Diplomacy & Crisis News

Will North Korea give up its nuclear weapons? Probably not in the near future. However, it does not mean North Korea will never return to the negotiation table. Despite several denuclearization pledges by North Korean leaders and U.S. diplomatic efforts to guarantee the regime’s security, North Korea is unlikely to move to a complete denuclearization. North Korea has had several agreements with the United States, including the Agreed Framework in 1994, Six-Party Talks from 2003 to 2009, the “Leap-Day Deal” in 2012, and the Singapore Summit in 2018, but it has failed to implement those agreements.

One of the most challenging questions in U.S. diplomacy is persuading Pyongyang to implement the agreements. When we look at these agreements, we find that they have a similar pattern. A crisis catalyzed talks, which stalled for a considerable period but eventually reached a consensus. Nonetheless, when they reached the implementation stage, the agreements collapsed. The United States has been involved in diplomatic engagements with North Korea to de-escalate the crisis but primarily focused on intensifying sanctions and deterrence when North Korea conducted nuclear and missile provocations.

It is essential to understand this pattern when analyzing U.S. agreements with North Korea. In particular, the process of reaching an agreement includes two different phases: crisis and negotiation. What caused the crisis each time before the U.S. obtained a deal with North Korea? In what conditions and circumstances did the denuclearization dialogue proceed after the crisis? What factors led to an agreement on denuclearization with North Korea, and what conditions were agreed upon? The key issues here are the crisis in the process leading to the denuclearization negotiation and the failure of the implementation, finally leading to the agreement's collapse. So, it is necessary to assess the three-decade-long U.S. diplomacy toward the denuclearization of North Korea and its failed efforts through the crisis and negotiation phases.

This pattern may also emerge during the Biden administration. Even with Pyongyang’s hardline policy of “heads-on breakthrough,” this crisis may catalyze new talks with North Korea. Of course, it does not necessarily mean that there would be another agreement between the United States and North Korea. The Biden administration has not pursued any active North Korea policy to break out of this pattern. President Biden reiterated the goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and described his North Korea policy as a “calibrated and practical approach.” 

However, it looks more like Obama’s “strategic patience,” a wait-and-see approach where Washington would not move until North Korea changed its course of action first. Furthermore, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the strategic rivalry with China, the Biden administration lacks the time and interest to focus on North Korea.

The problem is that North Korea is not likely to engage the United States either. Pyongyang has recently recognized the return of the Cold War order in international relations and seeks to take advantage of it on the Korean Peninsula. This is the reason for Pyongyang’s efforts to improve ties with China and Russia. A crisis may become a catalyst again, but it would be difficult to get out of the old pattern. So, the stalemate will continue.

Jihwan Hwang is a professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Seoul.

Image: Shutterstock. 

The Israel–Hamas war is a bitter reminder of the al-Qaeda attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, and America’s response to them. One of the effects of those events was that it strained relations between the domain of Islam and the West. The current war stands to take the world back to that paradigm, potentially spawning a new generation of jihadi or combative fighters.

Relations between the Muslim realm and the Judeo-Christian world have historically experienced ups and downs since the birth of Islam more than 14 centuries ago. However, in recent times, two events more than any others marked the start of a new phase in the rise of radical political Islamism and in the West’s treatment of it as a threat: the 1978–79 Iranian revolution and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Iranian phenomenon produced a radical Islamic government with an anti-US and anti-Israeli posture. The invasion of Afghanistan stimulated Islamic jihadism—as personified by the Afghan Islamic resistance forces, the mujahideen—to repulse Soviet aggression with a commitment to Islam as an ideology of resistance and transformation.

The US and many of its allies rejected the Iranian change as ‘fundamentalist’ and an anomaly but supported the Afghan resistance in conformity with their geopolitical preferences. They didn’t discern that their support of Afghan jihadism could eventually lead to the empowerment of a medievalist Islamic force, the Taliban, in Afghanistan and provide impetus to a range of other Jihadi groups.

Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks moved jihadi Islamism to what was widely condemned as terrorism. The US’s retaliatory actions included intervention in Afghanistan, from where the attacks had been orchestrated under the protection of the Taliban, as part of a wider war on terrorism. Although US President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that their target was not the religion of Islam per se but rather those who had hijacked it for selfish objectives, some other political leaders and opinion-makers in the West blamed the religion itself.

Al-Qaeda and like-minded groups were able to exploit this division to galvanise support among Muslims and engender new generations of violent jihadis. This was most evident in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003 and in conflict-ridden Syria, where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria managed to overrun vast territorial areas and declare its caliphate in 2014. Islamic State’s politics of brutality and anti-Western stance brought the US back into Iraq, which it had left in 2011 after nearly nine years of combat.

The US and its allies didn’t succeed in uprooting the anti-Western jihadi forces in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Al-Qaeda survived and franchised itself in alliance with the Taliban, whose defeat of the US and return to power after two decades of fighting in Afghanistan provided a powerful shot in the arm for kindred extremist forces. Similarly, Islamic State, while losing its caliphate, retained an ideological and operational capability to hit targets not only in the Levant but also across the Middle East, Asia and Africa as well as Europe.

Yet not all was lost. Efforts were made to repair the damaged relations between the Muslim and Western worlds in the wake of 9/11 and events prior to and after it. Moderate and reformist forces of Islam and their conciliatory counterparts in the West managed to build bridges of harmony and peaceful co-existence in the intervening period.

The Israel–Hamas war is now set once again to weaken Muslim–Judeo-Christian relations for many. Hamas’s actions against Israel, involving killing and kidnapping of civilians, are indefensible under international law and international humanitarian law, as is Israel’s retaliatory Gaza campaign, because it amounts to collective punishment of the 2.3 million people who live in the tiny, densely populated and totally blockaded Gaza Strip for the actions of a group from among them.

