Diplomacy & Crisis News

Peter Suciu

F-22, Middle East

Currently, the United States Air Force is the only operator of the aircraft.

Here's What You Need to Remember: For now, it seems likely the Israeli Air Force will have to “make do” with its F-35I Adir aircraft, which by some accounts is the best fighter in the skies today. It is the only F-35 variant to enter service heavily tailored to a foreign country’s specifications.

Even before Joe Biden became president-elect, it looked quite unlikely that Israel would be acquiring any Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters. News had circulated that the Israeli military had expressed interest in the F-22 as the advanced stealth aircraft could allow its air force to maintain its “qualitative military edge” (QME), which the United States is legally required to preserve. This followed the agreement by the United States to sell the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II to the United Arab Emirates.

The story, which was first reported by the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, cited internal sources that senior Israeli defense officials sought to acquire the F-22 as it was designed for greater air-to-air combat capability than the F-35.

Currently, the United States Air Force is the only operator of the aircraft. It is flown by units of the 1st Fighter Wing out of Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; the 3rd Fighter Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; and the 154th Fighter Wing at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

A significant issue is that the F-22 cannot be exported under U.S. federal law, which is meant to protect its stealth technology and other classified technologies. While a 2010 defense authorization bill did include a provision that required the Department of Defense (DoD) to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for the export of an F-22 variant, Congress has not lifted the export ban.

However, the biggest issue is that the F-22 program ended in 2011. To date, only 195 aircraft have been produced and it is unlikely that production would resume due to the high cost.

Defence-Blog reported that Israeli defense officials have only denied reports that there was interest in the fighter, and said it is “not currently on the table.” However, there have been the arguments made that as President Donald Trump is likely a lame duck he could approve the sale.

That of course doesn’t really make it true—or more importantly address the feasibility issues, notably that the aircraft isn’t being produced. Restarting the program would likely be astronomically costly to say the least, while another issue is that the aircraft in service are largely considered overdue for an upgrade.

“These reports are based on an assessment that Trump is willing to do almost anything—including diplomatic and security intervention—in order to promote arms deals and to help friends,” Yossi Melman, intelligence and strategic affairs correspondent at the Haaretz newspaper, reported.

For now, it seems likely the Israeli Air Force will have to “make do” with its F-35I Adir aircraft, which by some accounts is the best fighter in the skies today. It is the only F-35 variant to enter service heavily tailored to a foreign country’s specifications.

The Israeli fighters feature an overriding Israeli-built C4 program that runs “on top” of Lockheed’s operating system. One of F-35’s key capabilities comes from its superior ability to soak up data with its sensors and share it with friendly forces. Compatibility with datalinks used by friendly Israeli air and ground forces is thus an important aspect from Israel’s perspective as it tracks the position of hostile surface-to-surface rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles systems.

The Adir has also been certified to carry major Israeli-developed weapons systems in its internal weapons bay. This includes the Python-5 short-range heat-seeking air-to-air missile, and the Spice family of glide bombs, which combine electro-optical, satellite, and man-in-the-loop guidance options that offer greater targeting versatility and have a range of up to sixty miles.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared two months ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Middle East

Military customers scratch their heads looking at it.

Here's What You Need To Remember: "Fire superiority” is shooting more bullets at the enemy, accurately, than he is shooting back at you. This gun was designed to achieve that.

The Israeli company Silver Shadow recently attracted attention for its double-barreled AR-type rifle, the Gilboa DBR Snake. For the most part, it’s an AR, uses AR parts, and fires the 5.56-millimeter AR round. Except that it has two separate barrels, two magazines and two ejection ports — with two triggers as if two AR rifles had smashed into each other.

The two triggers are to make the Snake legal for civilian use in the United States, as We Are the Mighty‘s Blake Stilwell noted, citing ATF regulations for machine guns. But it’s easy enough to pull both, firing two rounds at once.

It’s the civilian market, primarily in America, where this gun should find buyers. Military customers are highly unlikely to view this rifle as very practical.

But let’s back up for a moment. The U.S. military has studied double-barreled semi-automatic rifles for potential combat use before. The Pentagon’s Project Salvo, which began in 1951, aimed to produce a next-generation infantry rifle suitable for modern warfare while embodying the lessons of World War II.

One of these lessons is the importance of what the military calls “fire superiority” — shooting more bullets at the enemy, accurately, than he is shooting back at you. If you have fire superiority, the sheer volume of fire limits an enemy’s room to maneuver, pinning them down and making them easier to attack on their exposed flanks. Heavy fire can also inflict casualties through shrapnel and ricochet.

Ultimately, Project Salvo led to the AR series of rifles and its first military adaptation, the selective-fire M-16, with semi-automatic, three-round burst and fully-automatic modes.

There were several far-flung concepts put into development testing as part of Project Salvo. There was a flechette-firing shotgun — never adopted — designed to shred enemy soldiers with dozens of darts. Project Salvo also involved experiments with double-barreled rifles including the 5.56-millimeter Winchester Salvo, produced in 1957.

The Winchester Salvo, like the modern Snake, has two ejection ports with one on each side of the receiver. (That’s a lot of flying brass.) There are two magazines, and the rifle’s unloaded weight comes to 11.8 pounds. It’s difficult to compare the weight to a modern AR rifle given the wide variety of variants and their accessories, but the Salvo is a few pounds heavier than an “average” AR.

The G3, a heavy NATO battle rifle from the Cold War, weighs nine pounds — about as much as a Gilboa DBR Snake. That makes the Snake a bit on the heavy side, but not unreasonable.

One problem with the Winchester Salvo came with its 5.56-millimeter cartridge — an unusual and experimental duplex cartridge which carried two bullets, one behind the other, for four total bullets firing every time the shooter pulled the trigger. This added recoil — too much of it.

The Snake doesn’t use duplex ammunition, but it faces a same basic questions of efficiency, weight, and waste. Ammunition adds weight, yet two bullets traveling side-by-side are still traveling toward the same target. The enemy will likely not know the difference from a standard, single-barrel AR as the rounds snap around them.

The result is twice the ammunition, and cost, for a similar suppressive effect. Better to have a lightweight rifle — with a single barrel. And if soldiers need extra firepower, they can always flip the selector switch to a three-round burst.

This first appeared in 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Caleb Larson

Soryu-Class, Asia

Anyone who says Japan's navy is a paper tiger hasn't met these. 

Here's What You Need To Remember: The Sōryū-class is also the first class of Japanese submarines that uses air-independent propulsion technology. Though the class is diesel-electric, some of the subs can switch from louder diesel engines to quieter Sterling engines.

The Japanese Navy, or as they’re officially known, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), is slated to operate a total of twelve Sōryū-class submarines. These diesel-electric attack submarines were originally introduced into service with the JMSDF in the mid- to late-2000s and have several interesting features.

The Sōryū-class was the first Japanese submarine class built by Japan to use lithium-ion batteries. Historically, batteries onboard submarines have been built similarly to the battery that powers your car—lead-acid batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have a size a power storage advantage in that they can have a greater power output despite being much smaller and more light-weight than their lead-acid predecessors.

Lithium-ion batteries also usually recharge faster than lead-acid batteries, which reduces time on the surface—a particularly vulnerable place for submarines—and underwater endurance is therefore greatly increased. Some sources claim that underwater endurance may have been doubled by switching to lithium-ion batteries and could be as long as two weeks. If true, the class’ endurance is quite good.

The Sōryū-class is also the first class of Japanese submarines that uses air-independent propulsion technology. Though the class is diesel-electric, some of the subs can switch from louder diesel engines to quieter Sterling engines.

The Stirling engines used by the Sōryū-class were adapted from engines used in Sweden. The unique engine uses bottled liquid oxygen so that the engine’s diesel fuel can combust. The advantage of this propulsion system is that it runs much quieter than a traditional diesel engine. Furthermore, its range is estimated to be around 6,100 miles or about 9,800 kilometers.

Though the class does not have vertical missile launch tubes, they can launch U.S.-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles via the six torpedo tubes in the class’ hull. The missile skims the sea surface to evade enemy radar and has a prodigious 170+ mile (or about 280+ kilometer) range. In addition, the submarines are armed with torpedoes and can lay anti-submarine and anti-ship mines.

Future Export

Until very recently, Japan adhered to a self-imposed weapons export restriction that prevented the sale of weapons or weapon systems abroad. But, as the island nation has recently demonstrated by its muscle-flexing in response to an increasingly assertive China, exports might again be on the menu for Japan.

Both India and Australia have expressed interest in acquiring Japanese submarine technology, if not fully built submarines. Though it would be a break from the recent past, it would not be entirely shocking if Japanese submarines are seen in other countries’ navies in the future.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

Image: Wikipedia.

