The 21-Mile Chokepoint That Broke American Power | Prof. Jiang Xueqin

There is a strip of water twenty-one miles wide that decides the price of everything you own. And a war over it may already be lost — not on the battlefield, but on the whiteboard, months before the first shot. In this lecture we take apart the American plan for the Strait of Hormuz using game theory and historical patterns. We look at why the current "pause" between the U.S. and Iran is not peace but rearmament under a flag of convenience; why one-fifth of the world's seaborne oil sits behind a defender who has spent years preparing; why control beats dominance every time; and why seizing a target like Kharg Island collides with three structural walls no briefing slide will show you. Then we run beneficiary analysis on the "all-out war" theater — who actually profits from the appearance of resolve — and trace the feedback loop that erodes the very hegemony it was meant to protect. We close with three long-term trajectories, the specific signals to watch for, and a near-term forecast. This is predictive history — theory used to see the shape of what's coming. Independent geopolitical analysis and forecasting. Views are analytical, drawn from publicly available information, and are not financial or political advice. #Geopolitics #StraitOfHormuz #Iran #GameTheory #Russia #China #PredictiveHistory #OilPrices #EnergyCrisis #GrandStrategy