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Why No One Has Ever Heard of the A-3 Skywarrior

Thu, 17/04/2025 - 19:00

Topic: Aircraft Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: A-3 Skywarrior, Air Warfare, Carrier Aircraft, U.S. Navy, and Vietnam War Why No One Has Ever Heard of the A-3 Skywarrior April 17, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

Astonishingly, the A-3 was not equipped with ejection seats, leading Navy service members to joke morbidly that the A-3D variant stood for “All Three Dead.”

The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior often gets lost in the shuffle. Most have never heard of the Navy’s Cold War-era strategic bomber, despite the fact that the A-3 served for over three decades. The reason is hard to say. Though the aircraft served a distinguished career, it never had a breakout moment as many of its contemporaries did. And perhaps the A-3’s routine appearance contributed to the jet’s diminished standing.

In any case, the A-3 has long stood in the shadow of other Navy jets, like the A-4, A-6, F-14, and F/A-18. Let’s take a closer look at the A-3, the Navy’s somewhat forgotten carrier-capable bomber.

Remembering the A-3 Skywarrior

The first thing one tends to notice about the A-3 is the aggressively swept wings, which were shoulder-mounted at a 36-degree angle. Beneath each wing lay a single Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engine. The fuselage of the aircraft appeared fairly pedestrian, with a conventional semi-monocoque design. The A-3 featured a single vertical stabilizer, again enhancing the routines of the jet’s appearance.

The original A-3 variants were designed to accommodate three crew members—a pilot, bombardier/navigator, and crewman/navigator. The pilot and bombardier/navigator sat side-by-side, where the pilot had full flight controls. The crewman/navigator sat behind the pilot in an aft-facing, or rear-facing, seat. In early variants of the A-3, the third crewman in the back also operated twin 20-mm cannons mounted in the tail; in later variants of the plane, the cannons were removed to make room for ECM equipment.

Astonishingly, the A-3 was not equipped with ejection seats, leading Navy service members to joke morbidly that the A-3D variant stood for “All Three Dead.”

The omission of ejection seats was not an oversight, but a careful decision (if a poor one). In order to qualify for carrier operations, the aircraft needed to be below a certain weight threshold to qualify for carrier operations; the bulk of the ejection seats was deemed expendable because the A-3 was expected to conduct the majority of its operations at high altitude. Of course, the most dangerous moments of any flight are take-off and landing, each of which occurs at low altitude—making the rationale that the A-3 did not need ejection seats fairly absurd.

Operating the A-3 Skywarrior

The A-3’s most enduring claim to fame, perhaps, is that in the first decades of the Cold War, the A-3 was the Navy’s contribution to the U.S. nuclear deterrence scheme. As one of the only aircraft that could both carry a nuclear weapon and take off from an aircraft carrier, it formed the third leg of America’s rudimentary nuclear “triad.” In that role, it would later be supplanted by nuclear-equipped submarines.

Thankfully, the A-3 was never called upon to deploy nuclear weapons—only conventional weapons, of which the A-3 could lift 12,000 pounds of, in the fuselage bomb bay. The A-3 was used for conventional bombing during the Vietnam War. A-3s were also found valuable for their utility; later A-3 variants were converted for use in aerial refueling, photo reconnaissance, and electronic intelligence.

Despite maintaining a low profile, the A-3 served for decades. A few EA-3Bs used for electronic intelligence even served in the 1991 Gulf War. The last of the type were retired later the same year, in September 1991, ending a more-than three-decade run for the unassuming A-3. Since retirement, the A-3 has continued serving—as a civilian operated testbed for the development of various weapons systems. Not a bad run for a jet no one’s ever heard of.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a senior defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

What Vladimir Putin Wants From The Ukraine Peace Talks

Wed, 19/02/2025 - 20:00

Topic: Geopolitics Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Eurasia Tags: Crimea, Peace Talks, Russia, Ukraine War, and Vladimir Putin What Vladimir Putin Wants From The Ukraine Peace Talks February 19, 2025 By: Stavros Atlamazoglou Share

Essentially, the Kremlin seeks to officialize its military gains in Ukraine through international recognition.