Peter Suciu

Nuclear Weapons,

The longest missing nuclear weapon hasn't been seen in 71 years, and it is unlikely it will be found anytime soon.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While this should be as scary as suggested, the good news is that in the past 50 plus years, no other nuclear weapons have been lost – at least that we know of.

The 1996 John Woo film Broken Arrow features a quite memorable line – uttered by character actor Frank Whaley – "I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it." In fact, the term "Broken Arrow" does refer to the loss of a nuclear weapon and it has happened more than once.

Between 1950 and 1980, there have been 32 documented nuclear weapon accidents that involve the unexpected accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon. To date, six U.S. nuclear weapons have been lost and shockingly never recovered. Below you will find a breakdown of the situations that lead to this shocking statistic.

February 13, 1950

The longest missing nuclear weapon hasn't been seen in 71 years, and it is unlikely it will be found anytime soon.

It was lost when the crew of a United States Air Force Convair B-36 bomber was conducting a mock nuclear strike and was en route from Eielson Air Force Base (AFB), Alaska to Carswell AFB, Texas, when it developed engine trouble. Not wanting to have a crash with a nuclear warhead, the crew was ordered to drop its 30-kiloton Mark 4 (Fat Man) bomb into the Pacific Ocean.

According to the "official" report, the bomb didn't contain the plutonium core necessary for a nuclear detonation, but it still contained a substantial amount of uranium.

March 10, 1956

Six years after losing the first bomb, two nuclear cores were lost when a B-47 bomber likely crashed in the Mediterranean Sea while en route from MacDill AFB, Florida to Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco. The aircraft had successfully completed its first aerial refueling, but it failed to make contact with a tanker for a second refueling and was reported missing.

The exact weapon wasn't disclosed, but the B-47 typically carried the 3,400-kilogram Mark 15 nuclear bomb. No trace of the plane nor the cores has ever been found.

February 5, 1958

During a simulated combat mission near Savannah, Georgia, another Air Force B-47 bomber carrying a Mk 15 weapon collided with an F-86. After multiple attempts to land, the bomber crew was given the green light to jettison the bomb to reduce weight, and also to ensure it wouldn't explode during an emergency landing. The bomb, which was dropped over the Wassaw Sound near the mouth of the Savannah River, wasn't recovered.

January 24, 1961

Somewhere near Goldsboro, North Carolina, a uranium core is likely buried in a field. It had been one of the cores for a pair of 24-megaton nuclear bombs that were on a B-52 that crashed shortly after takeoff. What is especially unsettling about this incident is that three of the four arming mechanisms on the bomb that was recovered had been activated.

The second bomb's tail was discovered 20 feet below ground in the muddy field, and when efforts to find the core failed to uncover it, the military did the next best thing. The United States Army Corps of Engineers purchased a 400-foot circular easement over the buried components to restrict digging.

December 5, 1965

Somehow an A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft, loaded with a one-megaton thermonuclear weapon, managed to roll off the deck of the USS Ticonderoga and fell into the Pacific Ocean. The pilot, plane and bomb quickly sank in 16,000 feet of water and were never seen again.

However, it wasn't until 15 years later that the U.S. Navy even admitted the accident had taken place, and only noted it happened 500 miles from land. However, that wasn't true – as the carrier was about 80 miles from Japan's Ryuki island chain. As a result of that accident, the Japanese government now prohibits the United States from bringing nuclear weapons into its territory.

Spring 1968

The final bomb to be lost and not recovered occurred sometime in the first half of 1968, and involved the loss of the U.S. Navy's nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion, which sank about 400 miles to the southwest of the Azores Islands. In addition to the tragic loss of the 99 crewmembers, the submarine was carrying a pair of nuclear-tipped weapons, which had yields of up to 250 kilotons.

While this should be as scary as suggested, the good news is that in the past 50 plus years, no other nuclear weapons have been lost – at least that we know of.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: "US nuclear weapons test in Nevada in 1951" by International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Denis Mole

Nuclear Submarines, Asia

The claim that Australia can’t have nuclear-powered submarines because it doesn’t have a nuclear industry has never been tested.

In Adelaide’s The Advertiser newspaper on 7 March, former defence minister Christopher Pyne said, ‘Then there is the nonsensical argument that the Attack Class submarines are no good because they aren’t nuclear. Almost all of these arguments are driven by people who either know nothing at all about submarines and defence or have outdated information that is no longer relevant.’ Pyne must therefore believe that Australia’s current and recent submarine commanding officers know nothing about submarines.

The 2016 defence white paper called for Australia’s future submarines to be ‘regionally superior’. As a former commander of the submarine force, I don’t know any submarine commanding officer over the past 30 years who has any doubt that, overall, nuclear-powered submarines are superior to diesel submarines of similar vintage. Australia’s new Attack-class submarines will probably be superior to most diesel submarines in our region, but they won’t be superior to China’s nuclear-powered submarines entering service in the 2040s and beyond. China’s navy is numerically larger than the US Indo-Pacific fleet now and is forecast to be more powerful than the American fleet by 2035. Australia’s 12th Attack-class submarine won’t enter service until around 2054 and will be in service until about 2080.

Pyne went on to say, ‘Australia does not have a nuclear industry. One cannot be created overnight.’ Pyne might have the cart before the horse. The Americans had their first nuclear-powered submarine in service before their first nuclear power station. The nuclear power station program in the US had been languishing until Captain, later Admiral, Hymen G. Rickover was appointed to head the nuclear reactor development for both naval and civil applications. In the early years, it was trained nuclear submariners leaving navy service and going into the commercial power sector that allowed that industry to grow rapidly.

The claim that Australia can’t have nuclear-powered submarines because it doesn’t have a nuclear industry has never been tested. An Australian ability to manufacture and reprocess nuclear fuel wouldn’t be essential in order to own and operate nuclear-powered submarines. Modern American and British submarines are built with nuclear fuel to last the life of the vessel. Japan has 33 nuclear reactors in power stations but doesn’t manufacture or reprocess nuclear fuel. This is also true of many countries in Europe and the Middle East that have nuclear power. Australia buys advanced combat aircraft and weapons that are manufactured overseas, so why not nuclear reactors and the whole-of-life fuel they require? Nuclear-powered submarines could be built in Australia with imported reactors.

Notwithstanding that reactors and fuel can be purchased from other countries (the OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights is from Argentina), why doesn’t Australia have a larger and more diverse nuclear industry? Of the top 20 economies (Australia is 13th), 17 have nuclear power. Australia, Italy and Saudi Arabia are the three exceptions. Italy imports 16% of its electricity from adjacent countries, more than half from France where it is produced from nuclear power. Saudi Arabia is acquiring nuclear power. And, as various countries commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, it’s noteworthy that no major economy intends doing so without nuclear power in the mix.

Diesel submarines have been around for about 120 years and nuclear submarines have been around for about 65 years, so neither form represents new technology. With a choice between the two technologies, the leading Western maritime powers of the US, UK and France all adopted the nuclear option with no diesel attack submarines, because nuclear power is the more effective and superior technology.

At the time when replacements for Australia’s Oberon-class submarines were being developed in the 1980s, it’s almost certain that neither the US nor UK would have sold nuclear submarines to Australia. With the Cold War at its peak, their focus was on the Soviet Union and the possibility of maritime warfare in the North Atlantic. France was just starting to develop its first nuclear-powered attack submarines. But what about when it came time to explore options to replace the Collins-class submarines?

The 2009 defence white paper announced that the Collins class would be replaced and Australia’s submarine force would be expanded to 12 boats. The defence minister at the time, Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon, directed the department that, in developing options, it was not to bring forward any nuclear proposal. Three years later, when he was no longer defence minister, Fitzgibbon admitted it was a mistake ruling out a nuclear option; however, neither of his successors altered the ‘no nuclear’ guidance to the department. Consequently, when the Coalition government came to power in 2013, only conventional options had been developed.

The notion of conventionally powered submarines’ suitability for Australia in the second half of this century needs to be challenged. The Attack-class program should proceed as replacements for the six Collins-class submarines to avoid a capability gap; however, options to acquire nuclear-powered submarines for the additional six boats and eventually replacements for the six Attack-class submarines should be pursued immediately.

Submarines could lead to a broad nuclear industry in Australia. This possibility will be the subject of a seminar to be held at ASPI on Thursday 15 July, jointly hosted by the Submarine Institute of Australia and UNSW Canberra. More information is available here.

Denis Mole served in the Royal Australian Navy for more than 35 years, commanding submarines and attaining the rank of commodore. He has recently retired from the commercial marine and defence support sector.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Asia

Chinese announcements of military prowress have circulated in the press with varying degrees of skepticism and hyperbole.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: China is talking up its military prowess.

