Feral Jundi

Monday, March 14, 2016

Year In Review: 2015 Google Analytics Report For Feral Jundi

Filed under: Year In Review — Tags: , , — Matt @ 2:35 PM

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Well, it is good to be back home from my contract and diving back into the blogging game again.

I wanted to knock out my annual report for Feral Jundi and make sure that it is on the record. The numbers are smaller this year, and with work, my blogging has decreased. But I still have some good data to share.

My overall stats for the blog for 2015 is 100,621 visits and 137,639 page views. That brings my total life time visits to 1,650,139 and page view total at 2,501,277 (January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2015). My first post for the blog was on January 22, 2008.

So it has been eight years of blogging and getting the word out. I am pretty proud of what I have accomplished with the site and I plan on continuing the effort. I am still very passionate about the profession and communicating to the masses out there about what it is we do and where this industry is going.

With that said, lets check out some of the statistics from last year. The 2014 review, I focused on total lifetime stats, and this time I will focus specifically on 2015.

For demographics in 2015, here you go:

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The trend is obvious, and I found this out last year. Millennials make up a big part of my readership and a good proportion of men and women read the blog. I see the trend at Facebook as well, and I am seeing interest in the industry from all quarters.

This last year was the first time the military opened up the combat arms field to females. This is huge and will have impact on this industry. Most of the jobs require a combat arms background, and as more women obtain that kind of experience, they will be competitive.

So will we see more women working in this field? I have yet to see it on contracts, but I know there are women out there working security contracts overseas. They are definitely working in the non-combat arms type contract jobs but they are few and far between for the gun jobs. Time will tell and I will keep my eye out for it.

The top ten countries that have visited the site, and in this order are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany, France, South Africa, Turkey, and Iraq. Some other mentions would be Afghanistan, UAE, India, Kenya and Russia. I did a few posts that involved some of these countries, and specifically Russia, and it is cool to see more interest from those areas.

I am getting a lot of new visitors still, thanks to good SEO. I am at 85,763 new visitors to 14,858 old visitors in 2015. The average page session is 1.37 pages per visit, with a about a minute on site. Which happens when I am not able to blog as much and there is not as much new content to consume.

As for the software side of things, most folks are visiting using Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. For hardware, 57,538 visitors used their desktop to visit, 34,318 used their mobile phone and 8,765 used a tablet. So having a web site optimized for all three is pretty important. I use WPtouch Pro as a plugin to optimize the site for mobile and tablet. iPhone, iPad and Samsung Galaxy products are the top devices.

Now onto content. For 2015, my top post was Job Tips: How To Get Into Security Contracting Without a Military Or Police Background but for posts that were written in 2015, my Industry Talk: GardaWorld Buys Aegis Group For Expansion Into Africa and ME was tops. News like this and the Olive Group and Constellis Group merger were of big interest because of how that stuff impacts the job. With the contraction of the industry and the winding down of the wars, companies are having to resort to mergers and partnerships to survive. I have only commented about the security contracting related companies out there that have merged, but overall, we are seeing the same thing in other areas of defense.

The readership out there is still hungry for job news and I continue to get interest via emails from all over the world on how to get into this industry. That Job Tips post is pretty old, but still doing it’s thing.

The second best post was Leadership: The Proud Prussian Tradition of ‘Disobedience’. This last year, I have been completely absorbed with all things Mission Command and EBFAS. These are some ideas and concepts that are applicable to this industry and I would love to see them catch on. So writing posts about the Prussians and their influence on war fighting and leadership is helpful to bigger conversation.

Leadership has been a passion of mine at this blog, and I am constantly focused on trying to find the good stuff that will help companies and my fellow contractors develop their process and cultures.

The Russian contractor stuff and the UAE Australian chief post were big hits as well. Former members of the Slavonic Corps, went on to form PMC Wagner in Syria, and they took casualties last year as well.

Still, my favorite post last year was about STTEP in Nigeria. I think this was a huge deal and they had a major impact on the war, all the way up until they had to leave because of new leadership in Nigeria.

On the legal front, there were the Raven 23 guys or Blackwater Nisur Square folks that were imprisoned after a long and drawn out legal battle. Their families and friends are still fighting for appeals.

We also have the Seaman Guard Ohio contractors that have been imprisoned in India who are fighting an intense legal battle there. I was hoping they would be freed before Christmas, but that did not happen. Instead they were sentenced to 5 years hard labor! Horrible news….

