URGENT UPDATE - Iran War Expert: A Mass Casualty Attack Is Coming! | Robert Pape

1. 0:00 – 2:42

   Intro

   1. RPRobert Pape0:00

      Iran is stronger today than it was before the war started, and this is literally the nightmare scenario that we've been worrying about. And the reason you're having me here is because in the next few months, the world economic crisis is going to grow.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:14

      And it does appear that you've been largely correct about what you said would happen.

   3. RPRobert Pape0:18

      It's because I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for twenty years, and I've advised every White House from 2001 to 2024 on different issues related to conflict. And right now we're coming into the stage three prediction. We're like on the Titanic, and we're about to hit the iceberg. And when the iceberg hits, there's not enough lifeboats for everybody. So we are knocking on the door of the world literally running out of oil. And then on top of that, Steven, we have another set of problems. For example, Iran is attacking our base in Jordan, and we're in our ninth day of bombing in a row. And the scale of eliminating the drone and missile threat is much bigger than people realize because they hide those drones everywhere.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:05

      So how real is the risk that the US will do some kind of limited ground operation with boots on the ground in Iran?

   5. RPRobert Pape1:11

      It's bordering on seventy percent now, probably by the end of this week. But I'm concerned about terrorist attack because controlling pieces of homeland territory is the biggest risk factor for suicide terrorism. So the choice is, do we have a global economic crisis, possibly recession, possibly worse, or do we let Iran control the Strait of Hormuz?

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:32

      This is not a good place to be. So what is the most probable next thing that you think happens?

   7. RPRobert Pape1:37

      I think that question, Steven, is the most important question in the world, and I think the answer is-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:47

      This is super interesting to me. My team give me this report to show me how many of you that watch this show subscribe, and some of you have told us, according to this, that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly. So favor to ask all of you, please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button if you are a regular viewer of this show and you like what we do here. We're approaching quite a significant landmark on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So if there was one simple free thing that you could do to help us, my team, everyone here, to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over year and week over week, it is just to hit that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure every single week, every single month, we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you want to hear. I've stayed true to that promise since the very beginning of The Diary of a CEO, and I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get on with the show. [upbeat music]

2. 2:42 – 4:24

   Why Robert Pape Isn't Surprised

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:42

      Robert Pape. With everything that's going on with Iran at the moment, the US-Iran war, and everything that I've learnt from you in the two previous conversations we've had on The Diary of a CEO, I'm guessing that you're not really surprised by what we're seeing now.

   2. RPRobert Pape2:57

      No, I'm not. I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for twenty years. The, uh, the fact is the modeling has held up and literally month by month by month. Uh, when we were first here, the big surprise for most people was that we bombed the regime in Iran and it still stood. It survived even though, uh, we killed the supreme leader and something like a hundred and thirty-seven of their top leaders. Think about that. So that would be like if somebody killed our president, his wife, the First Lady, members of the First Family, half of the Cabinet, all of the leaders in the Pentagon, all of the leaders in the CIA, and about a third of the Congress. That is what we did to Iran in those opening weeks in March. And nonetheless, that regime survived. And that was something that modeling showed for that twenty years. That was based on, uh, substantial, um, patterns in history, uh, where air power alone had never toppled a regime going all the way back to World War I. Most people had not really heard that before. Many people, even in the military, did not fully know how much President Trump went up against the weight of history. Then we shifted. We shifted to, uh, six weeks of a bombing campaign. And then what did we do? We shifted over to a two-month blockade. Well, that was another version of

3. 4:24 – 5:43

   Why the US Blocked the Strait of Hormuz

   1. RPRobert Pape4:24

      punishment. So-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett4:25

      The US said that they were gonna block the Strait of Hormuz, basically trying to c- take control of it themselves.

   3. RPRobert Pape4:30

      That's right.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett4:30

      And therefore kind of punishing the rest of the world.

   5. RPRobert Pape4:33

      Uh, well, they d- they didn't wanna punish the world, what they were-- That did happen, but what they wanted to do was punish Iran. So they were trying to coerce Iran to get the government to surrender control of Hormuz. So keep in mind, what happened is on February 28th, that regime change bombing happened, and it went on for a few days. But by March 2nd, March 3rd, Iran controlled Hormuz. Literally within a few days, the ships stopped cold, and they basically have not reopened except for teeny-tiny periods of time in a sm- in a modest way. And then you're stuck. How do you get Iran to give up control of Hormuz, or do you let Iran continue to, uh, control Hormuz for as far as the eye can see? That's been the dilemma we've been in, Steven, since really the first week in March, and now it's become clearer to the world. That is the core dilemma. We're at a fork in the road. Either we physically take Hormuz back, all those other tact-- Even the MOU didn't work, didn't get-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett5:41

      What's the MOU?

   7. RPRobert Pape5:42

      Uh, the memorandum

4. 5:43 – 8:33

   The Secret JD Vance Peace Deal (MOU)

   1. RPRobert Pape5:43

      of understanding.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:44

      Which was the-- I sat here with JD Vance, and he told me that they were about to sign an agreement with Iran to ultimately end the war And they had that agreement.

   3. RPRobert Pape5:55

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett5:55

      JD told me that it was about to be signed. Couple weeks later, here we are. They're back to bombing each other.

   5. RPRobert Pape6:01

      Yeah, there's really two big issues with this, Steven, with the MOU, the MOU, the memorandum of understanding. Um, I do believe that, uh, uh, Vice President Vance sincerely thought it was going to, uh, had a good chance of ending the war. Uh, but there's a big problem here, Steven, which is when you listen to Vice President Vance, he approached this as a business deal, so he kept talking about all the benefits that were gonna come to Iran if they performed. A fee for service. We want the strait open, and we're gonna offer you money in different ways if you will open the strait. Well, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of international politics. This may work great in real estate, I'm not saying it doesn't, but in a ma- major war like this, what's at stake is the balance of power. The balance of power. Now, I wanna explain that before the war, before the war started, there was a balance of power where America was ascendant, Israel was the rising power, and Iran was actually the declining power in the region. What happened almost within, again, two weeks of the war starting is the balance of power was shifting dramatically when Iran became in control of Hormuz. This represents tremendous power in the future. That wealth, all of the potential that, uh, even though it hadn't been realized yet, equates to not just money to put in coffers, but it equates to military power. It equates to the ability to influence other states in the region to build a sphere of influence. This is power in terms of major power politics that was shifting here. And so it-- with the MOU, as, uh, you look at the MOU, JD Vance appears, we could just look at it, he appears to have thought this was a business deal. So he appears to have thought, "We're gonna hold up the, uh, promise of, say, three hundred billion dollars. It will eventually fall on you if you will just, uh, agree to do what we want and behave." Those aren't the clauses that matter to Iran. [chuckles] The clauses that matter to Iran were the clauses which directly relate to the balance of power in solidifying Iran, uh, its control of Hormuz, and essentially this MOU is fundamentally a roadmap to Iran becoming the regional hegemon.

5. 8:33 – 10:00

   Iran as Regional Hegemon, Explained

   1. SBSteven Bartlett8:33

      Hegemon, what does that mean?

   2. RPRobert Pape8:34

      The most dominant state in the Persian Gulf in the Middle East.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett8:39

      Wait, so you're saying that this agreement would make them the most dominant state in the Middle East?

   4. RPRobert Pape8:42

      Absolutely.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:43

      So why wouldn't they sign it within a heartbeat?

   6. RPRobert Pape8:45

      They did. They did. Iran signed-- In fact, most of these points were exactly the points that President Trump said he would never sign in April when Iran presented the initial fourteen-point plan in April. [chuckles] And the key-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett8:59

      So why-

   8. RPRobert Pape8:59

      And the key point-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett8:59

      Why we back at war then?

   10. RPRobert Pape9:00

       Well, well, let me just explain. The key, the key things that happened here is that, number one, notice in Article five it says that Iran will make the arrangements, uh, with Hormuz, that is the ships with Hormuz, and it will not charge for sixty days. It doesn't say it will never charge. It says only sixty days. So think about that, that this is already i- written into the agreement that President Trump is signing. And then if you say, "Well, what's gonna happen down the road?" It's gonna be Iran and Oman who are going to determine the future fees. There's no mention here of the United States. There's no clause to even let the United States wiggle itself in. This is a perfectly clearly written clause, and this basically gives Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz and also of the, the, the, the discretion to set the fees for as far as the eye can see with no constraint whatsoever.

6. 10:00 – 21:25

   How Do We Know This Is the Real Document?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett10:00

      How do we know that this is the actual document?

   2. RPRobert Pape10:02

      Because both the Iranian government and the White House put out exactly the same document word for word, um, so that we can actually compare them literally word for word. So this is exactly the document that President Trump signed. There's no question that, uh, we have like an earlier draft. Now, there were some earlier drafts leaked by Bloomberg. That's not what this is.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett10:24

      Okay.

   4. RPRobert Pape10:24

      This is the final one. But let me go a little bit further here, Steve. So here we're talking about the strategic base of Iran. And keep in mind, controlling Hormuz means controlling twenty percent of the world's oil. That's a fantastic amount of wealth and strategic power to build on in the future. Uh, no limit says-- Th- nothing about you can't spend it on missiles, anything else. But up here with Lebanon, the first article. So here-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett10:51

      So when you say article, this document contains ten-- Is it ten points?

   6. RPRobert Pape10:55

      Fourteen.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett10:55

      Fourteen different points. And when you say articles-

   8. RPRobert Pape10:57

      Fourteen different points

   9. SBSteven Bartlett10:57

      You mean points.

   10. RPRobert Pape10:58

       And there are three points that are really the critical action points that matter here. This promise of three hundred billion dollars down the road, this is so far, you know-- Th- this is like holding out, um, uh, funny money to the Iranians. These are the things that are actually short term, 'cause this is happening now. This is-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett11:18

       So point one you're saying is-

   12. RPRobert Pape11:19

       Point, point one I wanna come back to, Steven, because I want to explain this is Iran's strategic base.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett11:24

       Point number five?

