"This Is Strategic Paralysis" | Robert Pape on the Power Vacuum in the Persian Gulf

[00:00:00] Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the At the Waters Edge Podcast, where we look for insights beyond the headlines and take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 3rd of August, 2026. Let's get started. Now, Trump is saying that a deal with Iran is imminent, and Iran is saying it's not talking to the U.S. at all, though apparently both sides have stopped shooting at each other for the moment. Now, what does all this mean? Is escalation still likely? Are we actually on a path to peace? And what the hell are the oil markets going to do?

[00:00:27] Well, I have no idea, but you know who might have a thought on this? Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago, who is back with the next part of our ongoing series, The Escalation Trap. If you enjoy this content with the professor, please be sure to like, subscribe, and share an episode with a friend. With GATT, let's get to Robert Pape. Well, good morning and welcome back. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing terrific, Scott. It's great to talk to you. Pleasure as always. There are two exciting things that we're going to try for the first time today, only one of which I was aware of.

[00:00:56] One, I've got a few questions from the comments section and from some emails I'm going to ask you directly from the audience that's growing around this. That's terrific. I think that's a fantastic thing we should do that. Yes, I actually set up a separate Gmail account called askrobertpape at gmail.com that I put in the comments section on YouTube so folks can reach out. I really appreciate that, Scott. And if there's stuff we can't get to, please let me know. I mean, I need that help. I really appreciate that.

[00:01:24] And just as people may know, I see like 1% of the comments because you can't get up at 4.30 in the morning, get that piece out at three and a half hours and read all those comments. That's just not the way the world works. Happy to help out on that end here. We appreciate your time. And the other second exciting thing that I have to talk about, which I did not know until you signed on is I believe that is a new sports coat that you're wearing. It is. It is. Okay.

[00:01:54] It is triggered. So there you go. I do listen to some comments. I was thinking about like, my wife heard it too. And she agreed. So for Christmas, I was like, oh man, we can put together a collection. I can like mail them a gift card to men's warehouse. No, once, once I mentioned it to my wife, it was over. Good, good. Glad we could all be of some assistance in that regard. She could have escalated to her mother.

[00:02:24] That's escalation dominance. Yes. Mothers-in-law have escalation dominance. Now we're talking. Yeah. Oh my God. That's a whole nother, that's a whole, that's a different podcast. That's another escalation trap. Yeah. Yeah. I have to walk carefully because we moved back to upstate New York when I got out of the military to be closer to my wife's family. And now I get to see them every weekend during the summer, which is great. But it also means I have to be in my best behavior every weekend during the summer because I'm surrounded by in-laws. That's right. That's right.

[00:02:53] No, it's, it's, and it keeps you on the up and up. I definitely, it is. It's a, people wonder, how do you stay on the up and up? Well, visiting those in-laws. They do it. That'll do it. All right. Well, to the news of the day, we spoke on Thursday, so we don't have a full week update, but a couple of interesting things that popped up. So last week, I can actually miss this when it happened. Minnesota reported a series of cyber attacks on their water infrastructure. That's now expanded to Michigan. If I could interrupt you a little bit.

[00:03:23] If we could start a little bit with the cancellation of the attack, then we'll come to this piece. Of course. Because, so I haven't taught for the, for the air force for, for years. And that was during Bosnia when there was a lot, that was the, the, the, the issue at the time, the war at the time.

[00:03:46] I can well imagine there's just a tremendous amount of frustration and consternation by our, our, our troops. And I'm not sure I can lay it all together, but I do want to talk a little bit about what the issue of the taco, you can call it the cancellation. You use any of those buzzwords and I use them all. So that's absolutely fine. But I want to say a couple of things about this.

[00:04:10] So number one, what is the actual state of affairs about the talks that we know in the unclassified world? Now, obviously I don't have access to the classified, but that's going to be true for what a large fraction of our troops as well. Okay. So they're not going to be read into the SCI and even beyond that of what's going on here.

[00:04:35] So what we know is number one, there are what I would call low level communications that are happening. And it's with both sides with cutter as a go-between. It is not at all clear.

[00:04:57] This communication is anything more than simply passing the details of the, uh, currently drafted and ongoing draft of the Iran Omani arrangement for the fees for Hormuz.

