Intel Update - Oct. 17 - Course of Action

Hello again everyone, and welcome back to The Underground. This is the intel update for October 11th through the 17th, 2026. As the midterms approach, it would seem that we're in a state of calm before the storm, with a lot of tensions building all around the world, so let's get right to it. Around Europe, it's Groundhog Day once again, as the war in Ukraine continues on as before with no signs of stopping. Same story in the Middle East, as the resumption of the war is looming and likely to take place within the next few weeks. Here within the homeland, the midterm elections are coming up, and internal political strife within the United States is already building as most theorize the election as being a bloodbath for the Republicans, which is likely to have some impact on the war. So let's take a look at the strategic movement for this week to get a better idea of what might be in store for the Middle East. This week, the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group arrived in the Arabian Sea, joining the Washington and the Boxer in their patrol areas off the coast of Oman. As many have noted before, many of the American vessels, especially the larger vessels like carriers and cruisers, have pulled substantially far back from Iran. They've pulled out of the Gulf of Oman and are mostly in the Arabian Sea at this point, or off the coast of Pakistan to the east. There are quite a few small boys, a, a little bit more than a dozen destroyers in the Gulf of Oman and the, uh, northern Arabian Sea, but most vessels are holding far outside the Strait of Hormuz just to provide that barrier for, uh, missile defense, a little bit more of a buffer than what they had before. So, once again, this is a management decision when it comes to risk, so they've determined that these warships whose job is, is to go into harm's way, they've determined that it's, uh, too dangerous to let these carriers hang out, uh, close to Iran, considering Iran's missile range with some of their more advanced missiles. So, the Teddy Roosevelt and the Makin Island have crossed the Pacific and are going to be heading into the Arabian Sea soon as well. Right now, the Roosevelt has made a pit stop in Japan to participate in exercise Keen Sword, which starts in two days and runs until October 29th, so the end of the month. I don't know if the Teddy Roosevelt will be staying on for the whole exercise, for the whole drill, so we'll have to keep an eye on that. And when she ends up moving off station to the Arabian Sea, that will be something to be aware of as well. There's also still a debate about whether or not they will be replacing the Washington and the Boxer, or if they will supplement the forces in the region. We'll certainly find out, but right now we don't know for sure what the long-term plan is. It would make sense for this to be a routine handover and a routine deployment changeover, but we really won't know until it happens. So concerning aviation assets, most of the military cargo flights around the region have been decently normal. Although, once again, these benchmarks are quite skewed by the war itself, so what used to be very abnormal has become more common due to the conflict. So as you're, uh, poking around social media, just be aware you're gonna see people who are saying, "Oh, my gosh," you know, "this is World War III levels of traffic." And you're gonna see people who say, "Ah, no, this is normal." There's a wide variance in what people are saying is normal these days with regards to this war. I'm trying to be very hesitant about what I say is normal as well because, well, it's just, it's debatable. So what is quite clear is the US has been moving supplies into the region, which they're of course going to have to do routinely. And due to the shuffling that has taken place with regard to the bases, uh, being closed and, uh, personnel being moved around a lot, we don't really have a good baseline for what is normal at this point. However, one constant, one canary in the coal mine has been to take a look at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar because this air base has been a prime target for Iran during previous escalations. This air base is very visible, very public. You can't really hide anything there, and there are no bunkers for aircraft there, at least not the refueling tankers. And usually before the US launches a major attack, we can visibly see, uh, courtesy of the European Space Agency, all of the aircraft at this base will slowly start to trickle out of this base to evacuate to other locations, usually Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, as well as some places in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, because Iran has, uh, historically hit this base several times now. So as of two days ago, a lot of aircraft are still on the ground there. We're, and we're talking a lot, like this is a lot of tankers, so this is a decent indicator that nothing major is planned for a few days. Whether or not, again, this baseline of tankers means anything, I don't know. I wouldn't put too much on it, honestly. I don't necessarily know that we can glean a lot of information based on the number of tankers increasing over the past few weeks, um, but I can tell you that when the tankers start leaving this base, this entire airport will be completely empty. So last time, it took about a week for the drawdown at this base to occur, so hopefully we'll get a fresh satellite pass within a couple of days that will give us some more up-to-date information. It's usually not a good idea to, uh, put so much weight on one, uh, particular base or one particular doctrine point. The US might launch an attack with these, uh, aircraft still on the ground. It's hard to say. Based on the number of aircraft at this