Transcription
[music] Good afternoon. It is Friday, July 24th, 2026, and I'm pleased once again, uh, to have Professor Robert Pap with me today from the University of Chicago. Once again, he has graciously agreed to allocate some of his time, uh, to come on to my channel and discuss all things international politics. Um, before I proceed, as always, I would like to ask my audience and whoever is listening, if you like what you see and what you hear on this channel, to please subscribe. I really appreciate that. Um, this is the golden fleas. So, let's get started. Uh, Professor, thank you so much once again for being with me. I know you, uh, are a very busy man. Uh, and so, um, let's dive right into it. Um, uh, as expected, uh, has been flushed, flushed down the toilet. Um, your great concept, um, uh, that this is an escalation trap, uh, that, um, Trump, Trump, President Trump has found himself in, uh, is playing out precisely. So, uh, it is, uh, your predictive and your prescience is just, uh, very impressive on this. Uh, here is this giant sort of super state, uh, that, uh, cannot seem to, um, mold, um, you know, this, uh, uh, this, this developing or backward or, you know, so many phrases have been used, uh, to, uh, to, uh, propagandize, uh, the image of, of, uh, negatively, uh, the image of Iran, uh, that, uh, this, you know, everybody, um, nowadays thinks that Iran is this little minion, uh, who just cannot resist. Um, that in and of itself is a theory in IUR, if I'm not mistaken. How big states, um, super states, sort of have a hard time dealing with, um, uh, small states. U, but, um, please, the stage is yours, uh, your concept. Let's, if you don't mind, explain to the audience what.
>> Absolutely. Lash, well, so first of all, thank you so much again for having me on. Um, a lot of your listeners will have watched last time and they'll know that I was extremely pessimistic about the, uh, thought it would fall apart, and it has fallen apart for pretty much the reasons we said. So, we are in a wicked escalation trap. Lasha, uh, an escalation trap occurs when a strong state uses military force and is tactically successful. Bombs hit targets. Bombs kill leaders. Bombs destroy launchers, but it is strategically a failure because, uh, it becomes strategically weaker as the other side gets stronger. And that is exactly what happened. Stage one of the escalation trap in this war, uh, was American regime change bombing. This did not break the regime in Iran. Even though it did kill leaders, did hit targets, 137 leaders, not just the supreme leader killed. So, this is really quite a large, uh, leadership decapitation effort that's like, uh, killing the US president, his wife, the first family, half of the cabinet, a third of the members of Congress. So, just put this in a little bit of perspective. Um, and, um, but instead of it weakening Iran, paralyzing Iran, Iran lashed back into a stage two, which was to take Hormuz. And this stages, I published on the escalation trap Substack on February 25th. The paper is called The Smart Bomb Trap. It's the very first paper in the series. Uh, and I have, uh, this comes from modeling Iran for 20 years. I've taught for the US Air Force. I've studied, um, every air campaign, uh, uh, since World War I, economic blockades, economic sanctions, international terrorism. So, the, this is my life is basically studying these escalation issues and, um, taught for the US Air Force. So, this is, this is not a, a, just a casual acquaintance with these, uh, with these issues. Think about it, Lash. Is, uh, a lot of people will go to the general practitioner doctor, and that's like just your, your standard general, or your standard, uh, colonel. Uh, but when you get heart disease and you've got to have heart surgery, the GPs don't, it's not the radiologist, it's not the GP, you've got to go to the surgeon. That's what I do. I am really this specialist in this narrow corner of the, which, of course, is mattering to the world because it's now about to, we're about to have a world economic crisis as a result of this. So, this is maybe a narrow specialty, but certainly one of the most important in the world. So, um, this now led to then, um, a series, put us right on the horns of a dilemma, I call the ground power dilemma, which is, are we going to go forward to take Hormuz back physically, or are we going to let Iran rise in power, surge in power, keep Hormuz, all that money from Hormuz, extend a sphere of influence that's from Lebanon to the Red Sea, uh, and to the Gulf? All this I laid out, and now you see it's actually happening. And then the next stage would be Iran gets nuclear weapons. So, Iran would not become a regional hegemon overnight. It would take a year or two, but this was the road that was clearly, clearly, uh, the choice. And now, what you could do to try to avoid this fork in