Sam Faddis

Recent news that DNI Dan Coats is looking for ways to streamline the gargantuan US Intelligence Community have returned the question of how American intelligence should be organized and structured to the fore. While previous efforts at “reform” were largely stillborn and confined to the marginal reshuffling of existing capabilities, the election of Donald Trump […]

As a career intelligence officer I understand that the world around us in often seen in shifting shades of gray partially obscured by a fog of uncertainty and ambiguity. I also know that sometimes that fog lifts, and all is revealed in the crystal clear light of day. Such was the moment, late last month, […]

When President Obama sold the disastrous Iran nuclear deal to the American people he famously described it in these terms. We could support the deal and opt for peace, or we could oppose the deal and choose war. It was a simple binary choice, and only a madman would decide to begin a war, which […]

The news media is abuzz with reports of the ongoing public confrontation between President-elect Trump and members of the intelligence community, particularly outgoing CIA Director Brennan. Alarms are being sounded over the danger posed by an incoming president in confrontation with his own intelligence agencies, and who publicly questions the value of the intelligence they provide. […]

On April 26, 1937 the world got its first taste of the impact of strategic air power.   German aircraft belonging to the Condor Legion attacked the Basque city of Guernica. Ignoring military targets and concentrating on the civilian population, German planes killed somewhere around 1500 people and wounded thousands more. The gutted shell of the […]

Monday the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was shot and killed while speaking at the opening of a photo exhibit in Ankara, Turkey. The gunman, Mert Altintas, was a Turkish policeman, although there are conflicting reports as to whether he had been dismissed from his position prior to the attack. In any event, while Altintas was not part of […]

President Obama’s recent decision to grant Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) expanded authorities in the fight against terrorism likely came as welcome news to many. Anything that means we move more quickly and nimbly in hunting the enemy has to be welcome. Here is the reality, however. We are in this war for the long […]

In 1943, in the darkest depths of the Second World War the British sent a small, select group of intelligence officers from the Special Operations Executive (SOE) into Nazi-occupied Albania. Living under extreme conditions, one step ahead of capture at all times and short on supplies and support, the SOE personnel began to produce immediate […]

You may love him. You may hate him. Either way, Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. The tasks ahead of him are enormous. Most of the early focus has been on what he will do in regard to domestic policy. Abroad, however, he will find the challenges no less daunting. President […]

We have for decades now understood the inherent fragility of Lebanon, a weak, divided nation-state trying desperately to contain the growing power of Hezbollah. Analysts have described the nation as in many ways, increasingly a country wrapped around a terrorist group like a thin cloak. All that ends Monday October 31, 2016. As of that […]

On October 10, 680, Husain Ibn Ali, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, and a small band of followers were attacked at Karbala, in what is now Iraq, by a much larger force under the command of the reigning Caliph Yazid I. At stake was the leadership of the Islamic world. What ensued was less a battle […]