   14. RPRobert Pape11:25

       Point number five. But what happens to become the dominant power in the region need more than a strategic base. You want a sphere of influence. You want a sphere of influence here. And can I just-- Can we-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett11:37

       So I'll hold this up here. Is that-

   16. RPRobert Pape11:38

       Yeah, that's good That's good. Point number five is controlling the Strait of Hormuz, but many of, uh, the different countries, including Saudi Arabia, the US, have already started to have pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. There were plans to do this for years. They were too expensive. But almost immediately, uh, they started to do that. So the Sau- Saudi Arabia started to put out four to five million barrels of oil a day, starting in mid-March, uh, into the Red Sea on a pipeline that had already been built and hadn't been used. There's a, a, an, a little area here called, uh, Fujairah, which is where the UAE had a pipeline. That's almost two million barrels a day. So 20 million barrels a day were going through Hormuz. Almost immediately, seven million were being bypassed. Then there's all this discussion that Iraq might build some pipelines. There might be other pipelines here going through Syria. So what-- If you're Iran, you now control this, but notice it's a declining asset that way. If you only control Hormuz, within five years, good chance your power is gonna be whittled away. What you want to do is you want a sphere of influence. So what Iran started to talk about is their security resistance belt, where they wanted to control, and they said from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea to the Gulf. This was the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard. And why would you do that? Because you want to prevent all of those bypasses to Hormuz, and they're already happening. And where's the key one? You know, you already have the Houthis down here. You have Hezbollah here, but you want to make sure-- The Houthis are pretty secure right here. It was-

   17. SBSteven Bartlett13:28

       In, in, so just again, for the people that can't see.

   18. RPRobert Pape13:30

       Yeah.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett13:31

       So you're saying the Houthis are pretty secure where?

   20. RPRobert Pape13:33

       The Houthis are pretty secure down here in Yemen. They've been fighting, uh, with the Saudis for quite some time. They've held their own. Uh, we fought a war with the, the, uh, the Houthis in May 2025 to try to get them to, uh, pull back from a temporary shutdown of the Red Sea, and we lost essentially. [laughs] Um, so we couldn't beat them. But the big one that was at issue was, uh, Lebanon, and it's-- And my point is, it's not so much, uh, that they love Hezbollah. They do, of course. They've had longtime, uh, decades of relationships with Hezbollah ideologically. There's, there, uh, there's good reasons for that. But there's something else that's a power reason that's being ignored, uh, here, which is you want Hezbollah to have drones right here in Lebanon. So if there's a pipeline that comes out here through Syria, if you've got some other pipelines that are coming out here, you've got Hezbollah here that can act as your Houthis. They can actually attack the shipping. So now you have a s-- You're, you're Iran. You're a major power. You're the dominant power in the region. You don't just control this area here and you're-

   21. SBSteven Bartlett14:43

       The Strait of Hormuz.

   22. RPRobert Pape14:44

       The Strait of Hormuz and Iran itself. You have an arc, a security arc here that in, uh, is a sphere of influence, but it's an operational sphere of influence. This is not just a piece of paper or something to talk about. This is what's guaranteeing you, you control all of that oil, whether it co- the oil from the Persian Gulf comes out through Hormuz, whether it comes out through Syria, or whether it comes out through the Red Sea, and that's what Article 1 is about.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett15:14

       So how come-

   24. RPRobert Pape15:15

       That's what I'm saying is not-- When I listen to Vice President Vance, which I've listened to your interview and other interviews, a super smart guy, okay? This is not a matter of that, okay? Uh, but he's thinking of it as a business deal. We want Hormuz open. What's it gonna take to pay? They're not looking at that. They're looking at they want to be a regional hegemon. This is their roadmap, and that's why they stuck to those goals.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett15:41

       But they signed this document, but then the war has kicked off anyway again.

   26. RPRobert Pape15:45

       Because what happened is President Trump signed the document. He owned the document for it, for a day. He explained that he signed the document because, this was literally four weeks ago, because the world was gonna run out of oil in four weeks, and he wanted to open Hormuz. So President Trump saw this as a way to try to, uh, open Hormuz. But what happened immediately after President Trump signed the document, literally starting in the next forty-eight hours, is, uh, President Trump started to, and his administration started to undermine the document, violate the clauses in that document. So issue number one was Secretary Rubio establishing a framework accord agreement in Lebanon, which essentially would lock in Israel's military presence in Lebanon as far as the eye could see. Whereas Article 1 in the document says that, uh, the United States would guarantee the territorial integrity of Lebanon, which, um, everybody would realize would mean Israel is, is violating the territorial integrity of Lebanon. It's not ensuring it. So that would mean Israel can't be locked in there and still be faithful to Article 1. So the framework agreement immediately violates Article 1. The second thing that happened, and this happened shortly after the framework accord, is President Trump started to encourage, uh, passage through the Strait of Hormuz, uh, through the southern-- Uh, there's three routes through the Strait of Hormuz. The central route, which used to be in existence, the main route before the war, now that's where the AD mines are, so nobody's using the central. They're either passing through the southern avenue, which is the one close to, uh- Oman, or they're passing through the Iranian passage, which is, of course, near the coast of Iran. And what President Trump did is he started to encourage this passageway, ships to, um, bypass or pass through Hormuz on the southern passageway, but with no coordination with Iran, with no, um, even, um, often with their transponders turned off. In fact, President Trump was bragging about this as his secret way to sort of, uh, bypass Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz. He literally bragged about this on multiple posts on True Social. Well, that directly, uh, contravenes Article 5. Um, and then the third thing that happened is if you look at-- We haven't looked at Article 11, but if we look at Article 11, you would see that Iran was, um, uh, due to have some of its frozen asset-- some of its assets that were seized by the United States and have been held for decades unfrozen. And it-- And there's a specific sentence which gives Iran the exclusive right to determine, um, what's gonna happen with that money. And what President Trump said is they can have their money, but only if they give it to the farmers, the US farmers, and buy American grain. That's the third violation of the MOU. So what happened here, Steven, is President Trump owned the MOU. He, uh, at, and was faithful to it, uh, for at least a day, maybe two, and this represented a strategic defeat for the United States. And he even explained why he accepted that strategic defeat, uh, very clearly and forthrightly. I call that owning the loss. He owned the loss for about a day or two, but then he tried to reverse the loss almost immediately, Steven. And that's how we're back at war because the big miscalculation that happened in this period was assuming that if President Trump didn't restart the war, the war would be over. The mis-- What-- Who started the war? Who started to shoot the ships in the Strait of Hormuz? It was the Iranians. Why did they do that? Because we were violating the MOU, bypassing their control of the Strait of Hormuz, and that means preventing Iran from becoming the regional pow- the rising regional power, ultimately the regional hegemon. So this is why they violated. It wasn't so much a legal understanding. This is great power politics, Steven. Iran wants to be the dominant state in the region. The United States does not want Iran to be the dominant state in the region. That has what is-- what this war has been about since the first week in March, and now it's five months later, and we're still at that point.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett20:24

       There should be a button just down below here. And if it says subscribed, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber, that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that button? It helps the show more than you know. And according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much. Did Iran charge people to go through the Strait of Hormuz before this?

   28. RPRobert Pape20:46

       No, never did.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett20:48

       Did they control the Strait of Hormuz at all?

   30. RPRobert Pape20:50

       Well, before, uh, the war started, not at all. Before the, before February twenty-eight, Iran did not control the Strait of Hormuz. What Iran did is it moved from survival to ambition. So Iran saw there was an opportunity with the bombing, uh, because the United States had no mi-- we didn't even have our navy here. There was no means whatsoever, uh, to sort of offset this, this, uh, Iran's, uh, control of the Strait of Hormuz. Nothing at all. Iran took this as an opportunity, and the opportunity was to seize power.

7. 21:25 – 22:26

   Did the War Actually Make Iran Stronger?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett21:25

      So is it fair to hypothesize that actually this war might have strengthened I- Iran because now it has this control over energy on a global basis that it didn't have before?

   2. RPRobert Pape21:39

      Without a doubt. Without a doubt, Steven. I don't say this with any happiness. There's really no question at this point that Iran is stronger today than it was before the war started on February twenty-eighth. And that's because it controls, uh, the Strait of Hormuz, meaning that it can threaten at will virtually any ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. It's demonstrated this over and over and over again. Even when the ships turn off their transponders, they are still able to threaten ships as they go through. And every time a ship tries to run the gauntlet, they run into a drone, a mine. They run into basically Iran's barrier, and that is Iran's

8. 22:26 – 24:57

   The Viral Tweet: How Is Iran Still Hitting US Bases?

   1. RPRobert Pape22:26

      power.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett22:26

      There was a, a tweet that went viral this week, um, about this. I'm gonna read the tweet here.

   3. RPRobert Pape22:31

      Yeah, please.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett22:31

      It says, "I'm confused. The US has the most powerful military on Earth. We've bombed the hell out of Iran for four months. Trump says their air force, navy, and nearly all of their missile capabilities are destroyed. So how is Iran still capable of hitting US bases right now?"

   5. RPRobert Pape22:48

      Because only a small fraction of its drone arsenal is necessary, uh, and missile arsenal in order to inflict that damage. Iran entered this war with thousands, we think tens of thousands of drones, missile, uh, ballistic missiles, anti-shipping missiles, which are lower, uh, sea-skimming cruise missiles. Um, and even though we have destroyed large fractions of their, uh, of their missiles, they have plenty left over to hit these, uh, these targets because they're doing saturation attacks. They're essentially doing swarms. They're saturating our, uh, our defensive capability and the, the, uh, the drones and missiles that get through plenty enough to damage it to the point we can barely use it if, if, if at all.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett23:42

      So is it, is it mainly drones that they're using at the moment to conduct these attacks on the Strait of Hormuz and on US bases?

