Professor Jiang

Professor Jiang answers your questions. Predictive History marks the end of a teaching journey by answering student inquiries. The discussion covers a wide range of topics, including the future of the global economy, the role of geopolitics, the impact of artificial intelligence, and strategies for personal growth during times of systemic transition and uncertainty.

Professor Jiang explains how Dante re-animated the human imagination. Notes and References:1. Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by Alan Mandelbaum

Prpfessor Jiang synthesizes geopolitics, eschatology, and the mechanics of imperial decline into a unified framework. This lecture explores how these distinct academic and historical perspectives converge to shape modern international conflicts and global power structures.

Professor Jiang explains to his Chinese high school students Iran's geo-political strategy. Because the United States has military dominance, Iran must conduct asymmetrical warfare, and ask four questions with all its actions:a.) Does this action make my population more confident and united?b.) Does this action help me consolidate trust and solidarity with my allies?c.) Does this action help m...

Professor Jiang explains the origins and thinking of Christian Zionism, and how it is driving conflict in the Middle East. He argues that while most Christians consider Christian Zionism to heretical, it has the most potential to capture people's imagination due to the instability, uncertainty, and extremity of the times we live in today.

Professor Jiang explains to his Chinese high school students how empire is eroding the stability and vitality of the American Republic: From 1950-1980, America's manufacturing sector accounted for 40 percent of GDP, employed 30 percent of its workforce, and enjoyed 40 percent of total profits. Today, it's only 10 percent of GDP, and the financial services sector is ascendant. Financial ser...

Professor Jiang explains to his Chinese high school students the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia:At the beginning of 1979 Saudi Arabia and Iran were friendly with each other. Both were America-aligned oil-exporting monarchies. Iran’s Islamic Revolution was a political earthquake that promised to topple the entire Middle East political order. Ever since Saudi Arabia and Iran have been bitter...

Professor Jiang explores who will win the US Presidential election in November: Joe Biden's 2020 coalition of college-educated professionals, minority voters, twenty-somethings, and suburbanites may not hold in 2024. Voters are upset about inflation, illegal immigration, and foreign policy direction. If Trump picks Nikki Haley to be his running mate, he has a very good chance of winning the su...

Professor Jiang explains to his Chinese high school students the strengths and weaknesses of the American military doctrine "Shock and Awe":In 2003, the American military used a revolutionary military doctrine called "Shock and Awe" in its Operation Iraqi Freedom. "Shock and Awe" combined American air supremacy, technological omniscience, and special forces into a dea...

Professor Jiang examines if Iran President Ebrahim Raisi's death was an accident or an assassination: On May 19, Iran President Raisi's helicopter crashed into the mountains, killing all nine on board. Most experts believe it was a weather-related accident. There are skeptics who believed that powerful forces within Iran stood to gain from Raisi's death. Raisi was expected to become th...

Professor Jiang explains that an American invasion of Iran would be a catastrophic mistake:If Trump were to win a second term, he would likely contemplate invading Iran. While an initial invasion would seem successful, American forces would quickly become bogged down in Iran's mountainous terrain. The American invasion would be similar to Athens' invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, as described...

Professor Jiang explains why Putin is preparing to mobilize Russian society for total war:Putin's favorite philosopher Aleksandr Dugin believes that Russia and the West are fighting Samuel Huntington's War of Civilizations in Ukraine. What does he mean by this? In the late eighties, Francis Fukuyama published his "End of History?" essay, which argued that liberal democracy and co...

Professor Jiang explains Putin's strategic genius:In February 2022 Putin invaded Ukraine. At first, the war did not go well, and the United States had a three-point plan to defeat Putin:1.) Equip Ukraine to defeat the Russian army.2.) Sanction Russia, and cause it to economically implode.3.) Isolate Russia, and turn it into a pariah state. Today, we recognize that this strategy has failed, and...

Professor Jiang explores how and why America would fight a second Civil War:Right now, America is suffering three trends that make civil war more and more likely: a.) Increasing political polarization driven by the culture wars and inequality. b.) Breakdown of the narratives that bind America, especially the American Dream and liberalism. c.) Growing distrust of America's national institutions...

Professor Jiang Xueqin concludes his Geo-Strategy course by discussing how to use AI to chart a better future for humanity:In his Foundation series, Isaac Asimov introduces the science of psychohistory. Is it really possible to predict the future by mathematically modeling historical development? By mathematically modeling history, "Cliodynamics" has revealed interesting patterns. For ex...

Professor Jiang Xueqin explains why humans adopted agriculture. We now know that there were many consequences due to the transition to agriculture. Hunter-gatherers had an easier, more healthier, and less disease-prone life. So why did humans make this sacrifice? Though there are many explanations, most scholars believe that it was the religious impulse that drove humans to choose a sedentary life...

Homo sapiens originated in Africa 300,000 years ago, and for the vast majority of our history we were egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic. So where did concepts of patriarchy, war, and private property come from? The Yamnaya people are nomadic pastoralists who originated in the Eurasian Steppes. They worshipped the Sky Father, and excelled at waging war. Slowly, their culture spread throughout the...

Why the Bronze Age collapsed. In the year 1200 BCE the world was globalized and prosperous. Nations shared people, ideas, and goods. A few decades later, the Bronze Age collapsed. Mycenaean Greece and Hittite Anatolia were destroyed, and the Sea Peoples ravaged Egypt. Scholars disagree on what caused this collapse. Some argued it was a northern invasion, while others believed there was a cataclysm...

The Greeks were humanity's most creative civilization. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are timeless classics, Plato's The Republic continues to inspire, and Thucydides are still read by military officers in search of strategic insights. Why were the Greeks so creative? After the destruction of Mycenaean Greece at the end of the Bronze Age, Greece became divided into thousands of diverse city...

In his book The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides explains that the war started because Sparta saw Athens as a threat to its hegemony. In this talk Jiang Xueqin argues that the American scientist James Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments offer a better explanation. In the 1950s and 1960s James Calhoun conducted experiments in which colonies of rats were put into worlds of plenty and abundance. All thes...

What made Athenian democracy so strong and vibrant? Jiang Xueqin explains that theater taught Athenians how to be democratic citizens. The three major dramatists were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus' Oresteia offered a mythology of democracy, showing that democracy was a gift from Athena herself, and that by practicing it well Athenians could make the whole world more just, fair...

In 399 BCE the Athenian people condemned Socrates to drink hemlock. In this lecture to Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin examines the significance and legacy of the trial of Socrates. During his lifetime, Socrates enjoyed exposing Athens' leading intellectuals. He became so notorious that the satirist Aristophanes ridiculed him in a play. Socrates had many admirers though. A group of...

In this talk Jiang Xueqin examines how Philip II of Macedon turned his kingdom from a poor and weak nation into the military hegemony that would conquer Persia. In his youth, Philip was a hostage at Thebes, where he studied the military innovations that made Thebes into the dominant military power in Greece at that time. He learned that with enough training and discipline, an army could achieve th...

We celebrate Alexander the Great as one of the greatest conquerors of history. What motivated him? Was he truly a strategic genius? What is his ultimate legacy? Professor Jiang Xueqin presents a revisionist understanding of Alexander the Great. He argues that Alexander was first and foremost motivated to prove he was better than his father. With his boundless ambition, he could not find peace unti...

Plato and Aristotle are considered the two most influential philosophers of Western antiquity. But there are three central paradoxes surrounding the life and work of Aristotle. He is considered a brilliant thinker, but we do not have any of his original writings. Over two hundred works are attributed to him, and the range of his works is extra-ordinary and super-human – he’s written about metaphys...