MEDITATIONS ON THE ART OF DEFENSE . . .

"The unknowing try to defend everything at once, but the knowledgeable look at the main point only; they parry the worst blows and stand a little hurt if thereby they avoid a greater one. If you try to hold everything, you hold nothing." - Frederick the Great





The following is part of an ongoing series or articles & seminar presentations I do on Military Leadership Principles adapted for business owners and managers. The thoughts below were contributed by an old friend who has also been my mentor since the late 80's - S.L.

In business, as in war, the purpose of defensive operations is to buy time, hold terrain, facilitate other operations, preoccupy your adversary, and erode his resources. Your situation & circumstances will always differ; the principles always remain the same. Defending forces await the attacker's blow and defeat the attack by successfully deflecting it. Waiting for the attack is not a passive activity - leaders/managers should seek to strengthen their forces through training and provide no advantage to an adversary before hostile actions begin.


SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE:

o Is aggressive.

o Uses accurate / integrated direct fire - think "Counter-measures."

o Maximizes firepower, ability to maneuver, and leverage protection - think: "Keep your options open."

o Denies your adversary the ability to use leverage or to gain initiative.

o Contains the following characteristics:
- Preparation
- Effective monitoring and surveillance
- Flexible, adaptive, and exploit opportunities
- Fusion of command & control, technologies, and precision fire



To be ready, one MUST:

PREPARE:

o Study the surrounding terrain in great detail with complete understanding - Be knowledgable & totally aware of your operational environment.

o Continually rehearse (either mentally or physically) actions to be taken if an attack occurs whenever and wherever you are at any moment day or night. Have contingency plans, policies and written SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in place, and make sure your management staff are aware of them.

o Preparations are continuous and in-depth (PACE - Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency).

o Ensure outer perimeter reconnaissance and both inner and outer surveillance are effective and continuous. Be aware of when you are being observed, and when your perimeter is being probed.

o Apply deception wherever feasible - Throw out red herrings; give your opposition false targets to go after.


TO WIN WITHOUT FIGHTING - this is the greatest victory - Sun Tzu


o Make yourself a 'Hard Target' - create the ability / appearance of being "too hard to do."

o Know your job and be prepared to perform it in every way - "Fate Favors the Prepared."

o Detect reconnaissance and surveillance - Know when you are being watched, when your organization is being probed.

o Give your adversary nothing of value that is within your sphere of influence.



- contributed by STORMRUNNER – the "Deacon of Doom", old friend and mentor of STORMBRINGER.

M134D MINIGUN vs. M240G GPMG

This is cool . . .

RANGERS vs SF

The Chief of Staff of the Army asked his Sergeant Major, who was both Ranger and Special Forces qualified, which organization he would recommend to form a new anti-terrorist unit.

The Sergeant Major responded to the General's question with this parable: If there were a hijacked Boeing 747 being held by terrorists along with its passengers and crew and an anti-terrorist unit formed either by the Rangers or the Special Forces was given a Rescue/Recovery Mission; what would you expect to happen?

RANGER OPTION:

Forces/Equipment Committed: If the Rangers went in, they would send a Ranger company of 120 men with standard army issue equipment.

Mission Preparation: The Ranger Company First Sergeant would conduct a Hair Cut and Boots Inspection.

Infiltration Technique: They would insist on double timing, in company formation, wearing their combat equipment, and singing Jody cadence all the way to the site of the hijacked aircraft.

Actions in the Objective Area: Once they arrived, the Ranger company would establish their ORP, put out security elements, conduct a leaders recon, reapply their face cammo, and conduct final preparations for Actions on the OBJ.

Results of Operation: The Rescue/Recovery Operation would be completed within one hour; all of the terrorists and most of the passengers would have been killed, the Rangers would have sustained light casualties and the 747 would be worthless to anyone except a scrap dealer.

SPECIAL FORCES OPTION:

Forces/Equipment Committed: If Special Forces went in, they would send only a 12 man team (all SF units are divisible by 12 for some arcane historical reason) however, due to the exotic nature of their equipment the SF Team would cost the same amount to deploy as the Ranger Company.

Mission Preparation: The SF Team Sergeant would request relaxed grooming standards for the team.

Infiltration Technique: The team would insist on separate travel orders with Max Per Diem, and each would get to the site of the hijacking by his own means. At least one third of the team would insist on jumping in.

Actions in the Objective Area: Once they arrived, the SF Team would cache their military uniforms, establish a Team Room, use their illegal Team Fund to stock the unauthorized Team Room Bar, check out the situation by talking to the locals, and have a Team Meeting to discuss the merits of the terrorists' cause.

