Forecast Update 04 MAR

Phase I: Blue Airpower Conducts SEAD in Red Territory

Phase II-A: Blue Interdiction and Close Air Support to Uprisings & Separatist Movements

Phase II-B: Blue Airpower Decapitation Strikes on Red C2

Phase III: Red Counters with Regional Barrages

Phase IV: Blue Reallocates Airpower to Interception & Launcher Hunting

Phase V: Red Counters by Activating Regional Proxies

Phase VI: Blue Reallocates Airpower to Proxy Hunting

Phase VII: After Red’s Barrage and Proxy Capabilities are Exhausted Blue Close Air Support to Uprisings & Separatist Movements Until Emerging State Actor Conflict Dynamics Take Over

Ordered least likely to most likely.

1) A complete collapse of the regime under Phase VII attacks or even earlier decapitation strikes or calls for ‘surrender’ of the IRGC. Very unlikely.

2) Iran counter-punches exceed regional and US/Israeli domestic appetite for another forever war and pressure on the Blue Forces (US and Israel) to disengage with the Iranian regime intact. Don’t think it’s probable.

3) The US and Israel coalition exhausts Iranian counter-punches and succeed in sparking popular uprisings and ethnic insurgencies. These result in emerging-state actor dynamics that topple, or at least tangle, the Iranian regime, significantly reducing its power and projection capability for years to come. Probable, if grim, scenario.

4) The US and Israel coalition exhausts Iranian counter-punches but fail to spark popular uprisings or ethnic insurgencies after several months. This is a likely scenario.

5) The sides break off combat operations suddenly under auspices of a ceasefire and negotiation. This is the most likely scenario, but only after the end of this week.

We rapidly went from Phase I to Phase II on Saturday, Iran countered by activating their barrages by Saturday afternoon bringing us into Phase III. US and Israeli airpower held in reserve were then used on interception missions in Phase IV, and by Sunday evening two of the three main Iranian proxies had been activated to conduct attacks further regionalizing the war and shifting the airpower focus away from Iran, reaching Phase V.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah began launching rocket attacks, and Israeli immediately responded both in airpower and a subsequent ground incursion. Notably, the Houthis in Yemen have *not* entered into the conflict, though that may change at any moment. Israeli began proxy hunting in Lebanon with air strikes Sunday night followed by repeated ground incursions (invasions?) Monday.

So we’re basically in Phase VI. In the balance of power numbers game between Iranian barrages and proxy attacks, adding to US and Israeli airpower most of the GCC states have activated their air forces. So far Qatar air force has claimed to shoot down two Iranian SU-24’s and the Kuwaits have bagged with anti-air defenses three US F-15’s. So, mixed results, but a yeoman’s effort.

French airplanes are also now in the region and assisting the US on interception missions, and France is also sending its main carrier, the Charles de Gaul from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Having a third aircraft carrier in the region, the second in the Mediterrean will significantly add capability to barrage interception and proxy hunting, allowing the Lincoln in the Gulf to focus more on activities inside Iran.

Iranian’s counter punches, in both barrages and proxy attacks, have succeeded in their operational goal – shifting the combat from Iranian only to a regional war. Significant strikes have occurred in every Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman; as well as in Israel. The Straight of Hormuz is now closed effectively, oil prices are spiking globally and reserve tanks are filling up in production fields meaning they may begin pumping at 60-70% less capacity. Even tankers as far afield as the Indian Ocean and off the coast of Libya seems to have taken drone hits (though the latter may have come from Libya or an “errant” US drone that accidentally did a 180 on the way to Iran, flew across the Meditarrean and struck a Russian shadowfleet tanker. You know. Accidents happen.)

The US objectives have shrunk faster than Trump’s enthusiasm on date night with Melania, going from “regime change” on Saturday to “eliminate Iranian’s nuclear and ballistic capability” by Monday. While a much more realistic mission set that is actually achievable, it’s a damning confession of amateur-hour that four days into this conflict the US adminsitration still does not have a clear answer on what the mission is, or what provoked the need for an imminent attack. It’s very clear now that Netanyahu forced Trump’s hand, again. And although there may have eventually been a war given the movement of aircraft carriers, the specific timing of an early Saturday attack was predicated on Israeli claims they had a window to kill the

Supreme Leader Khamenei and several senior commanders.