the road is you could do six weeks of a bombing campaign. Tried that, failed. You could do, uh, months of an economic blockade. Tried, failed. These are all fully predictable. Now, to the rest of the world, there's, "Oh my goodness, let's try this. Let's try." No, these are exactly the arrows in the quiver. There are only so many arrows in the quiver. And I know because I've advised every White House from 2001 to 24. So, these are, these may not be a menu of options well known to the public or even to super smart people, uh, here. I, I deal with smart people all the time, uh, but these are the standard set. And, and so these were all known to fail, very likely to fail. Now, nothing's inevitable in this world, so think about my predictions as 70% predictions. But month after month after month after month, Lasha, six in a row, this has all come to. And it's not because, uh, I've got, I'm doing seances or I've got, don't have a direct phone call to the supreme leader and President Trump. So, no, this is coming from the modeling, as I'm just explaining, and from all these years of experience knowing what is likely going to be follow-on steps. So, this is what we find ourselves in today. It's a wicked escalation trap. We're right on the door, uh, to this stage, to this major escalation. We can talk about some of the details. We're closer to ground operations than we've ever been, literally possibly within days or hours. So, this is, this is how close we've come, and we haven't gone over the step yet. So, until the president of the United States literally orders go, it hasn't happened yet. So, we just need to understand that, um, the world, um, even though it seems fully inevitable in hindsight, it's not quite that way, um, uh, going forward. But nonetheless, we are, we are at that point, and that is why we're here today, uh, to talk about really the most dangerous weeks yet in the Iran war. We're not heading back to March. This is way more dangerous than that. Way more dangerous. And of course, glad to unpack all that.
>> Now, Professor, you touched on something very interesting, and of course, the sources of your prediction for that particular point are obviously much more sophisticated than mine. And I'm just going by with my instinct, but, uh, a month ago or so, um, I had Douglas McGregor on, and I, with whomever I can, I keep mentioning that one of these days we're going to, we're going to end up seeing boots on the ground in Iran. Uh, now I have not done any scholarly research or predictive, uh, you know, analysis on this, but, uh, just judging from the basic readings, basic analysis, and, um, the role of Iran, the hatred of Iran in the, well, coming out of Israel and Washington, of course, and the, and the power, uh, dynamics that that govern the foreign policy of the United States towards that country. I, I think that it's quite plausible to think that, um, we will see, um, boots on the ground.
>> It's quite plausible that we'll see boots on the ground, even if it's a failed strategy. Because keep in mind, we've done regime change bombing, failed strategy. Six weeks bombing, failed strategy.
>> Uh, two-month, uh, economic blockade, failed strategy. We're actually back to that. We did the, uh, failed strategy. So, uh, people tell me, well, no, we couldn't possibly do this because it will be a failed strategy. And my question is, well, when have we done a successful one? So, all we're doing is going through the checklist of failed strategies. Now, why, there's, there's a lot to say about why this is happening, but you touched on two of the big reasons here, and these are not at odds, Lasha. So, um, I study escalation, but this doesn't just mean I study military bombs on targets. I'm not, um, I'm not a pilot. I, I taught for the Air Force, but I never, uh, put a bomb in a pickle barrel. Uh, it's what you're seeing for most commentators is either they have operational experience doing something or other, or they have academic experience. But what I'm doing, that's this different specialty, is I'm looking at how military action impacts politics. And that's the politics on the target country and society, and society, and also the home country. And you mentioned in your brief statement both of those issues. You said you felt like the emotion, then you mentioned the balance of power. These are the two things I bring together. Uh, and that is what I did starting way back when when I started studying air power because I started to notice a big pile of books over here, how bombs hit targets. Big pile of books over here called diplomatic history. No books in the middle linking the two. That's what bombing to win is. And that's a very unusual space. That space is, there's, there's a zillion books on air power. There's not a bombing to win because this is an unusual bridge. It's bridging things that are not normally