[00:05:18] So for the last several, uh, maybe not quite two weeks, but for the last like week plus, uh, we know out in the open that, uh, Iran and Oman are doing some, uh, serious discussions back and forth. Uh, Arachi, that's the foreign minister. Iran's involved with what this arrangement should look like. Uh, it's not, uh, done yet as I understand, and you wouldn't expect it.

[00:05:44] I think they're shooting for somewhere around August 15th or 17th to get this clear. Cause that would be the end of the 60 days with the MOU signed of about August. I'm sorry, June 17th. So if you want to kind of track this on a schedule, I think this is what, um, uh, this is probably what is, uh, occurring with those talks between Iran and Oman.

[00:06:09] And it's because in the MOU article five, it says Iran promises not to charge fees for 60 days only that word only is there. So presumably day 61, these fees are going to start. Now this hasn't happened yet, but I think this is what you are seeing is Iran is sticking to the MOU article five and it's proceeding as article five says, uh, here. So that is what I think is happening.

[00:06:39] And Qatar is, I think just passing this back and forth. Number two, there is no evidence whatsoever of high level talks happening, uh, meaning with, uh, vice president Vance. He has taken the lead on these negotiations, uh, for the white house. There's no evidence whatsoever, uh, that he's in any sort of communications here or, um, uh, travels or, or scheduled travel or anything like that.

[00:07:05] That's probably why Iran is denying there's no quote negotiations happening. So I think that's probably what is meant by that. Uh, and there doesn't appear to be any, uh, the next tier down would be Whitcoff and Kushner. There doesn't appear to be anything there, there either. So now that is, again, there could be stuff that we don't know. That is absolutely a possibility, but I think that's important for our folks to get an actual independent assessment.

[00:07:33] Assessment of what we know in the open. Uh, the second point I want to make on this is that what you are really witnessing. In this oscillation with president Trump, and then this will segue Scott into the other things. What you're really witnessing in this oscillation by president Trump is strategic paralysis. This is the quintessential definition of strategic paralysis.

[00:08:01] So president Trump, um, uh, is, uh, confronting the fundamental problems that air power has not worked. Air power alone has not work. Air power plus the blockade has not worked. We can define what work means, but it almost doesn't matter as we just, yeah, we just go down all the goals. It just hasn't worked.

[00:08:25] Um, and then the, uh, the issue is, well, then does he allow, go back to what people say in negotiations, but what that really means is a, um, a surrender of historic proportions to Iran's goals. So Iran, as I've been explaining, keeps upping their goals, their goals. This is not, they are not searching for peace folks. This idea, they want peace. That's not it. They want power.

[00:08:53] Uh, and they are gaining power, uh, bit by bit. And as this paralysis occurs, that's not stopping Iran. Iran's not paralyzed. They're, they're gaining more power, uh, maybe not on a daily basis, but on a weekly basis. And they're extending their control.

[00:09:10] They're initiating, uh, with themselves, with their own forces, the IRGC with, uh, their proxies, Houthis, uh, Hezbollah so far have been, um, uh, quiet here, uh, but also the, uh, proxies in Iraq. So you are seeing here that, uh, this paralysis, this period of paralysis is really affecting the White House.

[00:09:32] Um, and the paralysis is that, uh, the air power option is, um, uh, it's, it's not just that it's unlikely to work. It has all these downsides that we're about to talk about. Um, and then the, uh, the alternative of, well, just give Iran what it wants. Well, now Iran wants more and more and more.

[00:09:53] And fundamentally, um, uh, as I've been saying since the June 15th paper on Iran period of maximum leverage, what they want is all U S forces out of the region, uh, by the midterms, by the end of the year. I mean, everybody, uh, here. And, and so this is, this is likely what they are shooting for now. They may not get it, of course. Uh, but that doesn't mean this isn't a, uh, kind of a, a clear eyed view of what their actual demands.

[00:10:23] That would make sense, uh, truly, truly are. So that's got, I just want to pause there for a moment to give folks in the region, uh, a sense of, uh, a little bit of fog lifting from this clarity. Cause I can just imagine, I mean, it's, it's gotta be, uh, you know, it's harder for us here in States. You know, I just can't even imagine what it's like being there, getting orders to do this and that and pulling back and doing that.

[00:10:50] And, and, uh, and I don't even know if our B one, if our B ones were in the air and had to return around. I mean, this is the stuff we don't, how far did this go before he pulled back? I don't know. Yeah. At the water's edge is supported by gray zone advisory. Quick note for the small business owners out there. Tariffs trade policy shifts and overseas supplier that suddenly can't ship and goes dark on you. That's not background noise anymore. It's the top threat business owners have identified nationally in 2026.

