This month’s original Task & Purpose comic is in the spirit of the season. During the Christmas Truce of 1914, German and British soldiers laid down their arms and met in no man’s land to play a spirited game of soccer. An incredible story that’s hard to imagine ever occurring. Read the Remainder of the…
Category: Historical Study
Crusader Corner: When Terrorist Assault Cities
To be prepared for these Terrorist eventualities, we, as Civilian Operators, have to STOP thinking in these very broad, ambiguous terms of “Preparing for Terrorism” and start narrowing our focus in how EXACTLY we are going to prepare for these attacks. In the vast majority of attacks in the past decade, several small teams of…
Russia Using the 4th Dimension of Warfare (Space) to Gain the Upper Hand in the Syrian War
While Space has been called the final frontier, it is also an untapped resource in regards to warfare. Why is America always last to know in these matters while China and Russia are first in line? The answer is quite simple: BHO. -SF Russia is employing a significant portion of its space assets to gather…
Thinking About War Underground
No one has done better than the great British comic illustrator Heath Robinson to illustrate the intrinsically reciprocal dynamic of military engineering in general and mining and countermining in particular. This cartoon is from a collection Heath Robinson at War I found in a rummage sale years ago–no doubt there are abundant reprints. I would guess,…
Military History: 6 Rare Facts about the Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a Hail Mary pass by a führer who was quickly running out of options. Hitler desperately needed a decisive victory on either his Western or Eastern front. Remembering his series of victories after sneaking through the Ardennes forest in 1940, he went for a repeat in 1944. On Dec. 16,…
Peering into the Past and Future of Urban Warfare in Israel
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…
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…
Quirky Diplomacy: 9 Wars that were technically “Ongoing”
Throughout history, a number of conflicts, due to the quirky nature of international diplomacy, never officially ended. Of course, these “extended wars” have never actually had any bearing on international relations. Instead, the ongoing de facto peace overrode any technicalities on the world stage. However, the patching up of these diplomatic irregularities has been used…
Quick Historical Comparison between Political Correctness and Nazi Philosophy
By Hammerhead I was reading through Antony Beevors outstanding World War Two history Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 the other day and I came across a passage I wanted to share with you that I feel reflects the current trend of “Political Correctness” that seems to be rampant in our society as of late. This terrible…
Crusader Corner #8: The Global Islamic Insurgency
I wanted to quote the last half of this article (Here is the Full Article: Why We Are Losing the War on Terror) to let you read some of the most important points the author makes. The Global Islamic Insurgency is HERE Folks, Right Now. They are in Phase I: Latent and Incipient Insurgency as…