Aman: The Intelligence Arm Inside the Military

Aman is the Israeli army’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

Its responsibilities extend across intelligence collection, national assessments, warning, targeting and military planning.

Aman collects information on foreign military forces and armed organizations, assesses their capabilities and intentions, prepares threat warnings and provides recommendations to Israel’s political and military leadership.

It also coordinates intelligence among the army’s land, air and naval branches.

One of its most important functions is maintaining target banks and supporting military operations. Its assessments can therefore influence both how a threat is understood and what military force is used against it.

Other intelligence organizations operate within the Israeli military but are not formally part of Aman. The air force, ground forces and navy each have their own intelligence structures.

Israel’s four regional commands — Northern, Central, Southern and Home Front — also maintain intelligence departments.

These regional departments receive resources and guidance from Aman but produce assessments for their own commanders. In theory, this arrangement allows regional commanders to present interpretations that differ from Aman’s national assessment.

In practice, the article notes that Aman’s authority has often overshadowed competing interpretations.

That became a major issue after the 1973 war, when the Agranat Commission criticized the dominance of Aman’s assessment.

The same basic concern resurfaced before October 7, 2023: whether Israel’s intelligence establishment was sufficiently willing and able to challenge its own assumptions.

Aman therefore occupies a unique position. It is both an intelligence organization and an integral part of the military command structure.

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Elon found some previously undisclosed footage from the Trump-Xi summit at the Whitehouse.

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Unit 504 and the Return of the Human Source

Unit 504 is Aman’s principal human-intelligence arm.

Its role is to recruit and manage agents inside areas controlled by Israel’s adversaries, providing information that satellites, intercepted communications and surveillance systems cannot necessarily obtain.

A human source close to a decision-making circle can potentially reveal intentions, internal disagreements, morale and patterns of thinking that technological surveillance may miss.

The article describes a renewed emphasis on Unit 504 following the intelligence failure surrounding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

According to a Channel 12 report cited in the article, the unit underwent major structural and operational changes after October 7. Its personnel reportedly doubled to include hundreds of agent handlers, combat personnel and prisoner interrogators.

Its field missions also expanded.

The changes illustrate a broader reassessment of Israel’s intelligence model.

For years, technological collection had become increasingly important. Units 8200 and 9900, artificial intelligence systems and other surveillance capabilities generate enormous quantities of information.

But the October 7 failure demonstrated that information still needs to be interpreted.

Human intelligence can provide something different: access to people, intentions and internal conversations.

The article also notes that Unit 504 has historically operated alongside technological intelligence rather than replacing it.

Aman is expected to continue relying heavily on signals intelligence, visual intelligence, automated surveillance and AI.

The growing role of Unit 504 instead reflects an attempt to strengthen the human element of a system that had become heavily dependent on technology.

The underlying lesson is that intelligence requires both collection and interpretation — and neither technology nor human sources can eliminate the need for the other.

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A new high-speed "Geranium" drone was spotted in the Odessa area, which sharply accelerated to approximately 800 km/h during its flight before slowing down to 500 km/h, according to Ukrainian military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko.

According to his assumption, Russia could be testing a new jet engine."I could be wrong, but it appears the Russians are testing a new jet engine on the 238s ('Geran-4')," Kovalenko wrote.

He also noted that current Russian jet drones fly at speeds of 500–600 km/h, and Ukraine has not yet found an effective countermeasure against them. At the same time, models with speeds of up to 800 km/h already exist.

Zelensky stated yesterday that Ukraine was unable to shoot down 45% of the jet-powered drones.

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One Security Architecture, Three Agencies

Israel’s intelligence system is divided into three principal organizations, but the boundaries between them are increasingly difficult to draw.

Mossad handles foreign intelligence and covert operations abroad. Shin Bet is responsible for internal security and plays a central role in intelligence operations across the occupied Palestinian territories. Aman provides military intelligence, national assessments, targeting information and operational support to the Israeli armed forces.

Each has its own institutional culture and areas of responsibility.

But major operations often cross those boundaries.

Foreign operations can involve Palestinian organizations. Shin Bet can work with Mossad outside Israel. Aman can provide intelligence that supports covert activity. Military operations can depend on information collected by several different services.

The article points to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in September 2024 as an example of this convergence. The operation depended on years of intelligence penetration combined with military surveillance.