And finally, the top Call to Action was the Support The Glen Anthony Doherty Overseas Security Personnel Fairness Act. What happened in Benghazi was a tragedy and there is much to learn from that incident.

As for ISIS and Al Qaeda, the effort is still ongoing. AQ has made big gains in Yemen, and ISIS has been making big moves in Libya and holding the territory they got. Boko Haram was extremely active and dangerous last year and Al Shabab is still active in Somalia. So the jihadist front is not diminished at all. I suspect we will see more of the same this year, to include Paris-like attacks and more territory gains by jihadist groups.

We are also seeing more contractor involvement in places like Iraq. As the troops surge in, so do the contractors.

Afghanistan is not looking good. The Taliban have taken back quite a few districts last year, so they are taking territory like nobody’s business. I suspect you will see them continue to press the fight this spring and summer and gain even more territory. The Afghans are lacking in so many areas, to include an inability to pay salaries because of corruption, that I just do not see things getting better.

On a cool note, we have seen an interesting cultural shift of sorts. The presentation of security contractors as ‘heroes’ in a major motion picture film! I am talking about the 13 Hours film, directed by Michael Bay. It did pretty good considering the topic. This is an election year and the movie brings attention to an incident that happened under the watch of one of the candidates. Politics tends to bleed over into the entertainment world and their view of things–especially in reviews of movies that could help or hurt their favorite candidate. There is that, plus security contractors have never been viewed as hero subjects in movies–because of the politics of the subject. Although I do not think the film was intentionally political and it is a great supplement to the book if folks want to learn more about the incident.

Predictions for this new year? More of the same as last year. I think work will still be there for folks if they want it, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Contractors will be pretty important because of the limited military presence in those countries and because of the support these military and various aid/investment groups will need. I also see more mergers and consolidations happening within the industry.

Personally, I will continue to blog as much as I can and you can also find me hanging out over at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I have been very active at FB when I can and FB is still my goto place for getting a good feel for what is going on out there. Here is to another year of contracting! –Matt

Friday, December 18, 2015

Syria: Nine Russian Contractors From PMC Wagner Killed

Filed under: Industry Talk,Russia,Syria — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 9:11 PM

Rest in peace to the fallen…

In my last post on Russian contractors, I mentioned briefly about a PMSC called PMC Wagner or OSM. The Wall Street Journal is the first large media group that I know of that has talked about this company in a story, and I thought I would share that here. I want to keep a record of this stuff so that it can be a reference for how the Russian market is developing in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

So why do I continue to focus on the Russian market? Primarily because if the Russian PMSC’s start delving more into offensive operations, then that could be a sign of things to come for the rest of the industry. I like to follow the offensive aspects of PMSC use because that will have impact on the future of this industry. Meaning as more and more private companies from other countries get into the game of war fighting, and actually winning wars like what Executive Outcomes was able to do, then that would move the marker of what is acceptable and possible within this industry.

It will give countries an option other than using and paying for a standing military, or for countries who lack those kinds of war fighting and winning capabilities within their own military.

One country might view another country’s PMSC industry as a strategic advantage. Something that they want in their tool kit of force. Especially if PMSC’s start winning wars and battles, and especially if a country is flush with cash but lacks manpower. A country that is in a fight for their survival (like Assad’s Syria) will do everything it can to win, and really could care less where that manpower comes from at the end of the day. Enter the PMSC market.

Back to the article below. The quote that caught my attention was this one:

An official close to the Russian Defense Ministry said that the group had numbered around 1,000. Unlike Western security contractors, who are typically armed with only light weapons, members of the group were operating T-90 tanks and howitzers.

Contractors operating T-90 tanks and howitzers? lol That is some serious weaponry and I would love to hear more about what exactly these guys were doing with this stuff. EO used tanks and APC’s in their wars pretty effectively, and it is interesting to hear about private companies actually operating this type of equipment. Imagine that training course? lol

The other interesting quote below is the leader of PMC Wagner/OSM, came from the Slavonic Corps. The Slavonic Corps was also given tanks to use, but that was a big surprise for the contractors involved apparently.  So will PMC Wagner pick up where the Slavonic Corps left off, and do better?  We will see. –Matt

Edit: 12/19/2015- The guy in the photo below was an entertainer that was working at Latakia Air Base at the time and not some soldier or contractor according to my readership. There is a question on how many contractors were killed as well. One of my readers said that an article from Reuters was written last October in regards to this incident and they only mentioned three Russians that were killed. Also, the 1,000 contractor headcount is not realistic according to the readership. That is a pretty big footprint for a contractor force so I would imagine that number is a lot lower.