base, even if they all scramble at once, just the logistics of having them all having to use the runway for a few minutes a piece, well, that's gonna take a couple of hours to get them out of there. So my guess and the general consensus amongst the internet is that this base will probably empty out for several days before strikes begin. Another set of indicators that's vastly more difficult to monitor due to censorship relates to what the Israelis are doing. Obviously, Israel will be a major target if the war pops off again, and since they're the ones who started all of this, along with the United States, watching what they are doing is a valuable indicator. And so far, they're preparing for, surprise, surprise, more conflict. A few days ago, tourists and locals alike were posting photos of new portable bunkers that have been in place in Tel Aviv and other major cities, which are intended to supplement the extensive bomb shelter network throughout the nation. Also, there are reports from locals implying that more missile defense systems have been moved up north. Some are saying they're just regular Iron Dome systems. Others are saying they're more like the Arrow 2 and 3 systems. I don't know. I haven't been able to pinpoint them. For those who are unaware, uh, Israel is really the only nation on the planet where imagery, satellite imagery is extremely, extremely restricted. Generally speaking, it is extremely hard to get satellite imagery of Israel, a- at least anything current, and this is really the only nation where it's difficult to do so, at least when it comes to recent imagery. I can get decently high resolution imagery of the presidential nuclear survival bunker that's being constructed underneath the White House right now. But in Israel, I can't really get anything substantial, at least nothing recent. Most of the imagery that's on, like, Google Maps and Google Earth is years old. So yeah, I'll let you guys, uh, chew on that one for a bit. But locals are saying that they're moving missile defenses around. I doubt that we'll be able to find out exactly where they are, but nevertheless, that's what's going on. That's what they're kind of expecting. So this also might not be a clear cut indicator directly indicating an expansion of the war. Maybe they're expecting some shenanigans from either Syria or Lebanon or something during their election season. Historically, that has been, uh, definitely a threat, but honestly, Hamas and Gaza is not really a threat anymore, and Hezbollah in Lebanon is also not really a threat to mainland Israel. Uh, most of the combat operations that are going on in Lebanon are really contained to the Litani River area. There haven't been any rocket launches from what I can tell in a very long time. So I don't know what's going on, but there's a lot moving, and that's basically all we have for now. So backing out to the wave top level and looking at the overall strategic movement for this week, most of what we see does not really indicate a return to the war happening within the next few days. But we're still most certainly on track for a limited bombing campaign to be in the cards right around the time of the midterms. We'll get into the potential courses of action for what might happen in a moment. But at the wave top level, again, things are lining up for a return to the war with the rhetoric and the more strategic movement of assets both trending toward a return to the targeting. Here within the homeland this week, there have been a few items of note that are rather random. So let's run through some of the more significant events that have taken place this week because we just have to mention some of these things. One of the worst things that has happened this week in the United States is the mass shooting in Oregon. On Thursday, a mass shooting was reported in Bend as one assailant conducted a small arms attack at the Silver Rail Elementary School. The attack began after one shooter jumped over the perimeter fence with a shotgun and attempted to breach the front door of the school. He was prevented from entering by staff who saw a man with a shotgun approaching, and at least one staff member engaged in a hand-to-hand scuffle with the suspect. At some point during the fray, the suspect was able to break contact and keep control of the shotgun. This scuffle at the front door prompted the shooter to maneuver around the school to a back entrance where he used the shotgun to breach a door and gain entrance to the school. Once inside, the suspect shot and killed three children and one teacher. Within seconds, a prepared and armed parent who had actually stopped by the school, uh, was driving by the school on his lunch break, saw him gain entry to the school, uh, drew his firearm, and followed the shooter inside. The good Samaritan ended up shooting and killing the suspect within a few seconds of the first shots being fired. The suspect has been identified as Griffin J. John, a sixteen-year-old who appears to have been a special needs student with a long history of behavioral issues. We don't really have a whole lot of information on the suspect. The suspect's mother has, uh, spoken a little bit to the media, but nothing conclusive so far. Once again, the investigation will have to determine whether or not this individual was radicalized online, was more of a questionable status, uh, shooter, if you know what I mean, or if this was something else. Don't wanna speculate right now. I expect to have more information by next week. Concerning the victims, as of this morning, one of the fatalities has been identified by name as Rome Summer, a student at the school. The teacher who was killed during the attack has also been identified as Megan Lambert. The other two children killed have not yet been publicly named as this is a very tough