It was difficult to watch as billions of dollars of specialized military equipment was abandoned to Afghanistan’s Taliban in August 2021. And even now as we rightly cheer on, support, and pray for the brave Ukrainians defending their homeland from Russian aggression,...
For weeks prior to February 24, 2022 intelligence reports suggested that Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Few outside the intelligence community thought this would actually take place. This includes the people of Ukraine. News reports from the...
Last Saturday my wife and I were enjoying a relaxing afternoon. We were working together on a puzzle spread out across a table that we have set up for this purpose. This is one of the few activities that gets my mind completely off almost anything else. I tend to get...
My first experience serving with a small team overseas started in the mid 1980s. This lasted for the better part of a year. At that time we had only two ways of communicating back to the United States. Sending a letter was one option. This generally took a week or...
You may have noticed that we missed a few posting dates lately. It’s been an incredibly busy few months, and we’ve kept up the best we could. There’s simply no shortage of global security challenges that have recently impacted the teams we advise. Political and...
The Panoplia.org Soft Skills and Tactics (SST) course covers Area Familiarization (AFAM) as two separate subject-matter areas. In the Preparation and Planning portion of the course the importance of Pre-Operational AFAM is explained (SST 01.01.01). In the Navigation...
Thinking through possible worst-case scenarios is an important part of being prepared. Yet let’s face it, few in the West have had to live through civil war on their doorstep or a situation in which armed groups were advancing toward their residence. This recently...
We receive direct reports concerning attacks and other security incidents from the teams and individuals we train and advise. This covers some very challenging locations around the world. We also receive daily reports from a number of other sources. We’ve recently...
There are a number of conflicts raging around the world right now. These range from civil wars, to widespread violent protests, or to various other forms of civil unrest. The lives of local people and expatriates living in these areas are often at risk. At times,...