To hear Chinese state media tell it, the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army will go into battle in the future wearing an array of high-tech gizmos. In their hands will be enormous weapons combining a rifle with a 20-millimeter grenade launcher akin to the old — and canceled — American OICW. On top of that, they will have heads-up displays and networked positioning systems so Chinese troops can monitor each other digitally, almost like a video game.

It looks impressive, and Chinese announcements of the system have circulated in the press with varying degrees of skepticism and hyperbole. A more skeptical take recently came from the military news wire Shephard Media, which pointed out that China is claiming the 20-millimeter hybrid weapon, dubbed QTS-11, can fire air-bursting grenades lethal within a radius of 7.7 meters.

Be wary of such claims. The U.S. version of this weapon from years ago, the OICW, also included a 20-millimeter grenade launcher but the U.S. military found it to be ineffective. A grenade’s lethality primarily comes from shrapnel, but the pieces of flying metal were often too light and often dispersed upwards and away from the target. Ultimately, the U.S. military lost interest, though the OICW did inspire the M320 grenade launcher and the problematic — and now canceled — XM25 (see picture above).

South Korea developed its own tricked-out future rifle called the K11 and adopted it into service. But the K11 was plagued with problems from the fire-control system to the optics and the barrel — it wobbled. Another issue is that the K11 is huge and heavy at 13 pounds unloaded. So like the OICW, the result is a big, bulky rifle with an underpowered grenade launcher. And like the American version, it’s expensive.

Armies tend to like reliable, effective and affordable rifles — all factors where these hybrid weapons have been found lacking.

In any case, the Chinese QTS-11 is reportedly in service in limited numbers with the Sky Wolf Commandos, a special operations force in the Chinese army’s Western Theater Command. Chinese state television described the move as part of a training program to “adapt to future informatised warfare.”

This was in reference to the electronic gadgets that come with the system — a “full digitalized integrated soldier combat system, including detection and communications,” Chinese state media added.

If this sounds familiar, it should.

Years ago the U.S. Army worked on its Land Warrior program which attempted to equip networked soldiers with battery-powered devices such as smartphones and integrated helmets as if troops were operating in a science-fiction movie. The larger goal was to peer through the “fog of war” with soldiers digitally marking enemies on digital maps, while also being able to track the location of fellow soldiers to reduce friendly fire incidents.

It hasn’t been easy. The need to lug heavy batteries with a finite amount of energy, and unreliable connectivity, has bedeviled developers. But the Army kept working on it. The program turned into Nett Warrior and then Precision Fires-Dismounted — or PF-D — for artillery gunners. The U.S. Army believes smartphones are a cheap and practical tool to help forward observers pick targets, send the information back to the guns stationed miles away, which then rain down shells.

That may be where China’s own experiments in this technology end up. The U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office, meanwhile, has speculated the Chinese announcements may serve as a form of propaganda, noting that the Sky Wolf Commandos are stationed near the Indian border, where China routinely times military declarations for geopolitical purposes.

China also announced that its military is developing an “Ironman-like, weight-bearing suit mocked as a ‘wearable skeleton’ to carry heavier gear.”

We’ll see. Exoskeletons are extremely difficult engineering challenges that try to augment something humans are already evolved to do — resulting in tiring out the human operator instead of strengthening them. Still, perhaps the Chinese military will develop a machine or weapon that has more success. Or maybe it’s just a psychological mind-game.

This article was first published earlier in 2019.

Sebastien Roblin

History, Eurasia

The submarine infiltrations appeared to cease with the end of the Cold War—but not for good.

Here’s What You Need To Remember: On the morning of October 28, 1981, two Swedish fishermen were hauling their catch back to Karlskrona when they noticed a mysterious oil slick. One Bertil Sturkmen later returned to the area to investigate, and at 10 a.m. came across a startling sight: a seventy-six-meter long submarine wedged on its starboard side against the sharp rocks of Torumskär island. An officer was standing on the submarine’s conning tower, staring at him through binoculars—and holding a machine gun.

Sturkmen sailed back to Karlskrona and notified the nearby Swedish naval base, which harbored two of Sweden’s three coastal defense flotillas. Karlskrona was well protected from attack due to its position in a shallow bay shielded by a belt of rocky islands which demanded careful circumnavigation. Somehow, the submarine had wended it way through this daunting aquatic obstacle course to a point only six miles away from the base.

The patrol boat Smyge reached the grounded vessel by 11 a.m., and Comm. Karl Andersson managed to converse with crew members in German—who informed him that the submarine had strayed off course due to a faulty navigation system.

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The boat in question was S-363, a Soviet Whiskey-class coastal patrol submarine—thus giving the incident its moniker “the Whiskey on the Rocks.” (At the time, the submarine was widely misidentified as U-137.) The short-range diesel-electric submarine had a crew of 56 and had been designed in the 1940s with snorkel and battery technology derived from the Nazi Type XXI “electric boat.” The Soviet Union built more than two hundred of the submarines.

Sweden’s long Baltic coastline faced Leningrad and Soviet bases in the Baltic states and Poland. Though international law states that a country’s territorial waters extend twelve nautical miles (fourteen miles) away from its mainland and island possessions, Soviet submarines had been detected intruding into Swedish waters on numerous occasions during the 1960s and 1970s. Swedish vessels had opened fire on them several times without apparent effect.

Sweden was theoretically neutral during the Cold War, but Stockholm’s perceived closeness to the West apparently motivated Soviet intelligence-gathering activities. The Swedes returned the favor by shadowing Soviet ships and aircraft with their own jets and submarines, occasionally leading to tense situations: for example, in 1985 a standoff between Swedish Viggen and Soviet Su-15 interceptors resulted in a deadly crash.

In fact, the evening before, on October 27, the Swedish submarine Neptune and two helicopters had been testing a new type of torpedo which may have been of considerable interest to the Soviets. It was around that time that S-363 ran aground. Her crew gunned her diesel engines trying to escape—producing a din which was heard ashore.

As news of S-363’s grounding spread, journalists and boats surrounded the submarine. Stockholm demanded the right to interrogate her captain, Anatolij Gustjtjin. Moscow claimed S-363 had entered Swedish waters seeking aid, though of course, S-363 had not issued a distress signal.

Swedish radars then detected a task force of a dozen Soviet ships approaching S-363. Led by Admiral A. Kalinin, the fleet included the missile destroyer Obraztsovy, and older gun-armed destroyer, two anti-ship missile boats, a frigate and a tug.

While the submarine Neptune did its best to slow down the approaching fleet, the icebreaker Thule was moved into position to block access to S-363. As the Soviet task force continued to approach, radar-guided coastal guns activated their targeting radars, which were designed to hop multiple frequencies to evade counter-battery fire. This finally prompted the Soviet warships to halt. A lone tug continued approaching, however, until Swedish torpedo boats barred its progress.

Meanwhile, Swedish ships conducted gamma-ray spectroscopic analyses of S-363 and detected trace amounts of what appeared to be Uranium 238—suggesting that a nuclear weapon was on. Back in the 1950s, the Soviet Union had developed several nuclear torpedoes, including smaller types designed to knock out multiple enemy vessels, as well as a larger type for nuking naval bases and coastal cities—a concept which has recently seen a renaissance. Indeed, the Whiskey-class S-144 had tested a T-5 anti-ship nuclear torpedo with a five-kiloton warhead in 1957.

After days of protracted negotiations, Captain Gustjtjin, accompanied by political officer Vassily Besedin, submitted himself to a six-hour interrogation aboard the torpedo boat Vastervik on November 2. He insisted that S-363 had experienced a breakdown of its four different navigational systems and drifted a hundred miles off course from the coast of Poland. However, given that entering that far into Karlskrona Bay required numerous precise maneuvers, his Swedish interlocutor noted such a mistake was “worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.”

Meanwhile, a storm broke out, obscuring Swedish radars. When it cleared, two vessels were detected approaching Swedish waters. Assuming a renewed Soviet incursion, Prime Minister Falldin had naval strike planes scrambled and coastal guns put on standby to open fire in defense of territorial waters. But after twenty minutes, it was discovered that the contacts were German merchant ships.

Finally, after a ten-day standoff, Moscow permitted the Swedes to extricate the grounded submarine. Swedish tugs put the Soviet sub back to water and handed her off to Admiral Kalinin’s task force. S-363 returned to port on November 7.

Political officer Besedin later told a Swedish journalist:

"Our officers were ordered to blow up the submarine together with its crew if the Swedish military forces tried to take possession of the boat. These orders would have been completed.

"Onboard, in the torpedo tubes, there were torpedoes with nuclear warheads. The effect of detonating such nuclear warhead is about the same as the impact of the bomb released over Hiroshima [15 kilotons]. It is terrible to think of all the destruction and the long-term consequences it would have had for Sweden as a whole."

