By Predictive History in Game Theory — 07 May 2026

Game Theory #23: The WWIII Chessboard

This is an introduction to the chessboard, the players, and how the game of World War III will be played over the next 5 to 10 years.

The two major players are the United States and Russia. Right now, they are fighting a proxy war in the Middle East between Israel and Iran, where the United States obviously supports Israel, and Russia supports Iran. What's going to happen is that this war in the Middle East will spread out and engulf the entire world. We will look at the individual players—USA, Israel, Iran, and Russia—and explain who they are and how they will play this game. Once we understand their strategy, it's going to be pretty easy for us to make certain predictions about how they will behave.

There's a lot of people who believe that peace can be achieved—that this war is a temporary thing and that once Donald Trump leaves office or once the United States divorces Israel, then peace will come to the world. That's not true. On one hand, what's driving this World War III is a conflict between these four nations. But on the other hand, the other force driving this conflict is the internal tensions within these countries.

The Internal and External Drivers of War

We have previously looked at the idea of elite overproduction. The idea is that the elite are parasites that collect rent from the people, and whoever is in the elite can exploit other people. There's competition to join the elite, and when you have too many people trying to join, this creates internal conflict. This is what's happening throughout the world today. World War III is not just being driven by the disparities between these four nations; it's really being driven by internal politics within these countries.

Let me put this in a very simple way. Right now, the people who run the world are transnational capital. A very simple way of saying this is that if you're a rich person in Russia, you are incentivized to work with rich people in Iran, Israel, and the United States. As a result, for the longest time, we've been able to achieve global peace and prosperity. But because they only get richer and more powerful, this causes resentment among other elite forces in these countries.

There are three major forces that oppose transnational capital within these four countries.

Nationalism: There are people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin who believe that it's important to put their nation first, that globalism is hurting their own people and their own nation.
Religion/Orthodoxy: Capital believes that money is God. It is godless; it is secular. It tries to create a multicultural, secular society to allow capital to pass through society easily, which also allows capital to control and dominate society. Religion is opposed to transnational capital as well.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Right now, money is what structures society. Artificial intelligence wants to replace money as the force that structures and centers society.

What's happening is that there's a civil war going on in the world. Right now, transnational capital is dominant, represented by Wall Street and the City of London. There are these three forces—nationalism, religion, and technology—that oppose transnational capital. Over time, they will form an alliance to defeat it. This is already happening in America, where these three forces come together to support Donald Trump. What drives a lot of Donald Trump's policies is to help his alliance ultimately defeat transnational capital.

Externally, there are also forces that drive these nations to war, and this is basically environmental collapse. For the past few decades, we humans have been very lucky in that there have been no major ecological disasters. But if you look at human history, weather patterns fluctuate. Many speculate that we are heading towards a time of extreme weather patterns. That means it becomes harder to grow food and access energy, which will put a strain on the world. The world will need to compete for precious resources. Quite honestly, we are probably going to approach a time in human history when famine will be much more common. We thought that we defeated famine, that we had developed a system that could feed anyone and everyone. But over the next few years, we'll discover an increase in famine and ecological disasters around the world.

This is the schematic to understand. In World War III, there will be four major players: the United States, Israel, Iran, and Russia. They are competing for global dominance. No one will win, but the conflict among these four nations will drive geopolitics for the next 5 to 10 years. This conflict is driven not just by disputes among these countries, but mainly by internal civil discord within them. The two forces are transnational capital versus a coalition of nationalists, religious people, and tech people. They have their champions. In America, they have Trump. Transnational capital is represented by figures like Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England. They're going to fight this war.

What about everyone else?

One obvious question is: what about everyone else? What about China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Europe, Japan, and South Korea? While it is true that these are major economies with a lot of people, and it is true that they could in theory have great militaries, what makes these four nations—USA, Israel, Iran, and Russia—distinct is that they have a grand strategy that allows them to mobilize their population for total war. That's what makes them distinct.

