According to a just released Collapse Survival Institute threat assessment, “the undeclared U.S. war on Iran risks catastrophic domestic attacks and Presidential Impeachment that could trigger civil war.”
The full threat assessment briefing can be read on their website, and is summarized
here: https://collapsesi.org/.
The material below is from the Collapse Survival Institute’s threat assessment:
Iranian agents in the U.S., possibly with the support of China/Russia/North Korea, may release a deadly virus, take down our vulnerable electric grid, or, with the aid of Artificial Intelligence, execute other attacks with Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Iranian commitment and capability to kill Americans has increased. Even relatively small attacks could spark panic and looting, with a breakdown in law and order spreading into a national collapse disaster. With the war dragging on, gas and food prices rising, and Trump’s popularity continuing to decline, violent political protests and likely impeachment proceedings could push the divided U.S. into a form of civil war that could lead to a collapse.
The official U.S. intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment rates Iran’s offensive biological weapons program as “very likely”; not a potential future, but a current threat. Iran’s cyber threat to U.S. critical infrastructure is also a clear, current threat, with small cyber attacks already executed. The threat is not just from Iranian agents, but the thousands of Chinese agents in the US, in every state, plus Russian, North Korean, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda agents who can assist Iran in executing terrorist attacks, including WMD attacks or large scale operations that could inflict severe damage. A small group of Iranian Revolutionary Guard jihadists have the capability to unleash a deadly virus with more devastating results than the worst Russian nuclear attack. The Collapse Survival Institute threat assessment cites an example from the book Preparing to Survive in the Age of Collapse of 30 Iranian terrorists spreading a virus in U.S. airports who, even with
immediate CDC detection, could infect 5 million people within days and trigger a deadly
pandemic.
The former director of the Centers for Disease Control, no longer under political constraints, has defied the continued CDC lie that H5N1 is “low risk” to humans and has warned that an H5N1 pandemic is coming. Unlike the CDC, which completely ignores the deliberate human manipulation of H5N1 virus, former CDC Director Redfield also warned that “there is greater risk for the disease to be lab-grown.” Redfield noted that “against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them . . . . So, the recipe for how to make bird flu highly infectious for humans is already out there.”
If Iran does not have a human to human transmissible version of H5N1 or some other
bioengineered virus, or smallpox, that their agents can release in the U.S., we must expect that China, Russia, or North Korea might secretly provide it for them. Having Iran release the virus lets them escape risk of retaliation, unleashing a pandemic that could destroy U.S. power. A pandemic will spread around the world—but Iran (and North Korea, Russia) is already well cut off because of the war, and along with other countries, will immediately close their border at first reports of a deadly virus. China could provide Iran with a bioengineered virus that they have developed a vaccine for. As the virus spreads in the U.S., every country will cut off international travel. China could be among the first to close its borders, with a stockpiled vaccine standing by domestically should the virus reach Chinese soil. With the U.S. interfering in their unresolved civil war with Taiwan, pledging to defend Taiwan, China has huge incentives to help Iran cripple the U.S., eliminate U.S. support of Taiwan, and pave an easy path for China to be the clear world superpower.
Iran may target the highly vulnerable U.S. electric grid with physical and cyber attacks. Russia has demonstrated its ability to disable electric systems with cyber-attacks, and in 2023, a VP of the North American Electric Reliability Corp testified before Congress, warning of the “alarming” cybersecurity threat posed by China. Iran and North Korea also have cyber attack capability. Some Iranian, Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and Islamic agents who operate in the U.S., try to blend in by working in normal jobs, sometimes in “front companies” they control. A March 2021 report from the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center warned about insiders working in electric companies that could sabotage the grid, but there are few power companies with an insider-risk program and dedicated staff to detect and prevent such sabotage.
Iranian agents could execute physical attacks on the grid, shooting bullet holes in the huge, vulnerable transformers to destroy them—sometimes sending surges in electricity down the line that can destroy other transformers. In 2013 there was a sophisticated physical attack on the Metcalf station transformers in California. It was a coordinated 19-minute assault involving fiber-optic cable cutting and gunfire that damaged 17 transformers. This was likely foreign agents doing the attack as a test on our vulnerability and their capability, but the government never determined who conducted the attack (or ones since) or ordered utility companies (controlled by government regulators) to harden or protect the grid. The 2022 Moore County, NC substation attacks, plus the 2022-2023 Pacific Northwest substation attacks (Oregon, Washington), demonstrate that physical attacks on the US grid are happening now. We do not know if recent large scale drone reconnaissance, big drones releasing smaller drones, is also evidence of enemy agents developing and testing capability to attack our vulnerable grid, but only an idiot would assume this is unlikely. There is good reason to suspect that some of the aggressive drone activity in the U.S. in recent years is coming from Chinese air taxi drone
companies, using this business as a front to prepare for drone attacks on the electric grid.
The FBI warned of an Iranian plan to use drones launched from ships to attack the U.S. Drone attacks on the electric grid are another means that Iran may leverage, and another area where Chinese agents and assets in country could assist.
In March 2026, the Department of Homeland Security urged U.S. energy companies to increase security in response to potential threats from Iran, including drone attacks on the electric grid. A Center for Strategic and International Studies report warned that, “and pro-Iranian entities within the United States have capabilities to use drones as weapons—a threat that is difficult for utilities to counter.” The North American Electric Reliability Corp. also issued a report warning of “growing concern” about drone attacks.