situation, so... Additionally, the good Samaritan who neutralizes the shooter has been identified as Caleb Giammanco. And based on local reports, he and his family are, uh, they're having a tough time due to the traumatic nature of the incident. So all involved, uh, certainly could use all of the prayers we can muster. Also, for those so inclined, I will put a link in the description to the GoFundMe hub for the fundraiser campaigns that have been created for the victims and their families. GoFundMe staff have created a more centralized website for the handful of campaigns that they have verified themselves as being legitimate and genuine, and they're going to be adding more campaigns as the families of victims come forward. Understandably, everyone involved wants as much privacy as possible, so we will certainly honor those requests as much as we can. But if you are interested in helping out those affected by this shooting, go check the GoFundMe page for any more campaigns that will be popping up throughout the next week or so. I will also include the GoFundMe page specifically for the good Samaritan, Caleb, because this one's not on the official hub just yet. And remembering the good Samaritan in this case, this p- this case specifically, is absolutely crucial because there is a chance that he might need it for other things. I don't wanna make this a political thing. This, this case is already horrible in, in many different ways on its own, and we don't wanna make it worse, especially when tensions are pretty high and everybody's, you know, not doing super well with this. But we still have to think about these things. And the elementary school itself was a gun-free zone, and this is Oregon, uh, where gun control is kind of a big thing. So I think there is a chance, I don't know how big of a chance, but there is a chance that the state authorities might bring criminal or civil charges against the hero who stopped the shooting. So far, there has been no indication of that whatsoever. All of the authorities have said that this guy's a hero and he did the right thing, which is a good thing. We wanna see more of that. That's good. But we also have to remember we are coming up on an election season, and I don't think anybody would wanna do anything about it right now. But six months down the line, when this is no longer in the headlines and everybody's forgotten about this horrific case, they may wanna try something, uh, in terms of some law fare or something. This case is most certainly very, very important because it definitely highlights the importance and the impact that one person can make who's trying to do a good thing. And I'm just saying that a lot of government, uh, agencies are not really interested in letting that get out, uh, how effective a person can be. So once again, it may not be that likely, but as much as we want to remember the victims and pray for them, we also wanna pray for the hero in this case, both the individual who shot and killed the suspect, but also the other staff members there who are having to work through what is a very, very tough time. So we will certainly keep an eye out and, uh, close ranks around anybody who needs help just in case somebody wants to start something months down the line. I certainly have a very long memory, and I will most certainly keep an eye on this case. Switching gears to Washington, DC, there have been a few items of note that took place this week in terms of personnel shakeups. The White House press secretary resigned and/or was fired yesterday after her firstPress briefing. Katie Zacharia was on the job a grand total of five days and has been relieved of duty for a cascading series of issues pertaining to her rocky start with the press, scheduling issues which irritated the president allegedly, her claiming or implying that she was an attorney when she did not pass the bar exam, and finally, her ties to China, which are ambiguous enough to be questionable. Either way, the president offered her a gracious way out before things got too much worse, and the hunt for a new press secretary begins once again. Ordinarily, this would not be worthy of mention. It's just kind of an internal dispute kind of thing, but we're, again, on the precipice of war, and the White House press secretary is, for better or for worse, one of the main ways that we have to communicate with the White House, or at least they communicate to us, so. And continuing that chaos, before this, uh, kerfuffle with the press secretary, the US Ambassador to Greece has been recalled and fired due to a growing series of corruption scandals. Right up front, a lot of this is purely allegations, which are hard to verify independently, so we have to take everything with a grain of salt. But Kimberly Guilfoyle has been implicated in allegations of corruption pertaining to her exploitation of high-rolling Trump donors who she allegedly was grifting for access to the Trump family. On the other side of things, there are also claims that she was not really any more corrupt than anyone else, but she's, uh, kinda the, the scapegoat for other things that might be coming down the pipeline. Once again, a lot of this is just conjecture. We just don't really know. Of course, just to balance things out, leading up to the midterms, the daggers certainly do come out, and we always have to consider the potential for a gotcha story to be just that, an attempt to muddy the water before election day. However, from a more wave top viewpoint, the corruption in Washington, DC is pretty staggering, to the point that it's really hard to believe that they would be that open about it. But nothing is really surprising at this point, and the personnel shakeups in the lead-up to the election are an indicator of the instability, something that we ordinarily wouldn't care about. A new press