Oleg Batusin, a married man with five children, proclaimed himself to be an “Orthodox peasant guerrilla.” He had been in opposition of Russian governmental policies for five years. He was displeased because of the volume of Chinese and other émigrés to whom the government was permitting entry. Russian’s concerns with immigration can include the competition for jobs, terrorism, and a worry that newcomers, especially Chinese, would marginalize ethnic Russians with their numbers and make possible the absorption of Russia in the future.

It appears that Butusin shared these views about the danger of Chinese immigration in Vladivostok because he began disseminating leaflets. These leaflets are commonly plastered on walls. He also believed that the present-day Orthodox Church was corrupt and supports the Russian government’s immigration policies. In May 2013, he carried out an attack against a detachment of GAI (highway patrol) near Moscow. It is believed that he acted alone. It is not clear what weapons and tactics he employed. It is clear that some part of the local population supported his actions.

“Come on! Come on! Get in; it’s time, go!” I heard for the second time in five minutes. I got inside our truck and waited. We waited for about half an hour and then got back out again. It was summer and the night air was hot. I felt a nice breeze against my face as I sipped from my clear civilian 1.5-liter water bottle. We waited behind a fire station in a “Moshav” as some curious kids stared while passing by. A Moshav is a type of kibbutz-like commune or community in Israel that is located in the West Bank, gated in and carefully guarded by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the residents.

I looked out into the valleys and hills beyond the barbed wire fence and thought of how many soldiers—Persian, Byzantine, Muslim, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman, Jordanian, British—had battled on this land before me, all fueled with their own cause and justification. Just then, the mission commander said, "Okay, this is it; get in, let’s go!”

Oil has been employed as a potent economic weapon. In 1973, OPEC launched an embargo to punish America, quadrupling oil prices, triggering a significant stock market drop, and raising the specter of “stagflation,” where prices rose even as the economy stagnated ¹ . With a single move, the Arab nations seemingly brought a superpower to its knees. Ultimately, the turmoil recorded a bear market loss of 46 percent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, reordered the global monetary system, increased unemployment by 73.5 percent, caused a 2.6 percent decline in economic activity, and raised the inflation rate to 11 percent ² . There were, of course, multiple factors at work at the time, but also little doubt that the embargo was not only a trigger but also a significant long-term cause of the worst economic turmoil America had faced since the end of the Great Depression ³ .

Going back a bit further, a U.S.-led oil embargo imposed on the Japanese in 1941 culminated with the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor ⁴ . Arab states attempted to use the oil weapon with embargoes in 1956 and 1967. Although less effective, they intended to punish the West through shortages and higher prices ⁵ . Usama bin Laden was a big proponent of the oil weapon as a form of economic jihad ⁶ . Reportedly, he called for a price of $144 per barrel in the late 1990s ⁷ . That level was briefly surpassed in the summer of 2008 ⁸ . This seemed unimaginable when oil prices were $27 per barrel just before al-Qaeda’s famous September 11, 2001, attacks ⁹ . We cannot doubt that enemies of America understand the value of weaponizing oil.

On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, two masked men, dressed in black, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and wearing body armor, entered a Paris business office around 11:15 a.m. After initially entering the wrong door, the men forced one of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical magazine, to let them into that office. A police officer was on duty, serving as a bodyguard for the magazine’s editor because of death threats. As the gunmen entered the offices, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great), they entered an ongoing editorial staff meeting. They shot and killed police officer Franck Brinsolaro and others. ¹ Some reports say the gunmen called cartoonists by name and then executed them. A survivor said, “These were no amateurs.” Another said, “They were dressed like soldiers.”² Eleven people were killed in a five-minute attack. ³

Editorial meetings were only held on Wednesdays from 10-12. It appears likely the gunmen had either conducted premission surveillance or obtained inside information as they attacked on the day and at the time of the weekly meeting. Many of the staff did not routinely work at that office. ⁴