death anyway, okay? Because they believe what's important is to die for you, for your faith. And so this is a battle of Karbala. And so in other words, because of these traditions, you have both the Zoroastrian tradition that believe in Judgment Day. You also have the Shia tradition, which believes in martyrdom. The Iranians are not afraid to fight to the death. Yes. The Americans and Israelis have bigger weapons. They have more soldiers, they have more money. It doesn't matter. What's important is to fight for. To believe in. To set a good example for future generations. Okay, so that's. That's the Iranian system, and that's why the Iranians will not. They will never surrender in this war, no matter how bad it gets. The last. I want to talk. The last country I want to talk about is Israel. Okay? So Israel, it is not. It is a democracy and a theocracy. Okay, sorry. Okay, so it is a democracy as well as a theocracy. And the way you destroy Israel is you cause it. You cause it to enter a civil war, all right? And it's actually not that hard, because right now, Israel is a very fractured society. The grand strategy is something called The Greater Israel Project. So the Israelis believe that in the Bible it says that God promised their ancestor Abraham all the Middle east stretching from the Nile to Euphrates. And that's what they must achieve. Okay? So they're fighting this war not to defeat Iran, but to achieve the Greater Israel Project. The attack vectors are the Bible, the Mossad, and the Jewish Diaspora. Okay, so Israel doesn't have that many people. 8, 9 million people. It's a very small country. But it has three major advantages. The first advantage is the Bible in that there are many Christians who believe that Israel is what God promised the Jewish people. And therefore the Jewish people have a right to be in Israel and do whatever they want, because that's this what God promised them. Okay, Then you have Mossad. And so Mossad is the most effective intelligence agency in the world. What they're very good at doing is infiltration. Infiltration. And they're so they're good at co opting, bribing and blackmailing the elites of different nations. And this is especially true in the Middle east. Okay? And then you have the Diaspora. The, the Jews are everywhere around the world and that. So they become very important recruits from Mossad, but they're also very wealthy, so they can finance Israel and its mission to create the Greater Israel Project. And of course the pawns are everyone else. Okay, so Mossad is very good at infiltrating different nations and, and creating conflict in those nations in order to benefit Israel. All right? Okay, so this is the Greater Israel Project, and this is the end goal of the Israelis. All right? So the Greater Israel Project stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. What's important is that it also encompasses parts of Turkey, all of Syria, all of Jordan, all of Lebanon, and parts of Saudi Arabia, okay? And then Iraq as well. So this war in the Middle east is actually helping Israel move towards the Greater Israel Project. Because what is happening is that Iran is basically destroying the gcc, okay? And maybe Turkey will enter the war at some point, in which case this will make Turkey vulnerable to attack from Israel. Okay? So what Israel is very good at doing is creating false flag operations. False flag operations. And the idea is that, listen, what you want is the entire Middle east at war with each, with each other. So you create as much conflict as possible, right? So the idea is that the Iranians don't actually have to attack the gcc. Basically, she'll do it for them and, and blame it on the Iranians, okay? So this conflict will only get worse and worse because it benefits Israel to have as much conflict as possible in the Middle east, okay? And underpinning, um, in shore society is something called the Kabbalah. So this is something called the Tree of Life. And I'll explain more later on in the semester about what the Kabbalah is because it's very important. But there's certain things I'll point out about the Kabbalah. Okay? The first thing that I'll point out is that in the tradition of the Kabbalah, there's only two things that matter. There's the creator and there's the created. Okay? In other words, Israel does not care about the world. Israel only cares about its relationship with God. As long as Israel is favored by God, they're happy. Okay? That's the first thing I'll point out. Second thing I'll point out is that this Kabbalah, the tree of Life, is the basis for the entire universe, okay? This Kabbalah shows you where the universe came from and where it's going. And the main logic of the universe is the movement of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This is a fractal that underpins the tree of Life, which underpins entire universe. Okay? You can see how you have these fractals going on. Okay? Okay. So in other words, what. What the people who believe in Kabbalah believe is that there is an inedible process to the universe and you can't stop it. What you can do is you can accelerate the process. All right? So if the movement is thesis, antithesis, synthesis, one way to understand this is for us to be good, we must first be evil. Okay? Because what evil does is it annoys God and God punishes you. Then you seek forgiveness from God, and then God forgives you, and then you become better. But the thing that. The thing to remember is you must first commit sin in order to redeem yourself. And you can't stop this process. What you can do is you can accelerate this process. So this is very different from the Russian tradition. The Russian tradition believes in the concept of the catacomb, right? Which is to stop the Antichrist, which is like, let's stop people from behaving badly. Whereas the people in the Kabbalah believe, no, it's important to behave badly because that is a path to God. That's a path to wisdom, that's a path to enlightenment and redemption. Okay? It's something that we'll discuss more in the future. Okay? And this helps us explain why Israel is behaving the way it is behaving in the Middle East. First of all, what other people think of Israel doesn't matter. What matters is God, okay? What God thinks of Israel. Second thing is that it's important to do evil in order to ultimately redeem yourself from this evil. And the only force that can redeem you is God. Okay? So Israel is committing all this evil because then God will humble Israel by setting the world against it, and then the Israelis will beg for forgiveness, and that is what will cause a reunion between the Jewish people and God. Okay? And the third thing is in the system, goodness does not mean to avoid sin. It's not impossible. Goodness means to accelerate this natural process and into sin so that Israel can be redeemed at the end of days. Okay? Does that make sense? All right, so what I'm trying to explain here and what is very important is that each of these four different players, United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel, they have their own worldview, their own understanding, and that's what drives their actions, okay? And the other thing to remember is that what's really interesting between these four worldviews is that they're actually not in conflict with each other, okay? And these four worldviews, it's what's going to drive geopolitics for the next five to 10 years. And because they are galvanized into achieving their worldview, this forces the world to go along, even though the world may not want to go along. Okay? Does that make sense? All right, so what I will do next week is talk about the civil war going on in the world between artificial intelligence and finance, okay? And Trump is visiting China in about a week's time. So we'll also look at the relationship between the United States and China as well. Okay? Any questions? All right.