A Professor Predicted This War. It Ends Three Ways. The One Nobody’s Talking About Could Save Us.

Scientists vanishing. The dollar bleeding. Missiles crossing oceans. But the analyst who saw this coming says one path leads out — and your next move decides which ending we get.

In May 2024, a professor stood before a classroom of high school students in Beijing and said something that made no headlines.

“The United States will go to war with Iran.”

His name is Jiang Xueqin. He is Chinese-Canadian, Yale-educated, and runs a YouTube channel called Predictive History — a project built on the premise that the future isn’t random. It follows patterns. And if you read those patterns carefully enough, you can see what’s coming before it arrives.

He predicted Donald Trump would win the 2024 election. He predicted Trump would select JD Vance as his running mate. He predicted the war.

All three came true.

Now, 26 days into the most significant military confrontation since the Iraq invasion, as oil breaks $112 a barrel and the Strait of Hormuz sits effectively closed for the first time in modern history, the question people from Kansas to Karachi are asking is the same one Professor Jiang’s students are asking in Beijing:

How does this end?

The answer, according to the data, the history, and the game theory that got every prediction right so far, is that it ends one of three ways.

Two of them are painful. One of them changes everything.

And which one we get may depend on what ordinary people — people like you — do in the next 90 days.

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What 26 Days Have Already Cost You

Before we look forward, look down. At your receipts.

Gas in the United States averaged $2.94 per gallon on February 28, the day the bombs started falling. By March 19, the national average hit $3.96 — a rise of more than a dollar in less than three weeks. That’s the biggest one-month jump since Hurricane Katrina, larger than the spike after Russia invaded Ukraine.

If you live in California, you’re paying $5.62. If you’re in Europe, your energy bill is spiking as 12–14% of the continent’s liquefied natural gas comes through the Strait of Hormuz — the same strait that Iran has effectively sealed shut. If you’re in Japan, 70% of your oil imports just got rerouted around the southern tip of Africa, adding weeks to delivery times and billions to the national fuel bill.

The International Energy Agency’s chief, Fatih Birol, said this week what no official wanted to say: this crisis is “very severe” — worse than both oil shocks of the 1970s, and worse than the Russia-Ukraine gas disruption, combined.

Goldman Sachs raised its oil forecast to $110 for March and April, warning that if the Strait stays at 5% of normal flow for 10 weeks, daily Brent prices will exceed their 2008 record — the highest ever recorded.

This isn’t a Middle Eastern problem. This is a kitchen table problem. In Tokyo, in Berlin, in Lagos, in Iowa. The price of this war arrives in every grocery bag, every fuel pump, every heating bill. It crosses every border.

And it’s only Week 4.

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The Pattern That Got Us Here

Professor Jiang’s framework isn’t prophecy. It’s pattern recognition.

He draws from game theory — the mathematical study of strategic decision-making — and what he calls “predictive history”: the idea that empires in decline follow recognizable scripts. Athens invading Sicily in 415 BCE. Britain overextending in the Suez in 1956. America in Vietnam. The Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The pattern is always the same: a dominant power, anxious about losing its grip, launches a military operation that feels decisive in the first week and becomes a trap by the fourth.

The trap isn’t military. It’s economic.

Iran’s strategy, as Jiang mapped it on Breaking Points, was never to win a conventional war. It was to make the war expensive. To close the Strait of Hormuz. To force the U.S. into burning through missile stockpiles at a rate that collapses the math. To turn every $20,000 drone into a $3 million intercept. To drag Gulf allies into a crisis that bleeds the very financial system — the petrodollar — that holds American economic dominance together.

And here, 26 days in, the evidence is stacking:

The missile math doesn’t work. The U.S. has fired hundreds of Patriot interceptors, each costing roughly $3 million, to shoot down Iranian drones that cost a fraction of that. Analysts estimate that the U.S. has burned through years’ worth of missile production in weeks. China, Russia, and North Korea are watching this equation closely. Kim Jong Un just declared North Korea’s nuclear status “irreversible” and raised defense spending to 15.8% of the national budget. Beijing increased military spending. Neither fired a shot.

