George Galdorisi

The Navy SEALs have been fighting terrorists around the world for over a decade. And for all that time, the Bandito Platoon SEALS from SEAL Team Seven have been on continuous combat rotation. Now they have drawn a shipboard assignment off Central America--an easy day. But for a Navy SEAL, the only easy day was yesterday. In a powerful story of global anti-terrorism inspired by real life missions, Act of Valor combines stunning combat scenes, up-to-the minute battlefield technology, and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure. Act of Valor takes you deep into the secretive world of today's most elite, highly trained group of warriors. When the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a deadly terrorist plot against the United States, a team of SEALs is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt. As the men of Bandito Platoon race to stop a coordinated attack that could kill and wound thousands of American civilians, they must balance their commitments to country, team, and their families back home. But each time they accomplish their mission, a new piece of intelligence reveals another shocking twist to the plot, which stretches from Chechnya to the Philippines and from Ukraine to Somalia. The widening operation sends the SEALs across the globe as they track the terrorist ring to the U.S.-Mexico border--where they engage in an epic firefight with potentially unimaginable consequences for America...

It is unclear if U.S. policy makers and military leaders fully realize that we have already been thrust into an artificial intelligence (AI) race with authoritarian powers. Today, the United States’ peer adversaries—China and Russia—have made clear their intentions to make major investments in AI and insert this technology into their military systems, sensors and weapons. Their goal is to gain an asymmetric advantage over the U.S. military. The implications for our national security are many and complex. Algorithms of Armageddon examines this most pressing security issue in a clear, insightful delivery by two experts. Authors George Galdorisi and Sam J. Tangredi are national security professionals who deal with AI on a day-to-day basis in their work in both the technical and policy arenas. Opening chapters explain the fundamentals of what constitutes big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. They investigate the convergence of AI with other technologies and how these systems will interact with humans. Critical to the issue is the manner by which AI is being developed and utilized by Russia and China. The central chapters of the work address the weaponizing of AI through interaction with other technologies, man-machine teaming, and autonomous weapons systems. The authors cover in depth debates surrounding the AI “genie out of the bottle” controversy, AI arms races, and the resulting impact on policy and the laws of war. Given that global powers are leading large-scale development of AI, it is likely that use of this technology will be global in extent. Will AI-enabled military weapons systems lead to full-scale global war? Can such a conflict be avoided? The later chapters of the work explore these questions, point to the possibility of humans failing to control military AI applications, and conclude that the dangers for the United States are real. Neither a protest against AI, nor a speculative work on how AI could replace humans, Algorithms of Armageddon provides a time-critical understanding of why AI is being implemented through state weaponization, the realities for the global power balance, and more importantly, U.S. national security. Galdorisi and Tangredi propose a national dialogue that focuses on the need for U.S. military to have access to the latest AI-enabled technology in order to provide security and prosperity to the American people.

It is unclear if U.S. policy makers and military leaders fully realize that we have already been thrust into an artificial intelligence (AI) race with authoritarian powers. Today, the United States’ peer adversaries—China and Russia—have made clear their intentions to make major investments in AI and insert this technology into their military systems, sensors and weapons. Their goal is to gain an asymmetric advantage over the U.S. military. The implications for our national security are many and complex. Algorithms of Armageddon examines this most pressing security issue in a clear, insightful delivery by two experts. Authors George Galdorisi and Sam J. Tangredi are national security professionals who deal with AI on a day-to-day basis in their work in both the technical and policy arenas. Opening chapters explain the fundamentals of what constitutes big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. They investigate the convergence of AI with other technologies and how these systems will interact with humans. Critical to the issue is the manner by which AI is being developed and utilized by Russia and China. The central chapters of the work address the weaponizing of AI through interaction with other technologies, man-machine teaming, and autonomous weapons systems. The authors cover in depth debates surrounding the AI “genie out of the bottle” controversy, AI arms races, and the resulting impact on policy and the laws of war. Given that global powers are leading large-scale development of AI, it is likely that use of this technology will be global in extent. Will AI-enabled military weapons systems lead to full-scale global war? Can such a conflict be avoided? The later chapters of the work explore these questions, point to the possibility of humans failing to control military AI applications, and conclude that the dangers for the United States are real. Neither a protest against AI, nor a speculative work on how AI could replace humans, Algorithms of Armageddon provides a time-critical understanding of why AI is being implemented through state weaponization, the realities for the global power balance, and more importantly, U.S. national security. Galdorisi and Tangredi propose a national dialogue that focuses on the need for U.S. military to have access to the latest AI-enabled technology in order to provide security and prosperity to the American people.

