Pete Nealen

Carl von Clausewitz defined war as: An act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. He goes on to say, “Violence, that is to say, physical force (for there is no moral force without the conception of States and Law), is therefore the means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to […]

While the media (and a lot of politicians) are attempting to paint a picture of the Syrian civil war as being about rebels desiring freedom from the tyrant Assad, the actual picture is much different. Anyone who’s been paying attention should not be surprised by this—it’s been the case with most conflicts over the last […]

While Iraq has been off the media’s radar for some time, the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings has eclipsed the current wave of sectarian violence that preceded last week’s provincial elections in Iraq. Although the elections -the first since the US withdrawal -went off with an estimated turnout of about 51 percent, resistance was […]

Whatever Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s affiliations may have been, they are still unknown and being investigated. While the mainstream media has trumpeted that the Tsarnaev brothers were Chechens, they were in fact originally from Dagestan, a region immediately to the north and east of Chechnya, and their family had since moved to Kyrgyzstan. Of course, separating Dagestan […]

Maybe this stuff has always been out there, but lately I’ve noticed it getting more and more circulation. Sandy Hook, Chris Dorner, and now the Boston Marathon bombings, are all apparently the work of the US government; orchestrated to bring about the final destruction of the Constitution, and the installment of Obama as ‘President For […]

On March 26th, Lt. Col. Lloyd Freeman published an article on Foreign Policy entitled, “Can The Marines Survive?”  In short, Lt. Col. Freeman’s point is that American air power and UAVs have irrevocably changed warfare; movement on the battlefield means being killed by remote control from half a world away.  He argues that the Marine […]

While the al-Nusra Front gains most of the headlines in the Syrian Civil War, there is another group, called Ahrar al Sham, which is at least Al Nusra’s equal, if not even more important.  A loose conglomeration of Islamist groups from across Syria, Ahrar al Sham, “The Islamic Movement of the Free Men of Greater […]

Dirty, tired, camouflage-painted, trousers ripped, armed to the teeth, and overloaded. Okay, so that’s what the guys on the Recon team look like most of the time. The team itself has evolved a bit due to operational requirements, equipment limitations, and force protection requirements established by higher. Over the years since Vietnam, the Recon team […]

On December 23rd, a new Salafi jihadist group announced its formation in the Syrian city of Homs. Calling itself Jund Al Sham, or “Soldiers of the Levant,” it announced its purpose to wage jihad in Syria. From the SITE translation of their statement: “After the hoards of the al-Assad gangs, and their Rafidah [Shi’ite] allies, […]

THE POPULAR CONSENSUS is that the Iraq War began in March of 2003, although it could very well be argued that it began in January of 1991, when the First Gulf War kicked off. There were very strict terms to the cease fire in 1991 — terms that Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated (e.g. firing SAMs […]

THE BASIC RECONNAISSANCE COURSE generally consists of four phases: Land Nav., Amphib., Recon Skills, and Patrolling.  Depending on the class, these can appear in just about any order.  My class, 1-05, had Patrolling as the final phase. While all four phases can be plenty brutal in their own right, Patrol takes it to a level […]

While the media and many news sites cover the violence in Mali and Syria, it bears mentioning that there are still al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups operating within Iraq itself.  Violence increased with the withdrawal of US troops last year, and the al-Qaeda involvement in the Syrian civil war has highlighted the fact that the organization […]