Culture

This article was written by Alex Hollings and originally published on Sandboxx. China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers may promise to grant the nation more power projection capabilities than ever before, but first, they’ll need a competent carrier-based fighter. That’s where a Chinese national named Su Bin comes in–he is currently serving a prison sentence […]

Western models of spycraft are failing. Traditional models of spycraft seek to inform decision-making based on predictive analysis, but this is no longer effective in today’s environment. By nature, closed and authoritarian regimes, such as Russia and China, have an easier job of spying on their more progressive and open adversaries — the United States […]

Mindfulness is all the rage right now. Yet, the idea of being mindful — the ability to be fully present — is not a new concept in the warrior culture. As Togo Shigekata, who was a samurai from the Satsuma domain, noted, “One finds life through conquering the fear of death within one’s mind. Empty […]

Combat hand-to-hand is another animal entirely, not like being in a ring or on a mat, and is often not one-on-one.

Some SAS members acted like “self-righteous, entitled pricks.” After a long-running investigation looking into war crimes reportedly committed by Australian troops, Major-General Adam Findlay, the commander of Australia’s Special Forces, has admitted that some members of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) indeed committed war crimes in Afghanistan. He blamed these atrocities on “poor moral […]

Global poverty is a complex issue that has long plagued the world. There exists no interchangeable template to fix poverty throughout the world. Strategies that work in the U.S. will not necessarily work in places like Africa or the Middle East. One could argue that the principles to combat poverty are more or less the […]

The year 2020 will not go down as one of America’s finest, but one of its worst. From the COVID-19  pandemic, which ruined the economy and put nearly a quarter of the working force in many states out of work, to the needless murder of two African-American men, one in Georgia and the other in […]

It’s no secret that veterans and military-affiliated folks have built their own entire ecosystem on the internet. Like any other corner of the web, it’s simply like-minded people who share history and/or interests. Like almost any other thing on the internet, it can threaten to be an echo chamber that only reinforces certain views or […]

Kirk Douglas died at age 103, earlier this week in Los Angeles. He was one of the last stars from the bygone era of Hollywood, where the actors on screen were larger than life characters. Douglas was not only a throwback to that time, but continued to appear in film and on stage well into […]

The first parts of this series outlined the realities of what it means to be Special Forces. If you haven’t read those two, I suggest that you start there first. Now that you have a better understanding of what Special Operations is all about, I want you to understand what keeps things operating smoothly once […]

It might feel like we rolled into 2019 fifteen minutes ago; but here we are, already nearing the year’s close and facing down another rapidly approaching Christmas. In families like mine all over the country, people are going about their usual holiday traditions: putting up a tree, playing Christmas music and punching strangers over good […]

Over 1 million people have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria in the last two decades of war. So I find it slightly irritating seeing the top fashion designers co-opting war camouflage at great profit with no moral consequence. So, hopefully this piece will educate the few who’ll read it. First, a quick story […]