We need to ask ourselves which lessons are worth retaining versus which do we think we should retain but make us more vulnerable. Editor’s Note: This article is drawn from a talk given by the author to the Special Operations Medical Association Scientific Assembly in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 24, 2016. Question: Do the…
Category: Hybrid Warfare
Guerilla Warfare History: The Ties That Bind… Chairman Mao, Che Guevera and Al-Qaeda
Mao Tse-tung borrowed the revolutionary vanguard from Vladimir Lenin, Ernesto “Che” Guevara liked Mao’s ideas about sanctuaries, and Al Qaeda valued Guevara’s focoist approach to global insurgency. At first glance, the revolutionary strategies of Mao, Guevara, and the intellectuals who devised Al Qaeda’s doctrine for jihad have much in common. They integrated violence into the…
Military News: 10 Wars That Could Break Out In The Next Four Years
The incoming Commander-in-Chief already has a handful of issues waiting for him or her on January 20th and surely doesn’t need any more foreign policy headaches. Unfortunately, the job is “Leader of the Free World” and not “Autopilot of the Worldwide Ramones/P-Funk Block Party.” Inevitably, things go awry. Reactions have unintended consequences. If you don’t…
Espionage Files: Canadian Intel Report Claims Russia “Mobilizing for War”
A report by Canada’s primary intelligence agency warns in stark language that Russia is “retooling its military for a fight” and appears to be “mobilizing for war”. The classified report was accessed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the country’s state-owned broadcaster. According to the CBC, the document was produced by the Canadian Security Intelligence…
Learning From Terrorist Tactics: Preparing For Subterranean Warfare
I posted an article last year on Subterranean Warfare in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank and it now looks like this nasty type of fighting is definitely going to be part of the landscape in the battle zones in Syria and Iraq as well. -SF Last year, members of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate,…
Military Defense News: Stop Panicking About Russian “Hybrid” Warfare
There is currently a great deal of alarmist concern, triggered by a recent RAND report, about Russia’s supposed ability to conquer the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, three former Soviet republics that are now part of NATO — and thus drive a wedge into NATO without the West being able to do anything…
Espionage Files: Russian Spies Put Full-Court Press on Sweden
The Swedish state security police, or SAPO, is getting pretty worried about a dramatic uptick in Russian espionage activity in Sweden, according to leaks in the Swedish press. And SAPO is hinting that it’s related to the fact that Sweden is gearing up for a May 25 parliamentary debate about ratifying a “Host Nation Support…
Learning From Terrorist Tactics: ISIS’ Sniper Propaganda
For those of you interested in this subject of Guerilla Snipers and how Propaganda in sniping can often be a valuable weapon in and of itself, I would highly recommend the Book Fry the Brain by John West. -SF Snipers stalk the sprawling battlefields of Iraq and Syria. Hiding, quietly waiting and squeezing off long-distance…
A New Generation of Unrestricted Warfare
In 1999, two Chinese colonels wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare, about warfare in the age of globalization. Their main argument: Warfare in the modern world will no longer be primarily a struggle defined by military means — or even involve the military at all. They were about a decade and a half before their…
The Three Faces of Russian Spetsnaz in Syria
As the Russian drawdown from Syria continues, more information continues to emerge about the forces Moscow had committed to shoring up the Assad regime. One telling aspect is how involved Russia’s Spetsnaz special forces were in the deployment. They were involved in two of their three core missions — reconnaissance and special security missions —…