Israel’s stated goal is to destroy Hamas once and for all. This is similar to what the US set out to accomplish, but failed, with al-Qaeda, Islamic State and the Taliban. It prevented these forces from executing another mega-operation like 9/11, but it couldn’t wipe them out altogether. With the Taliban’s re-empowerment, they are revelling in the fertile grounds that have been provided for new generations of jihadis.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the Israel–Hamas war, neither Hamas as a militant force nor the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence will evaporate. The situation is likely to produce a more radical generation of Palestinian as well as Jihadi fighters with feelings of intense hostility towards Israel and its international supporters. As I have argued for over 20 years, the use of brute force may work up to a point, but beyond that a comprehensive political strategy is needed to deal with those aspects of protracted problems in world politics that defy military solutions. That conclusion is still valid.

Amin Saikal is professor emeritus of Middle Eastern and Central Asian studies at the Australian National University and adjunct professor of social sciences at the University of Western Australia, and the author of Islam and the West: conflict or cooperation?

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

On March 18, 2021, former Congresswoman Elaine Luria of Virginia criticized the Navy’s then-recently-released Unmanned Campaign Framework as “full of buzzwords and platitude but really short on details.” When promised a classified concept of operations, she added, “I think the biggest question I have [is]… it is a fleet to do what?”

Two and a half years later, the American public – soon to spend half a billion dollars on unmanned vessels – could ask the same thing. What strategic ends are unmanned vessels intended to serve? The Navy has yet to update the Unmanned Campaign Framework. The document promises all the right things (“faster, scalable, and distributed decision-making”; “resilience, connectivity, and real time awareness”) but provides little granular detail about the differential utility of unmanned systems across mission and warfare areas.

Nevertheless, unmanned vessels are receiving more attention than ever. The media frenzy surrounding Ukraine’s “drone boats” continues; the Navy’s Task Force 59 (responsible for testing small unmanned surface vessels in the Persian Gulf) gets the feature-length treatment in Wired; and a front-page article in the New York Times all but lobbies for more unmanned ships.

Perhaps a concept of operations for unmanned surface vessels is floating around in the classified world. But elsewhere, buzzwords still rule the day. Just weeks ago the Department of Defense announced its new “Replicator” initiative to deploy thousands of drones within two years: it will be “iterative,” “data-driven,” “game-changing,” and of course, “innovative” (variations of the latter appear 22 times in the announcement). Never mind that, in warfare, “innovative” is not always synonymous with “useful.”

Part of the problem is conceptual. The term “unmanned system” includes everything from a civilian hobbyist quadcopter used for spotting artillery in Ukraine, to the Navy’s as-yet-unbuilt “large unmanned surface vessel,” a tugboat-sized ship that is supposed to launch cruise missiles. This expansive terminology can confuse lay observers or new students of the subject. Unmanned systems have matured at different rates. Some have been thoroughly tested and proven their mettle in real-world operations; others are, at present, theoretical or even daydreams. The U.S. military has decades of experience operating unmanned aerial systems (or “aerial drones”), for instance. But the record of unmanned surface vessels – the focus of this article – is limited. Only two types of unmanned surface vessels have seen operational duty in the current era: Ukraine’s (decidedly non-autonomous) explosive-laden drones, and the U.S. Navy’s tiny “Saildrone,” a vessel with little current purpose besides visually-identifying other ships in a permissive environment. Despite these narrow use cases, the two examples are almost-unfailingly invoked in claims that a naval revolution is underway.

When the same few words, and the same few examples, so frequently justify a wholesale strategic pivot, policymakers and strategists should take pause. If the Navy intends to reorient its ways and means of warfare – and if the taxpayer is expected to pay for it – then Congress and the American people deserve a formal, public strategy document on the general purposes and risks of unmanned surface vessels.

The Missions of the Navy

The 2021 Unmanned Campaign Framework is less a plan than a promotional pamphlet. The Framework dedicates one page each to the Department of Defense’s four unmanned systems “portfolios” – air, surface, subsurface, and ground – an understandably brief introduction given the infancy of the technology and classification concerns. Because specific programs are prone to change, it is more informative to examine the promise of unmanned systems from the perspective of the underlying strategic motivation for their development. That context is a shift to what the Navy calls “distributed maritime operations”: a plan to field more platforms, in a more dispersed fashion, networked together to share information and concentrate fires, while keeping people outside the enemy’s weapons envelope, and sending more expendable assets inside of it. Unmanned ships, the Framework contends, free up humans for other tasks, reduce the risk to human life, increase the fleet’s persistence, and make it more resilient by providing more “nodes” in the network. They are also – the Navy frequently claims – cheap. The Chief of Naval Operations’ Navigation Plan 2022 also promises that unmanned systems will deliver particular means of warfare (e.g., increased distribution of forces) but again, without specifying the differential application of such means across mission and warfare areas.

The first step in determining the likely future distribution of unmanned surface vessel risk is projecting where those vessels are most likely to be used. Setting aside strategic deterrence, which remains the realm of ballistic missile submarines, the Navy’s core four missions are sea control, presence, power projection, and maritime security.

Forward Presence is the practice of keeping ships persistently deployed overseas, demonstrating U.S. capabilities and resolve, in order to deter adversaries and reassure allies. Unmanned ships’ putative “advantages” – that they are cheap, small, expendable, and don’t risk personnel – are decidedly counterproductive for this purpose. Deterrence and reassurance require convincing adversaries and allies that one has skin in the game, and risking an unmanned asset hardly compares to risking a destroyer and her crew. On the other hand, the Navy’s large and medium unmanned surface vessels, if ever successfully fielded (and there are ample reasons to suggest that severe challenges remain) might contribute to the credible combat power that deterrence requires.