Peace talks about ending the war in Ukraine are underway between the United States and Russia in Saudi Arabia. For the first time in many months, there seems to be a true momentum for negotiations that could end the war.

But what should America make of the Russian demands? Russia, after all, is the aggressor. It is the one who commenced this war by invading its neighbor on February 24, 2022. Almost three years since the large-scale war began, what is the Russian leadership seeking to get out of a potential peace settlement that it could not achieve through three years of bloodshed?

The Russian Position

“The Kremlin reiterated its demands that Ukraine cede additional territory in eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and disband the Ukrainian military in the future while continuing to message that the Kremlin is unwilling to make territorial concessions itself in any future peace negotiations,” the Institute for the Study of War stated in its latest operational update on the war in Ukraine.

Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya expressed some extreme positions during a UN Security Council meeting on Monday. Specifically, the Russian official stressed that Ukraine has irrevocably lost the Crimean Peninsula, as well as the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts.

Essentially, the Kremlin seeks to officialize its war gains through international recognition. Specifically, it seeks to legitimize the land bridge that connects Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which was one of the main objectives of the Russian military during the initial invasion. In addition, the Kremlin seeks to make its hold over the Crimean Peninsula—achieved in 2014 through a covert invasion and a sham “referendum” in which 97 percent supported annexation by Russia—official in the eyes of the world.

As a reminder, Crimea was the reason that Russia’s war on Ukraine began in the first place. In 2014, following Russia’s takeover of the peninsula—aided by the “little green men,” later revealed to be Russian soldiers without uniforms or insignia—conventional Russian military units flooded the Peninsula on the pretext of stability operations. Similar units’ entry into the rebel-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk on February 21, 2022 helped provide a justification for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three days later.

“The Kremlin also appears to be resurrecting Putin’s previous demands and information operations aimed at delegitimizing Ukraine and its government in the eyes of the West — notably ahead of the February 18 Russia-US bilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia,” the Institute for the Study of War added.

Russia Wants Ukraine’s Annihilation

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want Ukraine to continue to exist. In 2021, the Russian president wrote a long essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” detailing the centuries-long bonds between the Russian and Ukrainian people. Putin’s central thesis was that Ukraine had always belonged to Russia, and Ukrainians were Russian. Consequently, the independence of Ukraine from Russia was a historical mistake that needed to be corrected—a process that Putin undertook in February 2022.

For this reason, any “peace settlement” that fails to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself is a guarantee of future war. Like a hungry wolf looking for his next prey, Putin will come back to get the rest of Ukraine at the earliest opportunity.

Fortunately, it is unlikely that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will agree to such terms. The Ukrainian military and people have fought hard and paid a bitter price to liberate their territory from the Russian yoke.

Although it is true that the Ukrainian forces are exhausted and currently lack the means necessary to achieve an operational breakthrough on the battlefield so as to strengthen the Ukrainian negotiating position, it is hard to imagine Zelensky agreeing to humiliating terms—particularly as the Russian forces are barely in a better position on the battlefield than the Ukrainians are.

About the Author: Stavros Atlamazoglou

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

Image: Shutterstock.

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

The Little-Known F-16XL Fighter Was Stacked to the Brim with Weapons

Fri, 24/01/2025 - 03:30

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-16XL, Military, Security, and U.S. Air Force The Little-Known F-16XL Fighter Was Stacked to the Brim with Weapons January 24, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

Only two F-16XLs were ever made. They entered the Air Force’s Enhanced Tactical Fighter competition to select a replacement for the F-111 Aardvark.

Aviation enthusiasts tend to recognize the F-16 Fighting Falcon on sight. The jet cuts a distinctive figure with compact proportions, a bubble-canopy, and one engine—with the air intake located dead center and horizontal stabilizers forming a symmetrical angle. The airframe’s ubiquity helps, too, with over 4,600 F-16s produced since the 1970s and over 2,600 still in service today (by comparison only 187 F-22 Raptors were produced).

But there was one F-16 variant, a little-known experiment, that few would recognize: the F-16XL.