On August 14, 1945, Alfred Eisenstaedt took a picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, minutes after they heard of Japan’s surrender to the United States. Two weeks later LIFE magazine published that image. It became one of the most famous WWII photographs in history (and the most celebrated photograph ever published in the world’s dominant photo-journal), a cherished reminder of what it felt like for the war to finally be over. Everyone who saw the picture wanted to know more about the nurse and sailor, but Eisenstaedt had no information and a search for the mysterious couple’s identity took on a dimension of its own. In 1979 Eisenstaedt thought he had found the long lost nurse. And as far as almost everyone could determine, he had. For the next thirty years Edith Shain was known as the woman in the photo of V-J Day, 1945, Times Square. In 1980 LIFE attempted to determine the sailor’s identity. Many aging warriors stepped forward with claims, and experts weighed in to support one candidate over another. Chaos ensued. For almost two decades Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi were intrigued by the controversy surrounding the identity of the two principals in Eisenstaedt’s most famous photograph and collected evidence that began to shed light on this mystery. Unraveling years of misinformation and controversy, their findings propelled one claimant’s case far ahead of the others and, at the same time, dethroned the supposed kissed nurse when another candidate’s claim proved more credible. With this book, the authors solve the 67-year-old mystery by providing irrefutable proof to identify the couple in Eisenstaedt’s photo. It is the first time the whole truth behind the celebrated picture has been revealed. The authors also bring to light the couple’s and the photographer’s brushes with death that nearly prevented their famous spontaneous Times Square meeting in the first place. The sailor, part of Bull Halsey’s famous task force, survived the deadly typhoon that took the lives of hundreds of other sailors. The nurse, an Austrian Jew who lost her mother and father in the Holocaust, barely managed to escape to the United States. Eisenstaedt, a World War I German soldier, was nearly killed at Flanders.

In the worst intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor, Al Qaeda operatives hijack four commercial airliners and use them in a deadly, coordinated attack against the United States. On September 11, 2001, America-and the world-is forever changed. In the aftermath, the United States completely revamps its national security structure, creating brand new organizations to better protect the American homeland from aftershock attacks. Beyond these bureaucratic changes, the organizing impulse for United States intelligence and military organizations is to hunt down the perpetrator of these heinous crimes. Never before has tracking down one individual been so important to the national psyche. When it takes almost a decade for Navy SEALs to finally eliminate Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, many wonder why it took the world's greatest power ten years to find and kill their most hated enemy. Now, Dick Couch-retired Navy seal and ex-CIA operative-posits an interesting theory. In a fast-paced, action-packed, fictionalized account of the hunt for bin Laden, Couch teases out an intriguing and completely plausible alternate history. As you read Act of Justice, you will likely find yourself questioning what is fiction and what is reality.

RACING TO STOP WORLD WAR III IN A EUROPE HELD HOSTAGE...Long a thorn in Russia's side, the tiny country of Belarus has become the fulcrum of a geopolitical standoff. When Belarusian vigilantes sabotage pipelines carrying Russian oil, Vladimir Putin seizes upon the attacks as a pretext to invade and occupy the former Soviet Republic. When the West responds weakly to his aggression, an emboldened Putin begins launching devastating and deadly attacks against energy infrastructure across the globe--including North America. With no way to import oil and gas, all of Western Europe has fallen hostage to Putin and his rogue nation.To meet the challenge, CIA Operative RICK HOLDEN is recalled from his cover as a Navy SEAL and Naval Intelligence Officer LAURA PETERS, newly assigned to an elite cell within DoD's European Command, is tasked with his oversight. After spending the last several years assigned to commands half a world apart, the highly effective duo is reunited against a backdrop of international intrigue and political brinksmanship.Their mission: Rescue a captured American from Putin's henchmen and then race against time to recover stolen nuclear weapons before they can be sold to vengeful terrorists.

THERE IS DUTY. THERE IS JUSTICE. AND THEN THERE IS VENGEANCE... A vicious terrorist attack leaves nearly seventy U.S. sailors dead, and the entire United States Navy looking for answers. In the volatile waters of the Arabian Gulf, the USS Carl Vinson Strike Group - under the command of Admiral Heater Robinson - stands ready to unleash the full fury of a nuclear aircraft carrier against America's enemies. When it becomes clear that the government has no intention of punishing the murderers, Robinson decides to take justice into his own hands, no matter what the cost. As a storm of terror descends upon the United States, CIA operative and U.S. Navy SEAL Rick Holden faces a moral dilemma of his own. The military elite in Washington have chosen Holden to halt the cycle of madness. His orders: assassinate the strike group's commander, Admiral Heater Robinson.

