The Duran Podcast - Civilizational War. Zero Sum Game Theory Politics w/ Cynthia Chung

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Civilizational War. Zero Sum Game Theory Politics w/ Cynthia Chung

All right, Alexander, we are here today with Cynthia Chung, first time on the Duran, and we are very happy to have Cynthia with her. We follow her work on Substack. Cynthia, welcome to the Duran. Thank you for joining us. And where can people follow your work? I mentioned Substack. Yeah, it's through a glass starkly, which is Cynthiachung.substack.com.

I have that as a link in the description box down below, and I will also add it as a pinned comment. we highly recommend everyone start following Cynthia's substack, an incredible substack. Alexander, Cynthia, let's talk about everything that is happening in the world, maybe put some focus on the conflict in the Middle East, and see where it goes. Indeed, let's absolutely do that. And we are privileged to talk with Cynthia Chung about these things today, because events in the Middle East are taking an increasingly, civilizational and cultural quality, if you listen to some of the rhetoric, that's now coming out now.

And, well, the President of the United States has been making a succession of, I found them extremely alarming and worrying statements on social media. And he's now followed up with just another one, a short time ago, in which he spoke about events leading to the destruction, the death of Iran's civilization. And he actually spoke about that and he discussed it in a social post. And this, I have to say, this kind of language appalls me. And it is, by the way, the kind of language which can absolutely be used. And I say this without any qualification, any potential war crimes prosecution, were one ever brought, however unlikely that might seem. But Cynthia has been writing about precisely these kind of civilizational issues

for a very, very long time and about the extremely dark turn that we have been taking in the West recently, which perhaps has brought us to this rhetoric and to these sort of actions. And well, Cynthia has also been pointing out how a lot of this is connected back to policies, decisions, attitudes that formed in the West, especially, dare I say it in Britain, my own country during the imperial and colonial era, and the enormous influence that they've had in the United States, which has been heavily shaped by them. So, Cynthia, can I just say, I mean, am I writing, you know, joining up these dots in the way that I've just done? This extraordinary statement from the President of the United States, which, as I said, is profoundly shocking,

at least to me. I mean, is it part of that pattern that you have been discussing so extensively in so many of your pieces on that exceptional substack side that you do? Yeah, I'm in complete agreement with what you said. And I was also greatly disappointed and disgusted, that Trump had made such a statement saying, you know, an entire civilization is going to be destroyed tonight. I think the full phrase was like, I don't want it to, but it probably will. And this kind of laissez way of speaking, it's been actually very concerning for a while for me just at the beginning of the 2025 when he was announcing the tariffs and the sort of approach to countries' sovereignty, economic sovereignty, where you're talking about trying to bully industries

to enter into the United States and that these countries all owe the United States this. And so it was clear that there was a military objective behind a lot of these kinds of pushes. Trump has also recently stated in a press conference that the federal government shouldn't be responsible for things like health care and that their primary objective is military protection. And the American people should really start questioning this, regardless of the constant bombing campaign that's been occurring in the Middle East since the false flag of 9-11, which I think most people at this point recognize as a false flag, the American people are not benefiting from the United States becoming increasingly, mostly a militarized economy. And even from this standpoint,

the military itself is caving. You know, this isn't something that is sustainable. So this is, I view a war against civilizations universally, including the American civilization. And that's, I think, the big thing that Americans need to understand is that, you know, if they allow this entry into a kind of Roman Empire 2.0, the American people are also going to suffer because there is just not enough to go around for everybody. There's a clear panic. That's how I see it from the United States. It's not that this agenda is new, but I think that it's been accelerated. And so it's a lot more transparent, the monstrosity of what the objectives are, which is anti-civilizational.

But they want to secure the global supply chains and they're willing to do whatever they can to secure that. But ultimately, this isn't even going to be enough to sustain the West or the American people. This is ultimately a military, primarily a military. objective. So, yeah. Well, I absolutely agree with all of that. I mean, one of the things that, I mean, you can argue and you can validly argue that in terms of practice, the United States has conducted very, very brutal military campaigns in the past.

But, you know, my memory extends to Vietnam in the 60s. I have never seen rhetoric like this used before. and it's not just one individual who's using it. A whole political class is now using it. And it's becoming normalized. And it doesn't seem to be encountering the kind of protest, especially in elite circles, which one would once have expected it to do.