Introducing the F-16XL

Only two F-16XLs were ever made. In 1981, the fighter entered the Air Force’s Enhanced Tactical Fighter (ETF) competition to select a replacement for the F-111 Aardvark. The F-16XL lost the bid, which is why you’ve probably never heard of the thing (the F-15 Eagle, which you probably have heard of, ultimately won the ETF competition, joined the U.S. Air Force, and has since been mass-produced).

The F-16XL looks similar to the standard F-16, like some sort of cousin, perhaps, with designers using the standard model as a baseline for the XL-variant. The two airframes are different, of course, most notably in regard to wing shape; the F-16XL features a delta design. The most expert observers might catch another subtle difference between the two F-16s; the F-16XL was 56 inches longer—thanks to two sections added to the joints of the main fuselage sub-assemblies. Also, the F-16XL’s tail was angled 3.16 degrees upward and the ventral fins were removed.

Why the modifications?

The original F-16 was relatively new and had performed admirably, so it may seem odd that the airframe was modified so drastically. But the delta wing design improved the lift-to-drag ratio during supersonic flight by 25 percent relative to the standard F-16. Test pilots reported that the F-16XL handled quite well at both low and high speeds.

Also, the larger, longer F-16XL was able to carry more fuel and more weapons. The enlarged wing allowed for the new F-16 to store 65 percent more fuel, which resulted in a 50 percent further range. And the massive delta-wing allowed for more external hardpoints and hence larger weapons payloads. The result was a jet that could deploy more weapons than its predecessors and could go further to deploy said weapons. And that marks a significant practical improvement over the F-16.

For research

The F-16XL was originally a part of the General Dynamics experimental program known as SCAMP, or Supersonic Cruise and Maneuver Prototype. SCAMP tested a variety of wing types to find their desired characteristics. Ultimately, the delta-wing design was selected thanks to the aforementioned lift-to-drag ratio.

When the Air Force selected the F-15 as winner of the ETF competition, General Dynamics donated the two existing F-16XLs to NASA, which put the delta-winged jets to good use; the F-16XLs were flown, for research purposes, until 2009—nearly thirty years after first flying.

After being retired, the F-16XLs were transferred to Edwards Air Force Base, where they were stored, and where they have mostly faded into the annals of aviation mythology.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Image: Shutterstock.

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Israel Set to Receive 25 F-15I Fighters by 2031

Fri, 24/01/2025 - 02:30

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Middle East Tags: F-15I Ra’am, Israel, Israeli Air Force, Military, and Security Israel Set to Receive 25 F-15I Fighters by 2031 January 24, 2025 By: Maya Carlin Share

Israel’s initial procurement of the F-15I fighter occurred in the late 1990s, following lessons learned from the Gulf War.

With the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in place, Iran’s regional proxy groups are allegedly following suit with the aim to deescalate. The Yemen-based Houthi rebels signaled this week that they will direct future attacks to only Israeli-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea. For over two years, the Iranian-backed militant group has increased its barrages in this critical waterway, nearly halving all commercial traffic through this region. The Houthis’ ability to disrupt the global economy on such a large scale is perhaps the group’s greatest asset. However, if the Yemen-based group continues to target Israeli ships, retaliatory strikes will undoubtedly follow. Considering the strength and formidability of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), Houthi military sites and other assets in Yemen will make relatively easy targets. In fact, Israel’s aerial might will only improve as the Jewish state recently penned a whopping $5 billion deal to acquire an additional twenty-five F-15 fighters beginning in 2031.

The deal, signed by Israel’s Defense Ministry, includes twenty-five Boeing F-15IA fighter jets with options for an additional twenty-five. As Israel’s specialized variant of the advanced F-15EX, these “Ra’am” fighters are often overshadowed by the fifth-generation F-35I Adir. Although the F-15I does not possess the F-35’s stealth, the platform offers greater range which makes it essential for long-range strikes and air superiority missions. “Boeing takes pride in its longstanding partnership with Israel, a relationship that dates back to our nation’s establishment,” president of Boeing Israel maj. gen. (ret.) Ido Nehushtan noted. “The company will continue working with the U.S. and Israeli governments to deliver the advanced F-15IA aircraft through standard military procurement channels.”