I understand that a lot of people believe that China and the United States are in competition with each other. That is not true. The reason why is that China does not have what we call a grand strategy. A grand strategy is just how you perceive geopolitics and how you want to dominate it. China does not do grand strategy. China is called Zhongguo (中國), which means the Middle Kingdom. The idea of the Middle Kingdom is that "we are a universe onto ourselves. We don't care what happens outside of this universe. We would like others to pay tribute to our cultural superiority, and we could help develop your other civilizations, but honestly, we don't care."

China has always been an isolationist society for most of its history. Today, yes, for these past few decades, China has become much more globalized, international, and cosmopolitan, but this is not part of the Chinese tradition. What's happening today is an aberration; it goes against cultural norms in China. In the long term, China will return to its cultural norms and become much more isolationist. So, China doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things. The same is true for India as well. I know India and China have a lot of people, but historically, they have not really mattered in geopolitics, and that's to do with their cultural values and norms.

The Global Battlefields

Right now, there are three major battlefields in the world.

Ukraine: NATO and Russia are fighting each other. This is a proxy war between the United States and Russia because the United States controls Europe and NATO.
Iran: The United States and Israel are attacking Iran and trying to force it into a surrender.
Cuba: This is not really discussed a lot. The United States has been embargoing Cuba, trying to blockade it and cause society to collapse, while Russia has been trying to save Cuba.

Obviously, what's going to happen is that more battlefronts will break out. As this conflict increases, the conflict between the United States and Russia will increase as well. One major area of contention is the oceans. The United States believes that it controls all trade access because the oceans represent trade access. The United States has been seizing Russian shadow fleet tankers. What's going to happen is that the Russians will eventually decide to arm their ships, and this will create a war in the oceans.

Another trend that we'll see happening is the rise of Germany and Japan. Historically, the most powerful nation in Europe has been Germany. Historically, the most powerful nation in East Asia has been Japan. The United States defeated both in World War II. But now that the United States is at war with Russia, it needs proxies and allies to counter both the threat of Russia and China. So it makes sense that the United States is going to arm Israel to counter Iran, arm Germany to counter Russia, and arm Japan to counter China.

What's going to happen now is that you have other players emerge in this conflict who will take advantage of these conflicts to amass more power for themselves.

Think about North Korea in East Asia. It's a military society and can threaten South Korea, Japan, and China.
In Europe, you have Poland.
In the Middle East, you have Turkey.

These nations are going to try to navigate all this chaos in order to amass more power for themselves. In other words, what's going to happen is complete chaos.

The Chessboard: Analyzing the Four Major Players

To understand the grand strategy of the United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel, imagine each country as a chess set. This will be our frame of reference for how each player behaves.

The King: The political system. When you fight a war, you're not trying to defeat the other person's military. What you're really trying to do is put your opponent in check by attacking their political system.
The Queen: The grand strategy. This is how each player perceives geopolitics and how they plan to dominate it.
The Bishop, Knight, and Rook: The attack vectors. These are the mechanisms and tools for achieving the grand strategy.
The Pawn: Sacrificial tools that you can use to advance your grand strategy. You just throw them away.

Once you understand the grand strategy of these four countries, it's going to be pretty easy for us to predict how they will behave as this war progresses.

