Dispatches

by Susan Katz Keating For decades, war correspondents earned the right to carry a PRESS credential into dangerous places. Now outsiders, operatives, and opportunists are seeking the same protection without earning it, because in conflict zones a press card can open doors, lower rifles, and get you out of a …

by Susan Katz Keating China and other foreign actors are using Ukraine as a testbed, deploying cut-outs and deniable assets to gather real-time data on drones, intelligence sources told Soldier of Fortune. The grainy figures moved across the screen, creeping through murky terrain like shadows come to life. A blip …

by Susan Katz Keating The war did not end when Saigon fell. It moved home, where those who fought in the jungles, skies, and waters of Southeast Asia reshaped American law, medicine, and culture. Fifty-one years ago today, the last American helicopters lifted off a rooftop in Saigon. The war …

A close read of the suspect’s document – and what it is designed to do. ANALYSIS by Susan Katz Keating “Hello everybody!” is not how shooters begin their manifestos. But that’s how Cole Allen began his. Allen was subdued on Saturday after he exchanged gunfire with the Secret Service at …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a grim lesson in what happens when the security safety net has holes. Long before the smoke cleared on Boylston Street in April 2013, long before the manhunt in Watertown gripped the nation, warnings had come in. They arrived not …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating I’m told that Vladimir Lenin has been spotted again racing through American streets with fire in his eyes, trying to make it to the revolution – but they started without him. Poor Vlad. He dragged himself out of the mausoleum, dodged Teslas and taco trucks, only …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Fifty-plus years of Soldier of Fortune brings one question repeatedly to my inbox: Where did this all begin?  The answer is not a mystery; it’s history. Soldier of Fortune grew from Vietnam, and its legacy still drives us today. To understand Soldier of Fortune, you have to …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …

by Susan Katz Keating In years gone by, they called it the Living Room War. Every evening, American families watched grainy footage of helicopters lifting from rice paddies, and listened to body counts read in calm anchor voices. The war came home, but it arrived on a schedule, filtered through …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Mexican officials had not yet confirmed the cartel kingpin’s death when violent reprisals erupted across the country. Mexican security forces killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” in what authorities described as a significant blow to organized crime. Oseguera, the longtime boss of the Jalisco …