bridged. And these groups, diplomatic historians don't usually hang out with pilots, and vice versa. So, it's like journalists don't really hang out with pilots. So, so you end, so what I'm, and, and I found when I started teaching for the Air Force, this was the missing link. This was the issue. The issue was I didn't have a pile of books over here, a pile of books over here. The issue was the linkages that became the discussion of the escalation frameworks. What you're seeing now in the public, uh, on the Substack and so forth, that that's been all developed for 35 years. This isn't all just coming off the top of my head. Um, I had half a book written called The Smart Bomb Trap here. So, you want to know where's a lot of these case studies coming from? They're coming from the word documents with this stuff that never made it to the publisher. So, this is the, um, uh, this, and, and it's really important because once you bring a, see, we often talk about strategy, military strategy, as a chess game. I see it as a chess game with emotion. And once you have the emotion thrown in, now you can get plays, pieces moved where you make a move knowing the other side might take your rook. You don't usually do that. I played chess. You don't usually give your rooks away. Okay. So, you get the emotions involved, it becomes a very different story. And that's some of the wickedness of the trap. See, I deliberately called it not escalation ladder, not escalation monitor, the escalation trap. Because I'm trying to convey right from three days before the bombs fell, you cross this Rubicon, you are in a trap. President Trump would lose control. And he lost control the first bomb that hit. And he's been trying to get control back for 145 days. And notice he's not getting it back very easily. He's losing more and more control. And that's the feeling people have when they say things are spinning out of control. They're going to these new, unmanageable stages. The bottom line is, we, this has been out of control since February 28th, um, when those first bombs fell and killed the supreme leader, and we're just now seeing the full extent of how it's spinning out of control. It's also, by the way, a, not just an American issue. Because see, a lot of people thought, well, okay, President Trump and Israel, they started this thing. So, if they would simply stop bombing, stop using force, we're done, right? The war's over, right? That was the, uh. And the reason that that didn't work is it's a little bit like, uh, people watching a bar fight. If they're in a, in a bar, uh, and they see two guys on bar stools and one guy hits the other one, do we really think it's over? Unless he knocks him out and the guy can't get up. No. That other guy's going to get up, and he's, what's he going to do? Very likely he's going to hit back. Even if the other guy says, "Oh, I hit you now. I'm good. Ceasefire."
>> Yes.
>> No. No. Now you have the other side. And they want revenge. It's not good enough. So, anyway, these are these dynamics we've been seeing.
>> Absolutely. Very well put. Um, simple scenarios that are playing out in major cases of geopolitics. Just one thing I would add, a few things I would add is that, um, escalation dominance didn't work.
>> That's
>> Because we never had escalation dominance. We never.
>> Hormuz, Hormuz was a latent card that, um, Iran could have always played. Now, if Iran had played it earlier, say, on its own, a bolt from the blue, then the rest of the world would have balanced against Iran. So, what's one of the things that's that's impressive about Iran, and I don't mean to, I'm not trying to compliment them on on that. I actually don't like how they're killing their people. This is not a situation I'm very happy with. But nonetheless, we need to recognize the strengths in in states. One of the things that's very impressive is they, they have been, uh, willing to be quite restrained until it made sense not to be restrained. And that, that really takes something because that's not so easy to do. Uh, and so, um, people have often asked me, why didn't they take Hormuz before? Well, there's a very good realist balance of power reason why. Had they done that, there's a very good chance this would have caused the overwhelming balancing coalition Trump now is trying to put together and can't. Why? He started it. President Xi told him this right to his face, actually, which is, you started it. You, you solve it. Not my problem. Okay. So, so this is, um, uh, this is one of the big things to understand, which is that it's not wars are not just about, um, uh, military equipment. They're about politics. And that's often lost on people because they think war is like taking your car to, uh, the, uh, the gas station to get the engine cleaned or get the oil changed. That's not what war is about. And war is also not a business deal. A