Edit: 03/10/2016- War is Boring wrote an interesting article that talked more about Russia and it’s use of PMSC’s. This quote on PMC Wagner is what I wanted to put out there for the record:

It now seems the TchVK Wagner is building on the Slavonic Corps’ misfortune. Indeed, many members of this mysterious organization, as well as its leader — a former major in the Spetsnaz and ex-employee of Moran Security — were also members of the luckless 2013 expedition in Syria. According to the journalist Denis Korotkov, author of numerous articles on the TchKV Wagner, these contractors are active in Syria and entertain “close links with the Russian army.”

“TchVK Wagner is not a PMC, but a paramilitary organization with no official status,” Korotkov insists. “It is obvious that this task force could not exist without serious support from high-ranking government officials.”

Oleg Krinitsyn, head of the Russian PMC RSB Group, says he agrees with that assessment.

According to Korotkov, neither Moran Security nor RSB Group are active in eastern Ukraine — and this for legal reasons and in order to preserve their contracts abroad. Furthermore it seems the Russian army in Syria does not make use of these two PMCs. For sure, these companies do employ droves of former FSB agents, and one can easily imagine that they offer piecemeal services to the Russian state while on duty abroad, especially in Africa.

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Up to Nine Russian Contractors Die in Syria, Experts Say
Incident shows how the country is using private groups to avoid deploying uniform troops, they say
By THOMAS GROVE
Dec. 18, 2015
As many as nine Russian contractors died in October when a mortar round hit their base in western Syria, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The incident, experts say, shows how Russia has used contractors to perform quasi-military tasks, avoiding the political repercussions of deploying uniformed troops—and steering clear of the domestic concerns that come with the deaths of soldiers.
The Russian government hasn’t acknowledged the deaths, described to The Wall Street Journal by three people.
“It’s one of Russia’s first attempts at trying to create a private military company like what was Blackwater,” said one of them, Ivan Konovalov, director of a Moscow-based security think tank and a consultant to lawmakers who are trying to create the legal basis for such military companies, which now fall in a legal gray zone.
Blackwater, which provided armed security, logistics and other support to U.S. government agencies, became emblematic of Washington’s reliance on private-sector firms to advance foreign-policy aims in conflict zones.
Unlike Blackwater, though, the Russian Defense Ministry hasn’t publicly acknowledged their existence. It isn’t clear whether the men’s role went beyond protecting government installations to direct involvement in fighting.
Founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, Blackwater was involved in a series of controversial incidents, including a deadly 2007 shootout in Iraq that ultimately led to its reorganization and rebranding as Academi and to Mr. Prince’s exit from the business. Blackwater said it was carrying out dangerous work on behalf the U.S. government in a way that was more cost-effective than using uniformed personnel. Four former guards were convicted after the shooting, but said they shot in self defense.
The Russians killed in Syria belonged to a private group called OSM, according to Denis Korotkov, a former security adviser and journalist. The group is known informally as Wagner, after the nom de guerre of its leader, a former military intelligence officer who has served in several conflicts since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Syria wasn’t the group’s first deployment. According to all three people, the group operated in eastern Ukraine, where its members were charged with protecting factories and pro-Russian rebel leaders.
In Ukraine, the Kremlin employed “hybrid warfare”—a term national-security experts use to describe the use of irregular forces, propaganda campaigns, economic coercion and sometimes direct military action.
Groups with connections to Russian military and intelligence, and whose activities can be denied, have operated in the conflict zones that flared up since the fall of the Soviet Union. Wagner’s group however has emerged as one of the most prominent both in terms of the size and missions, according to Mr. Konovalov.
Based in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, the group deployed to Syria after a contract was drawn up with Syrian authorities, Mr. Konovalov said.

(more…)

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Call To Action: Support The Glen Anthony Doherty Overseas Security Personnel Fairness Act

Filed under: Call To Action,Industry Talk,Libya — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 4:54 PM

Folks, this is a good one to pass around and get the word out. Glen Doherty was one of the four contractors killed at Benghazi back in 2012, and his family was not able to receive death benefits because of how DBA is structured.

Tell congress that you support this bill so that not only will Glen’s family get the benefits they deserve, but also any future families of deceased security contractors will receive the same death benefits.

