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The professor’s warnings extend far beyond the battlefield, entering the realm of global economics, energy infrastructure, and humanitarian risk. Jiang highlights the strategic significance of critical nodes such as desalination plants, oil terminals, and the Strait of Hormuz—chokepoints whose disruption could trigger cascading crises affecting millions of lives. Damage to these infrastructures would not only compromise essential resources like water and energy but could also destabilize entire financial systems reliant on the steady flow of the petrodollar. In Jiang’s analysis, the impact of these economic shockwaves would ripple far beyond the Middle East, undermining sectors of the U.S. economy and sowing uncertainty in global markets. He suggests that a prolonged conflict could erode confidence in U.S. economic and military invulnerability simultaneously, fundamentally altering the perception of American power on the world stage.
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