NATO's Crazy Long Term Planning for Proxy Wars | Stas Krapivnik

## Introduction and US sanctions on Iran The recent escalation of U.S. economic pressure on Iran — framed by some American officials as a grand sanctions offensive — reveals less a coherent pivot to effective statecraft than a continuation of long-standing patterns: cyclical grandstanding, selective coercion, and a reliance on brittle levers of influence. The conversation with Stas Krapivnik surfaces an essential paradox: Washington’s rhetoric frequently implies decisive, novel action (“sanctions D‑Day”), while the material means at its disposal have been eroding for decades. That gap between verbal maximalism and pragmatic decline shapes both the limits and the unintended consequences of current policy toward Tehran. Sanctions are not new to Iran. For nearly half a century they have been a central instrument of U.S. pressure. What looks like escalation to outside audiences is often a recycled playbook applied with renewed theatricality. The political spectacle of “D‑Day” language serves domestic and allied audiences as much as — or more than — it alters the strategic calculus of Tehran. Understanding whether these measures can still move the needle requires looking beyond slogans to logistical realities: trade relationships that have adapted to deprivation, regional partners willing to shield Iran, and major powers that increasingly prioritize their own geostrategic interests over deference to Washington. ## Can sanctions against Iran still work? Sanctions can succeed under three conditions: comprehensive multilateral enforcement, the target’s acute dependence on sanctioning economies, and the ability of the sanctioner to sustain economic pressure without severe reciprocal damage. Iran’s case meets none of these conditions neatly. As Krapivnik notes, Tehran has lived under sanctions for decades and has built domestic capacities — from industry to a functioning automotive sector — while cultivating alternative trade corridors. Iran’s population size, resource base, and embedded regional ties make rapid economic collapse unlikely. The decisive variable has been the reaction of other major and regional powers. When large economies like China and Russia decline to participate fully — or deploy countermeasures of their own — unilateral U.S. measures lose multiplier effects. Moreover, targeted interventions that try to foment popular unrest risk backfiring or producing only temporary turbulence, as past episodes of protest have illustrated. In short, sanctions remain a blunt tool that can inflict pain, deter certain behaviors, or complicate procurement, but they are rarely sufficient to achieve regime change or force major policy reversals on their own. Krapivnik stresses that sanctions sometimes accelerate integration into alternative blocs. If Iran deepens trade with neighbors and strategic partners, economic isolation becomes a catalyst for self-reliance and new alignments rather than a pathway to capitulation. Thus, sanctions can reshape the regional political economy, but usually in ways that diminish U.S. leverage over time. ## Russia, China, and support for Iran One of the clearest takeaways from the conversation is how much Iran’s resilience depends on the strategic calculus of Russia and China. Both have incentives to blunt U.S. pressure: Russia seeks to constrain American influence and exploit new markets and military partnerships; China wants stable energy supplies and better ties with Gulf states, while avoiding actions that could destabilize commercial flows. Krapivnik argues that once China perceived Iran surviving — even achieving relative strategic advantages — Beijing adjusted its stance accordingly. This dynamic creates a de facto economic shield. Russian shipments of grain, diesel, and military materiel, along with continued Chinese trade and investment, undercut the impact of U.S.-led sanctions. Moreover, accession to broader Eurasian trading patterns — formal or informal — gives Tehran greater room to maneuver. The recent history of North Korea and Russia under sanctions illustrates how economic pressure can prompt the creation of alternative supply chains and political coalitions. The consequence is less about absolute insulation and more about the increasing cost and diminishing returns of trying to coerce a country that has built an escape hatch. A further implication is the reciprocal leverage these powers hold over Washington. China's ability to reorient purchases, limit exports of critical commodities (like rare-earth elements), and cultivate alternative suppliers for goods previously dominated by the U.S. economy reduces Washington’s latitude for punitive economics. The economic interdependence that once underwrote American influence is fraying, and Tehran’s survival through partnerships with Moscow and Beijing epitomizes that transformation. ## US rhetoric and political messaging The