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Iran has control of and does not appear to be giving up, control of the straight of Hormuz. Basically then entire global economy hinges on this one geographically and physically limiting body of water. Any even elementary student of strategy knows this, has known this, and anyone advising world powers would be well aware of the implications of attacking Iran as the Americans and Israelis have done. As far as impacts you will likely feel, in the nearest time frame, this is the most relevant. 20% of global trade goes though this passage. The majority of oil going to south east Asia, China, Japan, Australia passes through this straight.
Like, I don't really think its valuable to conjecture whats going on behind the eyelids of the administration, but they clearly misunderstood how vulnerable they were in this regard. The US dollar is suspending through enforcement of the petro-dollar: That the GCC nations are captured in the sense that they must trade oil in dollars. The value of the USD as form of fiat is elevated because of this. The GCC nations are all entirely dependent on the straight of Hormuz for effectively all calories going to those countries. These nations simply do not exist without access to the straight. They are also coupled with the fact that for all practical purposes, all of their water is from desalination plants; plants much more easily targeted as Iran has been both a) targeting radar and detection instillation throughout the region, and b) wearing down interceptor stocks.
While Israel basically tricked America into starting this war, its truly been one of their regional goals for decades. However, both Israel and the US suffer from extreme hubris in relationship to their capabilities, its clear both parties have misunderstood the mindset of the Islamic Republic. Both parties (Israel and the US) are used to negotiating with parties that will do practically anything to deescalate the situation. Iran is not like this. As a point of analysis, Iran (I think rightfully) considers what Israel and the US are doing as a war of extermination, and they've seen from other regional examples (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon) what works and what doesn't work with regards to resisting US/ Israeli hegemony. And we see them doing seems to be very informed by this. In-spite of the power imbalance, Iran has a clear path to victory here and the US has basically none. So long as Iran can keep the straight closed and keep GCC nations shook, the US has no path to victory through air control alone.
What will happen next is:
Even if the straight were to open tomorrow, we're looking at 3 months + of global disruption and we have recent historic precedent for this. See the Evergreen and the Suez canal. And that was with all parties cooperating to re-open the canal as soon as possible.
Prices are going to skyrocket and inflation is going to go back to being at risk of spiraling out of control. This is going to be like covid, but also not like covid, in that we don't have the buffer in interest rates we did had built in the pre-covid times. The US can not both lower rates and prevent inflation. Its not clear there is any path the US can take financially.
Before the cold war, full blown wars would often last decades. The period of the cold-war and post-coldwar era are not reflective of how wars are fought historically. Modern war is focused on the doctrine of shock and awe: Dominate the air, use extremely impressive high tech weaponry, and forms of "omnipotent" systems (Wheres Daddy?, Satellite imagery, RF signature analysis ect). The shock-and-awe doctrine is to orchestrate the appearance of such dominance, the other party loses the narrative. However, with a few notable exceptions, this doctrine does not work against an opponent who is determined to resist (See Vietnam, Iraq one, Iraq two, Afghanistan, Hezbollah, etc..). The approach that the US and Israel are dependent upon has been repeatedly demonstrated to fail against a determined opponent. The US will lose this war.
Oh fuck of course. It's not just about oil reserves it's about transportation of it. Thanks
This is probably the best comment here so far. To emphasize the interceptor missile point, the US yesterday pulled interceptor systems from South Korea. You know, the place next to the nuclear-armed country that likes to lob missiles into the ocean just to show off. It should go without saying how dire the situation is if the US is redeploying interceptors from South Korea. Once interceptor stocks are depleted, Iran will be able to consistently, successfully strike targets inside US allied territory. There are some rumblings that Iran's success rate is already increasing. Once this happens, Iran has the US & Israel backed into a corner even more than they already do.
I'm happy with most of your analysis, but this bit bugs me. It seems like a lot of people are eager to avoid American agency when it comes to Trump and his actions - he's dismissed as a literal agent of Putin, the Russians are blamed for having manipulated the electorate, Musk interfered with the election count directly, it's all the billionaries' fault. And now America was apparently "tricked" into killing the leaders of a government by that very government.
No, America owns this.
I'm not offering speculative analysis with this point. The administration made this point:
Rubio contradicting themselves on this point one day after making it
Sure, in an existential sense I agree, but what then? Like what do I do with that conclusion that furthers my understanding? as in if I were to take this form of reductive analysis to geopolitics, how does that impact my ability to predict future states of the world? I take something like this sentiment and I ask "does this sentiment add to my models capacity to predict or does it detract?"
I would say this form of reductionism drops my predictive capacity to practically nothing. I can't make predictions of future states or back test previous states of the world effectively in that framework. Its a form of cliche or jingoism, which while emotionally satisfying, effectively halts critical thinking. Like it might be a more conscilient or parsimonious explanation, but parsimony and consilience are irrelevant if the models they are a being used to value aren't predictive. What matters first in a model is predictive capacity. After that you can update other values. But if the first thing you value in a model isn't predicative capacity in some manner, you aren't operating in the real world, by definition. You're valuing something other than a models ability to predict reality (simplicity of the model, or ones ability to understand the model, or how well the model rhymes with other things you think you know).
You miss my point. I'm not suggesting something to be done, that's out of scope of my objection. I'm saying what you should stop doing. Stop portraying America as the poor innocent victim of those duplicitous Israelis. America should know better.
the point isn't to "win." the point is to be at war
Great write up!