Game Theory 23: The WWIII Chessboard
Context
This lecture introduces the geopolitical chessboard for the next 5–10 years. Two forces drive World War III: disputes between four nations, and internal civil discord within each nation.
The two civil war factions are:
- Transnational capital (Wall Street, City of London) — dominant, favors secular multiculturalism
- Coalition — nationalism + religion + artificial intelligence — opposes transnational capital and seeks to replace money as the organizing force of society
The four major players with grand strategies are United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel. Other nations (China, India, Europe, Japan) lack grand strategy and will be swept along rather than driving events.
Three active battlefields exist now:
- Ukraine — NATO vs. Russia (US-Russia proxy war)
- Iran — US and Israel attacking Iran
- Cuba — US embargo vs. Russian support
More battlefronts will open. Key future flashpoints include ocean conflicts (US seizure of Russian shadow fleet tankers), and the rise of Germany and Japan as US-armed proxies.
The Chess Metaphor
Each nation is a chess set:
- King — political system (attack the political system to checkmate, not the military)
- Queen — grand strategy (how each player perceives geopolitics and dominates)
- Bishop, Knight, Rook — attack vectors (mechanisms and tools)
- Pawn — sacrificial tools (expendable in service of grand strategy)
United States
Political system: Democracy — allows innovation and creativity, but polarizes. The path to checkmate America is to deepen polarization and trigger civil war.
Grand strategy: Greater North America — North America as a self-sufficient continental fortress. Method: the Technate (AI surveillance state, technocracy replacing democracy).
Attack vectors: Technology (GPS, satellites, precision weapons, air supremacy), propaganda (NYT, CNN, controlling world narrative), US dollar (global reserve currency, unlimited financing).
Pawns: Allies (sacrificed as vassals).
Cultural foundation: Anglo-American civilization is Faustian — Paradise Lost celebrates pride as the path to godhood, Hamlet celebrates individual reflection, Faust celebrates insatiable appetite for knowledge, The Federalist Papers celebrate individualism. The theme across all four representative books: rebellion against authority is honorable and just.
The Technate plan: unite North America under AI governance, then create chaos worldwide so the world depends on US weapons, resources, and financing — theoretically retiring the $39 trillion debt.
Russia
Political system: Autocracy — enables long-term planning and strategic direction. Vulnerability: death of the leader creates succession crisis.
Grand strategy: Third Rome — Russia as heir to the Roman Empire (Rome → Constantinople → Moscow; no fourth Rome). Goal: unify all religious traditions to defeat the antichrist system (western liberal individual consumer democracy). Strategy: exploit the selfishness and material greed of Anglo-American populations to trigger their civil war.
Attack vectors: Orthodox religion, geography (spans all of Eurasia), artillery (world’s best land army, demonstrated in Ukraine).
Pawns: Soldiers (Russia is not afraid to lose soldiers).
Cultural foundation: Virgil’s Aeneid (duty), St. Augustine’s Confessions (pride is evil, moves us away from God), Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Raskolnikov tries to become a godlike superhuman by committing murder; redemption comes through love and submission to God), Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Anna tries to possess Trosky completely; this is not love but control; the human who tries to become God becomes a tyrant).
Core conflict with the US: Russia and America have fundamentally different readings of the Adam and Eve story. America: Eve’s disobedience is good because it enables progress and godhood. Russia: Eve disobeyed because she was too proud, failed to recognize the limitations of her humanity, and perfection is not possible.
Iran
Political system: Theocracy — creates cohesion and the ability to survive calamities through faith. Weakness: can produce extremism that alienates the population.
Grand strategy: Shia Exceptionalism — Iran seeks to topple Saudi Arabia and lead the entire Muslim world. Shia belief: only a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad can be Caliph. Sunni belief: anyone qualified can be Caliph. This schism has driven Shia-Sunni conflict for centuries.
Attack vectors: Terrain, faith, proxies (Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas).
Pawns: Drones and missiles.
Cultural foundation: Two major traditions. Zoroastrianism — first eschatological religion (belief in judgment day: those who live truth Asha ascend to heaven, those who live lies descend to hell; what matters is being true to God, not achievement). Shia tradition of martyrdom — Battle of Karbala (Hussein, grandson of the Prophet, surrounded by the Caliph’s army with few soldiers; they fought to the death because dying for faith is the highest value).
Iran will never surrender regardless of material disadvantage. What matters is fighting for belief and setting an example for future generations.
Israel
Political system: Democracy and theocracy combined. Vulnerability: civil war is easy to trigger because Israeli society is highly fractured.
Grand strategy: Greater Israel Project — biblical promise to Abraham of all Middle East from the Nile to the Euphrates. This war is not primarily about defeating Iran; it is about achieving the Greater Israel Project. Iran’s destruction of the GCC helps Israel. False flag operations are a tool to keep the entire Middle East at war with itself.
Attack vectors: The Bible (Christians support Israel’s biblical right), Mossad (infiltration, co-opting, bribing, blackmailing foreign elites), Jewish diaspora (wealthy, everywhere, finances the project).
Pawns: Everyone else.
Cultural foundation: Kabbalah (Tree of Life). Key principles: only the Creator and the created matter (Israel cares only about its relationship with God). The universe is governed by thesis-antithesis-synthesis — an inexorable process that cannot be stopped, only accelerated. Goodness does not mean avoiding sin. Goodness means accelerating the cycle of sin so redemption comes faster. This is opposite to the Russian tradition of resisting the antichrist.
Israel is committing what the world sees as evil. In the Kabbalah framework, this accelerates the natural process. God will humble Israel by sending the world against it. Then the Israelites will beg forgiveness and achieve reunion with God at the end of days.
Key Insight
These four worldviews are not in conflict with each other in their own terms. Each is internally consistent and coherent. But each is fighting to impose its own reality on the world. The conflict is irreconcilable because it is not really about resources or territory — it is about which version of reality governs human existence.