Pete Nealen

There has been a trend in recent years that seems to the author to be metastasizing, one in which people view current threats, particularly the asymmetric ones, in a binary, black-and-white sort of way. Either a threat is an existential one, that is going to leave the U.S. in complete wreckage, or it is nothing. Examples […]

It seems like every year or two, there is a storm of rumors about upheaval in or related to North Korea. Most of them are along the same lines; utter collapse of the only visibly Stalinist regime in the world (visibly—most similar states in other parts of the world don’t get the attention that the […]

On the night of Sept 22, the US air campaign against Daash expanded from northern Iraq to Syria.  Fourteen strikes, using a combination of ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, B-1B bombers, F/A-18s, F-15s, F-16s, and drones, hit targets in Raqqa, Deir al Zour, Hassakeh, and the border town of Abu Kamal, as well as strikes on […]

In the evening of the 18th, utilizing a combination of VBIEDs, suicide bombers, mortars, and, according to Shafaaq, RPGs, ISIS fighters struck in the Khadhmiya Neighborhood in northern Baghdad.

If you are going to back proxies instead of getting directly involved, you’ve got to lose some of the squeamishness and accept that “our guy” trumps “good guy.”

There have been many factors to the rise of ISIS, from a relatively obscure Al Qaeda affiliate that had been forced almost completely underground by a combination of US military power and the Sahwa militias in Al Anbar Province (ISIS was originally Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq), to a cross-border rebel/terrorist group […]

Following the rapid string of successes that the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham enjoyed in June and into July, ISIS has come to be perceived as an Islamist juggernaut, far more powerful and militarily sophisticated than any jihadist force seen yet in the 13 years that the US and its allies have been […]

“War is politics by other means.”  This is probably the most oft-quoted of Clausewitz’s writings.  But politics can interfere with war far more than it informs it. One of the most obvious examples would be President Obama’s address concerning the authorization of airstrikes in Iraq on August 7.  “I ran for this office in part […]

Peter Nealen’s latest book, Alone and Unafraid, is now available to purchase.

On August 16, US airstrikes in the vicinity of Mosul Dam began. Previously, airstrikes had largely been centered on protecting Erbil, where the US Consulate is located, and some in support of humanitarian relief operations on Sinjar Mt. The limited authorization for strikes “in support of humanitarian operations and to protect US personnel and facilities” […]

For the uninitiated, RUMINT stands for “Rumor-based Intelligence.”  It is the grapevine, the Lance Corporal Underground, the mysterious pathways by which information gets around before higher’s even aware that it’s out there. With social media and so-called “New Media,” RUMINT has gotten more pervasive than ever.  Now you can find up-to-the-minute reports of what is […]

On August 7, President Obama announced from the White House that, in light of the plight of the Yezidi refugees on Sinjar Mountain, and the advance of ISIS onto the Ninewa Plain toward Erbil, he has authorized American airstrikes specifically in support of humanitarian relief operations for the Yezidi refugees, and to protect American personnel […]