Pages

Showing posts with label John Spencer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Spencer. Show all posts

Sunday, May 10, 2026

John Spencer On The War So Far

Iran: Podcasts

I read this, and think, the media has been such a circus during this war. You can't make head or tail of what is going on if you watch the news. Primary culprits: the US media and the Indian media, the two largest democracies in the world. So if I want to know what is going on, where do I go? It is their business model. They have to make it sound like it is neck and neck, so the viewers keep coming back.

This article by John Spencer is such a good summary of what has happened. Yes, he has a side he is on, and he displays that publicly. But I don't feel like I have been fed propaganda. This is someone exhibiting professionalism. The details are thorough. The logic is sound.

The Islamic Republic is at its weakest. If it will not fall now, when will it fall?

I want the Iranian streets to erupt in protest and get rid of the regime.

Not further military strikes, but negotiations. The nuke program must end. The enriched uranium must be handed over. That much is non-negotiable. Say that takes a few weeks. And then a few weeks to actually implement the taking out of the uranium.

That is plenty of time for the diaspora and the Iranian street. If they still don't move, that is on them.

There is so much the Iranian diaspora could do that it is not doing.

If the regime does not collapse, we will just see another war in a few years.

John Spencer: Who Has the Upper Hand in Iran?

One of the strangest habits in modern war analysis is how quickly survival gets confused with victory. Iran has not collapsed overnight.

The regime still broadcasts threats, launches missiles and drones, and floods television and social media with declarations of imagined strength.

From that surface-level reality, a growing chorus of commentators has rushed to claim that Iran has embarrassed the United States, exposed Israeli weakness, and seized control of escalation through its ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz. Much of that analysis mistakes continued existence for strategic success and ignores nearly every measurable indicator of national power. Wars are not scored like debates on cable television. They are judged through military capability, economic endurance, political cohesion, freedom of action, strategic leverage, and the ability to sustain power while degrading an opponent’s. By those standards,

Iran is substantially weaker today than it was before the war began.

The United States and Israel still hold the upper hand because the foundations of Iranian power have been systematically reduced in ways that will take years to rebuild, if they can be rebuilt at all.

The scale of military destruction alone is extraordinary.

Much of the senior leadership structure that spent decades constructing Iran’s regional military network is dead. Senior IRGC commanders, missile force leaders, intelligence officials, nuclear scientists, operational planners, and even the Supreme Leader himself have been eliminated. Mohammad Bagheri, Hossein Salami, and other senior figures who represented the institutional backbone of Iran’s military strategy are gone. Entire command relationships were shattered during the opening phases of the war, leaving surviving leaders scrambling to maintain continuity while under constant pressure.

The damage extends far beyond personnel losses. Nuclear facilities that represented decades of investment and strategic ambition now sit buried under rubble after sustained strikes on enrichment sites, underground complexes, centrifuge production facilities, research centers, and supporting infrastructure. Analysts continue to speak as though Iran can simply restart enrichment at industrial scale in a matter of months. That misunderstands what was destroyed. Advanced centrifuge production depends on precision manufacturing, specialized tooling, secure facilities, trained personnel, supply chains, and protected infrastructure. Large portions of that ecosystem no longer exist.

Iran once believed it could steadily push its nuclear and missile programs toward a threshold where the military cost of stopping them would become politically unacceptable for any outside power. That strategy shaped Tehran’s thinking for years. The regime hoped to create a fait accompli, a hardened shield of missiles, proxies, underground facilities, and enrichment capability that would eventually deter meaningful intervention. Instead, the war demonstrated that the shield was penetrable and that the consequences of crossing certain lines were far greater than Tehran anticipated.

Its missile enterprise has suffered similar devastation. Before the war, Iran had steadily expanded ballistic missile production and stockpiles as the centerpiece of its deterrent strategy. Analysts estimated the regime could manufacture roughly one hundred ballistic missiles per month. Today many of the machine tooling centers, fuel production facilities, assembly plants, storage depots, and transport infrastructure that sustained that output are destroyed or inoperable. Production has effectively collapsed under sustained strikes, economic isolation, cyber operations, and industrial disruption. A state can expend missiles quickly in war. Rebuilding the industrial base that creates them is a much slower process.

Iran’s naval capabilities have also absorbed severe damage. Large portions of the Iranian Navy and IRGC maritime forces were destroyed or rendered ineffective during the campaign. Tehran had invested heavily in asymmetric maritime warfare through fast attack craft, anti-ship missiles, naval mines, IRGC naval units, and swarm tactics intended to threaten global shipping. Many of those capabilities were directly targeted. Naval staging areas, missile launch infrastructure, command facilities, and key maritime assets were destroyed in strikes specifically designed to prevent Iran from controlling chokepoints or sustaining attacks on international commerce. Iran can still create disruption. It can still threaten shipping lanes and inject uncertainty into global markets. But threatening commerce is not the same thing as commanding the sea.

