Whenever the objective has been to disrupt, sabotage, rescue, gather intelligence, combat irregular enemy forces, etc. Special forces have always played a key role throughout the history of warfare. Top of mind commando forces include Britain's Special Air Service (SAS) and, in the United States, the Green Berets, Rangers and Delta Force. In the case... Continue Reading →
Book review: Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648-1989, by Kalevi J. Holsti, 1992.
The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 15 May 1648 by Gerard ter Borch "The real difficulty is that through history the use of force in statecraft has had different meanings, and if this is so, the sources, causes, or correlates of war in one period cannot be easily transferred to another." - Kalevi J.... Continue Reading →
Analysis: The Russian Avangard Hypersonic Missile. A Game Changer…
A computer simulation grab, shows the Avangard hypersonic vehicle being released from booster rockets. Source: RU-RTR Russian Television via AP. "The Avangard is absolutely invulnerable to any air or missile defense system." - Vladimir Putin Recently, the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin that the first Russian missile unit equipped with the... Continue Reading →
Book review: The War Puzzle Revisited, by John Vasquez, 2009.
A Syrian forces' artillery observer looks through a scope as smoke plumes rise on the horizon, near the town of Qumhanah in the countryside of the central province of Hama, on April 1, 2017. Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images. Bottom line: this book is interesting. John Vasquez affirms that around 70% of wars happen because of territorial... Continue Reading →
Book review: Win, Lose, or Draw, by Allan C. Stam III, 1999.
This is a well-organized and elegant work, however, It lacks a condensing theory, though. The main argument of this work is that domestic politics are the main elements that predetermine the result of an inter-state armed conflict. This is not a new idea; however, it is a novelty in the sense that it challenges presuppositions of... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, 2007.
United States Capitol (2011) "it [the Israel Lobby] has a core consisting of organizations whose declared purpose is to encourage the U.S. government and the American public to provide material aid to Israel and to support its government's policies, as well as influential individuals for whom these goals are also a top priority" (Mearsheimer and... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Defence of Duffer’s Drift, by Sir Ernest D. Swinton, 1904.
Canadian Infantry Unit, 2014. Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. - Carl Jung For over 100 years (published first in 1904 in the U.K.), “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” has been in the list of basic books of military... Continue Reading →
Analysis: Advanced Containment
"The Cold War is over. The world has become much more complicated" - Vladimir Putin “Containment” was the geopolitical strategy with which the U.S. responded to the movements of the U.S.S.R. in several regions of the world, during the Cold War period. Mainly, it was the middle point between the ideas of detente and rollback. The... Continue Reading →