“Gulf states, already uneasy, have been forced into a strategic dilemma.” Pierre Pahlavi Full Professor, Chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs, and Deputy Director in the Department of Defence Studies at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto
The temptation in moments like this is to measure escalation by visible firepower: missile ranges, troop movements, the opening—or avoidance—of a second front in Lebanon. But the most dangerous phase of this crisis may not be geographic expansion. It may be structural destabilization.
Much of the coverage treats the conflict as a conventional military exchange between Israel, the United States, and Iran. That framing misses two critical dynamics.
First, Iran was never designed to win a conventional war against a superpower. Its doctrine is asymmetrical. Ballistic missiles reaching 2,000 kilometres make for dramatic headlines, but Tehran’s real leverage lies in calibrated disruption: cyber operations, maritime insecurity in the Gulf, proxy ambiguity, and energy market shockwaves. If escalation comes, it is more likely to unfold in the grey zone than through a direct strike on North America.
Second, there is a growing risk of horizontal escalation—drawing in regional actors not because they seek war but because they are within range. Gulf states, already uneasy, have been forced into a strategic dilemma. European allies providing defensive support may find themselves redefined as co-belligerents. An expanding coalition changes the conflict’s logic. It dilutes pressure on Tehran in one sense—but also raises the stakes for everyone.
What concerns me most is not immediate regime collapse in Iran, nor a sudden regional war, but a grinding destabilization: energy volatility, cyber disruption, miscalculation among overstretched militaries, and a public debate fixated on spectacle rather than systemic risk.
The question is not how far missiles can fly. It is how far instability can spread—and how quickly.
Not super insightful, but this point is problematic.
turning tactical dominance into strategic success.
Were only told about tactical successes of Zionist supremacist side. Israel censors the damage it receives.
In Vietnam war “draw”, 1 US death to roughly 4-5 ARVN deaths and 18-20 North Vietnamese deaths from US accounting. If deaths of Israelis, and in modern metropolises of oppressive Gulf kingdoms were at that ratio, would it be a tactical success? Information control on losses provides an illusion of tactical dominance.
For Gulf states, if a nuclear threat forced US navy and TelAviv to agree to ceasefire, it would be a tactical and strategic victory.
It was started by Israel because of and using blackmail in the Epstein files. There’s a fact for you.
Iran has been on the menu forever.
They’re also willing to commit genocide to achieve their goals. This will eventually become a nuclear war. If i was living in the Middle East, i would leave right now. Israel is about to glass the ME and blame it on Iran.
They aren’t going to launch the handful they secretly have. They’ll just have Trump do it. He wants to.
em-dash
The question is not… its…
What concerns me most is not… , but a grinding…
I’m not spending more time reading this than you put in to write this.
That’s an excerpt from the piece, from one author section, not OP. While it is possible that the author used AI for their section, it’s also a common style for this kind of publication (which is why LLMs often emulate it).
I agree that the original author should know better
My disgust at lemmy users grows daily. This place was suppose to be something great. Why not just read the piece and go off what it says. People need to accept that technology is here and they need to get over it.
There are handful of comments so far and none of them are discussion the content. They’re all obsessed if they can tell if it’s AI or not.
Of course there issues with AI but this place was heavily astroturfed against and now we’re stuck with the consequences
I think people are more likely to join platforms like this if they have lost trust in the other platforms, which also makes them more distrustful and cautious in otherwise normal interactions
We could all have more patience with one another 😄
I did want to read some comments discussing the contents of the article. I’ll pop back later I guess
It’s very good. Hope you find the time to enjoy a cup of coffee and some excellent reading.
I usually repost content from Reddit to lemmy with copy paste contribution
I did want to read some comments discussing the contents of the article. I’ll pop back later I guess
This is kind of what I’m getting at. Like no matter what post I go on, it is all the same. The comments are cookie cutter from post to post.
4chan had insane investigative abilities. Reddit had insight from experts on so many posts about anything. Lemmy is just people who don’t like things.
Oh man did you ever get that bang on.
It’s all Para milliary, fascist this, imperialism that, colonial oppression, just replies that are loaded with bullshit buzz words about everything. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading some grade 4 kids English assignments where they tell them to use a thesaurus to make their report more… intelligent? can’t think of the damn word but you know what I mean.