lot of people think, "Oh, I just got, how much money is it going to cost me to get Hormuz?" No, this is not a business deal. This is not being on Madison Avenue and we're negotiating the price of that skyscraper. That's not what this is. So, you can try to pretend that's what it is, but you get your clock cleaned, and that's what you're seeing. So, when you, when you come at this with these alternatives, uh, these alternative frameworks, you, you can do it, but you're just going to get your clock cleaned. And that's what's been happening over and over and over again. And that's why we just keep getting deeper and deeper into the trap. And I'm really quite concerned over the next few days that this is, this is going to take yet another deeper turn in the escalation trap. Um, that's, that's literally right in front of us. Uh, so, uh, yes, this is the cycle, this is the vicious, vicious cycle that Washington has sort of, um, uh, managed successfully to, um, you know, itself in. U, so, okay. No, I think Iran, just like you mentioned, in terms of restraining and waiting for the US to step up and and step into this trap, actually, in many respects, built not only legitimacy but sort of, uh, showed the rest of the world and region that it's not as rogue of a state as everybody had made it out to be. In many respects, you know, it's just a state. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sovereign nation. Yes, it has said some really, you know, bad things towards, you know, uh, Israel, the United States. Of course, we know this. But any clever strategist, anyone who, even forget about realism or forget, just practically speaking, devoid of any ideology, understands that this is just rhetoric. There will be the end of Iran if it ever pulled anything that would cross two oceans and come to our shores here in the United States. Any threat, I mean, it's impossible basically to, you know, uh, in terms of national security of the United States to threaten this country. You know, uh, you know, and Iran, Tehran understands that. This is mostly politics. This is all ideology. This is fanaticism, really. We can even take it to that far, um, but, you know, Iran showed, look, fine, guys, you know, if we cannot come to an agreement, and you know, if it's, it's our system of government that pisses you off, or, um, yes, our dislike, to put it, uh, uh, softly, of what Israel is doing in in Gaza and Palestine. Let's go to war. And in a very shrewd way, actually, um, some sort of a Putinist way, in many respects, they showed strategic calculus that we here fail to understand or follow or figure out because perhaps of hubris, perhaps of arrogance, perhaps we have hexets there in Washington, thinking that, you know, in just 24 hours, we can take care of this, you know, backward country. No time. Um, and here, here is the result of that hubris. Um, and I just want to mention the word nationalism. I think nationalism is something that is extremely powerful in international relations and politics. And, uh, I think nationalism is what, you know, got us kicked out of Vietnam. And, and nationalism is what is resisting us.
>> You, you are putting your finger on within the politics. Remember I said military action, it's politics.
>> Yes.
>> Within politics, there are of course multiple issues, but you're putting your finger on the bullseye within the politics, which is the nationalism. And this is something that I've written about in Bombing to Win. You might think, "Oh my god, it's about air power. What?" Well, read chapter two. Okay, this is what's in suicide terrorism. Read Dying to Win. You'll see, you'll see whole chapters about nationalism being involved. Um, in the escalation trap Substack, you'll see as the war unfolds, I have papers about the reason that this is going to, the regime change bomb is going to stiffen the regime is nationalism. It's going to bring what was, pulling the regime apart, closer together, and also the society and the regime closer together. That these, that word is so important, Lasha, because it's the over, one of the ways I put this in the, and when I talk about this, um, when I have like days and days to lecture, I, I show people how different leaders have gotten caught in the smart bomb trap.
>> And you hear, uh, President Trump often being described, well, my god, those bombs, those GB57s, they just went right down those air shafts. And this is literally the mesmerization of it. It mesmerizes people. I've been in the rooms with senior, senior people mesmerized by these smart bombs, and it's because you get, um, these PowerPoint presentations, you get people with stars on there, and they're going walking you through this. It really is quite exquisite technology. But you know what never shows up in the PowerPoint briefing? Nationalism. Because you can't, you, there's no network analysis.
>> Yes. Yes.