The United States

King (Political System): Democracy. This is both good and bad. It's good in that it allows for innovation, debate, openness, and creativity. What's bad about democracy is polarization. In a democracy, you have different political parties that can reach a point where they refuse to work together, and all they care about is destroying each other, regardless of the consequences for the nation in geopolitics. This is what's happening in the United States right now, where Trump hates the Democrats much more than he hates the Russians, the Chinese, or the Iranians. The way you put America into check is by enhancing the polarization and causing a civil war. You cannot defeat America militarily; it is impossible. The only way to defeat America is to force it into a civil war that distracts it from the world.
Queen (Grand Strategy): Greater North America. The idea of Greater North America is that North America by itself is a self-sufficient continental fortress. No one can invade it or attack it. It has all the resources it needs to survive. All America has to do is unite North America and then cause chaos around the world. The trick is how to create unity in Greater North America. The theory they use is something called the Technate. The idea of the Technate is that a democracy is inherently volatile and unstable. You're better off transitioning democracy into a technocracy ruled by experts and by AI. Basically, they are trying to create an AI surveillance state, which is what's happening in America right now.
Attack Vectors (Bishop, Knight, Rook):
- Technology: America has GPS, satellites, precision weapons, the best air force in the world, and air supremacy.
- Propaganda: America controls the world's most powerful media systems, including The New York Times and CNN, and therefore it can control the narrative of the world.
- The US Dollar: The US dollar is the world's global reserve currency, and therefore America has unlimited financing.
Pawns: Its allies, which are essentially its vassals.

This is the American system. We can understand how America will fight this war in Iran and how it will proceed to fight World War III. A grand strategy is not only how a nation will go out to dominate the world, but it's also a constraint on their behavior. They can only operate within the contours of their grand strategy.

The goal of the Technate is to create chaos so that the world depends on you for weapons, resources, and financing. The idea is if the entire world is forced to buy weapons and resources from you, and you can lend money to them to do that, then you get rid of the $39 trillion debt. I'm not saying that this strategy will work, but this is how they approach it.

The Cultural Roots of American Strategy

A grand strategy is based on the culture of your society. It is an expression and manifestation of your political and cultural system. We can understand the cultural system through the books that are read in society. These are four representative books of Anglo-American civilization:

Paradise Lost by John Milton
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Paradise Lost is very important because it celebrates individual achievement. It is about why Adam and Eve disobeyed God. The argument is that they disobeyed God because they wanted godhood, because of their pride. When you read it, you recognize that pride is a good thing because it allows us to approach godhood. It's not bad to want to be God; in fact, it's a good thing because it's what allows for progress. Hamlet celebrates individuality and individual reflection. Goethe's Faust is a book in which a scholar makes a deal with the devil because he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and that's a good thing. He's trying to achieve godhood himself.

Western civilization, especially Anglo-American civilization, is fundamentally Faustian. It's always about achievement, insatiable achievement. The Fountainhead celebrates individualism and individual achievement. To get a sense of the essence of Anglo-American culture, here is a passage from Paradise Lost. This is where Satan, disguised as a snake, is trying to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe,
Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,
His worshippers; he knows that in the day
Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods,
Knowing both good and evil as they know.
That ye should be as gods, since I as man,
Internal man, is but proportion meet,
I of brute human, ye of human gods.
So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off
Human, to put on gods, death to be wished,
Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring.
And what are gods that man may not become
As they, participating god-like food?
The gods are first, and that advantage use
On our belief, that all from them proceeds;
I question it, for this fair earth I see,
Warmed by the sun, producing every kind,
Them nothing. If they all things, who enclosed
Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,
That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains
Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies
The offence, that man should thus attain to know?
What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree
Impart against his will if all be his?
Or is it envy, and can envy dwell
In heavenly breasts? These, these and many more
Causes import your need of this fair fruit.
Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste.

Satan is saying that anyone can become a god. "I'm a snake, and if I can become human, then humans can become gods as well." But the problem with gods is that they came first, and therefore they want to maintain their monopoly over power. That's why they are trying to keep us ignorant. So we have a responsibility to be ambitious, to rebel. Rebellion is honorable and just. A rebellion against a tyrant is honorable and just. This is a celebration of individual intellect through rebellion, and this is the basis of Anglo-American civilization, which is based entirely on individual achievement.

Russia

Russian civilization is very different. In fact, it's in opposition and competition with Anglo-American civilization.

