Part 1
What is really bad is not that wars start according to one scenario, but usually proceed according to a completely different one, but that wars often lead to the death of those regimes and states whose leaders initiated these wars. Moreover, the more carefully the initiators plan their wars, the more successfully the wars start for them, the more terrible the consequences are for those who conceived them.
Of course, this is not true for all wars. It is typical for wars not just between states, but between states-civilizations, and the main reasons for such tragedies are due to the unwillingness of those who initiated these wars to take into account civilizational factors.
The initiators of wars between civilizations are distinguished by a sense of superiority and an inability to understand the peculiarities and uniqueness of another civilization. They refuse to consider their opponent as an equal.
The world is currently going through two such wars: in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Both of these wars have been prepared for a long time, and they were initiated by those who were confident in their cultural, military, technological, political and economic superiority. Both of these wars were carefully and long planned, and began with a brief and rapid success, and then everything began to break and slow down, and the results – even intermediate ones, because both wars are not yet over – are far away, and in some respects even opposite to the intentions and blueprint of their planners.
In the first part of this article, I will analyse the interim results of the war between Israel and Iran.
“Or, I’ll close the Strait of Hormuz!”
The main conclusions from the 13-day war between Israel and Iran will be the following:
- An attack by one civilization on another, aggression and an attempt by military means to liquidate its ruling regime, military-political and religious leadership lead to the cementing of the existing regime, a sharp increase in patriotism, hatred towards those civilizations and states from which threats come, the unification of a significant part of the population around the military-political leadership and centre of power of the state system, and the suppression of the opposition.
- The war between Israel and Iran was the first war in which the actions of politicians and leaders were largely determined by artificial intelligence. For example, it was AI, despite the lack and even absence of direct evidence and human-verified intelligence, that presented Trump through PayPal Mafia companies with information that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
It was AI and its analytical reports that became the source of information for politicians not only in the US but also in other countries, convincing them that Iran was planning to create nuclear weapons in the near future. There were reports that Peter Thiel’s Palantir was the main source of this information.
PayPal mafia played a huge role in Trump’s re-election as US President, and is now influencing the formation of the White House’s foreign and domestic policies in the areas of economics and scientific and technological development.
AI has already become a major factor in direct influence on strategic political decision-making.
This means that, firstly, the digital and information sphere is reaching a new level of development, influence and manipulation of power and politics, and secondly, those who give priority to AI and the digital sphere in making political and economic decisions may win or lose depending on the complexity of the problems and the situation: the more complex and multifaceted the problem and situation, the higher the probability that the solution proposed by AI will be wrong and lead to a strategic error.
- Along with AI, in modern warfare the role of proxy forces capable of conducting effective military operations against the enemy on its territory or along its perimeter, especially in the “pre-war” period, as well as military and political intelligence and their capabilities, has sharply increased.
Intelligence capabilities have increased especially in the area of disinformation, including in conducting cover operations and deceiving the enemy. At the same time, diplomacy has begun to descend from the sphere of high politics to the level of a tool in the hands of military intelligence.
The weakness of Iranian intelligence and diplomacy allowed Israel and the US to calm the Iranian leadership, to convince it of the possibility of concluding a peace agreement, while simultaneously destroying or weakening Iranian proxies in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. That ensured the creation of an air corridor for airstrikes on Iran. All this allowed for an unexpected special operation that caused enormous damage to Iran and created the impression of an “inevitable and imminent victory for Israel.”
- The power of political influence and intelligence capabilities allows, at a given moment, a relatively weak regional power to use a stronger power as its proxy.
The successful special operation carried out at the initial stage, as well as the forces of political influence within the United States, allowed Israel to convince the White House of the imminent and inevitable victory and draw the United States into the war.
In fact, Israel, which had been a US proxy in the Middle East for decades, at a crucial moment tried to turn the US into its proxy and drag it into the war, using the US military for its own purposes. This could have cost Trump dearly, had he not managed to carry out a unique and lightning-fast behind-the-scenes operation to achieve a ceasefire.
The experience of the 13-day war in the Middle East confirmed that initial success does not guarantee victory, and world leaders should not hastily jump on a pedestal when the enemy continues to resist. The achieved truce does not mean the end of the war either. The reckoning has not yet been done, the payback has been postponed.
- Without space reconnaissance and a developed full-scale air defence system, including space and aviation components, it is impossible to ensure the survival of the economy and social system of a state in a war, especially in a confrontation with an enemy that has air superiority.
Iran’s underestimation of the role of air defence, its reliance on the distances between Israel and Iran and the power of its missile weapons and aerial drones have become the main reasons for Iran’s inability to wage a long and intense war with Israel and the United States behind it.
- Israel’s air defence system that was considered the best in the world before the war, showed its weakness and ineffectiveness, despite US support.
It turned out that Iranian intelligence was able to connect to surveillance cameras in Israeli cities and saw almost everything that was happening in real time, including where Iranian missiles were striking.
In a matter of days, having spent up to 10 billion dollars in weapons, Israel’s air defence reduced the level of destruction of enemy missiles from 90% to 60%, that is, out of ten missiles and drones launched by Iran, four reached their target in recent days. And that air defence protected a very small territory, – three times smaller than the Moscow region, – and two thousand kilometres away from the launch site, under full control of the space by Israeli and US space and air reconnaissance.
According to independent sources from Israel, after 12 days of war Israel has practically run out of anti-missiles. It turned out that Israel does not have its own full production of missiles, only electronics, programming and assembly. At the same time, there was a threat of interruption of sea deliveries.
Israel has proven capable of waging war intensively and effectively for no more than two weeks, which was typical for Israel in the wars of the 1970s and 1980s. This speaks to the systemic limitations of the Israeli military’s capabilities.
