No man knows the future with certainty, but on our current trajectory this is what I expect to see happen going forward.
We are currently at a pivotal moment in the on-going hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. Even so, I believe we have already crossed the point from short term conflict into something else entirely.
This war will not end in the next two weeks, nor will this merely be an excursion as some had hoped. In fact, I expect that war, in one form or another, will remain in the headlines through most of 2027 and will include U.S. allies such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan. It will also be accompanied by severe inflation. On Wednesday, U.S. debt surpassed $39 trillion. Any increases in government spending, including military spending, now come at the expense of the dollar through inflation. Prices will rise as the value of the dollar falls. Supply chain disruptions will exacerbate that situation.
Iran is fighting a war of attrition. When I see a fire break out at one of the largest oil refineries in the U.S., and a fire break out on the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, I see these events as part of that war of attrition. In a war of attrition, the U.S. does not possess escalation dominance. While there are some who passionately support the current war against Iran, that support is not currently reflected across the nation. Fewer than 50% of Americans currently express support for the war. For the U.S. to be able to compete in a war of attrition against Iran, that number will have to change.
If history is any indication, it often takes a national calamity, such as the sinking of the Lusitania, or a series of such calamities, to generate the kind of national will necessary to successfully prosecute a long war. In the absence of such a calamity, governments have been known to make them up, as happened with the Gulf of Tonkin incident or the failed attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty. Whether such an attack targets the United States or one of our allies, and whether it is carried out by Iran or merely attributed to Iran, the intended effect will be an increase in American support for the war sufficient to expand the current conflict until the U.S. is engaged in the same war of attrition that Iran is already pursuing.
Americans are not, by and large, prepared for such a war. They are also not trained to quickly see it when it comes. Many Americans will remember “two weeks to flatten the curve”, but they will not connect the dots when they hear “just a few more weeks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz”.
With the expansion of hostilities will come policies that attempt to restrict the individual freedoms of Americans. The freedom to travel, to speak, to worship, to conduct business, to bear arms, to make medical decisions free from coercion, to purchase healthy food, and other freedoms will be targeted. To many, it will not appear that they are being targeted as much as they are the natural casualties of a period of war, and the devastation that war always brings to humanity. In reality, these freedoms are already being targeted and those who would see them curtailed further will certainly use the disruptions of war toward that end. I am writing this now, while most Americans and the U.S. stock market still expect a quick resolution to this conflict, so that you can more easily see the coming restrictions for what they truly are, a curtailment of constitutional freedoms.
Whether we are at war or experiencing times of peace, the pressure to further concentrate governmental power will always be with us. It is one facet of human nature that remains a constant. It is against this desire to further concentrate power that we must stand without apology. In 1788, Thomas Jefferson observed “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Such gains are often accompanied with passionate promises about how the further concentration of power “for just a short while”, will certainly be for our benefit. Whether the present enemy is Russia, or Iran, or China, or global warming, or poverty, or a pandemic, or a despised political party, you can be sure that the specter of each will be used in turn to justify calls for liberty to yield so that government may gain ground.
In 2020, too many Americans, myself included, hesitated to call out abuses of individual rights and freedoms for what they truly were. Yes, we did eventually raise the alarm, but for many it was too late. Whether Providence will intervene to alter the current trajectory, I cannot say. While I pray fervently for such intervention, if it comes at all, it will not come because our nation deserves a miracle, but because the God of heaven has decided to be merciful of His own accord.