>> You, you see what I mean? That is missing. It's not like it's not, it's there, and they give a, they qualify it and they argue against it. It's literally never there. So people keep saying, "How is it that President Trump could go down this road?" And, and doesn't he get these briefings? Well, I'd like to see the briefings. Let me see the briefings here. And dollars to donuts, there's no nationalism here. You see what I mean? So, you might say, "Oh, yeah, you're just some ivory tower dot dot dots." Okay. Well, look at the outcomes here.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we do like video games and big explosions and Hollywood movies. So, I guess that's how they view this, you know.
>> And I'm sorry to say, we may be in for some more shock and awe in the next few days. You see a very likely possibility.
>> Yeah.
>> Is going to be a shock and awe campaign with ground action, not sequenced. So, what you are seeing in the, uh, evacuation of embassies, what you're seeing in the leaks coming out of Israel, see, Netanyahu is having meetings with his cabinet, with his, with his people for hours and hours. They know roughly what's coming.
>> Yes.
>> Uh, we now have an Israeli, uh, submarine with nuclear weapons in the Red Sea. I don't know if you know that.
>> So, there is an enormous amount of preparations happening here, behind.
>> And it's not just by one or a few. We've moved, uh, dozens of medics to Germany. We're not moving them to Germany for nothing. You see what I mean? And they're medics. They're MASH units. So, we are really, really getting prepared. Um, just before I got on last, there's a post from, uh, Donald Trump, essentially warning Putin and Xi to stay out. Now, this is important because they got nuclear weapons.
>> Yeah.
>> So, this is a, I'm just trying to point out that we are, there are real reasons to be concerned, and not just because it's all hot air talk. There's real movement that's happening. And I think that this is what we need to be prepared for is, uh, something quite spectacular could happen. Uh, this morning on my escalation trap Substack. So, I, I thought it was very important to, uh, understand what what could possibly be meant by President Trump yesterday, [clears throat] that, um, Iranians have not, uh, suffered enough. So, he said that they haven't suffered enough. Well, he's been talking about electric power. He's been talking about bridges. This is an area I know a ton about.
>> Yes.
>> Because when I taught for the Air Force, we were literally doing studies, and these were unclassified, by the way. Not everything I did was unclassified, but this, this was unclassified, of, um, uh, taking down electric power. And we would bring in the, uh, big, um, business people from the electric power plants to teach what are the vulnerabilities and aim points in power plants and what would happen. So, I know quite much more about this than you might think. And so, I put a big paper out. What would you expect if Iran loses power? The first few hours, the first week, the first month or two. And people can go look at the details. It, it gets kind of scary, but it's a matter of time. It's really just a matter of time. And the idea that once you start to take down the plants in very, especially in certain ways,
>> And I explain what those ways are, uh, here, you're going to reverse this. Uh, no, no, no, no. This is not a, "Oh, yeah, we changed our mind. We don't like those thousands of people dying and those people that can't get dialysis here. We, we want them to get dialysis. Uh, call in the Red Cross." No.
>> No.
>> No. This is much more when, when President Trump was using these awful words about what could happen.
>> Yes.
>> I, there's more to. We're used to electric power going out. I just had this happen in my house a couple weeks ago. It went out here in Chicago, half the city, uh, for about 12 hours. And what happens? You got to throw the meat away in your refrigerator. That's the worst of it. That's not what we're talking about here.
>> Uh, Professor, so we're about to step into a major humanitarian disaster as well as the geopolitical.
>> That's what I'm telling you. We are. The, the kind of thing that could be happening, of course, it hasn't happened yet,
>> Is a humanitarian disaster that will have be very difficult to to stop as it unfolds. And then also, um, the anger that's going to produce and the retaliation by Iran. And so, this is not simply one-sided. So, this idea that we have the dominance, we dominate, we're gonna punish them until they squeal.
>> Of course. Yeah.
>> There's the pushback and the retaliation because that punishment produces anger.
>> Uh.
>> And Iran is huge. 92 [clears throat] million people.
>> Yes. Yes. Huge.