Israel’s initial procurement of the F-15I fighter occurred in the late 1990s, following lessons learned from the Gulf War. Israel’s ability to carry out long-range strike operations became apparent at this time, as many of the SCUD ballistic missiles that were launched by Iraq toward Israel were not intercepted. The Ra’am, equipped with specially modified features, was designed to suit the unique security needs of Israel. Specifically, the IAF version possesses more advanced weapons, avionics, communication capabilities, and electronic warfare systems than the original Eagle which was crafted to function as a pure air-to-air fighter.

What makes the F-15I special?

Since the F-15I is directly linked to the Strike Eagle, the Ra’am platform fighters appear nearly identical to their American counterparts. Similarly, the two crew members sit in tandem, and the twin-engine arrangement is side-by-side. Additionally, the wing mainplanes have swept-lines along their leading edges and vertical planes are used for ground running. The F-15I’s two Pratt & Whitney F100-PW series afterburning turbofan engines enable the jet to fly at speeds greater than Mach 2.

Based on these specs and capabilities and the Ra’am’s stellar service history within the IAF, Israel’s desire to procure additional fighters makes sense. In October, the IAF launched airstrikes in Iran targeting military assets in retaliation for the barrage of ballistic missiles fired upon Israel previously. Two months later, the IAF struck Houthi sites in Yemen in Sanaa and Hodeida. As the Houthis continue to launch frequent barrages targeting Israel, the IAF’s F-15 fleet will certainly be put to good use.

About the Author: Maya Carlin

Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. Carlin has over 1,000 articles published over the last several years on various defense issues.

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

A New Airstrip Has Been Spotted on a Yemeni Island

Fri, 24/01/2025 - 00:40

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Middle East Tags: Gulf Of Aden, Houthis, Iran, Red Sea, Security, and Yemen A New Airstrip Has Been Spotted on a Yemeni Island January 23, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

The airstrip is positioned on Abd al-Kuri Island which sits on a key waterway in the Gulf of Aden.

Images depicting a nearly completed airstrip on a remote island in Yemen have analysts worried. While the runway is likely built by the United Arab Emirates, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are active in the country and could exploit the new construction. As detailed by The Associated Press, the airstrip is positioned on Abd al-Kuri Island which sits on a key waterway. Due to its location, the airstrip could be used as a landing zone for military operations in the waterway or for commercial shipping purposes. Since the Houthis have ramped up their attacks targeting international vessels in the Red Sea, commercial and energy shipments in the region have halved. Although Abd al-Kuri sits within Houthi drone and missile range, the island’s distance from the mainland is large enough that the rebel group won’t be able to take control of it.

What we know about the airstrip

Israel and Hamas have recently entered a ceasefire in a war that has raged on since the Gaza-based terror group launched its October 7, 2023, massacre. Although fighting has quieted down in the enclave, the Houthis may not adhere to a cessation in their frequent barrages targeting vessels in the Red Sea. The rebel group typically carried out missile, rocket, and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks against ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. This strait represents a critical maritime chokepoint that links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. While the group has claimed it only targets vessels affiliated with Israel and the United States due to those countries’ war against Hamas in Gaza, they have been indiscriminate in the ships they strike.

An overview of Iran’s activity in the Red Sea

Tehran’s interest in Yemen dates back several decades, however, the regime’s involvement in the country really took hold in the mid-2000s. As Yemen became embroiled in domestic turmoil at this time, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exploited the crisis to grow its influence. Similar to how Iran has entrenched itself in Lebanon and Gaza via proxy groups, the regime fully supports the Houthi rebels. In fact, this Yemen-based group receives training, funds and support directly from Tehran.

Since Tehran exploited the power vacuum in Yemen caused by the civil war, its contributions to these Yemen-based militants grew steadily to include the transfer of weapons. As detailed by War on the Rocks, “They assemble these parts into working weapons with technical assistance from Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps advisers. This approach has allowed the Houthis to now field short and long-range drones and an increasingly diversified fleet of missiles capable of striking deep inside Saudi Arabia.”