[00:11:20] Gray zone advisory was founded to help small and medium sized businesses. See that risk before it hits the bottom line. Head to gray zone advisory.com to grab your free geopolitical risk checklist. Five questions to know your exposure. That's gray zone advisory.com. Well, this actually gets to a bunch of different questions that came in, um, talking about, you know, the agency of regional actors in the area. Yeah.

[00:11:43] Um, and I'm wondering if Washington has strategic paralysis and Iran's power is increasing week by week, and they're already discussing how the straits can be managed with Oman after this period of 60 days is over. I mean, what point does the United States actually stop being one of the primary two actors in this conflict? Because it seems like Iran's going to. Yeah, it's already happening.

[00:12:05] So, um, I just gave a big talk on the professor Pape substack, uh, yesterday on this, and I had to repeat these two talks because of the power outages. But, but it's very important to, um, to, to understand that when, uh, we say that the United States has suffered a strategic defeat, what's happening to American power is bigger than that. Now the strategic defeat is already pretty big. Okay.

[00:12:33] But let's just kind of broaden this out just a little bit. And then I, I think the, this will become clearer to the folks, which is American dominance. Dominance in, uh, the Persian Gulf is, is declining. And that dominance has been there at least against other States for over 30 years since the 91 Gulf war.

[00:12:58] So that, that war, the 1991 Gulf war was the moment that you had not just the end of the cold war and not just a victory by the United States, but the unipolar moment established, which was, that was the undisputed. That was the war kicked Saddam Hussein, the fourth largest army in the world out of Kuwait in a 39 day air war for a day ground war.

[00:13:27] Uh, we thought it was going to be 10,000. We brought 10,000 body bags with us and, uh, we lost, and we of course don't want to lose anybody, but we lost 147. That was unbelievable power. It was the shock and awe, the stealth fighters on display, everything. This was escalation dominance undisputed by anybody. China revamped their entire military.

[00:13:53] They had 3.5, uh, troops in the PLA before that war. They cut them down to 2 million just shortly after that war because they got rid of, cause they're just nothing but targets for us. So they, uh, people really took that war seriously. You see what I mean? And basically it also meant there was no costs on Americans here at home was no cost. So it was amazing, splendid victory. No costs. That's dominance, preeminence. You see what I mean?

[00:14:22] That is what has been lost. Uh, now we're talking to folks in CENTCOM. So we'll focus just in the Persian Gulf here, but it has effects around the world as well. Um, but in the Persian Gulf, what that means is that, that dominance now, which you could say was kind of partly going down, but now it's obvious to everybody. What you're getting is a power vacuum, Scott. It's a power vacuum. And guess what?

[00:14:52] Power vacuums don't like to stay stable. Other actors creep in to take pieces of what was the power vacuum. And it's not just one actor. You say it's multiple actors and they're doing it essentially with power rivalries, even among the allies themselves.

[00:15:14] Uh, so you end up when you have power vacuums, you end up with these, this thing I've been calling the spiral phase of the escalation trap, multiple different actors getting involved. You have a horizontal escalation with new actors involved. They vertically escalate on their own schedules. It becomes more and more seemingly chaotic. Well, what is the framework to understand this?

[00:15:43] America has lost that preeminent power. And as that has declined and it may further decline, but as it declines, what you're getting is a power vacuum. And that's what all those actors are coming in. You see, and that's, what's catching everybody. Why they feel like they're losing control. It's because they are, uh, you have now, uh, the United States.

[00:16:10] I'm saying they're paralyzed, of course, but you have the United States as an actor that can initiate, uh, uh, action. You have Iran. You have Israel. You have Hezbollah. And those two have been quiet lately. Then you have the Houthis. Then you have the Saudis. You have the, uh, Iran proxies in, um, uh, in, in, in, in Iraq.

[00:16:30] And by the way, there's a lot of subactors here that the folks in CENTCOM who have been there for a while will know, say in Syria. I mean, so we, we could keep going down the granularity here of the problem of the power vacuums. And this is going to be the gigantic mess you see. And, and this is, uh, now on top of that, you have president, uh, the White House in strategic paralysis.

[00:16:58] So that, that I hope gives the framework, Scott, that your folks can then work with and kind of put in a lot of the details because that is really what's missing. What's missing is not Intel, not data. What's missing is the framework to understand what's happening. That might, you know, hopefully I can be helpful on that score. Yeah, of course. And, and so we actually have a framework question. Maybe we can pivot to that now if that's all right.