Below is a summary of the bill with links to where you can read about it’s progress. I have also included a portal to a very easy to use online letter writing tool that can connect you with your representatives. And finally, I have included the latest news on the bill and who supports it. With any luck, we will have a majority, bipartisan support for this thing and it will become law. –Matt 

 

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This undated photo provided by Mark and Kate Quigley shows Glen Doherty, who family members say died in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. Four Americans were killed at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 along with U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Kate Quigley identifies Doherty as her brother, saying in a media interview he was a former U.S. Navy Seal. (AP Photo/Quigley Family Photo)

 

Write congress here.

 

Introduced in House (01/13/2015)

Glen Anthony Doherty Overseas Security Personnel Fairness Act

Amends the Defense Base Act with respect to payment of death benefits otherwise due a widow, widower, or surviving child of an individual employed at a military, air, or naval base outside of the United States who dies as a result of a war-risk hazard or act of terrorism occurring on or after September 11, 2001, when there is no person eligible for a death benefit under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act.

Requires payment in such a case to:

a beneficiary designated by the deceased, or
the next of kin or the estate of the deceased under applicable state law if there is no designated beneficiary.
Requires benefits to be paid from the Employees’ Compensation Fund.

Congress.gov link here.
Govtrack.us link here.

US Sen. Ed Markey pushes bill to support family of Massachusetts man killed in 2012 Benghazi attack
By Shannon Young
December 09, 2015
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced legislation this week that seeks to ensure the families of federal contractors who died as the result of a war-risk hazard or terrorist act receive full death benefits.
Named after the Winchester, Mass. native and former Navy SEAL killed in the Libyan consulate attack in 2012, the “Glen Anthony Doherty Overseas Security Personnel Fairness Act” would fix an omission in federal law the bars families from receiving full benefits if a contractor was unmarried with no dependents at the time of his or her death, Markey’s office said.
The bill would modify the Defense Base Act of 1941 to allow payment of death benefits otherwise due to a surviving spouse or child to the surviving next of kin. According to the senator’s office it would specifically require payment to a beneficiary designated by the deceased or the next of kin or estate of the deceased under applicable state law. Benefits would be paid from the Employees’ Compensation Fund.

(more…)

Monday, July 6, 2015

Books: Composite Warfare, By Eeben Barlow

Filed under: Africa,Books,Cool Stuff — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 4:20 PM

Right on! This is the highly anticipated book written by Eeben Barlow about his thoughts on how to conduct warfare on the African continent. Be sure to check out his blog post about the book over at his site, because he certainly will be answering some questions about it there.

As for an actual shipping date for the book, that is still to be determined and the publisher will have more on that I am sure. The date below says September 19 for the published date, so perhaps in September some time? But you can pre-order now and definitely get in line. Check it out. –Matt

Edit: 09/18/2016 – The book is now for sale and shipping at 30 South Publishers. You can buy the book here.

Website for STTEP is here. (Eeben’s company)

 

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Composite Warfare: The Conduct of Successful Ground Forces Operations in Africa
By Eeben Barlow
Price: $49.95
Product Description
As a continent, Africa presents her armies with a vast, dynamic and multidimensional operating environment. It has numerous complex and diverse ethnic, religious, cultural and tribal interests and loyalties, along with many multifaceted threat-drivers coupled to varied and infrastructure-poor terrain plus vast climatic variations. The continent is, furthermore, characterized by numerous half-won conflicts and wars fought by incorrectly structured, inadequately trained and ill-equipped armies. For many reasons, these forces have difficulty adapting to the complex, demanding and rapidly changing environments they do battle in. Similarly, the armies have difficulty in decisively defeating the various threats they face. Many of these problems stem from the fact that numerous modern-day African armies are merely clones of the armies established by their once-colonial masters, their Cold War allies or their new international allies. Many of the principles and tactics, techniques and procedures they were – and still are – being taught relate to fighting in Europe and not in Africa. Some of these concepts are not even relevant to Africa.

