The War Climbs Its Own Ladder

Clayton opens with the contradiction that frames the interview: Trump says talks are going well, Iran says there were no talks, Marines are moving toward the region, and Netanyahu says the war must be won on the ground. Jiang says the daily narrative is not the reality. The reality is the ladder Source trail 1:47 Right. So Trump, these past three weeks, have been over the plate. Every single day, he comes up with a new narrative. But the reality on the ground is that this war is following, an escalation ladder. And it seems that... . Each actor is now positioned so that the next rung looks necessary.

Natalie asks about the strange human side of prediction: families are making plans because a high school teacher in Beijing appears to see the war more clearly than the news cycle. Source trail 2:523:434:42 Now, you've become a bit of an internet celebrity because you have this ability to see things at a higher level than the rest of us. So while the rest of us are like, oh, he said this, maybe this is happening. And what...Yeah, sure. So for the past two years, I've been developing a new system of predictive modeling where I take game theory and I make predictions about how world events will turn out. And by making these predictions, I ca... Jiang demystifies the origin. Predictive history began as game-theory modeling for students and for his own curiosity. He had predicted Trump, an Iran war, and eventual American defeat. The surprise is that the thought experiment started to pan out in public.

The hosts do not let him become only a viral avatar. They ask whether he is deep state, Chinese propaganda, or simply silent about China. Jiang says the silence is real but practical: he lives and works in China, has a family there, and refuses to turn himself into a CCP fanboy. The distinction matters because he wants to be read as an educator, not a propagandist Source trail 7:45 Okay, first of all, I've been very mute about China. And the reality is that I live and work in China. If I were to say anything offensive, about China, then my school would get into a lot of trouble. And quite frankly,... .

Natalie's pressure makes the ethical center explicit. Jiang says he could not sleep for two weeks Source trail 9:52 Yeah, so thank you so much for that, Natalie. So, you know, when my predictions are correct, you know, on February 28th, the Americans and Israelis attacked Tehran and this launched the war that we are in now. I couldn'... after the prediction appeared correct. The point is not personal satisfaction. It is the hope that if people adopt a better model, they gain agency over events and can build a better world for their children.

The model has three strands. Game theory asks who the players are, what they want, what strengths they have, and which strategies advance their interests. But game theory alone is thin because outsiders do not know what key players are thinking. Jiang therefore adds historical patterning and eschatology: previous wars show repeated trajectories, and religious worldviews explain actors who believe they serve God. Source trail 10:4311:3812:3413:35 So, you know, we have 8 billion people in this world and most people don't know what's going on and they choose to put their head in the sand. And what I'm trying to do with my YouTube channel is trying to say to people...So as we know, a lot of what's happening in the Middle East is driven by Israel's desire to achieve the Greater Israel Project. That, you know, right now Israel is being dominated by religious fanatics who believe that...

Clayton asks about escalation control, the phrase that makes Iran's position less obvious. Source trail 13:4314:26 Now you've said Iran's edge in all of this I believe and if I'm misquoting you please forgive me is escalation control. Like they so we were talking about the escalation ladder maybe you can lay that out because I think...Right. So the escalation ladder is just the idea that once you start a fight it develops its own momentum its own logic. You can't really stop it. So no two guys go into an argument thinking that they'll actually exchan... Jiang defines the ladder with a street-fight image: argument, shove, punch, knife, gun. On paper, the United States and Israel have escalation dominance because they have nuclear weapons. But in a real fight, the weaker side has to be calmer and more strategic.

That is why Jiang reaches for Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The bigger opponent has force; the smaller opponent survives by maintaining calm and control. Iran calibrates strikes, preserves public opinion, avoids uniting the GCC, and uses Hormuz as a selective lever. America and Israel use shock and awe. Iran tries to choose precisely which pressure each move creates. Source trail 15:2216:17 So I did a lot of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu before and in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu it's all about maintaining calm maintaining control. If you are able to maintain calm control you can even defeat a bigger opponent who is stronger...And so by doing that what issue what Iran is able to demonstrate is confidence in its arsenal. It's able to maintain diplomacy political diplomacy as well as global public opinion. They're also able to divide and conque...

Natalie asks the question of consequence: why can the United States and Israel escalate, destroy Gaza, hit civilian infrastructure, and keep going? Jiang says the consequence is already present, but it appears as morale. Soldiers do not want a war they cannot believe in. The public does not rally behind a war without purpose. When ground invasion becomes necessary, that lack of will becomes strategic. Source trail 17:1817:5419:0220:06 Now what's frustrating for me is that the United States and Israel can escalate in these horrific ways and there's no international consequences. So they can destroy Gaza en masse. They can hit a school of young girls a...Right. So there is actually a major consequence. A major consequence is the morale of your population which affects your will to fight. Right? So if people believe that it is a good cause they are willing to commit them...