The Red Sea functions as an important smuggling route for Iran and the Houthis, making the construction of a new airstrip on the island even more noteworthy. The U.S. military has taken action to prevent these types of weapons transfers in the past. Last year, U.S. Navy SEALs took part in a seizure off the coast of Abd al-Kuri involving a traditional dhow vessel involved in illegal smuggling operations.

About the Author: Maya Carlin

Image: David G40 / Shutterstock.com

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Trump Sends U.S. Military Troops to Reinforce Southern Border

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 23:33

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: Donald Trump, National Guard, Security, Southern Border, and U.S. Military Trump Sends U.S. Military Troops to Reinforce Southern Border January 23, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

The troops are likely to provide a simple influx of manpower in an effort that has suffered to keep pace with a massive influx of migrants.

Active-duty U.S. troops are being sent to the U.S. border with Mexico, a move consistent with President Donald Trump’s promises to beef up the U.S. military presence along the southern border. The newly mobilized troops will join the 2,200 active-duty troops and 4,500 National Guardsmen who are already stationed along the southern border.

Campaign Promises

When Trump first entered the political fray, declaring his candidacy for the presidency in 2015, ahead of the 2016 election, he did so with an emphasis on immigration-related grievances. The grievances resonated and Trump was elected. So, unsurprisingly, Trump leaned into similar immigration-related grievances and vowed to crack down on illegal immigration if elected. Now, having been reelected, in part, to uphold stricter immigration policies, Trump is making immediate moves.

The deployment is understood to just be the first wave. “Even more active duty troops are expected to be deployed to the border in the coming weeks and months,” CNN reported, “with the first wave laying the groundwork for a larger military footprint.”

Whether the troops will be armed remains unclear. But what is clear is that the troops do not have the authority to assist in law enforcement efforts, i.e., make arrests or seize drugs; the troops cannot engage with the migrants for any other purpose than transportation. The reason: an old law known as “posse comitatus,” which restricts U.S. troops from providing domestic law enforcement without authorization. So, without the authorization, what exactly will the troops be doing?

Symbolic or Functional?

The troops currently on the southern border are based out of El Paso, Texas, and support the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s work “performing mostly logistical and bureaucratic tasks like data entry, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.” Expect the fresh batch of troops to perform in a very similar capacity.

“They will be helping to maintain operational readiness for Border Patrol, assisting in command-and-control centers, and providing more intelligence specialists to assess threats and migrant flows,” CNN reported. “The troops are also expected to augment air assets and help with air operations.”

Generally, the troops are likely to provide a simple influx of manpower in an effort that has suffered to keep pace with a massive influx of migrants. The boost in manpower along the southern border could free up Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, who have been bogged down in operations along the border, to shift their efforts toward making arrests of undocumented immigrants already inside the country.

Back to Basics

The deployment of U.S. troops within the domestic United States is unusual. But the primary function of the military is to protect territorial integrity and security interests more broadly. Defending a border is, traditionally, an inherent part of military application. However, the United States enjoys such providential geography—including weak hemispheric neighbors, plus sprawling oceans on both the western and eastern borders—that U.S. territorial integrity is taken for granted, seemingly left on autopilot. The result is a military force that has the bandwidth to be used overseas, on less existential matters. So, while the deployment of U.S. troops to the southern border may seem unorthodox, it is very much a return to the basic principles of military application.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Image: Christopher G. Kerr / Shutterstock.com

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

LTC Arthur D. Nicholson was America’s Final Cold War Casualty

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 22:25

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Europe Tags: Berlin Wall, Cold War, Security, Soviet Union, and U.S. Military LTC Arthur D. Nicholson was America’s Final Cold War Casualty January 23, 2025 By: Christian D. Orr Share

U.S. Army investigators determined that Nicholson’s death was “officially condoned, if not directly ordered” by the Soviet leadership.

The Cold War never turned into a “hot war,” i.e., full-blown World War III between the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact on one side and the United States and its NATO allies on the other. But that doesn’t mean that the two sides didn’t kill their fair share of each other’s personnel during that timeframe.

