Intel Update — April 4 — A Running Start

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to the Underground. This is the Intel update for March 29th through April 4th, 2026. Happy Easter one and all for those who celebrated this week, and I hope everyone is able to find a little bit of peace this weekend, because around the world the flavor continues to be war and the follow-on effects of it. It's already become a very crazy year, so let's get right to it. The global impact of the two wars in the Middle East continues to be felt as the second and third-order effects are starting to become more serious. On the diplomatic front this week, things are getting pretty complicated as most of our European allies have either refused to take part in the American foray in Iran, or they have otherwise denied the use of their airspace or staging bases for continuing the war. This has complicated the situation quite a bit and made things a little bit more challenging on the American front as the United States has had to figure out logistical means of continuing the fight. On the economic front, supply chain disruptions are underway as raw materials are either unable to transit the Strait of Hormuz or the production facilities themselves throughout the Middle East have sustained damage during the war. So, continuing the theme from last week, the Strait of Hormuz being restricted is really only just half of the problem. The other half of the problem is that fertilizer, aluminum, and helium production facilities have been hit with ballistic missiles and are therefore severely damaged. This has resulted in about 46% of the world's supply of fertilizer being cut off right during the peak planting season for most crops around the world. Agricultural news is not exactly the most exciting thing these days, however, this is going to be a major, major problem in the next few months, especially through out Southeast Asia and the rest of the Third World if shipments of fertilizer are not resumed. A bit closer to home this week, terrorism concerns remain paramount here in the United States. Obviously, for the past month or so, we've all been kind of more focused on things popping off in the Middle East, or at least I've been more focused on that due to the seriousness of that situation, but here at home concerns are probably even more important for us in the homeland, things that are going to affect us more on a day-to-day basis. This week within the United States, most of the news has been centered around general crime as the warmer weather is usually correlated with an increase in crime season. Mass shootings, which are mostly of the gang shooting variety, crime sprees, and the general states of standard unrest are pretty common nationwide, which has become fairly standard this time of year. One detail that would be wise to monitor over the next few weeks is the sharp decline in immigration enforcement operations, as well as fraud investigations. Again, just a couple of months ago, we were really on the edge of our seats wondering if Minneapolis was going to be a major problem for the nation, and all of that civil unrest stopped when the federal government stopped the aggressive counter-illegal immigration efforts. I hate to say it, ladies and gentlemen, but the mass deportations are over. Minneapolis was the peak, and we can argue about how effective all of this was, for sure, but we're basically done with the high-profile ICE surges. President Trump himself has made it exceptionally clear that his priority is to reduce focus on illegal immigrant workers, and also reduce ICE operations to return to more of the low-level, low-intensity raids and efforts like this. And now that the war in the Middle East is on, the focus on fraud has been reduced as well. The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is basically non-existent at this point, and the focus on scandals such as the Somali fraud situation, is basically just a local law enforcement issue right now. Vice President Vance has been placed in charge of the anti-fraud initiatives, but he has been very quiet on social media over the past few weeks since the war began, which is understandable, I guess, but it's hard to determine how serious of an initiative this is. So, even though the kinetic activity in the US has been comparatively light as we are focused on other stuff, we will certainly have to be on our toes over the next few weeks, as always, because we can't really know how world events are going to impact the homeland. Moving to the Middle East for this week, we can see that the conflict continues to expand, and at this point, more or less the entire globe is involved to to degree. Maybe not directly, but indirectly for sure. Within the Middle East itself, no one is safe as missiles and drones are continuing to target most of the region. Iranian attacks have not decreased at all. They have actually increased substantially this week, at least according to the various ministries of defense for the Gulf states. Just taking the UAE as an example, this week they reported intercepting 108 missiles and 269 drones, which is a sharp increase from last week, which reported only 57 missiles and 124 drones. So, roughly double the number of drones and missiles uh being used for attacks in the Middle East in just one country. So, remember, this is just the interceptions that are being reported. The UAE does not report the missiles and drones that make it through their air defenses to actually impact their targets. So, we're definitely dealing with incomplete information, but even just taking what they have intercepted as a benchmark, Iranian missile and drone attacks on the UAE have doubled from last week. Concerning the American military presence in the region, Iranian targeting efforts have also increased substantially. Many of the missiles and drones that have been reported by the UAE, for example, came from the Iranians targeting Al Dhafra Air Base, which has been getting pounded every single day. Similarly, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia has been yet another Air Base heavily targeted by Iranian attacks, most notably this week by taking out the E-3 Sentry parked on a taxiway at this installation. Following that attack, American forces are still using this Air Base and are still using the same parking areas, even knowing that the Iranians can hit this location rather easily. In Bahrain, what is now the former headquarters for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in Manama has been more or less completely destroyed. In the early days of the war, right after the missiles started flying, it became very clear that this naval base was a main target for the Iranians. So, the US military dispersed their personnel to civilian hotels around the city, which did work to reduce casualties, but once those hotels started getting hit a few weeks ago, the Navy started pulling everybody out of the city. So, over the past week or so, the decision was made to relocate the last remaining service members and their families who were told to grab only what they could carry in a go bag and get on a plane, which indicates the urgency at which this movement was carried out. As of this morning, the withdrawal has completed and the command of Fifth Fleet's headquarters has been relocated from Bahrain to Norfolk, Virginia. Other bases around the region have been getting hit hard as well in a similar manner as on the first day of the war when the Iranians were just hitting everything in range. Due to American HIMARS missile strikes being launched from Kuwait, bases throughout the country have been hit very hard. Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, and Ali Al Salem Air Base have been struck daily this week, which is significant because all three of these bases are not really that fortified. I didn't want to point this out earlier for obvious reasons, but it's kind of a moot point now as the Iranians have figured this out. These bases are traditionally not considered to be front-line bases, so there aren't really many defenses at these locations and terrain-wise, it's just open desert. There really normally aren't any efforts to dig in here. These are, or at least were, staging bases for movement around the region. For example, Ali Al Salem Air Base has an ice cream shop and Arifjan has a Pizza Hut and a Burger King last I remember. I think a KFC as well. Concerning fortifications, after the invasion of Iraq, not much was done to harden any of the bases in Kuwait and nearly all of them just rely on the simple T-walls for fortifications. No HESCO barriers, nothing underground, basically it's just what you see is what you get. Again, I wasn't going to mention this initially, but the Iranians have figured it out and various former CENTCOM officials themselves have gone on TV and spilled the beans on how little these bases are actually protected, so I guess it's kind of a wash at this point. The Iranians already know. But anyway, these bases are not really combat bases and what's even worse, the Iranians have somehow figured out that the United States did not fortify these bases at all before the war either because the United States did not think that the Iranians would strike our bases in the region. This is directly what President Trump himself said. He directly stated that he didn't think that they would hit our bases. And if that was not clear and confirmed enough for you, the Pentagon has posted emergency solicitations for pre-fab concrete bunkers for immediate delivery within just a few days. So now we're backtracking and actually trying to get our guys some protection over there because they're not getting it where they're at. So concerning the situation in the Middle East, it's not good in terms of our bases there. We have bases that are normally filled with fobbits such as myself, which normally would be basically a garrison environment. Now these bases are being hit daily. Bases which used to be in the rear are now front-line fighting positions. It must be quite a unique phenomenon and I I don't think anybody who's ever been stationed in Kuwait during the GWOT era has ever thought about digging a fighting hole to sleep in at night because there are literally massage parlors and green bean coffee shops on these bases. But now they're going to hit with missiles and now they're having to sandbag their positions, right? They're on the front line and there's really not much that can be done to fortify these positions quickly enough to defend against a ballistic missile strike. As much as OPSEC is definitely a concern, there's always going to be some private schmuckatelli who gets on TikTok and posts a video of the missile hitting his base. So yeah, it's not good. They've been pretty good about OPSEC so far, but we can definitely see that there's not a whole lot you can do if you get hit or you know, your if your ticket's about to be punched by an Iranian missile, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Bunker or not, concrete or not. But either way, it's become quite clear that our bases are not super great right now and there's not a whole lot we can do about it. But these are just our static positions. Again, we also have other positions as well around the region and of course we have the air war which continues on as before. This week the war has gotten quite tense as we've had several American aircraft shot down either over the over Iran itself or over the Strait of Hormuz or somewhere throughout the region, right? I don't want to comment on that too much at the moment because rescue operations are ongoing and we don't want to impact that negatively in any form or fashion. So, we're just going to have to wait and let them do their job and get those guys out of harm's way as best they can. But, just suffice it to say for now that the situation is is rather rather tense. So, all of that being considered and recognizing that this week has pointed out that this is in fact a pretty hard fight here. This is a hot shooting war. This is not an insurgency. This is not a counterinsurgency. This is a shooting war here. All of that in consideration, what comes next? What grand strategy are we working with here? And considering the events of this week, how is this war likely to develop over the next week both in terms of the war on the ground and the impacts to the homeland even? Well, to get to these impacts, we have to backtrack a little bit and understand a little bit of warfare doctrine that I failed to cover last week. If we want to understand how this is going to impact our ability to live our lives in the homeland, we have to keep our eye on what the general plan is. Our lives within the homeland are going to be changed based on the plan ahead. We are in this 9/11 era of generational change. You're living in it right now. And so far, no strategic plan has been conveyed at all. And here's exactly what I mean by that. Cracking open a bit of warfare doctrine, we can see that there are three levels of warfare. Many of you have probably seen this before, but for those of you who are not aware, we have strategic, operational, and tactical levels of pretty much everything from planning to communications and even goals and objectives that we might want to meet. Some people might consider a fourth level grand strategy at the a way at the top which provides the overall strategic vision for the war. But, generally speaking, if you crack open any warfare publication, you're going to see probably this chart: strategic, operational, and tactical. Now, I know that this might also be a little bit hard to understand without an example. So, let's use the Vietnam War as a sample for what we're talking about here. Starting at the very top, we have grand strategy. As our friend Carl von Clausewitz once said, "War is a continuation of politics by other means." Well, at this level, at the grand strategy level, we're starting to blend this political strategy and this military strategy together. This is at the stage where a politician says, "This is the grand strategy that I want to implement and we're looking for a military solution for this problem." So, using the Vietnam example, we might say that the grand strategy of the Vietnam War or sending troops into Vietnam is that we will reduce the USSR's power and influence around the world. Again, this is a grand strategy idea. So, we're going to reduce the Soviet Union's power around the world. Again, we're being very, very wave top at this level. Getting into the pyramid itself with a strategic example, to achieve this grand strategy, the military strategy here is that we will reduce the overall communist influence within Southeast Asia. For those of you who are Vietnam history buffs, you might recognize this as containment theory. But again, we're at the very wave top strategic level where we're starting to get a little bit more specific with what our goals are. Moving down the chart, we get into operational. This is where we get that word operations from, right? So, now we're talking what military operations are we going to conduct in order to meet this objective. And in this case, we might say something along the lines of we're going to destroy the enemy's ability to move freely within North Vietnam. Again, this is a military objective, cause and effect. We have a mission and we have a desired end state for that mission. And finally, at the very bottom, where most of us tend to think most of the time because we tend to not be a military strategist in our everyday life, something that we might say on the tactical level of warfare is, "Hey, we're going to go drop bombs on that enemy encampment over there or we're going to carry out this bombing campaign on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to ensure that the North Vietnamese cannot carry out resupply operations during the monsoon season." That's what we might say on the tactical level. And once again, with all of this in mind, let's take a look at what the United States has said our strategic goals actually are. The first goal is to obliterate Iran's missiles and production capacity. The second goal is to annihilate its navy. Number three is