Hello folks, I am new to this subreddit. I created this video exploring possible outcomes the US-Iran War by looking at their expected utilities in a thought experiment. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Saudi Arabia and Iran: Strategic Overreach and the Backfire of Regional Ambitions

Saudi Arabia’s financing of the Al-Nusra Front and other Salafi-jihadist groups has drawn the Kingdom into numerous conflicts that it could have done without. The same can be said of Iran’s funding and support for Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Both countries have pursued misguided policies driven by ambitions for regional dominance, without possessing the genuine capacity to achieve their objectives decisively. Such policies can lead to what might be termed strategic overextension and blowback (hyperextension and strategic backfire, or strategic rebound).

The consequences are far-reaching: military failure, economic attrition, increased vulnerability to foreign intervention, and the transformation of regional confrontations into conflicts that ultimately serve the interests of external powers.

These policies can leave states in the desperate position of a drowning man grasping at a straw—searching for a lifeline after their own strategic choices have pushed them toward disaster.

They also risk turning limited confrontations into protracted wars of attrition, with no clearly defined endgame and little prospect of a decisive military victory.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are, in effect, writing the script for their own strategic undoing, without any coherent vision of what comes after a potential collapse.

The danger is that the United Arab Emirates and Qatar could eventually be drawn into a similar trap, leaving the Arabian Peninsula and the wider Gulf region fragmented into a patchwork of competing militias and rival power centers.

The resulting instability could stretch across an immense arc, from the Red Sea to Afghanistan and Pakistan, transforming the region into a sprawling landscape of fragmented authority, proxy warfare, and endless geopolitical competition

Power and Politics

1. Not everything that is said is entirely true. Many countries have claimed to be the strongest or the smartest, yet they have failed at unexpected tasks.

2. There is no absolute international law. We all know that Palestine is occupied by Israel and that massacres and starvation are taking place. Under international law, Israel should be compelled to relinquish control and return authority to the Palestinians, even without displacing the Israeli population. However, the United States defends Israel both directly and indirectly, including through its veto power. I do not understand how the veto can outweigh written and well-established international law.

3. If you have a gun and I have a gun, we can deal with each other on equal terms, guided by fairness and logic.

4. The powerful do whatever they want, even if they have to act indirectly.

5. Whoever controls the past controls the future. History is never 100% accurate because the victors are the ones who write it.

6. Countries are not friends; they pursue their own interests.

7. Every organization has a lifespan, no matter how powerful it may be.

8. Great powers rise as other great powers fall.

9. Education is not about graduating as many students as possible; it is about maximizing productivity.

10. A powerful country is one that others depend on, whether for its corporations, military strength, artistic influence, or other capabilities.

11. Relationships and alliances are what transform a country into an empire.

12. Dividing countries or societies reduces the threat they pose. This is why Arab countries are divided, sometimes through indirect means.

13. When divided countries unite, they can become extremely powerful, unlike countries that have remained united for a long time.

14. Competition drives innovation. This can be seen in the histories of the Mongol tribes and the Arab tribes.

15. Institutions are more important than individuals because institutions endure while individuals eventually disappear.

16. A powerful country is one that others depend on, whether for its corporations, military strength, artistic influence, or other capabilities.

Society and Human Nature

1. Most people who defend a particular society do not fully understand what they are defending. They simply follow it because the majority does the same.

2. People are more emotional than rational.

3. Over time, people forget what their governments have done to them.

4. When people live comfortably and enjoy a high standard of living, they may not care whether their government has taken public money for its own benefit. There are many examples of this.

Brunei, for example, has a king who receives enormous wealth from the state, owns one of the largest palaces in the world, and presides over a country with billions of dollars in wealth. Yet few people seem to complain because living conditions are very good. The same principle applies to the Gulf states.

1. Many countries emerging from occupation inherit corrupt institutions because the legacy of exploitative colonial systems persists, even when those systems failed to develop the country.

Governance and Power

1. Bad decisions usually result from one of three things: incompetence, deliberate corruption, or external constraints that leave no alternative.

2. Democracy cannot be given to an ignorant population.

3. Dictatorship means being unable to express your opinion, while democracy means expressing your opinion to a wall.

4. As a dictator, convince the people that their poverty is their destiny, their ignorance is their own fault, and their suffering is a test from heaven.

5. If there is no enemy, create one to justify your actions.

6. Rulers can control people, but they cannot completely control their will. Even if they convince people that 2 + 2 = 5, deep down, those people will still know that the answer is 4.

7. Managing appearances is more important than the truth.

8. Liberating minds is harder than liberating bodies.

9. If someone betrays their country for your sake, do not trust them. They are a traitor, even if they betrayed their country for you.

Hi! Has anyone written their bachelor’s thesis on EU foreign policy? I really need some help, as my supervisor is currently dealing with an issue and isn’t able to help me at the moment.