The debate over the Strait of Hormuz reflects a broader misunderstanding about power itself. Many analysts point to Iran’s ability to threaten oil markets as evidence that Tehran somehow controls escalation and can ultimately force the United States and its allies into retreat.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described this dynamic accurately when he referred to Iran’s use of the Strait as an “economic nuclear weapon.” By openly threatening the world economy through coercion and instability, Iran may have accomplished the opposite of what it intended. It reinforced for regional governments and global powers why the regime can never again be allowed to hold that level of leverage unchecked.

Across the Gulf, states are already accelerating efforts to bypass dependence on the Strait through pipelines, expanded port infrastructure, and alternative export corridors.

The UAE’s growing alignment with Israel reflects a wider regional shift underway. Governments that once viewed Iran as a difficult but necessary regional power increasingly see it as the primary source of instability threatening economic growth and long-term security. Tehran spent years trying to convince the region that resistance movements and proxy militias represented strength. The war has increasingly exposed them as engines of destruction that drag entire societies toward crisis.

The same flawed black-and-white thinking shapes discussion of Iran’s nuclear material and enrichment program. Some analysts insist Iran will never negotiate, never surrender enriched uranium, and inevitably race toward a bomb again the moment fighting stops. No serious strategist can predict with certainty how the regime behaves under sustained military and economic pressure. The material could ultimately be removed through negotiation, coercive diplomacy, or force. What matters strategically is that Iran has once again validated every warning that drove decades of nonproliferation concerns. The regime demonstrated how close it intended to move toward nuclear weapons capability while simultaneously funding proxy terrorism, threatening maritime commerce, and destabilizing the region through armed militias.

Iran’s air defenses and air force have also been badly degraded. Israeli and American aircraft operated repeatedly over Iranian territory after dismantling much of the country’s integrated air defense system. Radar sites, command nodes, surface-to-air missile batteries, and air bases were systematically targeted. Iran’s air force, already aging and technologically outmatched before the war, was further devastated through losses in aircraft, infrastructure, maintenance capacity, and operational readiness. Once a country loses the ability to contest its own airspace in a meaningful way, every other vulnerability becomes magnified.

Economically, the pressure is immense. Oil exports, industrial production, energy infrastructure, shipping, and foreign investment have all suffered major disruption. Analyses from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimate economic losses well into the hundreds of billions when direct damage, lost production, sanctions pressure, and long-term contraction are combined. Even if the war ended tomorrow, recovery would likely take years. Sustained military destruction layered onto sanctions creates compounding effects that spread through every sector of a national economy. Inflation rises. Currency stability erodes. Capital flees. Supply chains fracture. Public frustration deepens.

Political stress inside the regime is becoming increasingly visible as well. Iranian leaders have publicly contradicted one another over retaliation, negotiations, military strategy, and relations with outside powers. That matters because authoritarian systems depend heavily on projecting unity and control. Visible disagreement signals strain throughout the governing structure. The regime has also kept internet access heavily restricted for much of its population since the war began, fearing unrest and uncontrolled information flow. Governments confident in their domestic stability rarely isolate their own citizens from the outside world during conflict.

Iran’s regional proxy network has suffered devastating setbacks. Hamas’s senior leadership and much of its military infrastructure were destroyed in the war that followed the October 7 attacks. While Hamas still exists as a political force in portions of Gaza, it no longer resembles the organization that once coordinated large-scale cross-border assaults, sustained prolonged combat operations, and relied on steady external resupply from Iran and its regional network. Its tunnel systems, weapons production capacity, command structure, and foreign support pipelines have been systematically dismantled or severely degraded. Cut off from many of its external backers and facing constant military pressure, Hamas has been reduced from a regional instrument of Iranian power projection to a battered and isolated insurgent remnant struggling to survive.

Hezbollah, long marketed as Iran’s crown jewel of deterrence, suffered equally devastating blows. Senior leadership figures were eliminated, experienced commanders lost, weapons stockpiles destroyed, and critical infrastructure across southern Lebanon heavily damaged. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria and sustained interdiction campaigns also severed or severely disrupted many of the logistical corridors that once allowed Iran to move missiles, weapons systems, and advanced military equipment into Lebanon. Hezbollah remains dangerous, but the image of an untouchable proxy army capable of dictating escalation across the region has been badly shattered.

