Middle East Strategy and Obama

“You made some comments in the newsletter introduction last week about Obama’s speech at the UN. While there is no shortage of critics of Obama’s lack of a strategy in the region what I don’t see is anyone offering an intelligent alternative. What do you think we should do in the Middle East?”. ~ Don K.

Don, thanks for the question. First and foremost, as most of you are aware, I consider Obama’s foreign policy to be his largest failing and undoubtedly view our actions in the Middle East though a less then unbiased lens. I will attempt to explain a thought process I do not agree with, while pointing out competing opinions on the subject.

Obama’s actions and inactions have closed doors to potential options that were less costly in the past. It has also opened doors to potential options that, unfortunately, most observers like myself view as unlikely to bear fruit. Sadly, regardless of good or bad strategy, the end state of our current strategy in the Middle East is an all but certain degradation of our influence in the region. The degradation of influence ultimately paints us into a corner where the only remaining option to maintain U. S. interests in the region is military force.

Rebuilding our influence in the region will certainly fall to the to the next U. S. president. To save you the read, the short answer is all that we can do is wait until after the election. The current administration has set the course we are on, and Obama has proven stubbornly resistant to changing it. The most poignant evidence of that resistance is the revolving doors in leadership at the department of defense and intelligence communities. The course he is pursuing is a nearly 180-degree shift from the previous 35 years, and it will take time for us, our allies and our enemies to understand its implications. The best I can offer is to review the administration’s strategy and where it may leave us in a year because what we are currently doing is defining the options that will be available to us in the future.

The most common mistake I see when discussing Obama’s strategy in the Middle East is to claim that it does not exist. That is very different from claiming it is ineffective, poorly conceived, etc… Obama has a strategy, and that strategy largely consists of disengagement and Counter Terrorism. These are based on his perception that U. S. voters are more tired of U. S. casualties (military or civilian) then they are of a degradation of long-term U. S. interests. In this case, he has proven his strategy to be effective in that we re-elected him on that platform.

U. S. interests in the Middle East primarily consist of Energy Stability, Nuclear Non-proliferation, Counter Terrorism and the Expansion of Democracy. Traditional instruments of national power are Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic. We’ll take a very cursory look at the strategies Obama has employed, and what impact they have had in hopes of providing an increased understanding of our options and how they developed and have shifted.

During his second term, Obama has effectively limited our military engagement to Counter-Terrorism (CT). I have read a few pieces attempting to defend this decision as “the desire of the American people”, or “the only economically sustainable option”. Killing specific individuals that have the potential to coordinate and act in the United States is a very intelligence dependent operation. Using air power and drone strikes more broadly as this administration is prone to do has its own set of unintended consequences called “collateral damage”. The bottom line is that killing terrorists is a delaying action, which buys time to allow us to develop other long-term solutions. You cannot simply delay your way to any sort of victory.

As we disengage from the region, CT becomes more dependent on our partners to provide intelligence required to target specific individuals effectively. As we know, our alliances in the region are prone to shifting, and foremost driven by short-term self-interest. As power is consolidated in denied areas like ISIS controlled territory, we lose the ability to effectively employ a CT strategy. The real problem with a combination of disengagement and CT is the two approaches become mutually exclusive at a certain point. Very soon, we will be too blind to effectively employ a CT strategy under the current state of engagement.

When it comes to Nuclear Non-Proliferation, the treaty has all but wiped it from the list of U. S. concerns. The agreement provides an effective 150 Billion dollar stimulus package to Iran to support their sudden new desire not to become a nuclear power. There are some potential short-term delays in their ability to produce a weapon should they choose to, which are largely unverifiable. While we may have potentially extended their nuclear horizon by months or years, that extension is dependent on estimates based on the capabilities and facilities we are aware of. The lack of effective inspection makes this a dubious prospect at best. The strategy is ultimately based on an olive branch approach to trust Iran to change course.