   7. RPRobert Pape23:49

      Uh, it's been a combination. In the Mon- in, in March, it was mostly intermediate range ballistic missiles and then drones. Since about the middle of March, um, until just quite recently, it's mostly been drones except for Israel. When Israel's been attacked, it's, it's been very heavily with ballistic missiles. Uh, but what you're seeing now that's just in the last week is you're starting to see the use of ballistic missiles. You're seeing the use of cruise missiles. These are the sea-skimming missiles here, and they're being used in, against multiple targets. So the full arsenal that Iran has, the full range of the arsenal, it appears to be fully there, full, uh, stocked very well, and they're showing no signs of running out of ammo. If anybody's running out of ammo, it might be America running out of interceptors [laughs] to shoot things down. Um, but we don't know that as a fact. And I think that what you're seeing is Iran has been highly intelligent m- intelligent about how it has deployed its, its missiles.

9. 24:57 – 25:59

   Trump Says Iran Is Destroyed — So How?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett24:57

      Trump said, "They have no navy. It's been knocked out. They have no air force. That's been knocked out. They have no air detection. That's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out and just about everything's been knocked out. Virtually everything they have has been knocked out." He said that on Truth Social in May 2026. If everything has been knocked out-

   2. RPRobert Pape25:17

      Mm-hmm

   3. SBSteven Bartlett25:18

      ... then how come there's no safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz? How come this weekend we saw more Americans tragically die, um, because of Iranian attacks?

   4. RPRobert Pape25:28

      Because what they have left, we can't knock out and is plenty to do the damage. That's the fundamental problem. We took out the easy stuff to hit. They didn't need it in order to seize control of Hormuz and keep Hormuz and start to defend themselves against, uh, more aggressive pressure. And the bottom line is that it's, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate that capability. We would do it in a heartbeat if we could right

10. 25:59 – 29:24

    Where Iran Hides Its Drones ("A Truck in California")

    1. RPRobert Pape25:59

       away.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett25:59

       Explain to me in just simple terms why it's so difficult to remove that capability. You know, I was looking at this picture here, which shows the size of a drone-

    3. RPRobert Pape26:07

       Yeah

    4. SBSteven Bartlett26:08

       ... relative to a, another object, which in this case-

    5. RPRobert Pape26:10

       An F- an F-150

    6. SBSteven Bartlett26:11

       ... is a car. So I guess there was two questions, which is like, where do they hide these?

    7. RPRobert Pape26:15

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett26:15

       And how easy it is, is it to make one of these drones?

    9. RPRobert Pape26:19

       So they hide those drones, Steven, everywhere.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett26:22

        Okay.

    11. RPRobert Pape26:23

        Okay? They can... They're in drone caverns. They're in warehouses. They're everywhere. They could be... So that drone, just to kind of, uh, give you a sense here, would easily fit in this room, but the reason this is so difficult is notice how small that is here, that, that drone, compared to the scale of where it could be, and this is what I really wanna, uh, show you because this is, I think, the hardest part to explain to, to people as I'm talking in whatever format I'm talking is it's the scale of eliminating the drone and missile threat is much bigger than people realize because they're hearing measurements. "Well, we've destroyed X percent and Y percent," and that's why you're getting the question. But if you look at this map, this is what they, where e- these drones, these Shahed 136, could literally be anywhere in this radius, 500-mile area. And notice how huge this area is. This area, this area like this is bigger than California. It's one and a half times the size of California.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett27:38

        So I guess it's like trying to find a truck in California.

    13. RPRobert Pape27:41

        It's like trying to find a truck in California. These little things here are the Shahed drones.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett27:47

        Yeah.

    15. RPRobert Pape27:47

        Okay? And what we're doing in this area, which is mountainous, so this is why we have a, a three-dimensional, it's not just a two-dimensional problem, it's a three-dimensional problem.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett27:59

        We'll show some of these, uh, v- visuals on screen now just to show what the terrain where they're hiding these drones might be like.

    17. RPRobert Pape28:05

        They could be anywhere in these mountains. There's all kinds... And if we kind of imagine this as a visual, so this is the general problem here we have, which is just this stuff could be anywhere. And now these are the drones, and this is the terrain that the drones are going to hide in. And notice I've just sprinkled some here, but now I'm going to cover these up with more terrain. And notice you can't see those drones anymore. And now I'm gonna put in some more drones somewhere else, and now we're going to put another layer in. And this is, this is, again, it's the three-dimensional part of the problem, meaning hard to find from the air. Now, if I get my people out and I start going in, now I could start to dig them out. But let's just keep doing this for a while. So now I'm putting in another, say, 20 drones, and I'm going to cover it yet again. And then I'm gonna put in, uh, another set of drones, and I'm covering it yet again.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett29:09

        I guess you could put all the drones in there and you s- you would still be able to cover them.

    19. RPRobert Pape29:13

        You would, yes, but you wouldn't do it in, you would do it in layers. So they're gonna make it so that if you find one, you're gonna have to work really hard. You have to get them drone by drone by drone, or at least in

11. 29:24 – 32:37

    Iran Is Building New Drones the Whole Time

    1. RPRobert Pape29:24

       clusters of them.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett29:24

       I guess also an important point of context is they're also making new ones this whole time.

    3. RPRobert Pape29:29

       Exactly. So our estimates that we have leaked from the Pentagon are in April. That's months ago. These drones, they're, they were making, um, 55,000 a year and giving them to Russia. So just think about that. That's thousands every single month. Why haven't they made, uh, another 5,000 or 10,000 drones since April? If you want this to open, so let me just-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett29:54

       The Strait of Hormuz.

    5. RPRobert Pape29:55

       The Strait of Hormuz. So now let me just explain. So this is our problem. If you want the Strait of Hormuz to open, it's not good enough to say, "Oh, look, I've, I've found like dozens or hundreds of these drones." You've got to persuade the shipping companies that their ships are safe. They don't obey orders from the Pentagon. You can't order the shippers to go through.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett30:21

       Because the ships are expensive.

    7. RPRobert Pape30:23

       The ships are expensive, and the crews don't want to die.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett30:27

       How expensive?

    9. RPRobert Pape30:27

       Oh, in the many millions. Millions and millions of dollars. I don't know the exact amount of these, uh, tankers, but each tanker will carry between 700,000 and over a million barrels of oil, and so they have quite a, the... Just, and you can do the math right there to see how much each ship is worth carrying that much, uh, uh, that much oil.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett30:46

        I was looking at the cost here. It says, "When you combine a brand new vessel with a full tank of oil, a shit single tank crossing the Strait of Hormuz is a floating asset worth 300 million."

    11. RPRobert Pape30:56

        Oh, wow. See, I didn't-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett30:57

        And that's why you-

    13. RPRobert Pape30:58

        I learn, I learn something from you every time. Um, and that-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett31:01

        And that's not even the lives on board, which again, are gonna cause an insurance problem, but also no one wants to, people to die.

    15. RPRobert Pape31:07

        Well, and they don't want to die. So you're gonna have mutant. They're not going to... So this is why you're seeing more ships leaving than you're seeing ships come in, and the ships that are coming in are very heavily coming to Iran's ports. That's one of the reasons President Trump put the blockade back on. It's because what happened here is the MOU, this whole idea is not opening up the Strait of Hormuz. It's not preventing what's gonna come in the next few weeks, maybe month, which is the world economic crisis. We are knocking on the door of what President Trump told us he was trying to avoid, which is the world literally running out of oil. And just today, before we started the Houthis, which big ally of Iran, so just to come back here and, and reshow the map, uh, remember I said that once, uh, the Strait of Hormuz became shut down, there was 2 million of barrels coming out every day through, um, for the UAE coming out through Fujairah, and then four to 5 million, uh, coming out from Saudi Arabian oil going out to the Red Sea. Uh, and this is the, the port there at the Red Sea. Well, the Houthis have just shut this down literally today.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett32:25

        Oh, really?

    17. RPRobert Pape32:26

        Literally before we came on. Uh, it happened about six hours ago. This has been escalating for several weeks. Iran's been asking for this. This is part of the general escalation that we're seeing.

12. 32:37 – 36:47

    Are We on the Verge of a Global Economic Crisis?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett32:37

       Okay, so we've got the Strait of Hormuz closed. We've got the Houthis closing-

    2. RPRobert Pape32:42

       The Red Sea

    3. SBSteven Bartlett32:43

       ... the Red Sea, so there's no oil flowing through there.

    4. RPRobert Pape32:46

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett32:47

       So are we on the verge of an economic crisis if things don't change quickly?

    6. RPRobert Pape32:51

       Yes. Yes. This is a, th- this is literally the nightmare scenario that we've been worrying about, and the reason is, is this. Go back and let's, let's think about this from the 20 million barrels of oil that was going through the Strait of Hormuz. So when Iran gained control of the Strait of Hormuz, what happened immediately is the, uh, Saudi Arabia and the UAE started to bypass Hormuz with 7 million barrels a day. So that means only 13 million at issue, right? That's a little... That's helpful. The next is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the United States, and we started to release about five or six million barrels a week through the, through the strategic oil.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett33:39

       When?

    8. RPRobert Pape33:40

       Uh, we started to do this, it's right around the middle of March. I can't remember the exact date, but notice that you put a big dent in that, and so that's one of the reasons the oil markets did not go crazy right away.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett33:52

       So I've got some data here then. It says, um, "President Trump authorized the emergency release of 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve designed to be pumped out over roughly 120 days. This wasn't just a US issue or U- the US acting alone. The US drawdown was part of a massive coordinated effort by 32 member nations of the International Energy Agency who collectively agreed to release 400 million barrels from their emergency stockpiles. Because these massive releases, um, were done to offset the Hormuz blockade, the US strategic reserve has been heavily depleted, and as of July 2026, the reserve has dropped down to roughly 300 million barrels, which marks the lowest level the reserve has since 1983, a more than 40-year low."