- Intelligence, sabotage, and the “fifth column” can cause enormous damage to the enemy, but cannot bring victory in war unless they lead to the collapse of the state system and a change of power at the initial stage.
If the enemy withstands the first unexpected blow, then the war moves into a stage that can lead to victory only for the one who has the greatest potential of the military-industrial complex, as well as a reliable support from the allies.
States like Iran and Israel that cannot create a full-scale world-class military-industrial complex, must inevitably choose an ally and become part of a macro-region formed around a state that has a full-scale modern military-industrial complex and is capable of ensuring victory in a modern war of attrition.
Israel has the United States as a strategic partner. Iran has a strategic cooperation agreement with China that has virtually no military component. Iran delayed the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Russia for two years, insisting on limiting the agreement’s scope in the defence sphere, seeking to preserve its independence. Iran has ratified this agreement only after the Israeli attack.
Iran refused to purchase modern Russian air defence systems and aircraft. Now Iran has realized its mistakes. And not only Iran. The new orders for the Russian air defence systems are started flying to Moscow.
Negotiations between Baghdad and Moscow, including Putin’s personal meeting with Iran’s foreign minister during the war, suggest that Iran may choose Russia as its strategic partner and enter the macro-region that is being created by Russia.
- Without a ground operation and the establishment of control over the territory, the war cannot end in complete victory.
Without a ground army, it has proven impossible to wage a modern war to complete victory. A war without full control of the enemy’s strategically important territories can only lead to maximum damage to its economy, financial and social capital and potential, to the inevitability of a war of attrition.
Most modern states are absolutely unprepared for this, just as Israel and Iran were unprepared for a modern war. This forces the world to rapidly divide into macro-regions, and states to choose their main partners who are capable of ensuring the protection of their peoples and civilizations.
- The main contradictions and the threat of a new conflict between Israel and Iran as a result of the war in June 2025 have not been removed. Israel and Iran are not capable of finding a compromise and getting out of the inter-civilizational contradiction between them on their own.
There are three most likely scenarios:
– a new war after a period of recovery, rearmament and building up of military potential by both sides, and that does not exclude the creation of nuclear weapons by Iran;
– the creation of nuclear weapons by Iran, depriving Israel of the ability to strike without the threat of a nuclear conflict, and establishing a fragile peace with the risk of escalating into a nuclear conflict;
– Iran’s entry into a military-strategic alliance with Russia and China (or with one of the world powers) and the conclusion of an international agreement between the United States, Russia and China with the participation of Iran and Israel, capable of establishing long-term peace in the Middle East. That requires a Track-2 process to start immediately.
What was that?
It is worth paying attention to one aspect of Operation Midnight Hammer that was carried out by the US Air Force to strike nuclear technology development and production facilities in Iran.
First, a few facts.
Iran knew in advance about the US intention to strike. The flight of stealth bombers and tanker aircraft was tracked not only by the special services of Iran, Russia and China, but the information was even published in Telegram channels almost in real time.
Several months before the operation, the world media reported that the deal to sell Diego Garcia, the island where the US air base is located and hangars for US strategic bombers were built, had been cancelled. The Russian media speculated that the US was preparing to use strategic bombers in the near future.
Trump loudly and theatrically walked out of the G -7 summit in Canada. Explaining his departure, he wrote in his blog post that Iran should not have nuclear weapons and called for the complete evacuation of Tehran, implying that an air and missile strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was imminent.
Iran had removed stockpiles of enriched uranium and key equipment from the sites known to Israel and the US that were targeted in advance. Photos of convoys of trucks were published on Telegram channels.
The facilities were heavily damaged but not destroyed. Uranium stockpiles and key equipment were preserved. Iran will be able to restore its nuclear production in a few months, having carried out its planned modernization.
Iran retaliated against a US military base and Israel. When Iran attacked the US base, it warned Washington in advance about the target, time and number of missiles, ensuring their destruction.
Before Iran’s strike, Putin met with Iran’s foreign minister in the Kremlin, and Washington held talks with Beijing. Trump demonstratively wrote on his blog an appeal to China, asking it to “persuade Iran not to close the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran has not taken any actions, such as blocking the Strait of Hormuz, that could cause significant damage to the United States, Europe, China, the Arab states, or the global economy, including oil and gas trade.
Trump warned global business in his blog that oil and gas prices will not rise.
Trump, Israel and Iran each declared victory.
So, what was all that? And here we must pay attention to the consequences of the “Midnight Hammer”:
– Trump has become a peacemaker and a hero for European leaders and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize;
– Europe happily agreed to raise its defence spending to 5% and take on the financing and support of Ukraine in the war with Russia, and that will provide huge orders for the US military-industrial complex in the coming years and will allow Washington to abandon the production of obsolete types of weapons, modernizing the military-industrial complex and moving it to a new technological level without stopping existing production, – at Europe’s expense;
– The EU is ready to accept new US import tariffs, or whatever else Trump comes up with;
– China has readily accepted the import tariffs of 50%, the agreement has been signed three days after the US attack on Iran, and the US will receive hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and now Beijing knows that Trump can “close the Strait of Hormuz” at any moment;
– China maintains preferential tax treatment for American multinational corporations operating in China;
– Trump has fulfilled his promises and commitments to the Gulf Arab countries that are investing five trillion dollars in the US economy, and the Arab monarchies and their corporations are showing enthusiasm and willingness to increase investment in the US;
– The US has demonstrated that it is truly the only “safe heaven” for manufacturing businesses and financial companies in the world, and the process of resettling millionaires and moving production from unstable regions, primarily from Europe, is growing exponentially…
All that remains for Trump is to restore order in the United States and, of course, end the war in Ukraine, because that war could ruin everything, and this will be discussed in the second part of this article.
