en English
May 18, 2026
Mohammad Reza Farzanegan
The Iran war has revealed how deeply material interests are embedded in strategic calculations, concentrating rewards among powerful insiders while leaving society to absorb the costs. As long as chaos remains politically and economically rewarding, such conflicts will remain difficult to contain.
MARBURG—The US-Israeli war with Iran has revealed how instability can become a powerful political instrument. Leaders can exploit crises to maintain supporters’ loyalty, even while imposing costs on them, and extract concessions from domestic and foreign adversaries through coercion and manufactured unpredictability. In a forthcoming paper, Canadian economist Ronald Wintrobe calls this dynamic “thugocracy”: a form of rule grounded in coercion, intimidation, and unpredictability.
