Game Theory #19: The Hollywood-Pentagon Complex

This weekend, we have reached a turning point in the war. It is possible that in a few hours, or by tomorrow, we will have reached the point of no return. Donald Trump has threatened the Iranians, saying that on Tuesday, if the Iranians still refuse to open the Strait of Hormuz, then the Americans will destroy the Iranian power plants and bridges and universities. Basically, the Americans will start attacking critical civilian infrastructure, which will force Iranians to strike hard against the GCC, the oil fields, the desalination plants, the universities as well. And this would mean... that the world would lose 20 % of its energy supply. And this would be a catastrophe for the global economy. It would de -industrialize the world and would create global famine, among other problems. Okay, so next few hours, the next day, we could reach the point of no return in this war. Hopefully, Trump is bluffing. Because he has known

to bluff before. In fact, he's issued many ultimatums to Iran before, and then he sort of tackled, right? Trump always chickens out, and he said, you know what, I said a day, but I'll give you a week instead. But this time, I want to show you that it's different. I want to show you that this weekend, the Americans went all in, they launched a ground invasion, it failed. And instead of saying, you know what, we probably can't beat Iran, let's negotiate a peace deal. What the Americans will do is, they will go all in now, and launch a full -scale ground invasion, call it a national draft, and the world will never be the same again. Okay, so this is a tweet that Donald Trump sent to the Iranians. And he calls them crazy bastards, and he says, praise be to Allah. So a lot of people think he is now the Iranians. Clearly, he's

angry at the Iranians. All right, so the Americans and the Israelis have constantly escalated attacks against civilian targets in Iran. So Trump ordered the destruction of Iran's largest bridge, okay? All right, right here, right? You guys see that? Okay, and this is considered a war crime, because you're not supposed to target civilian infrastructure. Now, you can see that. You can make the argument that this is dual -use, meaning that the military uses it as well. But everything is dual -use, right? Because the military also uses water. They also use electricity. Their kids also go to university. So there's a great fear now that we're already at the point of no return. And the Iranians themselves have promised to start to attack universities in the GCC as well, okay, in retaliation. If Trump were to destroy the Iranian power plants, this would be devastating for the Iranian economy. And there's news now that Iran is organizing

a protest where young people are asked to go to power plants and form a human chain, so that if the jets come and destroy the power plants, they will be destroyed as well. So some people will think that, okay, this is the Iranians' calling. The bluff of Trump. That's not a good idea, because on the first day of the war, the Americans killed 168 schoolgirls in southern Iran. So this shows that the Americans actually don't really care about human life. But by doing this, if the Americans actually do destroy power plants, and they do kill a lot of young people in the process, what this would do is galvanize the nation. And this would turn this nation into total war, okay? So what's important to understand is that throughout this war, there have been different voices in Iran, okay? Some, like the Asyatic Revolutionary Guard, want total war. But there are also some who are

worried about the economic damage because of this war. They're also worried about giving too much power to the military, okay? So if Donald Trump goes and attacks these power plants, then the Iranians will be going to total war. They will be totally committed to destroying the American military presence in the Middle East, as well as the global economy, okay? And unfortunately, the Americans in the Middle East don't really care, because they're committed to destroying Iran as a viable nation state. Already, we're seeing increases in fuel prices, okay? So if you are in the... Red, it means that you've seen prices go up a lot, okay? If you're in the red. So America, Australia, they've seen prices skyrocket. China has also seen prices skyrocket, as well as Europe. This is only just the beginning. We can expect gas prices to skyrocket so much that it essentially collapses the civilian aviation industry. Meaning that in the future,

if you want to fly, it might cost you 10 times as much as it does now, okay? And this will happen very, very quickly. But again, the main issue, and I need to emphasize this, the main issue is not the fuel. The main issue is the fertilizer. And the fertilizer is important because you need fertilizer to grow food, and we are in the planting season. You guys don't know this. But it is because of fertilizer that we are allowed to support 8 billion people. If we didn't have access to fertilizer, we can only grow enough food to support 1 to 2 billion people. And unfortunately, this means that Africa and parts of South Asia, a lot of people there will starve to death. So the main concern is famine, okay? Not airline tickets. All right. Let's continue. All right. So as this war is progressing, we need to step back and recognize that this is

