July 16, 2026 • 28 mins
As artificial intelligence reshapes economies, supply chains, and national security, the real competition may hinge on who controls the technology, minerals, energy, and manufacturing needed to power it. Steve Yates examines Pax Silica, a U.S.-led initiative designed to strengthen trusted partnerships, secure critical supply chains, reduce dependence on China, and position America and its allies to lead the AI century through innovation, investment, and smart power.
Follow Nation States with Yates for clear, common-sense insights where Steve Yates serves as your personal national security advisor, breaking down world events in ways that matter to Main Street, not just Washington. Connect with the show at NationStatesYates@Gmail.com and follow on X @NSWithYates.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Nation States with Yates. The world comes at
you fast, whether you're in the White House or at
your house. We aim here to serve as your personal
national security advisor to make some sense of this wild
and wooly world, hopefully help you feel really comfortable talking
in your communities, your church community, your family and friends,
(00:23):
maybe even at work from time to time about the
things that are in the headlines but affecting our nation
state that really also affect main Street America. So today
we're going to take a look into lessons learned from Iran,
from engagement conflict, and imagining how the world is likely
(00:43):
to look in post conflict reckoning. Once this is all
wound down, What does all this really meant for the
tools of power and influence for the United States, Our
key relationships and key regions, The geopolitical competition that we
have with China, Russia, other powers in the world, all
things that we need to keep our eye on. But
(01:05):
there's been some key lessons that I think a good
common sense I going through the run up, the conduct
of the conflict and how things look coming out of it,
that it should be ready for the Nation States with
Yates community out there Thank you, as always for joining
in the conversation. Please continue to like, share, and subscribe,
(01:27):
and if you're so inclined, leave a positive review on
your preferred podcast platform and let me know on x
at NS with Yates whether you're taking part in the
conversation by audio or video. Always good to take the
iHeartRadio app and give it a spin. But with that,
after this break, we'll come back for our deep dive
(01:50):
into Nation States Iran lessons learned right back in a
few minutes. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Hopefully
you've had some time to think about this broad conversation
about Iran. Definitely, it's been in the news. I don't
know whether you feel like you're tired of tracking the
(02:10):
news at this point. There's been a lot of back
and forth about a deal, no deal, ceasefire, no cease fire.
You could be forgiven for sort of losing interest in
the conversation to a degree, But it matters because it
affects our bottom line as a country. It affects our
national security, it affects our homeland security, and so it
(02:32):
still matters. And I think today is a good time
for us to jump into a little bit of what
has happened in this engagement with Iran. The conflict wasn't
just another Middle East flare up. It was a stress
test for American power in the twenty first century. After
years of engagement that empowered Tehran and its proxies, we
(02:55):
took decisive action to try to make peace through strength
and show what that really looks like. Past conflicts, we
had a reckoning. Real lessons come out for deterrence, energy security,
bigger contest with China. We went through long, content, long
conflict in Afghanistan. There were some things accomplished, there were
(03:18):
consequences to that long term conflict. The same goes with Iraq.
We draw lessons from the past conflict to inform what
we need to do to improve our state craft, improve
our economic disposition, to be resilient, an adjust to new realities.
And then we also then try to adjust our military
(03:40):
so that we are better prepared not just for the
conflict just past, but for the conflicts of the future.
So that's what I mean by our reckoning when we
imagine what a post conflict Iran teaches us about where
we're going from here. Now I've had the blessing to
serve in a White House at a reasonably senior position,
(04:01):
definitely a front row seat to conversations the President and
his cabinet, we're having in the Oval Office, in the
situation room, in meetings with world leaders, and when you
have a major military operation like what we've gone through
with Iran, all of those principles are involved in pieces
of this, and you've no doubt seen that in the
(04:21):
news coverage. You've seen Vice President Vance go out and
be a part of negotiations and coming back in the
public conversation about it. You've seen Secretary of Rubio go
out and meet face to face with our allies who've
been attacked by Iran as this major military operation has unfolded,
and talking with them about the economic and also military
(04:45):
tools that we have, but that they have and that
they need to build out for them to be able
to exercise more of the influence required to maintain the
region that they live in, with or without the United
States playing a leading role in that effort. We have
a profound amount of American force deployed to the region.
(05:07):
We have forces based in the region. Some of those
bases have been hit by Iranian strikes, and there's sort
of questions that have to be answered about where we
place our military, where we place, of course, the very
very valuable men and women who serve in our all
volunteer force. And so we have some lessons learned in
(05:29):
all of this. We've i think learned from the past
that half measures tend to get us into trouble. That's
where we end up with mission creep, we end up
in what has been broadly called forever wars. Those are
some of the key pitfalls. We end up having our
leverage military and economic used up if we are in
(05:49):
a protracted conflict. That drains our political will, our economic wherewithal,
but also distracts us from key areas where we might
have long return bigger fish to fry in geopolitical competition.
