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What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran?

1. Critical infrastructure of the nuclear fuel cycle appears to have been unaffected or sustained only minor damage.

2. The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue.

3. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.

4. Israel is under attack, explosions are rocking the country, and people are panicking.

5. The US is now entangled in a new conflict, with prospects of a ground operation looming on the horizon.

6. Iran’s political regime has survived — and in all likelihood, has come out even stronger.

7. The people are rallying around the country’s spiritual leadership, including those who were previously indifferent or opposed to it.

8. Donald Trump, once hailed as ‘president of peace,’ has now pushed the US into another war.

9. The vast majority of countries around the world oppose the actions of Israel and the United States.

10. At this rate, Trump can forget about the Nobel Peace Prize — not even with how rigged it has become. What a way to kick things off, Mr. President. Congratulations!

Secondary criteria indicating a crisis war

The following are secondary criteria that identify crisis wars:

Secret mobilization. Example: Germany in 1930s. A country that mobilizes for war in secret is usually preparing to strike first in a crisis war. Why? Because secret mobilization requires the cooperation of a great deal of the public, and indicates very broad support for the impending war.
Surprise attack on enemy. Related to the previous point is that a surprise attack on an adversary usually indicates a crisis war.

"Spiraling out of control". Examples: Rwanda, 1994; French Revolution Reign of Terror, 1792. If a war, especially a civil war, seems to spring from nowhere, it almost always indicates widespread public desire for war and vengeance.

Refusal to surrender. Example: Germany 1944. If a nation continues fighting even when defeat is clearly unavoidable, it's most likely a crisis war.
The secondary criteria alone do not indicate a crisis war. For example, some non-crisis wars are surprise attacks.

DaKardii wrote: Sat Jun 21, 2025 10:40 pmNow what?

Criteria indicating crisis war

A crisis war is like a ball rolling downhill, usually over a period 5-10 years long. It may (or may not) need a push to start, and it may be temporary stopped by obstacles on the way down. But eventually it starts gathering an enormous amount of energy, and at some point its momentum becomes so great that it's unstoppable, until it reaches the bottom of the hill in an explosive climax that forever changes the landscape.

The rolling ball analogy can be used only so far, but it represents something real: A steadily increasing anxiety on the part of the people fighting the war, an increasing hatred of the enemy, an increasing desire for genocidal vengeance, and a willingness to risk everything for total victory.

To understand the emotion behind a crisis war, you have to think about wars where this kind of energy was displayed: Think of the early 1990s Balkans, where the Serbs pursued massive ethnic cleansing (mass murdering the men, mass raping the women) of the Croats and the Bosnians; think of the 1994 Rwanda war, where Hutus murdered and dismembered a million Tutsis in a three month period; think of President Truman's vengeful statement after a nuclear weapon had destroyed a Japanese city; think of the mass murder and mass destruction of an entire region when General Sherman marched his troops through Georgia near the end of the Civil War.

A crisis war may start out small, but it builds in strength and energy until it becomes as unstoppable a force of nature as a raging typhoon.

In another chapter (where?) we quoted at length Leo Tolstoy's discussion, in War and Peace of the Battle of Borodino, and in particular the fact that Napoleon could not have stopped the battle: "Had Napoleon then forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable."

This is the essence of a crisis war. A huge mass of people who are willing to kill or be killed. An unstoppable "ball of invasion," in Tolstoy's words.

So to understand a crisis war, we really need to understand people's feelings and intentions. This is something that the TFT authors were able to measure by reading contemporary diaries and histories.

We required a set of criteria that can evaluate a war based on commonly available facts about the war in ordinary history books, and the criteria should be as free of subjectivity as possible.

Unfortunately, there are no simple numeric measures that can be applied. In particular, the number of battle deaths does not seem to be an appropriate measure. World War I (in Western Europe) showed that it's possible to have a static non-crisis war and still have quite a few war deaths. The American Civil War, the worst war in United States history, killed 0.8% of the population. On the other hand, China's Taiping Rebellion civil war killed almost 15% of the population.

So we need to be able to measure the feelings and intentions of large masses of people, but without using simple numeric measures.

Since we can't measure public attitudes during historical wars, we look for "clues" in the historical descriptions of the wars to see if the criteria for a crisis war are met. If the clues are ambiguous, then it's necessary to refer to additional sources to get more information. In my experience, it's rare that an ambiguous situation remains ambiguous for long. Whether a war is a crisis war becomes abundantly clear very quickly.

DaKardii wrote: Sat Jun 21, 2025 10:40 pmNow what?

Navigator wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 2:14 pm However, when a foreign country (Israel) bombs your country (Iran), the response is generally increased support for the local regime. This means that Iranians, out of their own national pride, will, at least in the short term, most likely rally to the flag of the Ayatollahs.

'A choice of two evils': Young anti-regime Iranians divided over conflict

We have managed to speak to several young Iranians who oppose the regime - and have protested against it in the past - in recent days, however.

Their names have been changed for their safety as the Iranian authorities frequently imprison opponents in an attempt to suppress dissent.

Tara, 26, told the BBC that when Israel issues evacuation warnings ahead of strikes, authorities shut off internet access "so that people don't find out and the death toll rises".

Checkpoints and toll stations are also set up, she says, accusing authorities of "deliberately" creating traffic, which "encourages people to stay in targeted areas".

"Talking about patriotism, unity, and standing up to the enemy is absurd. The enemy has been killing us slowly for decades. The enemy is the Islamic Republic!"

Sima, 27, tells us she does not care about this anymore.

"I wish Israel would get the job done as soon as possible. I'm exhausted. Although I'm still not a fan of Israel or what it's doing, I hope they'd finish what they've started.

"Wishful thinking, I know. But I want them to rid us and the world of the threat of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and ayatollahs as a whole."

Some people we spoke to were even more forceful in their support for Israel's attacks.

Amir, 23, said he supported them "100%". Asked why, he said he believed no-one else was prepared to take on the regime.

"Not the UN, not Europe, not even us. We tried, remember? And they killed us in the streets. I'm joyful when the people who've crushed our lives finally taste fear. We deserve that much."

Amir is referencing the widespread protests in Iran following the death of Masha Amini. The 22-year-old died in police custody in 2022 after being arrested for allegedly violating rules requiring women to wear the headscarf.