a global war. So the Ukrainians used drones to attack and destroy an oil depot, an oil terminal in Russia. And this means now that 40%, 40 % guys, of Russia's oil exports have gone offline, right? So what's happening is that not only is the Soviet Union closed, but the Americans are also attacking Russia's oil, okay? So you have drone strikes in terminals. But also, you don't see this in the news, but also there's basically a naval blockade. So if you are a Russian oil tanker, if the Americans come and catch you, they'll take your oil, okay? So this is basically piracy. So in other words, the American strategy before was, okay, before we were the world's global reserve currency. And as a result, we encouraged global trade. But now that we are not, but now that our economy is suffering, well, let's just control the sea lanes, okay? So that's the American strategy moving forward.

All right. So what we're going to do from Germany is that, if you are German, you're going to go to Germany. If you are a German male under 45, okay, basically from 17 to 45, this age group, you are not allowed to leave the country for more than three months without army permission. This is a prelude to a national draft, okay? And why is Germany doing this? Because Germany is an industrial nation. And if Russian energy supply goes offline, if energy from the GCC goes offline, Germany has no choice but to remilitarize and create its own energy supplies, okay? So Germany must go to war. It has absolutely no choice in the matter. All right. So let's talk briefly about what's going to happen over the next year. So as I said before, the United States was the global reserve currency. And that meant basically that for every transaction that you made, with U.S.

dollars, they could tax you, okay? Because they could inflate the price of the U.S. dollar. But now that people are choosing to opt out of the U.S. dollar, for example, in China, people are buying more gold, right? And people are using other currencies. America, in order to maintain its empire, has to change its strategy. Now, the main source of American power is its ability to control sea lanes, okay? Because it has military bases. All around the world, okay? So in the red, these are all areas with U.S. bases. And before, it used these U.S. bases in order to maintain global trade. But with nations choosing to opt out of your system, now your option, now your strategy is to blockade them, right? Create a naval blockade, start them off resources, which forces them to come beg to you for trade access. Okay? So we've gotten to a strategy where America guaranteed

global trade to America basically being a mafia state, being pirates, and allowing you to use sea lanes and giving you trade access. Okay, does that make sense? And believe it or not, but America does not actually need to do that much work in order to control trade around the world. It just needs to control certain trades. Or certain choke points, okay? So the Panama Canal is one choke point. And that's why about a third of America's navy is deployed to the Caribbean right now. All right? And its main purpose is to block off trade in the Western Hemisphere. So if you are China, if you are Japan, and you are South Korea, if you want to access Western resources, Western Hemisphere resources, you need the permission from the U.S. government. And the example, of course, is Venezuela, where they removed the president. And now they basically have a blockade over Venezuela. And so the

Venezuela government is very cooperative, okay? They're basically very obedient. And so what we can expect next is for Trump to exert authority over Greenland. Why? Because this is the Arctic choke point, okay? Which gives you access to Canada and to Europe as well. We can also expect America to basically create a choke point over the Strait of Hormuz, right? So right now, the issue is that the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz. But the Americans can also choose to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Does that make sense? All right? The major choke point in the world, of course, is something called the Strait of Malacca. Why? Because this is where China gets most of its resources from Africa, from the Middle East. Okay? Through this very small choke point. And again, unfortunately, there are lots of US military bases in this area. So as long as America is able to maintain these three major choke

points, the Panama Canal, the Middle East, and the Strait of Malacca, oh, and also, sorry, Greenland as well, then America can control naval access, okay? Trade access, maritime navigation. It can control all these things. And so what's going to happen is this. The big event this year, moving forward, is that Russia will militarize its shuttle fleet. Okay? Basically, Russia has a shuttle fleet of about 1,000 ships. It will provide mercenaries to these ships, and then it will start to engage America in the oceans. The point is not to defeat the American Navy. You can't do that, okay? The point is to create a war of attrition, where you know that the Americans, will have problems rebuilding these ships. And these ships are pretty old as well. And the sailors on them are pretty tired. So you just force them into conflict, and then this naval capacity of the United States will degrade over time,