In other words, the Iran challenge may have been urgent,
and it definitely did tie into interests that would affect
(06:11):
the whole world. Nuclear weapon tied together with a radicalized
state definitely gets attention of any commander in chief, and
it certainly caught the attention of President Trump made clear
that under no circumstance can the United States allow Iran
to have the world's ultimate weapon. They've not proven responsible.
(06:32):
So take a moment to look as background on how
we got here. You've probably heard this talked about a
good bit, but I'll try to give a short summation
because I think it still matters as we think about
what post conflict looks like. Because where we were before,
we had decades of sanctions and sanctions relief. We had
(06:55):
nuclear talks. We had them led by our allies, the
supposed EU three, we had them led by the United States.
We had what is called the JCPOA, the Iran Deal
of the Obama administration. It was not a treaty. It
was handled under a fery separate process, not the way
a treaty is voted up or down under Senate procedure,
(07:18):
because with fewer votes, the Iran Deal was adopted than
what a treaty would require. So we've had the experience
of these sanctions issues, nuclear negotiations, a deal that was
not a treaty. Sort of the role that proxies play
(07:41):
and whether we are really curtailing the activities of those proxies.
You may have heard some of these three h's, the
huthis Hesbola, and Hamas in the broader Middle East as
being up to no good from different points of angle,
points of vision and time. But really these are the
tent of the radicalized Iranian regime, and some of our
(08:03):
negotiations the past didn't even address that. They just looked
at the nuclear program. This time around, we recognized that
we had to look comprehensively, but we also looked at
the need for having a broader use of tools to
address it. We had to look at the cost of
the proxy warfare that affected US forces, shipping, and our
(08:28):
allies had to look at energy. Iran's attempt to disrupt
global oil flows before and then of course during this
conflict has caused flows and prices to spike. Americans have
felt the pinch from that, so higher prices at the
pump and an inflation ripple that probably is going to continue
over coming months, even as gas prices might come down.
(08:51):
That creates a risk for our troops, a risk to
our economy. So this shows the danger of treating ideological
regimes as rational partners without real enforcement. That's ultimately what
we had. We have a cult like radicalized theological regime
that we were treating as a rational negotiating partner that's
(09:14):
going to implement a deal like the Iran deal of
the past, so we had to take a different approach
this time around. We have looked at targeting actions that
degrade our enemy's capabilities, protected navigation for us and for others,
and minimized escalation so that we could achieve objectives. Now
(09:38):
that's sort of a fancy way of talking about avoiding
the mistakes of the perceived mistakes of the past. We
don't have an iraqlike scenario playing out where we have
broken the pottery, as they talk about in that analogy
I don't like, but the pottery barn analogy that if
you break it, you own it and it's your responsibility
to put it back together. True or false. That's how
(09:59):
America operates in post conflict Afghanistan Iraq, and it didn't
really go well for us for a lot of reasons.
Separate conversation for a different time. But we had to
find a way to not do the nation build but
also not do the appeasement just inducement only deal that
(10:19):
was on the table before. And so this threading of
the needle, working in collaboration with allies who actually are
participating in military operations, but also the economic state craft
using a full set of tools. We're using new military
(10:40):
technology of drones and precision strikes and cyber capabilities that
have improved upon what we had to draw upon in
the post nine to eleven wars that we fought, and
so we've had, I think a test of what our
hard power is in this, but we also have had
(11:00):
a test of what our economic tools are. The Treasury
Department is unleashed a wider range of tools, some of
which we used in the War on Terror, some of
which we've used in nuclear negotiations past, but I think
really amped them up, and we really got key collaboration
from partners in the region because a lot of Iran's
(11:24):
money was getting in times past normally would get out
of Iran and could flow through the financial institutions of
neighboring states, and so there's no way to really squeeze
and pressure where it needed to go in the financial
tools if we weren't squeezing those assets that were being
(11:45):
held in other countries in the broader Middle East. So
that part of economic state craft was a key part
of all of this. So this wasn't when we look
at what this enterprise has been and imagining we are
at the conclusion and we have succeeded it. This was
not the neo conservative nation building type model. It was
(12:07):
a pragmatic defense of interests that brought adversaries to the
table for better terms, but also brought power to the
table to compel a different path forward for that regime
that for forty seven years had been a thorn in
our side, a risk had threatened to assassinate our president,
(12:27):
had destabilized other key regions, of other key countries of
the broader Middle East. And so that I think is
sort of the background that brought us from where we
were and through this now the reckoning parts. Where do
we go from here? We've learned that half measures fail. Ultimately,
(12:50):
we've got to bring overwhelming American power if we're going
to change outcomes, ideally married together with intelli and decisive
military power of key allies. So, whether it's the operations
that Israel engaged in the early part of this campaign
that decapitated the leadership of Iran, we were targeting necessary
(13:15):
areas of the nuclear program, including the scientists and the
sort of the knowledge economy of that threat. These are
key parts of what we needed to do. We've had
because they were hit broader Arab allies that have skin
in the game and now are participating in operations important
to securing the straight over moves, but also enforcing compliance
(13:40):
with Iran. When they hit these neighbors, the neighbors are
going to hit back. That is a better place for
America to be when we have capable partners doing some
parts of what they can to shape their own region.