    10. RPRobert Pape34:43

        They're being depleted, and once you spend your reserve, you don't get it refilled, and that's what I think President Trump was talking about when he said we're about to run out of oil in four weeks. That was exactly the date because we've just run to the date of, uh, that, that quote. What you just read is we're coming to about the 120th day, and so what that means is all of that cushion that we had in the system to protect the ga- the price of gas already went up. Now you have even more risk. And then on top of that, Steven, we have another set of problems besides the oil itself, which is refining capacity in the world. So we, we don't, uh, put crude oil in our cars. We put gasoline in our cars. Diesel as well. Well, how do you get the gas and the diesel? You refine the crude. So that means the refineries need to work. Well, where are much of the world's refineries? In the Persian Gulf. Not just oil comes through the Persian Gulf, refined product, they're called distillates, they come through the Persian Gulf as well. Now, so that means you've shut down something like, uh, 25% or a third of the world's refining capacity. Now let's marry this to what's happening with Russia and Ukraine's blasting Russia refineries in Russia. So what's happening, Steven, is you are getting not just the decline of crude itself is about to run out, but the refining capacity now has been heavily, um, uh, strained and, and limited. Uh, it might be down, you know, 40%. I don't know the exact number, but it's something on that order. And what you're seeing then is what I think President Trump was seeing a month ago, which is he wanted the Strait of Hormuz to open, but he also didn't wanna own the L. And what President Trump has decided is he'd rather take the risk with the world's economy than own the L, own the loss, and maybe he'll change his mind. But that's the-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett36:46

        What do you

13. 36:47 – 38:57

    What "Owning the L" Would Actually Look Like

    1. SBSteven Bartlett36:47

       mean he, he'd rather take the risk with the world's economy than just own the L? So what would owning the L look like in this scenario?

    2. RPRobert Pape36:54

       Owning the L would allow Iran to follow through with Article 5. So if we go back to Article 5-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett36:59

       To control, to control the strait.

    4. RPRobert Pape37:00

       To control the strait on its terms.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett37:03

       But they-- That would be set precedence for all of these straits-

    6. RPRobert Pape37:07

       Yes

    7. SBSteven Bartlett37:07

       ... around the world. So that if you-

    8. RPRobert Pape37:08

       That's exactly right. That's-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett37:09

       And that's, you can't have that.

    10. RPRobert Pape37:11

        Well, these are the choices we have, Steven. So, so the choice is do we have, um, a, a global economic crisis, possibly recession, possibly worse, or do we let Iran control the Strait of Hormuz?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett37:24

        This is not a good place to be.

    12. RPRobert Pape37:26

        Well, that's the fork in the road that I was telling you was the stage three dilemma. So that's exactly where we were in Mar- So, so Steven, just to explain to your audience, because they're trying to figure out how are we getting here, this is what the 20 years of modeling was really showing. We would very quickly get to this fork in the road. It wouldn't take months and months. It would happen right away. And President Trump has been trying to avoid the escalation trap. This is called an escalation trap, and he's been trying to avoid that trap. He tried to avoid it with bombing for six weeks. He tried to avoid it with the blockade. He tried signing the MOU. He let JD Vance offer money and that, that... None of those were, were actually working. And what he, where he is now is still at this fork in the road, the dilemma of the escalation trap. Either he owns the loss, which i-i-it means everything you just said, and becomes known as the president who allowed not just the Strait of Hormuz to be, uh, be controlled, but set a precedent for other countries and other non-state actors to control their, their choke points. Or we have the, um, we take it back physically. Are we gonna physically take it back?

    13. SBSteven Bartlett38:41

        So we'll go through the stages in the escalation trap at, straight away after this, after we move on from this point around oil.

    14. RPRobert Pape38:47

        Okay.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett38:47

        Because I think some of my audience might not know that this escalation trap is historically predictable-

    16. RPRobert Pape38:53

        Yeah

    17. SBSteven Bartlett38:53

        ... and that you've been talking about this for a long time, and it also allows us to understand exactly what happens next.

14. 38:57 – 40:52

    Trump: The US Runs Out of Oil in 4 Weeks

    1. SBSteven Bartlett38:57

       Um, I was quite shocked when you just said that Trump said recently that the US would run out of oil within four weeks. So I did, I just looked down at some research here, and it says that during a recent press conference at the G7 summit in June 2026-

    2. RPRobert Pape39:10

       Mm-hmm

    3. SBSteven Bartlett39:10

       ... President Trump made a blunt admission about how dangerously low global energy oil stockpiles have become due to the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. His direct quote was, "We've run out of reserves at about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would run really, really low. We would run out, and there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it. It would be bedlam."

    4. RPRobert Pape39:37

       Yes.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett39:38

       Why is he saying that? Isn't that-

    6. RPRobert Pape39:40

       Because-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett39:40

       Doesn't that make him look bad?

    8. RPRobert Pape39:41

       It, it makes him... He's being, I think, forthright in why he signed the MOU, which is to avoid that bedlam, the world economic crisis. However, the problem for President Trump is in order to avoid the bedlam, he has to let Iran control the Strait of Hormuz, establish that sphere of influence I was explaining, and he almost immediately after he said that statement, within 48 hours, undermined that MOU that would have avoided that. Had the MOU just been, uh, implemented as written, we may not be sitting here today talking about the impending world crisis. And I believe one of the reasons we're knocking on the door of more escalation right now is because President Trump is desperate to open the Strait of Hormuz. I think he's taking low risk, uh, high risk military option. Mil- I think he's pursuing military options he likely knows are unlikely to work, but they're his best chance to open Hormuz before the crisis

15. 40:52 – 52:33

    The Midterm Elections Time Bomb

    1. RPRobert Pape40:52

       literally hits.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett40:53

       But there's also another before, which is the midterm elections.

    3. RPRobert Pape40:56

       Yes.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett40:56

       Am I right in thinking that this midterm election takes place in three months' time, and if his approval rating is low at that point because of what's going on with the war, because when Americans go to the pump to fill up their cars, they notice the prices are way high, higher than usual, that means those Americans in the election, in the midterm elections will vote for the Democrats-

    5. RPRobert Pape41:19

       That's right

    6. SBSteven Bartlett41:19

       ... which means he will lose the Congress. So he basically needs to make sure Americans are happy in three months' time.

    7. RPRobert Pape41:25

       He, he needs to take the best chance he can, can to make that happen.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett41:29

       Okay.

    9. RPRobert Pape41:29

       And I think that what happened here, Steven, is he, his quote, you just quoted him, I think it was June 17th. He's saying that within a month those reserves are gonna run out, and we're heading to that bedlam, that economic crisis, and that is already happening. His so-- four weeks later, we're right on that trajectory. That trajectory has not changed. Maybe we bought an extra week or two of time because some oil did get out from the, from the Persian Gulf. Not that much, but enough for a few weeks here. So maybe it's, it's gonna now not fall on August first. Maybe it'll be August, uh, say, fifteenth or seventeenth.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett42:10

        But you think it could-

    11. RPRobert Pape42:11

        But it will hit. It's-- and that's what he was w-- and now I think he's, he sees when it hits, he's gonna lose, uh, there's a good chance that the Republicans will lose more seats in the House and in the Senate. That will make him the lamest of lame ducks for his last two years. Uh, it may not be that he would be removed from office. That's probably not gonna happen. But it could be that he will be impeached again. He will be tied in knots by the, uh, by the Democratic-controlled House or a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. And, um, this is what he's trying to offset and-- but he knows something that most of us, I think, um, are not really taking seriously, uh, which is that the world is like, we're like on the Titanic, and we're about to hit the iceberg. And maybe that iceberg moved a little bit further away, but we're still right on the trajectory to hit that iceberg, and it's coming. And when the iceberg hits, there's not enough lifeboats for everybody. And who's gonna be short of lifeboats? The Republicans. And that's what I think, why I think people made the mistake when they said, "Well, President Trump couldn't possibly escalate before the midterms. Couldn't possibly." For weeks, Steven, I've been on shows talking about, you know, why, uh, President Trump will escalate maybe after the midterms, maybe next year, but he certainly-- and I kept trying to explain this is not, that's probably not right. And that's what you're seeing now. You're seeing that, that President Trump is desperate to try to open the Strait of Hormuz. He's, he, I think, is being told probably directly from his military these options are very low, uh, risk. They're very high risk. They're very unlikely to succeed. But now that the Titanic is gonna hit the iceberg, his only other choice is to completely walk back and say, "You're right, Iran. You control Hormuz. You set the fees. You don't have to make any limits on your nuclear program. You are the fourth center of world power, and I, Donald Trump, it happened under my watch." That's a big L to wear on your chest, Steven. And that would be true, I think, for any president. This is what Lyndon Johnson faced in Vietnam. Uh, we now have the tapes that Johnson was making in the White House, in conversations. It wasn't just Nixon making tapes here. Johnson, uh, was making tapes. And we now have tapes of Johnson as he's making decisions to escalate the Vietnam War, explaining that he knows this is very unlikely to end the war. It's likely to make it worse. And why is he doing it? He's doing it because he's trying to, uh, hold on to his, uh, Great Society program just for another four or five months. And what he's hoping is that even though the escalation is likely not to work, there's some tiny chance it will, and in four or five months, he'll be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat. He became, uh, it, it failed domestically. Uh, Lyndon Johnson had to, uh, pull back from running for re-election because of the escalations in the Vietnam War. And President Trump is running the same risk that even though I believe that he's doing this because he's trying to give him, him, himself and the Republicans the best chance to win, uh, in November, uh, it may not work. That's why I think President Trump already planted the seed of, uh, China meddling in the elections. He's already started the conversation, uh, that, um, uh, that there's a, another possible stolen election in our future, this time possibly, uh, by a foreign country, possibly China.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett46:04

        One of the things you've heard me talk about quite a lot over the last couple of years, and this is something that's true in business and content, but also with everything in life, is that consistency is the thing that really, really compounds. The same is true in sales. When your team is small, consistency happens naturally. The team knows of every deal, so nothing gets missed. But as I've experienced, when you grow, this starts to break down and deals start to slip, follow-ups don't happen, leads go cold that shouldn't have. And when this happens, a lot of leaders look at it and think they have a people problem, when actually it's a systems problem. The businesses that I've watched scale well commercially all have a system their team uses every single day. And for my team, that system has been our sponsor, Pipedrive. It's an easy-to-use intelligent CRM tool for growing sales teams that gives you visibility of every deal in your sales pipeline at every single stage, and it shows you what needs to happen for that deal to move forward all in real time. It's what keeps our commercial operation consistent when we were a team of five or when our commercial team was a team of fifty. Over a hundred thousand companies are already running their sales on it. So if you'd like to join them, sign up at pipedrive.com/ceo, where you'll get an exclusive thirty-day free trial instead of the usual fourteen days, and there's no credit card needed at all. Head to pipedrive.com/ceo. [page flipping] [speaking foreign language] I don't speak Vietnamese, but this show can because of AI video technology from our sponsor, HeyGen. I get messages every single week from those of you listening to The Diary of a CEO all around the world, and you express how much impact it's had on you and your life. And if that's true, then those conversations shouldn't only reach people in English. HeyGen can take one recording of me and deliver it in any language while keeping my voice, timing, and expressions intact. But you don't need a studio like this to make it work for you. Record fifteen seconds of yourself and get an AI avatar that delivers studio quality video in over a hundred and seventy-five languages. We're up to twenty languages now, and we're not the only ones using it. HeyGen is already used by thirty million people, including eighty-five percent of the Fortune one hundred. Whether you're building an audience on social media, launching an online course, or rolling out training across your team, check out HeyGen now. Your first three videos are totally free at heygen.com/doac. That's H-E-Y-G-E-N.com/doac. See you there. [page flipping] On this point of the escalation trap, um, it has several stages to it, the escalation trap, as far as I understand

    13. RPRobert Pape48:30

        Uh, yes. I think you have the picture. Do we have the picture yet?

