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During the Cold War, some of the fiercest anti-Communists believed their cause was likely to fail. The writer and former Communist Whittaker Chambers sought to rally the West against his erstwhile comrades, but wrote that in making his break from Communism he "knowingly chose the side of probable defeat." George Orwell criticized fellow anti-Communist author Arthur Koestler for espousing "short-term pessimism" and a brighter long-term view; Orwell believed the long-term prospect was no less bleak. A similar pessimism colors a good deal of current thinking about what I will call, for convenience, the War on Terror. (Indeed, what to name...

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Naval Coastal Warfare Squadron (NCWRON) 34 from Naval Coastal Warfare Group (NCWG) 1 deployed to Kuwait Aug. 22 and 24 to provide harbor and port security. They are tasked to protect ships carrying supplies for allied forces in Iraq. “This is my second time going over there, and it feels really good to help our troops get what they need to accomplish their mission,” said Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Martin Garcia of NCWRON 34. NCW squadrons use sensor platforms to provide a technical picture of the ports and harbors as they patrol the harbors for...

Although it may not get much attention in Asian Studies courses, China exported the cruise missile that Hezbollah used to attack an Israeli ship, one of the components that set off the Israel/Lebanon conflict, the U.S. China Commission found. “China is in a position of conventional warfare that we never dreamed in the early 90’s they would be, although we have always known about their nuclear capabilities,” said United States-China Commission Chairman Larry Wortzel at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill. The United States experiences similar trouble with China in regards to energy reliance. For example, when China offered foreign...

"Look," he says, "I'm sorry for reminding you of this, but if we still had laws, the Mafia would be a criminal organization." "But we don't have laws," she says, "so it's just another chain." -- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash In Neal Stephenson's 1992 science-fiction classic, the two main characters have been hired by the Mafia and other ethnic corporate franchises to deal with a fanatic religious cult whose chief warrior possesses a hydrogen bomb. In the novel, governments are too powerless to deal with this threat. It is a brutal, post-national world. Today in reality, Islam contains a fanatical...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel and Hezbollah sharply intensified fighting with a blitz of airstrikes, dozens of rocket attacks and brutal ground combat on Saturday, each apparently trying to inflict as much damage as possible to strengthen their bargaining positions. In a sign of progress on the diplomatic front, the United States and France agreed on a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for the fighting to end but would let Israel defend itself if attacked. Israeli commandos battled Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid on an apartment building in the southern port city of Tyre, while warplanes blasted south Beirut. The...

POUND for pound and pounding for pounding, the Israeli military is one of the world’s finest. But Hezbollah, with the discipline and ferocity of its fighters and ability to field advanced weaponry, has taken Israel by surprise. Now that surprise has rocketed back to Washington and across the American military. United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for Hezbollah’s style of warfare — a kind that pits finders against hiders and favors the hiders. Certain that other terrorists are learning from Hezbollah’s successes, the United States is studying the conflict closely for lessons to apply to its own...

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2006 – The United States backs Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist groups like Hezbollah, but it also wants to aid thousands of suffering Lebanese who've fled the fighting, President Bush said here today. The Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorists who are assaulting Israel with rocket fire are afraid of democracies, Bush said during a White House press briefing with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Hezbollah's attacks illustrate "a terrorist organization trying to stop the advance of democracy in the region," the president said. Fighting erupted after Hezbollah guerillas crossed into Israel from Lebanon to kidnap two Israeli...

We've deluded ourselves into believing in the myth of the noble and peaceful primitive Nicholas Wade's Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps. But the passage that really stopped me short was this: "Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archaeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of...

It was perhaps the most elegant exodus in history. Thousands of wealthy, well-dressed Arabs snarled the mountain roads leading to Syria with their Range Rovers and Porsches as they fled Lebanon yesterday. There were women with expensive coiffures, husbands wearing designer sunglasses and teenagers playing the latest hand-held video games as Lebanon morphed from Arab world summer playground to ghostland.

See for example this thread first. An Israeli air-defense ship Apparently suffered a slip A missile got through-- fired by you-know-who? "Now you've made Israel MAD!" I quip.

The US military is relying ever more on space satellites to help wage combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, though analysts say that Washington's space supremacy could be threatened by rivals in the future. The Pentagon is using sophisticated satellites that orbit Earth in a bid to track down its enemies and keep a round-the-clock watch on unfriendly foes. The technological advantage can prove lethal, as witnessed by the recent air raid that killed the long-wanted Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Space capabilities have revolutionized the way we fight today by providing our forces with battlefield situational...

