Blog Posts

The conspiracy narrative wasn't borne out. Now Americans should dismiss the idea of a Russian "hybrid war."

"Iraq’s president said Friday he does not see any 'serious' opposition to the presence of American forces in Iraq, provided they continue to be there specifically to assist Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State group."

"A new documentary tells the story of the 10th Mountain Division soldiers who rescued the Rangers and Delta operators."

Most perceptions of special operations are formed by movies like "American Sniper," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Lone Survivor" or "Black Hawk Down." There is some truth to those movies, but the command is far more.

"After two Russian military planes landed near Caracas this month, the Trump administration issued stark warnings over President Nicolás Maduro’s ties to the Kremlin. But a vessel that arrived in the waters off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast a day earlier offered a more telling sign of a deepening relationship that is so alarming to Washington."

"Police are investigating six terror suspects who were allegedly planning an attack. The suspects, who were arrested and later released, are accused of being affiliated with the so-called "Islamic State" extremist group."

"A mortar attack on a school Saturday in the volatile southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan killed at least four school students and injured more than a dozen. The assault comes on the heels of the Taliban capturing a strategically important northeastern district in Afghanistan and inflicting fresh casualties on government forces elsewhere in the country."

"Israeli forces used tear gas and live fire during sporadic clashes Saturday along the Gaza border as thousands of Palestinians gathered to mark the anniversary of year-long protests over the territory’s blockade. At least two people were killed, Gaza officials said."

"Local grievances are behind the recent violence in the country. Jihadis are hoping to exploit them to build a caliphate."

"Philippine communist guerrillas marked the 50th anniversary of their rural rebellion on Friday with threats of more attacks, possibly in cities, as a negotiated settlement remains elusive and peace talks have repeatedly stalled."

"For more than a decade, America’s “secret war” in Laos involved U.S. Army special operations forces, false IDs and cover stories—and the secrecy surrounding it has remained relatively intact until now."

"The ELN, Colombia’s last rebel army, has engaged in exponential growth over the last four years, both in Colombia and within Venezuela, and may now be described as a Colombo-Venezuelan force, with enormous implications for both countries."

"Thousands of miles away from the Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria and Iraq, a lesser-known epidemic of insurgency has upended the lives of millions of people."

"Days after President Trump declared the Islamic State’s caliphate had been eliminated in Syria, the prime minister of one of West Africa’s most turbulent nations urged the United States to shift attention to a rising extremist threat in the Sahel."

"The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Thursday naming terrorist financing a serious crime and demanding that all countries set up a domestic legal framework to counter the practice."

"Afghanistan remains dependent on the U.S.-led coalition to combat insurgencies, pay Afghan troops, maintain oversight of corruption and generally just prevent the country from devolving into chaos. That doesn’t bode well for the peace negotiations currently underway between U.S. and Taliban diplomatic teams."

"Russia hit back against U.S. warnings over its support for Venezuela’s government, defending its arms trade with the Latin American country and promising to keep its military advisers there as long as President Nicolás Maduro deemed necessary."

"The Defense Department is scouting sites along the US-Mexico border to erect new physical barriers, according to two department officials."

"The dramatic increase in U.S. airstrikes that began last year has brought the country no closer to peace. In fact, Afghan soldiers, police, and civilians are dying at record rates."

"When will America’s leaders tell the truth about our role in the conflict?"

"Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has pinned his survival on shunning computers and mobile phones in favor of human messengers."

"The U.S. mission in Somalia has garnered attention as airstrikes in the country ramped up over the past few years, but it is a band of specialized local infantry being trained by American contractors and U.S. troops that Africa Command says is the primary security effort there.vSomalia’s Danab Advanced Infantry Brigade, or lightning force, is a growth point that AFRICOM is eagerly cultivating."

"Why is it important to even ask the question, though, of whether a city can be killed? It is important for many reasons. When we try to answer the question, it makes clear the lack of a uniform and widely accepted definition of cities, and a generally poor understanding of them. They are not, as the US military tends to view them, just major combinations of manmade physical terrain, a population, and a supporting infrastructure. Most importantly, asking the question exposes the lack of a widely used and real-time framework and set of analytical tools for understanding how cities survive, adapt, and flourish."

"Four years, nine months, billions of dollars and tens of thousands of allied fighters’ lives. As the U.S.-backed Syrian forces declared a triumphant end last weekend to the battle against the Islamic State, Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, took a mental inventory."

"It has been difficult to find a credible number for the Islamic State group’s total troop strength ever since it emerged, and speculation has ranged widely."