Karl Andersson has questioned Besedin’s account, however, arguing that the submarine would have been scuttled by destroying the propeller shaft and valves, not detonating onboard nuclear warheads.

Besedin also insisted that a navigational error had occurred due to damage from an earlier collision, forcing S-363’s crew to rely on less accurate methods. Another theory is that the submarine was testing a new, unreliable inertial navigation system.

The episode precipitated a decade of intensified submarine hunts by the Swedish Navy. However, despite deploying numerous torpedoes, depth charges and mines at numerous dozens of contacts, no Soviet submarines were apparently destroyed. Stockholm also began working on upgrading the stealth and endurance of its coastal defense submarines by developing advanced Air-Independent Propulsion technology.

The submarine hunt aroused domestic controversy. Swedish right-wingers saw the U-137 incident as evidence of the Soviet Union’s ill-intentions and the need to build up military deterrence. Some left-wing Swedes implied the Swedish Navy was jumping at shadows and suggested the submarine sightings were actually NATO submarines provoking the Swedes against the Soviets.

The submarine infiltrations appeared to cease with the end of the Cold War—but not for good. As relations between Russia and the West sharply deteriorated in 2014 over Moscow’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, the Swedish Navy spent a week attempting to track a mini-submarine that reportedly sighted multiple times in Swedish waters.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Missile Defense, Americas

American destroyers already have systems to track and try to shoot down regular ballistic missiles; could they be adapted to new hypersonic weapons?

Key point: The Navy wants to be able to protect itself from a wide variety of threats. Here is how the service could track and try to take out newer and faster missiles.

Having a U.S. Navy destroyer able to take out intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a radical development that multiplies defenses in unprecedented ways. 

The mid-course phase of flight during which an ICBM travels through space toward its descent back into the earth’s atmosphere, is typically a twenty-minute process depending upon launch origin and trajectory. That period of the ICBM’s flight is longer than any boost phase ascent or terminal phase descent onto a target, offering the best opportunity to shoot it down.

But ICBMs are designed to survive through a salvo the use of countermeasures such decoys or other methods of ensuring an ICBM passes through space. This means that an ability for a defender to take multiple intercept “shots” would be of enormous tactical value. Ground-based interceptors (GBIs) can travel great distances, yet they are land-launched and restricted in terms of point of origin. 

This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

A Navy-ship fired SM-3 IIA, recently demonstrated to be capable of destroying ICBMs, brings new geographical launch possibilities. For example, a group of Aegis-capable Navy destroyers could fire SM-3s from the middle of the Pacific Ocean at ICBMs speeding through space for the United States from China. While an ICBM is likely to be at a higher altitude in space during the major portions of the mid-course phase, the period of time just after it leaves the earth’s atmosphere, or the minutes right before it reenters the earth’s atmosphere upon descent, present optimal windows for defense with the SM-3 IIA. A ship operating not far off the coast of the United States, or near enemy shores in the vicinity of a potential enemy launch location, could provide a unique opportunity for SM-3 IIA-armed destroyers to fire intercepts at ICBMs operating just above the boundary of the earth’s atmosphere. 

There is yet another interesting tactical possibility here which might include the idea that a highly-precise, larger and long-range SM-3 IIA interceptor could be used to intercept hypersonic weapons. Is it fast enough? Can ship-based radar track something at that speed? That may remain to be seen, however one interesting nuance can be found in the Pentagon’s current effort to accelerate defenses against hypersonic weapons.

Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, which skim along the boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere, occupy what Principal Pentagon Director for Hypersonics Michael White recently described as “in between space,” meaning it was difficult for most interceptors or ship-based defenses to reach. The areas just above and below the earth’s atmospheric boundary may be too high for certain ballistic missile defenses, such as ship-fired SM-3s to reach, yet simultaneously be too low for space-traveling GBIs to hit. Could the newer SM-3 IIA reach this area? Why not? Especially if it is empowered by extended and networked radar tracking systems and had the engineering to travel at the necessary speeds to create a collision. 

Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Robert Farley

Anti-Ship Missiles, Asia

Long-range Chinese missiles threaten countries throughout the Pacific, but America might be the only country with the money, technology, and will to find ways to defend against them.

Key point: Beijing knows it can hold warships and bases throughout much of the Pacific at risk. But Washington also knows this and is working on anti-missile defenses.

An old adage of defense analysis is that a weapon system that has not been tested does not, in any meaningful sense, exist. Testing gives an organization confidence that the weapon will function as intended, helps to work out technological bugs, and offers an opportunity to integrate a particular weapon into a broader system of technologies. If that’s the case, then China’s DF-21D and DF-26B “carrier killer” missiles now appear to exist.

This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

On August 26, as part of a broader exercise that involved Chinese air and naval forces, the PLA tested one each of the DF-21D and DF-26B missiles. The DF-21D is a road-mobile medium-range ballistic missile with a range of some 1,500 km, while the DF-26 is a road-mobile IRBM with a range of up to 4,000 km, making it a threat against warships and bases operating deep in the Pacific. Both missiles have terminal maneuvering capabilities that enable them to target ships underway, leading some to dub them “carrier-killers” for the threat that they pose to the big aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships of the United States, Japan, and Australia. As Tyler Rogoway notes, China has conducted some tests of its carrier-killer missiles before, but the integration of the launches into a larger set of naval and air activities suggests the development of doctrine and real operational capability.

The United States apparently observed the exercise via a U-2 overflight, to the extreme displeasure of the Chinese. Any such overflight of a live exercise would carry obvious risks, but the U-2 is designed for such missions and has conducted them since the early days of the Cold War. Of course, China could not hope to keep such testing secret, and indeed a visible demonstration of the missiles is half the point. The test of the missiles serves two purposes; to increase the effectiveness of the weapons themselves, and to warn the United States and others about China’s military prowess, an impression undeniably confirmed by the irritable U.S. reaction. 

The very existence of the missiles has produced a family of glib claims that the missiles have rendered the aircraft carrier obsolete. A ballistic missile capable of terminal maneuvering as it approaches an aircraft carrier undercuts the carrier’s primary defense, its mobility. But both of China’s missiles depend on an extensive set of sensors and communications nodes in order to find their target, maneuver towards them, and avoid any electronic or physical defenses that their victims can mount. This makes the integration of the weapons into a broader family of systems, including air, space, submarine, and surface, absolutely critical to their ability to have an impact. In case of war, the task of the U.S. military would be as much to blind the sensor’s that make China’s missiles lethal as to destroy the missiles themselves. 

Nevertheless, concern over China’s ability to hold U.S. carriers at risk has led to calls for “distributed lethality” which would spread strike capability across a larger range of air, surface, and submarine platforms, as well as the abrogation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which has allowed the United States to pursue the construction of its own medium and intermediate range cruise and ballistic missiles. 

All of this comes as tensions between China and the United States have grown in the Western Pacific. The recent U.S. deployment of two carrier battle groups in July confirmed U.S. interest in making a show of force in the region, just as rhetoric over China’s domestic policies and ongoing territorial assertiveness in the East and South China Seas has sharpened. In the looming U.S. presidential election, tensions with China have become a talking point on both sides, with President Donald Trump taking credit for aggressive military, diplomatic, and trade stances, and Vice President Joe Biden arguing for persuasive regional diplomacy to counter the Chinese threat. 

However, the potential of China’s missiles extends beyond the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Any missile that can hit a U.S. carrier can also hit one of Japan’s new aircraft carriers, or one of Australia’s new amphibious assault ships. Apart from the United States, no country in the region can hope to disrupt China’s system of anti-access systems, making the missiles a potential tool of regional military dominance. On the other hand, Japan seems increasingly willing to contemplate the development of its own offensive missiles, which would hold China’s ships and shorebound installations under similar risk.

Clearly, the United States has been aware of these missiles for a good long time. It seems that China is increasingly willing to demonstrate its full military capabilities both to Washington, and to the Western Pacific region. Whether this will result in increased tension or in a de-escalation remains to be seen.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and the Diplomat. This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

T-90 Tank, Europe

One of the T-90’s greatest strengths is its price.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Herein lies one of the strengths inherent to Russian arms exports: instead of focusing on selling the latest, greatest, and most technologically advanced equipment, the T-90 family focuses instead on tried-and-true technologies, incrementally improving them onto a compact, affordable platform.

The T-90 and associated variants are one hell of a tank — may be the best in Russian inventories. Relatively modern, they sport many levels of armor and capabilities, are easily upgradeable, and continue to supply armies all over the world.

Vlad Be Nimble, Vlad Be Quick

The T-90 family of tanks are a mix of old and new: the readily available and mass-producible T-72 hull was paired with a more advanced current from the T-80 family — firmly in the Russian design tradition of incremental changes rather than broad, new designs.