Back in January, when there were the protests in Iran, however synthetic and artificial they were, we had a brief flurry of expressions of, I think we can now say, insincere concern for the protesters. And the war was initially launched in order to protect them. And now, just a few weeks later, we've evolved to the point

where we're threatening to destroy their entire civilization. and nobody seems to push back against it. It is an extraordinary change. And you cannot have this mindset towards other people around the world in Iran or wherever without this affecting the way that you treat people in your own country at some point as well, which is, I think, exactly the point that you've been making. Yes. And, you know, Scott Bessent, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury, he said when he was getting, you know, sworn into the Senate that he made the statement, make Iran poor again. So this was already something that Scott Bessent was talking about at the very beginning of, you know, 2025. And it's for people who don't know, clean break was something that was put in place, like in the, early 90s and a lot of the like Rand Institute grouping along with Netanyahu had laid out this

plan to basically see what we've we've seen occur after 9-11, which was entry into Iraq, you know, Libya, Syria, Iran was always on this list. And it was ultimately to weaken the underbelly that would allow for entry into Russia and China to create a zone of instability, you know, this big new Brzezinski has talked about this. And so one of the ways to create that kind of chaos and instability is through cultural warfare. And so this whole terrorist problem, which, you know, started with the American funding and training of the Mujahideen, like this has been a form of cultural warfare. ISIS was not an organic thing that occurred. And, you know, by causing economic warfare also in these countries, you create a situation where it's easier for terrorist recruitment, but these kinds of terrorist cells were always Western funded.

And there's a reason why ISIS was going after cultural, you know, historical sites or like the Palmyra, you know, a situation. Like, why would terrorists want to go out of their way to start defacing Palmyra? So it's really to try to erase. Because when a civilization is proud of its history, they are a sovereign people. They're much more likely to have self-respect. They're not going to be easily enslaved. And so with a construct that wants an ultimate agenda of enslavement, civilization is actually the biggest opposition towards that. A proud people. who also refused to be barbaric, refused to be a bestial in their conduct, but rather are intelligent. They're going to think strategically, not just emotionally in blind fury. That's a much more capable opponent or opposition. So unfortunately, you know, the United States has done this to itself as well, this form of cultural warfare.

And we see it in the kind of culture that's like really prevalent now in like, you know, the movies, the music that people are watching. It's not making anybody better. It's making them more easily enslaved. And so it's been known like Russia, China and Iran are amongst the oldest civilizations in the world. And they really recognize that amongst each other. And, you know, I think that a lot of the Western people have really been brainwashed with a form of game theory, zero-sum thinking, which is this idea that you need to just have everything the same. You know, like people are now getting sucked into it's either Christianity or it's Islam. But the reality is, if you were to study history, there have been naturally, organically, religions coexist peacefully. Like Israel is not, I'm sorry, but Israel's not an organic construct. It was created by the British mandate of Palestine. And there's a whole bunch of like politics, you know, involved with that.

And unfortunately, you know, it's turned into the monstrosity that it is. But in terms of like civilizational constructs like Russia, China and Iran, who really existed for centuries, you don't get that kind of process without an ability to coexist peacefully with their labors. And there's been a lot of historical examples where Christians and Muslims have worked together to protect themselves against like the Mongols, for instance, and these kinds of like in Asians. The Mongols were known, by the way, to have worked with Venice to also try to, hit cultural sites as well. Like they destroyed the

House of Wisdom in Baghdad. You know, a lot of like these huge centers of learning were targets by these kinds of things. This is a very old game that ISIS is just like a continuation of and was just following its orders. ISIS didn't decide upon, you know,

with itself to start targeting these kinds of cultural centers. So people have to realize that, you know, it's not about Christian, if the whole world was Christian, for instance, that, like, we wouldn't have terrorism or something like this. And people should be reminded, too, that Catholics and Protestants were also, you know, sciopped into butchering each other for centuries in Europe as well. Well, that brings us back to the United States, because, pursuing these kind of policies is going to have an effect within the United States.

If you have a military that is used in a certain way, a military which instead of conducting defense is used in imperial operations and where war crimes are countenanced, then that affects the psychology of the people who serve in that military. and it affects, which has an effect also on wider society. And of course, within a society that pursues imperialistic policies, violent, aggressive policies, that has an effect on the structure of the society itself. It cannot be a democracy anymore. I mean, I think that is a fundamental fact.

