Intel Update - Sep. 5 - Hybrid Warfare

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for August 30th through September 5th, 2026. The trend continues and the new cold war or whatever it is has become a lot more serious this week. Around the world, the multiple wars that are under wave continue to spawn second and third order effects. Within Europe, the Russia and Ukraine war has intensified this week with heavy drone strikes being reported on all sides. Around the continent, sabotage attacks have intensified in Germany and some might have spread to Poland as well after Polish authorities have stated that one fire at an industrial facility was possibly caused by a nation state level actor. Over in the Middle East, the war there has intensified once again and now strikes are daily. Not to the intensity that they were during the height of the war, but tit fortat strikes on merchant shipping as well as coastal targets in Iran have been a mainstay this week. Diving right into Europe this week. We have seen an intensification of fighting on both sides with Ukraine and Russia slugging it out with long-range attack drones. Along the front lines themselves in Eastern Ukraine, there has not been too much movement on the ground, but Russia has made some gains here and there over the past month or so. Right now though, the drone war is the most significant part of the conflict as hundreds of drones are launched each night deep into Russia and Ukraine. Continuing the trend that we have seen time and time again, Ukraine will come up with a new tactic or offensive plan or they'll launch some kind of major offensive and they will have a pretty good effect at first, but once Russia catches up, Ukraine simply cannot compete with the resources of a superpower and they get overmatched eventually. It doesn't make it fair. I'm sure NATO thinks it's probably not a super great thing, but it that's just what has happened over the past few years of the war. And this week, Ukraine has been paying the piper for all those Russian drone attacks on oil infrastructure over the past really the past month or so because Russia has been slamming them pretty hard back in return. These attacks on oil infrastructure on both sides, to be honest, have been complicated by efforts by the United States to secure some kind of truce or ceasefire. Right now, as I speak, Steve Wood and Jared Kushner are in Russia. They're in Moscow right now to secure some kind of a peace deal. It's not clear how serious this effort is because if we remember these two were the central figures to the Iran negotiations and those negotiations were in bad faith which we know now. Those were only intended to buy some time while the US continued to stage military resources for the war to kick off. So it's not really clear how these guys are going to be received in Russia. For sure the more hardline Russian war hawks much like Iran are probably going to be arguing, hey don't listen to the Americans. They're just here to buy time for another Ukrainian offensive. But who knows how it's going to go. Maybe we'll get some uh closure from this conflict here pretty soon. I don't actually know. We'll see. But regardless, in the short term, anytime diplomatic efforts are undertaken by one or both sides, honestly, the attacks are going to increase simply so that one or both sides has more leverage at the negotiating table. And Russia has most certainly been doing that all this week. Zooming out to the rest of the continent, this war has also resulted in a rise in hybrid warfare throughout Europe this week. Hybrid warfare is not exactly a new term, of course, but it's become an increasingly popular way to describe conflict that takes place within a whole of society. Normally, hybrid warfare takes place after a deadlock on the battlefield where the two main powers aren't able to achieve their goals as totally or as quickly as they would like. So, the conflict expands to other parts of society. Right now, the United States, for instance, has transitioned to a state of hybrid war in the Middle East. We're not just bombing Iran, but we're also engaging in economic warfare, for instance. Within Europe, however, the hybrid war this week has been more kinetic, and unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to determine if the attacks around Europe are directly linked to Russia or Ukraine or if the infrastructure attacks we have seen this week are linked to some other group. That itself is actually interestingly a characteristic of the hybrid war that has taken place around the world. Fifth generation warfare, so to speak. Just hybrid war is a part of fifth generation warfare. In addition to the frontline fighting in Ukraine, things are coincidentally blowing up randomly around the continent, such as the attacks this week in Germany and in Poland. In short, some of these attacks probably are the result of a nation state level actor, and some of the other incidents are probably more low-level malign actors seeking to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. Determining which ones are which is going to be nearly impossible, but the targeting efforts continue nonetheless. And in Germany earlier this week, three different electrical substations were confirmed to be targeted by malign actors who attempted to bring these facilities offline. These attacks took the form of homemade rockets being set up near the substation which would ignite. And when they launched, they would pull a copper wire over the top of the substation. And when the rocket hit the ground on the other side, the copper wire would also fall and make contact with random bits of exposed electrical connectors, which would cause a short and thus take the facility offline. While this is not exactly a new tactic, this is new to Germany. And this level of sophistication is interesting. It's not like you need to be a master bomb maker to