For example, during the Korean War, it was an open secret that Soviet fighter pilots were flying missions under the guise of North Korean fighter pilots, in the process killing and being killed by their American jet jock adversaries. Meanwhile, in March 1953, two Soviet MiG-15s shot down an unarmed British Avro 694 Lincoln airplane that strayed into East German airspace whilst on a routine training mission in March 1953, killing all seven Royal Air Force crewmen—with two of those crewmen strafed in cold blood as they were parachuting to safety.

And thirty-two years after the Avro Lincoln shootdown, there was the story of U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Arthur D. Nicholson, murdered by a Soviet sentry in East Germany. Nicholson is considered to be America’s last Cold War casualty.

Profile of the Victim: LTC Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., United States Army

Arthur Donald “Nick” Nicholson, Jr. was born on June 7, 1947, in Mount Vernon, Washington, the son of a career Navy officer. A 1965 graduate of Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut, Nick earned a bachelor’s degree from Transylvania University of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1969 before joining the U.S. Army in 1970.

He was commissioned as a military intelligence officer (Military Occupation Specialist code 35A). Fast-forward ten years, and then-Captain Nicholson became a Foreign Area Officer, and the law of unintended consequences would set him up for his eventual tragic fate. In 1980, he earned a master’s degree in Soviet and East European studies from the Naval Postgraduate School and also attended a two-year course in the Russian language at the Defense Language Institute. During this same two-year span, Nick attended the U.S. Army’s Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

As a reward for these impressive academic achievements, Nicholson was assigned to the U.S. Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) to the commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany, and was promoted to major in 1983.

The Incident

The tragedy unfolded on March 24, 1985 (which means that this year will be the fortieth anniversary of the incident). As a member of USMLM, Nicholson was one of fourteen American officers assigned to East Germany along with support staff as part of a 1947 agreement that basically licensed the two sides to spy on each other up to a point; all parties of the occupation were allowed to maintain communications and exchange intelligence in the occupied zones of East and West Germany, thus providing all sides with a convenient venue for keeping tabs on each other. The Soviets indeed had their own liaison mission which operated on the same principles inside the American, British, and French sectors.

Accordingly, Nick and his driver, SSG Jessie Schatz, were unarmed, in uniform, and in a jeep clearly marked with USMLM plates when they conducted a routine patrol at an area in Ludwigslust, East Germany, following a convoy of Soviet tanks returning from target practice. However, on this fateful day, as Ruth Quinn wrote back in March 2013 on the official U.S. Army info page:

“[S]omething went terribly wrong … At some point, the two Americans left the convoy and headed for a tank shed off the main road. Seeing no guards, they drove to within 200 yards of the shed. Major Nicholson left the vehicle to take some photos, leaving SSG Schatz with the vehicle to provide security. After a few minutes, Nicholson got back in and they drove closer, this time to within 10 yards. With the driver watching, he got back out and approached the shed to look in a window. That was when Schatz noticed a young Soviet sentry emerging from the woods. Nicholson was turning to get back in his vehicle when the first shot rang out, narrowly missing his driver’s head. The Soviet sentry, a young sergeant named Aleksandr Ryabtsev, aimed again and fired two more shots … One of them hit the major and dropped him. Rising to an elbow, he shouted: “Jessie, I’ve been shot!” Then he collapsed. Schatz reached for his first aid kit, showing the Red Cross emblem to the sentry, and attempted to assist his teammate. The sentry kept the AK-47 trained on Schatz, however, trapping him in the vehicle for over an hour. By the time anyone bothered to check for a pulse, Major Nicholson didn’t have one.”

Aftermath

To add insult to injury, the Soviets refused to accept any responsibility, repeatedly changing their story and contradicting themselves. U.S. Army investigators determined that Nick’s death was “officially condoned, if not directly ordered” by the Soviet leadership. Ryabkov, as far as I have been able to ascertain, was never held accountable by his chain of command.