okay? This is something to look out for over the next year or two years. This conflict in the seas that will arise between Russia and the United States. Okay? And then you ask yourself, okay, well, how about China? Because China is actually the main beneficiary. Of oceanic trade. And China is going to do China. Which is to say that China is going to try to negotiate between Russia and America, and try to triangulate the two, and try to come to peace with all two. Okay? And that often means paying both off. Paying both the Russians and paying the Americans off. And that's what happened in May when Trump visited China. All right? Okay, we'll talk more about that later on. Okay. So the big news this weekend, and it's something I want to focus on for the rest of the lecture is, the Americans said that one of their jets, it's called an F -15,

it's about a $90 million plane, okay? It was shot down over Iran. Okay? Basically in this area right here. And you ask yourself, okay, the Americans have air supremacy over Iran, so how is it possible for the Iranians to shoot down a plane? And the answer is this. The US Air Force is not designed to fight a long war. It's designed to fight at most a two -week war. If you fight for too long, you have certain issues. One issue is maintenance. Okay? Which is, these are very expensive planes. They require a lot of maintenance. But if they're flying too much, if they have too much work, they suffer from wear and tear. Okay? Another issue is this fatigue, where these pilots are being asked to work too hard, they get tired, they get lazy. Now the last thing is this. Iranian resilience. Okay? And all this means is that, as you're bombing the Iranians,

the Iranians have to figure out how to strike back at you. Their radar systems don't really work, so what they use is heat -seeking missiles. Okay? So rather than trying to figure out where you are, they just fly missiles up in the air and hope to lock onto your heat signature and knock you down. Okay? All right? So over time, all this means is that, as this war progresses, if you insist on fighting an air war, you're going to lose more and more planes. As your pilots get tired, as maintenance issues arise, as the Iranians become much more creative in their response. Okay? So a pilot was shot down, and two pilots were able to eject safely out of their plane. Now it is the policy of the American military to leave no man behind. And this is the... And the Americans are one of the few militaries that actually do this, where if you

are behind enemy lines, they will try to rescue you. And they spent years training you on how to evade anti -captors. They'll spend a lot of resources trying to save you. And the propaganda is that this is to show you how Americans really value human life. And it's something that Americans are very proud of. But another reason why Americans do this is this optics. Which is that the Americans believe that the military is invincible. And they spend a lot of money and resources in order to create this image, this aura of invincibility and inviability. So if the Iranians are able to capture a pilot and have them appear on Iranian TV, this is a huge propaganda win for the Iranians. Meaning this. Meaning that if the Americans... The Americans will try their best to save you, but if they can't save you and there's a risk that the enemy will capture you, they'd rather have

you killed. Okay? Because they can't afford to lose this propaganda war. For the Americans, what they're having is optics. And as I'll show you later on, this is going to be a huge issue in this war. Okay? As this war progresses. Now, there are a lot of issues with the story that's being told to us. Okay? So Americans said that they have successfully evacuated both pilots. They have saved both pilots. But the issue is this. The issue is that we know that the Americans created a makeshift landing strip, basically an airport, a small airport, 200 kilometers from where the airman actually was knocked down. So he had to hike a long way in order to get to landing strip. Also, he was injured. I mean, he broke his ankle or something. Okay? So that was very, very hard to do. Also, he's trying to evade enemy capture. Okay? So this story doesn't really make sense.