[00:17:27] Well, it's, then we're going to get to the Minnesota and so forth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it actually starts with Minnesota because something we've talked about before is, you know, one of the triggers for domestic terrorist attacks here at the U.S. would be seizing land in Iran and that would 20X the odds of suicide terrorism here at home. That's right. We're, we're seeing, and the strategic paralysis is an interesting corollary.

[00:17:51] I want to just say, Scott, we're, we're, that's not the, uh, remember, I, I, um, I believe I've discussed with you. I was really quite concerned. I've started talking about Iranian inspired mass casualty attacks around the time of the Supreme leader's funeral. So up until that point on all my, uh, discussions here with you, everybody else on the sub stacks, um, I haven't really talked a lot about that.

[00:18:17] Uh, now I played the, the groundwork for that, talking about the rise of nationalism, revenge, and so forth. So it's not that I ignored it altogether, but I didn't think it had really ripened to the point because I'm already scaring people enough. Okay. So, so to scare them, you know, keep how far, how far do you want to keep pushing this? So I'm trying to, to push it when it becomes operative. And so that's when I felt it was really important, even though nothing had happened. Okay. Uh, to bring that up.

[00:18:46] Um, and some people, I was on Piers Morgan a few weeks ago and he said, Oh, you said something was going to happen and it didn't happen yet. Well, Minnesota. Okay. So, well, I mean, this is the thing you, you, you say something and then they, ah, man, it's been 20, been almost 24 hours here. You say as if somehow you, you're, you've got a seance or is Chris that kind of a, anyway.

[00:19:10] So, and I'm, um, but bottom line is that what, what you're seeing here, and this could be worse with the ground operations is you're already seeing, um, with the rhetoric of the, uh, the new Supreme leader, uh, it looks a lot like Baghdadi's rhetoric for inspired attacks. You're already seeing with the promises by the IRGC that there's going to be things that haven't happened yet. Okay. Kind of fill in.

[00:19:38] There's no, uh, detail there, uh, but you're starting to see they're laying the groundwork for things that could be bigger. And what I mean are mass casualty attacks. So that is the issue. Now I think, uh, from just, uh, what we know and we don't know, uh, much, but the New York times story on this, which has not been taken back. I think it's the July 29th story. People should go and read it.

[00:20:03] Um, uh, says that our Intel, um, this isn't somebody else's Intel, uh, thanks that, um, the culprit for the, uh, water, uh, the attacks on drinking water in Minnesota and other, uh, other. Other areas, uh, has, uh, is, uh, likely, uh, Iran because of the fingerprints, uh, or the called trade craft of the way the attacks occurred.

[00:20:32] Now that's not something that the trade craft, the fact, the word trade craft is in there is important because it signals as, as you would expect that we have been, uh, monitoring the cyber capabilities of, uh, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, maybe others. Uh, those are the big four that have been publicly discussed for over a decade now.

[00:20:57] Um, and it wouldn't be at all surprised that we have some idea of the fingerprints of their types of attacks that they would, uh, most likely use. Now, there's no way to verify that more. So I, I, I say these are, this is not confirmed. Uh, but nonetheless, I think that we have to see this, uh, uh, at least until proven otherwise as essentially a brushback pitch in baseball.

[00:21:26] Uh, they're throwing at our head. They expect us to duck. Um, and it's because they're trying to move us back from the plate. Uh, and, um, this is, uh, uh, meant, uh, I think deliberately, I don't think this would be happening, um, uh, in, in, in an uncoordinated way. It's more, if it is happening, it's probably coordinated.

[00:21:46] Uh, and I think it is, uh, sending the message here that, uh, they're going to get rough here with Americans, uh, not just get rough with, uh, uh, people in the region and our troops in the region. Well, it seems like that would have worked since yesterday. Trump comes out and says we're in negotiations. We're halting military operations. Iran seems to have successfully brushed off America. That's right. And now this gets then to the, for the time being.

[00:22:13] And so this could explain some of the strategic paralysis that we, uh, that we are witnessing here. Um, so, but I think that it's important. So another thing I've done over the last week is I've laid out my nightmare scenario. I call it, uh, for escalation, uh, over the next month or two, uh, to try to really, uh, now I can't, I'm not telling you this is, uh, the, uh, you know, a hundred percent sequence.