The strait is doing the damage. Tanker traffic dropped to near zero. Over 150 ships are anchored outside, waiting. Supertanker freight rates hit an all-time record of $423,736 per day. Major insurers have pulled war-risk coverage entirely. The IEA released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves — a record — and it still isn’t enough.

The alliances are fraying. European nations stayed largely on the sidelines for weeks. The UK only just granted the U.S. access to its bases. Trump has publicly attacked NATO allies for not contributing naval assets, while simultaneously telling them their help wasn’t needed. Switzerland went as far as curbing weapons exports to the United States.

And something strange is happening on the home front. Six American scientists and defense researchers — all connected to aerospace, propulsion, fusion, and classified defense programs — have been killed or have vanished in the past nine months. A fusion physicist at MIT, shot dead. A NASA astrophysicist, murdered at his doorstep. A rocket engineer who co-invented a critical superalloy, disappeared on a hike and never found. A retired Air Force major general who oversaw the very program that funded her work, walked out of his Albuquerque home on February 27 — the day before the war began — without his phone, his glasses, or an explanation. He hasn’t been seen since. A congressman says the pattern is real. The media has barely noticed.

None of this is random. All of it is connected.

And all of it points to the question that matters most: what happens next?

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Scenario 1: The Ceasefire

Probability: Possible. Cost: High. Timeline: Weeks to months.

On Monday, March 24, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran have had “very good and productive conversations” about a resolution. Oil immediately dropped 11%. Markets surged. Headlines screamed relief.

But here’s what the headlines didn’t say: Iran hasn’t confirmed the talks. Israel said it was continuing strikes on Tehran. The Strait remains functionally closed. And the last time Trump announced a diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East, it lasted less than 48 hours before the next escalation.

A ceasefire is possible. But even in the best case, it is not cheap.

The damage is already done. Oil rerouted around Africa takes weeks to arrive. Supply chains disrupted don’t snap back overnight. Insurance premiums, once raised, don’t come down quickly. The IEA’s strategic reserves can’t be released forever.

If fighting stops this week, economists project gas prices will remain elevated through the summer. Food costs, driven by disrupted fertilizer shipments (a third of global fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz), will keep climbing through harvest season. Interest rate cuts that were expected to ease mortgage and borrowing costs are now indefinitely on hold, as central banks fight war-driven inflation.

And the geopolitical scars run deeper than the receipts. Gulf states are reassessing their security arrangements. Japan is rethinking its near-total dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The credibility of American deterrence — the foundation of the dollar’s reserve status — has taken measurable damage.

A ceasefire doesn’t rewind the clock. It stops the bleeding. And even that would take months to feel at your kitchen table.

What it means for you: Gas stays above $3.50 through summer. Groceries stay elevated through the fall. The economic recovery that was promised for 2026 doesn’t arrive until 2027 — if it arrives at all. Globally, energy bills remain painful. The healing is slow.

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Scenario 2: Escalation

Probability: Significant. Cost: Staggering. Timeline: Months to years.

This is where most analysts are focused — and for good reason.

CBS News reported that the Pentagon has made detailed preparations for sending ground troops to Iran. Thousands of Marines are being moved to the region. The administration is reportedly considering an assault on Kharg Island, the center of Iran’s oil processing, to break the Hormuz blockade.

Professor Jiang predicted this escalation path two years ago. In his framework, the logic of escalation dominance — the belief that you can win by hitting harder — always leads to ground troops. Not because leaders want it, but because the air campaign alone can’t achieve the political objectives.

Iran, meanwhile, just demonstrated something the Pentagon didn’t expect: its missiles can reach Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-UK base 2,500 miles away in the Indian Ocean. The base was deliberately built in a remote location beyond the reach of most adversaries. Iran reached it. The missiles failed to strike the target — but the range was proven. Israel’s military chief said the same missiles could reach Berlin, Paris, and Rome.

