On the Practice of Strategic Pattern Analysis
- john raymond
- Jun 21
- 5 min read
In a media and intelligence environment oversaturated with personality-driven punditry, faux-neutral stenography, and consensus-clique groupthink, accurate strategic foresight can feel impossible. But it isn’t. The successful forecast of Donald Trump’s June 22, 2025 strike on Iran wasn’t a fluke—it was the outcome of a rigorous interpretive framework, applied consistently across contexts and resistant to the surface-level churn of daily media noise. I call this approach strategic pattern analysis, and it is built on five interlocking pillars: asymmetry, strategic intent modeling, adversarial mapping, operational choreography, and narrative timing.
Each of these elements contributes to a kind of deep pattern literacy, where actions are not merely observed but understood—not just for what they are, but for why they are. What follows is an articulation of that method, both as an explanatory after-action tool and as a forward-looking guide for any reader who wishes to reclaim the practice of independent strategic thought.
I. Asymmetry as the Starting Premise
The first and most important pillar is to understand that we are in an age of asymmetric strategy, not symmetric statecraft. This means conventional interpretations of diplomacy, deterrence, or even war logic no longer apply cleanly. Adversaries do not seek battlefield victory—they seek narrative disruption, institutional decay, and perceptual dissonance in rival states. Putin does not win by conquering Kyiv; he wins by eroding belief in NATO’s purpose. Trump does not win by passing laws; he wins by breaking the legitimacy of law itself.
If one begins with symmetric assumptions (e.g., that the president is acting on behalf of the American people, or that war decisions are based solely on threat matrices), one is guaranteed to misread the signals. The analyst must begin instead by identifying what asymmetries exist—in motive, power, coordination, and outcome—and asking which actors benefit from them.
II. Modeling Strategic Intent, Not Just Tactical Behavior
Much analysis focuses on what an actor does. Better analysis focuses on why they do it. But predictive analysis must go further: it must model what a rational actor with a certain set of goals would do next, even if that goal is destructive, hidden, or foreign.
This is where many failed to predict the Iran strike. They assumed that because Trump had been deferential to Iran (or Russia) in the past, he would remain so. But this analysis fails to model how Trump’s own incentives and external constraints had shifted. Once Netanyahu ignited conflict with Iran, and once Russia’s air capacity had been crippled in Ukraine, it became logical that Putin would prefer to redirect global attention. Trump, facing declining domestic narrative control and no diplomatic win to stage, was left with only one lever: war.
If one models Trump’s loyalty not to country but to Putin, and if one understands that Putin no longer required Iranian preservation but rather Iranian sacrifice, then Trump’s strike becomes not just predictable, but almost inevitable. Model the intent, not just the record.
III. Adversarial Mapping and Strategic Role Recognition
Another core failure of conventional analysis is the inability to think adversarially. Too many commentators model geopolitical actors as if they were constrained by American laws, norms, or good faith. That leads to profound misinterpretations of both Trump and Putin, who are best understood not as individual narcissists but as players of an asymmetric, coordinated disruption strategy.
In my reports, I always ask: “Who benefits?”—not just from an event, but from the public misunderstanding of that event. Trump’s Iran strike doesn’t just escalate a war; it muddies Western purpose, fractures NATO, generates panic, and provokes counter-escalation from Iran. Who benefits from that fog? The answer isn’t America. It’s Russia.
By mapping adversarial coordination—between Trump and Putin, or between Netanyahu and Khamenei—I treat the players not as isolated, but as co-conspirators in disruption, each with their own roles to play. This doesn’t require a smoking gun. It requires observing outcomes and asking who profits, who shifts posture, and who remains strangely silent.
IV. Operational Choreography as Intelligence
Fourth, and most often ignored: movements matter. Troop deployments, airstrike posturing, diplomatic silence, and sudden deletions from presidential social media all tell a story. In the weeks before Trump’s strike, he didn’t just talk about war—he moved assets, held vague “pressers,” announced timelines (“in two weeks”), and coordinated with Israel while disappearing overt signs of connection to Putin.
This is not random behavior. It is operational choreography, and it’s visible in real time if one stops treating events in isolation. The analyst must become a choreographer’s observer: every step, every cue, every held pause tells us something. It is in the accumulation of cues—not the singular “event”—that strategy is revealed.
If this sounds like storytelling, it is. Intelligence, like narrative, requires sequence. Good analysts must reconstruct that sequence not after the fact, but as it builds.
V. Narrative Timing and the Weaponization of Perception
The fifth pillar is the most human, and the most dangerous: the timing of public perception. Trump didn’t need to strike Iran for a strategic objective. He needed to strike at the moment when the press would still be catching up. He needed to re-center the public narrative away from Ukraine, away from Putin’s losses, and back to “strongman” theater.
To miss this is to miss the entire play. Trump performs for time, for chaos, for memory disruption. The “two weeks” delay was never a diplomatic offer. It was a countdown clock. The deleted social post about his “good call with Putin”? Not an accident. It was a test balloon—removed once the pieces were in motion.
Every authoritarian uses narrative like this: not to tell the truth, but to stage a sequence that makes it harder for observers to tell what happened. My job is to interrupt that staging. Your job, as the reader, is to learn how to see it, too.
Final Word: What Readers Must Demand
You should demand more. From your experts. From your media. From yourself.
Don’t accept the next “he wouldn’t dare.” Don’t accept the next “in two weeks.” Don’t mistake chaos for improvisation. The patterns are there. And if your favorite journalist, podcaster, or intelligence pundit cannot see them, it’s not because the patterns are invisible. It’s because they have chosen not to look.
Train yourself to spot coordination. Train yourself to decode choreography. And train yourself to ask: Who does this serve? Because if you don't, someone else will answer it for you. And you might not like where their answer leads.
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