Why Military Superiority is a Trap – Prof. Jiang Xueqin

Okay. So, um, as you know from your

research, on April 1st, the Israelis

struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus,

Syria, killing seven people, including

two commanders. This is an act of war

because the embassy is considered

Iranian territory. And never before has

this been done intentionally. And this

follows the killing, the assassination

of their general Kasam Salman in 2020.

Right? This is when the Americans

launched a drone strike against him in

Baghdad and he was really the top one of

the top Iranian general. And what both

of these incidents show us is that the

Americans and the Israelis have

dominance over Iran. So military

dominance. So the first thing is they

have technology, right? So

technologically America and Israel are

so much superior to Iran. So that there

was a jet that went from Israel and went

to Damascus to carry out the strike. Now

if you did the research, you would know

that the Canadian embassy is right next

to the Iranian embassy. And the strike

was so precise that it only hit the

Iranian embassy and didn't touch

anything else. That's a precision

strike. That's how powerful the

technology that the Americans and the

Israelis have. But the other thing

that's important is the idea of

intelligence. So, how do the Israelis

know that these commanders would be

there at that time, right? That's

intelligence. And intelligence comes in

two forms, right? There's the idea of

human and then signals. Signals is

basically I can listen in on your cell

phone. I can track where you go. I know

where your car is, right? That's

signals, electronic intelligence. The

other is human. So, there are spies in

the embassy who tell the Israelis that

this meeting will happen. So this is

clearly military dominance that Israel

and the Americans possess over Iran. And

when this strike happened, as you know,

the Iranians had to respond. And this

was called Operation True Promise. And

the idea of True Promise was that there

there's a strike package consisting of

300

drones and missiles that hit Israel.

Now, what the Israelis say is that 99%

of these drones and missiles were

intercepted. They caused no damage. And

the Israelis says, "This shows that our

Iron Dome system is amazing. We're

amazing. Iran cannot touch us." What the

Iranians said is that no, we designed

the attack to be harmless. We wanted we

intentionally designed the attack so

that it would not cause that much

damage. So, who's right? The the

Israelis or the Iranians? I want to make

an argument to you today that the

Iranians are more believable, more

credible. And the reason why is that the

Iranians have to be very strategic in

their response to the Americans in and

the Israelis. And the reason why is the

Americans and the Israelis have military

dominance over Iran. But just because

you have military dominance does not

mean you'll win the war. So what I

believe is that Iran and Israel are

committed to a war and it's possible

that in two years time there will be a

ground invasion of Iran, but it's going

to take time to build up to the ground

invasion. And but just because the

Americans and the Israelis attack Iran

does not mean they will win. And the

reason why is that as you know from your

research in 2002 the Americans actually

tried to invade Iran. Okay? They had

they run a simulation called the 2002

millennium challenge and the idea is

let's pretend that we will invade Iran

and let's see what happens. So they

divide the military into two teams right

team USA and team Iran. Now if you know

anything about the American military you

will know that it is the most dominant

powerful military ever to exist in human

history. Okay? It is crazy powerful. If

the entire world were were to get

together and said, "Let's go fight the

United States," the world would lose.

The United States has the most powerful

military in the entire world. And Iran,

it's a it's a very poor country. So, the

United States invaded Iran and they

wanted to see what would happen. And it

turned out that who won? Iran won. Okay?

And the reason why Iran won is the idea

of asymmetrical warfare. And this is a

very important idea that you must know

if you are to understand this conflict.

So, what is asymmetrical warfare? All

right, let's pretend that Jack and I are

enemies. We hate each other and we want

to kill each other. Okay, Jack has armor

and he has a machine gun. I have

nothing. So, in most battles, Jack's

going to kill me, right? But let's

pretend that I live in a dark forest and

it's really hard to see in this dark

forest, but I've been living there for

decades. Okay? So, I know this dark

forest very, very well. So if Jack

attacks me in this dark force, then it's

possible for me to win because I can set

traps, right? I can play tricks on Jack.