do something like this. But this is more than what has been seen so far in Germany when it comes to the sort of eotterrorism incidents. For instance, creating your own rocket launchers to pull copper wire over an electrical substation. That's pretty substantial. I mean, you probably could figure out how to do it within a couple of weeks, but all of this happening at once when previously they were just taking wire cutters to things or throwing molotovs at something. That's a pretty big leap in sophistication if that's kind of what happened here. So, German authorities are investigating and yesterday, German police stated that they received a handwritten note from one person who claimed to be the culprit behind all of these attacks. The note alleges affiliation with the Vulcan Groupa, the infamous eotterrorist organization, and the author claims to have acted alone. Due to the letter being sent, the author of the letter was actually identified by investigators and two days ago his house was raided, which resulted in the discovery of explosives and other materials. So, the Germans have their man and it's all over, right? Well, not really. This morning, two more substations have been added to the list. The substations in Bervalda and in Grashstein. So, either the Germans did not actually capture the guy who they allege is the culprit, or there are more people involved in all of this. As it stands, it would be very important to investigate this initial suspect that they have. They have released the guy's name, a partial name as David V. So, whoever David V is, they're going to have to investigate quite thoroughly and to determine if the note was actually genuine. The Falcon Group or Volcano Group in English, the Volcano Group, has not actually conducted any attacks this elaborate before. Normally, they just set fire to switch boxes or they cut cables at the power plants themselves. So, stuff that doesn't really require a particularly high IQ or high skill level. So, like I said, if they're doing these rocket attacks now, then that's kind of a pretty big leap in in technology and capability. So, that doesn't really match with these eotterrorist groups that we've seen so far in Germany. And even what's more than that is these guys never act alone. The Vulcan group of teams, they never go out alone. They're usually two or three people at minimum. They do not do lonewolf attacks. That doesn't make any sense for this group to do stuff like that because they always want to, of course, claim credit for stuff. So, I don't know. Um, I will grant it could be just some random crazy guy out there who's got a lot of time on his hands so that he can set timers at five different electrical substations to go off all on the same day. Technically, that's possible, but I highly doubt it. And I think the Germans probably highly doubt it, too. This is probably a cell. The question is, are they doing this because of climate reasons or some kind of political activism? or are they doing this because they're being paid by a Russian guy in a trench coat or a Ukrainian guy in a trench code for that matter. But the answer to that question, we may never actually know. Either way, the results going to be the same. Power outages will probably continue as long as this uh group, whoever it is, is able to carry on attacks. Jumping over to the Middle East for this week, the war has of course intensified and now missiles are flying once again. Iran has conducted missile strikes every day this week, mostly targeting American bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE. We're still waiting on a halfway decent imagery to become available, but so far it looks like many of the strikes within Jordan specifically probably actually did hit their targets. On the other hand, most of the missiles and drones targeting the UAE were either intercepted successfully, so the populace never even got an alert or they were not actually targeting the UAE, but rather vessels that were trying to transit the straight. Within the straight of Hormuz itself, the situation is not great. After the American strikes targeted a few coastal sites last weekend, the shooting has remained pretty constant every day this week. Although the strikes from the American side have been fairly minimal, the US has not been responding to every single attack that has been launched by the Iranians. Instead, having to wait a few days before more munitions are brought up to the front line and they can be launched and and sorties can be carried out. Of note, one of the reasons as to why the Iranians are targeting so heavily right now, why they're so launching so many missiles seemingly out of nowhere, right? The reason for this is because the United States bombed a wedding in Sirk during the increase in targeting earlier this week. I don't know if it was intentional or not, as in I don't know if they intended the missile to land on this one particular house or if they actually meant to target the radio tower a short distance away. But regardless, this was a Civcas or civilian casualty incident. Now, for those of you who remember my anatomy of a drone strike video from a while back, you might surmise that the sentcom targeting guidance has probably changed. Or more likely, the collateral damage estimates or CDE calls are probably being done correctly, but the target engagement authorities are probably issuing waiverss for most of these strikes. That's why you're getting these civilian casualties. That's my personal theory based on my previous life working in the same exact targeting shop that would be handling these strikes right now. So the US in effect does not really care about civcas anymore or more accurately they probably have lowered the bar for the collateral damage that is expected from a strike. I know based on my own experience that most of the strikes that we have seen so far during the war would have