How Iran Outmaneuvered the World’s Strongest Military | Prof. Jiang Xueqin Explains

Speaker A

Iran and Israel are committed to a war. And it's possible that in two years time, there will be a ground invasion of Iran, okay? But it's going to take time to build up to the ground invasion.

But just because the Americans and the Israelis attack Iran does not mean they will win, okay? And the reason why is that, as you know from your research, in 2002, the Americans actually.

Tried to invade Iran. Okay? They had. They ran a simulation called the 2002 Millennium Challenge. And the idea is, let's pretend that we will invade Iran and let's see what happens. So they divide the military into two teams, right? Team USA and Team Iran. Now, if you know anything about the American military, you will know that it is the most dominant powerful military ever to exist in human history, okay? It is crazy powerful. If the entire world were to get together and said, let's go fight the United States, the world would lose. The United States has the most powerful military in the entire world, okay? And Iran.

It'S a very poor country.

So the United States invaded Iran and they wanted to see what would happen. And it turned out that. Who won?

Iran won, okay? And the reason why Iran won is the idea of asymmetrical warfare.

All right? And this is a very important idea that you must know if you are to understand there's conflict. So what is asymmetrical warfare? All right? Let's pretend that Jack and I are enemies. We hate each other, and we don't want to kill each other, okay? Jack has armor and he has a machine gun. I have nothing, okay? So in most battles, Jack's going to kill me, right?

But let's pretend that I live in a dark forest and it's really hard to see in this dark forest, but I've been living there for decades, okay? So I know this dark forest very, very well. So if Jack attacks me in this dark forest, then it's possible for me to win because I can set traps, right? I can play tricks on Jack. And that's the idea of asymmetrical warfare, okay? Even though Jack is superior because. Because I'm inferior, I'm forced to be much more strategic in how I fight against Jack, okay?

And so asymmetrical warfare means that as long as you can define the terms of engagement, as long as you can.

Control how the war is fought, you will win.

Okay? So let's look. Let's look at what this means for Iran and the United States. So the United States has these aircraft carriers.

And they cost like a billion dollars, okay? They're very expensive, but they're very powerful. Now, in a symmetrical warfare, what happened is Iran sent its entire navy against this one aircraft carrier of the United States. And then what happens? The United States blows up the entire Iranian navy. Okay? That's what would happen. So you don't do that, okay? You do not send your navy against an American aircraft carrier. What you do instead is you send drones, okay? Or drone swarms.

So what they did in the Millennium Challenge was they had these suicide boats, right, charging these aircraft carriers. And guess what, guys? If there's a lot of them, like a thousand of them, you can't stop all of them. And if one hits, then your bolt sinks. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay, this is what we call asymmetrical warfare. Now, what's important to understand is that in asymmetrical warfare, you have to control how much resources you use. Okay? So, for example, this aircraft carrier costs a billion dollars. The drone swarms, okay? A drone may be $1,000.

For a real one, okay? But then you have fake ones that cost $100. $1,000 are these drones that blow up, right? $100 are drones that don't blow up, right? You have 1,000 of these.

And then that's like $10 million. And then you have 10,000 of these, and that's another $10 million. Okay? So it'll cost you maybe $20 million to blow up a $1 billion aircraft carrier. Does that make sense? And this is why Iran would win a war, because Iran would employ asymmetrical warfare, drone swarms, against the American aircraft carriers. Okay? And the true promise actually showed us that the Iranians would probably use a strategy. And the reason why is that the total package, the strike package that the Iranians use, cost about 10 to 30 million dollars.

But how much money did they Israelis spend to bring down these drones? Did you guys. Do you guys know how much did it cost the Israelis to defend themselves against this attack?

Okay, it was one. At least $1 billion.

Hey. Do you understand? All right.

So.

This shows us that in a war, Iran would use asymmetry warfare.

And even though.

Israel and the United States have military dominance, they may not be able to win this war. Okay? Okay, so does this make sense so far? Any questions about this?

The Israelis and Americans don't have asymmetrical warfare. Okay, that's a really good question. Okay? And the question really is, okay, listen, the Iranians will use this asymmetrical warfare strategy against the Americans. And so shouldn't the Americans respond with more strategic thinking? And that's a great question. And the answer is, the Americans would not do that. Why not? Why is it that asymmetrical warfare is so effective against empires and dominant military powers? What's the problem of empires? Usually?

What is their biggest problem?

What is the fatal flaw?

They have too much bureaucracy. Okay, they have too much bureaucracy. But Iran also has bureaucracy. But the empires have a much bigger problem. Okay, now let's go back to the Millennium Challenge. Now, in the first test, in the first battle, Iran won against the United States, right? So what did the United States do?

And do what?

They did it again. They did another. They did a second simulation. In the second simulation, what did they do.

Exactly? Okay, what the Americans said is, nope, this is cheating, guys. Did you understand Ace of Legal Warfare is cheating? You cannot cheat. And then the Americans won. Does that make sense? Okay, so remember, in the first instance where you are allowed to use asymmetrical warfare, the Iranians won. In the second instance, the Americans said, no, asymmetrical warfare is cheating. So you're not allowed to use asymmetrical warfare. You must fight us directly. And the Americans won. What does this tell us about the American military?

Exactly. Thank you. Okay, they are inflexible. Empires have. Are inflexible. And the reason why is the idea of hubris, right? If you're an empire, you refuse to omit your failings and faults. You become very stubborn. Okay, so it's back to the example of Jack has his machine gun, his armor, right? He comes in this dark forest thinking, like, I'm invincible, right? And, like, everyone's like, jack, don't go into that dark forest. It's stupid. But Jack's like, no, I have a machine gun. I don't care. All right? So that's the situation. That's why asymmetrical warfare is so effective, because it allows you flexibility and creativity.

And the empire, the dominant power, refuses to be flexible and creative. Okay, does that make sense? All right, and so the classic example of this is Vietnam, where the Vietnamese were clearly dominated by the Americans, but the Viennese were.