[00:22:40] It is an inevitable sequence, but I think it's really important for people to, um, uh, to see if you, if you went to the, the thing that maybe a lot of your listeners will now have seen my up down upside down pyramid of the escalation trap. They'll notice there are multiple levels there and right around the place where it starts to get real red is the word economic crisis. Well, let me talk about that.

[00:23:07] Cause, cause this is really the push factor right now. It's not Trump's, uh, you know, personality. It's, uh, not what, uh, is happening in the negotiations. Um, so my real, uh, concern here is that as, uh, the weeks go forward, we may or may not have more tit for tat strikes.

[00:23:35] So I'm not saying there will be no escalation between now, but as the weeks go forward, we're going to have a more severe economic crisis. That's going to grip and I, and it will grip the world, but it's going to grip Americans. Uh, I don't know if we'll see $6 gas in Chicago by labor day. I don't know what the number is. So this isn't a poly market thing. I'm not betting on this on a number, but we know the direction of where this is heading.

[00:24:05] Now, as those costs go up, I think this is going to put pressure on Trump, not just to, uh, bluff, uh, but to actually pull the trigger on punishing Iran. So this is where, what the sequence I'm concerned about is as their actual pain occurring in the United States. Trump is now under pressure. What are you going to do about it?

[00:24:34] And he can't say that's somebody else's problem. He can't say I'm, I'm negotiating about, you see, he could say it, but they're going to not. Yeah, it's not, it's going to, it's, it's already a, it becoming an issue, but it'll become more of an issue when it won't be about, oh, we talk before he talk to this. No, it's the price of gas is actually moving up.

[00:24:56] Uh, and I just, before I got on, I was listening to some commentator talk about Germany and in Germany, the heating oil season starts in mid October. So we're, we're heading into some, this next turn of the screws, so to speak on the, uh, economic issue where costs are going to start to come in. Another way to put it is we're on the Titanic. It's not just, we see an iceberg out there. We're starting to hit the beginning pieces of the iceberg.

[00:25:24] Still, still afloat. We haven't sunk, but we're, we're, we're actually starting to touch things. Now, how far it goes at exact pace. I don't think anybody knows. I'm spending a lot of time with economists here. Uh, some of the world's best on these issues. They have some ideas of this, but nobody can, can really tell you the exact date of what would be Labor Day. What'd be the week before the week after, but they, they see it coming.

[00:25:50] Now, then if we, if you follow this, so step one is the economic crisis continues. Step and actually hits, uh, where you have serious costs here on Americans. Then step two is that, uh, Trump pulls a trigger because now he's got to respond and he's had this arrow in his quiver of punishment. And then, uh, step and that's infrastructure attacks. And then step three is that's when Iran responds.

[00:26:19] And what I'm worried about in step three is they don't just respond with attacks against infrastructure in the region. It's, uh, Minnesota too. It's a bigger version of that. You see, because after all, if we're going to punish Iran, that means we're killing Iranians. So this is not just, uh, you know, the video game version of this. So when you, you know, we've already killed something like 4,000 Iranians.

[00:26:48] Uh, we've killed a big hunk of their leaders. They're already angry. So Iran is going to be under pressure to do something. And it's not just symbolic something. It's going to be to hurt back. Uh, payback is I think, uh, the way this will go. And that's been true in history. So, and then this is what then is step four, Scott, which actually is the trigger for the ground operations to begin. So now this sequence may not happen exactly that way.

[00:27:17] I call it my nightmare scenario, but notice that isn't just, here's a bunch of options. Uh, Trump's throwing mud at the wall. I'm trying to, to explain as best I can. What is likely the interaction of the military action and politics. And a lot of times what gets left out of these discussions is how pain on the society encourages more escalation.

[00:27:44] So that issue people think, oh no, we get, we, we, we, we get hurt. We run away. Well, eventually you might run away. Um, but not at first there's a fight or flight and often fight comes before flight. And so it's not that you never run away with pain. That's not quite right.

[00:28:03] Uh, what it is though, is there's a, there's a lot of, um, uh, initial energy, the mechanism of that pain leading to more fights. And that's part of the spiral. So this is what I think, um, is, is, is the most likely scenario, but I can't give you the probabilities because everybody is keeps pinning me down. I'm not a 70 or 80% and all this. And I do, you know, you push me hard enough.