to sever its support for terrorist proxies. And number four is to ensure that it never acquires a nuclear weapon. This is what the United States has said our strategic goals are in this fight, and if we look at this in terms of what everyone would consider to be warfare doctrine, the levels of warfare, strategic, operational, and tactical, we can see that not a lot of these are actually strategic goals at all. These are more tactical level things. And maybe we can see why nearly every single military strategist offering commentary on the war has stated that the United States has not actually stated what the grand strategy or the overall strategy actually is. We have only been given tactical level goals by the Pentagon and the White House. We're going to blow up your bridges, we're going to blow up your civilian power plants, we're going to blow up your missile sites and things like that. That's all tactical level stuff. So, that's what the United States is trying to do. These are the four bullet points that they keep putting out there in terms of saying what their grand strategy is. Now, let's take a look at the other side for a moment. Let's see what Iran's strategic goals are. What are the Iranians trying to do? Well, mostly overall, their grand strategy is simply to survive. Again, they are the defender. The defender always has the advantage over the attacker. And in this case, their goal is simply to survive. More specifically, their goal is to keep the regime in power, right? That's how they're going to survive this war. And to do that, to keep that regime in power, and to supplement their national defense, they're going to have to maintain missile and drone production. Yeah, even though we're bombing them, they're going to have to keep up their supply of drones at some point. In addition to these like hard requirements for them to sustain their their operations for any length of time, they're also going to have to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz to some degree, or at least maintain a lot of influence over it. They may eventually capitulate, or they may eventually strike a deal with the United States and open up the Strait of Hormuz to the United States and Israel once again, but what they really need to do is keep the fear in the global markets that they can blow up any ship that goes through the strait if they so choose, right? So, in terms of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, they don't necessarily have to physically go out there and, you know, halt who goes there, anybody who tries to go through it. They just have to make everybody scared that they might start shooting ships again. That would be enough to control the Strait of Hormuz for them, at least. And finally, they also have to maintain freedom of maneuver within their own territory. That's just kind of a boilerplate expectation of any nation-state that hopes to survive a conflict. They have to maintain movement within their own country. So, finally, we come to the ultimate question. Are we winning? Well, again, we cannot really say with any certainty because the United States has not actually conveyed any strategic goals. Everything on the list is on a tactical level, except for maybe objective three, the severing support for international terrorist proxies. That could be more of an operational thing. You could probably argue that, but everything else is just a target list of things to bomb, and that's not a strategic plan. A list of targets to bomb in H- in HPTL, a high-priority target list, or a high-payoff target list, that is not a strategic plan. That is a means to achieve that strategic plan. You can only assess whether or not a nation is winning a war based on whether or not they are meeting their strategic objectives, and we have no strategic objectives to assess. So, it's kind of a moot point. But, nevertheless, we have to analyze what we've been given. So, let's rephrase the question to align with more doctrine that's harder to refute. Is the United States meeting her declared military objectives? Well, let's bring up the chart and find out. So, first up, the United States has not obliterated the Iranians' missile and drone supply. I really do, in fact, hate to be that guy, but if we're going to be trying to be as correct as possible here, we have to use doctrinal terms, and obliterate is not one of those. Normally, what we have to use is one of what we call the five D's: deny, disrupt, degrade, destroy, and/or deceive. So, if we were to rephrase the White House's question, I don't know exactly what they mean. Do they mean to destroy the Iranians' ballistic missile supply? If that's their goal, then the answer is no, you're not going to do that. You're not going to destroy all of the Iranians ballistic missile and drone uh stockpile. It's just not going to happen. But, if the White House means to obliterate as in disrupt, yeah, they could disrupt. They We've already done that for sure. If we blow up a single drone, that's a drone they can't launch, right? And we've done a lot of that. We've blown up a lot of bases that they use to uh make these drones as well. So, disrupt, degrade, sure. Deny them the ability to launch missiles? Yeah, maybe we can even impact that. But, destroy? I don't know. Uh and I guess it really gets into semantics land of what do they mean by that word obliterate? But, anyway, since we have to live in a world where we have to go off of something, we have to make decisions and make assessments, and we have to form opinions based off of incomplete information, we have to just admit that the United States is not reducing the number of missile and drone attacks that are striking our bases in the Middle East. We're not doing that. So, if that is the standard by which this first bullet point is being met or is intended to be met, the answer is no. We are not meeting this objective. So, what about the next one? Uh annihilate the Iranian Navy. Again, we're not using doctrinal terms here. This is more emotional language. Annihilate, what does annihilate mean? I don't know. And also, we have to be specific. The Iranian Navy, which Navy? Because there are two of them. There is the IRIN, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, which is more of their conventional surface fleet of frigates and corvettes, things like that. And then, they also have their IRGCN, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, which is their fast boat Navy, their uh what we might call a brown water Navy, but they are the actually the more formidable force when it comes to the Iranians. Again, the Iranians have a very different uh military structure than most Western nations would have. And when we say annihilate the Iranian Navy, we have to be really specific because, and again, this is debatable. I'm sorry for all the squids out there who might get a little upset about this, but destroying the IRIN, all of the corvettes and the frigates and sinking them with your submarines and things like that. That's not the impressive part. Sure, this is combat effective. It is. However, the surface fleet of the Iranians was never really the biggest threat. Sinking a lot of older frigates is not as as significant in terms of maintaining control of the Strait of Hormuz as sinking a lot of their smaller fast boats that they have in caves and things like that. So, has the United States Navy destroyed the IRIN? The answer to that is probably yes. However, were those naval forces intended to be used in warfare? No, because most of them were sunk pierside. So, even the Iranians were not planning to use them against the United States and the Iranians knew we were coming. So, if you're asking yourself, "Well, why did the the Iranian Navy not put to sea when they knew we were going to attack?" Well, mostly because they wanted to front-load the their effort into the IRGC-N, which is the bigger navy. And as far as I know, the White House and the Pentagon have completely ignored the fact that the IRGC-N exists and is not really being targeted. So, for any journalists out there who wants a free news story, just