Clarified that sanctions and export controls matter supply chain diversification
(14:00):
in matters. It was related to the pack silica initiative
that we talked about in a previous episode, and we
have to find ways to reduce adversary leverage. So when
it came to Iran, what was their leverage? Ultimately they
thought their leverage was that they could engage their terrorist
tentacles to distract and divide the coalition that the United
(14:20):
States had brought against them. Don't think that has succeeded
for them. The best leverage for them, at least in
politics and perception, has been the threat to terrorize vessels
in the Strait of Hormuz. So the economic tools mattered
to us. But going forward, just as we have in
other subject areas, we have to look at what have
(14:43):
we done during this conflict, and where do we go
from here to make sure that we are lessening critical
dependencies so that a revisionist power in this part of
the world cannot do to us what Iran was able
to do to global markets through the course of the conflict.
That's an interesting and tough challenge, one where more work
(15:04):
will need to be done among our golf allies, but
maybe also our Asian allies who are critical customers of
the products that come out of the Middle East, but
they're also looking at diversifying away from those dependencies, maybe
building new supply chains, durable ones with investment in the
United States as a primary supplier, and safer passage across
(15:25):
the Pacific rather than having to go through choke points
from the Middle East through the Straits of Malacca and
Southeast Asia up to Northeast Asian customers. We also learned
that alliances of the capable are more valuable than those
that are paper packs. Some ways, NATO chose not to
(15:46):
show up for us when we wanted them or needed them,
though the President made clear that he didn't feel like
we needed these NATO partners in order to do the
necessary with this conflict, but it was a test would
they show up when we called? And his conclusion was
the answer at least for now was for most of them, no,
(16:06):
and in some cases worse than not showing up, they
sought to stand in the way of our overflight or
use of the bases that we have in their countries
in order to support the operations for the conflict that
they chose not to support but instead got in the
way of. So the alliances of the capable, we've had
(16:29):
this clarifying experience of who some of the countries are
that we can rely upon, who will take real action
and work with the United States to share a burden
and invest in a successful outcome. Those are ones that
we should double down on going forward, and those lessons
from that region about those capable allies should inform the
(16:53):
conversation about alliances in the Western hemisphere and our own
hemisphere of the Americas, the Asia pace Pacific region, and
where we look to go from here. Generally, we also,
i think learned that proxy networks are fragile, so when
the sponsors are hit really hard, we can disrupt the
funding and the leadership, and that makes those proxy networks
(17:16):
more manageable and maybe also can be left to regional
partners to deal with where the United States doesn't have
to take a leading role. It allows us to focus
where only America can make a real difference, and others
can fill the void in areas where they can make
a difference without America having to take bandwidth. The way
from the things only America can do, there's broader implications
(17:40):
that affect maybe how people should be thinking about a
Taiwan scenario, the importance of not sending signals of weakness.
In some ways, weakness was provocative in the Middle East.
Weakness emboldened the Iranian regime to move in a direction
(18:02):
that made them a greater threat, maybe even a more
imminent threat, by coming ever closer to acquiring the ultimate
deterrent that would have greatly complicated our ability to have
a coalition work with US and our ability to operate
with air dominance, naval dominance, and in military terms, overwhelming
success with relatively low risk of casualty and other costs.
(18:29):
We have to look at the homeland and resiliency here,
the cyber and other hybrid threats that come from countries
that are like Iran. We've learned from this conflict about
where the indicators and warnings are going to pop up
in our own homeland security. We've learned where the warning
(18:49):
signs are in the energy markets, about where supplies are
coming from, where the choke points are, where the insurance
industry has fallen short, and maybe there needs to be
other models that address some of these things. The industrial
based dependencies people tended to think about oil and natural
gas is things that go into just power plants and
(19:11):
heavy manufacturing, but there are downstream products of petroleum based
sources that are everything from what we wear to the
fertilizer and things that affect what we eat. So we
had to take some important lessons about our industrial base
and broader supply chains for our manufacturing and consumer way
(19:37):
of life that we should take from this conflict. There's
planning and funding mechanisms now that are in play that
maybe we'll take a look into in a future episode
of Nation States, Like the National Defense Authorization Act. This
is one of those big vehicles on the hill where
we're not doing regular legislation that would go through regular
(20:00):
budgets as much, and so when we have something really
really important that needs to get funded, a key policy
gets defined. A lot of times things like must pass
National Defense Authorization Act becomes the Christmas tree that the
ornaments get hung onto to get new policy adjustments taken
(20:21):
care of for force posture, funding priorities, and sort of
setting the tones. We're avoiding distractions, so looking at Congress
and policy another area where we need to look at
lessons learned from this conflict. But overall we have lower
long term defense costs through prevention by taking care of
(20:43):
a major problem here before it ballooned into crisis. Major
protracted war territory. However frustrating and perceived costly, the multiple
months of this operation have been This is a far
cry from the multiple years of a Vietnam war, or
in Iraq war, in Afghanistan war, no forever war so
(21:06):
to speak, but we have changed some significant terms in
this We've learned where the key points are to stabilize
energy prices, hopefully that will make for a stronger economy
versus our adversaries, reduce risk of future conflicts that pull
in US resources because we can right size some of
(21:28):
the burden sharing among our allies and are investing heavily
in America, being the provider of energy and a lot
of the materials that make the international economy run but
also the international security network that balances against these revisionist
powers like Iran, China, and Russia. Ultimately, this protects American
(21:54):
sovereignty and prosperity without the endless wars. It's a balanced realism.