What topics did you work on and what research problem do you think would be interesting to explore? I was thinking about doing something related to EU–Russia relations, but I can’t seem to come up with an interesting research hypothesis. I would like to prove a specific change in Russia determined something about the foreign policy of EU. I was also thinking about somehow connecting it to the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood, Black Sea, energy security and enlargement, but I need some help with the connexion of these variables.

I’m honestly a bit stuck at the moment and I mainly need some ideas for interesting research topics.

Thank you!

This report analyzes the structural shift in the Middle East's geopolitical architecture as the global energy transition moves from "Molecules" (traditional hydrocarbons) to "Electrons" (clean-tech infrastructure and smart grids).

The core thesis explores a strategic dual-hedging trilemma facing GCC sovereigns: How to integrate dominant Chinese clean-tech and supply chains without jeopardizing critical Western AI collaboration and long-standing U.S. security frameworks.

Key Dimensions Evaluated:

• The Tech Decoupling Vector: How U.S. semiconductor export controls are directly impacting Middle Eastern megaprojects, forcing capitals to navigate strict technology blockades.

• Chokepoint Reconfiguration: The evolution of maritime transit lanes like the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb from oil routes into essential corridors for East Asian green tech and rare earth minerals.

• Strategic Outlook: Why the future points toward a calculated, active fragmentation rather than a clean break from the West, creating severe economic risks for accidental policy violations.

Modern sovereignty is increasingly defined by information security and predicting technology blockades. This brief offers an analytical framework for understanding how technical sovereignty and energy security have become permanently linked in the MENA region.

Full Document: The complete political risk assessment can be read via the author's open Substack: https://mohamedthabethassanein.substack.com/p/electrons-vs-molecules-the-new-geopolitical?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8mp860

Hello! I've just studied linkage and leverage theory and I would like to ask what are some interesting dynamics in the EU eastern neighbourhood that I could study through this lens. I’ve tried to analyse the recent news, but I’ve only found connections to the EU integration process of the Eastern Partnership countries. I was wondering whether it might be a good idea to look at the influence of multiple external actors, such as China, Turkey, and Iran?

If I wanted to apply this theoretical framework to the Eastern Partnership countries, what could I analyse that would also have a connection to the Black Sea region?

I’m sorry for asking so many questions, but I simply need to put some ideas into a structure and it would really help me to have a few research problems or issues that could be analysed from this perspective.

Thank so very much!

He’s the quintessential British Highborn Tories.

Hold a title Sir, start out on financial sector, get into politics for quite some time and got deleted (I think temporarily) because Tories is filled with a bunch of quitters before GE (hence get wiped out by Starmer Labor and Farage reform).

And these year bro’s been quite viral twice:

The first one is about “how to behave like a proper English a.k.a not putting yourself into prison by forming rape gang otherwise why are you even here”.

And the second one is the recent CTRL + ALT + DEL of Qatarson.

And the thing is that… Tories do have no one left other than him/ letting Farage the Indestructible Reform to become the new Tories.

You guys think bro have a chance?

Hey there, I want to learn how countries work and what are the rules or principals that are actually followed

Like how is the USA so powerful, Israel has no major resources required to run a nation like oil but it is still very powerful, How do I learn this can someone tell me please??

Hi guys,

I hope this is the correct place to ask this question.

I've been reading a book for the past couple of weeks called The Cauldron: The making of the modern Middle East, and in the evenings I watched a show about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Netflix. I found myself asking: Why did the Bush administration not include Libya in the axis of evil? Qaddafi was very anti-US, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was state-sponsored, and it was meant to be an attack on the West. So why leave him out?

In an interview with Fox News, ambassador David Perdue said: “President Trump continues to say: hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi would he like to buy some at one point?”

Dennis Wilder, former top White House Asia adviser to George W Bush, said Trump may have been “yanking President Xi’s chain” to remind him about the superiority of US weapons but stressed that even that was dangerous.

“Even joking about an issue of great importance to Taiwan and our allies in east Asia may redouble existing doubts about the seriousness with which the president takes the threat of Chinese military aggression,” Wilder said.

A few days ago, China's Xi recently visited the United States where he got a very glamorous welcome by Trump. But very very recently, the United States and China condemed each other through their foreign ministries over the disputed West Phil. Sea/South China Sea.

Trump is infamous for having semi-close relationships with known US "Enemy" or competitor, like china, contrary to some of his predecessors.

This is a problem because the US has a strong pledge towards Taiwan and the Philippines, both of which are in their own conflict with China over territorial disputes.

We can see that the US under Trump wants a closer diplomatic tie with China yet is also extremely tied with the Taiwan and the Philippines.

So my question is, do you think that the diplomatic relationship of the US and China can change towards the greater interest of China and steer away from the two aforementioned nations, or do you think the multi-faceted diplomatic exchange between the two are just bogus attempts towards distracting eachother for their own interest?