And why did the Americans decide to create a landing strip here rather than someplace closer? And why would you need 155 planes for this operation? Right? Aren't you better off with just one or two to avoid enemy fire? So this is a very strange story. But it gets weirder. Okay? It turns out that the Americans basically spent a lot of resources to save the pilot. It took 48 hours. And the CIA created a lot of distractions. And the Americans spent a lot of resources to save the man while the Iranians were trying to capture him. Okay? And this led to the destruction of very expensive American planes. Okay? These are called C -130s. So they're transport planes. And they were destroyed in the rescue operation. Now the American story is that these planes were caught in the sand. They couldn't lift off. So teleforce, the commandos, who are trying to save the pilot, they blew

up the planes themselves. Okay? And as you can see, the Americans in this operation, they lost a lot of expensive planes. The estimates are the Americans lost $300 million in planes. And even though the Americans say that there were no casualties in this rescue, we can expect that there were casualties in this rescue because all the planes were destroyed. Okay? And again, these are very expensive planes. And throughout this war, the Americans have lost quite a few planes. The C -130s are extremely expensive. Okay? All right. Okay. All right. So this has led people to question whether or not the narrative is true or not. Now, you can make the argument that this narrative is true. You can make the argument that the American military prides itself on no man left behind. So they will do whatever they can, move heaven and earth, to save that person. And that's something that the Americans take pride

in. But again, there are issues with this narrative. So this is a man named Arnon Bertrand. And on Twitter, he explains that this story doesn't really make sense. Okay? So the first thing is, how did a fighter jet, American fighter jet, get knocked down in Iran when the Americans have said that they have air supremacy over the country? Another issue is that the weapons director, sorry, the weapons systems officer is a colonel. A colonel is a very high ranking individual in American military. So why would he participate in this operation? That's very strange. And even though he was injured, seriously wounded, according to Trump, he still managed to hike up a 7,000 foot mountain ridge line and hide in a crevice in the Zagreb mountains for 48 hours despite his wounds. Also, we don't know who he is. He's never been identified. He was never interviewed by the press, which is unusual because if

you rescue the man, you make him into a national TV channel. He's a superstar, right? So there are a lot of issues with this story, all right? So, Emma, could you do me a favor and just read the summary?

So to sum up, anti -aircraft equipment that supposedly didn't exist shot down an F -15 and apparently an A -10 Warthog the same day. A seriously wounded man climbed a 2.1 kilometers mountain. The US seized an airfield 200 miles inside a country it's at war with next to one of its most strategic nuclear sites and deployed hundreds of troops, all apparently unimpeded. Lost two planes to sand and destroyed their own helicopters. Videos show heavy clashes, missiles raining down, but not a single person got even wounded. And the man at the center of it all, nobody knows who he is, completely anonymous, zero pictures, but Trump says he is safe and sound. And so is the rescued A -10 Warthog pilot who also remains anonymous.

Okay, so again, this story makes absolutely no sense. We don't understand why they had to build an airport. We don't understand how these planes got destroyed. And the fact that there are no cache of these absolutely makes no sense whatsoever, okay? So maybe something else is going on. And people online are speculating that this was actually a failed ground invasion. And the mission was to sneak into Iran's nuclear power plant located in the area and steal Iran's enriched uranium, which it would need to build a nuclear weapon, okay? And by doing that, you deny the Iranians capacity to build a nuclear weapon and you can declare a victory, okay? All right. So what's the evidence for this? Well, on March 7th, 2026, so at the beginning of this war, a nuclear power plant journalist named Barak David, Barak Ravid, wrote an article in Axios, which is a Washington -based media outlet, saying that the U

.S. is considering sending special forces to seize Iran's nuclear star power, okay? Now, Barak Ravid is famous in Washington, D.C. because he's very close with the Israelis. He himself is Israeli. So he's able to get a lot of information from the government, okay? So from March 7th onward, there was news reporting that the Americans would insert special forces to steal the uranium. No one took this seriously because it's so stupid. Are you seriously gonna send in like a hundred guys into the middle of Iran and like hope they can sneak into a military base and steal that uranium and then run away? That's just retarded. No one would do that, okay? So everyone's like, this is just a sire. This is just disinformation, okay? No one took this seriously. I didn't take this seriously at all. But then, four days ago, sorry, not four days, a week ago, the Washington Post leaks a Pentagon

