The 2010 QDR, which runs almost 130 pages, contains little discussion on the role contractors play in military operations. The QDR has a seven page section on counterinsurgency, stability, and counterterrorism operations, including a list of ten priorities for improvement. However, the word “contractor” does not appear once in the discussion, despite the fact that […]

     Interesting testimony from Professor Stanger.  Finally we are starting to see some movement towards acknowledging the existence of the LoM in DC, and it is fun to see where it goes. Although in the case with this testimony, Stanger forgot some key historical points to add to the inherently governmental debate.  She sure […]

     “Of the total military spending in the world, the US spends half of that, and that’s an unsustainable number,” Erik Prince, founder and chairman of Xe, told CNBC Thursday.
    “You’re going to have to turn to private sector efficiency initiatives if the US is going to be able to project power and help […]

     The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE), estimated the cartel, named El Dorado, made $5 billion profit from their trade over the past few years.
     Agents involved in Operation Pacific Rim alleged on Friday that the gang trafficked cocaine to every continent except Antarctica, with drugs bound for Europe and Britain smuggled through Spain.
     They […]

     I wanted to enter this into the record for LoM related stuff.  This is interesting that there seems to be more discussion going on about Article 1, Section 8, and finally we might get some serious critique on the matter. For an idea to be strong, it needs to be forged in the […]

     “My company has a new division called Shiprotek. I’m taking a team of ex-military guys to ride onboard ships going up the coast of Somalia and kill pirates.  Well, I shouldn’t say that — our aim is to scare them off, but our job is to protect the ship, whatever it takes. We’ll […]

     Now this is a better product and I can tell they actually listened to their contributors.  So bravo to CNAS for putting together a great report.  If you look at the cast of contributors, you will also see that they took advice from guys like Doug Brooks, David Isenberg and a whole bunch of private […]

    In Chihuahua City (1849) Michael H. Chevallié and Glanton may have influenced the state legislature to pass the Fifth Law over the veto of the governor, empowering Chevallié to contract with guerrillas to capture or kill troublesome Indians on an individual basis. Chevallié entered the first contract the next day, and Glanton was in his company on […]

     If this is true, this would be a very interesting development that kind of slipped through the cracks last year.  I first read about this in John C. Payne’s book on piracy on page 104.  I was kind of surprised to find such information, and I decided to do a little snooping around on the […]

     I had actually linked to this article awhile back when I was discussing jihadist privateers, and Dr. Phares had actually written a similar article with a similar theme.  So I just wanted to get this article registered in the database here, for future research.
     The best part of this article to me, […]