Category: Expert Analysis

Early last year, SOFREP began receiving inquiries from investigative journalists regarding war crimes in Afghanistan. I’m not talking about dumping a few extra rounds into some bad guys – it’s much worse, and more in line with what was described above. You can thump your chest and say that “war is hell” all you want, […]

Watch standing can be a tedious duty on a Naval vessel. There are hundreds of watches on a Navy ship, most of them of a professional or technical nature. In port or underway, the Security Watch is of prime importance. This watch is stood to prevent sabotage, protect property from damage or theft, prevent access […]

Warning: This post is likely (nay, guaranteed) to get a little profane.  There, you’ve been warned. The photo above is of Jen Psaki, spokesman for the US Department of State.  The gibberish on the paper is part of a new social media campaign launched by the State Department.  You can see the video of the […]

The Canadian flag was lowered for the very last time on March 12, 2014 in Kabul, Afghanistan. While some Canadian soldiers remained until March 18, the flag lowering ceremony indicates the end of the Afghan War for the Canadians. After 9/11, Canada quickly followed the Americans into Afghanistan, as JTF-2 Operators from Task Force 11 […]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O05EOkapXHY]   Obviously, this has been put together for propaganda purposes, but some information can be gleaned from it.  While they seem to be concentrating on maneuvers (though their dispersion is still pretty bad), marksmanship doesn’t seem to have made any headway on the list of priorities since the Iraq insurgency. The above video […]

This is a humble supplement to the letter from Mr. Hunt on the Russian-Ukraine conflict. It was a great read and I just wanted to outline some more of the historical context. There’s been a lot of discussion about the ownership of the Crimea. Who is really the owner of this piece of land on […]

News out of Iraq has been sparse since ISIS seized Ramadi and Fallujah in January.  Even Middle Eastern news sources largely aren’t covering the renewed violence; Al Akhbar English has nothing on the continuing fighting in Iraq.  It hasn’t abated, however.  It is estimated that over 700 people were killed in fighting in Iraq in […]

It would seem that the Polish MoD has a well thought through strategy in regards to the development of the Armed Forces. Unfortunately I start to doubt that is the case. Not that long ago, I reported about the changes to Polish Special Operations Forces Command (POLSOFCOMM), which involved a division of responsibilities between the […]

The Navy SEAL Teams were founded at the direction of President John F. Kennedy in 1962, with the main objective of establishing a unit within the US Navy that could conduct guerrilla warfare in maritime and riverine environments. Long before the first SEAL Teams were established in the 1960s, the SEAL community had a rich […]

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced new sanctions against Russia, including cutting all military relations with them. Russia has nine soldiers in Canada who have been asked to leave no later than friday morning last week. Those soldiers were on Canadian soil to learn French and English, teach Russian to Canadian soldiers at the […]

There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when it comes to the subject of the late Osama bin Laden and why the White House has not authorized the release of any pictures of his body. Photographs and video were released of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, as well as post-mortem pictures of his criminal […]

As the situation in Ukraine has continued, there’s been less of the “World War III” rhetoric floating around than there was when Russia first became directly involved.  Russian intervention in the Ukraine was immediately seen by many in isolation as Russian aggression against their smaller neighbor.  Seen in the light of events over the last […]