plan to do exactly that. And it's a very detailed plan that involves hundreds or thousands of troops, okay? And the idea is to build a letting strip near the border in order to land forces, in order to land equipment. So this is a very detailed plan. The problem, so when this first came out, again, I didn't take it seriously because this is so retarded. Are you seriously gonna build an airport by yourself in the middle of Iran and hope the Iranians don't notice? And you're gonna land a thousand troops in the middle of mountains where they're gonna rain missiles on you? It makes no sense whatsoever, okay? But unfortunately, if you just look at what happened this weekend, this is the plan they used where they sent 155 aircraft to try to create a landing strip. They sent in special forces. It was exactly the plan that the Washington Post reported on, okay? But then

the question is, wait a minute here. This is a top secret military plan. How did the Washington Post get this? Well, the answer is because we assume that some generals gave it to them, all right? Peter Hexner, the Secretary of War for Donald Trump, fired the top generals for the military. And we don't know why. There was never a reason given. We can suspect what happened was this. Donald Trump asked the generals to come up with a plan to steal the uranium. And the generals were like, let's just humor him, okay? Let's come up with this stupid, insane plan that there's no way this guy would agree to. And then we'll forget about it. They presented it to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump was like, this is a brilliant plan. This is a great movie. Let's do this, guys. The generals are like, oh my God, he is insane. Oh my God. We are so

screwed, man. And they refused to carry it out. So Peter Hexner is like, well, then you're fired. Okay? And then Peter Hexner orders the new generals to execute this plan. So again, we don't know what happened. We'll never know what happened. But the evidence suggests that this might have been a failed ground invasion. Another piece of evidence to suggest that this was a failed ground invasion with the intention of stealing the uranium is that the Iranians were able to recover I.D. from during the crash site. Okay? And it turns out that this woman happens to specialize in nuclear technology. An engineer. Why would you need an engineer who specializes in nuclear technology to rescue a pilot? Right? That's kind of strange. And the Americans have done stupid things like this before. Okay? So in 1980, in 1980, the Americans implemented something called Operation Eagle Claw. And the idea was that at this time, the

Iranians had taken hostages, American hostages, in Tehran, the American embassy. Okay? So Jimmy Carter, the president, authorized a rescue operation. But Iran was too big. So what they did was the American military set up a foreign operating base in the desert, halfway between Persian Gulf and Tehran. When they landed in their base, there was a sandstorm. And a lot of their planes malfunctioned. And they recognized that, oh my God, it's really hard to go through such an operation in Iran, so we should just go home. Okay? So that was 1980, when Americans were pretty sane. Unfortunately, Americans are no longer sane. Okay? This is June 3rd, when the Americans swept into Venezuela and kidnapped their president, Maduro, thus ending the conflict between Venezuela and America. So, this is great TV. The plan worked out perfectly. It showed that the force was invincible. And unfortunately, Donald Trump believes this. Okay? He believes that if we did

this in Venezuela, we can do this in Iran. And this explains how and why Donald Trump would agree to such an insane plan as to try to build an American military base in the middle of your enemy. Okay? So, the main message here is that whoever is in America, whether it's Donald Trump or other people, for whatever reason, they believe that optics is all that matters. Okay? They think that reality is a movie, a Hollywood movie. And if they can script it properly, then the movie will turn out to be a wonderful, wonderful thing. Okay? This is a war about optics rather than strategy. And unfortunately, this is just how America's going to fight the war from now on. Okay? So, let's just discuss what you need to win a war. If you are fighting a war, what are three things you need to look at? Okay? And there are three things, and that's it.

First thing you want to look at is economics. Okay? Economics. Second thing you want to look at is organization. The third thing you want to look at is logistics. All right? So, what do I mean by this? Well, the first thing is resource management. In other words, you're trying to win a war as cheaply and as quickly as possible. Okay? Unfortunately, right now, the Americans are not fighting a war of economics. If you're spending $300 million in military equipment in order to rescue a pilot, you're not going to win this war. Okay? So, economics is really important. Second is the idea of organization, which is the implementation of strategy. All right? So, you have a strategy and then you implement it. And here, what's really important is the simpler the strategy, the easier it is to implement. Okay? You want the strategy to be very simple because you have to organize it, implement it. So,