The Houthis have also suffered major attrition and remain increasingly isolated and under pressure even if they retain some disruptive capacity. Shiite militia groups tied to Tehran across Iraq and Syria face operational constraints, leadership losses, and growing scrutiny from local governments. For decades Iran relied on proxy warfare because it offered strategic depth at relatively low direct cost. That model is now strained across nearly every theater simultaneously.

Some analysts continue to argue that because Iran can still fire missiles, threaten shipping, or survive politically, the United States is strategically cornered and desperate for an exit.

That argument confuses the ability to inflict pain with the ability to achieve strategic success. Damaged powers can remain dangerous for long periods of time. History is full of weakened states capable of lashing out violently even while losing the broader balance of power around them. Serious strategic analysis requires measuring what Iran has lost alongside what it can still do.

Many analysts want to simplify a deeply complex war into slogans. Iran is winning. America is losing. Trump is trapped.

Those narratives often avoid confronting the measurable destruction Iran has suffered, the years required to rebuild its military-industrial base, and the strategic value of preventing a terrorist regime from reaching a no-turning-back threshold in nuclear weapons capability and missile production. They also dismiss the importance of preserving freedom of navigation, protecting regional partners, and degrading a state that spent decades funding terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East.

No one can predict the future with certainty. No analyst possesses a crystal ball capable of forecasting whether the Islamic regime can survive the long-term political and economic consequences of this war. But based on every serious measure of national power, Iran is weaker today than before the conflict began.

Its military has been shattered across multiple domains. Its economy is under severe strain. Its proxies are degraded. Its deterrence credibility has suffered. Its strategic ambitions have been rolled back.

The United States and its partners still hold the upper hand because the foundations of Iranian power have been systematically reduced, and rebuilding them may take far longer than many observers are willing to admit.

at No comments:
Labels: ,

Saturday, April 04, 2026

Iran War: The Missing Jujitsu

Iran: Podcasts

John Specer: "He was not focused on destruction for its own sake or on seeking decisive battles as an end in themselves, but on achieving outcomes that aligned military action with political purpose at the lowest possible cost, warning plainly that “there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.” ......... “All warfare is based on deception.” He was not describing battlefield tricks. He was describing a way of thinking about war. Deception, for him, meant shaping the enemy’s perception of reality. It meant influencing what the enemy believed about your intentions, your capabilities, and your limits. It meant forcing decisions based on uncertainty. .......... That idea was inseparable from knowledge. Sun Tzu wrote that “if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” not as a statement about counting weapons or platforms, but about understanding how a system actually functions, including leadership, cohesion, resources, and the capacity to adapt. Intelligence, in that sense, was not simply a tool for awareness, but for influence. .......... Before analyzing any war, Sun Tzu would have asked the question that remains debated today: What is the political objective? He did not separate war from politics, writing that “the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought,” a point not about tactics but about alignment, because strategy is not simply the execution of force, it is the connection between means and political ends. ............

Applied to a U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran, the question remains decisive. What is the objective? Is it regime change, or is it behavior change? Is it the destruction of the nuclear program, or the acceptance of constraints? Is it deterrence, or is it the use of force to compel the enemy to do your will? These are not interchangeable aims. Each requires a different scale of effort, a different timeline, and a different tolerance for risk.

.................. Deception directed at the enemy can be useful. Ambiguity within one’s own strategy is dangerous. If political leaders, military planners, and allies do not share a common understanding of the objective, then deception becomes confusion. And confusion at the strategic level produces incoherence in execution. ............ Sun Tzu laid out a hierarchy that remains one of the most useful ways to think about war. “What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy; next best is to disrupt his alliances; next best is to attack his army.” Only after those options does he arrive at the final step. “The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only when there is no alternative.” Applied to Iran, that hierarchy matters. .............

attacking military capabilities alone is insufficient

; the strategy should also target command networks, revenue streams, internal control mechanisms, and the ability to regenerate combat power. .................. This reflects Sun Tzu’s preference for the indirect approach, shaping conditions so that victory becomes inevitable before decisive battle is required, while still recognizing that direct force must be applied where necessary to exploit advantage or impose cost. He argued for striking weakness, avoiding strength, and using maneuver, disruption, and psychological pressure to undermine the enemy’s system. In a modern context, that logic extends beyond the battlefield to include information warfare, cyber operations, and actions below the threshold of sustained conventional conflict, all aimed at influencing both capability and will. ....................... There have also been indications of outreach to the United States, alongside unconfirmed reports of defections and visible measures to maintain internal control, including Basij checkpoints in major population centers. .................. Maintaining cohesion among allies, however, remains essential. ................

