Welcome to the Gray Zone

 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 into what's called "Low Intensity Conflict." Forward Observer still tracks the players and developments of this conflict, and produces daily intelligence briefs.

Yet every day for the past five years, I felt that it's not enough to inform readers and listeners on the daily goings-on of the conflict. Local intelligence is of supreme value during a national emergency with local effects. The importance of gathering intelligence and organizing community security and preparedness efforts can't be overstated, especially because we're likely to experience even more destabilizing political, social, economic, and monetary events.

The reality is that our response to the local effects of these events is based on our understanding of local dynamics and our ability to work with community members to increase the availability of real-time information. Through timely, relevant, accurate, specific, and actionable/predictive intelligence, we can ensure a defensive posture that reflects the local security situation. If we don't understand the threat, then we can't be prepared for it.

So this month, January 2021, I officially launch Gray Zone Activity, a training company on a mission to prepare Americans to navigate the gray zone of increasingly less secure and semi-permissive environments.