I traveled recently to Israel to visit a state-of-the-art military training facility in the southern Negev Desert opened by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) last year. The facility, at the Tze’elim army base, is meant to simulate urban operations of the kind the Israelis have so often faced in their conflicts with Palestinian and Lebanese…
Category: Asymmetrical Warfare
Military History: History’s Last Left Hook?
Military Envelopments with Strategic Implications “Left hook” is a boxing term for a short, sideways, inside punch which often lands on an opponent’s jaw. Left hooks generally come as a surprise because for most people it is much harder to punch with their left arm. So, while boxers may continuously jab, cross, and uppercut, the…
Crusader Corner #9: Understanding ISIS’ “De-Centralized” Organizational Structure
Decentralization: The Future of ISIS by Nicholas B. Pace With the United States increasingly involved in counter-terror operations across the world, terrorist organizations have had to become more flexible and adaptive to their environment. Centralized, top-down terrorist organizations with ambitions to target the United States and its interests are no longer feasible. The United…
In 2015, Why Do We Still Fight?
Why fight wars at all? We lose lives and treasure even if we win. Those who survive are haunted by the violence and the price they paid; whether they were drafted or volunteered every one of them offered up their lives for an ideal. War is a bloody, terrible business. Military personnel are trained to…
8 Unbelievable Stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah
Veterans from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines share their incredible stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah. This time of year marks the anniversary of one of the most storied battles in recent Marine Corps history: the Second Battle of Fallujah. The city became the scene of brutal urban combat when American, Iraqi, and British forces…
IED Awareness: The Blast Zone
(Note: This is a companion piece to the article I re-posted titled IED Awareness for First Responders and Civilians.) In this companion piece to my previous article, IED Awareness for First Responders, I cover the basics of what every first responder should know about the area around a bomb which is affected by the blast….
Islam, Europe and the Tet Offensive, Take Two
Matthew Bracken is a former Navy SEAL with a BA in Russian Studies from the University of Virginia. In 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon. Links to his short stories and essays can be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com. More than a decade ago I wrote my first novel, Enemies Foreign and…
ISIS and The “Law of Lawless Places”
Read this article slowly and consider the ancient and modern historical background information. If you understand the fundamentals of Counter-Insurgency Warfare, this is basically a re-cap on the basics… it is too bad the U.S. Govt. has yet to grasp this simple fact. -SF The Latin phrase hic sunt dracones translates roughly to “here be dragons,”…
The POVERTY of American Strategy
By Kenneth Allard Are you serious, Mr. Obama? In spite of the latest wave of ISIS attacks that spilled innocent blood on the streets of Paris, our president still considers it a “mistake” to send ground troops to defeat them, possibly preferring similar battles on American soil. Even his most reliable media defenders, speaking from…
How Active Camouflage will Make Small Drones Invisible
British company Plextek Consulting wants to make drones impossible for their targets to spot. And rather than having to choose between camouflage patterns optimized for rocky desert terrain or for dense vegetation, they have developed electronic panels to cover a vehicle with adaptive camouflage that could display different patterns at the flick of a switch….