In this gripping thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Out of the Ashes, an Islamic extremist is on a quest for vengeance after his only son is killed and it's up to Op-Center to stophis lethal plot. General Bob Underwood--a special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL--is en route to the Syrian city of al-Bukamal when a rocket-propelled grenade strikes the side of his Humvee and the heavily armored convoy comes under attack. The general's bodyguard is brutally murdered, and Underwood himself is kidnapped. Hours later, the President and top officials watch in horror from the Oval Office, as the general is viciously beheaded by an ISIL leader--broadcast on live television through a direct feed from Al Jazeera. The world is stunned by the bloody scene, but even more so that this supposedly loose-knit terrorist organization was able to orchestrate a lethal attack on the world's most powerful military. American forces goes into high gear on land and sea to retaliate, but when the ISIS leader's son is killed in an American bombing raid, his rage knows no bounds and he determines to wreak vengeance on the American homeland itself. With everything in the balance, Op-Center must assemble both its domestic strike force, as well as its international intervention force--built around a seasoned squad operating out of the secretive unit that captured Osama bin Laden--to stay one step ahead of a ruthless enemy.

Tensions flare in Northwest Asia and Op-Center races to prevent World War III in this chilling, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller from the authors of the USA Today bestseller Out of the Ashes. When a team of assassins murder a high-ranking North Korean general and his family in their sleep, making it look like a robbery, events are set in motion that could shake the balance of world powers. Meanwhile, a U.S. naval combat ship, the USS Milwaukee, is attacked by North Korean forces in the middle of a training exercise off the shore of South Korea, and Commander Kate Bigelow is forced to ground the ship to avoid being captured. The crew takes refuge on a tiny island, trapped dangerously between the grounded ship and a fleet of hostile North Korean soldiers. Op-Center intelligence discovers a secret alliance behind the attack--a pact between China and North Korea that guarantees China total control of a vast oil reserve found beneath the Yellow Sea. As both sides marshal their forces for a major confrontation at sea, Chase Williams and his Op-Center organization devise a plan to secretly spirit the American crew from the island and out from under North Korean control. But the North Koreans are not finished. In a desperate gamble, they unleash a terrorist cell on the American homeland. Only Op-Center can uncover their plan and stop it in time to prevent a major catastrophe that could lead to all-out war.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center is back with this new thriller written by the New York Times bestselling authors of Tom Clancy's ACT OF VALOR and featuring a chilling, ripped-from-the-headlines scenario. Before 9/11 America was protected by a covert force known as the National Crisis Management Center. Commonly known as Op-Center, this silent, secret mantel guarded the American people and protected the country from enemies. The charter was top secret and Director Paul Hood reported directly to the president. Op-Center used undercover operatives with SWAT capabilities to diffuse crises around the world, and they were tops in their field. But after the World Trade Center disaster, in the interest of streamlining, OP-Center was disbanded--leaving the country in terrible danger. But when terrorists detonate bombs in sports stadiums around the country leaving men, women and children dead or mutilated, the President executes an emergency order to bring back Op-Center--an Op-Center capable of dealing with the high tech crises of the 21st Century, and there is a lethal one brewing in the Middle East. A renegade Saudi Prince with ambitions of controlling the world's oil supply has an ingenious plot to manipulate America into attacking Syria and launching a war against Iran. Next, they would ignite a sleeper cell to attack the America homeland, resulting in a bloodbath unlike any other. Only the men and women of Op-Center, using sophisticated technology, realize what is about to be unleashed. Only they have the courage to issue a warning no one wants to hear. But will anyone believe them?

Experts agree that the next terrorist attack on our soil will not come in the same form as September 11. The possibility of nuclear, chemical or biological attack is increasingly likely. The U.S. Armed Forces Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Counter-Terrorism Handbook will enable its readers to survive such an attack. It contains the best practices of the United States' military, completely edited and adapted for civilian use. For example, readers will learn how to:Gain knowledge of an impending chemical attack using a simple warning system Protect against biological threats such as anthrax with a series of inoculations Guard against fallout from a terrorist nuke Achieve basic protection during chemical or biological attacks with a simple mask and Administer first aid after nuclear, chemical or biological attacks with a simple first aid kit.It's all here. This handbook is the single most effective tool for civilians to protect themselves and their loved ones against the threat looming over our homeland.