America Has Lost the War with Iran! A Case Study in Bad Analysis

 

        Every crisis produces a bevy of speculative analysis that is often untethered from facts on the ground and good reasoning.

        The popular claims from “Astrado” at LDS Freedom forum provide an excellent example. He claimed the United States and Israel are on the verge of running out of defensive missiles, Iran is unleashing thousands more with escalating capability, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, information is being censored, and unless there’s a ceasefire within days, we face total collapse—military defeat, economic ruin, or nuclear war.

        That sounds incredible dramatic. Material like this is very popular, often repeated, the center of attention, and it’s also wrong.

        The author started his click bait fear mongering with only partially true points about missiles. “They’ve fired thousands, they have tens of thousands more, therefore we’re about to be overwhelmed.” Yet that’s an example of straight line projections, one of the most common mistakes. When I was in grade school back in the 80s, my teachers warned that Japan and Germany had strong economies that would quickly overtake us. But both countries stagnated and struggled since then, with Japan experiencing “lost decades.” In the 90s I remember Time’s Magazine showing pictures of a Red China and warning of their ascendence. But among other factors, they had a real estate bubble and population collapse that suggest they won’t. (Note how Japan’s lost decades also started with a real estate bubble.) And every politician assumes the good times will always continue and they spend money instead of saving for disaster.

        Additionally, you might add a dose of common sense to the straight-line problem. Early in conflicts, you often see spikes in activity. Generally, a country doesn’t get stronger as a war continues, so they send large salvos to probe defenses, saturate systems, or create psychological shock. (As you’ll see below, Iran also had a use or it or lose it incentive.) Treating those spikes as a sustainable baseline is how you end up predicting collapse that never comes.

        More importantly, it ignores how missile capabilities can be degraded. While defending against launched missiles, the U.S. and Israel aggressively targeted the systems that launch them. Launchers, stockpiles, factories, and command-and-control nodes are all part of the battlefield. The US doesn’t have to worry about dwindling stockpiles of counter missiles when they actively and dramatically reduced Iran’s ability to launch them.

        There’s a historical analogy here. Alexander the Great didn’t defeat the Persian fleet in a decisive naval battle. He marched along the coast and captured the ports that sustained it. Without docking, resupply and repair the fleet quickly became a non-factor in the war.

        Once you account for straight line projections, initial burst, and America’s degradation strategy, you find the author’s confidently asserted claims of solid analysis are both shaky and paltry.  Their analysis is based on incomplete information, incorrect assumptions, and ignores dynamic interaction between offense and defense.

        Second, the supporting claims—like the Strait of Hormuz being closed or widespread censorship—are asserted but not meaningfully developed. Even if we take them seriously, they’re not one-directional in their effects. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own economic lifelines as much as anyone else’s. That doesn’t make it impossible, but it does make it far more complicated than a simple “checkmate” move. Except for higher gas prices, there doesn’t seem to be much impact from restricted traffic through the strait.

        At the lowest point, the author parenthetically claims AI agrees with him. But AI relies on a people pleasing and sycophantic design. Combined with bad inputs outlined above, AI becomes little more than a yes man for analysis no matter how incredulous it becomes.

        Speaking of incredulous, the author claimed that the lack of missiles would result in the use of the nuclear, or Samson Option. This is the classic fear escalator. When conventional arguments feel shaky analysts jump to the worst-case scenario. They expect the emotionally charged language and general unease to bypass arguments while commanding attention.

        But deterrence doctrines exist precisely to prevent their use. Israel has faced existential threats for decades, including from Iran and its proxies, and has not used nuclear weapons. That track record matters and it suggests the doctrine functions as intended. Nuclear weapons remain a last-resort deterrent, not a trigger waiting to be pulled because of an initial flurry of missiles.

        The final mistake is the cascading collapse scenario. The author claims “all U.S. bases will be destroyed, carriers sunk, the petrodollar gone, global economic ruin.” This is where the analysis fully detaches from reality. Iranian missile forces have demonstrated they can inflict some damage, but not at the scale required to produce that kind of systemic collapse. After the initial flurry Iran’s ability to damage their enemies has collapsed.

        As I’ve written in my book on modern Chinese strategy, missiles today are simply the newest version of technology that has been around since World War II. Regardless of the number of missiles or improvements fielded, counter defenses have also improved. AEGIS Destroyers have better radar, carriers increasingly employ rail guns and missiles, F35’s can actively seek out and destroy launchers from longer distances than ever before. That is why I wasn’t surprised when more reputable analysts concluded that the Iran showed us the threat of missile swarms are overblown.

        You didn’t have to be an analyst to see through most of the smoke and fear mongering. A simple browsing of recent history in the area shows we’ve seen versions of this before. During the Gulf War, there were similar fears about regional escalation and economic shock. Oil prices spiked but then they stabilized. Markets adjusted. The war was disruptive, but only for a short period of time and not automatically apocalyptic.

        To summarize, the bad analysis does the following things:

        They extrapolate linearly from peak data. Ignore counter reactions and adaption. They assert instead of demonstrating key claims. (This is frequently accompanied with various insults and posturing.) They lean on worst case scenarios and present them as likely outcomes.

        Good analysis is uncomfortable because it requires vast amounts of study along with uncertainty, tradeoffs, and competing variables. This makes it seem dry and is often lost in the noise. Bad analysis is confident, simple, and catastrophic which makes it as loud and popular as it is wrong. This example falls squarely into the second category.