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The tunnel rats were American and Australian infantry soldiers whose task was to carry out underground search and destroy missions during the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong guerrillas had built a complex system of tunnels in which they hid themselves and their weapons when they were under attacks. They were extremely dangerous, with numerous booby traps and enemies lying in wait.
by Dancing with Fire June 30, 2011
Get the Tunnel Rats mug.The Sinaloa Cartel, often described as the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere, is an alliance of some of Mexico’s top drug traffickers. The coalition operates in concert to protect themselves and more loosely to keep their businesses going smoothly. It relies on connections at the highest levels, corrupting portions of the federal police and military to maintain an upper hand on its rivals.
The cartel’s tentacles stretch from New York City to Buenos Aires and most every major city in between. It has successfully penetrated government and security forces wherever it operates. It prefers the bribe to the bullet and the alliance to the fighting, but it is not above organizing its forces to overrun areas that it wants to control by force. Its central bond is blood: many of its members are related or have become related by marriage. However, the cartel also often acts more like a federation than a tightly knit organization. The core of the group, the Beltrán Leyva Organization, split from the cartel in 2008. The Sinaloa Cartel has since created new alliances with former enemies in the Gulf Cartel and the Familia Michoacana. More morphing is to be expected as these alliances, even those formed by blood, are tenuous.
by Dancing with Fire June 30, 2011
Get the Sinaloa Cartel mug.The Tijuana Cartel is based in one of the most strategically important border towns in Mexico, and continues to export drugs even after being weakened from a brutal internal war during 2009.
Due to infighting, arrests and deaths of some of its top members, the Tijuana Cartel is a shell of what it was in the 1990s and early 2000s when it was considered one of the most potent and violent criminal organizations in Mexico. After the arrest or assassination of its founding members, the Arellano Felix clan, the cartel is now headed by Fernando Sanchez Arellano, a nephew of the Arellano Felix brothers who once bloodied Mexico and southern California with their brutish and authoritarian style. With the powerful Sinaloa Cartel moving into Tijuana in force, Sanchez Arellano is struggling to keep a grip on this lucrative drug and human trafficking corridor.
by Dancing with Fire July 2, 2011
Get the Tijuana Cartel mug.Giap served as minister of defense and commander-in-chief of the People's Army of Vietnam. With the outbreak of hostilities with South Vietnam, and later the United States, Giap led North Vietnam's strategy and command. In 1967, Giap oversaw the planning for the massive Tet Offensive. While initially against a conventional attack, Giap's goals were both military and political. In addition to achieving a military victory, Giap desired the offensive to spark an uprising in South Vietnam and show that American claims about the war's progress were wrong.
While the 1968 Tet Offensive proved to be a military disaster for North Vietnam, Vo Nguyen Giap was able to achieve some of his political objectives. The offensive showed that North Vietnam was far from being defeated and significantly contributed to changing American perceptions about the conflict. Following Tet, peace talks began and the US ultimately withdrew from the war in 1973. Following the American departure, Giap remained in command of North Vietnamese forces and directed General Van Tien Dung and the Ho Chi Minh campaign that finally captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon in 1975.
by Dancing with Fire July 2, 2011
Get the Vo Nguyen Giap mug.The Prussian military theorist who is widely acknowledged as the most important of the major strategic theorists. Even though he's been dead for over a century and a half, he remains the most frequently cited, the most controversial, and in many respects the most modern. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War), was unfinished at his death.
"To achieve victory we must mass our forces at the hub of all power and movement, the enemy's centre of gravity." - Carl von Clausewitz
by Dancing with Fire October 11, 2011
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by Dancing with Fire October 12, 2011
Get the Breast Smother mug.Swiss-French general and military theorist. After a volunteer stint with the French army (1798 – 1800), he wrote his Treatise on Grand Military Operations, 5 vol. (1805). He was appointed staff colonel in 1805 by Napoleon I, who had read his book. He was created a baron after the Treaties of Tilsit (1807). He rose to the post of chief of staff, but unjust treatment by his superiors prompted him to resign (1813), and thereafter he fought for France's enemy, Russia. Of his numerous later works on military history and strategy, the best known are Principles of Strategy (1818) and Summary of the Art of War (1838). He was the first to fix divisions between strategy, tactics, and logistics, and his systematic attempt to define the principles of warfare made him a founder of modern military thought.
"A state attacked by another which renews an old claim rarely yields it without a war: it prefers to defend its territory, as is always more honorable. But it may be advantageous to take the offensive, instead of awaiting the attack on the frontiers." - Antoine-Henri Jomini
by Dancing with Fire October 12, 2011
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