It also relies on traditional Russian tank design, standard since the Second World War: squat and low-profile hull and turret, which together offer opponents a smaller target to aim at.

An automatically loading cannon eliminates a loader crew member, bringing the total crew to three, which also aids in keeping the tanks small and compact, compared to the M1 Abrams, or the Leopard family, which are considerably larger and both require a crew of four, with loader.

Tanking on the Cheap

One of the T-90’s greatest strengths is its price. Although newer-model T-90MS is about 4.5 million dollars, the earlier — and cheaper — T-90 designs are still available for purchase and export, and cost considerably less, around 2.5-3.5 million dollars. According to another National Interest contributor, this is an attempt by Russia to “target the higher segments of the heavy armor market.”

For such an affordably priced tank, the T-90 features effective armor. In 2016, a T-90 was filmed in Syria taking a hit from an American-Designed TOW missile. While the TOW missile struck the tank, the T-90s Kontakt-5 armor (explosive reactive) detonated the missile, saving the tank from a knock-out hit. Not bad for an export tank.

Easily Upgradable

Herein lies one of the strengths inherent to Russian arms exports: instead of focusing on selling the latest, greatest, and most technologically advanced equipment, the T-90 family focuses instead on tried-and-true technologies, incrementally improving them onto a compact, affordable platform.

The Rosoboronexport website, the T-90's exporting entity, reflects this when describing the T-90MS, the latest T-90 variant:

“The tank features improved mobility and steerability achieved through the installation a higher-power engine, automatic gear shift control and wheel steering control. While retaining a low silhouette, optimal weight, high mobility and capability to cross the most difficult obstacles at high speed in stride, which are traditional for Russian tanks, the T-90MS has acquired a contemporary level of protection and survivability.”

That strategy has evidently worked: T-90 and associated variants have been exported to Algeria, Azerbaijan, India, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and Vietnam.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with The National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Caleb Larson

Nuclear Energy, Air Force, World

Aircraft powered by nuclear reactors could, in theory, remain in the sky for weeks or possibly months without needing to refuel.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Jet engines are part of what did in the nuclear-powered bombers. Early but mature jet fighter designs left drawing boards and entered serial production at roughly the same time as the bomber prototypes. They were much faster than turboprop bombers, and if they crashed or were shot down, there would be no risk of nuclear contamination.

The 1950s and 1960s were the United States’ and Soviet Union’s nuclear heyday. Unlocking the power of the atom was supposed to usher in a new era in human achievement. In many ways, it did—harnessing nuclear power offered nearly unlimited energy to countries in the exclusive nuclear club.

But could the nuclear age transform aviation as well? The United States and USSR certainly thought so. Meet the Tu-95LAL and the Convair NB-36H— both of which carried onboard nuclear reactors.

Unlimited Range, Limited Exposure

In the early days of the Cold War before ICBMs and nuclear-powered submarines, American and Soviet nuclear preparedness was extremely high. Both countries had nuclear-armed bombers in the sky around the clock, waiting to deliver their payloads on Moscow and Washington. Keeping bombers constantly in-air required lots of support infrastructure and forward planning—and lots of refueling, which limited bomber’s range and endurance.

Aircraft powered by nuclear reactors could, in theory, remain in the sky for weeks or possibly months without needing to refuel. Their only limitations would be food, water, and pilot endurance. The idea was seemingly straightforward: use existing aircraft designs and modify them to be powered not by conventional means, but by nuclear power.

American and Soviet engineers faced several complex design problems. First, how exactly would nuclear propulsion work? Surprisingly similar to any other kind of aircraft. Of crucial importance would be the massive amount of thermal energy a nuclear reactor creates.

First, a simplified explanation of jet engines: during normal flight, air enters a jet engine, where it is compressed, injected with fuel, and ignited. This creates a controlled explosion that is forced rearward, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward.

A nuclear-powered airplane would operate in much the same way—air is taken in and compressed, and pushed out the back of the engine, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward. However, after entering the engine, compressed air would act as a reactor coolant, flowing around either the reactor itself, or a heating element from the reactor. This super-hot and compressed air would then squirt out the back of the engine, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward. Importantly, air would not flow through the reactor core itself, as this would contaminate the exhaust with radiation that would be ejected into the air.

The Workhorses

The United States and USSR both needed huge aircraft that could transport prodigious payloads, capable of housing heavy reactors within their bomb bays.

In 1961, Soviet aircraft designers decided on their platform of choice, a modified Tupolev Tu-95. The Tu-95’s first flight was ten years previous, in 1951. The strategic nuclear bomber is enormous and continues to fly today, roughly analogous to the United States’ venerable B-52 strategic bomber.

The Tu-95 has extreme endurance and can carry a large bomb load, perfect for hauling a nuclear reactor. It has several design features not often seen on other aircraft. Not only is it propeller-driven, but the four engines each have a set of contra-rotating propellers.

In the United States, nuclear-powered aviation testing began earlier in 1955. Their test platform was a modified Convair B-36. The B-36 was truly a beast—the B-36 had the longest wingspan of any operational military aircraft ever built.

The B-36 sported a whopping six engines, arranged in a pusher configuration with the propellers located behind the wings. The hollow wing roots were over seven feet thick to provide additional space for fuel for transcontinental flight. Some of the later B-36D models were even fitted with two sets of side-by-side jet engines for short bursts of higher performance, which brought the engine count to ten.

No Risk, No Fun

Design challenges were prodigious, but not insurmountable. The biggest design consideration was Acute Radiation Syndrome—radiation poisoning that the crew would need protection from.

The Americans installed a four-ton lead disk in the middle of the B-36 fuselage to reduce the crew’s radiation exposure. The 5-man flight crew were stationed in the plane’s cockpit, which was encased in lead. The cockpit windows were switched out for foot-thick lead glass as an extra precaution. The modified Tu-95 also had similar shielding installed.

During their lifespans, both the American and Soviet experiments left the drawing board, but were rather unimpressive in the air. Besides the success of flying with a nuclear reactor onboard, the biggest concern was for the safety of the pilots and crew. Therefore most flights were thankfully reactor-off journeys.

For what they were, both programs enjoyed a certain degree of success. Both had installed a functional nuclear reactor into a large bomber, and conducted test flights. The parent platforms were also rather successful. The Tupolev Tu-95 remains in service with Russia to this day. The American B-36 had a shorter run and was replaced by the iconic B-52, also still in service.

Modernity Knocking

Jet engines are part of what did in the nuclear-powered bombers. Early but mature jet fighter designs left drawing boards and entered serial production at roughly the same time as the bomber prototypes. They were much faster than turboprop bombers, and if they crashed or were shot down, there would be no risk of nuclear contamination.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles were also played an outsized role. Why build and maintain a massive aircraft, train pilots, and then risk both to deliver payload when a missile would do the same job faster with no risk to life?

Nuclear-powered submarines that could carry ICBMs also doomed the continued development of nuclear-powered aircraft. They were thought to be safer too, although there have been notable accidents.

Still, the test programs were not totally unproductive. Some of the nuclear data that the B-36 program gathered was used in developing the reactors that power NASA’s deep-space satellites.

Nuclear 2.0

In April, an accident in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region released a detectable level of airborne nuclear material.

Several Russian nuclear monitoring stations that report to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s network then went silent and stopped transmitting nuclear detection data. Speculation says that Russia is experimenting again with nuclear propulsion, this time for cruise missiles.

Is nuclear propulsion making a comeback? Hopefully not. 

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Americas

Since World War II, exceptional carrier-based fighters have repeatedly more than held their own against land-based adversaries.

Here’s What You Need To Remember: Designing an airplane that can fly at high speeds lugging heavy weapons loads, and yet still take off and land on a short flight deck a few hundred meters long has always posed a formidable engineering challenge. Sea-based fighters typically feature folding wings for easier stowage, ruggedized landing gear and arrester equipment, and greater robustness to endure the wear and tear from sea-based operations. These all literally weigh against the exquisite engineering exhibited by land-based fighters.

Yet since World War II, exceptional carrier-based fighters have repeatedly more than held their own against land-based adversaries.

To qualify for this list, the carrier-based-fighter in question must not only have been effective but also had a significant operational impact. This excludes excellent carrier-based jets such as the Super Hornet or Rafale-M which haven’t seen intensive combat employment.

The airplane must also be a ‘fighter’ designed for air-to-air capability airplanes. This leaves out excellent aircraft like the SBD Dauntless dive bomber, A-1 Skyraider and A-4 Skyhawk which were attack planes foremost, even though they had their occasional air-to-air successes.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

The A6M Zero was an elegant fighter designed for the Imperial Japanese Navy by engineer Jiro Horikoshi. Weighing less than 4,000 pounds. The Zero’s 840-horsepower radial engine allowed it to traverse a remarkable 1,600 miles on internal fuel, outclimb and outrun many contemporary land-based fighters with a top speed of 346 miles per hour, and still turn on a dime.