if you are trying to build an air base in the middle of Iran so you can extract uranium from Iranians, that's not a good organization. Okay? This thing is going to blow up in your face. The third issue is logistics, which is just supply. Okay? Supply. Making sure that your forces have the necessary equipment, the resources in order to fight the war effectively. And right now, the Americans are not concerned with any of these issues, economics, organization, and logistics. But these are the three major issues that you will need to figure out if you want to win a war. Okay? And unfortunately, right now, the Americans are too much focused on optics and narrative. So, that's why I think the Americans will ultimately lose this war because the Iranians are actually fighting a real war where they're trying to win the war as cheaply as possible, where they're implementing a very simple strategy that allows

for proper organization and they are trying to maintain logistics. Okay? The Americans are just trying to win the war in the most Hollywood fashion as possible. And this is going to lead to disaster both in the short term and the long term. So, the question then is why do Americans like this? And unfortunately, the answer is because there's too much cooperation between Hollywood and the Pentagon. All right? So, this is a movie Saving Private Ryan and this was made in the year 1998, okay? And this is one of the highest growing, the highest grossing films in Hollywood history where a private named Ryan, of course, he is lost behind enemy lines in Europe. And his brothers are all killed. So, his mother writes a very angry letter to General Marshall and says, all my sons are dead except for one and he's missing. And so, General Marshall is like, we can't have this. Okay? This

makes us look bad. We have to win the home front. Okay? Europe, this war front, it's secondary to the home front. We need to make sure that the American people are fully behind this war. So, he sends a team led by this man played by Tom Hanks to go and save Private Ryan. And they do, but at the cost of his life. Okay? And this movie is based on a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother in the American Civil War. Okay? 1864. And this is considered one of Abraham Lincoln's most brilliant pieces of writing. Okay? So, Amber, could you help me read this, please?

Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln.

Great, great. Okay. The sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Okay? So our democracy, our Republic is our God and our sacrifice is worth it as long as we can maintain our freedom and our liberty. Okay? And this is the defining theology of the American military. All right. This has led to the military becoming more of a propaganda machine. Okay? So this is the movie Black Hawk Down. If you saw the movie then it's about these special forces Delta Force that go in and save a pilot when they are when his helicopter was brought down in Somalia. Okay? And this was based on a book by Mark Bolden writing about the incident which happened in the late 90s. Okay? Right. The problem is that this movie is complete BS. In the book what happened was that the helicopter was brought down and the pilot was taken hostage by the Somalis. But he was treated very well.

Eventually he was allowed to go home after the government paid a ransom. Okay? That's what happened in real life. But in the movie what happened was that Delta Force went in and saved the pilot from those trying to kidnap him. And this goes back to the to the mythology of No Man Left Behind. Now there's a very important scene in Black Hawk Down where a general confronts Delta Force. And when Delta Force was created for operations like this and what the general says to Delta Force is you guys are a bunch of cowboys. And what he's saying is that you guys you Delta Force you Special Forces you guys never you guys think you're superior to everyone. You think that we all revolve around you. You think that we should all serve you. You guys are ego driven. All you care about is glory for yourself. And eventually your ego your arrogance are going to

be your downfall as well as the downfall of the American military. Okay? This is the movie this is Jessica Lynch and in 2003 she was serving in the war in Iran Iraq actually Iraq sorry. And her her her team got lost and they were ambushed by the Iraqis. And then she was kidnapped but then because she was injured the military the Iraqi military sent her to a hospital a civilian hospital. And the people in the hospital treated her very very well. And they actually tried to send her home in an ambulance. But when the ambulance tried to reach the Americans the Americans bombed the ambulance so the ambulance had to turn back. But but the Iraqis informed the Americans where she was and told the Iraqis and told the Americans you can come and pick her up anytime okay. She's she's safe we're taking care of her but if you want but if you want