    14. SBSteven Bartlett48:33

        I have a-- I have the escalation ladder bit. I have this one here

    15. RPRobert Pape48:36

        Yeah, let's-- Yes. So I made this, I think it was, uh, something like March second or March third.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett48:41

        Okay, so for people that can't see the visual, we'll also explain what we're showing here, but we will put it on the screen for those that can see.

    17. RPRobert Pape48:48

        Yeah. So what I did, um, is I was, um, uh, trying to find a way to, um, graphically show the escalation trap. And what this looks like for those who can't see is an upside-down pyramid. So basically it starts small at the bottom and gets worse and worse and more and more red and more and more red as you get through more and more stages as you go to the top. In the beginning, you start with limited strike. That's the bombing of leadership bombing. You kill the leader. You kill-- uh, you, you try to topple the regime with leadership top-- uh, and that leads to retaliation, stage two. Stage two retaliation is Iran takes Hormuz and that then leads to us doing some retaliation. I would still call it in stage two, by the way. Um, that's why I kind of kept it the same color. Where we're doing the, uh, six weeks bombing, that's also where the blockade is. And notice then you get to this red stage here. Notice it's where economic crisis is. This is where stage three really starts, okay? Now we were able to offset that economic crisis. So when we talked in March and April, it wasn't clear, uh, especially China, they were still buying. So that economic crisis was a lot closer in, um, March and April than it became after the summit with Xi because Xi stopped buying five million barrels of oil a day. I want to underscore that. And what did Xi get for that? Uh, President Trump last week just blamed him for, uh, meddling in our election. So I'm not sure Xi has thought that was a good deal. But still, we're at this point now and this is where stage three is or the choice is if you want to get off of the escalation trap, you then have to let Iran become, uh, the-- gain power, become the rising power in the region, the regional hegemon and essentially the fourth center of world power because once it, um, gains power, uh, with Hormuz, has a sphere of influence, a year or two from now, Stephen, they're very likely to have nuclear weapons. So this is, this, this is what it means to let Iran win. It's not Iran will win and be nice. Iran is gonna become the-- a very powerful state in the region. If we go further and this-- we actually, uh, do escalate and with the other map I'll explain what I think the real issues are gonna be between now and the midterms, then we're gonna head into twenty twenty-seven into the deep red, which is the actual forever war. So many people this week and next week they're gonna-- I'm gonna be on a lot of shows, Stephen, talking about are we in a forever war? Well, that's coming, okay? Possibly. But right now we're coming into the stage three question, which is are we going to physically use force for the first time for real to seize back control of at least part of Hormuz and so forth? And that is the big question because if we do that-- And that's why I think the real issue on the table right now is, uh, can the United States physically open Hormuz between now and the midterms? I think that question, Stephen, is the most important question in the world, for the world, for the world's economy, for international terrorism against Americans, uh, for whether or not we truly will be in a forever war. This is going to be decided between now and the midterms and the, and the, and the key issue is can we physically open the Strait of Hormuz between now and the midterms? And I think sadly the answer is almost surely not.

16. 52:33 – 55:26

    The Vietnam Parallel: LBJ's Trap

    1. SBSteven Bartlett52:34

       It's funny because you mentioned LBJ.

    2. RPRobert Pape52:36

       [laughs]

    3. SBSteven Bartlett52:37

       So I was looking at some of his quotes around the time to see how they link because everybody knows the Vietnam War as being a war that just lasted forever and really achieved nothing. I mean, that's generally-

    4. RPRobert Pape52:45

       Yeah, yeah

    5. SBSteven Bartlett52:45

       ... the consensus that you read about. Um-

    6. RPRobert Pape52:47

       Yeah. What do you got?

    7. SBSteven Bartlett52:48

       And LBJ said at the time, "I know we ought not be there, but I can't get out. I just can't be the architect of surrender." And by this he knew that-

    8. RPRobert Pape52:58

       Yeah

    9. SBSteven Bartlett52:58

       ... the current strategy was a mistake, but he felt politically paralyzed because backing down would be like a humiliating defeat, which again links to Trump's situation. He also said, "Let's get somebody that wants to do something besides drop a bomb, but that can go in and take in after these damn fellows and run them back where they belong." And by that he meant relying entirely on overwhelming American air power wasn't actually solving the unconventional ground level problem, which again links to Trump's situation as you've described.

    10. RPRobert Pape53:28

        That's the transition from air power Rolling Thunder to the heavier use of ground forces and both of those of course ultimately fail.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett53:37

        He also said, "I don't..." And this is again LBJ's comments as president during the Vietnam War. "I don't think that we can fight them ten thousand miles away from home and get anywhere in that area. It's just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw." By this he meant trying to project military power halfway across the globe against an enemy fighting in their own backyard is incredibly difficult and likely futile, which again links to the Iran situation. And lastly, LBJ said, "A man can fight if he can see daylight down the road somewhere. But there ain't no daylight in Vietnam. There's not a single bit." And by this he meant that there was no realistic achievable endpoint or path to victory for its military strategy and that also links to how like when political pressures tr- change. And you know, Trump's recent admission at the G7 that the world is about to run out of, um, their energy reserves is a stark realization that the current strategy is hard, it has a deadline and there's no- clear solution in sight

    12. RPRobert Pape54:35

        Yeah. Yeah, it's so tragic. It's so tragic that we're essentially replaying the Vietnam War. Trump is replaying the decisions that Lyndon Johnson made and coming to very similar decisions, which is he believes, as Lyndon Johnson did, that even though the military escalation would be a likely loser on the, on the battlefield, that loss would take months and months to play out. So there was some chance he could pull a rabbit out of a hat, but if he accepted immediate abrupt defeat, that would totally undermine and destroy his domestic political agenda.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett55:16

        So I've got-- I basically, before you came, I looked at the top 20 questions that the internet currently wants to know about the Iran war.

    14. RPRobert Pape55:23

        Oh, great. Tell me.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett55:23

        And we've knocked off a few of them already.

    16. RPRobert Pape55:25

        Okay.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett55:25

        But we've got a couple

17. 55:26 – 1:03:27

    Can the US Force the Strait of Hormuz Open?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett55:26

       of them left.

    2. RPRobert Pape55:26

       Yeah, I love it.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett55:27

       Um, one of them is, can the United States actually force the Strait of Hormuz fully open with our current strategy, or does Iran now hold lasting leverage over this critical choke point?

    4. RPRobert Pape55:38

       The answer is, um, it, the United States cannot do it, and this would be an opportunity, Steven, could I have that map back? Let me explain.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett55:46

       This one here?

    6. RPRobert Pape55:46

       Yeah. Let me, let me show you what I think is really in the offing here. So a lot of people are wondering, "What are we gonna do with eight thousand ground troops?" So we have somewhere around forty-five hundred, five thousand Marines, somewhere around four thousand or so troops from the 82nd Airborne. What are these troops actually gonna do? And I think that what President Trump is doing here, and I think you can really, we can really see this if I kind of explain this, is what we are doing is we are concentrating our forces, our naval forces here into the Gulf of Oman. We are not moving them through the Strait of Hormuz. We're constant-- Our carriers are in the Gulf of Oman, and also our marine expeditionary unit is in the Gulf of Oman. Now, previously, these had been further away, way off the board in the Indian Ocean. We move them here closer, and this is important because these guns are, are guns that have range to be able to hit the shore within about twelve miles. So what are you doing with these ships and what are you doing here is you are building a force that might be, uh, able to take a piece of territory at Chabahar, or there's a, um, uh, right in between Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, there is a little port town called Jask. And this would be exactly the kind of armada you would build in order to take one of those objectives, either Chabahar or Jask. And the reason that you would do it politically for President Trump is because this could possibly be a symbolic victory. You could possibly take the territory and hold it for weeks. Now, why would you be able to take the territory and hold it for weeks? It's because this is Pakistan. We haven't even shown the rest of Iran here. Uh, Tehran is, is, is over here. So maybe we wanna, yeah, why don't we, uh, bring the other map here as well. So what we have done, Steven, is we have concentrated our forces here in the Gulf of Oman. This is our carriers, our destroyers, our battleships, and they can provide some air cover here for ships that might pass through, uh, the southern part here. So they-- I'm not saying this is the only possible mission. Uh, but those Marines and the 82nd Airborne, they're not helping. They're not really there to help ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But they're here, okay? At least the Marines are here.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett58:33

       Where?

    8. RPRobert Pape58:33

       Uh, we don't-- They're somewhere in the Strait of O-- in the Gulf of Oman. We don't know exactly where they are. That would not be good. [laughs]

    9. SBSteven Bartlett58:40

       You're just saying that 'cause some people can't hear.