had to have had CDE call overrides. that would have had to have had waivers or some kind of approval process to strike those locations because they're so close to, you know, civilian locations that the the collateral damage estimate would be so high that a local commander would not have the authority to actually approve that strike. Clearly, that has not been the case so far because we're dropping JD dams right in the middle of a city. So, I don't know what they're doing with the CDE calls now, but the end result is a lot of dead civilians and the Iranians being quite angry about that and the fact that we killed children in this latest strike. They started hitting back harder than they have in a while, such as via the targeting of US bases in the region and the strikes on at least two VLCC tanker vessels earlier this week. Probably more uh vessels were actually struck by Iran. It's hard to get a solid number of how many of these they've targeted versus how many they have actually successfully hit. Just because they targeted a vessel doesn't mean they actually hit it. And even so, just because they hit it doesn't mean that it affected it much. So, we're gonna have to wait and see what's uh what's on fire in the Gulf by Daybreak, I guess. And also, as I am recording this on my screen here, I've got more strikes coming in, more strikes being reported. So, this is a very spicy weekend in the Gulf all around. On the American side, not only has Iran been striking oil tankers, but the United States has also begun striking tankers as well. Overnight, the United States struck a total of three Iranian tankers, all three of which appear to have been struck very heavily. The video provided by Sentcom confirms that these were not just disabling strikes, but way more substantial strikes intended to sink these vessels. My guess, again, personal guess here is that the reason we hit these tankers so hard is because the Iranians probably tried to shoot at a couple of our destroyers in the Gulf of Oman overnight as well. There's been quite a bit of chatter overnight in the Iranian telegram channels that are uh talking about the Iranians trying to target an American destroyer or some kind of vessel. So my guess is that sentcom fired back and hit a hit hit a few of these tanker vessels to kind of prove a point I suppose. But it is kind of an interesting uh shift in targeting mentality because as a reminder the United States literally removed the sanctions on Iran exporting oil back in June and now we're bombing their tankers. So we tell them they can export oil and now we're bombing the tankers. they're trying to use to export oil. Now, technically, the 60-day halt to Iranian oil sanctions expired a couple of weeks ago, so I guess technically they're fair game now. Whatever. Uh but these targeting efforts taking place when even just a month ago, the US was lifting sanctions that had not been lifted in decades. This is really confusing and it's more evidence that the US is not really using a grand strategic plan during this war. The US is kind of taking it, you know, day by day and trying out a bunch of different tactics to see what works and what doesn't. But there doesn't really appear to be very much uh in the way of a strategic vision right now. Once again, the end result is merchant shipping has been targeted every single night this week, either from the Iranians or the Americans. So, the American targeting at least proves that the US blockade is still in effect, and the United States is willing to strike civilian vessels just like the Iranians, each doing so due to the other side breaching their respective blockades. In terms of the oil that's been getting out, well, that's been kind of hard to crunch lately, but the Ammani shuttle operations have continued on as usual. But the increase in missile strikes this week has put a damper on ship crossings. Once again, without getting into into the weeds of counting each individual ship, we have to reflect on just how insane this is and how desperate the situation is that we're actually looking at each individual hull that's carrying a load of oil and hoping to get just one more tanker out through the Gulf each day. We're literally counting the names of ships and whether or not they made it out with a cargo of oil. That's not really a sustainable way to run a war. At more of a strategic level, these targeting efforts have caused the price of crude to climb higher once again, which was also made worse this week by Asia starting to step up their orders of petroleum. China is beginning to buy more oil from other nations such as Russia. And also smaller nations throughout Asia are starting to buy more crude from basically anywhere they can find it. Argentina, Brazil, Canada, even anybody selling crude nowadays has a long list of very desperate customers. And speaking of desperate customers, the energy crisis has begun to hit even harder within the homeland this week. Gas prices have reached an all-time high in terms of the national average with prices spiking occasionally based on the news of a new round of strikes. The biggest factor that is already causing problems is the cost of diesel. Surprise, surprise, the world runs on diesel. And it turns out that a global diesel shortage makes everything that would be transported by truck or train much more expensive. So as infuriating as it is for us to stand at the pump and watch that number climb higher as we're filling up our own vehicles, when diesel prices get higher, everything else becomes more expensive, too. I guess we'll find out next week when the consumer price index data for this month comes out and shows us how significant that is. But in the meantime, the long slow march toward more expensive stuff continues on. Also this week within the US, the impacts of the war are being felt among senior leadership which has been demonstrated by another major resignation, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll. As a reminder for those keeping score at home, here is the full list of officials who have either resigned or been fired during the war. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll. Secretary of the Navy John Feland. Secretary of Homeland Security Christy Noam. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent. Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti. Army Chief of Staff Randy George. Air Force Chief of Staff David Alvin. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff James Life. Yukcom Commander Chris Donahghue. And Southcom Commander Alvin Holsey. All of these resignations have taken place since the war began. There have been many others including NSA director Timothy Hulk who was fired very publicly after Laura Loomer specifically demanded him to be fired during a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office back in April of last year. Similarly, the national security adviser Mike Waltz was also fired around the same time for his role in the Signalgate scandal. So, this has been a trend for a while, but during a war firings and resignations that take place in the war department when the fighting is still very kinetic, those are pretty important indications and warnings. Now, just as a brief caveat, some of these firings and resignations might not be directly related to the war. And this list is really just intended to show how much of the senior military command structure has had turnover. And there is the general consensus that some of these people absolutely should have been fired. So, it's not as simple as Trump and Hegsth just gutting the War Department for no reason, but nearly all of the high-profile resignations have been due to personality clashes. This much turnover of senior military commanders would be above normal for even an election cycle, but during a war, this is unheard of. So, we'll see how this works out, but there are already grumblings and more resignations incoming over the next few weeks. Apart from the wartime considerations here in the homeland, there are a couple of items to be aware of over the next few weeks. And these concerns are pretty horrific, but we have to be aware of them. So, here we go. In Massachusetts, the Lindsey Clansancy trial has been declared a mistrial. So, the societal impacts of this are going to be on the menu for a while as a new trial gets underway in the next few weeks. I have been avoiding waiting into the minefield on this, but I have to mention the absolute mass psychosis that is going on with this case because around the country, children are being harmed by their mothers in acts of solidarity with Clancy. Since the trial began, many Tik Tok trends have emerged showing mothers harming and abusing their children, and some of these have progressed to legitimate copycat murders. Yesterday, Corey Walsh was charged with murdering her 2-year-old son in the family home in Illinois. Investigators have stated that immediately before the murder took place, she had been in a group chat with other women, which was discussing the Clancy case in great detail with Walsh having become obsessed with the case. Of course, we'll get more information on this as time goes on uh and as the court records become unsealed, but as it stands right now, this looks like a pretty clear case of a copycat murder that was directly linked to the initial murder trial. Unfortunately, this is also the second murder that has taken place during the trial. One week after the Clancy trial began, Kaye Earheart of North Dakota murdered her children under similar circumstances. So, I don't really know what to say other than to be aware and do the best you can and watch out for the red flags that have become a litmus test since this case has been in the headlines. This is like the OJ Simpson trial in terms of not just the social commentary on it, but the real world safety concerns. And I'm personally uh really really scared that more kids are going to get hurt because of this over the next few weeks, especially now that a new trial will be undertaken and things are going to get pretty tough. So, moving on from that absolutely horrific thought and closing things out for the day with the Ghostnet reports for this week. I'm sorry to say that I had radio issues on my end. I have failed once again. I I was not able to get my radio issues fixed before the communications window. So, by the time I was able to hop on, I uh nobody was on it anymore, but I was able to make good progress in testing out a lot of other stuff. And my next video will be describing some of the things I've been testing with Open Manet. Again, I don't want to push Open Manet as the greatest thing ever because there is a fair bit of clickbay content out there on it, but for me, Open Manet has allowed me to break through a bit of a glass ceiling uh with some of the stuff that I need, and now I'm able to do more with a lot less. So, more to come on that later on. Otherwise, September is National Preparedness Month. For those who celebrate, it is once again that special festive time of year where we should take some time to make sure that we have our basic needs covered just in case disaster strikes. is a good time to check all of the expiration dates on your freeze-dried food and inevitably find out that somebody stole all of the chili mac. So, this is your reminder to take a quick peek at all of your preps, make sure everything's in order, and we'll be all good to go and ready for summertime to start coming to a close. So, that's all I have for today, everyone. Thank you for all of your support. I know I don't say that often enough, but I really do mean it. I could not do all of this without all of you. I'm eternally grateful for that. And thank you again to all of you for watching. And I will see you next time. And as always, fight in the shade.