conversation highlights a disjunction between the United States’ performative rhetoric and its underlying strategic posture. The language of imminent obliteration or historic sanctions offensives reads as a continuation of a political strategy that prizes dramatic announcements for domestic consumption. Stas Krapivnik characterizes this as cyclical grandstanding — a pattern of maximal utterances followed by retrenchment — rather than sustained policy coherence. This rhetorical environment matters. Hyperbolic messaging can narrow diplomatic options, escalate misperception, and force allied partners into uncomfortable positions where they must either signal loyalty or publicly distance themselves. It also reveals political vulnerabilities: when leaders use warlike metaphors and sweeping claims, they are often compensating for strategic limits or domestic political insecurities. The resulting tone undermines the credibility of U.S. diplomacy because it primes audiences to expect either inconsistency or escalation without clear ends. Equally important is how messaging influences allied calculations. If partners perceive U.S. declarations as untethered to credible instruments, they’re less likely to sacrifice their own economic interests to comply. The rhetoric thus becomes self-defeating: booming warnings demand heavy lifting from others, and when that lifting does not materialize, the public spectacle only amplifies perceptions of American decline or overreach. ## Master plan or institutional failure? The conversation poses a provocative question: are current U.S. foreign policy oscillations evidence of a clandestine long-term strategy, or do they reflect institutional incoherence and failure? Krapivnik is skeptical of the “master plan” narrative. He suggests much of what looks like calculated chaos is better explained by institutional rhythms, fragmented decision-making, and performance-oriented politics. Bureaucracies rarely execute single, monolithic plans over decades without adaptation and contestation. Policymaking in advanced democracies involves competing agencies, political logics, and domestic constituencies. The repeated cycles of escalating and then moderating stances toward adversaries may therefore be less Machiavellian design and more the predictable outcome of institutional bargaining, electoral pressures, and the broader geopolitical shifts that outpace any single playbook. That said, the possibility of long-range planning cannot be dismissed outright. Some strategies aim to exhaust opponents through repeated pressure, to exploit windows of domestic instability, or to maintain ambiguity as leverage. But the evidence Krapivnik highlights — the disjuncture between grand claims and muted outcomes, the necessity of courting cooperative partners, and the tendency toward ad hoc improvisation — points more convincingly to governmental limits than to a brilliantly concealed master strategy. ## Leadership, insecurity, and power At the heart of the conversation is a thesis about leadership psychology: loudness and maximal

NATO's Crazy Long Term Planning for Proxy Wars | Stas Krapivnik What if the craziness in NATO's proxy wars has a hidden strategy? What if they just fool us to believe they are headless chicken but in fact things are based on hard calculated realities? Stas Krapivnik, a former US Army officer joins me to discuss the new US pressure on Iran, why sanctions fail, and China’s economic leverage. We also examine US political messaging, leadership and long- term planning, the Ukraine war, and fears of a wider conflict involving Iran. Links: Stanislav Krapivnik on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrSlavikman Stanislav Krapivnik on X: https://x. com/STANISKRAPIVNIK Stas Was There...In English on Telegram: https://t.me/staswasthereenglish2 Стас Туда и Обратно on Telegram: https://t.me/stastydaiobratno Rise of the Imperial Eagle on Substack: https://zmeigarinich.substack.com Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz. substack.com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com /donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction and US sanctions on Iran 00:02:52 Can sanctions against Iran still work? 00:08:47 Russia, China, and support for Iran 00:18:52 US rhetoric and political messaging 00:27:03 Master plan or institutional failure? 