Frumentarius

By now, if you are at all keeping up with current events within national politics and/or the national security world, you are aware of the feud that has erupted between Donald J. Trump and the intelligence community.  Here is a primer, if you still need one. I should say a few things before we get […]

With a winter apocalypse upon us here in the lower Midwest, where the temperature has plummeted precipitously to the teens and the snow is piled high enough to bury an overly tall mushroom (a “snowfusion” of over three whole inches!), one’s mind begins to wander toward how to survive such an onslaught of nature. Worse […]

The following is a photographic essay documenting a mass-casualty training exercise at a U.S. military base in the vicinity of Mosul, Iraq. The U.S. Navy’s Role II medical facility on the base took the lead in the exercise, which focused on a simulated vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack at an entry control point on […]

The scene is the American Civil War, August of 1862, in Prince William County, Virginia. Confederate and Union armies numbering close to 100,000 total men engaged in a fierce three-day fight called the Second Battle of Bull Run, or the Battle of Second Manassas.  Upon the completion of the fighting on August 30th, thousands of […]

T.S. Eliot wrote the words found in the title of this article in his poem “Little Gidding,” about time, perspective, and human salvation. It seems only fitting to herald the end of 2016 not as a year passed in celebration, but as the beginning of a new year, lest some of us shoot ourselves in the face […]

It is no secret that things have been “testy” recently, at least in public, between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the President-elect, Donald J. Trump.   To hear it spoken of in the media, you would think that the CIA is filled with Trump haters looking to stymie the newly elected incoming POTUS, and […]

A fairy tale. Nestled deep in a dark and foreboding forest, a village exists. This village is special. Its inhabitants are virtuous and good, for the most part, and in their walled and protected village, they shelter from the horrors that abound in the surrounding woods. In those woods live two-headed wolves, bears as tall […]

The following is part two of a two-part Red Team exercise on a hypothetical, multi-pronged ISIS attack on the Midwest—in Kansas City, Missouri. You can read part one here. H-Day, H-Hour Assailant #1, flying in a tourist charter helicopter over Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, attacks and kills the helicopter’s pilot while the […]

If you were to ask a sampling of American security and intelligence officials for their pick as the gravest threat to face the United States from global jihadists, you might be surprised by the answer you would hear. If you listen to official Washington, or the establishment media, for your answer, you might hear: a […]

The following is a Red Team case study of a hypothetical terrorist attack on Kansas City, Missouri. It is an attempt to highlight what an ISIS-inspired attack might look like on a mid-size American city, located not in the Northeast Corridor, nor on the West Coast, but in the middle of the United States. The […]

Here in the United States, we have apparently been hit by the old Chinese curse. That is to say, we live in interesting times. The world is fraught with tension and violence, and within our own borders, we are collectively agitated and bewildered by our depressing lack of a coherent and functioning political system. International […]

As reported in USA Today on December 5, 2016, two U.S. Navy sailors — both likely SEALs — will have their Navy Cross awards upgraded to Congressional Medals of Honor, following a review conducted by the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, upon the order of Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Per the article in USA […]