[00:28:32] I'll try to give you a number. Um, but it's a little bit like when I used to push, I used to push on our submariners. Uh, uh, how many, uh, torpedoes would you in a U S attack sub have to, uh, hit a U S carrier to sink? And they hated that question. Oh my God. They hated that question because they don't want to answer that question. That's not the question. Uh, you know, cause I've really pushed them hard. And so you push them hard and you do it at MIT and you do it.

[00:29:02] They eventually will give you an answer, but that's, what's happening now to me. Well, we'll try to avoid too much of that, but I know we're at time, but, um, two quick questions for you from the audience. Since we're already talking about a couple more minutes, I want to get some of these questions. Yeah. So you just talked about it a bit with the motivation of paying on societies, but multiple people asked, you know, if the U S does infrastructure attacks, is there anything that would prevent Iran from going after water desalination for 66 million odd people?

[00:29:31] Whether it's, you know, a military response that could prevent them from conducting an attack on desalination plants or just internal dynamics politically in Iran that would prevent them from going all the way. No, there's no block. There's no guardrail.

[00:29:44] What I have observed is a highly calibrated form of coercion coming from Iran, where I would expect they would tailor their retaliation in order to move the most Gulf states to their orbit. So I don't think, uh, now it's of course possible. They would just be spasmodic about it, but they haven't been so far.

[00:30:10] Uh, and if you notice the UAE, they've moved to the UAE quite far from where the UAE was back in March to where they are today. Uh, and UAE is not getting pounded the way it was. Um, so, uh, I think that what you are likely to see is a calibration here. So Kuwait is probably very close to the top of the list. Uh, they've already signaled that.

[00:30:34] And, um, uh, and then, um, Saudi, uh, Saudi Arabia though, I'm expecting to be the most interesting case and choice for them. Uh, because, uh, first of all, Saudi Arabia has a number of desalinization plants. So you can start small and walk your way through the target set. Um, and number two, if you could knock out Saudi from the coalition, which you're already seeing, Saudi is kind of up two minds here.

[00:31:02] Right. So, um, if you could knock out Saudi from the U S orbit in a more firm way, uh, any way that's done, by the way, whether it means you, you, you topple the government or the government concedes, it doesn't, that part doesn't matter. But if you can do that, then that's the biggest domino. Other dominoes will likely fall or fall more quickly if Saudi Arabia goes away. So Saudi Arabia has always been the leader of the GCC.

[00:31:29] There's always been a tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on this. Um, but, uh, so I'm expecting that it would be calibrated, Scott. And I think that's how our, our folks should be planning, not spasmodically, but that they would be calibrated. And then what you would do is you would go to the classified intelligence on exactly rating who's moved the most of the GCC countries. And you can expect that's exactly what Iran is doing. Okay.

[00:31:57] And they're just going to calibrate to figure out who you could nudge over the most and how you would nudge them. Um, is it's always the threat of what you would do next. It's not exactly the current pain you see. So this is called a Schelling strategy. I teach a lot about this. It comes from arms and influence. Thomas Schelling, very famous professor at Harvard who, who, uh, laid out these, uh, escalate, these incremental escalation tactics, uh, here.

[00:32:26] And so, um, this is what I think Iran, um, would do. So, but let's try to get another question. Yeah. Yeah. So the other, uh, one that popped up a lot was, uh, different news outlets last week. We're talking about the U S, um, thinking about implementing a quote unquote land blockade where they would get every nation around Iran with a common physical border to stop importing goods or training. Um, do you think that that's a feasible option at all?

[00:32:53] Not without going to war against Pakistan who has nuclear weapons. Um, and, uh, the, uh, and that, and it just gets worse from there. So, so the, the, if you just look at the countries around, and so I just mentioned Pakistan, but Afghanistan, uh, there's not exactly a lot of love between, uh, the Afghan government Taliban. Remember that little forever. Oh, those guys. Oh, they're still around. Forgot about that.

[00:33:19] Um, and, um, so I think that if you just look at what you are, uh, what you're describing, uh, here, um, now, how would you actually enforce a land blockade? You would need, uh, some version of an overflight system, cap, uh, combat air patrol.

[00:33:41] Uh, and you could try to have a mix of, of manned and unmanned, uh, vehicles definitely understand, uh, here, but you would, you wouldn't have to have, uh, a fairly, uh, broad no fly zones over all of those border areas. And you would basically be doing, um, uh, attacks on, uh, different, uh, lorries and different ship.

