Category: Expert Analysis

Reports from Iraqi news agencies say the U.S. A-10s in specific cause “panic” among the ISIS terrorists during air strikes.

On February 22, 2014, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, was captured in his beachside house in Mazatlan by Mexican Marines. It was the culmination of a 13-year manhunt for the drug lord, and was praised as a major coup. A “big strike,”according to former Mexican President Calderon. El Chapo was the most […]

There has been a lot of conjecture as to why the Tactical Assault Group – East (TAG-E) were not used as the resolution force for this attack. Before I explore this notion further, I will provide a brief history of TAG-E as well as a summary of the organisation’s primary roles and responsibilities. On the 13 […]

If governments or media continually fail to diagnose these events as being Islamic-driven, albeit a radicalized version of the faith, then how effective are subsequent counter-radicalization and counterterrorism strategies going to be?

#illridewithyou: The phenomena that gained global media attention deserves a special mention, although not for the reasons that made it an international social media trend in the first place. For those unfamiliar with this hashtag campaign, let me start by giving some background on it.

Is there a tactical advantage to having the battalion’s paralegal specialist airborne qualified? Is he or she going to do a night jump into hostile territory in order to hand out an Article 15?

Almost immediately after news of this siege broke, a very good friend of mine and my former Tactical Assault Group – East team commander messaged me saying, “Terrorists have taken a café in Martin Place. Lindt Café. An Arabic flag is up. Can’t believe we’re not on team for this.”

The blood is dry. The victims will be buried soon. The immediate terror has passed, but the deep-seated rage is just settling in and getting comfortable. We are familiar with this progression of emotion here in the United States, as are citizens of London, Madrid, Istanbul, Sydney, and countless other nations across the world. The […]

This convergence of organized crime, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism, along with the growing fragmentation of loyalties along tribal, ethnic, and sectarian lines, provides other powers with opportunities for power projection.

…and so it was that the mysterious force of gravity was revealed to Isaac Newton and the human mind for the first time. Then came the fighter pilot and the Newton’s force was soon exploited for its tactical advantage.

Soldiers like the A-10. They can see it, they can hear it, they have confidence in it. And that’s the one thing that we have to account for as we move forward.

With the recent codification of the joint forces agreement binding Georgian breakaway region Abkhazia and Russia, observers of the South Caucasus have anxiously anticipated a similar change in Moscow’s relations with South Ossetia. As a prelude to my next article, updating the situation in South Ossetia, here I will examine the strategic importance of Georgia […]