I was listening to a Shawn Ryan Show episode yesterday.
The guest was Ioan Grillo, a Brit who's lived in Latin America for 20+ years and reported on some of the most horrific gang and cartel violence imaginable.
Among many of my takeaways was that these people in Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras,...
Over the weekend, I watched Arkan’s Legacy, a documentary about Serbian warlord Željko Ražnatović — a man who became so powerful that he allegedly controlled the Serbian government.
Some say that he became too powerful and it’s why he was assassinated. But that’s beside...
BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Upgrading situational awareness (what's happening now) to situational understanding (what could happen next) is dependent on your access to information. You will need a local intelligence network this decade to keep you informed. Let's talk about what that looks like.
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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Typical "prepper" stuff isn't getting you prepared for life in the Gray Zone. In this email, I describe the second-layer solutions you should be building.
I'm sure you've noticed things have gotten a little bit... weird.
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is...
Today I'm talking about four pieces of gear I recommend. I find them useful, YMMV.
- L3 Omni VIII PVS-14 (I highly recommend readymaderesources.com. Tell them Samuel Culper sent you. Full Disclosure: no financial interests, just a business that's treated me right in the past.)
- Sionyx Aurora
-...
Welcome to the Gray Zone Activity Blog, where we focus on "layer two" preparedness solutions. If you're ready to move beyond fire starters and bug out bags, here's a good place to start.
Several years ago, Army components began using six capabilities as a baseline for skills and readiness. They...
I just posted this week's lesson over at the Gray Zone Study Group.
We're two lessons into Low Intensity Conflict, which is war below the threshold of conventional war but above routine, peaceful competition.
One of the most important things Americans can understand is that everything happening...
Students just finished the two-day Surveillance Awareness Course through Gray Zone Activity, a training company I launched back in March. (We WILL be running this course again later in the year. Our current course schedule can be found at the Training tab.)
Gray Zone Activity focuses on what I...
Gray Zone warfare is a set of actions that press conflict without starting an actual shooting war.
Like our own Low Intensity Conflict, these activities fall below the threshold of conventional war but remain well above peaceful, routine competition.
A book I’m reading outlines some...
We typically look at places like Ukraine, Syria, and the South China Sea as "gray zones" where foreign powers take advantage of fragile or failed states. Regional powers erode security and stability through the use political, economic, information, and diplomatic warfare, and sometimes the...
Welcome to the very first Gray Zone Blog entry.
I started Forward Observer back in 2016 to track political militant groups and the risks of ongoing national instability. The political, economic, information, and diplomatic warfare that ensued was confirmation that the country had entered...