This book is intended as a guide and textbook for African soldiers and scholars who wish to understand the development of hostilities, strategy, operational design, doctrine and tactics. It also illustrates the importance of nonpartisanship and the mission and role of the armed forces. Officers, NCOs and their subordinates need to, furthermore, understand their role in defending and protecting the government and the people they serve. They additionally need to know how to successfully accomplish their numerous missions with aggression, audacity, boldness, speed and surprise. The book provides the reader with valuable information relating to conventional and unconventional maneuver. It also discusses how African armies can, with structured and balanced forces, achieve strategic, operational and tactical success. It covers the role of government along with operations related to war, operations other than war and intelligence operations and how these operations, operating in a coordinated and unified manner, can secure and strengthen a government. ## Composite Warfare draws on the author’s experiences and lessons in Central, Southern, East, West and North Africa where he has served numerous African governments as a politico-military strategist, division commander, division adviser, battalion commander and special operations commander.

Product Details
• Amazon Sales Rank: #437301 in Books
• Published on: 2015-09-19
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .79″ h x 6.14″ w x 9.21″ l, 2.15 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages
Buy the book here.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Job Tips: Using RSS Readers For Job Hunting

Filed under: Blogs,Job Tips — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 10:37 AM

When it comes to looking for security contracting jobs, you need all the help you can get for staying up to date with what jobs are out there. You also need to be able to react quickly to job announcements. So any tools and procedures that can help you do that, should definitely be used for your job search strategy.

Now of course there are the basic methods that most guys use, like perusing the forums/FB groups, signing up for job list subscriptions, asking around within their networks (personal and online), and checking out the various job boards/career pages and sites. But when it comes to doing a search efficiently and with speed, it can be kind of time consuming.

The other factor is that some job announcements operate on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. I can recount at least two of my contracts that I got, purely  because I answered the job ad so fast. Recruiters, if presented a large pool of candidates that are generally the same, will often just go down the list as they get those submissions. And if those recruiters are on a tight schedule where they have to deploy guys ‘yesterday’, then they have no time to waste. They just go right down the list and start calling and emailing folks. So it pays to be quick on the draw when it comes finding jobs and responding to them.

So how do I make this process faster and more efficient? Well one tool I use is called an RSS reader.(Specifically one made by Feedly) RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a tool that bloggers/journalists/researchers use to receive and process lots of information with. And the really cool thing about an RSS reader is that you can set them up to give you updates as they are sent out by the various blogs and sites. Meaning as soon as someone posts something, it is sent out immediately to the RSS feed, which if you have that RSS feed link in your RSS reader, then you will get that post.

How does this apply to job searches? Well, next time you are at a jobs website or a career page, look for a little graphic in the corner or somewhere on the page that says RSS. They will look like these icons.(see top graphic)

Put your cursor over it and copy it. Then paste that link into your RSS reader search engine, and when it comes up, put it in a category that is applicable. When I find a cool jobs RSS related feed or interesting website, I will put it into my Feedly RSS reader. I set my reader to update immediately.

What happens next is that every time that site posts a new job, that post is sent out to all of the RSS feeds. Meaning you will get that job posting as soon as it is posted, and you will see it in your RSS reader just waiting to be read. What is even cooler is that you can set up an RSS reader on your smart phone or tablet, and check your reader on the go.

I find myself checking my Feedly online and on my smart phone all the time. But if I do not check it and mark it as ‘read’, then it just stays in the hopper until I do read it. So if I am away for awhile or do not have access to the internet, I will still have a nice collection of materials to read at my leisure. You can keep all those posts in your reader as well and just mark them as read. I don’t delete that stuff because sometimes I will go back and re-read stuff.

You can also share those posts on social media, or do emails, thanks to the tabs included with most readers. I do this every day for blogging and social media sharing, and it is how I keep up to date with the news of the industry. It is also how I keep up to date with jobs.

Once you build an RSS reader, you will find yourself constantly looking for RSS feeds (post feeds, comments feeds, etc.) and URLs to put into the thing. Look everywhere for them, and also know that sometimes you can just put the URL for the site into the reader and it might recognize that site and it’s feeds. Play around with it and you will see what I mean. It is a fantastic tool and it will dramatically expand your ability to efficiently process the information that is out there. Here is a list of all the job boards/sites I have in my reader, complete with links to the feeds/URLs. Definitely put these guys in your reader.

Close Protection PSD Jobs

Conflict Area Management

International Security Jobs

Paladin Jobs

Secure Aspects

Security Officer Jobs-South Africa

USA Security Jobs

I personally use Feedly and it is a great reader. I also used Google’s RSS reader, but that closed down and after some research I ended up at Feedly. There are other RSS readers out there and they all do the same thing with various bells and whistles. Below I will leave a great tutorial on how to set up a Feedly account.

Enjoy and happy hunting! –Matt

 

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