democracy with this sort of imperialism is incompatible. I live in Britain, as you know, I have seen it. I've seen how it plays out here. So this is very dangerous for the United States itself. And this is a point that you've made in many of your articles. It is an anti-humanitarian ideology. that thinks in this way and that is obviously going to be directed internally towards many things. Yes, and I think that, you know, on that note with China and how China compares to an entirely different philosophy,

you know, a lot of people in the West, they just view China as a communist country and in a very kind of narrow lens. But if you were to, first of all, visit China or even just watch like Chinese TV shows, you'll be, I think, maybe interested to see that most of them are often period pieces, right, like from the dynasties way back. And they're continuing to have these long civilizational lessons using a lot of historical examples. You know, China has gone through periods of history where they basically, had a bunch of warlords, you know, back, you know, centuries ago. And China wasn't, it wasn't clear if China was going to be able to stay as like one thing after the Han Dynasty, which was the

really big dynasty that, that created the Chinese civilization. And there was many years of complete chaos and turmoil. And China is not really, you know, if we're to be accurate, it's not, you can't just call it a communist society. It's got capitalistic. concepts to it. It has a meritocracy with how it governs, but it also recognizes and teaches the Confucian philosophies. So there's a huge mix. I think that China looks at things and it looks at what works, what doesn't work, and it, you know, adjusts itself accordingly. So it's not just one thing. And I think that China is very serious and true when it says, talks about win-win cooperation. And I think that we've just been so heavily bogged down by how the West has conducted itself in terms of zero-sum game theory politics, that we've become very jaded and we don't think that this is possible.

Again, historically, we've seen that that is actually not the case. That's why it's important that people have a historical understanding. you're not just in this kind of vacuum tube that they would prefer you are in as an Orwellian construct, right? That you don't have a memory of the past. But the way that China has been conducting itself, like China had a trade surplus despite the 2025 tariffs with the U.S. Because of the energy crisis that's seriously hitting Europe. It's seriously hitting the Asian countries as well because Gulf energy is mostly not allowed to, you know, access to the rest of the world. China has prepared itself so well with its energy independence because it's mostly coal energy

for their manufacturing base that they've been able to give the Philippines some energy, Vietnam, some energy who are in national emergencies. Like, this isn't just a humanitarian crisis for Iran. This is a humanitarian crisis that's hitting, it's going to hit Europe. There's a lag effect, but it's going to hit Europe, you know, this week. And in the United States about mid this month is the estimations for the lag effect, but it hit Asia first because of the proximity. And this is an attack on industries globally. And economies are essential for sovereign nation states.

to function for a people to have access to the basic needs that a human being should have access to. So this kind of policy, I think, really shows what the United States intention is, which is an empire in the most horrifying level of, you know, brutality and piracy where you're willing to sacrifice most of the world's livelihood in attaining your supremacy. And it is, I think, a really foolish mistake that they've made. I think that China is playing a long game that is working out for them. From what I understand, they have been helping out Iran in reconnaissance, especially at the beginning of the Iran War.

I think there's definitely support in funding. but in terms of a military support, I don't know if Trump is actually going to try to, you know, destroy the Iranian civilization tonight. If he does this, you know, one way or another, I think the United States has lost this situation because they've lost face, you know, diplomatically with how they've handled this situation. but if they were also to leave the Middle East, it also shows that the hegemony of the U.S. in the Middle East is pretty much null and void. Iran has made it clear that they want to control the Strait of Hormouths and share the fees, you know, the two million per vessel fee with Oman, and that they want the U.S. military presence out of the Middle East. I think that these are all very reasonable things that are being requested.

and the U.S. Petro dollar, you know, is under serious threat because all of the trade going through the Strait of Hormuz now, if Iran holds, it's going to be traded in the Yuan. And I think that the United States needs to just take a step back and recognize that it doesn't have to go down this, what is ultimately a suicide route. It's trying to hold the world hostage. But the United States is not in a position to even, you know, I think defend that sort of position. That's why they're even talking about a form of retreating for Fortress America. But it's it's all like it it's they're too far back at this point.

It would just make so much more sense to cooperate and to be able to just work with other countries as like, you know, on an on an, on a. an equal basis instead of just bullying other countries. This is clearly just going to benefit a very small grouping, which is a very concerning grouping that Trump has surrounded himself with, including like transhumanist, you know, technocrats. So I think that they are increasingly becoming detached with reality, which wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that there can still be a lot of destruction. American lives are also going to be affected by the high energy prices, like Trump is acting like the United States is like not affected at all by the closure of the straight of hormones. But if oil prices go up, the oil prices are also going to

go up for the big U.S. oil companies. They're not going to, from what I've seen, they're not going to give discounts to the American people or the manufacturing base. So there are going to be, there is a very serious threat of very high inflation for the U.S. economy. So this is all very insane. It's all very desperate from my point of view. And I do think ultimately these old civilizational processes are going to hold strong, even though it might get very ugly for Iran. Indeed.