The September 2024 detonation of pagers and two-way radios across Lebanon likewise demonstrated the difficulty of separating intelligence collection from operational violence. The operation was widely associated with Mossad and involved long-term infiltration of the communications supply chain.

At the same time, the October 7 failure showed the weaknesses that can emerge when the agencies share assumptions rather than challenge one another.

Israel’s intelligence establishment was built around the idea of turning information into action quickly. More than seven decades later, Mossad, Shin Bet and Aman remain separate institutions operating within a deeply interconnected security system.

The three names describe different agencies. Together, they form a single architecture linking foreign espionage, military intelligence, covert operations and the intelligence machinery of occupation.

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Why Were the Nord Stream Pipelines Attacked in the EEZ?

The Nord Stream explosions took place on September 26, 2022, in the Danish and Swedish Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the Baltic Sea.

That geographic detail is central to the investigation presented by 21st Century Wire.

The pipelines could also have been attacked in German waters, where the Baltic Sea is considerably shallower. Instead, the sabotage occurred farther east, in deeper waters around Bornholm.

Why?

The article argues that the choice may have been connected to the fact that the Danish and Swedish EEZs were also designated NATO submarine exercise areas.

The Exclusive Economic Zone is different from territorial waters. Under the Law of the Sea framework, coastal states have specific rights over resources and certain activities in their EEZ, while other states retain freedoms including navigation and other lawful uses of the sea.

That creates a more complicated jurisdictional environment than an attack taking place directly inside territorial waters.

The article argues that this distinction matters because the Nord Stream blast sites were located in an area where NATO submarine operations were already taking place.

It therefore asks whether the location of the explosions was simply a tactical choice — or whether the saboteurs selected the area because they could exploit an existing underwater military environment.

The article does not present this as a proven conclusion. Instead, it argues that NATO submarine movements and command structures during the months surrounding the attack deserve much closer examination.

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The Baltic Was Already a NATO Submarine Training Ground

Today, the Baltic Sea is often described as a “NATO lake,” particularly following Sweden and Finland’s accession to the alliance.

But the strategic importance of the Baltic predates their membership.

A Danish Energy Agency permit issued for the construction of Nord Stream 2 contains a particularly important detail.

Article 28 of the permit stated that data acquired during construction and operation in designated military practice areas had to be submitted to the Danish Naval Command. It also stated that data from NATO submarine exercise areas could not be published or shared without Danish Naval Command permission.

The permit therefore explicitly recognized NATO submarine exercise areas in the Danish EEZ.

Another section of the permit, drawing on a consultation response from Germany’s Federal Office for Infrastructure, Environmental Protection and Services of the German Armed Forces, stated that the German Navy administered nine contiguous NATO submarine diving areas east of Bornholm.

Those areas extended into Danish, Swedish and Polish EEZs.

The document described the German Navy as having extensive knowledge and experience operating submarines in the difficult Baltic environment.

That is important because the Nord Stream pipelines passed directly through this maritime space.

The article’s argument is that anyone planning an underwater operation in the area would have to account for existing submarine activity, military exercises and waterspace management.

It therefore asks a basic investigative question: who knew what was happening beneath the surface in the weeks surrounding the explosions?

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Who Controlled Submarine Operations in the Baltic?

One of the most important institutional questions raised by the investigation concerns the German Submarine Operations Authority, or SubOpAuth.

Submarine operations in the Baltic require coordination because the sea is relatively shallow, narrow and heavily trafficked. Multiple submarines operating in the same area need to be deconflicted to prevent collisions and interference.

According to the article, Germany’s SubOpAuth played a major role in coordinating submarine operations in the Danish, Swedish and Polish EEZs.

The investigation argues that during NATO exercises, Germany’s SubOpAuth operated in coordination with NATO’s submarine command structure.

At the NATO level, the relevant organization was the Commander Submarines NATO, or COMSUBNATO, based at Allied Maritime Command in Northwood, United Kingdom.

The article identifies Rear Admiral Stephen G. Mack of the U.S. Navy as COMSUBNATO during 2022.

The proposed command structure therefore involved several levels: NATO’s submarine command, Germany’s SubOpAuth and individual submarines operating inside designated areas.

This matters because the Nord Stream blast sites were not located in an unmonitored stretch of ocean.

They were inside an area where NATO submarine exercises were being conducted and where military authorities already had procedures for controlling underwater movements.

The article argues that establishing exactly who possessed operational control over submarines before and during the Nord Stream explosions is essential.