This led to a very tortured justification for the US’s preemptive attack under imminent threat doctrine: knowing Israeli would strike at Iran to kill Khamenei, and in retaliation Iran would retaliate against US forces, the US faced an ‘imminent threat.’ Translating this into common venacular, imagine trying to explain to the police after a bar brawl breaks out that you knew your friend Ted was going to sucker punch Joe, and since Joe knows your friends with Ted and might swing at you, you sucker punched him as well. (Please don’t experiment with this approach in a bar! #NotLegalAdvice)

Putting aside our internnational standing and compliance with both US and international law, the ramifications are that the US was not ready for this war to begin. That’s become very clear. We didn’t have all the forces we wanted in position, there was no plan to on how to evacuate or secure the 500,000 – 1,000,000 US residents in the region, we didn’t have an escort and insurance protocol set up for Straights of Hormuz shipping. (Which we have done several times in my lifetime so we know how to do that.)

It’s like the US military had very sophisticated plans on how to conduct major combat operations with Iran, but at the strategic level, they were using ChatGPT again like they did with the tariffs.

Part of the problem is that Israeli, under Netanyahu, now has a strategic policy of bloodlust assassination as a means of undermining diplomatic efforts. It’s almost become an internet meme to brag who they’ve killed and how, but never with a strategic gain in actually resolving a conflict in a meaningful way. For the third (fourth?) time, Netanyahu undermined negotiations that may have led to some sort of resolution by conducting military decapitation strikes on leaders. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar once or twice already trying to subvert US-Israeli-Hamas negotiations to forestall a ceasefire, and this is the second time he’s struck Iran in the midst of US-Iran negotiatinos successfully upending them.

But even accepting under charity principle decapitation strikes of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and senior IRGC, QODS, and BASIJ leaders…the overall kill list and justification of starting the war to achieve this kill list seems like something a bad LLM prompt put together. President Trump’s list of Iranian crimes on Saturday, goinvg back to the hostage takeover, is something you could’ve scraped from Wikipedia, or if you like dessicating our water supply, Grok. But it’s not a strategic plan for *why* we’re going to war with Iran *now*, or what we hope to gain from it other than they’ve been annoying us for decades. Some of his claims, like Iran may have been able to nuclearly strike ‘every country in the world’ is clearly dementia speaking. Others are admissions that the kill list got ahead of the strategy, like when he admitted there was one or two more moderate leaders he had hoped would become Supreme Leader after Khamenei, but they were killed as well in the initial strikes.

And just as a case study of how bizarre the kill list is, and why I suspect this is a Grok or ChatGPT creation. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed on Saturday. To be clear – this is a “bad dude(tm)” who, when President, oversaw the violent suppression of the Green Revolution in 2009. But he left office in 2013 and hasn’t been in politics since. He’s done some university work and mainly stayed out of the public eye. He’s *exactly* what a 10th grader trying to sneak-prompt an LLM to write a paper on “bad Iranians” might run across, because he did absolutely suppress an uprising violently. But not anytime recently.

And it’s not just the justifications and kill list oddities which indicate we may be winging it. In this morning’s braggle-brief SecDef Hegseth admited we *still* don’t have air superiority over Iran, four days into the war. And that it might be a few days away? He tried to flex that like it was a good thing. But aken at face value that is *not* something to brag about. In Gulf War I it took us <72hours to establish air superiority over Iraq. And in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an already depleted Iraqi air force and anti-air assets were functionally eliminated within a few hours. Given the pre-work Israel did against Iran in the 12-Day War, we should not still be ‘establishing’ air superiority. Remember, it was the lack of ability to establish air dominance in the first 24-48hours that was a major tell Russia was struggling in Ukraine.

And while I don’t think we’re that bad by a long shot, and will eventually get to air superiority, the reason this matters goes to the forecast phases. IF we don’t have air superiority, we’re both allocating airpower to gaining it (Phase I) while also reducing the airpower hunting launchers out of risk of being shot down (Phase IV). Again the phases hae some simultaneity, we can walk and chew gum. We can still hunt launchers without having full air superriority, but it’s a heck of a lot easier with it. Once we have air superiority, all aircraft can be used in the other roles in the phase forecast – especially intercepting barrages, hunting launchers, or hunting activated proxies. Which is the part I imagine would take a week to several weeks. Any delay to that, even by a few days, allows the Iranian regional attack strategy to go a few more days.

Now maybe, in a charity principle interpretation, Hegseth confused air supriority (the ability to fly unimpeded over Iran) with “only US and Israel aircraft over Iran.” Because he did follow it up with some sort of weird tough boy statement about Iranian leaders only “looking up and seeing US and Israeli aircraft.”

Given Iran’s significant drone fleet, getting to a point where there are no more of those flying from Iran to strike targets would be a significant marker.

But I don’t think we’re a few days away from that.