The ultimate goal here is once again not a lack of strategy, but a diplomatic and economic strategy to entice Iran to join the western world on friendly and constructive terms. I consider this to be a naïve departure from the effective strategies that have kept the Iranian Theocracy in check for the past 35 years. It is, however, possible that Iran abandons its nuclear ambitions and partners with America making a legitimate effort to help it’s new partner with other interests in the region. While highly unlikely, that is the strategy we are executing under this treaty. The next president will have the task of dealing with the results.

Energy stability is the third piece of the equation. Here we seem to see the same strategy of diplomatically and economically enticing Iran to play nicely with the rest of the world. Effectively, energy stability means the ability to ship oil from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world through the Straight of Hormuz. Iran has been the source of any disruption in the straight for the past 35 years. Having them as a legitimate friend vice a well-heeled dog may be of some intangible benefit in the future, but keeping them heeled has worked quite effectively. What exactly that benefit may be is impossible to know.

Russia is the largest beneficiary of disruption in the straight as it increases the price of oil to a point where they can cost-effectively export. The relatively recent Russian partnership with Iran on Syria, ISIS, and Iraq certainly shifts the incentives for Iran away from U.S interests in the region. Currently, Russia is using ISIS as an excuse to bomb U. S. trained anti-Syrian forces. Our response has been non-existent. Russia has effectively stepped into the vacuum we created and has aligned with Iran, Syria, and Iraq. What it will demand in return can be expected to be in line with Russian interests which are rarely in concert with U. S. interests.

Lastly, when we look at the expansion of democracy, we abandoned the fledgling democracy in Iraq in 2012 knowing full well what the consequences of that decision would be. We have diplomatically isolated Israel and put their long-term survivability in the region at risk. This is not unintentional, nor a lack of a strategy. This is rooted in Obama’s belief that U. S. exceptionalism is a counter-productive to global cooperation, and that non-democratic forms of governance like Iran and Syria have some undefined value to the global community. This view is not something we can change for the next year.

The real casualty of Obama’s policies and actions in the Middle East is U. S. creditability with both our allies and our traditional enemies. We see that lack of respect or fear from Israel to Moscow, and Tehran to Istanbul. Israel is now engaging Russia on the issue of regional stability at both the diplomatic and intelligence sharing level. America is no longer seen as a potential threat nor a reliable partner in the region. That is where the next administration will have its largest challenge is rebuilding American creditability.

What does a credible Middle East strategy look like a year from now? It depends entirely on the good graces of Iran and Russia to be responsible state actors in the region, or the alternative that they are not. We have largely succeeded nearly all influence in the region on the prospect of “Hope” that they will “Change”. My suspicion is that we will have to rebuild that influence largely by force.

What remains to be seen is the impact of diplomacy on Iran. I suspect this approach will be a catastrophic failure. I sincerely hope I am wrong, and we can make headway on stability in the region over the next year. Regardless, when we look to Putin and Khomeini, Assad, Netanyahu, and the rest of Middle East leadership, the U. S. disengagement from the region has put us on the bench as a bystander dependent largely on the actions of Iran and Russia.

Unfortunately, until Mr. Obama’s experiment has run its course, we have almost no ability to predict what avenues will be open to us, and which will be closed. Asking what we should do in this environment is an unanswerable question, because we are doing has no basis in traditional or historic approaches. Once we have an administration that defines regional stability in terms of U. S. interests vice a diplomatic experiment, then perhaps we will be able to make some assessments.

I realize that provides no firm answer, but I see no strategy that Obama is willing to employ that has traditionally been used to enhance U. S. interests. Answering what we should have done is an exercise in futility at this point because those opportunities are relics of the past. I hope this at least provides some insight in the processes at play in the formulation of a strategy in the Middle East.