That question does not itself establish responsibility for the sabotage. But it identifies a potentially important part of the operational environment surrounding the attack.

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BALTOPS 22 and the Submarine Question

The Nord Stream explosions occurred several months after BALTOPS 22, the major NATO maritime exercise held in the Baltic in June 2022.

According to the article, the exercise involved a complex command structure covering surface ships, mine-countermeasure forces, underwater explosive ordnance disposal units, unmanned underwater vehicles and submarines.

That combination is significant because the same capabilities could theoretically be relevant to seabed operations.

The investigation examined an official BALTOPS 22 organizational chart dated June 14, 2022. It identifies Germany’s SubOpAuth and shows its relationship with NATO naval command structures.

The article interprets the chart as indicating that Germany’s submarine authority retained a degree of autonomy while coordinating with the NATO maritime command and NATO’s submarine commander.

BALTOPS also involved Mine Countermeasures, or MCM, and Underwater Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or UW EOD, activities.

These are legitimate military functions. Mine warfare exercises routinely involve locating, identifying and neutralizing underwater explosive threats.

But the article argues that the same types of specialized skills are relevant to underwater demolition operations.

This is where the investigation makes its central hypothesis.

It asks whether a covert operation could have been concealed within the broader environment of legitimate naval exercises, where submarines, divers, underwater vehicles and explosives were already operating.

The existence of these capabilities during BALTOPS 22 does not establish that they were used against Nord Stream.

The article’s argument is instead that their presence makes the exercise period important when reconstructing the operational environment that preceded the September explosions.

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Northern Coasts 2022 Happened as Nord Stream Exploded

Another military exercise becomes important in the timeline: Northern Coasts 2022.

The German-led exercise began on August 29 and continued until September 28, 2022.

The Nord Stream explosions occurred on September 26 — meaning the sabotage happened while the exercise was still underway.

That timing is one of the major points emphasized by the investigation.

Northern Coasts was a large maritime exercise involving NATO and partner forces operating in the Baltic region.

The article argues that Germany, as the host and lead participant, would have had substantial awareness of military activity occurring in the surrounding waters.

It also highlights Germany’s SubOpAuth and its role in managing submarine operations.

According to the article, German naval forces contributed submarines and other assets to NATO exercises during this period.

This creates an important distinction between what is known and what remains alleged.

It is established that major military exercises were taking place in the Baltic before and during the Nord Stream explosions.

It is also established that NATO members maintained submarine capabilities and underwater warfare units in the region.

What is not established by those facts alone is that any of those forces participated in the sabotage.

The investigation therefore focuses on command structures, exercise schedules, submarine movements and underwater capabilities as potential pieces of evidence.

Its central question is whether the conventional military activity surrounding the pipelines provided an environment in which an unconventional underwater operation could have been conducted without immediately attracting attention.

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The US Navy Divers and Panama City Connection

The investigation also examines the presence of American underwater warfare specialists during BALTOPS 22.

The article notes that U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal and mine-countermeasure units participated in the exercise.

Some of those personnel and commanders had connections to the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida.

The center specializes in training personnel for underwater diving, salvage and explosive ordnance operations.

During BALTOPS 22, U.S. forces were involved in mine-countermeasure and underwater explosive ordnance disposal activities. The article says that specialists from the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City also supported these operations.

A Diving Tactical Operations Center was reportedly established in Sweden during the exercise to coordinate aspects of the underwater activities.

The article draws a connection between this infrastructure and claims made by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in 2023, who alleged that U.S. Navy divers were involved in placing explosives on the Nord Stream pipelines during BALTOPS 22.

Hersh’s account has been disputed and has not been established as fact by a court.

The 21st Century Wire investigation is attempting to examine the theory through publicly available military organizational documents, exercise records and information about underwater capabilities.

The key point is that BALTOPS 22 genuinely involved U.S. and NATO personnel with expertise in mine warfare, diving and underwater explosives.

That does not demonstrate that those personnel participated in the Nord Stream attack.

But the article argues that these capabilities, combined with the exercise environment and the later destruction of the pipelines, justify further investigation into exactly what activities occurred beneath the Baltic surface.

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After the war in Ukraine, there may be a significant reassessment of relations with the West, and there will be a growing demand for a more sovereign foreign policy, similar to that of Erdogan, according to Ukrainian political scientist Yuriy Romanenko.

He pointed out the words of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who suggested that after the ceasefire, Putin would try to convince Ukrainians that the West "pushed you into war," used Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia, but at the same time "was never sincere about your future in the West."