Another possible argument is that unmanned vessels will free up manned ships for those specific presence operations where a human touch is invaluable (such as port visits), reducing strain on the fleet. But that raises a conundrum. For a ship to demonstrate credible combat power, it must be able to shoot. And the Navy has made clear that any unmanned ship with missiles and guns will be under human control. Particularly in the next few decades, when unmanned vessels’ maintenance and support requirements will be high, nearby manned ships will probably provide that control. Hence, while unmanned vessels could increase the fleet’s vertical-launch capacity – and therefore its combat credibility – they may also worsen operational tempo or contribute to higher overall costs.

Power Projection is the use of ships to fire missiles, launch aircraft, land troops, or provide logistical resupply in support of combat operations on land. The Navy’s large unmanned surface vessel is expected to serve this mission by swelling the Navy’s capacity to launch land-attack missiles. Destroyers and guided missile submarines already serve this function, but unmanned vessels will, according to their advocates, do so more cheaply and with less human risk. But since manned assets’ capabilities in this area are proven, and unmanned assets’ capabilities are not, the Navy must explain what happens if the new technologies fail, and the traditional fleet – perhaps prematurely shrunken or reordered to accommodate the unmanned systems – has to step in to pick up the slack. Unmanned vessels are not officially intended to “replace” manned warships, but a significant strategic imperative for their development is the Navy’s tacit acknowledgment that, given constrained budgets, it cannot achieve its desired fleet expansion with manned ships alone.

Sea Control is attacking enemy ships, aircraft, and submarines, so that the U.S. and its allies can use the sea for power projection or make it passable for wartime commerce. Its corollary is sea denial: preventing an enemy from using of the sea for his purposes. This is where unmanned surface vessels are really supposed to shine. The two biggest arguments for their value-add in sea control are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and increased anti-ship missile capacity. There are also interesting emerging use cases, such as swarming electromagnetic warfare.

Small unmanned surface vessels, like the Saildrone – the argument goes – can loiter in large numbers, for weeks at a time (using solar power), all over a battlespace, looking and listening for enemies. While such a niche case for surveillance can be useful, the problem is that maritime surface ISR can struggle to match the global access and persistence of space-based and airborne ISR. Even in relatively constrained areas like the East and South China Seas, the search areas are vast. Unmanned surface vessels cannot match the revisit rates of low earth orbit satellites when combing large swaths of the ocean’s surface. In the last few years, the vast growth in low-earth orbit satellite constellations (both commercial and government-owned) has further diminished the urgency and budget efficiency of meeting ISR needs with surface ships. Ironically, the Saildrone and similar craft may end up being more dependent on space, because unmanned surface ISR assets operating over the horizon will rely on satellite communications to send mission data back. As for airborne ISR (that conducted by manned or unmanned aircraft), small unmanned surface vessels deployed en masse can exceed the persistence of aircraft, but at the cost of sensor reach: these vessels’ low “height of eye” inherently limits the range of their electro-optical sensors.

That relates to the second role unmanned ships are expected to serve in the sea control mission: offensive surface warfare. As noted, the Navy has been explicit that any unmanned ship with kinetic capabilities will be controlled by humans. As such, these vessels cannot be compared to, say, a command-guided missile that switches to radar in the terminal phase. Any kinetic-equipped unmanned vessel will rely on over-the-horizon communications relay provided by satellites, manned and unmanned surface vessels, or airborne assets. But if the Navy expects a satellite-degraded environment, as is possible in a conflict with a peer competitor, then surface and airborne assets will substantially assume the relay burden (requiring far greater numbers of them). Considering the Navy’s stated intent that most unmanned assets be “attritable,” however, it remains to be seen how long such a distributed network would last before manned vessels must themselves assume the relay function, bringing them closer to the enemy’s weapons engagement zone.

Maritime Security refers to constabulary functions such as protecting commerce from terrorists and pirates and preventing illegal behavior such as arms smuggling and drug running. In such operations, small and medium unmanned surface vessels could technically conduct surveillance, issue warnings, or engage threats with small-caliber weapons while under remote human control. The latter, however, seems especially unlikely in practice. Maritime security is a peacetime endeavor, conducted in congested sea space among civilians. Accordingly, there is a high premium on positive identification of bad actors, and generally the goal is not to kill anyone. A human touch will be required – not just “in the loop,” but probably on-scene.

Another problem is that, if unmanned vessels are small and cheap – two of their most celebrated characteristics – terrorists and drug runners may be able to disable them quite easily. Saildrone, therefore, adds most value for maritime security ISR under the following narrow set of conditions: when no aviation assets, satellite coverage, or allied coast guards are available; manned ships or shore facilities are within communications range; it is sunny, or enough sunny days have recently passed to keep batteries charged; and the targets of surveillance are incapable of shooting at, or (as with Iran in 2022), attempting to capture the drone monitoring them from within visual range.

The Risks of Concentration

Most contemporary Navy ships can be used for a variety of the missions delineated above. Destroyers can be used for power projection, sea control, presence, and maritime security; aircraft carriers can be used for all of those; amphibious assault ships are best for power projection and presence but can readily support maritime security. None of this is true for any unmanned vessel – not any in production, and none even in the design phase. A large unmanned surface vessel will have one purpose: to support power projection. Medium unmanned surface vessels will have two purposes: to contribute to sea control and maritime security.

