ANALYSIS by Susan Katz Keating Long before the U.S. military strike that captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Venezuela was not simply an authoritarian regime awaiting a reckoning. It was a hijacked democracy; a country that began with elections but saw its institutions hollowed out and repurposed by leaders who …

ANALYSIS by Susan Katz Keating Originally published on December 10. “Rumors spread so fast over the weekend that people rearranged their lives just to be on “Venezuela Watch.” Over the past few days, speculation has gone wild that the U.S. is about to flex military muscle in Venezuela. Rumors spread …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating I recently did my annual demographic survey on the Soldier of Fortune audience – and the results prompted me to send a message to certain readers. Old hands, listen up. This is for you. Bear with me for a little context. In the survey, the big …

by Susan Katz Keating Why did Soviet forces abandon Afghanistan in 1989 after nearly 10 years of war? Western analysts have burned through terabytes trying to explain it. What else besides the fierce Mujahideen drove the Red Army to retreat with nothing to show but shattered pride? Some credit the …

by Susan Katz Keating Did a Russian assassination team inflict the mysterious Havana Syndrome on American targets, or has an innocent unit been framed, as Moscow would have us believe? Here is one Red flag to consider. It comes in the form of a decades-long Soviet offensive that the Kremlin …

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 Police union issued a unanimous vote of no confidence in Chatman, who leads the Brown University segment of investigating a Dec. 13 mass shooting on campus. Brown University’s campus police department operates inside a culture of secrecy, retaliation, and institutional cover-up, their own sergeants charged. The …

by Fred A. Ganous, SGM, USA (Ret) Our deployment in Iraq from 2006 to 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotions, marked by both triumphs and tragedies. The crash of “EASY 40” still stands as one of the darkest days of our deployment. This UH-60 Blackhawk, bearing tail number 84-23984, was …

Just making contact with a submarine carries an extra measure of danger for a smuggler. by Susan Katz Keating Smugglers for the Chapitos branch of the Sinaloa Cartel balk when ordered to pull “submarine duty” along the group’s fentanyl trafficking routes, a security official told Soldier of Fortune. “They hate …

Watch this Russian soldier with the call sign ‘Kasper’ talking in Russian about UAV warfare. “We always try to trick, it’s like playing chess,” he says. “Everyone is trying to outsmart in order to hit the enemy.” The soldier belongs to Russia’s 34th Separate Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade (Unmanned Systems …