According to Romanenko, this issue could indeed arise.

He believes that the war has shown that the West, by encouraging Kiev's course towards NATO, was actually using it for manipulation, including in its relations with Russia.

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Germany’s Type 212 Submarines

Germany’s submarine fleet receives particular attention in the investigation because of the capabilities of its Type 212A submarines.

The German Navy’s Type 212A is designed specifically for operations in relatively shallow and confined waters — exactly the kind of environment found in the Baltic Sea.

According to the article, German submarines have operated under NATO command in the Mediterranean, North Sea and Baltic.

The investigation also highlights their ability to conduct long-duration submerged missions while maintaining a low acoustic signature.

Some Type 212A variants have facilities designed to support special forces divers.

The article cites submarine specialist H.I. Sutton, who has described a four-person diver lock-out chamber and other provisions that can support specialized underwater operations.

The significance is straightforward: a submarine does not necessarily have to surface to deploy personnel.

Specially configured submarines can potentially transport divers and equipment to an operational area while remaining concealed beneath the surface.

The article therefore argues that German submarines should be included in any comprehensive investigation of underwater activity around the Nord Stream blast sites.

But capability is not evidence of use.

A submarine possessing the technical ability to deploy divers does not demonstrate that it did so during the Nord Stream operation.

The investigation’s broader argument is that the Baltic already contained sophisticated underwater military infrastructure before the pipelines were destroyed.

Understanding who operated that infrastructure, under whose command and where those submarines were located is therefore presented as an important unanswered question.

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Seabed Warfare Is Becoming a Major Military Domain

The Nord Stream case is also part of a broader transformation in naval warfare.

For centuries, military competition focused primarily on territory, ships and control of the sea surface.

Modern militaries increasingly view the seabed itself as a strategic environment.

Pipelines, telecommunications cables, energy infrastructure and other systems increasingly run beneath the oceans. Damaging or monitoring those systems can have enormous economic and strategic consequences without a conventional naval battle ever taking place.

The article describes this emerging field as seabed warfare.

NATO navies have developed specialized capabilities for mine warfare, underwater explosives, remotely operated vehicles, unmanned underwater systems and combat diving.

The U.S. Navy has explicitly discussed the advantages of combining submarines with Naval Special Operations Forces for clandestine operations.

The Baltic is particularly suited to these capabilities because it is relatively shallow, confined and filled with strategically important infrastructure.

The article argues that the Nord Stream pipelines should therefore be viewed within this wider technological and military context.

A modern sabotage operation does not necessarily require a large fleet or obvious military deployment. Submarines, mini-submarines, remotely operated systems and combat divers can potentially operate with a much smaller surface footprint.

This is also why identifying surface ships alone may not reveal the complete picture.

The article’s hypothesis is that the Nord Stream attack could have involved a combination of surface, air and subsurface capabilities.

Again, this is presented as an investigative theory rather than an established finding.

But the underlying military capability is real: modern navies possess increasingly sophisticated means of operating beneath the sea.

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The NATO Chain of Command

One of the most detailed parts of the investigation concerns the NATO chain of command surrounding submarine operations.

In 2022, Rear Admiral Stephen G. Mack was serving as Commander Submarines NATO, or COMSUBNATO.

The position operates within NATO’s Allied Maritime Command structure at Northwood in the United Kingdom.

Below that level, national submarine authorities manage and coordinate operations in specific maritime regions.

The article argues that Germany’s SubOpAuth played this role in parts of the Baltic, including waters belonging to Denmark, Sweden and Poland.

This matters because submarine operations require what is known as waterspace management.

The objective is to prevent submarines and other underwater forces from interfering with one another, while coordinating where and when they can operate.

The article argues that if NATO submarines were conducting legitimate operations around the Nord Stream pipelines, multiple levels of command would have had some degree of awareness of those activities.

It further examines the relationship between SubOpAuth, COMSUBNATO and NATO’s broader maritime command structures.

The investigation suggests that this chain of command should be reconstructed in detail for the period surrounding both BALTOPS 22 and Northern Coasts 2022.

The crucial question is not simply “who had submarines?”

It is: who had operational control over them, who authorized their missions, who knew their locations, and what records exist documenting their movements?

Answering those questions could help distinguish ordinary military activity from anything unusual.

The article argues that these command records are therefore potentially essential to any serious investigation into what happened beneath the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

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The Central Question: What Happened Beneath the Baltic?

