Strategic Winners and Losers of 2025 - Outcomes, Strategy & The Road to 2026

Episode Overview

• This episode provides a geopolitical year-in-review for 2025, identifying the biggest strategic "winner" and "loser" among nations, excluding major world powers.
• It names the Islamic Republic of Iran as the strategic loser of the year, detailing a collapse driven by military overreach, diplomatic isolation, and catastrophic internal mismanagement.
• The analysis highlights Iran's severe, self-inflicted water and energy crises as the primary drivers of its instability, arguing these internal failures are far more significant than its external conflicts.
• In a stark contrast, the episode identifies post-Assad Syria as a surprise strategic winner, showcasing its rapid diplomatic and economic recovery under a new government pursuing a policy of "muscular pragmatism."

Key Concepts

• Geopolitical Year-in-Review: The central framework of the podcast is a retrospective analysis of 2025, evaluating nations on the improvement or decline of their strategic position and how well they managed their circumstances.
• Iran's Strategic Failure: The core argument is that Iran's position collapsed in 2025 due to a combination of an unsuccessful military conflict with Israel, deepening diplomatic isolation, and a culmination of severe domestic crises.
• Military Asymmetry: Iran's military posture is described as a "glass cannon"—possessing a formidable long-range offensive missile capability but having critically inadequate air defense systems, a vulnerability exposed during conflict.
• Catastrophic Internal Mismanagement: The analysis emphasizes that Iran's most profound threats are self-inflicted, stemming from decades of poor policy in water management (dam-building on salt formations), energy infrastructure, and economic planning, leading to land subsidence, blackouts, and hyperinflation.
• Syria's Pragmatic Recovery: Following the fall of the Assad regime, Syria's new government embarked on a successful turnaround strategy defined as "muscular pragmatism." This involved dismantling the state drug trade, pursuing a diplomatic charm offensive, and balancing relations with global and regional powers to secure legitimacy and reconstruction aid.

Quotes

• At 1:16 - "to try and identify who in strategic terms came out on top, and who might be hoping that their strategic luck turns around a bit in the new season." - The host clearly states the objective of the year-in-review analysis for 2025.
• At 4:10 - "Firstly, is that nation's defense and strategic position better or worse than it was at the start of the year? And secondly, how well did it arguably perform relative to the strategic hand it had been dealt?" - The host outlines the two primary criteria that will be used to judge the strategic winners and losers of the year.
• At 6:03 - "The strategic wooden spoon for 2025, perhaps unsurprisingly, to the Islamic Republic of Iran." - The host officially names Iran as the biggest strategic loser of 2025.
• At 8:10 - "It was a military investment picture that was very much all spear, no shield, the consummate glass cannon from an air and missile warfare perspective." - This quote describes the fundamental imbalance of Iran's military, which has a powerful offensive missile capability but lacks a correspondingly effective defensive system.
• At 20:25 - "The President saying, quote, 'In some areas, the land is subsiding by up to 30 cm per year. This is a disaster and shows that the water beneath our feet is running out.'" - A stark warning about Iran's severe water crisis, where overuse of groundwater is causing the ground itself to sink at an alarming rate.
• At 25:37 - "We had done the research for the area around the Gotvand Dam in the 1970s, and that's why the dam wasn't built then. We knew it would directly affect the salt concentration of the water... but they built it anyway." - An engineer highlights that the Iranian government willfully ignored decades-old warnings about the catastrophic environmental risks of the Gotvand Dam project.
• At 36:06 - "It's called having your priorities ass-backwards." - The narrator critiques the Iranian government's decision to continue heavy investment in military programs like ballistic missiles while its economy and domestic infrastructure are collapsing.
• At 47:36 - "...with President Ahmed al-Sharaa succeeding in making the jump from former US prisoner to guest in the Oval Office." - This quote highlights the stunning diplomatic turnaround for Syria's new leader, symbolizing the international community's rapid rapprochement with the post-Assad government.
• At 50:34 - "...one analyst I talked to described as 'muscular pragmatism'." - This quote introduces the term used to define the new Syrian government's strategy of making difficult but practical decisions to stabilize the country.

Takeaways

• A nation's long-term strategic health is dictated more by sound domestic resource management and economic policy than by its external military posture.
• Ignoring scientific and engineering expertise in favor of politically-driven infrastructure projects inevitably leads to catastrophic, long-term environmental and economic consequences.
• For post-conflict states, decisive and pragmatic actions to address core security issues (like dismantling organized crime) can be a powerful tool for rapidly gaining international legitimacy and aid.
• An over-investment in offensive military capabilities without corresponding defensive systems creates a critical strategic vulnerability that renders a nation a "glass cannon."
• A government that consistently prioritizes ideological ambitions and foreign military projects over the basic domestic needs of its population will eventually face a systemic collapse.