    10. RPRobert Pape58:41

        Yeah, that's right. So they're in the Gulf of Oman, uh, here, which is to the east of Hormuz. The Gulf, the Persian Gulf is to the west of Hormuz. So Hormuz is the true choke point between these two gulfs. And the Gulf of Oman here is then, what's north of it is the southeastern coast of Iran, which is the, the least populated part of Iran. Iran's population is mostly up here around the word Iran here.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett59:10

        So you're saying that the US might take a small part of Iran from here?

    12. RPRobert Pape59:13

        A small part of Iran-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett59:15

        With ground troops

    14. RPRobert Pape59:16

        ... with ground troops, that's right, and literally hold it here, uh, in order to get a symbolic victory. And in order for Iran to knock us out, they have to redirect all of their attention to this. Uh, and this would be-- This is why I don't think it's gonna work, is ultimately they will do this. Uh, but in the short term, in a period of, say, a few weeks or so, this, uh, there's a, there's a chance, and I say it's a low chance. I'm not trying to tell you I would advocate for this. I would not advocate for this. I'm trying to explain what these troo- these forces are doing here, because otherwise there's no point in having these forces here.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett59:57

        Okay, so some questions on this then. If they, if the US do, I guess, invade Iran from-

    16. RPRobert Pape1:00:04

        Yeah, capture

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:05

        ... capture Iran

    18. RPRobert Pape1:00:05

        One of these port, port, little, one of these port towns

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:07

        From the sort of southeast here.

    20. RPRobert Pape1:00:10

        That's right.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:11

        This would mean that Iran have a target to kill American soldiers.

    22. RPRobert Pape1:00:15

        That's right. That's right.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:16

        And the cost of losing American soldiers, especially back home in America, would be tremendous.

    24. RPRobert Pape1:00:21

        That's right.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:22

        So this would, this is-

    26. RPRobert Pape1:00:22

        You're, you're talking about hundreds dead over a period of at least weeks

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:26

        Then this would be just, um, terrible politically-

    28. RPRobert Pape1:00:29

        That's right

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:29

        ... for boots to be on the ground and be dying in Iran.

    30. RPRobert Pape1:00:31

        Well, it will be divisive politically So for people that are opposed to the war, this will make them even more opposed to the war. But for people that are supporting the war, and this is the part of the politics that I study, Stephen, uh, it's important to understand that there's a large part of MAGA that is incredibly supportive of this war. In fact, the opinion polls, uh, uh, tend to show that more MAGA supports regime change, uh, for Iran than oppose it. So this is not like MAGA has become Tucker Carlson country or something. This is still Trump country, uh, here, and they want Trump to win. Well, what you are seeing here is that if there are, if there are troops that are killed, you are likely gonna see, and you're seeing this on Fox News this morning after three more died over the weekend, you're seeing a tremendous amount of support for our troops and therefore the war.
18. 1:03:27 – 1:14:59

    A 70% Chance of Boots on the Ground in Iran

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:27

       How real is the risk that the US will do some kind of limited ground operation with boots on the ground in Iran?

    2. RPRobert Pape1:03:33

       Uh, well over fifty percent. I think it's, uh, bordering on seventy percent now. Um, and the reasons are that, uh, number one, the economic crisis that President Trump was trying to prevent, and therefore the economic costs that will hurt him later, is already starting to become baked in. What you're hearing this morning with the Houthis closing the pipeline area around Yanbu, it's called, this, uh, port city in the Red Sea where the, uh, four to five million barrels of Saudi oil is coming out. What you're hear-- what that is gonna do is make the economic crisis even more baked in, even more likely, unless it's immediately reversed. And even if it was immediately reversed tomorrow, that could be reversed again the next day after that. This is starting to spiral out of control because it's not just up to President Trump now to s- to put this genie back in the bottle. President Trump can actually still, uh, can withdraw and, uh, but right now Iran has to stop the escalation. It has to let the Red Sea oil flow. It has to allow ships to flow from Hormuz. And Iran is not, is in a mood for revenge. Iran is, uh, there is emotions coursing through Iran, but it's not, um, causing Iran to, uh, uh, pull back. Uh, it's causing Iran to want revenge. And the leader's statement, the Supreme Leader's statement just of a couple days ago, this was Saturday, uh, two, uh, US soldiers were tragically killed in Jordan. Um, he called it, uh, what the Supreme Leader did was, uh, use the phrase that he's going to deliver unforgettable lessons to America. Unforgettable lessons is the exact phrase by the Supreme Leader over the weekend. What you are seeing here, Stephen, is as we have essentially, as Iran, um, started to shoot n- shoot at ships here to try to reinforce the MOU, President Trump upped the ante. Now we're in our ninth week, uh, ninth day of bombing in a row. Now Iran is upping the ante, and Iran is upping the ante in multiple ways. It's attacking our base in Jordan, which it only rarely done since, uh, since March, actually. It's now with the Houthis closing the Red Sea, and we haven't yet talked about Kuwait, and we should talk about what happened here over the weekend here in Kuwait, because this is a harbinger of what's to come, because it shows how ferocious the anger is by Iran and how hard it's gonna be to stop this spiral of escalation. And that is what is one of the, the-- that's what's gonna lead to President Trump thinking long and hard about putting those ground forces in. Because we're not making an independent decision now.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:24

       So you said there's a seventy percent chance-

    4. RPRobert Pape1:06:27

       Yes

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:27

       ... that troops could be put on the ground in Iran?

    6. RPRobert Pape1:06:31

       Yes, I think within, I think probably, uh, within the next month, maybe even shorter than that. It could even be by the end of this week

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:40

       This is something that I've made for you. I've realized that The Diary of a CEO audience are strivers, whether it's in business or health. We all have big goals that we want to accomplish. And one of the things I've learnt is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny, small steps, and we call this in our team the 1%. And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries, and we released these last year, and they all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary. So now we have a better range for you. So if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours at thediary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below. [paper rustles] You've shown me on the graph that you've just shown the escalation ladder, you can call it, and h- and where we are now. What is the most probable next thing that you think happens with this war?

    8. RPRobert Pape1:08:02

       The biggest thing I'm worried about is a mass casualty attack against American troops or American civilians.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:10

       Why?

    10. RPRobert Pape1:08:11

        Against American troops in the Middle East, but I'm specifically worrying about a barrage of ballistic missiles against our, uh, naval ships in the Gulf of Oman. So the-- Iran is showing a, uh, through its-- the targeting its-- that it's already been doing in the last, uh, week and a half, an exquisite ability to precisely target and, um, uh, we don't know for sure they're able to track the movement of our naval ships in the Gulf of Oman, uh, or they're getting help with either the Chi-- from the Chinese or the Russians in doing that. But I'm specifically worried that as this escalates, they've just closed the strait, they've just closed the Red Sea. If we keep going forward, and we'll find out if we're gonna-- if Trump will pull back or not, but if we keep going forward, one of the big things I'm concerned about this week, next week, would be an attack on a ship. Uh, and I think it, it would be a barrage attack. The second thing I'm concerned about is, uh, because we are now, um, literally threatening ground occupation. That's the biggest risk factor for suicide terrorism in my twenty-five years of studying suicide attacks. We haven't talked about that, Steven. And the reason we haven't talked about it is because we were pretty far away from the big risk factor of how you start a big suicide terrorist campaign. That is now changing. Um, I've talked to my Substack about this. Glad to talk to you about it now. Uh, but I'm concerned about a mass casualty attack against Americans. This could be against an American airliner. It could be against, uh, I mean, Americans on a, a commercial airliner. This could be, um, against, uh, A-Americans, uh, say businessmen in, uh, Aqaba. So you, you might know there have been attacks recently in Aqaba, which is this really lovely resort town. I've never been there. And the, uh, and the fact is, um, there are business-- American businessmen, um, uh, moving all around the Middle East now to build these pipelines. And so I can imagine there being terrorist attacks against the, uh, the hotels they're staying at. Uh, the, um, German and, um, British embassies have just ordered their evacuation. America State Department has issued an advisory over the weekend for Americans to start leaving the region. But I'm concerned about terrorist attack because threatening and-- or actually doing ground control, controlling pieces of homeland territory, is the biggest risk factor for suicide terrorism. That's what causes people, more than anything else, to strap on bombs to kill others while they're killing themselves. So before we explain in detail, so when you say, Steven, what I'm looking for in the next few weeks-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:59

        Yes

    12. RPRobert Pape1:10:59

        ... I'm seeing the spiral of escalation now occurring. It's a two-sided spiral. It's not just President Trump. Iran is, uh, uh, escalating here as much as Trump, if not more. And, uh, in this spiral of escalation, there could be a mass casualty attack either against our troops or against American civilians. The American civilian attack could be anywhere in the world. It could be in Indonesia. It could be London. It could be anywhere. And if that mass casualty event happens, I think what you're gonna see is that this is likely going to cause that division we just discussed here to har-- in America, support for the war, to harden even more. And you're gonna get, though, intense support for continuing the war now to stop, uh, mass casualty attacks by Iran in the future.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:52

        So you have spent some of your career studying terrorist attacks-

    14. RPRobert Pape1:11:57

        Mm-hmm

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:57

        ... and I guess suicide terrorist attacks.

    16. RPRobert Pape1:12:00

        Specifically, yes.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:02

        Give me a, a w- a view into the research, the work-

    18. RPRobert Pape1:12:05

        Yep

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:05

        ... you've done there. You've written a book on it.

    20. RPRobert Pape1:12:06

        Two.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:07

        Two books on it.

    22. RPRobert Pape1:12:08

        Yep.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:08

        And then l- ladder me up to how that's relevant to the moment we're in now.

    24. RPRobert Pape1:12:12

        So shortly after 9/11, this was, remember, America was hit with a, a terrorist attack here in, uh, New York, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon. Uh, nearly three thousand Americans died that day. I wanted to understand why, and I wanted to understand more-- the more I studied it, I w-- noticed that 9/11 was a suicide attack. It wasn't just a terrorist attack. So I started to collect what became the first complete data set of all suicide attacks around the world. Uh, I did this, uh, at the University of Chicago. I did this with a few research a-assistants, basically work-study students. The suicide terrorism, the reason I studied it, Steven, was because it's the lung cancer of terrorism. Suicide attacks kill more people in the category of terrorism than all the other different kinds of terrorism combined. The suicide attacks are the biggest killer. Uh, it's like lung cancer. We have other kinds of cancers, but lung cancer is the biggest killer. And what is the key risk factor for the lung cancer of suicide terrorism? It's military combat presence on territory the terrorists prize.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:23

        So with suicide terrorism, is it hard to stop? Because, you know, we can intercept missiles that are coming over pretty well, it seems, but suicide terrorism seems to be a completely different type of challenge.