Multi-mission capability, however, is not necessarily the goal. Unmanned assets, proponents argue, will not replace manned ships, but rather augment them as part of a “hybrid fleet.” The Navy expects a force structure that is 40 percent unmanned by 2050, although that does not mean that each naval mission area will be 40 percent unmanned. Some missions will rely more heavily on unmanned platforms than others will. This means the risks of unmanned vessels will not be evenly distributed across the Navy’s missions.

In general, we can forecast that unmanned vessels will fall out of operation (in peacetime) or attrite more quickly (in wartime) than manned ships for two reasons. First, the technology is immature and likely to remain so for a long time; currently, unmanned vessels are prone to inherent hull, mechanical, and electrical casualties, and cyber vulnerabilities. In brief, persistence is these vessels’ greatest challenge (and one the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is attempting to solve). Unmanned vessels may be required to keep station for weeks or months, in contrast to aerial drones’ persistence times, which are measured in hours. The longer unmanned surface vessels are at sea without maintenance, the greater their chance of routine equipment failure that either requires remote troubleshooting or on-scene repair. The former incurs both electromagnetic targeting and cyber risk. Second, unmanned vessels are explicitly designed to be less survivable, or “expendable” in the words of proponents.

The New York Times feature article mentioned previously illustrates the problem. It observes that the Navy has not scaled the success of Saildrone by integrating larger unmanned surface vessels into the fleet. This failure is attributable, the article argues, to bureaucratic inertia and industry capture. Missing from the discussion is the fact that the hull, mechanical, and electrical solutions required to field a 2000-ton medium unmanned surface vessel (especially one capable of persistent operations) are an order of magnitude more complex than those required for the 14-ton Saildrone. The propulsion requirements alone, let alone combat systems, place the former decades behind the latter in technological maturity. It is therefore nearly guaranteed that by 2030, for instance – even if the Navy has increased the overall percentage of unmanned vessels in its force structure – the Navy will not be able to have significant numbers of unmanned vessels in key mission areas.

Accordingly, the Navy must assess concentration risk: what happens when certain missions, but also warfare areas within those mission areas, degrade at different rates due to the differential survivability of manned versus unmanned assets. As a thought experiment, let us assume the Navy hits its 40 percent unmanned target. However, because Saildrones are far less technically complex, and far cheaper, than large unmanned surface vessels, the future fleet has more of the former than the latter. That future fleet would therefore be more reliant on unmanned assets for maritime security than for presence. Suppose, then, that China executes a successful cyber attack against a network of Saildrones; suddenly the maritime security mission is compromised, and the Navy must draw on its manned assets to support it – at the expense of the presence mission.

Sound unrealistic? Ukraine recently hacked Iranian-made drones used by Russia; during the Solar Winds hack, malicious code was delivered via legitimate code process; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s satellite network was hacked on at least one known occasion. And these are only some of the reasons why any unmanned asset with external communications capability must be assumed as cyber-vulnerable by default.

Beware Innovation for Innovation’s Sake

It should make the hairs stand up on the back of one’s neck when a new capability is described as simultaneously cheaper and more effective; when dozens of articles use the same buzzwords; when strategy documents are heavy on sweeping generalizations and light on detail; when the claim that technology will “mature” is delivered as a certainty; when “innovative” is treated as synonymous with “useful;” or when the same few empirical examples appear in every article on a subject. All of these are present in spades in media coverage of unmanned vessels.

If the U.S. Navy is to embark on a costly project with uncertain chances of success, it owes Congress and the American people a better Unmanned Campaign Framework, or an unclassified concept of operations that disaggregates the role of unmanned ships across the Navy’s various missions, and the warfare areas that comprise them. Such a concept must be honest about concentration risk and suggest ways to mitigate it. And Congress, which has already begun to take a deeper interest in unmanned platforms, should hold the Navy to account.

Jonathan Panter is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Columbia University. His dissertation examines the strategic logic of U.S. Navy forward presence. Prior to attending Columbia, he served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy.

The author thanks Anand Jantzen and Ian Sundstrom for comments on an earlier draft of this article.

This article was first published by CIMSEC.

Image: DVIDS.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to travel to an active war zone and the scene of an unfolding humanitarian crisis spoke volumes, even before his arrival.

The White House has stated that Biden’s purpose is to “demonstrate his steadfast support for Israel” after Hamas’ “brutal terrorist attack” on Oct. 7, 2023. But Israel wasn’t meant to be his only stop.

The president was also scheduled to travel to Amman, Jordan, to meet with Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, the meeting was canceled with Biden already en route to Israel.

The trip is a bold but risky move, a carefully orchestrated display of Biden’s belief that the United States should take an active leadership role in global affairs. It is a strategy Biden has used before, most notably in his February 2023 surprise visit to Ukraine.

As a scholar of U.S. presidential rhetoric and political communication, I have spent the past decade studying how chief executives use their international travels to reach audiences at home and abroad. I see clear parallels between Biden’s trip and similar actions by other presidents to extend American influence on the world stage.

A paramount duty

Prior to 1906, no U.S. president had ever traveled abroad while in office. A long-standing tradition held that the U.S. had left the trappings of monarchy behind, and that it was much more appropriate for chief executives to travel domestically, where Americans lived and worked.

President Theodore Roosevelt, who had an expansive view of presidential power, bemoaned what he called this “ironclad custom” and ultimately bucked it. In November 1906, Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal Zone and posed at the controls of a giant steam shovel to shore up public support for constructing the canal. Beyond pushing this megaproject forward, the trip enabled Roosevelt to see and be seen on the international stage.

Other presidents followed suit as the U.S. began to take a more active role in global affairs. Just before Woodrow Wilson departed for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference at Versailles, where world leaders convened to set the terms for peace after World War I, he stated in his annual message to Congress that it was his “paramount duty to go” and participate in negotiations that were of “transcendent importance both to us and to the rest of the world.”