>> Not to mention the, uh, uh, the effects of far, sort of a wider regional effect. Uh, now this brings me to Manila meeting. Um, it was a joke, as far as I'm concerned. Uh, but, uh, it still gave us some information. Um, everybody says how Lavrov stonewalled, um, our Secretary of State, Rubio. Um, your take on Russia's role in this. Um, it will be foolish for us to assume that Russia is not helping Iran. It would be full. I mean, what are.
>> Yeah. Yes. But at this point, um, so there's a couple ways Russia can help in a very specific way.
>> Yeah. A couple ways Russia and China can help. Very specific ways.
>> Yes.
>> Uh, way number one would be to give the targeting coordinates of our carriers.
>> So, just to be super precise, um, there are five to 6,000 sailors on those carriers. Um, they, uh, there are ways to find them with drones. Say, Shahed 136s.
>> Those carry about, um, 80 pounds of explosives. Those Shaheds can be nuisances and they can cause what you might call a little bit of damage. But if you want to kill hundreds of, uh, sailors or a thousand, you need ballistic missiles or you need anti-ship cruise missiles. Those pack much bigger wallops. Think factors of 10, much bigger. That's what you need more of the targeting accuracy for. So, that's where, um, uh, when you say what is the help that could happen here that could happen. Um, and I think that may be what President Trump is trying to prevent as we, because he's going to want to move the carriers in closer. You see, and so this is possibly what's going on in these these posts by Trump. But let's just step back and widen this out. You see, Putin is stuck in his own escalation trap in Europe. So, he's already stuck in a trap, four and a half year war. Uh, this, there's a whole lot to to say about that. Uh, but for Putin, what he really, um, is being given is a windfall because as the world's economy crashes, whether it's a little crash, debt in the car, big crash, or horrible crash, as the world economy crashes, this is going to hit Europe. And so all these promises that Europe's been making, 80 billion for Ukraine, and this, well, these are all contingent on Europe having any money at all. So, we'll, we'll see where this is going to head, head, uh, where this is going to lead in terms of the, but this for Putin is a windfall. So, um, Putin, um, may well decide that he is going to, um, uh, do things that will, uh, basically build a propaganda campaign to help him, um, raise more troops from his own country. He hasn't really raised them from the western districts of the Soviet, of the Russians, right now. Russia, Russia, he's done mostly from the east. So, he may decide that he's going to tough talk tough, but what he's really going to do is raise troops so that when Europe weakens, then he can come in with a stronger ground campaign. That is something that might happen here. Um, uh, China, I think China is going to stay out of this and just let, um, uh, the, the escalation trap suck in, uh, so this. One of the things that China has done is they decided not to buy expensive oil. So, uh, one of the things they've done is they've stopped buying, uh, three to four million barrels of oil a day. Um, it's not quite clear they've stopped that now, but at least they did for several months. Well, why might you do that? Well, barrels, 90 B, when oil's 90 bucks, that's expensive stuff. And you got oil sitting in your reserves, over a million, a billion barrels, that's free. So, why not coast on what you got? Cuz they can coast for a while. You see what I mean? So, I think that, uh, China and Russia have been, um, they don't want Iran to be toppled. They, they, they don't mind at all America getting stuck in another forever war because for both Russia and China, that helps, uh, pin America down and makes America less, uh, able to come at them in their regions of the world. If it's okay, can I just take a drink? I've been doing this all day. Sorry.
>> Absolutely. Please do.
>> Um, so, but the thing is here is that, um, you know, Russia understands that, uh, the wider strategic goal here is to, um, perhaps roll back Russia, uh, in the region, uh, through the South Caucuses, through, um, you know, the Black Sea, uh, region. Uh, Iran is a good sort of an entryway, um, uh, you know, Georgia did not work, Ukraine is not working. Now Iran, it's Iran's turn. Although Iran's the reason, the reasons are, um, um, you know, sort of a multi-vector reasons there in terms of Iran because of Israel. Uh, but, uh, China sees this. So, I don't want to get back, sort of, I don't want to get into, uh, the ancient history here, but this is sort of a Eurasia sort of a narrowing, uh, you know, Russia's role in Eurasia. It is geopolitical, sort of spa, spatial, uh, you know, existence, if you will, you know, the rim from the rimlands to the heartland, if you will, somehow to, [clears throat] make it more difficult for Russia. And then Iran, geopolitically speaking, this location is, uh, is, is, is a perfect one for for that. Uh, to what extent this plan will work, um, you tell us. But, uh.