[00:34:06] Um, it could be ships in Caspian, of course, but you would, you need a blanketed, um, uh, control of that airspace. And I don't think that we really, uh, I, this is where I would really, when I taught at SAS, I can lay out the concept, but I would really rely on the pilots to map out exactly, exactly how far we could do this stuff.

[00:34:31] And I don't think it's at all in the realm of possibility without, um, us already controlling the heartland of, of, of, of Iran. Now, maybe some pieces of it are a little bit better, easier than I recognize, but I suspect if you turn, uh, CENCOM planners loose on this, uh, here, this is exactly the way they're going to approach it, which is, okay, I've got to get my combat air patrols over this. And I've got my helicopters. I've got my drones. I got my F-15s.

[00:35:00] I got my F-16s and I've got some satellites that are going to help. And now I got it, but this is the area. These are the arteries. I've really got to shut down. And, um, how am I actually going to do that? Maybe not 24-7, but 12-24, half of the day, uh, here. And what's that really going to look like? Uh, and I'm expecting that, um, we have like maybe, um, a 20th of the combat power we would need to be able to do that.

[00:35:28] Now, maybe it's better than that. Uh, in which case somebody can give me some heads up on that. Uh, but notice we don't have all the land bases that we would want to use for that. We'd, we'd want to have an enormous amount of land base, uh, uh, power projection to be able to do that. That's what we did with Saddam Hussein. So we didn't, we, we didn't just run this just with carriers. We had land bases.

[00:35:52] We were able to run the no-fly zones, but this is now even a, a bigger problem because Iraq is, is something like four times the size. I'm sorry, uh, uh, Iran is four times the size of Iraq if I'm, uh, I'm pretty sure. So it's a massive problem to do those no-fly zones over those border areas. Yeah. And some of the intel folks who have pointed out that Iran has been studying the way that we've conducted every phase of the air operation so far.

[00:36:21] And so the actual amount of flight routes that we have in and out of Iran for targeting have, have shrunk as their own TTPs for targeting or aircraft have improved. Not at all. Not at all surprised. I mean, the, uh, the thing, another thing I'm really concerned about is, uh, these man portable air defense systems, um, if they come through, uh, number one, it's a clear sign that China, um, is, is, is not, uh, at all trying to help bail us out.

[00:36:47] Uh, number, number two, those, those man pads don't have to, they may end up in Iran, but they don't have to stay in Iran. Uh, they can get, and they're really perfect for, uh, shooting down any, uh, large transport military or commercial airliner from takeoff and landing. That's what they're basically made for. Yep. Add in helicopters. Yeah. Yeah. That was part of a war game once. And we got to play the bad guys in the war game.

[00:37:16] And that was actually the approach that we chose. Like we can't shoot down F-35, slow this Russian hardware. Well, we don't have to, where are they based out of? Park outside the air part outside the main airport of the country hosting the F-35 base. And every time there's an F-35 sortie, shoot down a commercial airliner. That or, or, or the tankers. Anything big at that lumbers is because these, that's what, that's what they're optimized for. That that's just what they are. They're like bazookas and they go about 4,000 feet and they're just perfect. That's what they do.

[00:37:46] And for folks listening, professional militaries actually do run these war games and simulate this stuff. So planning shouldn't be done in the blind, but. Well, well, I don't think that this is, I think, again, this is the, the military is doing a fantastic job here. I, I, I am nothing but impress. I'm impressed with their, their willingness to put their lives on the line for the country. And I'm, it's just, it's, and, and that's one of the big reasons I'm really motivated here to try to give the best advice possible here.

[00:38:16] And that's why we're on every week. And, and do you want to ask one more question and then we'll go and then we can try to do. Cause I think that the, the Q and a is a very, very, uh, a great opportunity here. And I really appreciate it's an honor to be asked those questions. Just so you know. Awesome. Well, folks keep sending them in email address, uh, ask professor pape at gmail.com. It will be in the first comment on YouTube pinned and in the show notes. If you're looking for it, uh, the final question actually has to do with Russia and the Caspian Sea.

[00:38:44] Uh, we've seen Ukraine target Iranian ships trying to supply the Russian military. Do you think that the U S could lean on Ukraine to target, uh, ships going the other way to Iran and that these two separate conflicts actually become linked together in a new world war? It's a real possibility. I might do a post on, on this about these two. And that's exactly the, the, the right mechanism that, that could occur.