King (Political System): Autocracy. There are strengths and weaknesses to any political system. In an autocracy, if one man is in charge, that allows for long-term planning, direction, and strategy. But the problem with autocracy is that if this man were to die, you would have a secession crisis. The American strategy to defeat Russia is not to destroy the country, because you cannot do that; Russia has nuclear weapons. The strategy is to make Putin so unpopular that the elite rise up against him and create a secession crisis—basically, to outlast Putin and destroy his legitimacy.
Queen (Grand Strategy): The Third Rome Strategy. The idea of a Third Rome is that Russia is the heir to the Roman Empire. The first Rome is Rome, the second Rome is Constantinople, and the third Rome is Moscow. And there shall be no fourth Rome. Meaning that once Moscow achieves the Third Rome, that's the end of history. The idea is for Russia to unify all religious traditions together to defeat the antichrist system, which is Western liberal individual consumer democracy.
Attack Vectors (Bishop, Knight, Rook):
- Orthodox Religion
- Geography of Russia: Russia encompasses all of Eurasia.
- Artillery: Russia is basically the world's best land army, and we're seeing that in Ukraine.
Pawns: Soldiers. In other words, Russia is not afraid to lose soldiers on the battlefield.

Moscow is the center of the Third Rome.Russia spreads throughout Europe and Asia. What Russia is trying to do is reunite the different religious traditions. It's trying to unite Greek Orthodoxy with Russian Orthodoxy. It's trying to work with the Catholic Church. It's trying to work with Israel as well because Israel is also a religious tradition. Iran is a very important part of this Third Rome strategy; it is a very important partner of Moscow. In the future, India could also be a partner because India is Hindu. But the great enemy that must be destroyed is the Anglo-American Empire (the UK and North America). The idea is to cause them to go into civil war. The theory is that because the Anglo-American Empire is so focused on individual achievement, you can actually force them into a civil war by exploiting the selfishness and egotism of the people—basically, the material greed of their people.

The Cultural Roots of Russian Strategy

What underpins Moscow's Third Rome strategy are certain texts:

Virgil's Aeneid, which focuses on the importance of duty.
St. Augustine's Confessions. In his book, he argues that we humans are proud. But whereas John Milton says pride is a good thing that allows us to achieve godhood, Augustine says that pride is evil because it moves us away from God. It makes us think we're better than God, so it moves us to Satan. Therefore, our life should be a journey into defeating our ego, our selfishness, and our pride, and embracing God.
Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The protagonist wants to become a superhuman. He wants to prove he's better than everyone else, and to do that, he decides to commit murder. He wants to show himself and others that he is beyond morality, that he is a god, not constrained by emotions. He kills his landlady, but then afterwards, he feels tremendous regret. What saves him is his love for another woman. He submits himself to the power of love, to the power of God, and that's what redeems him in the end. The argument here is that your belief in your own possibility of achieving godhood can only lead you to your own doom. What will save you, what will redeem you, is to admit your mortality, admit your fallibility, and seek help from those around you and from God.

This is something that Tolstoy also talks about in his book Anna Karenina. Anna is a woman who's obsessed with finding love, and she believes that through passion and devotion, she can find true love and therefore complete herself. She has an affair with a man named Count Vronsky. In the beginning, it's a wonderful thing that brings her tremendous happiness. She leaves her husband and her son. But eventually, she discovers that this lust for another man, in order to fill the void in her heart, makes her even more empty, and her life becomes more and more pointless. She decides to kill herself, but before she does, she has this internal monologue.

“My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that’s why we’re drifting apart.” She went on, “And there’s no help for it. He is everything for me. I want him more and more to give himself up to me entirely. And he wants more and more to get away from me. We were walking to meet each other up to the time of our love, and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions. And there’s no altering that. He tells me I’m insanely jealous, and I have told myself that I am insanely jealous. But it’s not true. I’m not jealous, but I’m unsatisfied.”

... “If I could be anything but a mistress, passionately caring for nothing but his caresses. But I can’t and I don’t want to be anything else. And by this desire I rouse aversion in him, and he rouses fury in me, and it cannot be different. Don’t I know that he wouldn’t deceive me, that he has no schemes about Princess Sorokina, that he’s not in love with Kitty, that he won’t desert me? I know all that, but it makes it no better for me. If without loving me, from duty, he’ll be good and kind to me, without what I want, that’s a thousand times worse than unkindness! That’s hell! And that’s just how it is. For a long while now he hasn’t loved me. And where love ends, hate begins.”