Like fuck bud no you don’t sound more intelligent with your buzz words. And more so your mouth piece reads just like all the other half brain dead fucks who live in a sheltered world but think they are so hard done by. You work too many hours to get ahead " buhur bdurrr yOU are being EXPLOited by the system" you say you need a truck for work purposes “GeT a FuCking VaN you FuKing CaPitalistic DeFACto OliGarCH”
I’ve been using the tagging feature exclusively for these people. I don’t want to block anyone so I give them my Scarlett letter. Then I know to skip past their commentary on any topic that is so much as poltical adjacent.
I did try to engage originally but it’s literally like talking to Trump supporters online, they immediately go for personal attacks and any evidence that goes against their belief system is ignored.
Someone the other day bragged that they tagged me as a fascist and racist 😆 I have no idea why but I think tagging is stupid in general.
Lemmy is just people who don’t like things.
And it’s all incredibly lower effort distastes. I wonder how much of it is because there is an non-insignificant portion of the user base that came here not by choice but because they’re too toxic for Reddit and got account banned.
I always just assume the comments are going to be low effort garbage and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised they aren’t. The majority of the time it’s someone saying a single sentence after only reading a title…or someone going on an unhinged tangential rant (also after only reading a title).
This place will never be the old Reddit (pre 2010). It’s an unfortunate reality and the reason I generally stay away from the comments section.
Welcome to the post tiktok social media era.
I guess it freaks me thinking that maybe the real content was bots the entire time and that this is just us. No real insight. No moving anything forward. Just reacting and then telling each other to go outside or touch grass the minute anyone calls it out. Like “shut up and observe your cat memes you internet denizen.”
Honestly, it is partly the case imo. I think we’ve just been watching the real time effects of “the dark forest anthology of the internet” playing out.
The well educated, insightful, and well informed were already the few… now most don’t bother to engage with large forum style discussion due to the lack of their counterparts and bots. Group chats and private servers are where these discussions are still happening but it’s just a way smaller audience. One where chucklefuck69 can’t just stroll into with ease and dilute the conversation.
Dog if this is what causes your disgust about people to grow just log off and touch grass
Your Comment is on the level of “touch grass” just to highlight why lemmy is rapidly turning into a shit show
Nobody cares to listen to you whine either.
That’s not true
Maybe you should do the same.
Hells bells I just might, ill spend that nickel and take the streetcar downtown to the park why not the sun is shining and the birds are singing and mankind is in harmony with nature and holding hands helping each other get by.
Meh. If it was Ai doing the writing, it would have said “firstLY” and “secondLY”. For that matter, so would someone trained as a journalist: they went to school, after all.
Instability was the goal. When there is instability and Iran divided ,it will be easy to manage them . It was always the goal of Israel and USA .they benefit from chaos and instability. These 2 countries do everything to divide Arab countries. Iran doesn’t need to collapse , instability and division of Arabs is enough .arabs should unit and Iran should improve their relations with them
The URL sounded a bit fishy (no pun intended) but they seem legit, so I’ll give it a read, cheers!
Overall, we rate The Walrus [as] Left Biased based on strongly left-leaning editorial positions and High for factual reporting due to a clean fact-check record. (5/15/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 01/03/2025)
The Walrus is a fairly well known and respected media outlet in Canada! They do a lot of good journalism
They usually do decent reporting, and they’ve been around for a few decades now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walrus
Its one of the few smaller independent Canadian outlets that I follow the RSS feed for. So many other “Canadian” sounding outlets are actually owned by large american conglomerates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmedia_Network
I mean it became clear that increasingly we will have as much information about the outside world, even within our own country as russians. This is refering to people living in the us. Anything coming from the administration is bs.
Plus drone attacks. I’m very concerned that at some point in the future there will be drone attacks on US soil orchestrated by Iran.
Is „Expert on what you’re not being told“ a real job? Asking for a friend
The title is saying “Eight experts (in various fields) weigh in on (topics that aren’t being discussed in mainstream news, but should be) when it comes to the war”
Why do people who grew up with memes act like understanding a news headline is beyond their comprehension?
