by Navy Capt. (Ret.) Peter O'Brien There is an old adage that “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” And with that, a tip of the...

by Navy Capt. (Ret.) Pete O'Brien, Distinguished Fellow and Chairman, Project Sentinel Pete Hegseth, soon to be the Secretary of Defense (one hopes), believes the...

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

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

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.

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.

Memorial Day is the day we stop and think about the 1,355,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen who have died while in service to the nation. But, one of the things about Memorial Day that always bothers me is that, while the Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen and Marines who died in the major wars are remembered (though even then the focus is on the major battles, not the lesser known ones), the casualties in lesser wars and skirmishes are mostly forgotten and the Sailor or Marine who dies in some skirmish outside of a war is nearly completely forgotten. 

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

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.

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.