Wispr Flow lets you dictate prompts, acceptance criteria, and bug reproductions inside Cursor or Warp — with automatic file name and variable recognition. Say user_id, get user_id. Say useEffect, get useEffect.

Paste directly into GitHub, Jira, or Linear. Give coding agents the full context they need without typing a novel.

89% of messages sent with zero edits. Millions of developers use Flow daily, including teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Free on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

Start flowing free

Hey Everybody,

Welcome to the Under Report, your weekly intel brief about the stories which move the world without making headlines. I spoke with a colleague this week who previously worked with the CIA. She said a couple of powerful things that I am allowed to share.

Anyone scratching their head about US strategy hasn't shifted their mindset. Nothing we're doing makes sense for the strategy of the last 5 years. Correct. But that's because we're not doing THAT strategy any more.

Instead we're doing direct power projection, heavy handed economic engineering, and choosing enfranchised partners over traditional allies. When we look at the strategy that is actually playing out before us we start to see small moments as big moves.

Eric

P.S. Thanks so much to my paying subscribers, you make The Under Report videos, podcasts, and newsletters possible.

Starting Saturday, April 25, fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front launched the most coordinated offensive Mali has seen since the 2012 rebellion, hitting Bamako, Kati, Sévaré, Mopti, Gao, and Kidal in roughly 48 hours. This is an impressive offensive for any military, let alone two groups who have not traditionally worked together.

We should all be watching Mali right now.

According to Reuters and AFP via Al Jazeera, a vehicle-borne explosive struck the Kati residence of Defense Minister Sadio Camara, the second most powerful figure in the junta, killing him along with his second wife and two of his grandchildren. Camara had helped lead the 2020 coup, was sanctioned by the US in 2023 for Wagner Group ties, and had those sanctions quietly lifted in February 2026.

By Monday, April 27, Russia's Africa Corps withdrew after a negotiated arrangement allowed encircled Russian troops to be escorted out of the former MINUSMA base under rebel guard. The convoy left under the watch of the people Russia was paid to defeat.

On April 28, JNIM spokesman Bina Diarra released a video declaring "as of today, Bamako is closed off from all sides." Junta leader Assimi Goïta made his first public appearance the same day, vowing to "neutralize" the attackers. Russia's defense ministry insisted its forces had "thwarted a coup attempt." Al Jazeera reported the next day on civilians fleeing into Mauritania with stories of beheadings and 72-hour eviction notices.

Russia's pitch in the Sahel was that it would do what France and the UN couldn't. It would stabilize the region and unlock the region's valuable resources (while taking a hefty profit). It began doing so through the private military company Wagner Group.

Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, ran a foul of Putin and exploded in a “plane accident” in 2023. The operation rebranded as Africa Corps, came under direct Russian Ministry of Defence control, and continued working as a security subcontractor for the Malinese junta. Roughly 2,000 Russian fighters are in the country. This week, many escaped with their lives, but it appears that Russia's campaign for Mali is going about as well as Prigozhin's last trip in a private jet.

The point is not just that Russia lost a city. The point is that Russia's southern frontier is held together by men with no ability to hold it. The country whose flag should fly over Kidal is Mali. The country whose troops actually held it was Russia. Now it's held by an unstable force of Jihadists and tribal separatists.

We'll see this play out in the rest of the Sahel.

President Trump is scheduled to land in Beijing on May 14 for a two-day summit with Xi Jinping, the first US presidential visit to China in nearly a decade. All wars "prepare the battlefield” before entering the fight. Diplomacy is no different.

Here's what the race for leverage looks like:

On April 24, The US Treasury sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian), the largest Chinese refiner. Washington singled them out as a part of the Iran oil crackdown. On April 28 and 29, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent escalated, warning Chinese banks of secondary sanctions exposure if they continue facilitating Iranian oil purchases.

The Treasury also sent letters to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Oman. Bessent told reporters Iran's main export terminal on Kharg Island is "soon nearing storage capacity," which could force Tehran to cut production and lose roughly $170 million in daily revenue.

Remember, Iran is about China as much as it is about Tehran.

But, Beijing has cards to play too. On April 27, China's National Development and Reform Commission ordered Meta to unwind its $2 billion acquisition of Manus, an AI startup founded by Chinese engineers that had relocated to Singapore last year.

Regardless of the fact that employees had moved and the sale had been finalized The NDRC simply ordered both parties to undo it. According to TechCrunch, Beijing barred Manus founders Xiao Hong and Yichao Ji from leaving mainland China in March while the review was underway. Beijing is now drafting rules requiring Chinese AI companies to obtain government approval before accepting US investment, and that Moonshot AI and ByteDance have already received warnings.

Hengli's parent company is doing the same thing in reverse. According to Reuters, it has restructured its Singapore-based trading arm, dropping the sanctioned firm's stake from 100% to 5%, with the rest now held by a Chinese local government entity.

The summit-prep weeks always reveal what each side actually controls. The Hengli sanction is Washington saying its border now runs through the books of any bank that touches Iranian oil. The Manus block is Beijing saying its border runs through the passports of two engineers who tried to leave. Both sides are now treating talent, IP, and capital as state-relevant assets that travel with the founder, not the corporate address. A Singapore company can be Chinese sovereignty if its founders are sitting in Beijing. A Dalian refinery can be reached by US sovereignty if a single bank in Hong Kong clears its dollar payments.

China and the US are gathering cards to put on the table in two weeks time. Keep your eye on how they gain leverage.

Note from Eric: Like The Under Report? Share it!

The first 400 Chadian troops of the new UN-backed Gang Suppression Force arrived in Port-au-Prince on April 1, accompanied by Special Representative Jacques Christofides, a longtime South African UN peacebuilding official. The GSF replaces the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission, which underperformed for two years on personnel and funding. the GSF has now exceeded its 5,500-personnel target, with more than $200 million pledged across 13 UN Security Council member states and Qatar adding a $30 million pledge. Full deployment is expected between fall and end of year.

Underneath the official force, however, is something else.

Since March 2025, Erik Prince's Vectus Global has been operating in Haiti under a private contract with the government of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. The company runs drone strikes and helicopter operations, sometimes alongside Haitian security forces, sometimes independently.

According to the UN Security Council Monthly Forecast, at least 1,243 people have been killed in 141 drone operations between March 1, 2025 and January 21, 2026, including at least 60 civilians and 17 children. The company's contract with the government of Haiti has not been made public but we're seeing two theories of security play out here.

Haiti has not had a president since the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse. Gangs control roughly 70% of Port-au-Prince. The country needs a state. What it has instead is a stack of transnational organizations and private enterprise operating on its territory. The international community runs the GSF. The Haitian government separately runs a private American military company, with the founder of Blackwater pulling the trigger.

If this sounds strange, that's because it is. But it's a setup between public, private, and transnational which we will begin to see everywhere in the future. American sovereignty extends through Vectus Global's drone operators every time a strike kills someone in Cité Soleil. Chadian sovereignty extends through the 400 troops in the streets of Port-au-Prince. Haitian sovereignty doesn't extend much of anywhere.

Everyone has something to gain except the people of Haiti who have far too much to lose.