Author ~ Patrick Henry

Source: http://aegisacademy.com/community/middle-east-strategy/

Violence in America

Scholars, pundits, and activists have been more and more frequently mentioning the decreasing homicide rate in our society while the media paints a very different picture. We are at the low point of a near twenty-year decline in violent crime in America. Despite this quantifiable decrease, American perception stubbornly holds on to the idea that America has become a more violent and dangerous place. While in some major cities we can see evidence that trend is potentially reversing, the bottom line is America in much safer then it was twenty years ago.

Much of that perception is based on the frequency of reporting of violent crime by our media. The statistics are well documented and present a grossly inflated view of crime as a percentage of other events. As we look at media over time, we can see a steadily increasing diet of violence, crime and social unrest fed to the American public via movies, TV shows, gaming and the news. Unfortunately, the reporting percentages have no correlation with the incident rates and are purely providing programming based on what American viewers choose to watch.

The American Psychological Association has published study after study finding that violence viewed on TV and in person, is associated with increased aggressive behavior. The classic example of these types of experiments is the Bobo doll experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in the early sixty’s. In two subsequent experimental iterations, Bandura deliberately exposed children, ranging from two and a half to six years old, to adult acts of aggression directed against a Bobo doll. The first exposure was in person and the second iteration was exposure on television, but the results were the same. Exposure to violence results in increased violent actions.

From the results of these studies and many more like it, many Americans make the claim that we are raising an ever more violent generation of young American. This reasoning fits with our predisposed notion that society is becoming more violent despite evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, our perception often has little to do with reality. The average age of violent offenders has actually increased, and not decreased over the past thirty years. Sixteen to twenty-four year-olds have always accounted for the lion’s share of violent crime. As the boomer generation ages, we are at the end of a historically rare reduction in the youth bulge in America. Despite that fact, the demographic shift alone is insufficient to account for the decrease in the violent crime rate.

Two factors are easy to quantify and simple to explain. First is the massive expansion of our judicial system. We have increased spending by nearly 171% over the past 30 years. That spending has increased the number of police on the streets, the number of judges and the number of jails. As a proportion of GDP, which has remained pretty flat over same period, we have massively increased the percentage of resources dedicated to security services. Continue Reading...

Author : Patrick Henry

Inequality For All

With the constant media blitz of crime, racist cops, transgender harassment, and corporate scandal, you would think America had completely derailed. Inequality has become the popular defining measure of our society. While there is room for improvement on some fronts, America is by almost any measure one of the most tolerant, opportunity-laden and transparent nations on the face earth. You would not believe that if you picked up any major newspaper or turned on the network news, but compared to the racial divisions, class divisions and risk of citizens in other societies, America is exceptional. We have somehow transitioned national interest from maintaining ourselves as the land of the free to focus on a perception that we are the land of the oppressed.

The real tragedy of the media’s fixation on violence, crime, scandal and bigotry is the national reputation in the eyes of young Americans. In Milwaukee in 2008, at 43 years old, Michelle Obama, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School announced, “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country “. Many young American college students echo similar sentiments from the cafeterias of some of the greatest educational institutions in the world. This loathing is not exclusive to Ivy League institutions, and is rampant in our entire education system. It follows them into the workforce, and permeates every segment of our society. Somehow, over the course of the past 50 years, we have lost the conviction that America is the bastion of freedom and the land of opportunity for the modern world.

When the rights of the few, derail the liberty of the many, it is time to consider whether or not “the few” really have cause for separate laws. There are no means by which we can protect every individual’s freedoms in every circumstance with a specific set of regulations that apply to that one person. The law is designed to provide a framework for our judiciary to make judgments about how they should apply. As we codify new laws protecting classes of people, individuals or institutions as worthy of special protection or exemption, regardless of how noble the cause, we segregate that class of people from the rest of society.

Treated differentially under the law is a recipe for enhancing the social exclusions that invariably accompany special treatments. We need to look no farther then hate crime legislation as a prime example. Why is murder treated differently depending on the racial or social opinions of a theoretically free human being? Is murder some more significant, and deserving of special punishment because an ignorant racist committed it? From politicians exempting themselves from the laws they pass to long-term subsidization of business and from the exemption of religious organizations from taxes to the special protection of individual fetishes; we can find numerous laws on the books that apply only to a small subset of the American population.