During World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt embraced this idea of bearing a moral responsibility to speak to, and for, both U.S. citizens and a global audience. Images of FDR seated between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin at Tehran and Yalta symbolized global leadership – a robust vision that endured after the U.S. president’s untimely death.

Embodying US foreign policy

Going global quickly became a deliberate rhetorical strategy during the Cold War, as presidents from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan used trips abroad to symbolize American commitment to important places and regions. By choosing to visit certain destinations, presidents made clear that these places were important to the U.S.

This is exactly what Biden no doubt hopes to accomplish through his visit to Israel. When he condemned the Hamas attack on Israel as “an act of sheer evil,” he also declared: “We stand with Israel.” Traveling to an active war zone embodies this pledge far more clearly than words alone.

And this is how Israelis have interpreted the visit. Tzachi Hanegbi, the leader of Israel’s National Security Council, described the visit as “a bear hug, a large rapid bear hug to the Israelis in the south, to all Israelis, and to every Jew.”

Addressing both sides

But Biden must also acknowledge the very real plight of Palestinians who are trapped in dire conditions in Gaza as Israel prepares for a ground invasion. This is no doubt the reason his team sought a face-to-face meeting with Abbas.

I expect that Biden will demonstrate U.S. support for Israel while also drawing a clear distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people. And Biden will likely draw on his friendship of many years with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge moderation in Israel’s military response.

The home audience

Biden’s trip also has important meaning for U.S. electoral politics. A former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has long maintained that the U.S. must take an active role in the world. In the 2020 presidential campaign, he argued that Donald Trump’s policy of “America First” had left “America alone” by undercutting relationships with critical U.S. allies.

For Jewish voters, the president’s visit offers tangible evidence of an enduring U.S. commitment to Israel, especially after some far-left Democratic lawmakers refused to criticize the Hamas attack. And Biden’s willingness to condemn Hamas as a “terrorist organization” may also speak to Republican voters, who are much more likely to back Israel.

Defining an appropriate role for the U.S. in world affairs is certain to be an important issue in the 2024 presidential election, especially with active conflicts in Ukraine and now in the Middle East. Biden has consistently called for U.S. engagement abroad – not only in words, but by showing up in places like Kiev and Tel Aviv.

Allison M. Prasch is Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Politics and Culture, at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Image: lev radin / Shutterstock.com

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It is Common Knowledge that Soviet Soldiers Liberated Many Concentration Camps during the Second World War

In past posts on this page, I discussed what decisions are more likely to hurt a plausible victory for Ukraine and their allies by way of their own hands, as opposed to strategic decisions made by Russia during the conflict in Ukraine. Many of these bad decisions subsequently ramped up quite rapidly and in a short period of time, creating a larger cost to support for Ukraine than existed previously. Many of these problems were created by Allies to the war effort that have taken actions that may hurt Ukraine more than the help that was intended. While I will refrain from labelling a specific ally, this is a case study on how to not support your ally, and a notable one at that.

A few short weeks ago, one of Ukraine’s allies took to creating a diplomatic row with India. This was done in a method that is considered an aggressive and unusual diplomatic move between the two countries, seen as allies in their own right. India, as we have discussed in the past, is likely the key to many peace treaties and has value in creating diplomatic solutions between Russia and its allies, and Ukraine and their allies. India, as being a large and significant power in their region, is able to work with and have good relations with all sides in the conflict as neither side is willing to risk good relations with India over India’s own best self interests, even if it gives strength to the other side of the conflict. With Ukraine’s Ally pressuring India, India may alienate Ukrainian Allies in general or be motivated to give added support to Russia, where less critical diplomatic postures address concerns with the one of the world’s most significant democracies.

India’s position in the region has placed it on the opposite side of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, where military support of Armenia and its people has run contrary to NATO allies permitting the Azeri military pushing out the Armenian population out of their historic ethnic region. While NATO and their supporting allies have invested billions a month to defend the civilian populations in Ukraine, there is little mention of the forced expulsion of Armenians from their homes in the region at the other end of the old Soviet sphere of influence. While Russian support for the region waned, American negotiations failed. The end result was another notable shock to a community that has suffered ethnic cleansing too many times over the last century and a half.

Turning back to the row with India, the same ally who is currently losing diplomats in India has been pitting the needs of their own population against support for Ukraine. The effect of underfunding their largest city and economy has turned the city into a place with high crime and limited systemic solutions for crime, poverty, housing and health care. It has come to the point that those who are physically weaker are afraid to use public transport, making them unable to pay for higher food and shelter taxes added on bi-annually by the Government. This Government sent a letter to the city saying they refuse to give them Covid funding that was previously promised, always highlighted by their support for Ukraine. This same Government then boasted that they have given appx.$6-$7 Billion of aid to Ukraine, despite not meeting their NATO minimum obligations and now deciding to cut military funding by nearly $1 Billion to their own soldiers, despite having their own near border with Russia. But this is not the worst of it…

In an act of extreme negligence or horrific intent, it was made evident that this ally of Ukraine has been accepting extremist elements from various groups around the world into their country for generations, nullifying any prosecution of their crimes, in many cases, crimes against humanity. The presenting of a member of the 14th SS Galicia Division in their Parliament was an offense to victims of Genocide worldwide, done during a state visit by Zelinsky himself close to Yom Kippur. This particular Division of the Nazi SS was known to be so severe that German soldiers at the time saw them as brutal and extreme in their own right, eliminating 98% of the Jewish population of the Galicia region. This Ukrainian SS officer was easily known to be part of the German 14th SS Division, and was taken as a hero in his fight against Russia in the Second World War by the Government of this Ally before their mea culpa. While Soviet soldiers of Russian, Ukrainian and other origins were liberating Concentration Camps in Galicia, a man who helped wipe out family after family in the region was praised. To this day, the sitting Government’s Cabinet has taken little personal or direct accountability for inviting such a man, despite their own Deputy Prime Minister being an academic expert on Ukraine herself. While Russians are constantly told that their historic enemies from Nazi Germany are the catalyst for this war in Ukraine, this Ally of Ukraine created the biggest propaganda tool for Putin that could ever have been wished for in 2023. On top of this, Poland is now seeking his extradition for war crimes from the Ally. With the same Ally refusing to sell oil and gas to Europe to displace Russian oil export wealth, it is surprising that such allegiances are deemed as acceptable by Ukraine or any nations seeking to help Ukraine win the war.