look up the difference between the IRIN and the IRGC-N and then ask the Pentagon, "Hey, you know, we know that you guys have been advertising really heavily that you're you've sunk a bunch of Iranian ships, but what about the IRGC-N? What about those fast boats? Have you been able to effectively get good effects on target with those guys?" Because so far they're acting like the Iranian Navy is one succinct thing when in essence they're not. They're two completely different navies, two completely different command structures, and two completely different rules of engagement and authority and all that stuff. So, when we talk about annihilating the Iranian Navy, we have to be very specific again, and this is why I have to give this one a partial. This is a partial success because yes, we have destroyed a good chunk of the IRIN. So, yeah, the Iranian surface fleet, the traditional navy that they have, yeah, those guys are combat ineffective. So, that is a success. However, what is the bigger threat right now to shipping? The IRGC-N. That has always been the biggest threat and the United States sinking the lesser threat does not really help us get an idea of what the bigger threat actually is. So, I have to give this one a partial. Next one up, next goal is severing support for terrorist proxies. Well, this one has not happened at all as the Iranian proxies in Iraq and in Lebanon are mobilizing and they're conducting targeting of their own right now. So, this goal is a this this goal right now is a hard no. We're nowhere near reaching this goal at the moment. And finally, we arrive at our main goal or at least the goal that has really just been most of the focus for most of the talking points and speeches on the war, which is the goal of not allowing the Iranians to achieve a nuclear weapon. Now, this one's a hot button topic, I know. This one many of you are going to debate, I know and this is going to be a pretty nasty knife fight in the comment section, I know. But, let's come at it from as objective of a of a position as we possibly can. So, if you were in the camp of the Iranians did not have a nuclear weapon and they were not really trying that hard to get one, then you will say that technically, yes, this goal is successful. We have achieved the goal of no Iranian nukes because the Iranians were never trying to get one in the first place. So, mission accomplished. However, if you disagree with that and you think that the Iranians were trying to get a nuclear weapon, first of all, it's going to be rather hard to square the circle of Operation Midnight Hammer because I myself got berated by a lot of you out there for daring to suggest that Operation Midnight Hammer might not have been a success despite the White House leading, literally, they literally led with the high with the headline of Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated and suggestions otherwise are fake news. People like me read that and said, "Okay, all right, fair enough, but, you know, um whatever, I guess." But, you're going to have to pick which one is true because you can't have Operation Midnight Hammer being true and this war being true at the same time. It's it's hard to square that circle, I'll say. You can probably, you know, lawyer your way around it, but for the most part, you've got to figure out which one you're going to try to support here. If you want to know what I personally think, I think that the Iranians were trying to straddle the fence. I think that they were trying to enrich to a certain point, to a certain percentage, whatever that percentage is, you can debate, but then they were going to stop short of actually building a gun-type nuclear device. This was so that they could be dangerous enough to be a strategic deterrent to avoid Gaddafi's mistake, right? But not so dangerous that they're going to warrant a full-blown international, you know, ISAF corporation, you know, co-cooperative effort like we gave Saddam. So, they were trying to prevent Saddam's mistake, too, right? This is not a particularly groundbreaking theory, right? This is This is actually been the boilerplate textbook explanation for the Iranian nuclear program for pretty much everybody, every agency, for the vast majority of time, right up until midnight hammer last year. But, again, this is all very debatable. Form your own opinion, I don't care. But, what I think that pretty much all of us would agree with right now, after the war has begun, is that the Iranians are certainly going to get a nuclear weapon now, or at least they're going to try. They would be complete idiots to not get a nuclear weapon at this point. And honestly, they don't actually have to make one themselves. There have been rumors flying around for many, many years that Pakistan would be willing to give them enough enriched uranium to make a gun-type device. Maybe not an implosion device, okay? But probably a gun-type device, or maybe even a fully built weapon to test or something with Pakistani advisers on scene, who knows? So, getting back to our handy chart here, you know, are we meeting the goal of ensuring that Iran would never get a nuclear weapon? Again, it is subjective, but I would argue not only no, are we not doing that, but we are guaranteeing that they are going to build one now. So, that's it for the American objectives and the American goals in this war so far. This is what we are saying our goals are, We're not meeting those objectives, anywhere near those objectives just yet. So, on the other hand, let's bring up the Iranian chart. Let's crush through this one right quick. The Iranians' goal of surviving, yeah, they've survived. Keeping the regime in power, yep, they've maintained that goal, yeah. Killing their leadership, the killing the Ayatollah, we have not removed the position of Ayatollah, we have just made a new one. So, the regime and the system of governance, the their political system is still in place, so they have achieved that goal. Their goal of maintaining missile and drone production, maybe. I'm going to say maybe on that one because we have destroyed a lot of their factories and drone production facilities. However, I'm not sure if anybody else caught this, but the other day Marco Rubio alluded to the Iranians being able to still build and produce new drones. So, maybe I'm reading too much into that, I don't know, but I think the Iranians are still able to build these things to some degree. It's not like they're dealing with a static supply, right? are not working through just a stockpile of drones in crates that they have way back in the back of a dark cave. No, they're able to produce drones to some degree still. But, I don't have any data on how much of or what type they're able to produce. I don't think I mean, it can't be that much. Surely, if they had the ability to build 100% of their drone supply underground, why would they have above ground factories at all, right? So, surely we're doing something by blowing up most of their country, but I don't know what it is and it's going to be debatable. It's not going to be at the open source anyway, so I'm going to give this one a maybe for now. And finally, the last two, control the Strait of Hormuz, yeah, the Iranians absolutely indisputably control the Strait of Hormuz. The US Navy is not able to get within 100 miles of the Strait. And of course, maintain freedom of maneuver within their own terrain, yeah, absolutely, they control their own territory, at least for now until we put boots on the ground, if that is the chosen course of action. So, that's where things stand right now. The United States is struggling to meet her own stated military objectives while the Iranians are able to undeniably meet most of theirs. It's unfortunate. I don't like saying this because I am American and I hope that we win just on principle, I suppose, because you going to you have to root for the nation that you're in. However, we have to be clear about this. And we have to be realistic if we're having any any chance of success. So, one thing that I would also like to mention is the gigantic elephant on the slide here, uh which has been down in the corner this entire time, which is uh the list of Israeli goals for the war. Again, the United States is not in this war by ourselves, are we? So, we don't have to worry about the American strategic goals or the Iranian strategic goals alone. There's another player that's involved in this. Remember, multiple White House officials and even Trump himself admitted that this war was only carried out because of the Israelis. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with me. But, no matter how much they try to walk it back, that's what they said. And in this case, uh what is undeniable is that the Israelis have different goals than the United States, as any foreign nation would be expected to have, right? There may be overlap on some things, which we can argue about, I'm sure, but by and large, separate nation-states have differing goals. They just do. When Russia went to war in Ukraine, Belarus was right there, weren't they? Belarus was right there. Lukashenka was right there. But, Belarus and Russia, despite being on the same side during the Ukrainian war, they also have different military objectives. They just do because they're different countries. If they were the same exact country, they would have the same exact objectives, but they're not. And the same thing is uh the case with the United States and Israel. And I think that many people, please don't shoot me for thinking this, but I think that most people right now are starting to realize that the United States and Israel have vastly differing objectives. Maybe we can get into this a little bit later on if I can figure out how to talk about this without assuming too much danger on my part. But, for right now, I just want to make it abundantly clear that when it comes to the strategic goals of the war, there are three main entities here that have a lot to say in how the war goes. So, with all of this being said, what do we do? What are we going to do now? The United States has not met her goals for the war. So, how might we meet these objectives? Well, throughout the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of wargaming myself to try to figure out what the United States might actually do. After all, things don't seem to be going super well in the war and they raised the enlistment age. So, I'm technically eligible again and if things go sideways in this war and I myself get drafted, I'm going to be rather upset that I didn't think these things out beforehand. Anyway, that's a long way down the road, I think, for for sure. But anyway, there are three main plans that I can think of, which according to very leaky media are actively being considered. Once again, I want to remind you that I am not supporting any of these. I'm just trying to analyze what I think that might be done. So, the first one, course of action one, COA1, is a direct assault on the islands. Again, this is something not particularly surprising. The United States has been floating this for a while. A lot of strategists and military generals have floated the ideas of maybe taking some of the islands, Qeshm Island, Khark Island, Larak Island, the Strait of Hormuz, maybe Hormuz Island itself, who knows. Maybe Abu Musa is another target as well they might go for. Either way, island assault, right? Island hopping throughout the Strait of Hormuz with the eventual goal of trying to seize some terrain in the strait and maybe somehow stop the Iranian missiles that are being launched at commercial shipping through the strait. It could also be more of a confidence thing as well because personally I I don't think that anybody would ever realize that taking an island in the strait is going to do very much because the missiles and the drones, the anti-ship cruise missiles and the drones that are used to target the merchant shipping, they're being launched from the mountains about 15 miles back from the coast. So, you're going to have to go kind of a long way in uh to to actually open up the Strait of Hormuz. But anyway, that's COA 1, direct assault on the islands. COA 2 is a little bit more sane, uh but also harder to do. And this is a new concept that the Marines came up with, a comparatively new concept. It's It started being put into the fleet back in I think 2017, 2018, but it has been theorized for a very long time before that. And this is the idea of the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, or EABO, or EAB, depending on how you want to say it. EABO is a new concept, again, from the Marine Corps, which was developed for the Pacific. This is uh the one of the core components of their island hopping theory for a potential conflict with China. And the goal of EABO uh kind of stuff is to have distributed bases set up. So, learning from what's going on in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where our bases like, you know, Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Camp Al Asad, Al Udeid, Al Dhafra, these these bases which are just big bases with a big fence They're getting hit pretty hard, aren't they? Because the enemy can find out where they are. Well, the core tenant of EABO is to distribute that stuff. Spread out, disperse. That is the goal of EABO. And since we have good comms and we have pretty uh variable logistics, we can set up little miniature bases that are not necessarily one specific location. We could spread that stuff out over a long period or or or a wide space. In the Pacific, the goal of this is to say, drop a couple of platoons of infantry on an island and they hold that for a period of time, and the next island over can hold their logistics, and the next island over can hold their uh forward arming and refueling point, the FARP. And next, another little island can be the airstrip, and they can just spread out so that a Chinese cruise missile can't come in and ruin their day so easily. Well, considering that this is a new idea, this has just entered the fleet in in terms of doctrine for the MAGTF, the Marines might be uh chomping at the bit to put this into action because I'm looking at this through the lens of the MAGTF and I'm looking at this through the lens of the MEU and I think that the Marines think they can do it and I think that's what they're probably trying to plan for. Use the EABO concept to establish command and control throughout the region so that they don't necessarily have to have one base in one place. This would be smart. This is what I would do. Uh kind of what the Iranians actually did. The Iranians already did this over in Syria. For those who don't know, during the bulk of the GWOT, most of Syria was used basically as a playground for the Iranians and they ran supplies, they had little fobs of their own and all conveniently they were all along the border. There were a lot of little fobs, little bases, little supply shacks, right? Just just inside Iran that were they would use to send missiles into Afghanistan, missiles and rockets and things like that. Rockets really. They knew that we couldn't touch them, they knew that we couldn't bomb them so that's what they did. Same thing in, you know, Cambodia and Laos during Vietnam. The Viet Cong did the same thing. Well, why can't we just reverse uno card these bad boys and do it to them, too? Set up a few EABO um hubs, I guess as you should say it. Set up a few EABOs throughout Iraq and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and all these other places, right? And start just carrying out an insurgent style attack against the Iranians. This is not a grand a secret here that I'm revealing. This is actually literally in the textbook. So, if you want to go grab yourself a smart book, one of the MAGTF smart binders, you'll see that this is a bulk of that publication and I think that's probably what the Marines are pitching to the White House right now. It's probably one of the one of the lead COAs. Now, here's the thing. One of the critical aspects of the EABO is the fact that you could do this while within range of the enemy WEZ, you know, the weapons engagement zone. So, basically you're talking about