Underground Strategy

🎭 From improv stage to the frontlines.
In Part 1 of our conversation with , we follow Serhii’s journey from civilian to combatant in Ukraine’s 130th Territorial Defense Battalion.

He fought in Kyiv, Irpin, and Kharkiv—then used improv to survive the aftermath. This isn’t just about war. It’s about how the mind adapts under fire.

🎧 Part 1 is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

🇿🇼 ZANLA. ZIPRA. Rhodesian Fireforce.
One war, two fronts, and a fractured liberation.

In this episode, we sit down with Takawira Chatambudza to unpack Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle—its ideologies, infighting, foreign influence, and the counterinsurgency response that followed.

China, the Soviets, Mozambique, the Selous Scouts—this isn’t a simple story. And it’s rarely told from this angle.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

🎖️ Leadership isn’t built in classrooms.
It’s forged under load, bad sleep and with no second takes.

This month’s edition of the War Diaries steps into the field—where blistered feet, cancelled courses, and near-collapse reveal something most organizations don’t want to admit:

Some people lead. Most don’t.

⚡ Read now at undergroundstrategy.com (find it under 'Narratives').

🥋 Judo, bureaucracy, and war.
Roman Kuzyuk works inside Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense—rebuilding legacy logistics, pushing reform, and calling out the rot that’s still slowing the system down.

From martial arts to management strategy to writing detective fiction, he’s not selling optimism—just doing what he can from the inside.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

📡 Counterintelligence, political hesitation, and a treason trial that never happened.

In the final part of our series on N**i espionage in South Africa, we shift focus—away from the spy rings, and toward the people watching them.

Evert Kleynhans walks us through British-South African coordination, intercepted messages, and how political nerves helped the Ossewabrandwag walk free.

🎧 Part 3 is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

⚓ Court-martialled, brilliant, and constantly in trouble.

Sir Home Popham was a naval officer who barely spent time at sea—but managed to stir up controversy from Flanders to Buenos Aires. In Quicksilver Captain, Jacqueline Reiter untangles the life of one of Britain’s most chaotic empire-builders.

Signal-code innovator, rogue adventurer, part-time parliamentarian—and full-time self-promoter. Reviewed now on Underground Strategy.

⚡ Read the review at undergroundstrategy.com (find it under 'Narratives').

🧱 Franco didn’t win by brilliance. He won by grinding it down—one ex*****on, one exile, one monument at a time.

In Part 2 of our Spanish Civil War series, we trace the second half of the conflict through brutal repression, international alignments, and the long shadow Franco cast over Spain for decades after.
scullion returns to unpack what victory looked like—and what was buried to achieve it.

🎧 Part 2 is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

⚔️ Coup attempt turned civil war.
Brother against brother. And a preview of WWII.

In Part 1 of our series on the Spanish Civil War, historian and army officer .scullion walks us through the collapse of a monarchy, the rise of Franco, and how a crumbling empire became a battlefield for ideology, class, and control.

From Catalonia to Casablanca, it’s all on the table.

🎧 Part 1 is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

⚔️ Counterintelligence got polite.
That’s how we ended up here.

The final SitRep calls time on the 10th Man, institutional dissent, and whatever CI used to be.

Not a wrap. A warning.
And a thank you. 🍻

⚡Read it at undergroundstrategy.com (find it under “News”)

🎼 Beethoven wanted to dedicate his symphony to Napoleon.
Then Napoleon crowned himself Emperor.

The name was scratched out—violently. The music stayed.

This month’s entry in the War Diaries explores Beethoven’s lifelong fight with war, power, and idealism. From cannon fire and battlefield marches to the human voice in ‘Ode to Joy’, music became both a weapon and a memorial.

⚡ Read now at undergroundstrategy.com (find it under 'Narratives').

📡 From chaotic amateurs to something slightly more dangerous.

Part 2 of our series on N**i espionage in South Africa zeroes in on Lothar Sittig—alias Felix—the spy the British couldn’t quite catch.

We follow his escape, the Trompke network, and the Ossewabrandwag’s efforts to build a radio line to Berlin using stolen hospital equipment… all while British intelligence already had tabs on most of it. 🍻

N**i espionage, South African resistance, and a few suspicious sacks of potatoes. 🥔

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

📘 A conventional war in Ukraine. A doomsday paradigm in Gaza.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Ben Zweibelson, we get into the messy overlaps between ideology, culture, and war — and why trying to fit everything into one doctrinal frame is exactly how we fail.

This is not just about winning wars. It’s about understanding which one you're actually in.

🎧 Part 2 is live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.