After nearly fifteen years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, American advocates of heavy armored forces interpreted Ukrainian forces’ defeat at the battle of Debaltseve as an indication that “tanks still matter.” But the key lesson of the Debaltseve fight is a broader one: Combat vehicles of whatever kind must provide the mobility, protection,…
Category: Russia
Cold War Files: CIA Fooled by Massive Double-Agent Failure
The CIA was fooled by scores of double agents pretending to be working for the agency but secretly loyal to communist spy agencies during the Cold War and beyond, according to a former CIA analyst, operations officer, and historian. The large-scale deception included nearly 100 fake CIA recruits in East Germany, Cuba, as well as the…
Forged ISIS Video Praises Obama’s Backing
Is is Real or is it Memorex Folks?? An apparently forged ISIS video disseminated online Monday praised President Obama and called for joint U.S. action with the terrorist group against Russian intervention in Syria. The five-minute video also called for designating Obama as the caliph, or ruler, of ISIS. ISIS supporters on Twitter were quick…
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…
Russian Airliner Bomb Revealed
The soda can that Muslims used to kill 224 people on Russian airliner Islamic State (ISIS) releases photo of the soda can that was used to take down the Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Read the Original Article at Bare Naked Islam
Cold War Files: Terror’s KGB Roots
A year ago today, my friend Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital, leaving behind a wife and young son. Sasha was poisoned by a tiny nuclear device containing polonium-210 — which, the British Crown Prosecution Service concluded, was planted on him by Russian secret agents. In its way, his murder was an act of…
Espionage Files: The tradition of Russians Dying in D.C. Hotels under Murky Circumstances
The other day a former Putin spokesman died in a DC hotel. He was 57 years old. Seems young to me for a heart attack. This reminded me of poor old Walter Krivitsky, a top Soviet intelligence official who defected after his friend and colleague Ignace Reiss was machine gunned in Switzerland in 1937. American…
Military History: The Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917
A Cautionary Tale for Revolutionaries Human society is continuously shaped by social, political, and technological developments. Some societies reject these developments and others embrace them. Normally, the rejection or acceptance is silent and smooth. At times, however, the process is violent and leads to conflict or revolution. According to Samuel Huntington, “a revolution is a…
Cold War Files: The Third World War that Almost Was in 1950
With the comfort and hindsight of a half-century, President Harry Truman’s decision to commit American power to save South Korea from Communist aggression in late June 1950 stands as perhaps America’s finest moment of the Cold War. By making a difficult commitment, by sacrificing 50,000 American lives in the end, Truman upheld Western values…
Why the Russians Cannot be Defeated
Although I can’t say I agree completely with the title of this article,the majority of it is a really good read for the CO. Russia would be a very tough foe for the U.S. in a Conventional War, no doubt, but, with like all of our enemies, it is good to understand their mentality and…