In protecting a business, we make it less subject to competition and subsequently less efficient over time. This inefficiency invariably results in underutilized resources and waste. Charles Koch and I do not agree on many social issues but his take on corporate welfare is dead on. Corporate welfare is eroding American competitiveness as surely as long-term welfare is eroding the competitiveness of the individuals receiving it. When we exempt institutions from paying taxes, we burden other productive enterprises with making up the difference, which removes resources that productive enterprises could use to create jobs and opportunity.

When we protect even the most helpless class of mentally competent, adult citizen, we do the same to our society. When we look at affirmative action, we see an entire class of American being told that since they cannot compete, they will be given an opportunity they don’t deserve. That is absolute corrosive to that individuals well being – because the reality is they can compete if we provide the opportunity to do so. Further, we deny that same seat to a potentially better-qualified candidate because they do not fall with the protected class. That is pretty far from equal treatment under the law.

Lately, we seem to be applying special circumstances to smaller and smaller subsets of the population. A high school boy who has decided to dress like a female and use the women’s bathroom is now the national rallying cry for transgender “equal rights” in Hillsboro. Why should the biological females have to share a bathroom with a biological male when our social norms dictate otherwise? If we agree that social norm is unfair, and this particular transgender boy’s request is reasonable, then the correct response is to allow the entire population of high school age children to choose to shower in a locker room of their choice rather then one associated with their biological identity.

If a restriction or subsidy does not make sense for the whole, then we need to take a thoughtful and serious look at the long-term impact on the class of people or organizations that we are segregating. The impact of ever expanding protected classes on the competitiveness of our future generation is catastrophic. Our society needs to convince the future generation of Americans that they have the confidence, strength and skills to look not to government and legislature for protection, but to look to themselves to create the world they want to live in. With every protected class, every restriction, every exempt organization, and every handout, we are chipping away at the ingenuity, creativity and work ethic that made this nation exceptional.

Our founding fathers were brilliant, but, in this case, they got it wrong: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are not unalienable rights. Those concepts are incomprehensible to much of the world’s population who are simply content to avoid conflict and do only what they are told. That incomprehensibility applies to many of our citizens right here in America. What makes America Great is that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are privileges that each American has access to, and the opportunity to put to use every day of his or her life. Segregation, special treatment and exemptions are eroding the value of those ideals.

I see very little empowerment in the candidates of either party vying for leadership in the upcoming election cycle. We opportunity by empowering the American people, not by restricting and segregating us.

Author: Patrick Henry

Source: http://aegisacademy.com/community/inequality-for-all/

Front Sight Focus

This article will answer a reader’s question debating the importance of front sight focus. While addressing this topic, I’ll also cover the mechanics of the human eye and the different types of pistol sights.

"A lot of instructors, including you, stress the absolute importance of sharply focusing on the front sight when shooting a pistol.  You also put a heavy emphasis on the importance of shooting tight groups in your articles and gun reviews. However, I attended some other courses and read a ton of other articles that downplay both the importance of front sight focus and shooting tight groups. In these cases, they emphasize gaining only 'flash front sight' to achieve ‘combat accuracy’ as the key to effective defensive shooting. I’m inclined to side with the latter because if I’m going to have to use my gun to defend myself, I’m not going to have the time for a sharp front sight focus and won’t need to maintain a tight group to stop the threat.  The only ‘score’ in a defensive shooting is defined by who is left standing.  So, why are you so insistent on establishing a sharp front sight focus and shooting tight groups?" - William in Poway, CA

William, thank you for the email and your question.  You bring up a good point regarding the different types of shooting which require varying degrees of front sight focus and accuracy. In general, bulls-eye and target shooting require a very high degree of focus and accuracy.  Conversely, rapidly reactions under extreme stress in a defensive scenario will typically allow for only the 'flash front sight' you mentioned.  However, regardless of the situation, you are morally and legally responsible for ensuring where every projectile lands.

