The Under Report by Eric Czuleger

Aarathi Krishnan sees a multi-faceted future. It's not one which is determined by a single power, chokepoint, or technology. In fact, it is co-created by a wide range of ever-changing factors which must be understood in concert with one another. This is the work that she has done for 20 years through emerging economies and fragile nations to the halls of power at the World Economic Forum. This...

It reads like a thriller. A secret meeting of the most powerful people in the United States. Only first names. An agreement which would change the course of the United States and the world in one fell swoop. This is how the Federal Reserve was born and the decisions made on Jekyll Island continue to direct the world using the machinery of finance. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger...

Some stories can only be understood from the inside. Some from the understanding of time on target. Simon Ostrovsky brings both to covering the geopolitics of modern Russia. The veteran conflict correspondent and founding member of VICE takes us into the Russian way of fighting from the mind to the battlefield and gives us a glimpse at the future of conflict in the region. Simon Ostrovsky is a PBS...

Peter Moore is one of the rare historians who is able to build a bridge between the obscure figures of the past and the lives of his readers. Through deep primary-source research he lets his subjects speak in their own words about high adventure, warfare, loss, struggle, and even happiness. This discussion looks at what the life of a maverick naval hero teaches us about today. He is the author of...

Debt can crush a person, but it can also burn a nation to the ground. The early banks of the United States held the seeds of their own destruction but they created the foundations of national finance we use today. What was Hamilton's vision of a national monetary system? Was it a blessing or a curse? This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with origi...

Thom Shanker has been on the ground covering global conflict for over a decade. From Bosnia and Afghanistan to Iraq, he has seen how armies fight battles but politicians end wars. He reminds us of the responsibility that journalists have to democracy and gives us a window into covering atrocity while remaining human. Mr. Shanker is co-author of “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret...

Finance is the invisible foundation for statecraft but we rarely think about how it works or where it came from. In our first of a three part series on finance we take a deep dive into the origins of money and how it made and broke empires. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original music and sounds by Savannah Fortis. Find Eric all over the i...

Power is all about controlling the one thing that everyone needs. Water is the most important thing in the world and anyone who could command the headwaters turned into a god. But water doesn’t always make dictators. Today’s episode is about water and power and how one flows from the other. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original music and...

Modern history leads us to believe that it's impossible for countries to come to an agreement on anything, let alone everything. However, there was one time in history where every country in the world came together to stop something that was an existential threat. Treaties solved a problem and that may be one of the reasons we don't think about it too much today. This episode was written a...

We’re led to believe that peace is just the absence of war. The people who want us to believe that benefit from war. The reality is that the infrastructure of peace is being built all around us, we just don’t notice it. Today we look at the stories of people who don’t appear on the front pages of newspapers because they’re busy preventing the wars we’ve never heard about – because they’ve never ha...

The age of drone warfare has done something unexpected: it's driven soldiers underground. When everything above the surface can be watched, tracked, and targeted, the tunnel becomes the new trench. This week, The Under Report goes beneath the battlefield exploring how militaries around the world are building, mapping, and fighting inside the earth's forgotten infrastructure. This episode was writt...

The space around our planet is the most valuable real estate in the universe. But making it usable for mankind might also lock us into this planet forever if we mess it up. Today we’re doing a deep dive into the geopolitics of outer space and finding out how satellite technology could be the key or the bars to our prison.  This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah...

The land beneath your feet tells you more about who you are than your astrological sign ever could. Power flows from the ground up. Society is built by mountains, rivers, and valleys as much as it is by laws and treaties. When we know how to look at the land, history begins to make a bit more sense. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original m...

Attention is the most important resource in the world and there is a war on for it. While conflict over oil grabs headlines, real power is about the stories we're convinced to fight for. Today's episode: how information warfare bent the arc of history and defines our future. Pay attention, or someone else will determine what is in your mind. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleg...

Who are you afraid of? Maybe the better question is: Who benefits from your fear? Governments have made boogie men to control populations since the beginning of time because it’s a good way of keeping power in the hands of the few. Today we explore the Phantoms of Convenience from witches to Antifa. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original m...

Agriculture allowed human beings to conquer the globe but it also locked us into a system of brittle hierarchies. The ultimate questions are who controls the surplus and who is controlled by it? This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original music and sounds by Savannah Fortis.  Find Eric all over the internet:  Sign up for The Under Report: theun...

Logistics is the invisible architecture that runs the world. When it works, no one notices. But when it breaks, the entire world is in chaos. This episode was written and read by Eric Czuleger and produced by Savannah Fortis, with original music and sounds by Savannah Fortis. Follow Eric on socials: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_under_report   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@The_Under_Repo...

War doesn't just consume drugs, it manufactures them. Methamphetamine powered the Blitzkrieg. A Holocaust-connected pharmaceutical company created the pill that became Syria's fifty-seven billion dollar narco-state. DARPA is building a stimulant you activate with a laser beam through a soldier's skull. And the most effective PTSD treatment ever recorded is classified alongside heroin. This is the...

What is a country? Eric Czuleger has spent the better part of a decade living in unrecognized nations attempting to answer that question. This led to him writing You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries That Don't Exist, a journey which took him from being an English teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan to becoming an ambassador from one unrecognized country to another. (Liberland to another Somaliland)....

A new tactic of war has emerged in the battle between Ukraine and Russia, turning children into proxy soldiers but this harsh reality doesn’t only affect those close to the frontline. These tactics know no borders and target minors across the globe.  This is how it happens, what it looks like on the homefront, and what we might do to stop it. Listener discretion is advised, sensitive topics are di...

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) gives anyone with an internet connection the ability to peer into the secret world of geopolitics and espionage. But what happens when it looks right back? Google Maps predicts the invasion of Ukraine, Strava finds CIA bases, and the future of the world is being traded on prediction markets. This is why James Bond is dead. The Under Report is written and read by Er...