    26. RPRobert Pape1:13:33

        Suicide terrorism is like a precision-guided-- is like turning a person into a precision-guided weapon because literally nothing can better identify the most vulnerable point in a crowd, the most vulnerable point in a building, the exact split second to set off the, uh, the, the explosive better than a human.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:57

        And w- the-- how does the US, for example-- You're saying two things. You're saying that that attack could happen in the United States, but also it doesn't have to. It could happen anywhere in those regions where there's a high density of Americans or Westerners-

    28. RPRobert Pape1:14:11

        That's right

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:11

        ... theoretically.

    30. RPRobert Pape1:14:12

        That's right.
19. 1:14:59 – 1:24:25

    Why Invading (Not Bombing) Sparks Suicide Attacks

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:59

       What is it, what is it about-

    2. RPRobert Pape1:15:01

       Okay

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:01

       ... invading their country in particular versus bombing their country in particular that causes suicide terrorist attacks from your research? Like, what is it? Because bombing them from the sky is, is killing people.

    4. RPRobert Pape1:15:16

       The, the-- It's not the killing people part of this that matters, it's the political control part that comes with the ground forces. So the reason to use the ground forces is to impose political control.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:31

       So, so-

    6. RPRobert Pape1:15:31

       That's not just killing people, Steven

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:33

       So the reason why America put in ground forces-

    8. RPRobert Pape1:15:36

       Is to get political control, and that political control means the group controlled doesn't control its way of life.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:46

       It's just sort of seen as a deeper violation. Is that ultimately what it is?

    10. RPRobert Pape1:15:51

        It's a deeper violation that is, uh, not in control of the local population. So when we put in ground forces in Afghanistan after we topple the Taliban, we topple the Taliban with air power, by the way, but we don't get much s-suicide attacks in Afghanistan till we start pouring in ground forces in Afghanistan. That comes after we topple the Taliban. So we topple the Taliban in fall two thousand twenty-one, and then we get the suicide terrorism starting several years later in Afghanistan. It's because that's when we're putting in the ground forces.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:26

        So Donald Trump has just posted on Truth Social a few hours ago saying, "Every time Iran kills an American soldier, they will pay for that killing many times over. This directive has been passed on to the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, and his other military leader." And obviously, this is in response to losing an American life. And he's very actively tweeting as we speak about the war, um, tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet on Truth Social. It, it, it begs the que- I mean, I just don't know. What-- Is there a, an, an achievable end game or off-ramp here that restores the free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, but also allows the United States to retract without appearing to have suffered a s- a strategic defeat?

    12. RPRobert Pape1:17:09

        No, Steven.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:10

        There's not.

    14. RPRobert Pape1:17:10

        There's not an achievable off-ramp. Um, that ship sailed first when, uh, President Trump decided in the first week in March not to declare-- He could have declared-- My s-advice at that point, first week in March, was to declare victory and walk away, to say, "All you wanted to do was teach Iran a lesson. You'd killed the supreme leader, a bunch of other leaders. Uh, now let's go back, uh, to negotiate, uh, with, um, uh, about Iran's nuclear program." He did not do that. When I was with you in April, I was giving a different advice. Um, that advice then was to militarily contain Israel. That advice was to keep a lid-- Israel was moving into Lebanon, doing other things, keep a lid on Israel militarily. Um, President Trump has taken these ideas, and I'm not saying because I said them, but he's taken those ideas months too late. If you look at what I'm-- I think President Trump might think he is trying to militarily contain Israel right now. Uh, with the MOU, I do think he tried to declare victory and, and, and walk out. But the problem here, Steven, is that these are now, uh, a day late and a dollar short. They're just not good enough. So if you wanted to get back to the negotiating track, what exactly are you going to, uh, offer Iran to come back to the table at this point? The same MOU say, "Oh, sure, we're gonna now just-- we're gonna, we're gonna honor the MOU that we already signed and then we violated over and over and over."

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:44

        So is-

    16. RPRobert Pape1:18:44

        You're not-- That's not credible.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:45

        So is this a forever war?

    18. RPRobert Pape1:18:47

        No, we're not yet in the forever war stage

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:50

        But you said there's no way out

    20. RPRobert Pape1:18:52

        There's-- The way out would be if the midterms come and the Democrats win either the House or the House and the Senate, and they shut down the money for the war

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:04

        Oh

    22. RPRobert Pape1:19:05

        That is a way out

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:07

        Oh, they can do that?

    24. RPRobert Pape1:19:07

        So this is-- Yes, that's what happened in Vietnam

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:10

        They sh- they, they can shut down the money for the war?

    26. RPRobert Pape1:19:13

        They can shut down the... That's what Congress did. Yes, Congress has the power. It doesn't use it very often. The last time it did this was in 1974. The reason I-- as I showed you on that escalation ladder, I said there is a stage five of forever war. We're not at a forever war yet. What would be a forever war would be, um, uh, where that will come and, and the reason I'm defining the, the escalation period between now and the midterms is the most crucial period right now. This is gonna determine everything, and the-- and what's gonna determine the outcome of the next few months is can America open the Strait of Hormuz physically? What could easily happen between now and the midterms is President Trump tries to open the Strait of Hormuz, or he allows Iran, by the way, to, um... He pulls back. He could actually pull back. Either way, at this point, Steven, there's, um, uh, there's a good chance he will, uh, lose in the midterms, meaning that the Republicans will lose one or both houses in Congress. And if that happens, then, uh, whoever takes over control will be a Democrat. They'll be hotly, um, anti-war, and there will be, uh, great efforts here to shut down the war, meaning shut down the money for the war. So it's always about the money

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:34

        I need to get an understanding of the role, so this sort of link between the midterms, the money, and then the war. So the midterms are gonna change who's in Congress

    28. RPRobert Pape1:20:43

        Yes

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:44

        And then the people in-

    30. RPRobert Pape1:20:44

        Who controls it
20. 1:24:25 – 1:25:21

    When the Two Crises Collide: A New 1960s?

    1. RPRobert Pape1:24:25

       scenario

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:24:25

       Why? What does that mean? What are those two things colliding causing?

    3. RPRobert Pape1:24:28

       Those two things colliding start to look like the 1960s

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:24:32

       And what happened in the 1960s?

    5. RPRobert Pape1:24:34

       The 1960s, we had mass, uh, uh, demonstrations. We had anti-war violence. We had anti-war terrorism with the Weather Underground. We had multiple assassinations, uh That occurred. Ah, Martin Luther King, it was, uh, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The convention in Chicago, there was just mass, uh, demonstration. Mayor Daley in Chicago gave a shoot to kill order. I already mentioned to you the Weather Underground, um, uh, string of bombs that they set off. So what we faced in the 1960s was the collision of domestic, uh, political tension with an unpopular war. That's how you got the chaos of the 1960s. I have a whole chapter in the book about the 1960s and why it was so particularly intense.

21. 1:25:21 – 1:27:00

    Will Trump Lose the Midterms?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:21

       So do you think that Trump is likely to lose the midterms as things stand? Do you think the Republicans are likely to lose?

    2. RPRobert Pape1:25:27

       He- here, here's, here's the thing. If, um, if we have a mass casualty attack, this will increase the odds of Trump, uh, and the Republicans winning in the midterms. And I think if, uh, we, uh, have a world economic crisis without the mass casualty attack, uh, then I think it's likely that the Republicans will lose in the midterms.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:51

       Okay.

    4. RPRobert Pape1:25:51

       So I think we have-- The reason I can't give you a clean, uh, answer to this, which I know people want, they, they would-- because we have multiple specific issues here that are now as part of the spiraling violence, Steven.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:06

       And three, three months isn't awful long.

    6. RPRobert Pape1:26:09

       It's a long time because that mass casualty attack could happen in, in October. And it doesn't have to be command directed by Iran. It can be-- it can occur, the mass casualty attack against Americans, uh, can occur because it's an inspired attack. The Iran-- the, the supreme leader is issuing statements that sound almost like Baghdadi, that was the leader of ISIS, issuing statements to encourage inspired attacks. That was the suicide, uh, attacks in Paris in November two thousand fifteen that killed over a hundred people. That was, uh, San Bernardino. So we, we, we saw leaders inspire attacks before, and the supreme leader's statements are just, are, are eerily close to the same words.

22. 1:27:00 – 1:29:00

    Is the US Running Out of Weapons?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:00

       Is the current US air campaign sustainable? You hinted at this earlier on that actually the US might be running out of some of their, their weapons. Um, it's estimated that the daily cost of this, this war for America is around two billion dollars a day. And Iran's ability to continue these sort of asymmetric attacks with drones and other things-

    2. RPRobert Pape1:27:22

       Yeah

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:22

       ... doesn't come as, at such a high cost and seems from the example you gave with the Bohl earlier on to be more sustainable. So is there actually a risk here that the US will run out of weapons?

    4. RPRobert Pape1:27:32

       Um, I think that there's a risk we'll run out of interceptors to shoot down missiles, but even that's pretty low because what's really happening in our arsenal of weapons, Steven, is we are using a lot of interceptors, especially, say, Patriot missile interceptors to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. But we're drawing from stocks, um, in Asia and in Europe. This is one of the reasons Zelensky can't get Patriot missiles, uh, at least not very many of them. It's because we're now moving most of the stocks here for the Persian Gulf. So I think that there's some chance we'll run out of the, uh, those interceptors, but even there, I think it's low. But literally in terms of the bombs, it's, it's in a gross exaggeration to expect that, uh, we are gonna run out of bombs to drop from aircraft. And there's two reasons for that. In order to make a precision bomb, most people don't know what it takes these days. And it's true, we can spend a lot of money making a precision bomb, but we can literally take dumb bombs, five hundred pound dumb bombs, and strap a backpack on them that will, uh, connect with GPS and have little, uh, cords to the fins of the bombs in order to turn a dumb bomb into a precision bomb. Those fanny packs are about twenty thousand bucks, maybe twenty-five. So we can make them much more easily than

23. 1:29:00 – 1:34:39

    What Is Trump's Real Objective?