Trigger control and aiming are the determinants of where your shots land. If you train to master these elements, you’ll not only build a solid foundation for gaining and maintaining true proficiency, you will be just as fast and considerably more accurate than those who aspire to only be good "combat shooters." Those who train to consistently accept a "flash front sight focus" are not enhancing their ability to shoot accurately, nor are they faster, and there is no practical benefit to training to a lower and less effective standard. Proficient shooters didn’t get fast by accepting sloppy sight alignment, they got fast by developing myelin along the appropriate neuromuscular pathways that resulted in consistently shooting fast and accurate groups over thousands and thousands of correct (perfect) repetitions. Combat accuracy is "good enough" in combat, but it should not be the standard by which you train.

To a certain degree you are right in stating that no one will be "scoring" your shots in a defensive scenario, but mastering the fundamentals and training to higher standards of proficiency will greatly increase your odds of being "the guy left standing" without injuring yourself or innocent bystanders.

In the following paragraphs, I’ll provide a more in-depth answer by covering the mechanics of the human eye in regard to front sight focus, different types of front sights, and conclude with considerations for training.

Aiming (sight alignment/sight picture)

By now, most of us have learned in basic pistol instruction that sight alignment is required to ensure the pistol is properly oriented to send the fired projectile in the desired direction. When combined with sight picture, the projectile consistently lands where it is intended.  While a minor error in sight picture may place the projectile in the wrong part of the target, a similar error in sight alignment may contribute to a missed shot.  Once proper sight alignment and sight picture are attained, effective trigger control ensures that neither the sight alignment nor the sight picture are interrupted when initiating the firing sequence.

Sounds easy, right?  Not so!  Too many shooters try to analyze and correct this myriad of variables simultaneously.  So, let’s break this down one element at a time.

The Mechanics of the Human Eye

Although the eye is an astounding sensory organ, it has a limited depth of field which allows for focusing on only one image at a time.

Light enters the pupil which acts as an aperture controlling the amount of light passing through two lenses which posit the focused image on the retina.  This image is then sent via the optic nerve to the brain.  The light passing through the eye is "focused" or sharpened by the two lenses. The outermost lens is the cornea, which is fixed, and the innermost is the crystalline lens, which is variable.   Altering focus from near to far objects requires a change in optical power which is controlled by the crystalline lens.  In order to focus on a distant object, the ciliary muscles relax and flatten the curvature of the crystalline lens.  Conversely, the ciliary muscles contract to create a bulge in the crystalline lens which causes greater refraction allowing focus on close objects.  Thus, it is impossible to focus simultaneously on near and far objects.  Establishing a sharp focus on one object renders all other objects in view in varying lesser-degrees of focus. Continue Reading »

Author: Howard Hall

Resilience – Why it Matters!

Resilience ~

: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress

: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

When we look at business, psychology, or sociology the concept of ‘recoverability’ is a key component in measuring the health and effectiveness of an organization, an individual, or a society. In dealing with unpredictable or unexpected events, the most successful organizations, people, and societies are those able to adapt and create novel solutions to novel circumstances. Elements of the successful actors are creativity, commitment, confidence, experience, and talent but in the case of shocking events the most common term for this collection is resilience.

When we look at business, psychology, or sociology the concept of ‘recoverability’ is a key component in measuring the health and effectiveness of an organization, an individual, or a society. In dealing with unpredictable or unexpected events, the most successful organizations, people, and societies are those able to adapt and create novel solutions to novel circumstances. Elements of the successful actors are creativity, commitment, confidence, experience, and talent but in the case of shocking events the most common term for this collection is resilience.