When Japan unleashed its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and territories across Asia and the Western Pacific, Zeroes flown by veteran Japanese pilots proved a terror of Allied fighters like the Hawker Hurricane and F4F Wildcat which the Zero outclassed in both speed and maneuverability. Allied pilots spent the first year of the Pacific War developing tactics to cope with the Zero’s capabilities.

However, unlike other successful carrier-based fighters, the Zero failed to evolve at the same pace as its adversaries. Its remarkable performance had been achieved by cutting away almost all armor protection—a design compromise that became increasingly fatal as faster, better-armored Allied fighters entered service with heavier armaments.

Vought F4U Corsair

In 1943, the Grumman F6F Hellcat brought an end to the Zero’s dominance, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in air battles such as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

However, the Hellcat itself was outlived by the even higher-performing F4U Corsair. The Corsair is notable for its unique gull-winged design, but difficulties landing the “Hogs” caused the Navy to delay its introduction into service—so the Marines snatched them up instead. The Corsair quickly proved so successful that both the U.S. and Royal Navies adopted it into service.

The Corsair’s powerful Double Wasp engine made it fast and deadly, scoring an 11:1 kill ratio versus Japanese fighter pilots, who nicknamed it the “Whistling Death.” It played a vital role in intercepting Kamikaze attacks and providing ground support for Marines in Iwo Jima and Okinawa using napalm canisters and high-velocity rockets.

Remarkably, the Corsair’s career was only getting started. By the 1950s, Corsairs were back in action over Korea and French-occupied Vietnam, principally used in ground attack roles. However, radar-equipped Corsair night fighters shot down North Korean night intruders. Corsair pilot Guy Bordelon was only the Navy ace of the Korean War, and one Corsair even shot down a MiG-15 jet.

The Corsair’s combat career concluded violently in July 1969, when El Salvador invaded Honduras over a lost soccer game. Both sides operated Corsairs, and a Honduran F4U pilot shot down two Salvadoran Corsairs and a P-51 before the four-day war’s conclusion.

Grumman F9F Panther

The Panther was the first jet successfully integrated into U.S. Navy carrier air wings for long-term service. The slick jet, painted an inky navy blue and packing four twenty-millimeter cannons and flew on hundreds of raids during the Korean War, a dangerous role immortalized in the film The Bridges at Toko-Ri. It quite likely scored the first jet-on-jet aerial kill in history by downing a MiG-15 on November 9, 1950.

Though both powered by similar turbojets based on the Rolls Royce Nene, the straight-wing F9F could only attain 620 miles per hour, compared to the 670 mph of the swept-wing MiG-15. However, that didn’t prevent a lone F9F pilot from downing four Soviet MiG-15s in a whirling air battle over the Sea of Japan in 1952. Like the best naval fighters, the F9F also evolved gracefully over time, developing into a higher-performing swept-wing model called the “Cougar.”

The Harrier (In its Many Incarnations)

There have been many variants of the Harrier built by the various manufacturers, but their basic appeal was always the same: their vector-thrust turbofans allowed them to take off and land vertically like a helicopter from the deck of a small amphibious carrier or a remote forward bases lacking traditional runways.

This capability came at a price, however. Despite boasting air-to-air capability, Harriers were firmly subsonic jets that would be at a grave disadvantage dueling contemporary supersonic fighter jets. Furthermore, the trickiness of its VTOL engines has caused Harriers to suffer extremely high accident rates.

Yet the Harrier makes the list because its capabilities decisively affected the outcome of the Falkland Island War. In addition to twenty-eight carrier-based BAe Sea Harriers, the U.K. hastily converted container ships to carry fourteen land-based Royal Air Force Hawker Harriers. Together these escorted Royal Navy ships and pounded Argentine ground targets.

Argentina flung scores of strike jets at the British fleet, which lay at the extreme of their operational range. Though they might have been equally matched versus the Harrier, the Argentine pilots followed orders to only press the attack on British ships—arguably a mistake. Harrier managed to shoot down roughly twenty Argentine fighters using all-aspect AIM-L Sidewinder missiles. The Argentine pilots endured heavy losses to still sink several ships. But without the deterrence provided by the Harriers, the damage would likely have been far greater.

McDonnell Douglas manufactured AV-8 Harriers also performed well in combat over Afghanistan and Iraq and remains in service with the U.S. Marines and the navies of Spain and Italy. They will be replaced by F-35B jump jets, which despite significant teething and cost issues, promise a tremendous improvement thanks to supersonic flight capability, stealth characteristics, and advanced avionics.

McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom

The F-4 Phantom was a beastly warplane powered by two huge J79 turbojets that could propel it past twice the speed of sound. A rare example of a design successfully used by all three branches of the U.S. military, the two-seat Phantom could detect adversaries and engage them with long-range missiles using its nose-mounted radar, and also carry a heavier bombload than a World War II B-17 bomber.

The Phantom often gets a bad rap for difficulties it faced combatting MiGs over Vietnam related to its lower maneuverability and the ineffectiveness of its early air-to-air missiles. The Navy responded to these problems by instituting the “Top Gun” school which schooled aviators in air combat maneuver theory. Navy Phantom pilots claimed forty MiGs shot down for only seven Phantoms lost in air-to-air combat. Later F-4J and F-4S models operated by the Navy incorporated wing-slats which greatly improved maneuverability and landing performance, though at a slight cost of speed.

Despite its flaws, the Phantom proved you could combine speed, heavy payload, advanced sensors, and (eventually) decent agility in one large airplane, a principle which informs modern fourth-generation jets such as the currently-serving FA-18E/F Super Hornet.

And what of the awesome F-14 Tomcat, you ask?

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame was indeed a superb air superiority fighter. However, the Tomcat’s saw most of its action as a land-based fighter in the service of the Iranian Air Force.

Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article was first published in 2019.

Image: Reuters

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Europe

A lone soldier armed with a Panzerfaust could — depending on the angle and shot placement — penetrate an Allied tank, ignite its fuel or ammunition and kill everyone inside.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: To Allied tank crews during World War II, the Panzerfaust was one of the German army’s deadliest weapons behind the static 88-millimeter cannon, the rocket-propelled Panzerschreck and — most of all — other tanks.

The shoulder-launched Panzerfaust, or “tank fist,” propelled a shaped charge warhead around 45–60 meters per second over a distance of 60-100 meters — depending on the Panzerfaust 60 and 100 variants. But it was always a short-range weapon, requiring German troops to sneak up close to their targets before depressing the firing mechanism.

Due to the Panzerfaust’s inherent range limitations, German anti-tank teams were most effective in dense or obscured environments such as cities and woodlands. A lone soldier armed with a Panzerfaust could — depending on the angle and shot placement — penetrate an Allied tank, ignite its fuel or ammunition and kill everyone inside.

Crew members would only have a second or two to jump from their tank, surely suffering horrific burns regardless of whether or not they survived. If unable to escape, the flames would leave little more than ashes and bones.

British Army tank commander Stuart Hills experienced the Panzerfaust’s power during the initial battles in northern Belgium that preceded Operation Market Garden. One encounter made for a harrowing passage in his 2002 memoir By Tank Into Normandy.

Hills’ Sherman tank and three others with the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry pushed into the Belgian city of Gheel on Sept. 9, 1944. Initially, the operation took the bloodiest toll on the tanks’ supporting infantry.

An understrength rifle advancing with the Rangers met MG-42 machine gun fire in the fields outside Gheel. Hills witnessed an officer being “virtually cut in half as he received a belt of bullets all to himself,” Hills wrote.

Witnessing the officer’s death made Hills relieved to be a tanker. The Shermans’ concentrated fire soon silenced the MG-42s, and the advance into the town center proceeded without incident.

The defending Germans had largely abandoned the city, and the British tankers encountered Gheel’s townspeople celebrating their liberation by hanging Belgian flags from their homes.

However, word came within hours that a German counter-attack had cut off the tanks’ route into town and left them surrounded. The civilians removed their flags, which added to the tankers’ nervousness.

As night fell, the British tanks huddled in defensive positions around the town square, their crews watching down the connecting streets. German probing attacks made little progress, and the Shermans knocked out a tracked Jagdpanther tank destroyer at near point-blank range.

Then the sun rose — and a Sherman tank next to Hill’s vehicle burst into flames.

Panzerfaust.

The driver was killed. The tank’s commander, Capt. Jimmy McWilliam, jumped out but was terribly burnt. The general rule when it came to direct hits was that “it was largely a matter of luck whether you emerged alive,” Hills wrote.