setting up a an infrastructure of military posts, bases and ecosystems when the enemy can hit you at any point. That's why this is such a delicate process here and this is why this is such an important thing the Marines have been trying to hammer out. It's not really been combat tested. So, let's think about that. It's not really been combat tested. This is still more or less general theory than uh any kind of practicality thing, but it's it's doctrine now. It's in the book. There's books written on it. So, the EABO is kind of an it's it's technically more of a newer thing, but it has been talked about for a while. So, the Marines, I know out there have been we've been talking about this for 10 15 years, but really it's just been kind of cemented in doctrine over the past I don't know five or so years, maybe. And I think that they may think they could drop a few EABOs throughout the region, take a few islands in the strait, uh and this would this would uh work with the next uh rather unfortunate COA, which is COA 3. Uh so, I'll move to that one now, which is what a lot of the mainstream media's going with, and uh this is the hairbrained theory, uh which is the idea of pushing in a helicopter assault force or a half into somewhere like Natanz or Fordow or maybe uh some of the more remote areas of eastern Iran and start coming out at them from the eastern side of the country. Now, I I should not have to uh point out how serious of an idea this is, but let's just take the events of the past 24 hours as kind of a bit of a case study sample to figure out what what how bad of an idea this this potentially is. So, regarding the combat search and rescue operations that are uh kind of ongoing in the western part of Iran, think about it like this. Uh we sent two Pave Hawks and a C-130 or MC-130, whatever, uh into western Iran. Standard C's are a package with a very special dudes who are the absolute tip of the spear, the absolute best of the best. These guys are the best at what they do, and we sent these guys into Iran, and two of their Pave Hawks got shot up to the point of where they sustained quite a bit of damage. So, at least that's what mainstream media's reporting. Is that true? I don't know, but the idea remains. We sent a bunch of special forces into western Iran on a standard rescue mission, and they got shot up pretty bad. And they're continuing to get shot up pretty bad. So, I don't think we have uh too much success uh in in store if we end up sending a bunch of conventional army airborne air assault UH-60s into Iran somehow. Now, for those of you who don't necessarily have a military background, and you're not exactly a uh an expert on things like the concept of the air assault or airborne operations, let me just convey to you that anybody out there who's got a copy of the 101st Airborne Division's gold book, their uh air assault manual, if you've got a hard copy of that in your house somewhere or on your bookshelf, chances are your eyes right now are the size of dinner plates as I explain that they're trying to launch or they're trying to set the narrative for a half into Iran. Now, of course, it is possible. Anything's possible, right? We can put anybody anywhere. The question is, how long can we keep them there, and can we keep them there without killing everyone involved? And so far, uh unfortunately, we have to kind of take what Fox News is pushing as some sort of indicator of policy because that's how it's worked out so far, and it does seem like they may uh have on the table some kind of half raid somewhere in the country, maybe not into mainland Iran, maybe into an island. I don't know. Either way, these are the three COAs that I'm seeing floating out there in the ether sphere, which are seriously being considered. So, once again, just for the record, I want to be on the record stating that I don't think that these courses of action, these plans that are currently being floated out in the open at least, I don't think any of these are viable military objectives. I don't think any of these are good idea, and I hope we don't do it, but I think that the reason that I'm talking about this is because I I can see through the doctrine that they may try this. The EABO concept would work in a partner nation. That's one of the keys to the EABO working. You can't just put an EABO behind enemy lines in Iran itself, but they may try. Again, the helicopter assault force, traditionally we do not conduct half raids when the enemy force maintains over the horizon targeting capability and the landing zones are going to be saturated with targeting. We don't typically do half raids in that environment, right? There has to be some level of permissiveness for a conventional helicopter assault force raid to actually work. Or we have to limit or reduce the enemy capacity or capability at those landing sites and I don't think we can do it. Or rather, we can do it. We can put guys anywhere on the ground in Iran. We can put them probably on the ground right outside the Ayatollah's new apartment, but getting them back out again, that's the hard part, isn't it? Now, I must also state that I do have other plans that I have identified and I'm working through just purely based on my own scouring of the maps. I've been conducting terrain analysis. I have really just put the magnifying glass to every place in Iran as best I can and just for my own research in conjunction with what targets are being struck or more accurately not being struck, there are a few other places they could go. So, for the moment, I don't want to give the Iranians any ideas. Again, this would not be a super great idea to put this out in the open. So, I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself on that for now, but there are a few other options out there. They have equal chance of success with this, which is minimal. This is a high risk, minimal success, high risk, low reward mission set and that's just the way that it's going to be until you can reduce the ability for the Iranians to stop their missile and drone attacks and so far we're not even close to doing that, at least based on what we've seen so far. So, while the drones and the missiles are still flying, we still have these concerns and it's just not going to be feasible to put boots on ground, but again, they may try anyway and definitely keep everybody in your prayers if that's the case. But in a more grand sense, coming back again, wrapping this up in terms of grand strategy, all of these plans are possible. They're all possible. They're just not feasible and none of these plans that are being floated right now would actually assist in achieving the goals that have been stated, at least not without a military mobilization, the likes of which the United States has never seen before. Imagine the invasion of Iraq like times five. Like they're going to have to draft people. You want to go scoop the last Iranian Shaheed drone out of a cave? You're going to have to mobilize a million people, and I just don't think they're going to do that right now. It's preposterous. Maybe if things drag on for a little while longer, I don't know, but at the risk of using, you know, unnecessarily do humanizing language, it's kind of like, you know, an antiseptic, right? You can have some bleach hit a, you know, hit a cleaning service with 99.99% effectiveness, but that last .01%, you know, that's going to be some pretty nasty stuff, right? So, you know, again, I don't like using language like that, but it's best I can think of. And right now, the Iranians, yeah, you could knock out 90%, you could knock out 95% of their missile production and drone capacity, but all the Iranians have to do, the Iranians just have to hit one merchant vessel in the Strait That's all they got to do, and that's enough for Lloyd's of London to cancel insurance policies. That's all they got to do. They just got to hit one target a day, and so far they've been hitting hundreds of targets a day since this war began, and now it's starting to ramp up in effectiveness now that I suspect, again, speculation, but I suspect the Iranians