No one will voluntarily fight and die for the leader of such an Ally, and ties between Zelinsky and such an Ally will do nothing more but taint the valor of their Armed Forces. If Ukraine wishes to win this war, or at least meet reasonable objectives, they need to cut those who will make economic, political, public relations, and security losses a certainty.

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Six years ago, I testified before the United States Senate and suggested the return of mass and attrition as foundational force planning principles within the national defense strategy. I went on to note the need was urgent given our existing capability gaps against China and Russia in particular.

Fast forward to 2023 and a war of mass precision, at range and at scale, is taking place in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the US military did not use the intervening years to get well.

Congress and the Budget Control Act certainly did them no favors, either. But even worse is the seeming inability in Washington to plan beyond a preferred outcome, rather than a more likely—and bloody—reality. 

Policymakers should not be lulled into complacency by faulty assumptions of a technologically unmatched and better trained military, as years of prioritizing capability over capacity have created a brittle force. The war in Ukraine should also dispel any considerations that long and violent wars are unlikely. 

These myths become ever more apparent as China continues to achieve parity with—or exceed—the United States military in several modernization areas, including land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, shipbuilding, integrated air defense systems, and land-based (stationary and mobile) intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.

Furthermore, China has the world’s largest standing army, navy, coast guard, maritime militia, and sub-strategic missile force. As of 2020, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had 355 battle force ships, and the US Navy had 296. In the years since, that gap has only widened. Modern projections indicate that by 2035, China’s navy will grow to 475 ships, while the United States will remain stagnant at just 305 ships as ship retirements take their toll on the aging fleet. China’s fleet is also undergoing rapid modernization, with the PLAN of the future consisting of increased quantities of modern aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, and nuclear-powered submarines.

China’s widening lead in terms of sheer quantity is reinforced by its staggering industrial ability to produce warships. Information from the Office of Naval Intelligence reveals the ever-growing gap between the shipbuilding industries supporting the American and Chinese navies. The briefing notes that Beijing’s fleet is being built by a robust Chinese military-civil shipbuilding industry, “…more than 200 times more capable of producing surface warships and submarines,” than the American shipbuilding industry. If conflict broke out and losses had to be replaced, Washington would have to make tough choices with limited production capacity, while Beijing could start putting down hulls of all shapes and sizes.

The war in the Ukraine has prompted the US Army to move significantly faster in munitions production and surge their defense industrial base to keep pace with demand for shells. But this surge is the exception and not the rule when it comes to the investment portfolios of the Armed Forces faced with looming budget cuts.

Worse yet, the inadequate levels of precision munitions on hand for the US military lays bare the fact that Washington has allowed America’s defense industry to size and scale to just one war at a time. The consequences of this atrophy are now painfully apparent as horrific wars are simultaneously underway in Europe and the Middle East. Washington should not be forced to choose which of our allies it can support at any given time.

All of these signs indicate that it is time to dump the failed Pentagon one-war planning and adopt a “three-theater” force-sizing construct that accounts for the vast range of activities the military performs.

To remain a global power, the United States must preserve a favorable balance of power in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. Furthermore, Washington must remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to maintaining American security, and that the “ways and means of doing so differ from theater to theater,” as noted by my colleague Giselle Donnelly.

This means that not only must the active duty military grow—and budgets alongside it—but also be coupled with bolstered manufacturing ability to support those in uniform for a new era of protracted engagements. These engagements will require a strong industrial base to provide necessary capabilities for rapid repair in theater and sustained production. Just as equipment without soldiers to man them are essentially paperweights, so too are the armed forces without a robust and healthy industrial base necessary to maintain combat power.

Without a strong defense industrial base, America is destined to lose the next war more quickly.

Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness.

This article was first published by the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Creative Commons.

As Israel prepares for a massive military operation against Hamas in Gaza, risks of an escalating regional conflict loom large. The most critical additional threat to Israel is from Hezbollah, the militant group and political party based across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon.

Hamas and Hezbollah are both backed by Iran and see weakening Israel as their primary raison d’etre. However, the two groups are not the same. Their differences will likely influence their actions – and Israel’s – in the days and weeks to come.

Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has, to date, not gone to war purely for the Palestinian cause. That could change. Hezbollah has not yet fully entered the current conflict, but the group has exchanged fire with Israel, across the northern border with Lebanon. Meanwhile, Iran has said that an expansion of the war may be “inevitable”.

What is Hezbollah?

Named the “party of God”, Hezbollah bills itself as a Shia resistance movement. Its ideology is focused on expelling western powers from the Middle East and on rejecting Israel’s right to exist.

The group was founded in 1982 – in the middle of the 15-year Lebanese civil war – after Israel invaded Lebanon in retaliation for attacks perpetrated by Lebanon-based Palestinian factions. It was quickly backed by Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which supplied funding, weapons and training in an effort to expand Iranian influence in Arab states.