What I mean by that. In international relations theory, international
realism is one of the core schools of thought. This
is a balanced realism that acknowledge is uncertainties. We're going
to have regime stability questions about Iran, maybe for some time,
but hopefully moves to the right place over time. Reconstruction risk.
(22:16):
That's probably among the reasons why President Trump has been
loathed to destroy the infrastructure that would be helpful to
the Iranian people building a post conflict Iran so that
it's not America having to finance that reconstruction. And we
have to verify any kind of commitment or change. So
we're going to have to verify that there's compliance that
(22:38):
the nuclear program isn't being reconstituted. We have to verify
that the missile launching capabilities are not being reconstituted. We're
gonna have to work with our allies and partners and
some international institutions to do that to stay vigilant. But
ultimately these are the things I think we've learned from
this very different experience of this Iran conflict. It's been
different from Iraq in Afghanistan. It's been very different from
(23:02):
what we had in the intervention with Venezuela. It's different
from what the US role has been with the Russian
invasion of Ukraine and where America has chosen to invest
material and time. But our general approach has been to
trying to get to peace on that. So I think
some really interesting lessons learned. I think overall, America is
(23:26):
better off with having engaged in this activity. It might
be hard to tell in the noise of the news cycles,
but aix significantly degraded Iran, even with some murkiness or uncertainty,
is better for American power and prosperity, better for global markets,
better for rebalancing of America's commitments around the world. So
(23:49):
our allies step up so that we can step back
and focus where only America can make the ultimate impact.
And in some ways that allows us to recalibrate and
focus on the Asia Pacific, which is I think the
theater that will determine the winners or losers of this century.
So with that, we're going to take a brief break.
(24:11):
Hopefully you have enjoyed today's deep dive into the lessons
learned from this conflict in Iran and taking the sort
of a brainstorming look at what post conflict Iran tells
us about deterrence, dependencies and the use of American power
going forward. Please continue to like, subscribe, and share, give
us a follow on x at NS with Yates at
(24:34):
email any program ideas and feedback to Nation States Yates
at gmail dot com. Be back with some summary and
concluding points after this brief break break. Please stick with
us talk to you in a minute. Welcome back to
Nation States with Yates, where we aim to serve as
your personal national security advisor, helping you feel comfortable talking
(24:57):
about the issues that come quickly at a White House
and your house common sense terms, but also the lessons
that mattered. Hopefully help you make some sense of what
you're seeing in those headlines and maybe make your friends
and neighbors, your fellow church goers feel comfortable in understanding
and talking about the things that your elected leaders need
(25:18):
to be doing for you, for me, for our nation state.
So today we talked about post conflict Iran, imagining what
things might look like for the United States, American power
and influence, the alliances that we rely upon, the tools
that we use, what's been effective or less effective? What
lessons learned there have been about where we might have
(25:40):
been surprised? What did we learn about the economic tools
that the US has at its disposable? Where do we
learn about points of failure, whether it was NATO countries
denying the United States overflight or use of our basis
at a time of crisis. A key litmus test for
what Americans might take way as alliances that look good
(26:02):
on paper and in history versus the alliances of the
true committed, willing and capable who've actually made a difference
in getting this to a better resting place. Those I
think golf allies in the Persian Gulf that those alliances
seemed I think have weathered stronger in all this. That's
(26:24):
a lesson for where we go from here. It's a
lesson to allies in other regions, whether in the Americas
or the Asia Pacific. So we've had I think some
key lessons about what that strength deters, that engagement without
leverage fails, economic security is national security, and America must
lead with realism in this multipolar world. But really, there's
(26:48):
one pole is bigger than all the others, and that's America,
and we should aim to keep it that way. We'll
do that by having prudent use of American power. Now,
Iran's Wing shows us that we can shape a better
outcome when we prioritize us interests. This playbook strengthens us
against a pacing challenge like China. Secure's a safer and
(27:12):
more posperous future. Remember Nation State's riser fall based on
clear eyed strategy, not ideology or wishful thinking. So you
liked today's conversation, please like, share, subscribe, have other people maybe,
if so inclined, give a positive review on your preferred
podcast platform. Remember to give the iHeartRadio app a spin.
(27:36):
That's where you can catch all of our episodes in
audio and video. And if you have ideas for the
program topics to cover, feedback about the things you really liked.