secretary coming in, a, a new ambassador to Greece. Who cares? Well, these days, this instability is more of an indicator of how these planning operations are going on inside the administration. So switching gears to South America, uh, before we wrap things up with the Middle East, we also have to remember that even though we're mostly focused on the war in Europe and the two wars in the Middle East, there is also a hot shooting war going on down in South America. I haven't mentioned this in a while, so I wanted to bring this to ev- everyone's attention once again because this is starting to become more of a concern. Over the past few months, operations have quietly been expanding within Ecuador as the United States has begun to establish a long-term presence at Manta Air Base in the central part of the country. Somewhat interestingly, Ecuador voted to reduce the American presence in their country a couple of years ago. They voted overwhelmingly to not let the Americans in, but despite this, the US has rolled in hard to Ecuador anyway and is conducting a lot of joint operations with various partners in the region. Photos released by the Pentagon over the past couple of weeks have indicated that they're building an airstrip or expanding the airstrip down there, which is a pretty significant action if you're just, uh, doing a little bit of training here and there, right? Exactly what they are doing is not clear, and a lot of what goes on down there is more or less unilateral special forces operations, which probably aren't exactly sanctioned by the governments they're, uh, being conducted in. But suffice it to say, things are happening down south, and they're continuing to expand. Two days ago, the Pentagon authorized another surge of forces, sending about 600 troops from Fort Drum in New York all the way down to Miami, where new command structures are being set up for the continuation of counter-narco operations throughout the region. Of course, just due to geography, we also have to consider that this might not be for Ecuador or Colombia or Panama or wherever. This might be for Cuba, just due to everything being in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. It's all the same command structures, so what they're saying might be for Ecuador and a counter-narco mission might also be for Cuba, so we, we just don't really know right now. I'm not saying the troops are staging for an invasion of Cuba. That's certainly not happening at the moment, but they are moving a lot of personnel down there, and there's a lot of bases in Florida that are, uh, starting to see a lot of new command structures being stood up. I'm not really sure what to make of all of this, uh, so just right now, take this as, like, an early indication and warning of more persistent operations being conducted in South America for a long time into the future. If the US is building an air base down there or expanding an existing air base, this is not the sort of thing that's really done just for temporary operations. So the various conglomeration of counter-narco missions within SOUTHCOM appear to not just be on the menu for a while, but they are also expanding. Just something to keep an eye on, uh, so that we're all not surprised when we, uh, see some rather serious operations being conducted down in South America. Now, moving to the Middle East. The war has slowly increased within the Strait of Hormuz to be even more substantial than during the height of the war when the US was bombing targets in Iran. Due to manipulation, gaslighting, and outright lies within the information space, it seems like the situation is basically the status quo, but that is certainly not the case. Very incredulous claims are being made by officials and allegedly private companies alike, and the official narrative is that oil levels are back to normal, and everything is fine. I know. We've talked about this for three weeks now, but as we can probably guess, this is a blatant lie. Things are not fine, and Iran is decimating the commercial shipping transiting through the Persian Gulf right now. There are at least several strikes per day, and for the past few days, there have been several strikes on oil tankers which have disabled those tankers. At the same time that CENTCOM director Admiral Brad Cooper was stating that oil flows are back to normal, ship watchers discovered two very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, adrift in the Strait, or technically the Gulf of Oman, both of which were leaking oil. As of this morning, Iran has hit at least one, maybe two more oil tankers just in the past few hours of me typing up my notes for today. So, and IRGC forces have been constantly posting videos to their social media accounts. Obviously, these most recent strikes will still need to be verified and cross-checked with other sources, hopefully with satellite imagery. Maybe not, maybe with locals. I don't know. We'll have to, again, do our due diligence to find out if this is true or not. But if it is true, this would be yet two more tankers that have just been hit within the past couple of days. Adding more evidence to the, uh, information manipulation theory, uh, yesterday the UK MTO released their weekly roll-up report, and if we flip through to slide-Three, crammed way down here in the corner is the admission that so many ships are getting struck that the UKMTO is, quote, "Struggling to accurately report true numbers of attacks with the majority of vessels attacked refusing to report to UKMTO." Think about that for a second. Over the past week, there have been over a dozen confirmed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. This is what the UKMTO has confirmed themselves, and now they are saying that even they aren't reporting the majority of them. Now, this may be a bit of a stretch, but when I hear