are getting a lot of intelligence, a lot more intelligence than the Russians and the Chinese. It's impossible to know this for sure, but their missile attacks are increasing in both number and in their effectiveness. So, again, coming back to what the United States might do, you know, these plans, yeah, they're in the textbook, to be sure, but none of these plans are viable military objectives without a lot of pre-shaping fires that have not yet been conducted. We would need to build staging areas before we could get within helicopter range of any significant Iranian target, because again, our staging areas right now, which is basically every single base in Kuwait, is a staging area, that's what it was intended for, and that's what those bases are meant for. They're getting hit. So, you can't start putting tens of thousands of troops on the ground in these places, establishing a beachhead near the coastline, launching waves of helicopters from either Kuwait or Aldhafra. This is just not going to be feasible while the Iranians still possess a significant over-the-horizon targeting capability. It's just not going to be feasible. This is why it's it's so unfeasible that this is why most people don't seem to think that any of this will ever come to pass. This is why I used such serious language last week because conducting some sort of raid within Iran to gain a beachhead is such a risky move that most people seem seem to think that there is no way we would be that stupid. However, I would like to remind everyone that way back in the year oldie times of 2002, this was almost the plan for Iraq. At the time, several plans were actively being considered, one of which was called the running start plan, meaning that we could insert some airborne troops and some Marines into Iraq via a small beachhead, and then trickle in forces as needed. This plan did not come to fruition as the alternative, which was known as the the hybrid plan. That's the plan we ended up going with after it became quite obvious that amassing forces and advancing along a wide front all at once, that was the option that actually had the least amount of risk. Massing troops in a surge, right, the 2003 Iraq surge, means that the enemy can't concentrate fires on any one part of the advance, whereas trickling forces into the fight slowly allows the enemy to pick them off, so to speak, and make the fight a lot more difficult. Again, picking up a favorite book from the reading list of most generals, Gates of Fire, right? We know the the story of the 300 Spartans and the Peloponnesian War. We realize that the 300 Spartans, going back that far, did the same thing, right? That's what their their goal was was to funnel the Persian the Persian advance into what became known as the Gates of Fire, and thus allow the the Spartans to pick them off slowly as opposed to fighting 100,000 people all at once. Russia found this out as well in Ukraine where they tried to trickle in a lot of forces. Now granted, they actually had a hybrid plan of their own because once again, the Russians did amass 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine before spilling over the border. But still, in a lot of places, the Russians, it took them a couple of years to learn you don't piecemeal troops into combat. You send them in, you stage them just outside the combat zone and then surge them in all at once so that you could overwhelm the enemy position. And right now, it looks like the White House, uh the Pentagon, and the decision-makers, whatever, they are consuming media and they are making decisions based off of the media that is telling them that a running start would work. So, for anyone who thinks that we could not possibly be this inconsiderate of doctrine, this is the doctrine that we almost did back in Iraq and there's growing evidence that we might just do it in Iran. But again, time will tell. This is all conjecture at this moment. Right now, this is still mostly just an air war. So, the cost of calling this whole thing off and just going home right now, the cost of that is fairly minimal. However, as time goes on and we get more involved in this, it's going to be harder to extricate ourselves. Such as, if a pilot gets shot down and they're missing behind enemy lines, which is a crisis that CENTCOM is currently managing right now. One thing leads to another and the sunk cost fallacy keeps us pumping quarters into the slot machine hoping that eventually something is going to give and we'll hit the jackpot. So, for any of you who are interested in learning a little bit more about where all these ideas are coming from and where all this doctrine is. Like, if you don't want to just believe what I say, like when I'm telling you what the general consensus is, well, let's go right to the source, right? Always do the research for yourself. And one of the main publications you can do, which is free, you can find all of these free online. One of the ones I would check out is just the old standby, Joint Pub 3-0, 3 tac 0, Joint Operations. Specifically, take a look at page 30, which starts paragraph which says that quote, "Anti-access or A2 capabilities, usually long range prevent or inhibit an advancing force from entering an operational area or OA. And if a force is able to overcome an enemy's A2 capabilities, additional area denial capabilities can limit a force's freedom of action within an operational area. So this is where we get the term A2AD. You may see that people write about that quite a bit over the next few days and weeks. A2AD anti-access area denial, that's what that means. This is a doctrinal term that means all the stuff that's going to prevent you from moving around the way that you want to move around. And in this case, the Iranians have superior anti-access and area denial on sea, air, and land, it would seem, uh so to speak. So the Iranians have anti-access capabilities when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz. They have area denial when it comes to their own physical terrain, and they also have a combination of A2AD capabilities to um at least take the fight to our aircraft in some of their skies. So again, we do not have total uncontested airspace over Iran, and we might never if if you consider MANPADS uh as part of the equation. Air superiority? Sure, you could probably argue that we do have air superiority for sure, but uncontested airspace, which is what Pete Hegseth specifically said we were trying to get, uncontested airspace, uh that's going to be a hard goal. And the Joint Operations Publication will uh point out just hard how hard of an idea that's going to be, especially when it comes to conducting operations that are intended to achieve that result. Now, another publication I would look at is actually an article from Joint Forces Quarterly, the first quarter of 2017. And this is a white paper that is titled Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons. Now, let me read the quote from page 135 from this publication. This states that the range, lethality, and sophistication of these new capabilities constitute an unprecedented array of A2AD capabilities that threaten the US and the allied model of power projection and maneuver. Unless countered, these challenges will reduce the credibility of the United States security guarantees and the confidence of legitimate users that they will continue to enjoy unconstrained access to the global commons. These formidable capabilities can also cause the United States and allied forces to operate with higher levels of risk and at greater distances from areas of interest. Basically, this is a white paper or an article that was written that explains exactly what we're dealing with right now. Yes, we have neglected the rise of A2/AD through much of the rise of our adversary series around the world. They're speaking mostly in terms of China, but in this case it also applies to Iran, it would seem. But anyway, what this is trying to say is that yeah, we don't exactly have the ability to go wherever we want to go without any casualties anymore. And now we are reaping the benefits