Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Under Report, your weekly intelligence brief about the stories that move the world without making headlines.
The (not) War in Iran is everywhere. But here's the thing about icebergs: the part you see isn't the part that sinks the ship. I'm trying to keep my head on a swivel to identify the stories which will shape the headlines of the next decade.
Share The Under Report if you know someone who needs to see what's happening beneath the waterline.
-- Eric
P.S. Check out this lecture I just gave on How to Make a Country. Also, I will soon begin offering subscription tiers so I can continue bringing you the stories which move the world without making headlines.
Bottom Line Up Front
The Iran war has produced the largest oil supply disruption in history, and the damage will outlast the fighting.
Hezbollah joined a war it can't win, and Lebanon is paying the price as Israel invades.
Washington's new Latin American security bloc is missing the three countries that matter most.
Jihadists are blockading a national capital in West Africa while the world looks elsewhere.
China is testing its limits in the south pacific.
1 | The Oil Shock That Will Outlast the War
What happened? Oil blew past $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022. Brent hit $119 before settling around $104. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries 20% of global oil and LNG, has effectively shut down. Iran is threatening tankers. Maersk suspended crossings. Rapidan Energy Group called this the largest oil supply disruption in recorded history, more than double the 1956 Suez Crisis. Iraq cut output by 60%. Qatar declared force majeure on LNG exports. About 9 million barrels per day are now off the market. Meanwhile, American gas prices are up 16% in a single week.
Why does it matter? This isn't a risk premium that fades when headlines calm down. Disruption like this lasts. Damaged refineries need months to repair. Even if the war stops tomorrow, the Strait won't reopen for weeks and Gulf production won't normalize for months. Kpler analysts warned oil could hit $150 by month's end. The IMF estimates every sustained 10% rise in oil prices adds 0.4% to inflation and shaves 0.15% off global growth. We're well past 10%. We're also well past any going back.
What we're watching for:
Whether the G7 releases strategic petroleum reserves
Any credible U.S. plan to restore tanker traffic through the Strait
Gulf producers being forced to shut in production entirely, turning a price spike into a supply crisis
2 | Hezbollah Joined a War It Can't Win
What happened? Hezbollah fired missiles at Haifa on March 2 to avenge Khamenei's assassination. Israel responded by striking over 500 targets across Lebanon, launching a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, and issuing evacuation orders south of the Litani River. Over 700,000 people have been displaced. Israeli commandos raided as deep as the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon's government banned Hezbollah's military activity and ordered the expulsion of IRGC officers. It hasn't mattered on the ground because Israel has seized the opportunity to invade.
Why does it matter? Hezbollah is weaker than it's been in decades, its leadership gutted and arsenal depleted. That's exactly why Israel is escalating now. The goal appears to be a permanent buffer zone south of the Litani, not a punitive raid. ACLED warned this risks entrenching Israeli forces inside Lebanon and producing a protracted insurgency. For Lebanon, this is catastrophe on top of catastrophe.
What we're watching for:
Whether Israel pushes a full ground invasion to the Litani River
Whether Hezbollah's continued operations shatter what's left of the Lebanese government's authority
Any international actor able to broker restraint or media attention which could slow Tel Aviv
3 | The Shield Without a Sword
What happened? Trump hosted 17 nations at Doral for the Shield of the Americas summit, launching a Counter-Cartel Coalition with a signed proclamation. Milei, Bukele, Noboa attended. Kristi Noem was named special envoy. Trump threatened Cuba. Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia did not attend.
Why does it matter? You can't build a hemispheric anti-cartel strategy without Mexico, which the president himself called the "epicenter of cartel activity." The real play is countering Chinese influence, but as Brookings noted, you can't wish China away when Beijing is the region's largest source of capital. Without the three biggest Latin American economies, this is a photo op, not a strategy. However, it does follow an alarming trend of creating ala carte transnational organizations under the direct control of Donald Trump.