The black swan is the typical example of a completely novel event. European explorers had never seen a black swan as that genetic mutation did not exist in Europe. In 1697, when Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Australia, it was something
never before considered. This term has come to be used to describe unpredicted events ranging from natural disasters to terrorist attacks and is used extensively in the risk management field. Detection and deterrence in personal security, and prediction and risk mitigation to businesses are very different from the ability to react effectively to novel inputs.

This phenomena of extraordinary shocks to business systems is studied extensively in risk management with supply chains being the primary target, and easiest to quantify metric, of redundancy and alternate capabilities. When an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan in March of 2011, Honda, Toyota and Nissan were all forced to shut plants in the affected region. While Honda and Toyota were massively impacted well into the fall, Nissan had recovered its production capability largely by April, and completely by July. They had invested in redundant production capability and created a globally dispersed, redundant product sourcing and assembly capacity. Ultimately, Nissan gained a long-term increase in total market share. It is largely considered the model for effective supply chain resilience.

At an individual level, it is usually studied by psychologists looking at the impact of traumatic events after the fact; most frequently in the study of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More recently, organizational psychologists are starting to attempt to develop quantifiable programs to develop resilience in a variety of aspects including management and leadership. Military training has been attempting to build resilience into tactical leaders since the dawn of armies. From a general security perspective, we are not at great risk from what we can predict, we are at great risk from what we cannot predict. The only mechanism we have to defeat black swan events is resilience. From an individual security perspective, what we should be concerned with is how we can create resilience in individuals.

As we look at the ability to forecast or predict events from an individual perspective, the concept of detection and deterrence can become even more challenging. Organizations have the ability to hire professionals to evaluate supply chains, identify critical risks and develop plans and take action to mitigate those risks in an academic setting. Most private citizens do not have a full time security detail conducting the equivalent of those skills for them, and further, the consequences are personal. It makes us even less likely to account for the potential black swans in our personal lives then in our professional.

Worse, we tend to overestimate our abilities in the personal security arena where we are rarely measured. While the risk of being fired is substantially stressful, it is not the same as the risk of being injured or killed. That fear often translates in to denial. Despite the fact that most citizens have little to no experience or training that enables them to be more effective then “average” in avoiding or deterring threats, when polled, most consider themselves “above average”. We see this common belief in a variety of skills and most drastically in that 85 - 90 % of Americans believe they are an “above average” drivers… Worse, our misconceptions are reinforced that we are superior in our ability to avoid violence due to the relatively infrequent occurrence of violent attacks (or car accidents) that would provide us evidence contrary. 2/3’rds of our society will never have their assumption challenged, but more then 32% will…

If we consider the skills required to deal with expected scenarios, they are quite different then when dealing with novel scenarios. It is the difference between being taught what to think as opposed to being taught how to think. Expected scenarios are studied, quantified, and measured. The inputs and outputs can then be evaluated and placed on a scale of positive vs. negative consequences and those inputs prioritized accordingly to maximize positive outcomes and minimize negative outcomes. We can then teach people what to do when they see relevant inputs; in other words, what to think and do.

In dealing with completely novel scenarios, by definition, we will not recognize the inputs, and will have no idea what the most likely outcomes to our actions will be. Time and time again, in studying responses to novel events, we find that people, organizations, or societies that have a broader scale or wider range of abilities and skills to call on, perform better. The simplest example is the supply chain as discussed with Nissan. They had more diversity in production, and were able to leverage that to recover quicker, ultimately achieving a long term advantage over their competitors.

On the individual level, psychologists have proposed that developing strengths are a more useful endeavor in determining the long-term success of individuals. The thought is that individuals will gravitate towards fields in which they are competent, and be judged as successful based largely on their ability to apply that core competency. In dealing with predictable environments like employment, developing strengths is a more productive allocation of time than attempting to improve on irrelevant shortcomings. The problem arises when confronted by novelty. Those with a broader range of experiences have proven to be clearly superior in finding solutions to novel challenges then those with more specific skill sets.

