Political scientist Robert Pape, one of America's leading scholars of military strategy and coercive warfare, is warning that the Iran conflict has entered a far more dangerous phase than many policymakers and markets appear to recognize.
In a special edition of his Situation Report published Saturday, Pape argues that the current ceasefire has not resolved the underlying strategic competition between Iran, Israel, and the United States—instead, it has created conditions that make renewed escalation increasingly likely.
"The conventional wisdom says this war is ending," Pape writes. "The evidence points in the opposite direction."
Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has spent decades studying air power, coercive diplomacy, and modern conflict.
He is best known for his landmark book Bombing to Win and later research examining the strategic logic behind suicide terrorism and military coercion.
His work has been widely cited by military planners and policymakers for its emphasis on incentives rather than battlefield headlines.
That framework shapes his latest assessment of the Iran war.
According to Pape, analysts have focused too heavily on who won tactical engagements while overlooking the broader strategic outcome.
The central fact, he argues, is that Iran survived the conflict without suffering decisive military defeat.
In doing so, Tehran retained its ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz while forcing Washington to accept a negotiated memorandum rather than imposing unconditional terms.
"Iran survived," Pape writes. "That changed everything."
In his view, survival itself altered the regional balance of power. Iranian leaders now have reason to believe that continued pressure can improve their strategic position rather than weaken it.
As a result, Pape argues, Tehran has little incentive to permanently de-escalate.
Israel, meanwhile, remains dissatisfied with the postwar settlement, while the United States continues attempting to enforce maritime security without committing to a broader military campaign.
The result, Pape believes, is a classic escalation trap in which all three actors possess incentives to challenge the existing ceasefire.
Events over the past several days, he argues, fit that pattern. Iranian drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz prompted limited U.S. airstrikes against Iranian coastal military infrastructure, followed by additional Iranian attacks targeting commercial vessels and U.S.-linked facilities in Bahrain.
Commercial traffic through Hormuz has declined sharply while insurers have begun reassessing war-risk premiums.
Rather than viewing these incidents as isolated violations, Pape sees them as evidence that the ceasefire is becoming increasingly unstable.
His analysis has closely tracked the broader trajectory of the conflict.
Earlier in the war, Pape argued that military strikes alone would be unlikely to compel Iran to capitulate and instead could strengthen Tehran's leverage by transforming control of maritime commerce into its primary strategic advantage.
He also warned that the key indicators would not simply be oil prices or missile exchanges but commercial confidence, shipping activity, insurance markets, and regional spillover.
Those metrics now occupy the center of his latest forecast.
Looking ahead, Pape predicts continued testing of the ceasefire rather than a return to full-scale peace.
He advises watching four indicators: commercial shipping through Hormuz, maritime insurance premiums, rising tensions along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and repeated challenges to the U.S.-Iran memorandum.
Each, he argues, could signal a gradual deterioration toward another round of wider conflict.
For Pape, the Iran war is no longer simply a military confrontation. It has become, in his words, "the first test of a new Middle Eastern balance of power"—one in which each side believes additional pressure may improve its position, making a lasting peace increasingly difficult to achieve.