Maybe if you've got some real constructive criticism about things
we could do better. Always feel free to reach out
by email at Nation States Yates at gmail dot com
(27:56):
or on x at NSW Yates till next time. I'm
Steve Yates. Look forward to continuing this conversation about the
meaningful issues to our nation state. Look forward to talking
to you next time. Take good care,
Welcome to Nation States with Yates. The world comes at
you fast, whether you're in the White House or at
your house. We aim here to serve as your personal
national security advisor to make some sense of this wild
and wooly world, hopefully help you feel really comfortable talking
in your communities, your church community, your family and friends,
(00:23):
maybe even at work from time to time about the
things that are in the headlines but affecting our nation
state that really also affect main Street America. So today
we're going to take a look into lessons learned from Iran,
from engagement conflict, and imagining how the world is likely
(00:43):
to look in post conflict reckoning. Once this is all
wound down, What does all this really meant for the
tools of power and influence for the United States, Our
key relationships and key regions, The geopolitical competition that we
have with China, Russia, other powers in the world, all
things that we need to keep our eye on. But
(01:05):
there's been some key lessons that I think a good
common sense I going through the run up, the conduct
of the conflict and how things look coming out of it,
that it should be ready for the Nation States with
Yates community out there Thank you, as always for joining
in the conversation. Please continue to like, share, and subscribe,
(01:27):
and if you're so inclined, leave a positive review on
your preferred podcast platform and let me know on x
at NS with Yates whether you're taking part in the
conversation by audio or video. Always good to take the
iHeartRadio app and give it a spin. But with that,
after this break, we'll come back for our deep dive
(01:50):
into Nation States Iran lessons learned right back in a
few minutes. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Hopefully
you've had some time to think about this broad conversation
about Iran. Definitely, it's been in the news. I don't
know whether you feel like you're tired of tracking the
(02:10):
news at this point. There's been a lot of back
and forth about a deal, no deal, ceasefire, no cease fire.
You could be forgiven for sort of losing interest in
the conversation to a degree, But it matters because it
affects our bottom line as a country. It affects our
national security, it affects our homeland security, and so it
(02:32):
still matters. And I think today is a good time
for us to jump into a little bit of what
has happened in this engagement with Iran. The conflict wasn't
just another Middle East flare up. It was a stress
test for American power in the twenty first century. After
years of engagement that empowered Tehran and its proxies, we
(02:55):
took decisive action to try to make peace through strength
and show what that really looks like. Past conflicts, we
had a reckoning. Real lessons come out for deterrence, energy security,
bigger contest with China. We went through long, content, long
conflict in Afghanistan. There were some things accomplished, there were
(03:18):
consequences to that long term conflict. The same goes with Iraq.
We draw lessons from the past conflict to inform what
we need to do to improve our state craft, improve
our economic disposition, to be resilient, an adjust to new realities.
And then we also then try to adjust our military
(03:40):
so that we are better prepared not just for the
conflict just past, but for the conflicts of the future.
So that's what I mean by our reckoning when we
imagine what a post conflict Iran teaches us about where
we're going from here. Now I've had the blessing to
serve in a White House at a reasonably senior position,
(04:01):
definitely a front row seat to conversations the President and
his cabinet, we're having in the Oval Office, in the
situation room, in meetings with world leaders, and when you
have a major military operation like what we've gone through
with Iran, all of those principles are involved in pieces
of this, and you've no doubt seen that in the
(04:21):
news coverage. You've seen Vice President Vance go out and
be a part of negotiations and coming back in the
public conversation about it. You've seen Secretary of Rubio go
out and meet face to face with our allies who've
been attacked by Iran as this major military operation has unfolded,
and talking with them about the economic and also military
(04:45):
tools that we have, but that they have and that
they need to build out for them to be able
to exercise more of the influence required to maintain the
region that they live in, with or without the United
States playing a leading role in that effort. We have
a profound amount of American force deployed to the region.
(05:07):
We have forces based in the region. Some of those
bases have been hit by Iranian strikes, and there's sort
of questions that have to be answered about where we
place our military, where we place, of course, the very
very valuable men and women who serve in our all
volunteer force. And so we have some lessons learned in
(05:29):
all of this. We've i think learned from the past
that half measures tend to get us into trouble. That's
where we end up with mission creep, we end up
in what has been broadly called forever wars. Those are
some of the key pitfalls. We end up having our
leverage military and economic used up if we are in
(05:49):
a protracted conflict. That drains our political will, our economic wherewithal,
but also distracts us from key areas where we might
have long return bigger fish to fry in geopolitical competition.
In other words, the Iran challenge may have been urgent,
and it definitely did tie into interests that would affect
(06:11):
the whole world. Nuclear weapon tied together with a radicalized
state definitely gets attention of any commander in chief, and
it certainly caught the attention of President Trump made clear
that under no circumstance can the United States allow Iran
to have the world's ultimate weapon. They've not proven responsible.