Hezbollah’s military force continued to develop after the Lebanese civil war came to an end in 1990, despite most other factions disarming. The group continued to focus on “liberating” Lebanon from Israel, and it engaged in years of guerrilla warfare against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon until Israel’s withdrawal in 2000. Hezbollah then largely focused its operations on retaking the disputed border area of Shebaa Farms for Lebanon.

In 2006, Hezbollah engaged in a five-week war with Israel in an attempt to settle scores rather than with an aim to liberate Palestine. That conflict killed over 158 Israelis and over 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians.

From 2011, during the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah’s power grew further as its forces assisted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, against mostly Sunni rebels. In 2021, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters (though other estimates range between 25,000 and 50,000). It boasts a sophisticated military arsenal equipped with precision rockets and drones.

The group has also functioned as a political party in Lebanon and holds significant influence, often described as a “state within a state.” Eight members were first elected to the Lebanese parliament in 1992, and in 2018, a Hezbollah-led coalition formed a government.

Hezbollah retained its 13 seats at the 2022 election but the coalition lost its majority and the country currently has no fully functioning government. Other Lebanese parties accuse Hezbollah of paralysing and undermining the state and of contributing to Lebanon’s persistent instability.

What is Hamas?

“Hamas”, which translates literally as “zeal,” is an Arabic acronym for the “Islamic resistance movement”. The group was founded in 1987, in Gaza, as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a prominent Sunni group based in Egypt.

Emerging during what’s known as the first intifada or uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, Hamas quickly adopted the principle of armed resistance and called for the annihilation of Israel.

Palestinian politics shifted significantly after 1993’s Oslo accords, a series of agreements negotiated between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) with the aim of establishing a comprehensive peace agreement.

Opposed to the peace process, Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, established itself as the primary force of armed resistance against Israel. It launched a series of suicide bomb attacks that continued through the early years of the second intifada (2000-2005), before shifting to rockets as a primary tactic.

Like Hezbollah, Hamas operates as a political party. It won parliamentary elections in 2006, and in 2007, it gained control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody battle with rival party Fatah that left over 100 dead. Hamas has controlled Gaza ever since, showing little tolerance for political opposition. They have never held elections, and political opponents and critics are frequently arrested with reports of torture.

Over this time, Hamas’s armed wing has become increasingly sophisticated. Its arsenal now comprises thousands of rockets, including long-range missiles and drones.

How are Hamas and Hezbollah different?

Hamas has increasingly received funding, weapons and training from Iran, but it is not in Iran’s pocket to the same degree as Hezbollah, which is backed almost exclusively by Iran and takes its directives from the Islamic Republic.

What’s more, as a Sunni organisation, Hamas does not share the Shia religious link to Iran that characterises Hezbollah and most of Iran’s proxies. As a result, while Hamas no doubt benefits from Iran’s patronage, it tends to operate more independently than Hezbollah.

In contrast, Hamas has received support in the past from Turkey and Qatar, among others, and operates with relative autonomy. The group was also long at odds with Iran over their opposing stances in Syria.

Right now, this is very much a war between Israel and Hamas. Hezbollah remains, however, a threat to Israel. If activated by Iran, its full involvement would rapidly change the course of the conflict and likely open up a regional war.

Julie M Norman is an Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations & Co-Director of the Centre on US Politics at UCL.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Image: Creative Commons. 

In the wake of the horrific attack on Israel staged by Hamas terrorists on October 7, the relationship between Qatar and Hamas is coming under intense scrutiny among American observers. Some have argued that the United States should punish or at least heavily pressure Qatar, possibly alongside Turkey, as a result of their relations with Hamas and the wider Muslim Brotherhood. But shaking the foundations of the U.S.-Qatar security relationship, which has served the United States well since 1996, would be very unwise.

First, it is important to put Qatar’s relationship with Hamas in its U.S. and Israeli context. Hamas was at the center of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of avoiding any serious discussion of a Palestinian state. It has been widely reported in the Israeli press that Netanyahu made remarks at a 2019 meeting with Likud leaders suggesting that Israelis who oppose a Palestinian state should support the (mostly Qatari) transfer of funds to Gaza because maintaining a separation between Gaza and the autonomous zones in West Bank under the Palestinian Authority would prevent it from being established. That was not Qatar’s motivation in providing funds to keep Gaza afloat in the absence of a normal economy, but Qatar was clearly acting with the knowledge and acquiescence of Israel’s leadership.

Second, Qatar has two larger neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which seriously considered undertaking an act of military aggression against Qatar in 2017 at the outset of their blockade of travel and trade with Qatar. The large U.S. base near Doha seriously constrained any plans for such aggressive action, even as President Trump briefly seemed to support the Saudi-UAE side. While these countries have normalized relations and reopened embassies subsequently, the same rulers remain in power, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia remains a mercurial figure. Even after Qatar’s military buildup in subsequent years, it remains heavily overmatched by its neighbors. Thus, it would be highly irrational for Doha to use the Al Udeid basing rights as leverage against Washington, and it would shake the Qatar-U.S. relationship to the absolute core if the latter sought to move the base to either of those countries.

There are also several well-known obstacles to moving U.S. air assets to Saudi Arabia or the UAE. The State Department already paused the sale of F-35 fighter aircraft to the UAE due in part to concerns about potential Chinese influence and presence. It is also doubtful that Saudi Arabia would completely fund a U.S. base the way Qatar has. As the Biden administration’s recent negotiations with MBS over potential normalization with Israel have shown, MBS makes “asks” of the United States, not the other way around. Finally, it bears remembering that Qatar allowed Al Udeid to be used for attack missions in Iraq, even after Qatari officials had stated their opposition to the 2003 invasion. The UAE limited the use of the Al-Dhafra base during the 2003 invasion to non-lethal refueling and reconnaissance missions. Though the invasion of Iraq was clearly a mistake, the flexibility provided by our arrangement with Qatar when the chips were down, even as they wisely counseled us against it, was critical to the undertaking.