to take her home it's okay. The Americans response organized special forces to go and rescue her even though she was not in danger. And the media reported that she was raped she was beaten and she was held hostage. Okay. So that's what the Pentagon does. The Pentagon is a propaganda machine. It doesn't care about the truth it just cares about trying to create a Hollywood movie out of a movie. Okay. So Pentagon is concerned first and foremost about creating a Hollywood movie out of a war. That's its own that's its mentality. We know this because Jessica Lynch after she was set free went on TV and said that the military is lying about the incident. I was never beaten I was never in danger the people in the hospital treated me very nice in fact the nurses sang me to sleep because they were so concerned about my welfare. Alright. Alright. So this is a

huge problem for the American military for the Pentagon as they fight this war. You can pull this crap when you're fighting Somalis and Iraqis but against Iranians you need total war. You need to focus on economics organization and logistics. Stop doing this crap of optics okay and narrative. Unfortunately it's it has it is now the very mentality of the Pentagon to turn war into a Hollywood movie. Alright. So this is a paper written by Tanner Murleys at Brown University and what this author talks about is how the Pentagon and Hollywood are aligned together. Alright. So so can you read the three major takeaways um um Amber?

In exchange for the use of military equipment and personnel movies and TV program producers must comply with Pentagon entertainment policy including script changes to align with military goals including recruitment and public relations. Since the inception of the Hollywood entertainment industry more than a century ago over 2,500 war themed movies and TV programs have been made with Pentagon assistance. Pentagon assisted movies and TV shows framed U.S. wars as necessary and glorious downplaying or ignoring the human social and environmental devastation war causes particularly for civilians. U.S. soldiers are typically cast as noble protagonists while those non -U.S. peoples deemed enemies of America are constantly stereotyped.

Okay. So what this paper is saying is that the Pentagon uses Hollywood in order to indoctrinate and brainwash American people to believe that war is good. Okay. So that's true but what's also true is that by working with Hollywood it brainwashes the Pentagon to believe that war can be like Hollywood. It can be perfected. As long as you create a good script it will work out in the end. Okay. And this will lead to disaster in Iran. So think about again Donald Trump where it's a failed ground invasion and so if it's a failed ground invasion what you do is you go back you sit down with Pentagon planners and you figure out what went wrong and how to never make the mistake again. But Donald Trump does not want to admit it was a failed ground invasion so they made up a stupid Hollywood movie a stupid Hollywood script that this was a rescue

of an American pilot that it will turn into a Hollywood movie at some point. And so from their perspective this is a huge success. Okay. And this is going to lead to problems because if it's a huge success then do it again. Right. And if people think it's failure prove that they're wrong by having success of ground invasion. So unfortunately the fact of the matter is that America right now the American military it's too dominated by special forces by Delta Force by Navy Seals who are interested only in their own personal glory. Okay. I'm not saying I'm not saying all of them but I'm saying there's quite a lot of them who understand that after this war is over they can make they can sign a book deal they can write a book and make millions of dollars which will be turned into a movie and then and then they'll be a superstar. And what

they should be thinking about are organization logistics and economics. Because these are the three things that win wars. Alright. Okay. Any questions guys?

I personally also think that America is likely to make a movie about saving the pirates in Iran but I think it will be similar as saving pirate Ryan but could you please tell me whether the plot of Private Ryan is true or it's just made it up?

Yeah. It's just a made up movie. Yeah. Most of these things are made up. Okay. They didn't really turn out the way that they do. But like the problem with Hollywood is that it's so seductive it's so attractive that people think they're true. Okay. People think that the movie is more true than real life. And that's how not only the Pentagon works but also like all the American society works now. Americans live in their own fantasy world created by Hollywood and the realities of war are too far away for them to care about. Okay? I mean Americans think that oh at worst case scenario my the food prices will go up. They can't really imagine how this war will ever forever change the world as well as America. Okay? Um yeah.

How many more of these spectacles do you think America can afford recreating? Or let's say how many more times would America like learn to understand that this this like like optical Hollywood act will not no longer work for their plan? Will they ever work?