    1. RPRobert Pape1:29:00

       people think.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:01

       So what do you think the United States slash Trump's objective is at this particular point? Like, what is the goal, the, the real goal? 'Cause there's lots of press conferences I see where they say it's nuclear weapons, it's this, that, and the other.

    3. RPRobert Pape1:29:13

       I, I think President Trump's goal between now and the midterms is very simple, a symbolic victory.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:20

       And what would that look like?

    5. RPRobert Pape1:29:22

       That would look like a victory that would hold for, uh, a week, maybe two weeks, and that would be, uh, an opportunity to show that President Trump fought back. I think that's how this would be framed by, uh, uh, President Trump's supporters and those who support the war. And it would be, uh, I think President Trump would say, "And this shows what we can do if you let us win." I think his words would be a little different.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:50

       Do you think he's stuck?

    7. RPRobert Pape1:29:51

       Yes.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:52

       Do you think he knows he's stuck?

    9. RPRobert Pape1:29:54

       I've never met President Trump. Um, my research here, Steven, has always looked at the actual words by decision-makers, what I can tell you is what his incentives look like.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:07

        Do you-

    11. RPRobert Pape1:30:07

        And the incentives that I've laid out have been quite predictive of his behavior.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:11

        Do you want him to call you?

    13. RPRobert Pape1:30:13

        Yes.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:15

        And if he calls you, what is the advice you would give him on what to do next?

    15. RPRobert Pape1:30:19

        Uh, what I would do is try to design a several year strategy to build a better balance of power in the region that we could, over a period of time, uh, stabilize the world and stabilize the region. And I think that is the big issue that's being missed right now.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:40

        But if he says, "Listen, Robert, what do I do in the next three months 'cause I've got these midterms coming up?"

    17. RPRobert Pape1:30:44

        Then the answer is, "Don't call me." I, I want to help President Trump, but I want to help America for real. Uh, these are not necessarily at odds, but the bottom line here is that, um, everything I have to say to President Trump about the next three months, we've just done on this podcast, Steven. Um, but I am absolutely delighted to talk about how to actually build a more secure future for America and for the Gulf, and I just don't think that's, that's happening. And I don't think the, uh, the pressure that this must lead to an electoral victory for President Trump is likely to, uh, uh, make the, the, the true security for America and the Gulf more likely. In fact, it's gonna go the other way around. It will encourage the escalation trap. So that's why I'm st- I am, I'm stuck by my own logic of the escalation trap, uh, here. It's literally, um, we, we have to move past the idea that, uh, the only acceptable option is an option that guarantees, um, political success for an individual, even if it means the President of the United States.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:08

        What do you think Russia and China, who are often positioned as adversaries of the United States, what do you think they're thinking right now? And what do they, what do they want to happen? I, you know, I guess China's being hurt by the oil situation. Russia's got their own situation going on with the Ukraine. What are they thinking?

    19. RPRobert Pape1:32:24

        Uh, I think China does not want there to be global instability, uh, but at the same time, they don't want this to be, uh, a situation where Iran comes out smashed. I think that is, um, uh, that's, that's simply not in the cards. I also don't think China is going to insert itself in a very forceful way. I think the idea that Iran might come out and militarily support the United States here or militarily support with its own forces, Iran is not likely to happen. So I think that what you are-

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:33:00

        Why, why don't they want Iran smashed, China?

    21. RPRobert Pape1:33:03

        For President Xi, um, he explained quite a bit of this at the summit. He said to President Trump, "You're a declining power. Are you going to, uh, fall into" what he called the Thucydides Trap? Meaning, are you gonna launch a preventive war against China in Asia? And that's what President Xi said.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:33:24

        What about Russia?

    23. RPRobert Pape1:33:25

        What Russia is seeing is an opportunity to squeeze Europe economically. Uh, so I believe that what has been happening in the last few weeks here, the last month, is that Ukraine has actually been gaining, uh, uh, not just strength with drones, but in a specific area called Crimea in, uh, which, uh, Russia took and Putin took in 2014. There's been a mass exodus out of Crimea in the last weeks. Ukraine is putting more and more pressure on the supply lines coming into Crimea and also coming into Ukraine from Russia. And what Putin, I think, is, uh, is, is, uh, wants to have happen is that, um, he will likely escalate more, put more pressure on Europe at exactly the time in the fall when the world economic crisis is growing because of Iran. And that is going to squeeze Europe, make it hard for Europe to fulfill the commitment they just made to, uh, Zelensky of 80 billion more dollars.

24. 1:34:39 – 1:41:12

    Pape's Prediction for the Next Few Months

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:34:39

       I guess my, my last question then before I go to the diary-

    2. RPRobert Pape1:34:42

       Okay. [laughs]

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:34:42

       ... is, um, if you were to predict how the next couple of months play out, what would your prediction be? And this is on a, on probability, 51% probability of outcomes. What happens next?

    4. RPRobert Pape1:34:55

       I, I think we're going to, uh, in the next few months, cross the threshold with ground operations into either one of the islands or a part of the coast of Iran because the world economic crisis is going to grow, the price of gasoline in the United States is likely to grow, and President Trump is going to be even more desperate to try to find a way to look, make it at least appear as if he has a plan to open Hormuz. It may not be real, it may only be symbolic, but I think, Steven, that the, uh, where we are heading is, um, uh, the more the crisis, the world economic crisis increases, and if there's a mass casualty attack, the more that crisis increases, the more President Trump is under pressure to demonstrate he has a way to open Hormuz, even if it's far off and he needs a down payment on that. He needs something to show tangibly, and I think that's where the pressure will come from for crossing into stage three.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:36:06

       I think it's worth saying in these conversations as well that there are 90-plus million Iranians who currently live in Iran-

    6. RPRobert Pape1:36:12

       Yeah

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:36:12

       ... and who are caught in the midst of this craziness and chaos, and sometimes in these conversations we kind of don't really think about the fact that there's a nation which is bigger than the una- nation I come from, the United Kingdom, who are right in the heart of this. And so every time Trump says he's bombed more people over the weekend or he's firing bombs, I always think about the, the real families that are caught right in, in the midst of all of this that didn't choose this war, that are living in an environment where bombs are dropping on their heads. And I think for everybody all around the world that listen to this show, whether you're in the UK or the United States or Australia or Canada or wherever you are, South, South America, Asia, wherever, Africa, it's worth taking a second just to imagine what it would be like to know that the United States are dropping lots of bombs on the nation in which you live and how that would feel psychologically, how that would feel for your children, how that would feel for, for you yourself, how that would impact your day-to-day life. And also, I guess the uncertainty of not knowing when it's gonna end, if it's gonna end, and also hearing this term escalation trap and thinking that, you know, this is actually gonna escalate and troops are gonna come into my country. And so there's a real human cost to this, which sometimes we leave out of these conversations and I just

    8. RPRobert Pape1:37:16

       And I have students, um, uh, and at the University of Chicago who, um, are Iranian. They have families who, in Iran, uh, and they ask me questions about this all the time. And sadly, what I have to tell them is that real hope for the Iranian people is five or 10 years away, and as this war escalates, it pushes closer to 10 than five.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:37:42

       We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next. The question left for you is, if you could go back to a certain time and see something occur or ask someone something you've always wondered about, what/who would that person/place be and why?

    10. RPRobert Pape1:38:03

        I think the key person I would ask would be, uh, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He died before we dropped the atomic bombs. I would want to know from him when he was developing, uh, and supporting the atomic bombs, did he imagine the world that would be created by the atomic bombs? Because in my lifetime, war has been a defining feature of my work. Uh, but, uh, the, uh, the prospects of, of nuclear war have always overhung quite a bit of our work. We never want to get to anything like that. But I'd like to know from the person who had the most authority, power, uh, in order to make that future happen, who never even saw it, didn't even see it happen, but knew it was coming. I'd like to know from him what did he think was truly going to come, because I think that this would be, uh, uh, extremely useful to know whether or not our leaders truly, truly how far out they can really see and understand how much their decisions today shape the world for decades to come.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:24

        Robert, thank you.

    12. RPRobert Pape1:39:25

        My pleasure.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:25

        And we're very excited for your book September 22nd. So do we have a pre-order link yet?

    14. RPRobert Pape1:39:30

        It's just up, actually.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:31

        It's just up. Okay.

    16. RPRobert Pape1:39:31

        Literally, it's just up. So yes.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:39:33

        I have to say, when we first sat down, you said a bunch of things, uh, in terms of what would happen next, and I'm not sure I believed them all because I don't know anything about war. And they, and you never really think about the psychology changes both at home, but also where the bombs are dropping. And it does appear that you've been largely correct about what you, what you said would happen, this escalation that happens across all wars that has happened also in Ukraine and Russia at the same time, but now we're seeing play out in Iran. So I have to give you your credit because you have been-

    18. RPRobert Pape1:40:04

        Okay

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:04

        ... unfortunately, you've been right, I should say.

    20. RPRobert Pape1:40:06

        I would agree with the word unfortunately. So this is, uh, um, part of me would like to be happy about this, but the truth is, uh, and this is what I just was talking to my 97-year-old mother-in-law about, is, um, uh, I told her that you had invited me. Again, she's 97 years old, can't even get out of bed, Steven. And I told her that, um, it was, it was one of the, the saddest things I had to agree to, and it's because of what it, it really means. The reason you're having me here is because things are bad for our country, and I want nothing more than for things to be better for our country.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:42

        Well, Robert, thank you so much for coming back and, um, you know, if we do come back again and convene, I hope next time it's on better terms because we're analyzing how it all resulted in peace for everybody, especially the people that are living in Iran right now. Robert, thank you.

    22. RPRobert Pape1:40:54

        Thank you.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:40:55

        YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior and the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's different for everybody looking right now. Check this video out. I bet you, you might love it

Episode duration: 1:41:12