(06:32):
So take a moment to look as background on how
we got here. You've probably heard this talked about a
good bit, but I'll try to give a short summation
because I think it still matters as we think about
what post conflict looks like. Because where we were before,
we had decades of sanctions and sanctions relief. We had
(06:55):
nuclear talks. We had them led by our allies, the
supposed EU three, we had them led by the United States.
We had what is called the JCPOA, the Iran Deal
of the Obama administration. It was not a treaty. It
was handled under a fery separate process, not the way
a treaty is voted up or down under Senate procedure,
(07:18):
because with fewer votes, the Iran Deal was adopted than
what a treaty would require. So we've had the experience
of these sanctions issues, nuclear negotiations, a deal that was
not a treaty. Sort of the role that proxies play
(07:41):
and whether we are really curtailing the activities of those proxies.
You may have heard some of these three h's, the
huthis Hesbola, and Hamas in the broader Middle East as
being up to no good from different points of angle,
points of vision and time. But really these are the
tent of the radicalized Iranian regime, and some of our
(08:03):
negotiations the past didn't even address that. They just looked
at the nuclear program. This time around, we recognized that
we had to look comprehensively, but we also looked at
the need for having a broader use of tools to
address it. We had to look at the cost of
the proxy warfare that affected US forces, shipping, and our
(08:28):
allies had to look at energy. Iran's attempt to disrupt
global oil flows before and then of course during this
conflict has caused flows and prices to spike. Americans have
felt the pinch from that, so higher prices at the
pump and an inflation ripple that probably is going to continue
over coming months, even as gas prices might come down.
(08:51):
That creates a risk for our troops, a risk to
our economy. So this shows the danger of treating ideological
regimes as rational partners without real enforcement. That's ultimately what
we had. We have a cult like radicalized theological regime
that we were treating as a rational negotiating partner that's
(09:14):
going to implement a deal like the Iran deal of
the past, so we had to take a different approach
this time around. We have looked at targeting actions that
degrade our enemy's capabilities, protected navigation for us and for others,
and minimized escalation so that we could achieve objectives. Now
(09:38):
that's sort of a fancy way of talking about avoiding
the mistakes of the perceived mistakes of the past. We
don't have an iraqlike scenario playing out where we have
broken the pottery, as they talk about in that analogy
I don't like, but the pottery barn analogy that if
you break it, you own it and it's your responsibility
to put it back together. True or false. That's how
(09:59):
America operates in post conflict Afghanistan Iraq, and it didn't
really go well for us for a lot of reasons.
Separate conversation for a different time. But we had to
find a way to not do the nation build but
also not do the appeasement just inducement only deal that
(10:19):
was on the table before. And so this threading of
the needle, working in collaboration with allies who actually are
participating in military operations, but also the economic state craft
using a full set of tools. We're using new military
(10:40):
technology of drones and precision strikes and cyber capabilities that
have improved upon what we had to draw upon in
the post nine to eleven wars that we fought, and
so we've had, I think a test of what our
hard power is in this, but we also have had
(11:00):
a test of what our economic tools are. The Treasury
Department is unleashed a wider range of tools, some of
which we used in the War on Terror, some of
which we've used in nuclear negotiations past, but I think
really amped them up, and we really got key collaboration
from partners in the region because a lot of Iran's
(11:24):
money was getting in times past normally would get out
of Iran and could flow through the financial institutions of
neighboring states, and so there's no way to really squeeze
and pressure where it needed to go in the financial
tools if we weren't squeezing those assets that were being
(11:45):
held in other countries in the broader Middle East. So
that part of economic state craft was a key part
of all of this. So this wasn't when we look
at what this enterprise has been and imagining we are
at the conclusion and we have succeeded it. This was
not the neo conservative nation building type model. It was
(12:07):
a pragmatic defense of interests that brought adversaries to the
table for better terms, but also brought power to the
table to compel a different path forward for that regime
that for forty seven years had been a thorn in
our side, a risk had threatened to assassinate our president,
(12:27):
had destabilized other key regions, of other key countries of
the broader Middle East. And so that I think is
sort of the background that brought us from where we
were and through this now the reckoning parts. Where do
we go from here? We've learned that half measures fail. Ultimately,
(12:50):
we've got to bring overwhelming American power if we're going
to change outcomes, ideally married together with intelli and decisive
military power of key allies. So, whether it's the operations
that Israel engaged in the early part of this campaign
that decapitated the leadership of Iran, we were targeting necessary
(13:15):
areas of the nuclear program, including the scientists and the
sort of the knowledge economy of that threat. These are
key parts of what we needed to do. We've had
because they were hit broader Arab allies that have skin
in the game and now are participating in operations important
to securing the straight over moves, but also enforcing compliance
(13:40):
with Iran. When they hit these neighbors, the neighbors are
going to hit back. That is a better place for
America to be when we have capable partners doing some
parts of what they can to shape their own region.