Okay. That's a great um question to answer is they will never ever learn. Okay? Because they live in a different reality. Okay? So the reason why he's able to go in front of the press and say what a great success in that that we had in saving the pilot. Okay? The reason why the reason why he's able to do that is because he himself believes this. Okay? He lives in an alternate reality. A fantasy land. And that's why he's able to to so convincingly tell the press and the American people that this was a great success even though if you look at the evidence this was a tremendous failure. And unfortunately this will not change. As this war continues you have more incidents like this we just say it's a failure that the American military and Donald Trump um spin as a tremendous success. And so the American people continue to believe that this war

is going well. Okay? And we know this because this is exactly what happened in Ukraine. For the past few years Russia has been dominating the battlefield and has been um killing many many Ukrainians. It's been a disaster for Ukraine but you don't know this if you're American if you're an average American because the news tell you that this war is going great. One more day guys and Putin will fall. One more day the Russian economy will collapse the Russian people will revolt and Putin will be out of office. One more day and the Ukrainians will reach Moscow. Okay? Same situation here where one more day and Iran will surrender. One more day the Iranian economy will collapse the people will revolt and then we'll have peace in the Middle East. Okay? So unfortunately this is modern war where it's really about optics. But again if you want to win this war don't focus on optics

because ultimately you're the one fooling yourself.

Okay?

Yep. But despite that America is strong in this kind of hard war and war scene but I think they still hold dominant position and still holds the strongest military weapon in the world and they still have you know the sovereignty to state and control many of those countries. How can you explain that?

Okay.

You're absolutely right in that America is still the empire and America will not fall because of this war. Worst case scenario they lose the war we should think about is that the strategic objectives of the Americans and the Iranians are not actually in conflict with each other. Okay? If you look at the Iranians they want to get America out of Middle East alright? They want to destroy the global economy and they want to deter Israel. Okay? Does that make sense? These are the three strategic objectives of Iran. To remove America out of the Middle East forever. To deter Israel. You can't destroy Israel because Israel has a nuclear weapon but you show Israel you're strong and you can hurt them if Israel goes too far. And you want to destroy the global economy because you want to reset the global economy in a way that benefits you. Okay? So these are the three strategic objectives

of Iran in this war. Let's look at America. America is okay destroy Iran as a nation state. Okay? Which basically means you destroy the desalination plants the power plants the universities the reservoirs and you try to create ethnic conflict. Okay? Baffling Iran. Okay? So you basically encourage ethnic uprisings throughout the country. Okay? Now the last thing you want to do is isolate Iran. So you want to destroy Iran's capacity to trade with Russia and China. Okay? So if you look at what's happening one really strange thing about this war is that these strategic objectives are not in conflict with each other. Even if Iran is able to achieve its strategic objectives it doesn't prevent America from achieving its strategic objectives. So in other words at the end of this war what we can expect is both countries achieve their strategic objectives. Okay? Which is to say that America is now out of the Middle East

um Israel is humbled and the global economy is destroyed. But at the same time Iran is destroyed as a nation state it's balkanized uh it's basically bombed back to the Stone Age. Alright? Alright? Does it make sense? Okay? So and unfortunately because the strategic objectives are different both nations think they're winning the war. Alright? Maybe objectively we think that America is losing the war but from the American perspective the way that they frame their strategic objectives means that from their perspective they are winning the war. And that's why they think that any day now Iran will surrender. But from the Iranian perspective they think they're winning the war and they think that any day now America will surrender. That's why it's impossible to get the two to negotiate a peace settlement. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. So on Thursday we're doing something really interesting. Okay? We are having a mid -term

examination. But rather than me test you you're gonna test me. Okay? So what I want you to do is think about what we've learned this semester and try to figure out where I could be wrong or where the problems in my logic are. I want you to test me. Okay? And this is also true for YouTube where if you think that there's something wrong with my logic if you dispute what I say then raise a question and then my wife will read the YouTube comments and then pick out questions for me to answer on Thursday. Okay? So on Thursday we're gonna have a mid -term examination but rather than me test you you will test me. Okay? And be as hard and as harsh and as difficult as you want to be. I enjoy being questioned and examined. Okay? So Thursday will be a lot of fun. I'll see you guys then.