My mind was full of horrors. I had seen at the closest possible range what had happened to Jimmy and now it was very likely that the same thing was going to happen to me. Here I was sitting in my Sherman with all its firepower, but I could not identify any target or even guess in what direction I should be looking.

Sure enough, about two minutes later, there was a terrific sheet of flame and shower of sparks as we were hit. We fired the Browning machine-gun in what we thought was the direction of the shot and backed furiously if rather clumsily into the main square, thankful to be able to move at all.

A piece of shrapnel had grazed my forehead and taken my beret with it, but that was the extent of the damage to any of us.

My driver, Bob Ingall, said that he had seen a Germany infantryman a second before he fired his Panzerfaust at us and had felt the blast on his legs. I did not have the chance right then to look at the damage, but I later found that half a track plate had been shot away on our starboard side and that a hole had been punched right through the entire sprocket assembly into the differential.

If we had had a co-driver that day, he would almost certainly have been killed or at least lost his legs.

The surviving tanks of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry withdrew from Gheel. The Allies wouldn’t recapture the city after another six days of heavy fighting.

Hills recalled having nightmares of his experiences decades later that would leave him feeling “despair and terror.” But he kept those thoughts from overwhelming him due to his considerable courage and support from fellow soldiers.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Eolas Magazine

With a new president-elect in the White House, it is now time for America to move forward with bipartisan efforts to resuscitate its global leadership. However, this return to normalcy depends on the liberal epicenter’s techno-industrial quest for energy infrastructure modernization and innovation (especially in adaptive energy management systems). Confronted with the inevitable 21st-century thrust toward de-carbonization, decentralization, and digitalization (3D), low carbon energy transition, clean, and energy-efficient adaptation to a low carbon economy has become more normalized and embraced worldwide, including by most of our allies. Thus, it is strategically necessary for America to evolve and adopt a new approach for the new global thrust. Besides joining our allies in committing to the Paris Agreement’s target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we should further orchestrate a global climate alliance that establishes norms and standards for clean and resilient “energy freedom.” Such norms and standards would allow the world’s vulnerable populations to sustainably and democratically choose their preferred modes of production, consumption, prosumption, and governance for adaptive energy management, empowering them to cope with Orwellian energy exploiters’ technocratic energy acquisition and monopoly. However, the sufficiency of America’s global climate leadership critically depends on boosting domestic investments both in the clean technology and cyber-secure adaptive energy management system that is ultimately compatible with the “clean” network’s certification standards for quality 5G/6G network suppliers.

Domestic Need for Secure and Resilient Energy Infrastructure

From bridges to airports, the outdated status of America’s D+ infrastructural networks is slowing down the country’s economic productivity. Four in ten bridges in the country are almost half a century old, and 9.1% of these bridges, which account for the daily average of 188 million trips, are structurally deficient. A total of 90,580 of the country’s dams have an average age of 56, of which 2,170 are classified as High Hazard Potential Dams. The economic cost incurred from deteriorating infrastructure is enormous. Delays resulting from road traffic congestion alone costs over $120 billion annually, while delayed and canceled trips due to poor airport conditions similarly incur another $35 billion per year. Experts expect that, until 2025, the almost failing status of the country’s infrastructural networks will shrink the GDP by $3.9 trilion, take away 2.5 million American jobs, and reduce business sales by $7 trillion.

The bad news is equivalently echoed in many government and industrial reports on the status of energy infrastructure. Most national electric transmissions and distribution lines were built in the 50s and 60s with a life expectancy of 50 years, and the 640,000 miles of high-voltage power transmission lines that stretch across the country have already reached the full capacity. The dilapidated, choke-full state of the country’s energy infrastructure has ten-folded the chance of power outages from the mid-80s to 2012 while doubling its exposure to climate-related risks in the 2000s. In 2015, power outages had numbered as many as 3,571 with an average lasting time of 49 minutes. Such an exponential increase in the outrage rate cost American businesses approximately $150 billion per year in 2018 and has chronically left millions of east-coast residents in hours and even weeks of darkness during the hurricane season. Apart from the economic cost, the modernization and innovation of the energy infrastructure are further needed for security reasons. Eighteen million American’s residing in rural areas still have limited access to broadband internet, thus bringing into question America’s capability to deter future cyberattacks that could paralyze part of America’s critical energy infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the enhancement of the average Americans technological literacy would improve the country’s cybersecurity readiness. To circumvent the deficiencies mentioned above of the energy infrastructure, America needs a smart plan for modernizing and innovating its energy infrastructure. America has already developed 3.3 million clean energy jobs, which is three times more than fossil fuel jobs. Specifically, 2.3 million of these jobs are related to the promotion of energy efficiency. Wind and solar energy now account for 20% of electricity generation in ten states, and clean-vehicle jobs now represent 13% of all jobs in the motor vehicle industry; yet, more investments in smart/microgrids are critical since these grids are the fundamental catalyst stimulating the momentum in the transition to low-carbon energy.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy website, what makes a standard electric grid a “smart grid” is “the digital technology that allows for two-way communication between the utility and its customers, and the sensing along the transmission lines.” More specifically, the essential component of such technology is 5G/6G Internet of Things (IoT)-integrated sensor technologies and data analytics that allows energy-efficient, climate-risk-free, and cyber-attacks-proof energy consumption and production between diverse energy producers and technologically equipped consumers. The reliable future supply of these technologies depends not only on procuring “clean” networked vendors (especially in the semiconductor industry) and hosting their manufacturing facilities on American soil. Regarding policy, the recent amendment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Creating Helpful Incentives for Producing Semiconductors in America Act (CHIPS Act) introduced tax credits and grants as policy instruments to facilitate the latter aim; however, striking a balance between the national interest and strategic technological cooperation with allies is still an unresolved issue .

In addition to the sine qua non of securing reliable technology, smart grids that maximize “energy freedom” must also be politically manageable or decentralized enough to facilitate both urban and rural communities’ resilient adaption to a low-carbon energy transition. On the one hand, such a process of decentralization should recognize local communities’ energy freedom and environmental rights, ultimately widening their range of choice for energy governance and minimizing the socioeconomic impacts of the transition. On the other hand, the process should be accompanied by politically neutral economic policies that make the market competitive. In this regard, instead of using regulations to discourage energy producers and utility providers who are increasingly betting on clean energy technologies, a politically neutral carbon pricing policy should be used to incentivize energy producers and utility providers to actively engage in the energy transition. The Baker-Schultz Dividend Plan sheds light on the politically neutral path of carbon pricing by pricing a CO2 emissions allowance at $40 per ton, which, in return, pays off a monthly dividend of $2,000 to every four American family members.

 America’s ‘Smart’ Global Climate Leadership Matters

The Foreign Affairs Op-ed by Baker et al.(2020) succinctly persuades critics opposing America’s active climate leadership that such pressing leadership matters for the country’s national interest. The interdependence between climate action and the economy is so deeply embedded in today’s international political economy that it shapes the geostrategic balance of power. For example, water resource scarcity in the Middle East often escalates regional conflicts, and the discovery of new trade routes and new access routes to natural resources in the melting Arctic Ocean strengthens some great powers’ geopolitical leverage. Therefore, the interdependence is a rather telling caveat that America would be worse off by remaining isolated and letting its competitors dominate clean technologies and industries. Besides, the conditions of both fossil fuel and renewable energy markets are ripe for America to adapt to a low-carbon economy. The shale gas revolution has significantly reduced the country’s economic vulnerability to fossil fuel prices, while the costs of solar and wind technologies have dropped by 90% and 70%, respectively. Hence, America has an overall carbon advantage to gain from leading a global climate alliance that could raise stricter environmental and labor standards to penalize the competing great powers’ carbon-intensive manufacturing activities and reduce their neighboring associated economies’ energy and economic dependency. Unfortunately, as Baker et al. highlighted, America lacks a coherent climate foreign policy.

In the absence of a coherent climate foreign policy, the Democrats’ Green New Deal and Green Marshall Plan are garnering attention from the public. The Green New Deal’s idea of creating manufacturing jobs for the American middle class through large-scale clean infrastructural projects is no doubt, timely and strategic. Likewise, the Green Marshall Plan’s objective of restoring America’s liberal solidarity with allies through choosing positive-sum-creating-butter over guns captures the zeitgeist of 21st global peacemaking. However, as much as a low-carbon energy transition is inevitable, achieving a swift bipartisan compromise on a coherent climate foreign policy is also unavoidable. Perhaps, finding and protecting the shared values between America’s concept of “energy freedom” and that of our allies and the rest of the world can sustain a bipartisan climate foreign policy. Although its concept is partially applied to policymaking and policy production (e.g., lifting the net metering cap in the case of South Carolina’s enactment of the Energy Freedom Act in 2016), a “clean” networked climate alliance for “energy freedom” can help build international consensuses over local sustainably and democratically resilient governance codes on energy modernization and innovation. In doing so, however, America needs to work closely with European and Indo-Pacific allies with leading clean technologies in setting international standards for emerging energy governance challenges, especially in the interoperability of smart grid technologies that specify the competencies of trustful vendors and blockchain-based energy governance.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps 2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2021). Nele Wissmann, chercheuse associée au Comité d’études des relations franco-allemandes de l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Bénédicte Laumond, Policy Responses to the Radical Right in France and Germany: Public Actors, Policy Frames, and Decision-Making (Routledge, 2020, 256 pages).