Tactical success does not equal strategic success.

............... “The worst policy is to attack cities.” He placed this last because of time and cost. Siege warfare in his time was slow, expensive, and uncertain, forcing armies to give up maneuver and initiative while risking a slide into protracted war, the very condition he warned against. That logic still applies. Modern urban warfare imposes many of the same burdens. It is complex, resource intensive, and politically consequential, absorbing combat power and extending time. For a strategist focused on achieving a political objective efficiently, urban combat is not the preferred approach. When it becomes necessary, such as rapidly seizing a capital in pursuit of a primary objective like regime change, it must be executed quickly and with precision. ........................ Time, for Sun Tzu, was also always central. A short, concentrated campaign that creates the conditions for a political settlement aligns with his thinking .......... In Iran’s case, that includes economic survival, particularly oil revenue and critical infrastructure that sustain both its military capacity and internal control. This could involve actions that isolate key nodes of economic output, such as limiting the regime’s ability to export oil through critical infrastructure like Kharg Island, as well as degrading its ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as a means of economic coercion against global shipping. It could also include measures that disrupt the systems the regime relies on to maintain internal cohesion and control, including communications and information networks. The purpose of such pressure would not be destruction for its own sake, but to alter the regime’s calculations by increasing the cost of continued fighting while raising concerns about its ability to govern, sustain itself, and continue to impose costs on others. ............ Throughout the war, Sun Tzu would have returned to a simple measure of success, not only what was destroyed, but what was achieved. If the enemy’s decisions change, the strategy has worked. If they do not, then tactical success may prove insufficient. ............. The Art of War endures. It is not a guide to battle. It is a framework for thinking about war as a contest of wills, shaped by political purpose, constrained by cost, and decided not by destruction, but by decisions. ...................... Sun Tzu would also have recognized the political constraints that shape the use of force and the importance of perception beyond the battlefield. He warned that “there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare” and that the use of the military must remain tied to the interests of the state, not drift into objectives that expand beyond what was originally intended. He placed extraordinary importance on information, writing that foreknowledge must be obtained and used to shape outcomes, a principle that today extends to the information domain and the perceptions of both enemy leadership and the population. ............ Sun Tzu also understood the role of threat, not as a matter of rhetoric, but as a function of perception and pressure. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” and that requires shaping the enemy’s understanding of what continued fighting will bring. But he also warned against excess. “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” The purpose of pressure is not to eliminate all options, but to shape them, and to shape how they are understood. In this context, that means applying enough force to influence decision-making while preserving a path toward a political outcome aligned with stated objectives. ..................... If the regime were to collapse as a result of the war, the outcomes associated with regime change could occur, but that would be distinct from making regime change the stated political objective. If the objective shifts, or is perceived to shift, from forcing a change in behavior to regime change requiring large-scale ground forces, it risks repeating patterns seen in past wars, where limited objectives expanded into nation building and protracted counterinsurgency campaigns against enemies able to adapt, disperse, and find sanctuary. Those conditions favor the defender, extend time, and erode political cohesion. ................... Strategy must remain aligned to political purpose, and that purpose must remain disciplined, or the advantages gained early in a campaign can be lost over time. ".

"Our signal to the United States and countries in the Middle East about the Strait of Hormuz was that we were open to discussing it. ............... As of today, I don't see any country lifting the blockade on its own, only joint steps can bring results. Ukraine has experience with launching the Grain Corridor in the Black Sea despite Russia’s attempts to block the flow of food and other goods. The situation now is similar, but it is about energy. .............. The war and the negotiations on reopening the Hormuz Strait can go in parallel. .........

An alternative step would be to control the Strait unilaterally, as Ukraine did with the Grain Corridor. Achieving this would require interceptors, military convoys to escort the vessels, a large integrated electronic warfare network, and other tools. We stand ready to help with this.

............ But for now, we are not yet involved. So far, no one has made such a request."