JERUSALEM – If Israel launches a ground assault in the Gaza Strip, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group will attack Israelis with chemical and biological weapons the group has developed, according to a pamphlet distributed yesterday by the Brigades. But sources in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, speaking on condition of anonymity, said while the group is attempting to acquire biological and chemical agents, their current capabilities in the field still are mostly primitive. "With the help of Allah, we are pleased to say that we succeeded in developing over 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons, this...

The infamous Sarin gas possesses a variety of names...Sarin like most other nerve agents,is colorless,odorless,tasteless and diffuses very rapidly into the human skin due to its high volatility....Sarin is known to vapourise 36 times more rapidly than Tabun, is 26 times more deadly than cyanide, 21 times more lethal than potassium cyanide and all it takes is 0.01 mg for every 1kg of body mass for it to be fatal for a human....Remember that Sarin is a gas and it is also colorless and odorless, making it even more difficult to be sensed by human beings;And even if the person...

AN AMERICAN al-Qaeda operative who was a close associate of the leader of the July 7 bombers was recruited at a New York mosque that British militants helped to run. British radicals regularly travelled to the Masjid Fatima Islamic Centre, in Queens, to organise sending American volunteers to jihadi training camps in Pakistan. Investigators reportedly found that Mohammad Sidique Khan had made calls to the mosque last year in the months before he led the terrorist attack on London that killed 52 innocent people....

Gang: My next book, "Minefields to Microphones: Global Asymmetric Warfare, the Radical Left and Winning the War on Terror," will be on the shelves next month. Not wanting to be accused of being a slacker, book #22 from me is already in the works, but I must keep the title secret because titles are not protected by copyright law and someone will steal it. #22 will be a political hot potato(e) (apologies to Dan Quayle) that will skewer the left with rapier wit, satire and investigative reporting. If any of you characters would like to offer up any intel and...

"So often we try to put pirates and terrorists in two different categories. We do this because the primary objectives of both are different. Pirates are primarily seagoing bandits with a goal of theft of valuables. Terrorists are essentially killers who want to inflict as many human casualties – in as dramatic a fashion as possible – in order to influence mass audiences. But both pirates and terrorists are in many ways the same, and they certainly have similar sub-objectives, which goes to the heart of your question. "

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (NNS) -- A commissioning ceremony was held May 20 for Naval Coastal Warfare Squadron (NCWRON) 4 at Hospital Point Park at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Va. The pennant of commissioning was broken by the squadron’s first commanding officer, Cmdr. James Campbell, who ordered his Sailors to man their fighting positions and “bring the squadron to life.” NCWRON 4 is the seventh NCWRON, the first active-duty unit on the east coast, and is comprised of a Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit, Inshore Boat Units (IBU) 41, 42, 43 and staff. “The overall mission of our combined units and staff...

All sailors are not created equal. And in the purest sense of the word, the best-trained “sailors” in the world may well-be the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC). They are certainly some of the most skilled seaborne warriors in the U.S. Special Operations Command. Yet few outside of military circles have heard of them, and those who have, see them only as post-9/11 bluejackets driving fast boats in dangerous waters. They are much more.

CORONADO, Calif. (NNS) -- Secretary of the Navy Dr. Donald C. Winter presented one of the nation’s highest military awards to a Naval Special Warfare task group and its subordinate tactical and support elements May 10 during a ceremony at Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Command. SECNAV praised the Sailors’ bravery and dedication as he presented the Presidential Unit Citation to NSW Task Group-Central, NSW Squadron 3, and NSW Unit 3 for their actions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. “I hope people get a sense of the significance of what these men have done, and the tremendous contribution that it has provided...

5/10/2006 - BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- Deployed Airmen, distributing humanitarian supplies, are taken hostage by enemy forces while visiting an Afghan village. It’s now up to the accompanying squad of security forces to rescue the Airmen and eliminate the bad guys. This is the scenario members of the 455th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron were exercising here May 9 in the Army’s Military Operations in Urban Terrain, or MOUT, facility. The facility is custom-made for training and is designed to resemble a typical Afghan village, complete with buildings made of mud. Inside are a collection of high-tech cameras, video...