that word majority, to me, that means more than 50%. And if the UKMTO is saying that the majority are unreported, to me, that sounds like the number of strikes on ships might be double what they are saying themselves. This is certainly an unknown, but when the official master source for strikes on shipping says that they aren't reporting the majority of strikes, it really brings into question the claims that have been made over the past few weeks. Suspicions have been growing for some time regarding the validity of the raw data that is being claimed. I'll come right out and say it, I think a lot of the claims that have been made about oil through the strait are BS. I think that not only is the US government lying about the strait being open, but I think that a lot of private companies and personalities are either openly lying or being very misleading as well. It's not really surprising, and I don't really fault the US Navy for not exactly telling the full truth on things. I'm not expecting Brad Cooper to get up there and say the US is, uh, losing the war in the strait. I'm not expecting that at all. But at the same time, a lot of the claims they're making are very easily disprovable. I would be very, very, very interested for someone somewhere to ask, in a press pool, ask Brad Cooper this question. If the US Navy controls the Strait of Hormuz, then why has a carrier strike group not transited into the Persian Gulf since the war began? The US Navy's mission is power projection and sea control, and one of the main ways that the United States Navy has projected power on the high seas is with the carrier strike group formation. So why has a carrier not gone into the Persian Gulf since the war began if we do indeed control the Strait of Hormuz? The answer to that question will confirm that at very bare minimum, the Strait of Hormuz and the entire Persian Gulf and the entire Gulf of Oman is contested battle space. It's okay for that battle space to be contested in a war. That's how wars function, right? That's how they work. But the United States and a lot of other third-party influencers or personalities or whatever are claiming that the Iranians have absolutely zero control over everything, when I myself can look up free imagery every single day and see leaking oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Even the UKMTO itself says that they are having a hard time tracking the literal explosions in the strait, and they are literally the hotline that ship captains call on satellite phone to report a strike, and sometimes they even coordinate rescues as well. And just as a reminder, the UKMTO is a joint venture. It's a, it's a British, uh, sort of entity. On the British side of things, their, uh, coordination is a little bit, uh, well, clandestine, I'll say. But on the American side, they get information and they get data from US NAVCENT. So US NAVCENT is the source. They are the source for a lot of what the UKMTO puts out. Same thing with the International Maritime Organization, uh, which is another group, uh, in the UK. But the UKMTO is kind of the, the main, the main organization for tracking this stuff. They are the official government agency that does this, and even they are saying, "Look, there are so many strikes going on and not a lot of people are reporting these, and we just can't keep track of them, and we're only plotting less than half of what we're seeing." So again, things are not going super well in the Strait of Hormuz, and something's gotta give, uh, sooner or later. The truth will come out one way or another, and I'm concerned that the war might continue on as before. The Iranians are certainly getting ready for a resumption of the fighting, as everyone can see from the satellite imagery over the past few weeks. So they are definitely continuing to fortify their sites and do what they can to prepare for a wide array of American options. The Iranians are certainly not taking any chances. They are conducting repairs, fortifications, all kinds of stuff. Remember, they've had many months now to repair things, and even a lot of the bridges that the US has struck, uh, over the past few months, or at least during the height of the war when we were striking bridges, uh, those bridges have been repaired. A lot of them have at least. That's something to consider. The grand question that remains with all of this information is what's going to happen if the United States kicks something off in the next few weeks or so? In that case, there are four main courses of action that I think might be possible, and I will go down the list from most likely to least likely. So starting off with COA one, course of action one, what I call the firework show. There's been a lot of talk lately from the White House and a lot of think tanks about the US might wanna be dropping a MOAB, the GBU-43 Bravo Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, colloquially known as the Mother Of All Bombs. This has been circulating amongst the, uh, podcasters and the pundits alike over the past few days, so I'll address that course of action now. For those that don't know from a targeting perspective, the MOAB is an airburst munition, uh, just like the name implies. And what does that mean? It means that its primary means of killing things is via the pressure wave that is caused by the detonation of the bomb. Once again, the purpose of these types of munitions is not to attack hardened targets. While it creates a very large firework, a very large flash, a very large explosion, it doesn't actually create a whole lot of damage on the ground to hardened targets such as Pickaxe Mountain, Natanz, a lot of the other, uh, facilities as well. Just as a brief side note, the MOAB has been used exactly one time in combat. And fun fact, I have myself, with my own two eyes, witnessed the site