00:33:19 Leadership, insecurity, and power 00:41:04 Ukraine, Iran, and nuclear risks 00:48:02 Closing remarks #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies, today with an update by Stas Krapivnik. Stas, welcome back. #Stas Krapivnik Thank you. Always a pleasure. #Pascal Stas, I want to pick your brain a little bit, since you also worked a lot in the private sector and also the energy sector. Since we now hear that the United States just unveiled—Scott Bessent just unveiled—it's the grand sanctions game, you know, D-Day, sanctions D-Day against Iran. You know, regime change is finally just around the corner because now the United States talks about Iran the way it talks about, you know, the Second World War, D-Day. As if though, you know, Iran so far had been like an integrally integrated part of the Western economic system, right? And this is going to really hurt them. What is your take on this newest approach of the U.S. toward Iran? #Stas Krapivnik -- 1 of 17 -- You know, if you notice one thing, Trump goes in cycles. Lunar cycles, maybe biological cycles. I'm not sure, but Trump runs in cycles. And he does that not just for Iran, he does it with Ukraine too. If you just step back and look at the way he works, I don't know if it's pre-planned calendar days or it's just a hormonal imbalance that then becomes, you know, feeds into the cycle. You know, we're going to destroy them. We're going to obliterate them. That's it. Oh, they're begging us. They're begging us right now for some kind of... Oh, yes, we're in the middle of talks. One of the best talks that ever happened. We're getting everything we want. Oh, they betrayed us. They're evil. You can't trust them. We're going to destroy them. Oh, okay, we're not going to destroy them because they're now begging us. #Pascal And it's just... you know, it's... #Stas Krapivnik Seeing this on a short cycle with Iran, as opposed to the Russian longer cycle where we're neutral, we're really neutral. We're neutral. You know, the Russians, we're making great, great strides. This war is going to be over in like... 10 minutes, 15 minutes, after lunch, after lunch. Well, maybe after dinner. Okay, they're not agreeing with each other. You know, Vladimir's evil. He's moronic. He's stupid. I can't say—oh, he's my best friend. Oh, we've just gotten a truce. We're neutral again, you know. And it's just these cycles that you just notice. They go around in circles. It's part of the one million-D chess that Trump plays. It is my opinion Trump is a ten-dimensional entity that's projecting himself into our four-dimensional world in the form of Donald Trump. So we can never understand his logic. It's too high for us. So at this point, yes, they're now going into the D-Day of all sanctions for the country that's been sanctioned for 47 years. #Pascal Doesn't it seem like that we are reaching—I mean, I think you're absolutely right. The cyclic thing is definitely there, but it seems that they are getting more and more desperate, and they've been throwing everything they had at the wall, hoping that something would stick. And then it seems that we are now getting back to the economic part and, you know, the economic sanctions or economic pressure has been put on bit by bit. And let's remember, beginning of this year in January, Scott Bessent was really proud that he collapsed the Iranian economy. That then led to the uprising or the demonstrations at which then so many people died. By now, we also know that that is BS as well because, yes, there was protest. But then Mossad and CIA really managed to push a lot of assets into the streets, their darling satellite dishes that they had distributed. And they kind of—they targeted. This was a targeted approach, which I must say, in retrospect, was actually probably the most clever thing they did so far in order to achieve this goal of regime change. But everything after that, once that failed, I -- 2 of 17 -- mean, there's just failure after failure after failure, including all the kinetic war. And now back to economics. Can any of that even succeed? I mean, because at this point, the U.S. has to beg other countries to buy into these sanctions, right? Especially China. #Stas Krapivnik Oh, yeah. Well, and the begging doesn't work. First of all, again, Iran has been sanctioned for 47 years. Iran grew a lot of industry, including automobile industry, during those 47 years on its own because Iran has a population of 94 million people, which is not a small population, so a relatively large country. Physically, it is a relatively large country. It's about the size of Germany and France combined, and it's resource-rich. So, yes, did they have problems? Absolutely, they had problems. Much bigger problems than if they were in a trade bloc. Well, guess what? They're now in a trade bloc. It's the same thing as what happened with Korea. The only way this works is when you get China and Russia involved to carry on these kinds of blockades. And they were involved. In '23, I was on a Russian television show, and they asked me, you know, what else can we do to stand up against the U.S.? I said, well, you know, we could stop supporting these stupid sanctions against Iran and North Korea that do nothing for us, nothing for Russia. The only reason it's important is because the U.S. demanded it or asked for it. And it was silent. So, like, you know, you hit a nerve. But a year later, the sanctions were off, thankfully. #Pascal And those are U.N. sanctions, right? Those are the U.N. sanctions