If the war escalates to a ground invasion, the costs shift from painful to generational.

Jiang compares this trajectory to America’s experience in Vietnam — not just the military quagmire, but the economic aftermath. The Vietnam War directly contributed to the end of the gold standard, a decade of stagflation, and the 1970s energy crisis that reshaped the American middle class for a generation.

Oil at $200 per barrel, which the IRGC has explicitly warned about, would send gas prices past $6 nationally. Goldman Sachs has modeled a scenario where prolonged Hormuz disruption pushes daily Brent prices past the 2008 record. Global food prices, already 24% above pre-COVID levels, would spike further as fertilizer supplies are severed.

And here is the dimension that almost nobody is tracking: the technology drain. Six scientists connected to America’s most advanced defense research are dead or missing. The entire chain of institutional knowledge behind a critical rocket engine superalloy — from the inventor, to the program commander, to the metallurgist who qualified the materials — has been broken. Whether this is coincidence, foul play, or something in between, the result is the same: America’s next-generation defense capability is bleeding expertise at the worst possible moment.

Escalation doesn’t just cost money. It costs futures.

What it means for you: Gas past $5. Groceries up 15–25% by year’s end. Retirement portfolios under severe pressure. A potential return to wartime economic controls. Globally, energy poverty spreads. Developing nations face food crises. The world your children inherit is poorer, more fragmented, and more dangerous.

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The first two scenarios are visible to anyone paying attention. The third is the one that matters most — because it’s the one that depends on you.

If you want to read Scenario 3 — the path through the chaos that could reshape the global order for the better — and the specific steps Professor Jiang’s framework suggests ordinary people can take in the next 90 days, this is what the paid section is for.

Your subscription doesn’t just support independent journalism. It funds the kind of analysis that no government, no network, and no algorithm will give you for free. Because the people who see what’s coming before it arrives aren’t the ones watching cable news. They’re the ones reading this.

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Scenario 3: The Reckoning — and the Rebuild

Probability: Emerging. Cost: Real, but different. Timeline: 2–5 years. Outcome: A world that works better than the one we’re losing.

Here is what the doomsday analysts miss: empires ending is not the same as the world ending.

Professor Jiang’s framework doesn’t just predict collapse. It predicts transition. And transitions, while painful, are also the moments when ordinary people gain the most power — because the old systems are too weak to stop them and the new ones haven’t hardened yet.

The pattern from history is clear: every major imperial overextension produced a reordering that, eventually, benefited more people than the system it replaced.

The British Empire’s post-Suez decline didn’t destroy the United Kingdom. It produced the NHS, decolonization, and a generation of social investment that built the modern British middle class. The end of the gold standard after Vietnam produced chaos in the 1970s — but it also produced the floating exchange rate system that enabled global trade to grow tenfold over the next four decades. The Soviet collapse was devastating for millions — but it also liberated hundreds of millions.

What does the third scenario look like in 2026?

Energy independence accelerates — everywhere. The Hormuz crisis is proving in real-time what energy analysts have argued for years: dependence on a single maritime chokepoint for 20% of the world’s oil is an existential vulnerability. Countries that pivot to renewables, nuclear, and distributed energy systems don’t just reduce emissions — they immunize their economies against the next Hormuz, the next war, the next shock. Japan, which gets 70% of its oil through the strait, is already accelerating this shift. Europe, burned twice in four years (Ukraine, then Iran), will follow. And as Professor Jiang himself noted: none of this crisis would have been necessary if solar and renewable energy had been deployed at the capacity that was already achievable.

The petrodollar system cracks — and something more resilient forms. Gulf states recycling oil revenue into American financial markets has been the backbone of dollar dominance for 50 years. That system is under more stress than at any point since its creation. But here’s what the alarmists miss: a multipolar financial system, where no single currency or chokepoint can hold the world hostage, is more stable, not less. The transition is turbulent. The destination is better.