Iran War: The Missing Jujitsu


In the midst of the escalating conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a clear-eyed political analysis cuts through the fog of military briefings and media commentary. While acknowledging the limits of personal expertise, this perspective insists that war remains, at its core, politics by other means. The central argument is that the most consequential error in this war has not come from generals or governments, but from within the very community best positioned to shape its outcome.
I am not a military expert. I am clear about that. But I know my politics. And war is politics by other means.
The fundamental mistake in this war has been made by the Iranian diaspora.
And it is a heroic diaspora. A civilizational people doing amazing things all over the world. What the Iranian diaspora did on February 14, 2026 no other diaspora has done, ever. That is why I say, Iran is not Iraq, Iran is not Afghanistan. Because I have already seen what they can do. Almost two million of them came out into the streets all over the world.
Yet this same remarkable community has faltered at a deeper level. So what is the mistake? An utter refusal to achieve spiritual clarity on Islam. To go into the streets to protest is to petition the Ayatollah for liberty. The Ayatollah cannot grant you liberty. He himself is not free. He is a slave to The Devil. Islam is spiritual prison.
Islam is the anti-religion. Islam is the religion of the Devil. Allah is not God. Allah is the Devil having distorted who or what God is. God is omnipotent. Allah as described in the Koran does not have the power to enter human history. Sharia Law is utter tyranny. That is the Devil's way. God's way is liberty. The Devil's way is tyranny. There is no historic Muhammad. Runners run. Swimmers swim. Prophets prophesy. What prophecies have been attributed to Muhammad? There are none. Isaiah was a prophet. Some of his prophecies are still coming true today.
The Iranian diaspora not making the effort to achieve spiritual clarity on Islam is the biggest strategic mistake of this war.
This is not Trump's war. This can't be Trump's war. It is for the Iranian diaspora to take the lead. Not enough organizing and strategizing is happening in parts of the world where the Iranian diaspora does have free speech and the right to peaceful assembly.
At its heart, this conflict transcends borders and tactics. This is a classic fight between good and evil. The truly evil do not reason. The truly evil fight to the finish. Any endgame scenario that does not look like a regime collapse to be replaced by a democratic transitional government that leads to a constituent assembly gives us North Korea with none of the restraints. Build the bomb to explode the bomb. Build the bomb not to threaten but to use it. North Korea threatens.
Wars are tough. They cause death and destruction. There are always civilian casualties. There are unintended consequences. They get messy. There is the relentless drumbeat of critics and trolls. Everybody and their cousin have a YouTube channel.
The economic circumstances, if anything, have only worsened since December. Yes, unconditional surrender can be attempted. But my first choice always was to make room for what already happened in late December, early January. People took to the streets.
Critics who frame the crisis narrowly miss the global stakes. Those who say this is Israel's problem, let them look at the Strait of Hormuz. Those who say this is Israel's problem, let them look at the damage done to civilian locations in the many Gulf countries.
This is the world's problem. It is not for no reason that the Islamic Republic has talked very recently of kicking the Americans out of the region. The plan always was to turn the Gulf countries Muslim, as per the Ayatollah's definition. Bring under the thumb.
The closure of the Strait is peak terrorism. Osama did not manage it with 9/11. There is daily fear across the world right now. This is the ultimate hostage taking behavior. Except this was always the intent. The Islamic Republic was never just about Iran.
A practical path forward exists beyond endless bombing. I am no military expert. But if Ukraine is offering the military option on Hormuz, it should be taken. Hormuz is a topic on its own. It is separate from nukes, missiles and proxies. It is about the world's poor. Countless family budgets have been broken. They were fickle to start with.
The sequence is deliberate and decisive: Open the Strait. And then pull back. Stop the bombing. But stay in the region. Give the people a few weeks. A few months perhaps. And when they do take to the streets, there has to be an automatic trigger. Should the Basij goons take to their bikes with machine guns, they have to be aerially neutralized. Protecting the right to peacefully protest is what will bring forth the regime collapse. Because if there is no regime collapse, it will only be a pause not peace. It will only be a matter of time before there is another war.
Once the regime falls, the foundation for a new Iran is already in place. The democratic transitional government has pledged full cooperation on the nuke program, the missile program, and the proxy program. Because they would like to sing the tune of prosperity for the Iranian people.
The Iranian diaspora has a deep bench of talent. Iran is a future global power. Iran is a multi-trillion economy in the future. A democratic Iran is.
The missing maneuver—the true jujitsu of this war—is not more escalation but calibrated restraint that turns the regime’s own momentum against it. The jujitsu move is to step back to make space for the Iranian people to take to the streets, and to stay put in the region to protect them when they do take to the streets.
This is not a counsel of weakness. It is the strategic recognition that the Iranian people themselves are the decisive force. By protecting their right to protest rather than attempting to impose change from afar, the world can secure a genuine regime collapse and a democratic Iran that ends the cycle of tyranny, nuclear threat, and regional terror once and for all. The diaspora has already shown its power on February 14, 2026. Now is the time to channel that power into spiritual clarity and organized leadership—so that the next streets filled with millions do not merely petition for liberty, but seize it.


The Jews, The Christians, the Hindus Have Been Waiting For The Same Person
Operation Sindoor Beats Operation Epic Fury On Every Metric

View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
at No comments:
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)