I mean, just a few, many, many points there. Just briefly, a few things. I mean, if we're talking about China, we're talking about the world's overstate. You can argue when the Chinese state. began, some people would say 4,000 years ago, if you start from the start of the Tang the Han Dynasty, that's 2,200 years ago. It's a very, very old state indeed. It is also, without any question, a civilizational state. I mean, the communist period has been, what, 70 years against 2,000 years.

I mean, you have to understand this. It's a small moment, but it is very much a civilizational state and a civilization state which had to defend its civilization very recently against aggression and in foreign imperialism by the British, by the Japanese, by all sorts of people in the 19th and early 20th century. So the Chinese who are very, very historically minded people, that's one thing I immediately realized when I was there.

Of course, they remember all this very, very well. And when they see another civilizational state, like Iran being attacked, that is inevitably going to stir memories and concerns, especially when they see rhetoric like this, It's almost axiomatically going to make them, you know, very hostile to what is happening. So inevitably, this kind of rhetoric is going to make the Chinese more willing to help Iran. And from what I understand, if you go to Chinese social media places, there is already a lot of sympathy for Iran being expressed.

by people right across China there. And if you understand the history again, as I said, you would understand why. Now, the other thing I wanted to discuss, just touch on, which flows on what you said, is the flight from reality that all this involves. I mean, destroying whole civilisations, you know, creating, you know, carrying out all kinds of destruction

and all kinds of things of this guy. treating countries like chest pieces that you move around and manipulate in that kind of way. A government, a political system that thinks like that has lost all touch with reality. And its actions are going to become increasingly bizarre and reckless. and out of control. And, well, isn't that what we're seeing exactly in the U.S. now? Yeah. I mean, just look at the kind of things Higset is talking about. And I think he even said in a press conference that this is about the rapture, the Greater Israel Project. And then you have Peter Thiel, who is a very influential, you know, person at this point in the kind of policy shaping the Trump administration who's doing his

bizarre lectures on, you know, a whole bunch of like occult-nostic concepts of like how there is a new age that's coming about. And I think that they haven't come up with these concepts, right? Like these are things that have been put into the kind of religious matrix. at least by the 1800s, there was a lot of this kind of sciop type manipulations, but it's real. It's like it's a real thing, unfortunately, that is shaping a lot, it seems, of this kind of thinking and is like, you know, the whole red heifer symbolism, which they weren't even real red heifers.

But there's a, there's a real threat of. of insanity in terms of these kinds of views that are shaping policy. And they are not, they are not situated in physical reality. I think that the United States has just been in a position of dominance for so long that I think, you know, the Russian Ukraine war, it was clear. They thought that Russia was going to collapse internally from internal unrest. The people were going to, you know, revolt. and there was going to, like the currency was going to plummet.

Iran too looked like, you know, the internal unrest in Iran was, was very volatile in, especially this past December. And, you know, Bessens's like, yeah, this is, this is going to be easy. And it turns out it isn't. I think that they honestly think that these countries with these old civilizations and cultures are, you know, that easy. to bully and it's they're they're making them the same mistake over and over again the iran war is not going to be a short war um if you you know if you think that uh the u s has had problems in afghanistan iran is is like a whole other level of a opposition so even if they rain fire on iran tonight and it could be absolutely devastating for iran they have a massive underground

you know, bunker system that they've prepared for. And the Iran has made it very clear that they view this as an existential situation, which I think is quite accurate. And they're willing to fight to the end on this. They are not going to be enslaved. They're not going to be a satrapy. And I think that this is a very inspiring that Iran is standing up so competently to this. And the reality is is that the U.S. is draining its stock, its missile stock. It's needed to move its weaponized systems and equipment from Asia to continue this fight with Iran, even though apparently Iran has been completely militarily defeated. So this is, again, very short-sighted of the Americans.

They're just accelerating what was going to be a natural demise. and it was a demise because they made the decision themselves to deindustrialize to stop their manufacturing base and become increasingly just a military construct and a parasite, I'm sorry, globally. And you can see it even with how they treated Japan economically for decades. This has been a very abusive relationship. And I would hope, I would hope that countries like Japan, Japan and countries in the Middle East realize that there isn't a benefit to supporting this kind of military bullying of other countries at this point and realize like you're not going to

be given any favors. None of the U.S. allies are coming out on top. They're actually getting beaten down worse than the so-called opponents of the U.S. right now in this war, which is. not just an Iran war, it's a global supply chain war. A very last question. I mean, is there any chance of a change in the United States within the United States itself? I mean, this is, as you pointed out, this is absolutely not in the interests of the American people, what we're saying, these set of policies.

