On Jan. 28, the Duma began discussing the possibility of legalizing private military companies in Russia. The law, which counts influential vice prime minister Dmitry Rogozin as a supporter, has one major goal — to ensure that Iraqi oil fields where Russian firms Rosneft and Gazprom operate no longer come under the protection of British…
Category: Military History
Military Weapons from the Past: The ‘Hotchkiss Type Universal’ was a TINY Submachine Gun
The odd-looking Hotchkiss Type Universal represented an extraordinary attempt at creating an extremely compact submachine gun. The need was obvious. In World War II, soldiers found themselves getting in and out of vehicles, jumping from planes and fighting in close quarters. They needed a weapon that wouldn’t get in the way. Submachine guns had become…
The Rise of the Hybrid Warriors: From Ukraine to the Middle East
The Iraqi Army defenders of Ramadi had held their dusty, stony ground for over a year and become familiar with the increasing adeptness of their opponents waving black flags. At first, these Iraqi Army units simply faced sprayed rifle fire, but then it was well-placed sniper rounds that forced these weary units to keep under…
STRATFOR Founder Warns: “Be Ready for War”
Interstate warfare is a thankfully unusual occurrence in the present day. State-assisted nonstate groups frequently fight governments, a scenario currently unfolding in Syria, Eastern Ukraine, and a host of other places. But you’d have to go back to the US-led invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, or the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict of the late 1990s for an example…
Three Minutes to Midnight: Closer to Nuclear Conflict Than We Think
While at Stanford last month, we had a long conversation with former Secretary of Defense William Perry about the nuclear dangers facing the world. We were struck by his provocative and frightening outlook: that the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War. North Korea’s recent bluster only…
What the 2016 Presidential Candidates Get Wrong About the Future of War
They fail, they lack, they misunderstand, they pander, they don’t get, and they just don’t know national security – not according to our Future of War roster of experts. “The President shall be Commander in Chief…” This clause that leads Article Two, Section II of the U.S. Constitution is without a doubt the most important of…
World War Two History: Los Aliados – The Latin Americans Who Helped Defeat the Axis
“While their contributions to the final victory may seem miniscule when compared to those of other world powers, their participation is nonetheless noteworthy.” THE NATIONS OF LATIN AMERICA are not often counted among the foremost contributors to the Second World War. Countries like Chile and Uruguay largely stayed on the sidelines until the war’s final…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Crusades and Syria
[Taken from the blog Bionic Mosquito.] The Battle for Syria Part I There ran down the edges of the desert a string of cities and their connecting road – Aleppo, Homs, Damascus…. As long as these cities remain in enemy hands, the seacoast (Lebanon and Israel) will not be secure. But this isn’t…
Espionage Non-Fiction Book Review: The Rice Paddy Navy
Osprey Publishing; November 2012; 316 pp. Before Navy SEALs stormed mansions in Pakistan, the notion of sailors waging war on land sounded ludicrous to many. So when Gen. George C. Marshall learned that Navy captain Milton Miles intended to train an army of Chinese guerillas to disrupt Japanese army operations in China and create a…
Iranian Basij Fighting Forces Bolster the Assad Regime in Syria
This fanatical Para-Military Volunteer pipeline stretches from Tehran to Damascus Tehran downplays its presence in Syria, but its volunteers are hard to hide. The most obvious clue as to their presence is the fact that Iranian troops have died in the conflict, including high-profile commanders such as Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani of the Iranian Revolutionary…