by Pete O'Brien Franklin Roosevelt, when Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson cabinet,  remarked to a friend that: “it would be wonderful to be...

by Pete O'Brien What if the train were late? That thought occurred to me as I drove out of Washington DC the other day headed south,...

By Pete O'Brien   09-06-2023 There have been a number of articles of late that have made the case that the only thing we can all...

by Pete O'Brien In 1942, a short while after the US land in North Africa, several US soldiers were convicted of raping a local woman....

One of the marvelous scenes in the movie Man For All Seasons has Thomas More talking to his friend the Duke of Norfolk, about More’s refusal to endorse the King’s divorce of Catherine, or his marriage to Anne Boleyn. In the dialogue that follows More comments on the English nobility’s apathy to their religion, but its fascination with the material world: 

by Peter O'Brien In an early version of his 2nd Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln wrote of the Civil War that that: “…each party claims to...

by Pete O'Brien One of the strange things about evil people is that they often tell you what they intend to do well before they...

Project Sentinel President LTC Tony Shaffer joins Judge Andrew Napolitano on "Judging Freedom" as they delve into how the U.S. may very well be the hugest loser in the Russia-Ukraine War as President Zelenskyy's forces may soon be headed for defeat.

One of the questions that keeps popping up in editorials, at least in the last month or two, is whether or not the folks in the White House want Ukraine to win the war with Russia. There are, of course, two obvious answers to that question - yes and no. But I have an unpleasant sense that the correct answer is “maybe.”

We created a Constitution - a remarkable feat, a document that was the envy of the world for 220 years - and still is if you want the root explanation of why millions of people are trying to get into the US and not so much anywhere else. (How many people tried to sneak into China last year?) 

There has been some interesting talk in the past week about deterrence and escalation and proportionality and I’m beginning to wonder if those words still mean what I thought they mean, like the word “secret” on the front page of a newspaper. But it’s important to review what they really mean because getting this wrong can have significant consequences.

On January 25th, 1942, USS Sargo (SS-186 (under the command of LtCmdr Tyrell Jacobs)) pulled into Surabaya, Indonesia after finishing a short war patrol, offloaded her remaining torpedoes, loaded 1 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, and headed to Mindanao, the Philippines to provide some ammunition to the US and the Philippine Armies. She then picked up 24 maintenance specialists from the B-17 wing and evacuated them from the Philippines. Jacobs, after three patrols in which he fired a great many torpedoes but sank no ships, turned over command, and ended the war working on, and significantly improving, US torpedoes.

Much of the modern way of war springs from the writings of 4 men from the 1920s: Gen. Giulio Douhet, LtGen. Walther Wever, Marshal Hugh Montague “Boom” Trenchard, and of course, Col. Billy Mitchell.All were believers in “strategic bombing,” the idea that bombing the right targets would destroy morale while also destroying industrial capacity and disabling lines of communication, and drive any nation to surrender.Over the years the theory, particularly in the west, has undergone some modifications

May 19 marked one hundred years since the passing of a great Jewish scholar and poet, Abraham Elijah Kaplan (1891-1924). His father had been a celebrated scholar, who had passed away in his 30s, leaving young Abraham fatherless. His father’s best friends was Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer (1870-1953), who saw to it that the son was well educated in the schools of Lithuania. Abraham studied under great Jewish thinkers and by his late 20s and early 30s he had written several beautiful essays in scholarly journals.

We are 120 weeks into the war in Ukraine, a peace conference begins in a week in Switzerland (at which only one side is represented), and the war continues to evolve.

The latest casualty estimate - not from Kiev - suggests Russia has suffered some 55,000 Killed In Action (KIA), though that number may be as high as 85,000. This would expand into some 200,000 - 300,000 wounded in action (WIA).

Ukraine has the simple and horrible problem of geography. Strictly speaking, it's not a strategic mistake as much as it is just an uncomfortable fact. If you wander through history you will find that countries without hard borders - a nasty mountain range, a raging river, perhaps an ocean - always have troubles with neighbors.

Project Sentinel Distinguished Fellow Tim Wilson joined Epoch TV's International Reporters Roundtable on July 28th to discuss Security issues after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a public rally in Butler, PA as well as major breaches with the Olympic games in Paris

Tsar Vlad I is in the news again, talking about nuclear weapons. The news media reports he has changed his nuclear policy but I...

by Navy Capt. (Ret) Peter O'Brien President Zelenskyy has now briefed President Biden, former President Trump, Vice President Harris, most of the heads of state...

by Navy Capt. Peter O'Brien On the north side of a runway, at an airfield about 60 miles west of Gdansk, Poland, about 10 miles...

by Navy Capt. Peter O'Brien Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, the Elder, mastermind of the Franco-Prussian War (among others), said that “Errors in tactics can...

by Navy Capt (Ret) Pete O'Brien In 1864 the Ottomans, under their Provincial Reform Law, reorganized their empire into a hierarchy of regions, at the...

by Navy Capt (Ret) Peter O'Brien The Navy has bought the last F-18s; they will be delivered in 2026. That’s of note as the Navy...

by Navy Capt (Ret) Pete O'Brien, Project Sentinel Chairman and Distinguished Fellow And to the soon brand new Secretaries of the Army, and Air Force: Congratulations on...

by Navy Capt. (Ret) Pete O'Brien If you’ve turned on your TV or read a paper or wandered around on-line today you are aware that...