where that MOAB was dropped down in Afghanistan. Uh, I was not there at the time. I was actually there a year later. And I flew down there one time, uh, to take a look at it, just because it was kind of a, kind of a cool thing to go look at at the time. And we got down there, and I'm looking out the window of this Black Hawk, and we're flying around this, this, the mouth of this valley here, and you can't really tell, uh, that the bomb was dropped there because we thought, "Man, this is supposed to be like a little miniature nuclear weapon, right? You know, it's supposed to be like a huge bomb." Well, you know, it, it, it decently collapsed a few of the buildings in the little village there. But from my memory, the village was still standing, for the most part at least. So you couldn't re-Really tell. There was a little bit of a chalk mark on the, on, like, the side of that mountain where they dropped it, but for the most part, it wasn't that impressive. And certainly, probably the most entertaining part about that is that the use of the MOAB down in Nangarhar did not actually result in the war being won, now, did it? It didn't actually materially change anything on the ground. So again, side note with COA 1, the MOAB is not gonna do anything at all, but that's, that's COA 1, right? A big fireworks show, bombing Pickaxe Mountain with a MOAB, big flash. Let's get it all on live stream, right? Get a, get a, get a big media campaign around it, and that'd be kind of, uh, course of action number one. Well, just to continue out the, the possibilities for COA 1, again, once... If the US were to, you know, drop a MOAB, a big fireworks show or something like that at Pickaxe Mountain, Iran could retaliate by striking Al-Udeid in a controlled manner, similar to how they did it before. They told us in advance. We evacuated that part of the base. They blew up one of our buildings. Everybody saves face. Everybody goes home, and within a few days, Iran quietly opens the Strait of Hormuz after we negotiate with them behind closed doors. Again, this is course of action one. This is the most boilerplate, m- maybe the most hopeful situation, right? Moving on down the line, COA 2, the, the next most likely situation that could happen in the next few weeks is a 72-hour bombing campaign. There has once again been, uh, more conjecture and more, uh, talk about a 72-hour bombing campaign. There's been a lot of leaks out of the Pentagon regarding a potential bombing campaign of three days to strike various targets within Iran, and then, once again, the general idea being the US strikes things for a few days in Iran. Iran retaliates, uh, with strikes throughout the region, and then the US has an excuse to either do one of two things. Either, depending on Iran's response, they could either back away and kind of declare victory and leave, or they could have an excuse to launch a more substantial, uh, targeting campaign and get back into the war once again. So there you go, COA 2, 72-hour bombing campaign that starts with the US bombing something like Pickaxe Mountain, and then it spirals from there either into a face-saving move or into more of a protracted campaign. COA 3 is, again, more unfortunate. We're getting the, into the more unfortunate land here with COA 3, course of action three. Th- this potential is the return to the war, as in the United States launches yet another campaign, uh, obviously not as strong as the, the, the bombing campaign that we used to start the war. But this will be targeting Iranian critical infrastructure, hydroelectric projects, electrical generation facilities, uh, their nuclear reactor down in Bushehr, a lot of hard stuff. And again, following this course of action, uh, Iran retaliates with overwhelming strikes throughout the region, to include, of course, within Israel. And then, of course, this spirals into, once again, the war expanding throughout the rest of the region, to include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, all the Gulf partners, all the Gulf States. That's course of action three. Now, the final course of action, this is the most unfortunate one. Uh, this is the total war option. This is the, the, the most fantastical but still somewhat possible option I could think of, which is the least likely option of the four, to be sure, but it's still possible. This course of action would involve the US launching a larger campaign, once again, not as strong as when the US started the war. We just don't have the assets in theater. We don't have e- even have the air bases in theater to conduct the same level of bombing as before. But we hit, we hit them hard, and they hit back hard to include some very specific targets. Now, this is the worst-case scenario, so I'll mention the three big targets they, that the Iranians could hit if they really pulled the gloves off. Iran could hit three different targets, and those three targets are desalination plants. So they could take, uh, the drinking water supply for the entire Middle East, or most of the Middle East, completely offline because nearly all Gulf States get their drinking water from desalination plants, which are directly on the, uh, Persian Gulf. That would be a very easy target for Iran to hit, and they're very similar to oil refineries. Once you hit them with a very small munition, you could disrupt the whole system and take the whole system offline. You don't need to, you know, completely crater the whole thing to take it offline, and once it's offline, well, it's the desert, right? So this would not be good. Iran has previously threatened to strike desal plants if the US hits their water treatment facilities, so again, it's not off the table. It's a possibility. The next biggest, uh, target that the Iranians could hit that would cause a very bad situation is if they were to use one of