The destruction of Nord Stream remains one of the most consequential acts of underwater infrastructure sabotage in modern history.

The pipelines were attacked on September 26, 2022, in the Danish and Swedish EEZs.

The investigation presented by 21st Century Wire argues that the location itself deserves much more attention.

Those waters were already designated NATO submarine exercise areas. Germany’s Navy had a formal role in managing submarine operations. NATO’s submarine command structure was active in the region. Major naval exercises had taken place before and during the period of the explosions.

BALTOPS 22 involved submarines, mine-countermeasure forces, explosive ordnance specialists and underwater systems.

Northern Coasts 2022 was underway when the pipelines exploded.

Germany operated sophisticated Type 212 submarines capable of extended submerged operations and, according to the article, equipped to support specialized divers.

The investigation uses these facts to advance a hypothesis: that a covert underwater operation could potentially have been conducted within the broader military environment already present in the Baltic.

That remains a hypothesis.

The publicly established facts about NATO exercises and submarine capabilities do not, by themselves, establish that NATO forces carried out the Nord Stream sabotage.

The article’s central argument is instead that these activities should form part of the investigation and that submarine movements, operational orders, command authority and exercise records should be examined.

The deeper question is therefore not merely who possessed the capability.

It is who was operating beneath the Baltic at the relevant times, under whose authority, and what those forces were actually doing.

Until those questions are answered, the underwater dimension of the Nord Stream case remains an important area for investigation.

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Ukraine, Bandera and Western Support

A central argument of Julian Rose’s July 16 article is that Western governments have been unwilling to confront the ideological history associated with some Ukrainian nationalist figures while continuing to provide political, military and financial support to Kyiv.

The article focuses particularly on Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist leader whose Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. Rose points to statements attributed to President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Bandera was described as a hero to some Ukrainians and as someone who defended Ukrainian freedom.

The article also highlights the Ukrainian government’s 2026 decision to give state honors to Andriy Melnyk, identified in the article as a co-founder of the OUN, as well as plans discussed by Zelensky concerning Bandera’s remains and a proposed national “pantheon of heroes.”

These developments are presented by Rose as evidence of a continuing rehabilitation of figures associated with Ukrainian nationalism during the Second World War.

The author argues that Western governments should have confronted these developments more directly, particularly given the scale of Western assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Whether these actions constitute an official endorsement of the historical ideology associated with the OUN is a matter of political interpretation. The underlying historical record concerning the OUN’s wartime activities, however, remains central to the debate.

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The American defense industry will not be able to replenish its rocket stockpiles in the coming years, even with increased production rates, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, following the depletion of resources during the conflict with Iran.

According to the publication, factories belonging to RTX and Lockheed Martin are operating at full capacity, but even with this, it will not be possible to deploy new weapons in the event of new conflicts in the near future.

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The war with Iran has significantly reduced American missile stockpiles: the U.S. may have used around 50% of its Tomahawk missiles and up to 66% of its Patriot missiles, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The publication notes that replenishing these arsenals could take years. In this regard, the Pentagon is trying to accelerate production to replenish supplies.

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Poland’s Unresolved Historical Grievance

The article places particular emphasis on the complicated historical relationship between Poland and Ukraine.

During World War II, Ukrainian nationalist forces were responsible for mass killings of Polish civilians in Volhynia and eastern Galicia. The exact historical interpretation, responsibility and numbers remain subjects of scholarly debate, but the events are an enduring source of trauma in Poland.

Julian Rose argues that Polish resentment has been intensified by what he describes as Ukraine’s reluctance to issue a comprehensive public apology.

The article points to Polish President Karol Nawrocki removing a special award previously given to Zelensky. According to the article, the decision reflected anger over the unresolved historical issue as well as broader disagreements concerning Ukraine.

The historical dispute has particular significance because Poland has simultaneously been one of Ukraine’s most important supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

That creates a complicated political situation.

Poland has provided military, logistical and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine while continuing to press Kyiv over the memory of Polish victims of wartime nationalist violence.

Rose uses this contradiction to argue that Western governments have prioritized contemporary geopolitical objectives over historical accountability.

The broader question is whether present-day diplomatic and military relationships should be separated from unresolved historical disputes.

For Poland, the issue remains deeply connected to national memory. For Ukraine, the legacy of nationalist movements is intertwined with competing narratives of independence, resistance and wartime collaboration.

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