Clayton then asks about air power and Jiang's inverted-pyramid critique. Source trail 20:3721:1122:0923:0624:10 Let's talk about this air power because you've been critical of I think you've referred to it as the inverted pyramid where the United States really relies on air power more than anything whether it's drones whether it'...Right. So if you want to win this war what you do is you spend two years to stage two million troops around Iran. Okay. So you have 500,000 troops in Pakistan ready to assault from southeast from the southeast corner. Y... Jiang says a real Iran conquest would require two years of staging and millions of troops. Instead, America has a military-industrial complex that built carriers, Patriots, THAAD, Iron Dome faith, and F-35 mythology for a war that Iran can answer asymmetrically.

The historical evidence is not abstract. Millennium Challenge taught the Pentagon that drone swarms and asymmetric creativity could beat the imperial model, so the rules were changed until the Pentagon won Lens point strategy-material-test An escalation ladder gains momentum when every actor's next move looks necessary, morale becomes a war capacity, institutions change rules and repeat victory stories, and imperial face makes withdrawal feel more damaging than another bad wager. Source trail 27:1728:21 Right. So the key piece of evidence is 20 years ago, about 2002, the American military, the Pentagon, ran a war game called the Millennium Challenge, the Millennium Challenge. And the idea is to look at how America coul...And then in that iteration, in the final iteration, the Pentagon won, okay? So this shows you two things. The first thing is that the Pentagon is not ready to fight a war asymmetrically. It doesn't have the creativity,... . Operation Prosperity Guardian taught the same lesson against the Houthis: if an opponent cannot be scared, bought, blackmailed, co-opted, or assassinated into surrender, the standard tool kit runs out.

That is where Vietnam returns. The institution may know the war cannot be won and still keep playing because retreat destroys face. Jiang's image is a casino: lose a million dollars, then either keep gambling or go home and explain the loss. Empire keeps gambling. Source trail 30:1131:01 These past weeks have shown shock and awe doesn't really work, but they don't know what else to do. So they keep on doing it. And now what they're doing is to think about sending the Marines in for an infamous landing b...I mean, the entire world would no longer see America as an empire, as invincible. And the Pentagon could not really countenance this possibility. So what they'll do is they'll double down. It's very much like going to a...

Natalie asks why antiwar frustration in America seems powerless while Palestinians and Iranians have existential stakes. Source trail 31:2832:2632:3433:25 Can I just stay on this issue of morale before you change the subject? One more question about that. Because it feels like it doesn't matter that we're all so upset about the war, but you're saying it does. But on the o...Palestinians in Gaza have been living for decades is horrific, and those are stories that are not told to us, but it's very motivating to them. Jiang answers through Persian morale. He says Iranians understand themselves as a people of truth, shaped by an ancient Zoroastrian inheritance: do not preempt, do not become the aggressor, fight back when attacked, and choose the path of right.

The image is the opposite of the American morale problem. Tehran's sky can be black from a struck oil depot and still, Jiang says, there is a light inside the people Source trail 33:25 But the Persian people are like, no, we have to live the truth. We refuse to submit to the lie. So if they attack us, we'll fight back. But we will never ever be the aggressor. We will never ever choose the path of viol... . The claim is not that suffering disappears. It is that a good cause can turn suffering into endurance, while a bad cause turns force into exhaustion.

Clayton then brings in David Icke: is the war part of a larger plan for AI control, digital currency, and a Patriot-Act-style loss of rights? Jiang agrees with the direction but rejects a fully scripted world. Some people may have planned the reset for decades, he says, but game theory cannot erase Trump, Putin, Iran, or other players. The script exists; so do responses to the script. Source trail 34:2135:1235:2936:28 You brought up David Icke earlier. And, you know, we're big fans of David Icke here on this show. He's been a guest a number of times. One of the things that he's been saying is that this Iranian war, this collapse of I...They are issuing in this, ushering in this new era of control just like the Patriot Act. So we can get all into the finite details about air power and this drone struck this particular oil plant and this. But really, it...

Asked about an energy lockdown, Jiang shifts to money. The elite problem, in his reading, is excess wealth created by years of money printing. Control may come through wiping out stores of value Source trail 38:0639:02 I actually think the real issue that the global elite need to resolve is the financial system, meaning that over the past 10, 20 years, they printed too much money. And there are too many individuals who are millionaire...That's terrifying. I mean, yeah, maybe not the lockdown in the COVID sense of the term, but locking us down financially by wiping out huge stores of value. That's absolutely terrifying. : civil war, financial-data-center attacks, or a false flag blamed on Iran. This is speculative and dark, but it belongs to the interview's central logic: control comes by changing what people can do, not only what they believe.

Natalie asks about the Epstein class, and Jiang's answer is deliberately not the lurid version. He says people focus on island blackmail and coded food language, but the more important question is what Epstein was doing as an operative: money laundering, arms trafficking, financial crisis, and geopolitical manipulation. The Epstein class, in his formulation, are parasites on the nation-state Source trail 43:04 And if you look at his emails, what he will say is there were three major Jewish families in Europe. They were the Rothschilds, the Epsteins, and the Gutmans. And he said, he told Peter Thiel, I represent the Rothschild... .

