News & Articles

Thousands of people live at a strategically vital military base that has a controversial past. Most people know nothing about this base or its past. In the words of Robert Kaplan, the Indian Ocean will be “center stage for the twenty-first century.” “Like a microcosm of the world at large, the greater Indian Ocean region is developing into an area …

In February 2025, incoming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had a brief but productive telephone conference with Qatar Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defense Affairs Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman bin Hassan bin Ali Al Thani, according to a DoD News release. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Qatari Minister of State for Defense Affairs Sheikh Saoud bin …

In February 2025, a  North Carolina-based company announced it would pay U.S. special forces veterans $1,100 per day, and a $10,000 signing bonus, to staff a checkpoint in Gaza. The contractors will staff the checkpoint at a key intersection in Gaza’s interior, said the spokesperson, who confirmed the authenticity of the email. The rules of engagement governing when UG Solutions …

American diplomats proposed replacing Israeli forces in southern Lebanon with private military contractors, an idea that others quickly rejected. The U.S., which co-brokered the ceasefire deal, offered to deploy private contractors in Netzarim, according to an American diplomatic source. This region includes several strategic areas. Al-Oweida hill, located between the Lebanese border towns of Meis al-Jabal and Blida, oversees many …

Open-air waste disposal pits (burn pits) dotted Afghanistan and Iraq during those long wars. Those conflicts are over now, but the private military contractors who lived and worked near these burn pits still suffer serious ill effects, some of which are outlined below. In most cases, burn pit-related illnesses are debilitating or fatal. The DoD reasoned that, since burn pits …