Citizens reclaim the war power. The Iran war was launched without a congressional vote. No declaration. No debate. This is not unique to America — most democracies have ceded war-making power to executives over the past half-century. But public opposition is rising, and faster than in any previous conflict. A senior counterterrorism official, Joe Kent, resigned in protest. A congressman, Thomas Massie, publicly challenged the war’s legality. The War Powers Act clock is ticking. If enough citizens call their representatives — not thousands, but hundreds of thousands — the political calculus changes. This has happened before. Public pressure ended Vietnam. Public pressure can end this.

The information architecture changes. You are reading this article on an independent platform, written by an independent journalist, funded by readers, not advertisers and not governments. Ten years ago, this ecosystem didn’t exist. The fact that Professor Jiang’s predictions reached nearly 2 million subscribers through YouTube, that this analysis reaches you through Substack, that citizens can organize across borders without gatekeepers — this is the infrastructure of the third scenario. It already exists. It just needs more people to use it.

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What You Can Do in the Next 90 Days

This isn’t a self-help list. It’s a strategic framework, drawn from the same game theory that predicted the war in the first place.

Protect your household. Lock in energy costs where you can. If your heating or electricity contract allows fixed-rate renewal, do it now — before the summer price spike. Build a 30-day pantry buffer. Not out of fear, but out of math: food prices lag oil prices by 8–12 weeks, so the worst of the grocery impact hasn’t arrived yet.

Apply political pressure. The U.S. War Powers Act requires Congress to vote within 60 days of hostilities beginning. That clock started on February 28. The vote deadline is approaching. Call your representative. One call takes two minutes. If you’re outside the U.S., contact your own elected officials about energy policy, arms exports, and humanitarian aid. Democratic pressure works — but only if it’s applied.

Shift your economic exposure. This isn’t financial advice, but it is economic reality: portfolios heavily weighted toward fossil fuel-dependent supply chains are exposed. Companies investing in distributed energy, domestic manufacturing, and supply chain resilience will outperform those that depend on the old chokepoints. Pay attention to where your pension or retirement fund is invested. Ask questions.

Support independent information. The mainstream media cycle has already moved on from the Epstein files. It has barely noticed the missing scientists. It will cover the ceasefire headlines and miss the structural shifts underneath. The information that helps you navigate what’s coming won’t arrive through cable news. It arrives through channels like this one — funded by people like you, accountable to no one else.

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The Ending We Choose

Professor Jiang’s most important insight isn’t about which country wins the war.

It’s about what kind of world emerges from the wreckage.

Wars of attrition, he argues, don’t end with dramatic battlefield collapses. They end with exhaustion. And the question that matters isn’t who runs out of missiles first. It’s who builds something better while the old system breaks down.

Right now, the old system is breaking down. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The missile math doesn’t add up. Scientists who held the keys to the next generation of defense technology are gone. The financial architecture that has organized the global economy for half a century is showing cracks.

That is terrifying. But it is also a window.

The people who saw the 1970s energy crisis as a catastrophe stayed stuck. The people who saw it as a signal built solar panels, founded new industries, and changed the world.

This is that moment — but bigger, faster, and more connected. And unlike 1973, you don’t have to wait for a government or a corporation to act first. The tools are in your hands.

The third scenario isn’t a guarantee. It’s a possibility. It becomes real only if enough people see it, prepare for it, and push for it.

That starts with staying informed. That starts with not looking away.

That starts now.

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St Badhon is an independent journalist covering the economic and human impact of the Iran war. Subscribe to receive the weekly Monday Briefing.

Sources cited in this article: IEA · Goldman Sachs · AAA Gas Prices · CNN · CNBC · Al Jazeera · ABC News · NPR · Newsweek · NewsNation · Daily Caller · The Sentinel · Wikipedia · Breaking Points / Singju Post · Palestine Chronicle · Roya News · Business Mirror · The Root · Heather Cox Richardson

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