[00:39:10] Um, I think that what you are, what you are seeing is that, uh, I don't think that they would occur in a sense that, uh, that is, um, uh, become linked in the sense that you would get actual meaningful large numbers of Ukrainian combat forces to be our ground army, for example. So that's one possible thing you could imagine with, uh, Zelensky give us 10,000 troops.

[00:39:37] You know, the way that, uh, Russia got 10,000 North Korean troops for the Kursk issue. So I don't think it'll go that far, but I do think that Zelensky is desperate to make himself and Ukraine relevant to the white house. And I think that Ukraine and NATO, even at Turkey in the Turkey summit, if I was just, just this one line really caught me, which is, and I bet Zelensky was terrified by this because

[00:40:07] Trump said that, um, if it wasn't that the NATO summit was being held in Turkey, he wouldn't have come. And then he started to talk about the F 35 deal for Turkey, which I equated to getting Turkey to help, uh, uh, the white house with Iran, not with, uh, it's something else.

[00:40:26] And so if I'm watching that and if I'm, uh, if I may even half right, Zelensky is, is panicking watching those words, because that means he talk all you want about giving him Patriots and whatever to bill. But this just so far down on the, on the list, he'll never get up to priority in the white house.

[00:40:47] So I think that it's not a surprise to me that after the NATO summit, Zelensky, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did it on his own dime, uh, here, um, or, or worked with the bureaucracies, uh, the Intel bureaucracy without the white house approving, uh, to, um, get himself, uh, in that, um, Caspian sea situation. So that he can just try to show Trump, Hey, it's, it's like, uh, Hey, it's like what you see at the cabinet meetings.

[00:41:14] All the cabinet folks are desperate to get on Trump's radar because he's everything's going through that brain. And I don't care how smart he is. He's only got so much bandwidth in that brain, but everything's going through there. And so they're all fighting for that little bit of extra time. And I think Zelensky is right. Like those cabinet officials. And I think that's what he's doing. And I didn't see anything really.

[00:41:41] I mean, maybe there was a way that Trump kind of, um, beat him back a little bit. Um, but he would have to push back really hard to convince Zelensky not to do it again, just like his cabinet people, uh, here that they're trying, they're vying for that attention. And it's because, um, everything is he's Trump is his own national security advisor, his own negotiator, his own Intel.

[00:42:07] He briefs himself, you know, then the Intel briefs got to catch up with what he thinks he's already now. Now he's telling Gene. What a talented guy. I mean, I'm just explaining every little thing is going through that brain. And so that means, uh, and Zelensky, I think sees that. And that is part of what is occurring, but that connection. You are quite right, uh, here that could end up, um, being a connection.

[00:42:32] I think that where it would become really, uh, a very different kind of, of connection. Uh, and that's why I'm pointing out this threshold. Uh, and again, I might do a post on this, but the threshold is would, would, would Ukraine actually give ground units to, uh, CENTCOM or to be used in this war? Here that now we're, now we're in a very different world.

[00:43:02] Uh, and there's not going to be, uh, you know, just at the foreign minister level of Iran. Now we're taught, now we're have a very different, uh, a different world. And it's going to mean different things, of course, for Russia as well. And for China. Uh, so we are, we are, uh, uh, I hope I've already, I've only laid out five stages of the escalation trap, Scott, and we're not at stage five yet. I hope I don't have to invent stage six. Aren't we still in three? I thought.

[00:43:31] No, no, we, no, we're, we're, we are. So if you, we'll call up the, um, the triangle, uh, here, but, but, uh, stage, um, uh, stage, uh, stage three. Yes, but then we get into this, uh, deeper problem of, of, uh, stage three, where you end up getting the homeland attacks here. That's the economic crisis. Okay. And then you get to the true forever war, which is the real stage five, uh, here.

[00:44:00] So anyway, those are the part that in fact, even giving them numbers at a certain point, once you're beyond, that's why I only use these one, two, and three stages for six months. Because I'm not trying to, it's, it's, I teach, I understand if I give my class and I tell them it's seven stage, no, it's way too complicated for, you know, just, just because they got 130, 140 IQ. No, they can't handle that. No, we got to keep it simple, stupid. Just principle.

[00:44:31] All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time this morning. Really appreciate it. We'll, we'll keep the question things going. Folks look for the email and the show notes, uh, if you're interested and a professor. We'll talk again next week. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Good, good talk.