CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas — The recent execution of a top athlete at the state university in this city points to the ongoing fighting between rival factions of the Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel. Tamaulipas is the Mexican state immediately south of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Laredo Sectors. On Monday evening, a group of unknown…
Security Alert: Jihad Stabbing Sprees have Come to the U.S.
Well, I hate to say “I told you so” but as soon as I heard about the stabbing spree at the California College of UC Merced yesterday, something clicked in the back of my mind and said “This was a muslim and an act of terror”, and whatta you know, I was right! …
Can the Counter-Insurgency Doctrine Be Saved?
After failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s time for a new understanding of counterinsurgency. With the apparent lack of progress and success in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency (COIN) has fallen out of favor within the political and military establishments in the U.S. and elsewhere. Regardless of whether these failures were due to erroneous implementation or…
Why Your Secure Building Isn’t
Better Security through Penetration Testing My book, Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy, provides the first in-depth investigation into the work of red teams in the military, intelligence, homeland security and private sectors, revealing the best practices, most common pitfalls, and most effective applications of their work. Below is an adaptation….
Understanding Counter-Insurgency Warfare in under 3 minutes
This clip was edited out of the final movie We Were Soldiers for some reason, but I have to agree with Tom Ricks’ Article, they should have left it in. “You Won’t Run the little Bastards back home sir, They Are Home….” As I Said, that sums up COIN.
Border Security Alert: Waves of Cubans Crossing U.S. Border from Mexico
When most Americans think of large numbers of Cuban migrants leaving the island nation, they picture rafts and boats headed towards the Florida Keys. However, this new exodus finds hundreds of Cubans heading to Central America and joining those following the same migration routes heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the Miami Herald, border…
Tradecraft Notes: The Use of Clothing Disguises and the Manipulation of “Perceived Authority”
By Hammerhead While watching the new series “Sherlock” on Netflix the other day with my better half, I had an epiphany, well, more like a “fantasy ideal” I guess; I realized that if the average person had the heightened awareness of both his surroundings and other people that the borderline autistic savant Sherlock Holmes has,…
Technology and Privacy: Signal, the Crypto App Comes to Android
SINCE IT FIRST appeared in Apple’s App Store last year, the free encrypted calling and texting app Signal has become the darling of the privacy community, recommended—and apparently used daily—by no less than Edward Snowden himself. Now its creator is bringing that same form of ultra-simple smartphone encryption to Android. On Monday the privacy-focused non-profit…
Military History: The ‘Other’ Revolutionary War & The Fall of Fort Sackville
By John Farnam “… in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by strength of arms, our Cause we leave to Heaven, and our rifles!” ~ Hanover Association, Lancaster County, PA, 1774 During the French and Indian Wars of the 1750s and 1760s, many North American Indian tribes had allied…
Black Hawk Tragedy: Orders Were Ignored and 11 Men Died
INSIDE ONE OF THE MOST DEVASTATING MILITARY TRAINING MISSIONS IN RECENT MEMORY By Kevin Lilley Seconds after his Black Hawk helicopter took off for a March 10 training mission — filled with seven Marine special operators and three fellow Louisiana Army National Guardsmen — the pilot remarked: “Gee, it’s dark as [expletive].” Less than five…