that Russia and the Security Council cannot veto. #Stas Krapivnik Right, right. And additional sanctions at the U.S.'s push. For example, Iran had bought S-400s from Russia, and Russia never delivered them at that point. Russia has delivered them since. And again, why are we supporting sanctions that do nothing for Russia? Quite the opposite. Now, North Korea's economy, the latest reports are, is growing gangbusters. Well, it's not growing gangbusters. It's growing around 2%, which is actually considered, under nonstop sanctions for the last 70 years, that's pretty good, whichever way you look at it. And it started growing partially because, yes, North Korea is part of the industrial base supporting Russia, besides Russia's own industrial base. I mean Iran—I'm sorry, North Korea. But the main part in this conflict, you've got 50 countries on one side, and you've got North Korea and Russia on the other side. Belarus, to a degree. The other reason is because it now has a larger trading bloc. Basically, the Eurasian Union in those areas, North Korea, has now opened up a very large area for itself to work with. Iran has the same thing. So it's very hard to destroy. By the way, Russia, while we're at it, Russia's been under sanctions for only a short period of time, about 180 years. Yeah, World War— -- 3 of 17 -- nothing major. Russia is the most sanctioned nation in the world, probably in length of time too. And yet we have yet to collapse. You know, Russia went into World War I still trading with the Germans for, like, the next year and a half under sanctions from the British and the French. Just from that information, you wonder whose side Russia was on in World War I. #Pascal I mean, like, the Tsar was the cousin of the Kaiser, right, who was the cousin of the King in Britain. #Stas Krapivnik It's worse than that. They were all first cousins. #Pascal Yeah, first cousins, exactly. All three of them. They were all grandchildren of Victoria. #Stas Krapivnik Yep, yep. In fact, Victoria basically died in the hands of Wilhelm II from old age. But, so sanctions are not going to work. Look, the four Caspian ports in Iran are working overtime. They're trading with Russia, and Russia's supporting Iran with grain on top of everything else, particularly with grain and diesel, and a lot of medical aid to make sure the Iranian economy doesn't fall. There's also military assistance and such, but we're not going down that road just yet. #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. #Stas Krapivnik I was asked, by the way, by the Iranian—I was on this Iranian television show—if Russia's going to get involved militarily in Iran. Like, well, Russia's already supporting Iran militarily, but Russia has no need. Iran has never asked. There's absolutely no need for Russia to get involved because, A, you know, what are Russian ground troops on the— In truth, I'm not going to say who's flying some of those Iranian airplanes and who's sitting at the S-400s, but we'll just say it takes a long time to prepare pilots and crews for modern anti-aircraft systems, radar systems, and launchers. A lot more than the six months or so that was there between last July's war and the start of this conflict. But I'm not saying who's there. It could be Smurfs, for all I know. Mountain Smurfs. -- 4 of 17 -- #Pascal Yeah, but I mean, even if there is that kind of involvement, I mean, it's not systemic. It's not this kind of type thingy, right? It's more punctual. It's like we've seen also what Russia was able to—or tried to do—with Syria, right? Tried to support, but then if Syria—once Syria started collapsing—it was, I mean, even Russian help collapsed, didn't do anything anymore, right? So it's punctual at best. #Stas Krapivnik Syria collapsed not because Syria couldn't be held up. Syria collapsed because Assad decided he wanted to be liked by the West. So he cozied up to the Gulf state Arabs. Whether they played him or not, I don't know, but they might have been getting played themselves by the Americans to get Assad in the right position. If it was his brother, his brother survived, or his father was still alive, none of this would have ever happened because those two men were much wiser when it came to who they dealt with. #Pascal I just wanted to put that there as an example to say, I mean, punctual help. There's no type of integration in the way that's with the proper alliances, right? So Iran is basically still using this self- reliance strategy with punctual help from a few others, right? #Stas Krapivnik Well, economically, it has a deep rear, because it's now part of an economic bloc, even if unofficially. And the Chinese, while Russia's been there from day one, China, I think, took more of a hands-off approach because they thought, okay, fine, this is going to be the big one, and more than likely, they're not going to win. They're not going to survive. And then when they saw that not only, A, they w