Clayton brings the argument back to de-escalation through Joe Kent: can the war stop unless Israel is restrained? Jiang agrees, saying Israel benefits from dragging the war out and pulling in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, and Pakistan. But he adds the mirror image. Iran also has objectives: control Hormuz Source trail 46:56 The first thing they need to do is establish control over the Strait of Hormuz. And that would be the main economic lifeline where they can charge a 10 % toll on any passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So that's numbe... , push the U.S. military out of the GCC, and establish enough credibility that Israel must eventually negotiate.

Jiang's sharpest reversal is that Israel's main regional competitor is not Iran but the United States. The Greater Israel Project, as he describes it, does not need Persia. It needs the GCC weakened and the American military presence destroyed. The apparent patron becomes the obstacle. Source trail 47:4948:52 Right. So if you look at the Greater Israel Project, it's very clear that it extends from the Nile to the Euphrates. It does not include Persia. Israel is not actually interested in Persia. So according to Game Theory,...And Netanyahu's response was, well, it didn't work out great for us the first time, okay? So this is how the Israelis think. They see, they understand like their main competitor in the Middle East is actually not Iran,...

Natalie asks whether the bad guys can ever be stopped. Source trail 49:1249:5450:5250:5351:00 Yeah, it's very much like Game of Thrones. I keep mentioning there's this little finger character who is befriending these leaders and then leading them and advising them into their own self -destruction. If you know Ga...Look, there's a lot of agency. And Donald Trump could have come to Jesus' moment and he strikes a deal with the Iranians and he restricts the Israelis, right? So Donald Trump says, for the greater good, I'm going to str... Jiang answers with agency rather than fate. Trump could strike a deal with Iran and the GCC, restrict Israeli leverage in Washington, stop arms sales, and stop financing Israeli military activity. The war has a script, but it is not closed. Someone can still refuse the assigned role.

When Clayton asks for the next prediction, Jiang says the war is heading toward another Vietnam Lens point strategy-material-test An escalation ladder gains momentum when every actor's next move looks necessary, morale becomes a war capacity, institutions change rules and repeat victory stories, and imperial face makes withdrawal feel more damaging than another bad wager. Source trail 53:26 Yeah, so I will say that I think this war is heading in the direction of another Vietnam. You know, at that time it was a military war. You know, the three first wars were like, you know, there was a Japanese war and th... . A limited Marine operation becomes escalation because the military institution is built to keep going until it wins. Once committed, it does not stop because stopping would admit failure.

The domestic chain is the frightening part. Jiang predicts pressure for a national draft, riots across America, National Guard deployment in major cities, emergency powers, and then a path for Trump to bypass elections or secure a third term. Clayton names the comparison to Zelensky; Natalie names the collapse of rules themselves. Source trail 54:4255:1555:19 the military on Donald Trump to institute a national draft and so I think he will have no choice in the matter but to institute a national draft in which case you will have riots throughout America and they have a plan...So a third term without an election sort of like Zelensky basically.

Jiang then makes the 2003 comparison cut the other way. The Iraq war was sold with months of public argument, congressional approval-seeking, and UN theater. The evidence was bad, but there was still a ritual of legitimation. In this war, he says, even that ritual has been steamrolled. The strike happens first; the reasons arrive damaged and contradictory afterward. Source trail 56:0157:02 Right. very worrying that this war was started in a way that was not the way the war started in 2003. So in 2003, the Bush administration spent months rallying public support. They wanted congressional approval. They sp...

Clayton asks whether there is any plan at all. Jiang says yes, and that is worse. The plan is not a clean military victory. It is to balkanize Iran into ethnic enclaves, destroy water and power infrastructure, and make groups fight over survival for decades. He calls it the destruction of Persia as a civilization and links it to Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Source trail 57:0757:5058:1159:04 I mean, you know, I normally wouldn't want to point out The Economist magazine, professor. I'm not a fan of that liberal rag, normally. But at the airport, just reading the front cover, I think the headline, the front c...But let me just point out, having that within weeks of the start of the war is something different. We had to wait years in the Iraq war to get this kind of... Yeah. We had to wait years in the Iraq war to get this kind...

The propaganda problem is that Washington hears only what lets the ladder continue. Dissenters are pushed out; the media says the war is going great; the enemy is always one day or one week from collapse. Jiang's Ukraine analogy is not just about false optimism. It is about decision-makers drinking their own story Lens point strategy-material-test An escalation ladder gains momentum when every actor's next move looks necessary, morale becomes a war capacity, institutions change rules and repeat victory stories, and imperial face makes withdrawal feel more damaging than another bad wager. Source trail 1:00:15 Right. So I think you're exactly correct in that the media will just be as propagandistic in this war against Iran as it was against Ukraine. So the problem with this, though... Unfortunately, Washington, D.C. has becom... until disaster feels like progress.

Then Jiang interrupts the goodbye to thank Tucker Carlson. In his account, the Soleimani assassination in January 2020 could have produced this same war, and Carlson's antiwar broadcasting helped stop it. The claim is sweeping, but it is also the interview's final answer to fatalism. Speech matters. A public figure can still put a hand on the ladder Source trail 1:02:27 Sorry. Before we end, I just want to give a quick shout out to Tucker Carlson, okay? Sure. Because people don't remember this, but we could have been in this situation in January 2020, because that's when Trump ordered... .