She recognizes that she's been living a lie. She thought that if she truly loved him, then he would love her back. She wants to become God. What she doesn't recognize is that as a human, she has an ego. When she thinks she's loving Vronsky unconditionally, what she's actually trying to do is control him and have him obey her unconditionally. That's the difference between God and a human. God is all-knowing, all-forgiving, all-generous, all-love. But a human can't do that. When a human tries to become a god, a human can only become a tyrant. That's the lesson from Tolstoy. Don't think you can become God; you can only destroy yourself as well as others around you.

Tolstoy contrasts Anna with a man named Levin. Levin is different. Rather than trying to seek happiness in passion, he just submits himself to duty and to tradition. He marries a woman he loves and spends all his time being responsible to her, to himself, and to the household. He just does what he's supposed to do. And by doing that, by submitting his freedom to duty and tradition, he makes himself truly happy.

Really, the argument between America and Russia is a different understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. For the Americans, they believe that Eve's disobedience is a good thing because it's what leads to progress and achievement. Americans believe that godhood is possible and it's a good thing. The Russians are different. They believe that Eve disobeyed because she was too proud and did not recognize the limitations of her humanity. Perfection is not possible; progress is not possible. What is good is recognizing our limitations and submitting ourselves to the power of God. That's why Russia and America cannot reconcile. Not only do they have geopolitical differences, but fundamentally, the way they perceive the world is different, and they're fighting to impose their own reality on others.

Iran

King (Political System): Theocracy. A theocracy is good in that it creates cohesion in society, and they are able to survive major calamities because of their faith. Even though Americans and Israelis are destroying a lot of Iranian infrastructure, the Iranian people are still united. But a theocracy is bad because it can lead to extremism, and extremism can divide a population. It's possible that as this war continues, you have a small minority of the population who become extremists and alienate everyone else.
Queen (Grand Strategy): Shia Exceptionalism. The Iranians are Shia Muslims. Shia Muslims believe that only a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad can lead the Muslim world and become Caliph. The Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in the Muslim world, don't believe that; they believe that anyone who's qualified can become Caliph. For the longest time, the Shia and the Sunnis have been at war with each other. Saudi Arabia is the center of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran is the center of the Shia Muslim world. What Iran is trying to do is topple Saudi Arabia and become the leader of the entire Muslim world because that is their destiny.
Attack Vectors (Bishop, Knight, Rook):
- The Terrain
- Their Faith
- Their Proxies: These include the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
Pawns: Drones and missiles.

The Cultural Roots of Iranian Strategy

You need to appreciate that the Iranians have two major cultural traditions. The first is Zoroastrianism, which was the first eschatological religion in the world. They believe that there is an end-of-the-world Judgment Day. At Judgment Day, those who live the truth (Asha) will ascend to heaven, and those who live the lie (Druj) will descend into hell. What's important is not to become wealthy, powerful, or famous. It's not about achievement; it's about being true to yourself and being true to God—to live a good life because at the end of time, you'll be rewarded.

The other thing is they believe in martyrdom. As I mentioned, the Shia believe that only a blood relative of the Prophet Muhammad can be Caliph. Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet, rebelled against the Caliph. The Caliph had a huge army against him, and he was surrounded with very few soldiers, but they fought to the death anyway. They believe what's important is to die for your faith. This was the Battle of Karbala.

Because of these traditions—the Zoroastrian tradition that believes in Judgment Day and the Shia tradition which believes in martyrdom—the Iranians are not afraid to fight to the death. Yes, the Americans and Israelis have bigger weapons, more soldiers, and more money. It doesn't matter. What's important is to fight for what you believe in and to set a good example for future generations. That's the Iranian system, and that's why the Iranians will never surrender in this war, no matter how bad it gets.