As we look at threats to organizations or individuals, we see a list of potential inputs, appropriate responses all with the goal of mitigating the risks we know about. Those are not the risks that tend to cause truly negative outcomes. It’s the ones we didn’t see coming that consistently take the largest toll. Developing resilience requires a commitment to the development of individuals in skills and experiences that may not directly impact their day-to-day activities. For an organization to justify that type of investment is rare, and individuals are equally unlikely to decide to improve skills they have yet to need and see no short-term benefit to developing.

The reality is that as we look across existential threats to organizations or individuals, resilience is the key determinant of survival when these novel events occur. Next month, we’ll take a look at exactly how critical resilience is to personal security. Further, why it so difficult for us to predict negative outcomes in our personal lives; and we’ll take a look at how we can build resilience into individuals, leadership teams, and organizations as whole. Resilience is a key component to the safer communities we all desire to live in!


Author - Patrick Henry

Source: http://aegisacademy.com/community/resilience/

Thalys Train Attack – A Cultural Bias for Action

In France this past week, we saw the actions of six people thwart what would mostly likely have been very severe on the Thalys Train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris. There were over 500 people on the train, and yet only six acted. Undoubtedly, there were others in the vicinity who could have acted, but they choose not to, or chose instead to distance themselves from the attacker. Conversely we saw employee’s of the company that operated the train lock people out of cars in a desperate attempt to save their own lives, even though their actions clearly increased the risk for those who could not have escaped the gunman. What is interesting, is that undoubted, Americans were in the minority by a substantial percentage, and yet four of the six who acted, were American.

One of the Americans involved in thwarting the attack was quoted as saying “Do something! Once I started moving, all the fear left me” or something to that effect as I have seen about four different variations of his exact “quote”. There is actually a biological basis for his feeling. The body has a natural programmed response of the autonomic nervous system in response to stressors frequently referred to as the fight or flight response.

The fight or flight response is common across species and evolved as a means of increasing the chances of survival during violent or life threatening experiences. The trigger for the autonomic nervous system in response to stresso is recognition that an organism is in a stressful situation. Most of us have felt some version of this response at some point in our lives in response to an unexpected stimulus. In the case of an existential threat, the autonomic nervous system dumps a combination of cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine into the blood stream.

We aren’t going to get into the physiology of fight or flight but the impact of this chemical cocktail on the body is decreased sensitivity to pain and increased muscular performance which can be used to fight or run, or anything else we choose to do with it. Many on the train choose to sit and stare, others to hide or run, but only a handful to fight. The biological response to stressors is pretty standard across the human species. In the case of this attack, everyone who was aware of the situation was most likely physically primed to act, but the decision to act aggressively, and solve the problem, was only made by six.

The primary driver of what we decide to do with our genetic abilities and limitations is based on our environmental or cultural influences and is less influenced by genetics. In fact, you can condition people to be more or less prone to act through training. That is exactly what the training for military and some law enforcement personnel entails. It is called by a number of terms, but a bias for aggressive action is an apt description of the end goal of military training programs.

We do this by placing candidates in stressful situations and critiquing their response. One common principle in elite units is that bad decisions are not great and good decisions are preferred, but a lack of decision and action is a reason to be removed from the the unit. The bottom line is that a bad decision may result in a catastrophe, but no decision places you at the whim of the attacker, which will result in a catastrophe every time. Some combination of positive and negative reinforcement is used to instill a bias for doing something aggressive in the face of negative stress.

Many Americans respond well to this sort of training because it is in fact quite similar to what they are culturally used to. Conversely, most of the Arab militaries I have worked with do not have the cultural ability to act with out direct instruction and intense supervision. This is not, as far as we know a genetic limitation as there is no “bias for action” gene that we are aware of. There are certainly examples of Arabs who can learn to function in this type of environment, and many Arab Americans who serve in elite American military and intelligence assignments very successful. This further leads us to the conclusion that it is not a genetic limitation, which means it is likely environmentally induced.

