by Susan Katz Keating Russia hails the Oreshnik as unstoppable; but in 2023, seven of its hypersonic Kh-47M2 cousins were shot down by U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems. Moscow says the strike was payback, using its sharpest blade: the Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile. In the overnight hours into January 9, …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating For two weeks, the Marinera ran. Formerly known as Bella 1, the sanctioned tanker fled the U.S. Coast Guard on the high seas, employing methods that read like a sanctions-evasion playbook. It flew a false flag. It switched off transponders at sea. It attempted to reflag …

by Susan Katz Keating In retrospect, it seems fitting that I met Viktor Belenko in Reno. He was a gambler hanging out in a gambling town, surrounded by pilots in their fast moving aircraft, barreling wildly around pylons. I went there many years back, looking for stories to be found …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Messages from colleagues and operators have flooded my inbox over the past day. The question underlying all of them is the same: Did Seth Harp cross a line that, in national security history, has carried life-and-death consequences for Americans? Some asked it more bluntly. Others asked …

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 …

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 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 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 …

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 …

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 …