What we're watching for:
Whether this produces any operational intelligence-sharing or joint operations
How Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia respond to being sidelined
Whether Cuba becomes the next U.S. military target after Trump's explicit threats
4 | The Siege Nobody's Covering
What happened? Bamako, Mali's capital of 3 million people, has been under economic blockade by al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM since September 2025. Fuel highways from Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire have been cut. Tanker drivers have been killed. At the peak, fuel prices spiked over 400%. Power dropped to six hours a day. Schools closed. The military couldn't move. JNIM now controls vast territory across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and has expanded into Benin, Togo, and Nigeria. The UN Secretary-General warned the Security Council of "a disastrous domino effect" across West Africa.
Why does it matter? If JNIM consolidates power, it would be the first al-Qaeda affiliate to effectively take over a country. The Atlantic Council called it potentially "Africa's Afghanistan." Russia's Africa Corps has been ineffective. The junta expelled 20,000 international troops and is now diplomatically isolated. Four of the top six countries on the Global Terrorism Index are in West Africa. And the world's diplomatic bandwidth is consumed by Iran.
What we're watching for:
Whether the junta is forced to negotiate with JNIM
Signs of a coup attempt against the Goita regime
JNIM expansion into coastal West Africa, turning a Sahelian insurgency into a continental crisis
5 | China Tests the Water
What happened? In late February, the Philippine Navy reported 48 Chinese vessels around disputed reefs. Chinese coast guard ships water-cannoned and sideswiped Philippine vessels near Scarborough Shoal. Philippine officials flying to Thitu Island had their phones display "Welcome to CHINA." The Philippines, Japan, and the U.S. held joint drills in the Bashi Channel near Taiwan for the first time. China deployed cyber forces to Fiery Cross Reef. Then Manila arrested three defense personnel for passing resupply mission details to Chinese intelligence.
Why does it matter? The U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines covers armed attacks on Filipino forces in the South China Sea. One dead sailor during a resupply run and Washington faces a treaty obligation it can't walk away from. The espionage arrests mean China may know exactly when and where those missions happen. Meanwhile, the Iran war is consuming the precision munitions and diplomatic attention that the 2026 National Defense Strategy says should be focused on the Indo-Pacific. Beijing is watching the Strait of Hormuz and drawing conclusions about the Taiwan Strait.
What we're watching for:
Whether the spy arrests reveal a broader Chinese intelligence network inside Philippine security forces
Escalation at Second Thomas, Scarborough, or Sabina Shoal during resupply missions
How Beijing exploits U.S. military distraction in the Middle East
Eric's Tinfoil Hat
Iran is the iceberg above the waterline. Impossible to miss, mostly because this iceberg is on fire and they don't normally do that. This is a cataclysm that the world has to watch play out because getting too close risks more disaster.
Unfortunately global crisis is the rule and not the exception to it. There's only so much attention to go around and the world gets silly when no one is watching. Washington assembled a Latin American military coalition minus the region's three biggest players. Al-Qaeda's most successful affiliate continued strangling a West African capital. China deployed cyber forces to an artificial island and caught three Filipino spies. Israel launched a ground incursion into a sovereign nation under cover of a larger war.
None of this is random. Boxers time punches because efficiency wind fights. Militaries wait for distractions before filling in negative space. This is the real danger of the Iran War. The world order is rearranging so rapidly that a balance of power is becoming impossible to imagine. Reactive moves are almost always bad ones.
The real danger here is that the world's capacity to respond to anything else drops to zero. The Security Council can't focus on Mali. Washington can't enforce red lines in the Pacific. Europe can't build strategic autonomy while its gas prices jump 50%.
Everyone is moving towards a glacier on fire. It's going to cause a global shipwreck.
P.S. Check out my book You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries That Don't Exist and explore the world's unrecognized countries.
About Eric
Eric Czuleger is a journalist and travel writer who has lived and worked in over 47 countries. He holds a masters degree from the University of Oxford and he is completing a National Security degree from the RAND school of public policy. He's the author of You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries That Don’t Exist, and host of the “The_Under_Report” TikTok channel.