of this. Again, this letter this article was written back in 2017. How time flies, doesn't it? So now we are having to deal with these consequences and again, we don't want to say I told you so during a time like this, but hopefully this this points out that even about 10 years ago we were thinking about how hard of a fight this is going to be and we don't just go to war on a whim like we have done or seeming to have done with the Iranian stuff. So again, this is some more doctrine that's kind of fascinating in terms of what this means for the ability to maneuver around the battle space or around the world before battles even begin. So again, highly recommend these readings. And if this is a little bit too high level for you, a little bit too boring, I get it, no problem with that. I would recommend reading these other three publications as well. The bottom two here on the slide a lot more informative. The first one is Joint Pub 3-32, which is Joint Maritime Operations. Again, this is just like JP 3-0, which is the general operations manual. This is the same kind of thing but for maritime stuff. So if you want to read about littoral combat and how we fight wars in the littoral zone, meaning the coastal zone of of regions such as we might be fighting in Iran, this is your publication to check out. Pretty much any Marine Corps uh manual is also going to be helpful as well, but if you so choose, uh if I had to tell people to start somewhere, I would start with warfighting, the Marine Corps warfighting manual. This is the master manual for how the Marine Corps fights wars, and it's just full of one-liner quotes. So, if you want to sound really cool and informs your friends, you can read this book, and uh it's pretty short. It'll give you a lot of uh tactics and techniques to use. Same thing with the next one, MCDP 1-3, which is uh the tactics manual again for the Marine Corps. You can read a bunch of Army manuals as well, but I would very strongly recommend reading Marine Corps manuals if you are interested in the type of fight that we may be getting into within Iran, because again, a lot of this fight is going to be a littoral, at least for now. So, I know, a lot of homework this week if you're uh interested. Uh but for those of you who just wanted a a good place to start, this is this is what I would recommend. You can also um just if you're uh kind of a battle staff nerd, uh most of you would probably not get a whole lot of use out of it unless you are familiar with some of the ways of warfighting already. If you've already kind of got a good bead on some of these basic warfare publications for this kind of fight, uh it's probably not going to be that helpful to you, but if you are interested, you can always check out the Lightning Press, which is the clearinghouse for one specific type of publication, smartbooks. If you wanted to spend your entire paycheck and uh build out a library of every single book they have, that would be really cool. Uh but if you're not that much of a nerd, and you just want a little bit of a a leg up on uh the fight we may be getting into, I would recommend two books. The first one is the OPFOR smartbook 5, which is irregular and hybrid threat warfare. This is kind of how the fight may uh intend to go in the Middle East. Uh the other book that would be quite helpful as well is smartbook uh OPFOR smartbook 4, which is specifically for Iran. So, they actually have a smartbook. They have a manual on how the Iranians fight. I would recommend that one very strongly. And for those of you who are looking for more of a service level kind of how how the United States would fight a war, I would recommend two books specifically for the fight ahead if it if it comes to that. Uh two books might help you out quite a bit, which is one of which is the Magtaf Operations and Planning Smartbook, and the other one is the Marine Expeditionary Unit uh Smartbook as well. Once again, these are Smartbooks. These are distillations and compilations of doctrine that's already free and out there in the open space. It's just that the Smartbook approach by the Lightning Press is uh kind of the industry standard for staff officers who are trying to have a lot of this information quick to hand. They're helpful for getting a crash course on stuff you might not know. So, if you don't know anything about how the Magtaf works, well, get the Magtaf Operations and Planning Handbook and cruise through it, and you'll have a pretty good understanding of where we might be headed in this war in Iran and how this might affect the homeland over time. So, with all of that out of the way, uh that's pretty much all I have for today. I know, kind of a heavy week, but this is uh going to help us get set up for the fight ahead. And speaking of getting set up for the fight ahead and being prepared and, you know, being on top of things and being Johnny-on-the-Spot, I have a confession to make with the Ghost Net this week. I was unprepared. Or rather, I thought I was prepared, but I got complacent. So, let me share my complacency story with you guys. Uh I set up my radio this week to record and uh have the screenshots, you know, it capturing screenshots every now and then like I do every week, but this time I stepped away from my radio to take care of some errands, and by the time I got back, the Ghost Net was over. The net was over, and I had a whole screen full of error codes, and I still don't know what happened. I I have never had a problem with JSA call uh this entire time, but turns out this week, the week that I was looking forward to it, I got tied up with something else, and my computer just decided it was not going to work for me. So, I got to mega screwed by Microsoft these days, it would seem. I still don't know what the problem is. I think I'm just going to uninstall and reinstall JSA call and get it working, but the good news, even though I failed this week, I'm sorry for all of you who contributed, who wanted to see your screenshots on the screen. I'm sorry, terribly sorry. But, I do have good news. There now exists an Android version of JS8 Call. I've been testing this out for a couple of weeks now, and it works quite well. So, hopefully, hopefully, I will be able to start using JS8 Call on Android more often, so we don't have to break out a garbage Windows computer, or maybe some kind of home home brew Linux arrangement. Hopefully, we can just have a nice Android app on our phones, plug that into our radios, and uh live in the 21st century for once. That'd be nice. But, anyway, more to come on that later. I'm going to have to redo probably a lot of my tutorials that I've made on this. If the JS8 Call for Android option works, but if you want to give it a try and do a little bit of advanced reading, you can definitely check it out. It's on GitHub. I'll put the links, of course, below. So, that's all I have for today. Again, pretty heavy day, but it's okay. Some weeks are like that. Hopefully, we can get back to what's going on in the United States more next week, but I figured since we're kind of on the cusp of another generational change, this kind of thing would be a little bit more important, considering that it might impact a lot of us out there. So, thank you guys for sticking around with me. Hopefully, next week will be a little bit more calm. Hopefully, all of you out there can have a great Easter week. And I also hope that all of you rolling into the the Eastern Holy Week this week, which starts this week with Pascha next to Sunday. Hope all of you have a good week as well. So, that's all I have for today. Thank you guys for sticking around. Thanks for sticking with me through these hairbrained ideas and plans and all this complicated warfare stuff. And hopefully, I can get back to some of the more educational content pretty soon, but you guys know how it goes. It's incredibly busy, too busy, far too busy, but we'll get through it. We'll make it. We'll do the best we can, no matter what, and we'll see you next time. So, thank you guys all for watching, and I'll see you next week. And as always, fight in the shade.