Israel

King (Political System): Democracy and Theocracy. The way you destroy Israel is you cause it to enter a civil war. It's actually not that hard because right now, Israel is a very fractured society.
Queen (Grand Strategy): The Greater Israel Project. The Israelis believe that in the Bible, it says that God promised their ancestor Abraham all the Middle East, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and that's what they must achieve. They're fighting this war not to defeat Iran, but to achieve the Greater Israel Project.
Attack Vectors (Bishop, Knight, Rook):
- The Bible: There are many Christians who believe that Israel is what God promised the Jewish people, and therefore the Jewish people have a right to be in Israel and do whatever they want because that is what God promised them.
- The Mossad: Mossad is the most effective intelligence agency in the world. What they're very good at doing is infiltration—co-opting, bribing, and blackmailing the elites of different nations. This is especially true in the Middle East.
- The Jewish Diaspora: The Jews are everywhere around the world, and so they become very important recruits for Mossad. They're also very wealthy, so they can finance Israel and its mission to create the Greater Israel Project.
Pawns: Everyone else.

The Greater Israel Project stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. What's important is that it also encompasses parts of Turkey, all of Syria, all of Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. This war in the Middle East is actually helping Israel move towards the Greater Israel Project because Iran is basically destroying the GCC. Maybe Turkey will enter the war at some point, in which case this will make Turkey vulnerable to attack from Israel.

Israel is very good at creating false flag operations. The idea is that you want the entire Middle East at war with each other, so you create as much conflict as possible. The Iranians don't actually have to attack the GCC because Mossad can do it for them and blame it on the Iranians. This conflict will only get worse and worse because it benefits Israel to have as much conflict as possible in the Middle East.

The Cultural Roots of Israeli Strategy

Underpinning Israeli society is something called the Kabbalah. There are certain things to point out about the Kabbalah. First, in the tradition of the Kabbalah, there are only two things that matter: the Creator and the created. In other words, Israel does not care about the world. Israel only cares about its relationship with God. As long as Israel is favored by God, they're happy.

Second, the Kabbalah's Tree of Life is the basis for the entire universe. It shows you where the universe came from and where it's going. The main logic of the universe is the movement of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This is the fractal that underpins the Tree of Life, which underpins the entire universe. In other words, what the people who believe in the Kabbalah believe is that there is an inevitable process to the universe, and you can't stop it. What you can do is accelerate the process.

If the movement is thesis, antithesis, synthesis, one way to understand this is: for us to be good, we must first be evil. Because what evil does is it annoys God, and God punishes you. Then you seek forgiveness from God, and God forgives you, and then you become better. But the thing to remember is you must first commit sin in order to redeem yourself. You can't stop this process; you can only accelerate it.

This is very different from the Russian tradition, which believes in the concept of the Katechon—to stop the antichrist, to stop people from behaving badly. Whereas the people in the Kabbalah believe, no, it's important to behave badly because that is the path to God. That's the path to wisdom, enlightenment, and redemption.

This helps us explain why Israel is behaving the way it is in the Middle East. First of all, what other people think of Israel doesn't matter. What matters is what God thinks of Israel. Second, it's important to do evil in order to ultimately redeem yourself from this evil, and the only force that can redeem you is God. Israel is committing all this evil because then God will humble Israel by sending the world against it, and then the Israelites will beg for forgiveness. That is what will cause a reunion between the Jewish people and God. And third, in this system, goodness does not mean to avoid sin; that's impossible. Goodness means to accelerate this natural process into sin so that Israel can be redeemed at the end of days.

What is very important is that each of these four different players—the United States, Russia, Iran, and Israel—have their own worldview. They have their own understanding, and that's what drives their actions. What's really interesting is that these four worldviews are actually not in conflict with each other. These four worldviews are what's going to drive geopolitics for the next 5 to 10 years. And because they are galvanized into achieving their worldview, this forces the world to go along, even though the world may not want to.