Managed Conflicts as a Phase of Hybrid Stability: Geopolitics and Tectonopoly

06.23.2025

By: Valikhan Tuleshov

1. The US Tactical Attack on Iran Is Not a War, but a Deterrent

The limited US strike and Israel's participation in it on Iran's nuclear facilities did not trigger an all-out war. It acted as an instrument of pinpoint coercion in the context of strategic asymmetry.

This action emphasized the "red lines" of the US and Israel, prevented further development of the Iranian nuclear program, and also maintained the manageability of the conflict without destroying the architecture of the region.

And it is precisely the military-political superiority of the US and Israel that makes this step unilaterally controlled, but not aimed at escalation.

2. Iran's Response Is Local, Symbolic, and Proxy in Nature

The strike on the American base in Qatar was a predictable, ritualized reaction corresponding to the Iranian strategic culture. Through proxy structures, Iran has demonstrated its unwillingness to capitulate, its readiness for local resistance, and its inability (and unwillingness) to wage open war.

This is not a response that leads to war, but a form of saving face — an element of the balance of fear built into the regional system.

3. Pakistan and China Are Outside the Escalation Zone

These states’ ties with Iran do not make them vulnerable in the context of the current conflict.

Pakistan is a nuclear power, unstable, but needed by the United States as a buffer.

China is a geopolitical rival, but in the logic of long-term containment, not military confrontation.

Thus, the attack on Iran is localized and will not escalate into a chain reaction.

4. The Strait of Hormuz Has Lost Its Role as an Energy Trigger

Iran’s attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz in 2025 can no longer cause a shock in the oil markets. Because alternative routes are working. The US, Canada, Brazil and other countries compensate for supplies. China, India and the EU are adapted to energy stress. And strategic reserves stabilize volatility.

The rise in prices will therefore be short-term and manageable. The threat of a cut-off has lost its force as a factor in global pressure.

5. Tectonopoly Manifests a New Form of Stability Through Managed Conflicts

The events in Iran, Syria, and around Hormuz are not the threshold of war, but a manifestation of a new form of geopolitical coexistence, which can be described as hybrid stability under the conditions of Tectonopoly. Here, conflicts are not eliminated, but distributed, symbolized, and managed. Proxy wars, pinpoint strikes and cyber attacks are intended to be forms of strategic speech between civilizations. And the world is not one, but has many supports — civilizations maintain balance through localized tensions.

Therefore, Tectonopoly is defined by us as a structure in which global rivalry is replaced by a global texture of conflicts.

Here, controlled conflicts become a phase of formation of hybrid stability, where peace is maintained not by consensus, but by measured tension between centers of power.

Conclusion

The world is no longer moving towards war or peace in the classical sense. It is entering a tectonic phase, where conflict becomes a technology of containment, military actions — the language of diplomacy, and stability — not the result of peace, but the management of threats.

This is how a new texture of civilizational coexistence is formed — complex, multilayered, mobile.

And in this texture, each controlled conflict is a seismogram of a new world order, in which war and peace are intertwined as the code and countercode of one global system. Or, as Sun Tzu roughly defined, “war is an integral part of peace.”