Anyone who has worked with a nations military that comes from a culture of dependance will tell you how very different it is to working with Americans. You can see the culture of dependance result in an almost innate desire to have some else, anyone else make the decision for them. This delay is grossly ineffective in violent encounters. The question is what are the environmental conditions of American culture that lends itself to producing a predilection to act aggressively in the face of stress? Continue Reading>>

Author ~ Patrick Henry

Bullet Set Back

In his book, author, firearms instructor, and former Marine Paul G. Markel succinctly describes the journey through firearms proficiency from novice through “expert.” More importantly, he describes the attainment of "expert" not as indicative of the end of the journey, but a firm commitment to being a life-long student. Through my personal journey, I’ve had the opportunity to train, compete, and instruct in firearms disciplines… and there are still many things I learn every day. Although I’ve studied and written extensively on ballistics and considerations for personal and home defense ammunition, I recently "re-learned" a valuable lesson on bullet set-back that I’d like to briefly share with you.

For a number of years, I’d kept a 1911 in .45ACP as my home defense firearm and loaded it with 185 grain jacketed hollow-point cartridges. During this time, I’d followed the advice that I’ve often dispensed to “routinely train with the firearm, firing the personal defense ammunition to ensure 100% reliability and then thoroughly clean the firearm and the magazines."

Well, in the last two years, I switched my home defense firearm to a Sig P227 in .45ACP for the higher capacity (14 versus 8), the integral light rail, and the choice of Double Action or Single Action. Feeling confident with the 185 grain jacketed hollow-point cartridges, I kept the P227 loaded with this ammunition as well. At first, I routinely trained with this handgun/ammunition combination and found it to be as reliable as the 1911 that formerly held this role.

Another Step in the Journey

However, I "fell behind" on training with this system as often as I had in the past… opting to just unload the firearm and the magazines, clean and lubricate both, conduct a non-live-fire function check, re-load, and replace.

Recently, when I conducted this routine, I noticed how the Sig P227 failed to feed the first cartridge into the chamber which jammed the gun out of battery. Whereas a “tap” to the rear of the slide would normally return to the gun into battery, chamber the cartridge, and lock the slide and barrel to the frame, this cartridge was firmly jammed against the barrel’s feed ramp. For a home defense firearm that must be 100% reliable, I found this to be discomforting.

When I unloaded the gun, the cartridge in question fell free from the magazine and I noticed that it looked “a little different.” Well, it looked a lot different… and so did the second cartridge in the magazine. THEY WERE SHORTER!!!! This different dimension, the overall length, is one of the contributing factors that led to the jam. Other than the obvious concern that these cartridges could potentially jam my firearm when I needed it the most, I wondered how many other cartridges in the magazine were "shorter?"

With a digital caliper, I measured the overall length (from the end of the cartridge rim to the leading edge of the projectile) of the ammunition from the box which had not been chambered into the Sig P227 and they measured 1.206 inches. This measurement was consistent with all other un-chambered cartridges.

The measurement on the “short” cartridge was 1.103 inches! Although this is only about one-tenth of an inch, it was enough to jam the gun. So, I did a quick test with a “good” cartridge and chambered it repeatedly while taking a measurement between each iteration. I had found that each time I chambered the same cartridge, the bullet “set-back” about five thousands of an inch (0.005?). This could be caused by an insufficient crimp (pressure from the inside of the cartridge case against the outside of the projectile), the edge of the blunt-tipped jacketed hollow-point impacting the feed ramp, or both.

The bullet set-back was not only altering the external geometry of the cartridge as it fed from the magazine into the chamber which increased the potential for a jam, it was also changing the dimensions within the cartridge itself.

Internal Ballistics, Pressure, and Bullet Set-Back

If you recall from the Ballistics Series, there are four components to a metallic cartridge: the case, the primer, the propellant, and the projectile. Ideally, the composition/density of the propellant fills the otherwise empty volume of the cartridge case for a uniform ignition. Continue Reading »

Author: Howard Hall