Clarified that sanctions and export controls matter supply chain diversification
(14:00):
in matters. It was related to the pack silica initiative
that we talked about in a previous episode, and we
have to find ways to reduce adversary leverage. So when
it came to Iran, what was their leverage? Ultimately they
thought their leverage was that they could engage their terrorist
tentacles to distract and divide the coalition that the United
(14:20):
States had brought against them. Don't think that has succeeded
for them. The best leverage for them, at least in
politics and perception, has been the threat to terrorize vessels
in the Strait of Hormuz. So the economic tools mattered
to us. But going forward, just as we have in
other subject areas, we have to look at what have
(14:43):
we done during this conflict, and where do we go
from here to make sure that we are lessening critical
dependencies so that a revisionist power in this part of
the world cannot do to us what Iran was able
to do to global markets through the course of the conflict.
That's an interesting and tough challenge, one where more work
(15:04):
will need to be done among our golf allies, but
maybe also our Asian allies who are critical customers of
the products that come out of the Middle East, but
they're also looking at diversifying away from those dependencies, maybe
building new supply chains, durable ones with investment in the
United States as a primary supplier, and safer passage across
(15:25):
the Pacific rather than having to go through choke points
from the Middle East through the Straits of Malacca and
Southeast Asia up to Northeast Asian customers. We also learned
that alliances of the capable are more valuable than those
that are paper packs. Some ways, NATO chose not to
(15:46):
show up for us when we wanted them or needed them,
though the President made clear that he didn't feel like
we needed these NATO partners in order to do the
necessary with this conflict, but it was a test would
they show up when we called? And his conclusion was
the answer at least for now was for most of them, no,
(16:06):
and in some cases worse than not showing up, they
sought to stand in the way of our overflight or
use of the bases that we have in their countries
in order to support the operations for the conflict that
they chose not to support but instead got in the
way of. So the alliances of the capable, we've had
(16:29):
this clarifying experience of who some of the countries are
that we can rely upon, who will take real action
and work with the United States to share a burden
and invest in a successful outcome. Those are ones that
we should double down on going forward, and those lessons
from that region about those capable allies should inform the
(16:53):
conversation about alliances in the Western hemisphere and our own
hemisphere of the Americas, the Asia pace Pacific region, and
where we look to go from here. Generally, we also,
i think learned that proxy networks are fragile, so when
the sponsors are hit really hard, we can disrupt the
funding and the leadership, and that makes those proxy networks
(17:16):
more manageable and maybe also can be left to regional
partners to deal with where the United States doesn't have
to take a leading role. It allows us to focus
where only America can make a real difference, and others
can fill the void in areas where they can make
a difference without America having to take bandwidth. The way
from the things only America can do, there's broader implications
(17:40):
that affect maybe how people should be thinking about a
Taiwan scenario, the importance of not sending signals of weakness.
In some ways, weakness was provocative in the Middle East.
Weakness emboldened the Iranian regime to move in a direction
(18:02):
that made them a greater threat, maybe even a more
imminent threat, by coming ever closer to acquiring the ultimate
deterrent that would have greatly complicated our ability to have
a coalition work with US and our ability to operate
with air dominance, naval dominance, and in military terms, overwhelming
success with relatively low risk of casualty and other costs.
(18:29):
We have to look at the homeland and resiliency here,
the cyber and other hybrid threats that come from countries
that are like Iran. We've learned from this conflict about
where the indicators and warnings are going to pop up
in our own homeland security. We've learned where the warning
(18:49):
signs are in the energy markets, about where supplies are
coming from, where the choke points are, where the insurance
industry has fallen short, and maybe there needs to be
other models that address some of these things. The industrial
based dependencies people tended to think about oil and natural
gas is things that go into just power plants and
(19:11):
heavy manufacturing, but there are downstream products of petroleum based
sources that are everything from what we wear to the
fertilizer and things that affect what we eat. So we
had to take some important lessons about our industrial base
and broader supply chains for our manufacturing and consumer way
(19:37):
of life that we should take from this conflict. There's
planning and funding mechanisms now that are in play that
maybe we'll take a look into in a future episode
of Nation States, Like the National Defense Authorization Act. This
is one of those big vehicles on the hill where
we're not doing regular legislation that would go through regular
(20:00):
budgets as much, and so when we have something really
really important that needs to get funded, a key policy
gets defined. A lot of times things like must pass
National Defense Authorization Act becomes the Christmas tree that the
ornaments get hung onto to get new policy adjustments taken
(20:21):
care of for force posture, funding priorities, and sort of
setting the tones. We're avoiding distractions, so looking at Congress
and policy another area where we need to look at
lessons learned from this conflict. But overall we have lower
long term defense costs through prevention by taking care of
(20:43):
a major problem here before it ballooned into crisis. Major
protracted war territory. However frustrating and perceived costly, the multiple
months of this operation have been This is a far
cry from the multiple years of a Vietnam war, or
in Iraq war, in Afghanistan war, no forever war so
(21:06):
to speak, but we have changed some significant terms in
this We've learned where the key points are to stabilize
energy prices, hopefully that will make for a stronger economy
versus our adversaries, reduce risk of future conflicts that pull
in US resources because we can right size some of
(21:28):
the burden sharing among our allies and are investing heavily
in America, being the provider of energy and a lot
of the materials that make the international economy run but
also the international security network that balances against these revisionist
powers like Iran, China, and Russia. Ultimately, this protects American
(21:54):
sovereignty and prosperity without the endless wars. It's a balanced realism.