their hypersonic missiles to hit the Dimona nuclear power plant in Israel. We already know that they can hit near that power plant. They struck the, uh, apartment buildings for where the engineers live, uh, during the height of the war a few months ago. And very clearly, despite all of the, uh, American tax dollars that go to the Israeli defense system, Iran does have some munitions that we can't stop, at least not reliably. And if we're talking saturation missile launches here, this could get ugly real quick. And if they hit the Dimona nuclear power plant with a hypersonic missile, or at least one of the missiles that we've already seen them use, if they were to do that, this could get really ugly. And finally, uh, something that has come up in the past few days, uh, so I'll turn the data layer on here in ATAC for you guys to see what I'm talking about here. But the Iranians have threatened to cut submarine cables in the Persian Gulf. Submarine cables, of course, are the underwater communications cables that carry the internet around the world. If you don't know this already, this is, uh, certainly some homework for later, but the majority of data around the world is actually not transmitted over radio signal but over communications cables that are strung along the sea floor. And it turns out that that's a huge vulnerability. Russia, in particular, has, uh, a huge portion of their, uh, naval assets dedicated to tapping, bombing, tampering with, surveying undersea cables throughout Europe, so that's a very big and very secretive mission for them. But the Iranians have, over the past couple of days, threatened to cut, uh, at least one or two of the cables that go through their territorial waters. Believe it or not, there is an internet cable that provides internet to the majority of the Middle East, and it goes right through Iranian territorial waters. So that was a really great idea, uh, but the grand question remains of whether or not the Iranians can actually do that. But in this particular case, I don't really have a good grid coordinate for where this exact cable is running. I just have the general grids that are provided on the, uh, open spaces. Obviously, the exact coordinates of these, uh, submarine cables are not really public for obvious reasons. I can't tell you how deep they are, so this might just be-Be a, a complete pipe dream on the Iranians part. Again, they talk a lot of talk, but th- they also walk a lot of walk, it seems, at least when it comes to their ability to target very specific buildings that they are not supposed to know about. So in any case, I have to put it on the map as kind of the worst case scenario for COA 4, and, you know, that would be the, the worst case option because if they do all of the above, if Iran hits all the desal plants on the Persian Gulf, if they hit Dimona with a hypersonic weapon, if they cut the submarine cables in the Gulf, if they were to do all three of these things, it would not take much to imagine the United States, uh, conducting some sort of strategic strike on Pickaxe Mountain, or at Natanz in general, and game over, right? So once again, this last one here, COA 4, this is the worst case scenario that I think is somewhat possible. I do not think it's likely. Uh, I, I dare not put a percentage chance on it, but I can definitely say it's more than zero. No matter what happens, in all of these scenarios, COA one, two, three, or four, in every single scenario, shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is going to be greatly restricted or slowed down to nothing. Likewise, with all four scenarios, American bases will also be struck in all situations. And despite the drawdown of forces from some bases around the region, there still are American service members within range, which Iran will certainly try to target just like they were, uh, earlier during the war. Now, taking a step back here from all of these courses of action, many of you might be familiar with the concept of the MLCOA and the MDCOA, the most likely course of action and the most deadly or most dangerous course of action. In other words, this is a very simple way to tell a decision-maker what you think is the most likely thing that could happen, and the absolute worst case scenario that is feasible for any given scenario. So what do you think is gonna happen? And if everything goes bad, what's the worst that could happen? When I'm trying to think up these courses of action here, and really trying to analyze what the future might bring, this does highlight a theory that I've had for a while, and I do not know if this is backed up by any doctrine, but I've always been very, very concerned with situations in which the most likely course of action and the most deadly course of action converge. So when you get to a point where the most likely thing that's going to happen is the also the worst possible case scenario, and they're both the same event, well, that's a pretty bad situation to be in. Uh, in this case, that's certainly not happening just yet, but we're moving in that direction. So the worst case scenario is for the US to drop a nuke somewhere in Iran. Iran launches all their missiles at Tel Aviv, and Israel gets all their Jericho missiles out of the tubes, and the missiles pass each other in the air, and we're done. That's the absolute worst case scenario, and right now it's definitely not the most likely scenario. The problem is this. Let's go back to COA 1 here, course of action number one, the firework show, right? In a matter of hours, we can walk from a firework show to a more protracted campaign, to a full-blown war, to more serious options. And all of this, we can move from COA one to two to three to four all in a single day if everything lines up just right. That's always been the risk, the runaway scenario that we just