Destroying our vulnerable electric system is the obvious, easy way to disable our military and kill most of our citizens. Foreign agents working undercover in electric utility companies, Chinese agents hiding/operating in Chinese air taxi drone companies to launch drone attacks on transformers, along with attacks by small Chinese agent teams on key substations and transformers could enable China to destroy the electric grid, cripple the US military, and kill most of us. Without power, it’s not just economic production that shuts down. Municipal water systems can’t function without electricity for pumps, so urban and suburban residents, the vast majority of our population, have 3 days to find alternative, safe drinking water or they start dying. Take down the electric grid and U.S. military power is largely eliminated and if the power is not back soon, off for a year or more; most citizens could die. As of early April, six federal agencies jointly attributed disruptions across U.S. Government Services and Facilities, Water and Wastewater Systems, and Energy sectors since March 2026 to Iranian cyber attacks. The Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that the U.S. electric grid is now treated as a primary Iranian target.
We cannot assume that Iran has no ability to use a nuclear weapon (it only takes one or two) to destroy the U.S. electric grid. Even if the Trump Administrations’ claims that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was completely destroyed is true, and their enriched uranium is buried underground, former National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned that Iran may have contracted with North Korea to have nuclear weapons produced. Nor does Iran need an ICBM to conduct a high altitude EMP attack to destroy our grid. The threat of Scud missiles launched off ships off our coast is not the only clever way to use these short range missiles. A civilian airliner modified to launch a scud missile with a small nuclear device over the U.S., to reach a higher altitude (more effective for a grid attack) is another way to destroy the grid and not leave a missile trail back to the launching country. North Korea’s nuclear weapons were designed with Russian assistance to be optimized to produce EMP, not blast, since the U.S. electric grid is our obvious vulnerability, the easy way to disable the U.S. military and kill most of the population with a few high altitude detonations. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, all know that the U.S. Achilles’ heel is our vital, fragile, vulnerable electric grid. Iranian military documents describe nuclear EMP attack scenarios against the United States. Iran does not need to take down most of the U.S. electric grid to trigger panic, loss of law and order, and a nation-wide collapse. With the complete lack of any U.S. civil defense program, a population that is well aware of how store looting can quickly escalate to home marauding and collapse of law and order, millions of Americans already planning to start looting when any big disaster strikes, even a small Iranian grid attack could yield a nationwide panic, looting takes off, and law and order vanishes. There are a million gang members who know that any big panic or
protest or disaster that ties up police makes it a great time to start looting. Tens of millions of preppers also expect that law and order will quickly break down at the first news of a pending collapse disaster. The popular Walking Dead TV series educated (and for some motivated) tens of millions more about the need to steal food, be ruthless, kill to survive, when law and order vanishes.
The probability of a collapse disaster in the U.S. was already high, and increasing due to the growing ability of individuals to create Weapons of Mass Destruction aided by bioengineering and Artificial Intelligence. The 2025 update of the Probability of Collapse model yielded an estimate of a 16-57% annual chance of a collapse disaster in the U.S. The likelihood is highly uncertain, but it is definitely not low. Article I of the Constitution exclusively vests in Congress the authority to declare war, while Article II designates the President as commander in chief. Nor does the War Powers Resolution authorize Trump’s war on Iran unless there is: (1) a declaration of war by Congress, (2) specific
statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States. None of these are present.
House Resolutions to impeach Trump for violating the Constitution in waging war without
Congressional authorization have already been introduced. As Trump’s approval ratings
continue to fall, now in the 30s (Nixon fell to 24% just before resigning), more of his supporters will turn on him, as Congresswoman Greene, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, and some GOP Senators have. As the war drags on, the flagrant abuse of presidential authority, violations of the Constitution and international law, and plummeting public support for Trump will probably lead to impeachment proceedings against Trump moving forward—adding yet another trigger event that could lead to a collapse: civil war as the divided U.S. breaks into political violence. Trump supporters will counter with sound arguments that it’s the Democratic Party, starting with FDR, that trashed the Constitution and eliminated the key limits to government power the American Revolution was fought for.
The divided United States of America are very well set for political violence and civil war. Ray Dalio built one of the largest and most successful hedge funds in the world by correctly predicting future events that others didn’t want to think about. He believes the United States is in a “pre-breakdown” phase, with huge national debt and a highly divided, increasingly hostile political divide. The next stage is civil war and revolution. Dalio predicts that the probability of “some form of civil war” in the U.S. is greater than 50%. Not a clash of states, but escalating social violence, state-vs-federal defiance, societal fragmentation. An exhibit in the Collapse Survival Institute report lays out data and evidence suggesting the U.S. is already in the early stages of civil war. Intelligence agencies like the CIA have models of “political instability” that help us estimate when third world countries may be facing crises or revolutions. The U.S. today scores as politically unstable, vulnerable to civil war or political violence.
There will be increasing protests over higher gas and food prices that provide opportunities for looting that can spiral out of control. Protests leading to violence leading to looting have occurred in recent years in places like Portland, Oregon, but may happen on a far wider scale. The high likelihood of incresaingly violent political protests against Trump, protests for and against impeachment proceedings, could risk sparking a civil war. Not a clash between states, but within them as conservatives (most in rural areas) and liberal/Democratic/urban supporters fight over gun control, illiegal immigration, Trump, and the U.S.-Iran war. We cannot know how many Iranian agents are here, whether or not they have viruses they can release, or plans for physical attacks on the electric grid. We must assume they can receive some support from China/Russia/North Korea, providing them a deadly virus, or having some of their agents in the U.S. assist in attacks. Iran’s motivation to kill Americans has likely increased, and it is highly likely that they will attempt deadly attacks, employing WMD. There will be increasing protests over higher gas and food prices that provide opportunities for looting that can spiral out of control. With the war dragging on and Trump’s popularity continuing to decline, protests against Trump will increase and impeachment proceedings are likely to move forward, which could lead to political violence, even some form of civil war that could lead to a collapse.