Basé sur une thèse de 2017, cet ouvrage a encore gagné en actualité avec le meurtre de Walter Lübcke, président du district de Kassel le 15 juin 2019, l’attaque antisémite contre une synagogue à Halle le 9 octobre 2019, ainsi que l’assassinat de neuf personnes dans deux bars à chicha à Hanau le 20 février 2020. L’analyse de l’extrémisme et du terrorisme de droite sort d’une niche scientifique pour s’exposer aux projecteurs médiatique et politique.

L’observation et l’évaluation françaises de la lutte allemande contre les menaces d’extrême droite sont souvent limitées par l’ignorance des possibles champs d’action allemands en la matière, ainsi que par la méconnaissance de la vision démocratique propre à l’Allemagne. Ainsi, la présente publication a une valeur ajoutée scientifique incontestable. L’extrémisme de droite étant également une menace en France et dans d’autres démocraties européennes, cette publication doit aussi être vue comme un cadre de référence pour les meilleures pratiques dans la lutte contre l’extrême droite. Le texte évalue notamment la manière dont les deux démocraties, France et Allemagne, abordent le paradoxe de la tolérance : comment des démocraties libérales peuvent-elles restreindre les droits qu’elles défendent – comme la liberté d’expression – pour réprimer les forces intolérantes qui menacent la démocratie ?

Un résultat de la recherche se distingue particulièrement. En Allemagne, les principes hérités de la démocratie militante de Loewenstein ont été inscrits dans la Loi fondamentale et, à partir de ces fondements juridiques, les acteurs politiques et étatiques ont élaboré une doctrine d’État qui empêche l’ordre démocratique de subir les menaces politiques extrémistes. La démocratie militante (wehrhafte Demokratie) est par conséquent une caractéristique clé de la politique allemande, qui s’exprime à travers des institutions comme l’Office fédéral pour la protection de la Constitution, et une politique anti-extrémiste bien établie. La construction d’une politique de répression du radicalisme politique, avec une distinction claire séparant l’extrémisme du reste du spectre politique – le premier étant une menace pour l’ordre constitutionnel et donc considéré comme anticonstitutionnel – a permis à l’Allemagne de s’adapter au paradoxe de la tolérance.

En France, le raisonnement des décideurs politiques est que le radicalisme de droite ne doit pas être abordé en termes politiques, sauf si les groupes sont violents ou expriment des opinions racistes. Il est ainsi plus difficile d’identifier un cadre juridique complet permettant de combattre le radicalisme politique. Malgré tout, le cadre juridique français offre aujourd’hui un ensemble hétérogène de mesures axées sur la répression de la violence et du racisme qui, dans la pratique, contribuent à une répression efficace du radicalisme de droite.

Cet ouvrage doit être recommandé à tous ceux qui souhaitent examiner de près les réponses politiques apportées en Allemagne et en France à la montée de l’extrémisme de droite. Il est également une référence précieuse pour qui veut comparer les cultures politiques de l’Allemagne et de la France, qui ne sont pas toujours comprises dans leurs subtilités par les différents acteurs politiques et médiatiques.

Nele Wissmann

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Not long before President-elect Biden started naming his cabinet, two sets of recommendations to reform the Department of State were published, one from the Council on Foreign Relations, one from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School.  The Economist noted their rich menu of proposals.  Secretary of State – designate Blinken will do well to implement a number of them. 

He should also go further.  A question has been hanging over State for decades, namely: what precisely is the U.S. diplomat’s function?  Every U.S. Marines is told they are riflemen; what is every U.S. diplomat, particularly in the transformative 21stCentury?

A fundamental, elemental answer is that diplomats are authoritative representatives of their sovereign.  In much of history, the “sovereign” has been personal, a monarch.  For the U.S., while the President is Head of State, sovereignty transcends any person or office.  This is especially important to recall in a time of political polarization, when Americans could yet imagine a 2024 Presidential contest between Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

The Kennedy School’s recommendations do start by calling for a new mission for the Foreign Service, asking the new President to “restore the State Department’s lead role in executing the nation’s foreign policy.”  Rex Tillerson’s “listening survey” of 2017 also made identification of State’s mission its first recommendation.  The CFR report opens with issues, seeking a special envoy for climate change – i.e. John Kerry – and “elevating pandemic disease to a core U.S. national interest.” 

Both the CFR and JFK School pieces seek a reduction in political appointments.  The latter says 90 percent of Ambassadors and 75 percent of Assistant Secretaries should be career officers.  The issue of political appointees has long been a complaint of Foreign Service Officers.  Though the numbers (summarized in the Economist) show the Trump Administration accelerating the trend, it has been growing for decades.  And while there are horror stories that every FSO knows, many political appointees have been highly effective representatives, due to their stature – think Mike Mansfield or Jon Huntsman, as just two – or their close relationship with their President. 

One complaint career officers make is that the powers that be would never make a political appointee a brigade commander or ship’s captain.  The question, though, is what is the U.S. diplomat’s expertise, equivalent to the military expertise of rifleman, sonar operator, or fighter pilot?   Many FSOs cite the service’s presence in foreign countries and ongoing conduct of business with their governments.  But relations with governments have been conducted by military, commercial, and many other figures, and many of them, as well as academics and others, spend more continuous time in any given country than the diplomat progressing through her career.  Indeed, both the JFK and the CFR reports espouse recruitment of mid-career and experienced professionals from outside the Department.  In another vein, both call for extended professional education, focused on diplomatic history and practice.  But international relations Master’s degree holders abound in Washington, universities, and NGOs. 

The CFR effort contains elements of a functional definition, seeking to overcome a culture of risk aversion and building an “I have your back” ethos.  It calls for “de-layering” State and streamlining decision making, with less top-down instruction and more “nimble” diplomacy in the field.  The picture that starts to take shape will require much hard thinking and organizational innovation to fill out, but it points toward a unique, necessary, and rigorous expertise that would define the U.S. diplomat.

Ultimately, the diplomat officially represents the American nation.  A nimble and enabled diplomat still will need an innate capacity to carry and project, fundamentally and durably, what that means.  The calls for professional education should be filled out in a manner to instill this capacity.  Gestating diplomats must be deeply imbued with a stress-tested commitment to the American foundation and the people who make our national life on that base.  Their professional formation should, yes, include full familiarization with the history of foreign policy and diplomacy and current knowledge of everything from M-16s to MI-6 to M1B money supply.  But it must be rooted in rigorous ingestion of the tenets, nuances, and arguments around the Declaration of Independence, of U.S. history and development, and of American life in its many communities and institutions.  As a collegial body, they should all be pushed not only to study and observe, but to test themselves and each other in their comprehension and commitment, arguing with each other into the night about their understandings and obligations.  All should know that each has made a deep personal commitment to their American ethos.  With this formation and esprit, and an enabling institutional structure, the U.S. diplomat can be that nimble and empowered agent for the nation, across any administration, capable of addressing long standing issues and surprise controversies coherently, even when full instructions are unavailable.

Such a rigorous formation will help in another respect.  As the two reports note, diversity and inclusion are major issues for a U.S. Diplomatic Service (as the JFK effort would rename the Foreign Service).  A deeply rigorous, stress-testing formative process will, given America’s fundamental definition, select for a service demographically representative of the nation’s population.  It should allow for minimal use of arbitrary numerical targets and external identity markers. 

Not incidentally, when such diplomats serve in Washington and provide their counsel to the policy process, they become more than just “other countries’ voice,” though they will have special knowledge of foreign sensitivities.  As experienced carriers of America’s national identity, they can be stewards of what that means.  They will be experts in Americans’ common creed amid the functional agencies, clinical specialists in the nation’s roots through diverse administrations and shifting partisan landscapes.

Finally, both reports call for a new Foreign Service Act, the JFK report sooner, the CFR report as new practices take hold.  Either way, if a legislative proposal included a fundamental commitment to America’s eternal truths, for a functional and commonly shared goal of sound national representation — might it just transcend polarized partisanship, maybe even give a small spur to unity?

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