cannot control, just like the early days of this current war. The difference now is that the US is running out of interceptors, and there are fewer bases to hit because the US has drawn down forces to centralize forces at certain locations. Iran now has fewer targets to hit than they did in the, in the beginning of this. And since the US Navy is now holding stations significantly farther away from the Gulf of Oman, the flight time is going to be substantially longer, and the US cannot fight a war, uh, this far out very effectively. So what's going to happen is anyone's guess. Uh, but I've given you four different theories as to what might happen, ranging from the most likely to, uh, pretty bad options. But these are the planning factors that I am considering myself through the midterm season for the next 30 days or so. Like I've mentioned before, the flashpoints to be aware of are the Israeli elections on Tuesday, October 27th, and of course, the US midterm election, uh, date of November 3rd. Uh, that's another potential flashpoint which is going to present an increased potential for targeting to resume once again. Ordinarily, we would not necessarily weight these two dates, uh, very heavily, but considering the grand strategy here, we've got Prime Minister Netanyahu fighting to keep control of Israel, the nation that kinda got us into this, uh, war to begin with, at least per Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. And of course, the United States is, uh, really weighing a lot of, uh, potential domestic political change, specifically due to this war as well. And the White House themselves have really strongly indicated that the way that the midterms go might be an indication of how the war goes. So none of this is happening in isolation. Everything is related to, to itself, and I think that right now because this is or has become more of a political war than more of a hot shooting war th- for the past few weeks, at least when it comes to the exchange of fire between military forces. Iran has been striking ships, of course, but the US has not bombed hardly anything. I think the US struck one ship in the past couple of weeks. Nothing's been bombed in Iran, and it looks like the reason that that has not happened is because of the midterms. So we'll have to keep an eye on that and see how things develop and change over time. Really hard to predict the future in this sort of environment. Things are changing by the hour. I'm sure that by the time I get this recorded, edited, and out, uh, for today, things are gonna change once again, but we're doing the best we can to stay on top of things and stay as prepared as we can be. So on that note, let's wrap things up with the Ghost Net reports for this week. Uh, for those of you who are not familiar with this little side project of mine, the Ghost Net is primarily an HF radio plan to allow users to exchange information over the airwaves, and over pretty long distances too. It's partly a grid down emergency radio network sorta thing, but it's also an effort to encourage more people to have a more reliable use of their radio on a more day-to-day basis. It's all data based. It's all, like, short text based, so you don't have to hop on the radio and talk to anybody, but you can exchange messages with people all around the world if you want. Over the next few weeks, uh, just from an admin perspective, I will certainly be keeping my own radio up and running just because we're in, once again, that big window of tension for the next few weeks or so. Remember, the Iranians hit data centers specifically during the height of the war, and now that they are threatening to take out submarine cables as well, it's not a terrible idea to have alternative communications available to switch over to seamlessly just in case. Probably will never need it. I hope that it never is needed, but things like HF radio are a good backup to know what is going on over the horizon before threats show up closer to home. In the same vein, I also publish all of my wire reports to the Nomad Net. I have a Nomad Net page up and running, and the address to that page is on the bottom of every single wire report that I publish. I know, I've been desperately trying to get caught up in explaining Reticulum and the Nomad Net, so please forgive me for being a little bit late in explaining what a lot of these technologies are. But this is sort of like a primitive form of the Internet, which allows a seamless transition to using off-grid means of communicating. In short, I can create a simple text-based website and host it over the radio. There's a little bit more to it, but that's the general gist. So in addition to being able to communicate, send files back and forth, and even host group chats over the radio without the Internet, we can have a complete archive of information at our fingertips, all accessible without the Internet. I'm still working on the radio side of things, but eventually, anyone within North America will be able to receive my entire report history, everything I've ever written, and all of my data over the radio, as long as my laptop doesn't get struck by a drone, which is a pretty handy capability to have, I think. We can't duplicate or replace the Internet via the radio and via more off-grid means. It just can't happen in the way that, you know, we want it to, but we can replace a lot of that. And I think having the ability to publish, you know, short daily reports in text-based format only if need be, like during a disaster or something, I think that's pretty handy to have. So that's all I have for today, and as always, all of my research can be found on my Obsidian page sorted by each day. So if you want more resources, more things to click and read and learn and all that kind of stuff, you can check out every single wire report has its own