“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…
Crusader Corner: Europe Will Close Main Migration Route For Refugees
EU, this is Too Little, Too late I am Afraid. The damage has already been done. This is like watching your barn burn down and then when it is all ashes calling the Fire Department and screaming “Hurry! My Barn is on Fire!!” No, Europe deserves what it gets I am sorry to say. The…
Russian Subs Are Reheating a Cold War Chokepoint
As the GIUK gap returns to importance, NATO must look to regenerate its anti-submarine force. The recent U.S. promise to fund upgrades to Iceland’s military airfield at Keflavik is no diplomatic bone thrown to a small ally. The improvements will allow the U.S. Navy’s new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to keep an eye on…
Jihawg Ammo: “There’s a Pig in the Paint”
You’ve probably already heard about the bizarre, Islamist slaughter of an off-duty British soldier in broad daylight on a busy street in London in May 2013. The two assailants struck the victim with a car then jumped out and began hacking and slashing him with knives and a meat cleaver. The murderers then strutted…
Brush-Up On Your History: When Terrorist First Attacked the U.S.
A hundred years ago this month, the nation was blindsided by the first act of terrorism on U.S. soil—at the hands of Mexican troops commanded by the revolutionary Pancho Villa. It has been 100 years since the first act of terror on U.S. soil was committed by revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa. On March 9, 1916…
Cold War Non-Fiction Book Review: Special Tasks – The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness – A Soviet Spymaster
Published in 1994 by Little Brown and Co.; 509 pp My Administration for Special Tasks,” Sudoplatov begins, “was responsible for sabotage, kidnapping and assassination of our enemies beyond the country’s borders.” The administration to which he refers was one of the key divisions in Stalin’s security police, an agency he headed from the summer of…
Military Weapons from the Past: Americas First Rolling Armored “Shotgun”
A weird little Marine Corps tank blasted North Vietnamese troops Designed and built in a farm tractor factory and armed with six 106-millimeter recoilless rifles, the M-50A1 Ontos was rejected by the Army and only purchased in small numbers by the Marine Corps. Years later in Vietnam, the USMC trained infantry riflemen to drive these…
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…
Stand with Israel: Hamas Boost Cooperation with ISIS in Sinai
The Gaza terror group’s armed wing is digging tunnels in broad daylight to smuggle in Islamic State jihadists for medical care The Egyptian soldiers stationed on the border of the Gaza Strip have encountered this sight more than once in the past few weeks: Hamas-owned bulldozers and tractors appear and begin excavations on the…