To just add something, what we're talking about is not just murderous and cruel. It's also very ugly and it's also, I mean, it's irrational. The idea that you can create a desert all around you and yourself be rich. I mean, it doesn't work like that. That is not a rational approach to policy or statesmanship, whatever, whatever. I think there are a lot of people in the US who know this or understand this perfectly well. It's just that somehow it never seems to translate into changes of policy or of direction. On the contrary, we see an increasing radicalization, if anything, in the way the policy is being done,

a result even more extreme language and rhetoric and policies. But is there a chance within the United States that there will be a change? you know i am always for the united states becoming sane again um but i think that unfortunately it looks like because a lot too there's too much detachment from reality that things have to maybe get a little bit bumpy um before people realize that um they actually are connected with the rest of the world i mean like the United States relies massively on imports. This is another insane thing. Like if energy costs soar for the rest of the world, don't you think your imports are also going to become quite unaffordable? So there, I mean, it's just very basic common sense stuff that there's, I mean,

Wall Street is a problem with this, right? There's there's the fantasy buying into the fantasy of the stock markets and the bond markets are always just going to bounce back like they always do. When in reality, the U.S. has been running a deficit to fake a real GDP growth. Like, there has not been a real GDP growth. So I think that unfortunately, at this point where I see things, the American people have to kind of feel the effects themselves rather than see the horrendous things that is occurring in other parts of the world. There is, I think it's just been too many years of this going on that it's it's like the subject of africa they're they're they've just become kind of jaded and ambivalent to it um but the american people do have a lot of power

over government decisions even now so if the american people were to push back it would it would create a big effect because they need the american people to believe in whatever is the Trump line of the day, he's constantly, you know, doing it back and forth so that people don't even understand and they just kind of give up on even making any judgments as what is the decision ultimately. And they just have faith that there's a plan, but we can't know the plan. You know, I think that Americans have to wake up and realize that the plan is not going to benefit the American people, unfortunately. Yes. I think you're right. I mean, just to quickly finish on this. I mean, I had a discussion. I think we discussed it. I would discuss it with Professor Misheimer once. That what needs to happen is that the United States needs a major defeat somewhere to shock it out of this system. I have to say, I don't like the sort of that at all. I don't like the sort of that at all.

don't like seeing anybody ever defeated in that kind of way. But I do wonder sometimes whether there is any, I'm not saying Iran is going to provide that defeat, by the way, but that a major, you need a major defeat, not Iraq, what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan, but something much more profound in order to shake people to say, this cannot go on any further. Is that, this is my very last question, is that something that you think might be needed to cause that? I think that where I see the policy coming from the Chinese, Russian and Iran alliance, especially, is that it's not going to be a military confrontation, but the United States on its home ground. This is more of a form of economic warfare, which they're doing from a defense. standpoint, you know, Americans should be reminded that they're defending themselves. But I think that,

you know, China has a few checkmate moves their U.S. Treasury bond holdings, the, the rare earth's supply chain, which is needed for the U.S. military. They have also, I think, banned drone parts. So there isn't, I think, Western countries don't have access to building the essential components for drones. And there's also like the refinery capability, which is increasingly with the destruction of the refineries in the Gulf states, increasingly China's in a position to provide that kind of essential service. So I think that they're looking at it from that kind of standpoint that it's kind of like a sleeper hold kind of thing, like that hopefully they can put the giant to sleep. And so there's going to be some economic hardship, but I don't see them wanting to destroy any kind of Western

state from that standpoint. And if they're successful, where the United States just, you know, dwindles its resources in the Middle East. And basically, either they're all eliminated or they retreat, this is the victory that they want. So I don't see any kind of direct attack on the American people. Sun Tzu, Chung, thank you very much. A very revealing program. Let's do it again. We can also discuss other things, civilizational things.

Alex. A quick update on Trump's post on X. We have a reply from Iran, which is that Iran closes all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the U.S., suspending the exchange of messages following Trump's threat to kill Iran's whole civilization. Yeah. So that's the official response from Iran to Trump's post. Cynthia Chung, thank you so much for joining us.

Once again, where can people follow your work? On my substack, Cynthiachung.substack.com called through Glass Darkly. And I just wanted to say I'm a very big fan of you guys. And thank you so much for inviting me on. Thank you so much for coming on. I have the link to the substack in the description box down below and as a pinned comment as well. Thank you, Cynthia. Yeah.

Great. Thank you.