And that's the idea of asymmetrical

warfare. Even though Jack is superior,

because I'm inferior, I'm forced to be

much more strategic in how I fight

against Jack. Okay? And so asymmetrical

warfare means that as long as you can

define the terms of engagement, as long

as you can control how the war is

fought, you will win. Let's look at what

this means for Iran and the United

States. The United States has these

aircraft carriers and they cost like a

billion dollars. Okay? They're very

expensive, but they're very powerful.

Now in a se symmetrical warfare what

would happen is Iran sends its entire

navy against this one aircraft carrier

of the United States and then what

happens the United States blows up the

entire Iranian navy. Okay, that's what

would happen. So you don't do that,

okay? You do not send your navy against

an American aircraft carrier. What you

do instead is you send drones, okay? Or

drone swarms. So what they did in the

Millennium Challenge was they had these

suicide boats, right? charging these

aircraft carriers. And guess what guys?

If there's a lot of them, like a

thousand of them, you can't stop all of

them. And if one hits, then your boat

sinks. Okay, does that make sense? Okay,

this is what we call asymmetrical

warfare. Now, what's important to

understand is that in asymmetrical

warfare, you have to control how much

resources you use. Okay? So, for

example, this aircraft carrier cost a

billion dollars. The drone swarms. Okay?

A drone may be $1,000 for a real one.

Okay, but then you have fake ones that

cost $100. $1,000 are these drones that

blow up, right? $100 are drones that

don't blow up, right? You have a,000 of

these and then you that's like $10

million and then you have 10,000 of

these and that's another $10 million.

Okay, so it'll cost you maybe $20

million to blow up an air a $1 billion

aircraft carrier. Okay, does that make

sense? And this is why Iran want would

win a war because Iran would employ as

asymmetrical warfare drones worms

against the American aircraft carrier.

And the true promise actually showed us

that the Iranians would probably use a

strategy. And the reason why is that the

total package, the strike package that

the Iranians used cost about $10 to $30

million. But how much money did the

Israelis spend to bring down these

drones? Do do you guys know how how much

did it cost the Israelis to defend

themselves against this attack? Okay, it

was one at least $1 billion. Okay, do

you understand? All right, so this is

this shows us that in a war Iran would

use asymmetrical warfare and and even

though Israel and United States have

military dominance, they may not be able

to win this war. Okay. Okay. So, so does

this make sense so far. Any questions

about this? Okay, that's a really good

question. Okay. And the qu the question

really is, okay, listen, the IR the the

Iranians will use this asymmetrical

warfare strategy against the Americans

and so shouldn't the Americans respond

with more strategic thinking? And that's

a great question and the answer is the

Americans would not do that. Why not?

Why is it that as asymmetrical warfare

is so effective against uh empires and

dominant military powers? What's the

problem of empires usually? What is

their biggest problem? What is the fatal

flaw? Okay, they have too much

bureaucracy, but Iran also has

bureaucracy. But the empires have a much

bigger problem. Okay, now let's go back

to the Millennium challenge. Now, in the

first test, in the first battle, Iran

won against the United States, right?

So, what did the United States do? And

do what? They did it again. They did a

second simulation. In the second

simulation, what did they do exactly?

Okay. What the Americans said is, "Nope.

This is cheating, guys." Do you

understand? Ace of Warfare is cheating.

you cannot cheat. And then the Americans

won. Does that make sense? So remember,

in the first instance where you are

allowed to use asymmetrical warfare, the

Iranians won. In the second instance,

the Americans said, "No, asymmetrical

warfare is cheating. So you're not

allowed to use asymmetrical warfare. You

must fight us directly." And the

Americans won. What does this tell us

about the about the American military?

Exactly. Thank you. Okay. They are

inflexible. Empires have are inflexible.

And the reason why is the idea of

hubris, right? If you're an empire, you

refuse to admit your failings and

faults. You become very stubborn. Okay?

So, it's back to the example of Jack has

his machine gun, his armor, right? He

comes in this dark forest like I'm

invincible. And like everyone's like,

Jack, don't go into that dark forest.

It's stupid. But Jack's like, no, I have

a machine gun. I don't care. So, that's

a situation. That's why asymmetal

warfare is so effective because it

allows you flexibility and creativity.

And the empire, the dominant power,

refuses to be flexible and creative.

Okay, does that make sense?