>> Well, I don't think it, it's likely, [clears throat] to work because that plan presumes that, um, um, Iran, [clears throat] is basically a paper tiger and it can be used to put more pressure on Russia. Iran, we, we need to, um, when we say it's a large country, one way to think about it is this is the biggest, toughest opponent America has faced since Germany in World War II.
>> That's a huge.
>> Germany in World War II. Iran's not Iraq. It's much bigger, much more, much tougher, better technology. Uh, it's not Afghanistan. All that, what I just said, ditto multiple times. It's also not Vietnam. Iran is, uh, multiple times those states. In fact, Iran is about the population size of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan all combined, all wrapped in together. So, when you think about, and, and also has much better technology and has now, it's, it's part of the leading edge of what I call the second precision revolution. That wasn't true with, uh, Vietnam, and that wasn't true with Iraq, and that wasn't true with Afghanistan. So, what you are seeing, and of course, it has Hormuz as well, geographic advantages. So, you look at Iran, Iran is not just another forever war. It's the mother of all forever wars. This was always, always the one never to do. You see, the other ones were bad. This is a catastrophic disaster, and it's only getting worse. Um, the problem here is scale. And [clears throat] it's very difficult, Lash, and you, and you may know because you spent a lot of time in the media, trying to communicate, but of all the things that we try to communicate, um, on, um, on these visual mediums, scale is some of the hardest. It's even harder than geography because at least with geography, we got the maps. You see what I mean? But when people look at maps, [clears throat] they're often having a hard time getting the scale. Now, you might have miles down there and all that. I teach for a living. I know I use maps all the time. The hardest thing to get across to any audience, no matter how smart, is the scale. And that's what's going awry here with Iran. We're somehow thinking that it is, uh, weaker than it is in multiple different ways, but it's an issue of scale.
>> Strategic depth, that space that is so key.
>> And three-dimensional, three-dimensional. So, the, the, the drone hunt.
>> Yes. Yes. Uh, so when, [clears throat] I, when I'm using maps now, I'm using relief maps,
>> Because I don't just want to show that a Shahed drone has, um, over a 500-mile radius, um, range, excuse me, not radius, range. [clears throat] And what that means is it's a 500-mile by 500-mile zone launch box. That's bigger than California, but it's worse than that because Cal, that's a two-dimensional way to describe scale. There's the Zargov Mountains, and that's like mountains are like having a skyscraper building where any floor of that building, you could find yourself a Shahed, [laughter] drone. I mean, a drone. And, and so this is the problem. If you're in, um, a set of buildings, it could be in the basement, it could be on the first floor, it could be on the second floor, and you're saying, "Oh my god, no, you need the elevator, so we're going to shut down." These things are light. It's unbelievable. The, this is not a situation where, Yeah, you understand.
>> No, I hope our audience understands what a trap really, that, um, the Western world has.
>> Yeah, this is the worst, the most wicked escalation trap. It may be. It's certainly for America in history. It may just be the most wicked in history. It's, it's, it's, it's way up there.
>> Yes. Yes. Uh, Professor. So, we are on the 49th minute on the hour here. Um, I know you're limited in time. So, let's.
>> Close. Uh, thank you once again. I really appreciate your time and, uh, let's continue to do this.
>> And I'm glad to do it. I'm glad, [clears throat] to do it. Sorry, my, my voice got a little braggy here. But look, you, you just see, Lasha, we're, we're doing everything we can, and I really appreciate, uh, you, your, [clears throat] audience, and all the great work you're doing.
>> Thank you for your kind words, and thank you for being here.
>> Okay, bye-bye.