What I mean by that. In international relations theory, international
realism is one of the core schools of thought. This
is a balanced realism that acknowledge is uncertainties. We're going
to have regime stability questions about Iran, maybe for some time,
but hopefully moves to the right place over time. Reconstruction risk.
(22:16):
That's probably among the reasons why President Trump has been
loathed to destroy the infrastructure that would be helpful to
the Iranian people building a post conflict Iran so that
it's not America having to finance that reconstruction. And we
have to verify any kind of commitment or change. So
we're going to have to verify that there's compliance that
(22:38):
the nuclear program isn't being reconstituted. We have to verify
that the missile launching capabilities are not being reconstituted. We're
gonna have to work with our allies and partners and
some international institutions to do that to stay vigilant. But
ultimately these are the things I think we've learned from
this very different experience of this Iran conflict. It's been
different from Iraq in Afghanistan. It's been very different from
(23:02):
what we had in the intervention with Venezuela. It's different
from what the US role has been with the Russian
invasion of Ukraine and where America has chosen to invest
material and time. But our general approach has been to
trying to get to peace on that. So I think
some really interesting lessons learned. I think overall, America is
(23:26):
better off with having engaged in this activity. It might
be hard to tell in the noise of the news cycles,
but aix significantly degraded Iran, even with some murkiness or uncertainty,
is better for American power and prosperity, better for global markets,
better for rebalancing of America's commitments around the world. So
(23:49):
our allies step up so that we can step back
and focus where only America can make the ultimate impact.
And in some ways that allows us to recalibrate and
focus on the Asia Pacific, which is I think the
theater that will determine the winners or losers of this century.
So with that, we're going to take a brief break.
(24:11):
Hopefully you have enjoyed today's deep dive into the lessons
learned from this conflict in Iran and taking the sort
of a brainstorming look at what post conflict Iran tells
us about deterrence, dependencies and the use of American power
going forward. Please continue to like, subscribe, and share, give
us a follow on x at NS with Yates at
(24:34):
email any program ideas and feedback to Nation States Yates
at gmail dot com. Be back with some summary and
concluding points after this brief break break. Please stick with
us talk to you in a minute. Welcome back to
Nation States with Yates, where we aim to serve as
your personal national security advisor, helping you feel comfortable talking
(24:57):
about the issues that come quickly at a White House
and your house common sense terms, but also the lessons
that mattered. Hopefully help you make some sense of what
you're seeing in those headlines and maybe make your friends
and neighbors, your fellow church goers feel comfortable in understanding
and talking about the things that your elected leaders need
(25:18):
to be doing for you, for me, for our nation state.
So today we talked about post conflict Iran, imagining what
things might look like for the United States, American power
and influence, the alliances that we rely upon, the tools
that we use, what's been effective or less effective? What
lessons learned there have been about where we might have
(25:40):
been surprised? What did we learn about the economic tools
that the US has at its disposable? Where do we
learn about points of failure, whether it was NATO countries
denying the United States overflight or use of our basis
at a time of crisis. A key litmus test for
what Americans might take way as alliances that look good
(26:02):
on paper and in history versus the alliances of the
true committed, willing and capable who've actually made a difference
in getting this to a better resting place. Those I
think golf allies in the Persian Gulf that those alliances
seemed I think have weathered stronger in all this. That's
(26:24):
a lesson for where we go from here. It's a
lesson to allies in other regions, whether in the Americas
or the Asia Pacific. So we've had I think some
key lessons about what that strength deters, that engagement without
leverage fails, economic security is national security, and America must
lead with realism in this multipolar world. But really, there's
(26:48):
one pole is bigger than all the others, and that's America,
and we should aim to keep it that way. We'll
do that by having prudent use of American power. Now,
Iran's Wing shows us that we can shape a better
outcome when we prioritize us interests. This playbook strengthens us
against a pacing challenge like China. Secure's a safer and
(27:12):
more posperous future. Remember Nation State's riser fall based on
clear eyed strategy, not ideology or wishful thinking. So you
liked today's conversation, please like, share, subscribe, have other people maybe,
if so inclined, give a positive review on your preferred
podcast platform. Remember to give the iHeartRadio app a spin.
(27:36):
That's where you can catch all of our episodes in
audio and video. And if you have ideas for the
program topics to cover, feedback about the things you really liked.
Maybe if you've got some real constructive criticism about things
we could do better. Always feel free to reach out
by email at Nation States Yates at gmail dot com
(27:56):
or on x at NSW Yates till next time. I'm
Steve Yates. Look forward to continuing this conversation about the
meaningful issues to our nation state. Look forward to talking
to you next time. Take good care,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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