Results of Operation: The Rescue/Recovery Operation would take two weeks to complete and by that time all of the terrorists would have been killed, (and would have left signed confessions); the passengers would be ruined psychologically for the remainder of their lives; and all of the women passengers would be pregnant. The 747 would be essentially unharmed, the team would have taken no casualties but would have used up, lost, or stolen all the "high speed" equipment issued to them.

RUSSIA HOLDS US HUMVEEs AS WAR TROPHIES

Russia Holds US Humvees as Trophies - Associated Press - 05 August 2009

MOSCOW -- A top Russian general says Russia has no intention of returning U.S. HumVees that Russian soldiers seized during the brief war with Georgia a year ago.
Deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn says Russia considers the four Humvees to be war trophies and thus has no obligation to give them back.
Nogovitsyn told reporters Wednesday that Russia considered the subject closed.
The U.S. vehicles were seized in western Georgia. They had been used in joint military exercises in which U.S. trainers were preparing Georgian troops for deployment in Iraq.

This is par for the course; during the Cold War Russia stole military technology - and everything else - from us like it was going out of style, then they'd make such low-end Socialist copies it was pathetic. The Lada is Fiat rip-off and the Ural motorcycle is a WWII-era BMW.

Nowadays the Russian mafia steals whatever they want in the US and other countries - cars, trucks and even motorcycles - then they load it all in shipping containers and ship them to Russia via St. Petersburg and Finland where the Politburo gives them new titles: viola, legal property. I've seen cars from the US that still have American dealership stickers tooling down the road in Eastern Europe.

As so often happens with Russian technology, we will soon see this latest advancement of their military weaponry - a Russian Tactical Vehicle identical to the HumVee - appear in the next big May Day parade and other any photo ops they can conjure up.

Do they mean the CITY or the BAND ? ? ?

Sean Linnane is ON THE ROAD in Lancaster, Pennsylvania . . .

MAKES ONE WONDER . . .

Disturbing content on New Black Panther's MySpace page - By Kerry Picket, Washington Times July 30, 2009
. . . It all began when Mr. Jerry Jackson, member of the “New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense” (NBPP), stood outside a Philadelphia polling area with Malik Zulu Shabazz and another New Black Panther member during the 2008 presidential election. They later faced charges for intimidating voters on November 4th, 2008. Appointed to be a poll watcher in 2008 for the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign, Mr. Jackson is also an elected member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee . . .



The NBPP member has not stayed away from expressing his views on a social media site like MySpace. Mr. Jackson's original MySpace site is chock full of disturbing images with explicit racial overtones.

NOTE: Since Friday evening (July 31st) to Saturday morning (August 1st), Mr. Jackson's MySpace page has changed radically since the posting of this blog. However, there are screen captures available below from Mr.Jackson's original MySpace page. A sample of some of the phrases and images on his MySpace page include:

***Warning the following image links are extremely offensive in nature***

"BLACK POWER,BLACK LOVE,BLACK UNITY,BLACK MINDS,KILLIN CRAKKKAS"

"F*** Whitey's Christmas"

An image of an execution scene from the cult hit film "Pulp Fiction"

A photo of a man holding a sign saying, "DEPORT WHITE PEOPLE"

A derogatory anti-cop poster titled "BEWARE OF PIG"

An image of Saddam Hussein before his execution and profanity towards the police

A photo of a cop sitting next to a black child in a toy car. Beneath the image the phrase "Racial Profiling: It Starts Early"

A photoshopped movie poster of the "Bourne Supremacy" is re-worded to say "The Bourne White Supremacy" A swastika is added to Matt Damon's cheek, and the scope of his firearm is photoshopped to look as if he is about to shoot a black man. The "n" word is used to describe who "Matt Damon hates" in this movie poster. The phrase, "They should have just stayed in Africa" is photoshopped at the top of the image.

QUOTES from the Masters . . .

On Problem Solving

"You only have to solve two problems when going to the moon: first, how to get there; and second, how to get back. The key is don't leave until you have solved both problems." - Neil Armstrong

"Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one." - Lyndon B. Johnson

"Problems are good, not bad. Welcome them and become the solution. When you have solved enough problems, people will thank you." - Mark Victor Hansen

On Life/Living

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw

"Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be." - Grandma Moses

On Courage

"Courage is sometimes frail as hope is frail: a fragile shoot between two stones that grows brave toward the sun though warmth and brightness fail, striving and faith the only strength it knows." - Frances Rodman

"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed." - Bernard Edmonds

On Getting Started

"Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days...What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Think big, start small." - Patricia Fripp

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start." - Nido Qubein

"The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move." - Brian Tracy

On Goals

"All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind." - Stephen Covey

"The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them." – Jim Rohn