Finally, Qatar is currently undertaking delicate negotiations on behalf of both the United States and Israel with Hamas to seek the release of Israeli, American, and other hostages. Qatar is also presumably continuing to act as an intermediary between the United States and Iran as we seek to avoid escalation into a wider regional war and maintain some of the forbearance they have shown recently in their nuclear program. There will be a time for Washington and Doha to discuss Qatar’s relations with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Still, there is no reason to shake the foundations of the bilateral security relationship at the moment. While there is no prospect of near-term normalization with Israel, they will continue to have contacts on the issue and any new framework for governance in Gaza. That may be more productive under a new Israeli government—the events of the last two weeks have demonstrated the bankruptcy of Netanyahu’s approach toward the Palestinian issue.

Greg Priddy is a Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Center for the National Interest.

Image: Sven Hansche / Shutterstock.

Recently released documents show that the United States has conducted at least nine flight tests of a new long-range nuclear cruise missile meant to be carried by America’s B-52 and forthcoming B-21 Raider bombers. While details about this new missile, dubbed the AGM-181A Long Range Stand Off cruise missile (LRSO), remain limited, these successful tests suggest the weapon is well on its way to entering service before the close of the decade. 

While development on the LRSO has been no secret, discussions about this new nuclear-capable cruise missile have been rather muted in recent years. In fact, as far as Sandboxx News can tell, only one of the nine successful flight tests to date had previously been revealed. Word of the rest of these tests only reached the public in early October, when Air & Space Forces Magazine’s Editorial Director John Tirpak came across their inclusion in a 2022 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR). Although the report was dated December 2022, it was only released some weeks ago. 

The LRSO is slated to replace America’s aging fleet of AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCM). Its road to service began in 2017 with contracts awarded to both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to develop competing designs. By 2020, the Air Force announced their decision to move forward with Raytheon’s design, moving Lockheed Martin into a support role rather than removing them from the effort. 

This new long-range weapon will be part of the venerable B-52 Stratofortress’ nuclear arsenal, but will also be carried internally by the forthcoming B-21 Raider – America’s new stealth bomber in active development. 

Although there were nine successful flight tests listed in the report, it appears as though the missile itself was only flown in four of them. The other five included things like captive-carry flight tests, where the missile is carried either internally or externally by aircraft to ensure its size, shape, dimensions, or mounting points don’t cause any unforeseen issues. Based on the information within the report, at least one of the successful flight tests was conducted with what was almost certainly an inert test article based on the W80-4 nuclear warhead. 

The Warzone was able to confirm this test via the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, which highlighted the test’s success. 

“The LRSO and W80-4 Life Extension Program joint test teams completed the first powered flight test of a LRSO Cruise Missile with W80-4 Warhead released from a B-52 aircraft. The missile successfully released from the aircraft, powered its engine, and executed all in-flight maneuvers,” the report states. 

The W80-4 warhead is a life-extension program for the “dial-a-yield” W80-1 warheads already in service. These weapons come with two different yield settings: they are able to produce a relatively small five-kiloton blast (about one-third the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945), or a much larger 150-kiloton blast – or about 10 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. 

This weapon is being designed primarily to serve as a long-range portion of the airborne leg of America’s nuclear triad, but the Defense Department has not ruled out the possibility of also fielding a conventionally armed variant for more tactical strikes. Early documents suggest plans to produce 1,020 missiles for service with 67 additional test articles, but it’s unclear if those figures have shifted in the years since the program’s announcement. 

Initially, plans called for this missile to enter service in 2030, but it now appears that the weapon could be ready much earlier. As a result, the hold-up may just be the W80-4 program, which is expected to be complete in 2027. 

Like the vast majority of new Air Force weapons and platforms, the LRSO is being designed with an open software and hardware architecture, which should allow the branch to take competing bids on upgrades and update efforts in the future from a variety of firms, bringing down the cost of keeping this new missile viable for years – or likely decades – to come. 

The B-52H is a highly capable and cost-efficient bomber, but it’s not sneaky. While the Air Force does maintain an inventory of nuclear bombs, air-launched cruise missiles make it possible for bombers like the modern B-52H to deploy nukes from stand-off ranges, or well outside the reach of enemy air defenses or even combat air patrols.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Keith Homan / Shutterstock.com

In the wake of the shocking attack against Israel by Hamas, much attention has focused on the role of Iran, given its material, financial, and rhetorical support for Hamas. What is the nature of the coordination between Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah? How does Iran perceive its interests in this situation? Does Iran still view Hezbollah’s missile capabilities as a deterrent against a potential Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities? Or have Iran’s calculations potentially changed in a way which would make a large-scale attack by Hezbollah more likely than that would imply? On October 17, the Center for the National Interest hosted a discussion of these issues and more.

Dr. Raz Zimmt is an expert on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). He holds a master’s degree and a PhD in Middle Eastern history from Tel-Aviv University and was selected as an Alice and Paul Baker Research Fellow at the INSS. His PhD dissertation focused on Iranian policy towards Nasserism and Arab radicalism between 1954 and 1967. He is also a research fellow at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel-Aviv University. He is the author of the book “Iran From Within: State and Society in the Islamic Republic” published (in Hebrew) in 2022. In addition, he is the editor of “Spotlight on Iran,” published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. His main research interests are the politics, foreign relations, society & social media of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Greg Priddy, Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Center, moderated the discussion.

Image: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock.