DARK ANVIL

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TS//SCI//SAR-DARK ANVIL//NOFORN

HANDLE VIA DARK ANVIL CONTROL CHANNELS JOINTLY ADMINISTERED BY DNI, JSOC, and NSC.

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REPRODUCTION OR DISCLOSURE WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS PROHIBITED.

DERIVED FROM: MULTIPLE CLASSIFIED SOURCES

DECLASSIFY ON: 25X1, 25X6, 25X9 (Exempt from automatic declassification)

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DARK ANVIL – CURRENT STATUS BRIEFING
Prepared for: Commander-in-Chief
From: DNI

Overview:
DARK ANVIL, the overarching, continuously evolving U.S. strategic operation initiated in 2010, remains in active operational deployment. Its core purpose—sustained integration of multi-domain, full spectrum imperial projection across the Middle East—is being executed with increasing precision. The framework is both operational and developmental, with each theatre serving as both an application and a refinement mechanism.

Background:

See BRIGHT FORGE integrative template for background.

DARK ANVIL instantiates BRIGHT FORGE template.

Operational Focus: Iran (Primary)

• Current Mode: Active shaping and disruption.

• Mechanism:

  • Israel functions as kinetic instrument—U.S. spear tip—executing pressure and containment missions that align with U.S. interests. This approach distances direct U.S. attribution while providing multiple INFO/COG/PSY options for active internal/external management.

  • Regional proxies deployed as required on pro- and reactive basis, per objectives and OPFOR counter.

• Purpose: To test and degrade Iranian asymmetric and strategic capabilities, exhaust regional influence channels, and apply psychological, economic, and military pressure to destabilize regime cohesion without large-scale U.S. visibility (active masking through INF/COG/PSY).

Operational Subsystem: SHADE CHISEL Palestine Conflict (Secondary)

• Classification: DARK ANVIL tactical sub-theatre.

• Utility:

  • SHADE CHISEL tests regional partners and OPFOR under maximal psychological & doctrinal stress challenge.

  • Enacts irreversible reformation of political reality through overwhelming military force on distanced, justifiable reactionary basis to OPFOR combat action (October 7).

• Exploits:

  • USA plausible deniability through Israeli partner.

  • Intrinsic Israeli objectives to enforce single state outcomes making it willing, light-touch spear tip.

• Proves:

  • Unilateral flex capacity & political collateral at UN (Unilateral Ops).

  • Stable multilateral political collateral via rotating partners (CoW Covert Ops).

  • OPFOR Axis players do not expand despite maximum threat to Islamic religious interests (see ASHEN VOID) i.e. regional uprising shows no sign of manifesting despite DARK ANVIL escalation.

• Features:

  • Testing Ground: Real-time evaluation of Israel's integrated multidomain warfare systems under combat stress.

  • Containment Tool: Controlled escalation and de-escalation cycle used to lock Israeli political-military attention within a constrained battlespace.

  • Partner Management: Strategic indulgence of Israeli operational latitude serves dual functions—maintaining Israeli engagement in regional projection while covertly overextending their operational, political, and reputational capital.

  • Political Engineering: Prime Minister Netanyahu is positioned as the focal point of accumulating liabilities. His transfer is available as a contingency pivot, executable at U.S. discretion to reset Israeli posture and leadership alignment.

Operational subsystem: MAPLE CANOPY Syrian Theatre (Tertiary)

• Classification: TIMBER SYCAMORE tactical sub-theatre.

• Utility:

  • MAPLE CANOPY provides (via TIMBER SYCAMORE Phase 6 operations) adequate multi-domain, multifactor Command, Control & Connectivity (3C) from Israeli spear tip to Iranian primary AO.

  • Direct airspace integration to Iraqi & Iranian AO;

  • Northern frontal (LE-PA) engagement of OPFOR from Syrian theatre.

  • TU active engagement opportunities for political & military purposes.

  • IQ military engagement ramp up opportunities for experience and feedback cycle to increase & maintain readiness & resilience.

  • Israeli partner motivation via territorial expansion opportunities/payouts.

  • Cements regional MIL/INT/INF/COG/PSY supremacy across all partners and OPFOR. Metrics indicate order of magnitude stepdown in blanket regional opposition.

Strategic Effects Sought:

1. Imperial Projection: Consolidate U.S. influence via indirect, deniable/maskable, partner-based operations.

2. Power Tool Kit Refinement: DARK ANVIL evolves by absorbing operational feedback from each theatre, optimising multidomain coordination (cyber, ISR, kinetic, psychological, diplomatic).

3. Partner Risk Absorption: Israel absorbs frontline consequences of U.S.-aligned action while U.S. retains strategic distance and plausible deniability.

4. Regional Conditioning: Syrian, Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah and associated actors are being drawn into reactive posture loops. Regional adversaries are increasingly bound in attritional conflict cycles (attrition management via MOROS CRUCIBLE on HI-PRI).

5. Domestic Political Shielding: Operational ownership remains abstracted from the American public and legislative scrutiny through use of proxies, allies, and compartmentalised legal framing.

6. INFO/COG/PSY Masking: Fully weaponised Zionist/Israeli/Jewish narratives are cycled (esc/de-esc) to feed/bolster/stress/mask US interests via Israeli spear-tip operations while generating:

   1. political & military pullback;

   2. blame offload;

   3. liability sink;

   4. population attention control;

options underpinning U.S.-Israeli political re-engineering as appropriate/when opportune.

Risk Management and Control:

• Fanaticism and Overreach: Israel’s growing overconfidence is tolerated and tactically amplified to encourage operational overextension.

• Influence Management: Israeli political and financial influence within U.S. policymaking is not confronted directly but channelled and constrained through calculated indulgence, strategic baiting, and eventual political decapitation if required.

• Narrative Control: U.S. remains publicly committed to ‘regional stability’ and ‘counterterrorism’ while shaping facts on the ground through covert orchestration.

• OPFOR Expansion: HI-PRI/RISK active threat (limit/collapse) to DARK ANVIL. Fulcrum is religious/eschatological Abrahamic clash resulting in breakaway short notice mobilisation of any primary/secondary/tertiary kinetic forces moving into Iranian AO (OPFOR Expansion & Reinforcement) or towards Israeli or Syrian territory (OPFOR Expansion & Assault). Managed under OBSIDIAN SAVVY.

• Logistics collapse/starvation: HI-PRI/RISK active limit to DARK ANVIL. Temporal nexus of OPFOR action, motion, opportunism i.e. OPFOR ability to generate/spot & exploit a logistical weakness is a criticality. Given intensity of SHADE CHISEL and planned logistics requirements of DARK ANVIL, this remains a brittle critical path function i.e. prone to supply or demand overload. Management combines full spectrum logistics and multimode OPFOR degradation (integrated in BRIGHT FORGE operational design template, DARK ANVIL operations: DARKANVIL-LogOverlayMonitor).

• Proxy containment: MAPLE CANOPY proxies subject to ongoing active management via TRANQUIL ARBOUR (UK/TU/FR outsourcing).

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Summary:
DARK ANVIL is functioning as designed. The Iranian front remains indirectly engaged without direct U.S. military entanglement. Israel operates as a simultaneously empowered and manipulated proxy—absorbing risk, executing tests, and carrying narrative weight. Palestine serves as a kinetic amplification crucible, a laboratory and a pressure valve. Syria operations have phased into utility. Contingencies are in place for political resets. U.S. dominance is iteratively refined and deepened under the guise of managing instability. Public attention & opinion is kept fragmentary and fluid, with at least one suppression and one distraction/transfer mechanism attached to each nucleus.

Prepared and verified,
Director of National Intelligence