The incident took place barely two weeks after Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev became the Soviet leader, thus presenting Tovarish (“comrade”) Gorbachev with his first major crisis, one that threatened to derail his ambitions for closer ties with the West. U.S. officials were understandably outraged, with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush stating “This sort of brutal international behavior jeopardizes directly the improvements in relations.”

Nick’s body was eventually released, and he was laid to rest with full military honors in Section 7A Site 171 of Arlington National Cemetery, buried near his father, Arthur Donald Nicholson Sr. (CDR, USN, ret.), with all thirteen of his USMLM team members present at his funeral. Major Arthur D. Nicholson was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and—at the behest of then-President Ronald Reagan—promoted to LTC. For good measure, LTC Nicholson was inducted into the MI Hall of Fame in June 1991.

Meanwhile, in 1988, the Soviet government finally officially expressed “regret” over Nicholson’s death.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Shutterstock.

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Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Formally Retired in 2007, the F-117 Still Flies for the Air Force

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 21:30

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: F-117, Military, Security, Stealth Fighters, and U.S. Air Force Formally Retired in 2007, the F-117 Still Flies for the Air Force January 23, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

As an aggressor aircraft, the F-117 can teach pilots how to detect and engage with a low-radar cross-section jet.

The F-117 will forever hold a place in aviation lore as the first stealth aircraft ever flown. But despite ushering in the stealth era of military aviation, the F-117’s stealth technology became obsolete rather quickly. And once the F-22 Raptor debuted, many of the F-117’s features and functions became redundant. As a result, the Air Force, mindful of budgetary constraints, retired the F-117 in 2007—kind of.

Secret Service

While the Air Force formally retired the F-117 in 2007, about forty-five of the stealth jets remain in service—and will continue until about 2034. And yes, keeping a jet in service for twenty-six years after retiring is unorthodox. Why do such a thing?

“A portion of the remaining F-117A fleet, flown by Air Force test pilots, has been very actively used for research and development, test and evaluation, and training purposes in recent years,” The War Zonewrote. “This has included using the jets as ‘red air’ aggressors and as surrogates for stealthy cruise missiles during large-scale exercises.”

The F-117’s continued use is an example of Air Force resourcefulness. Indeed, the F-117 still has benefit in a training and/or research context. While the F-117’s stealth technology may not be best suited for evading detection behind the lines of a sophisticated adversary, the stealth is adequate for teaching purposes; as an aggressor aircraft, the F-117 can teach pilots how to detect and engage with a low-radar cross-section jet. The F-117 can also be used as a stand-in for a cruise missile. In all, despite being a generation old, the F-117 can “still offer important benefits when used in these roles given that their radar, infrared, and other signature profiles are likely to be extremely dissimilar to what pilots and air defense system operators are used to encountering in these contexts,” The War Zonereported.

Worth Keeping the F-117 Around

The main perk of keeping the F-117 in service is likely the research and development angle; the F-117 is often used as a control variable for the testing of new stealth coatings and technology. The jet can also serve as a control when developing the technology that will be used to detect adversary stealth aircraft, like the Chinese Chengdu J-20 or the Russian Sukhoi Su-57. The F-117 could even be used to help develop forthcoming American aircraft, like the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation fighter, which is expected to replace the F-22 sometime in the 2030s.

But the F-117 is on its way out. Production was halted in 1990; there are no new jets coming off the assembly line. Parts are certainly getting harder to come by. The Air Force is already divesting some of the remaining F-117s, all of which fly out of the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, to museums.

For the next decade or so, however, the F-117 will fly under the cloak of relative secrecy, in the deserts of Nevada, which is quite similar to how the F-117 debuted back in the 1980s.

About the author: Harrison Kass

Image: Peter Barrett / Shutterstock.com

The post Formally Retired in 2007, the F-117 Still Flies for the Air Force appeared first on The National Interest.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Head-to-head: The Douglas SBD Dauntless vs. Curtiss SB2C Helldiver Bomber

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 20:26

Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: Bombers, Curtis SB2C Helldiver, Douglas SBD Dauntless, Security, and World War II Head-to-head: The Douglas SBD Dauntless vs. Curtiss SB2C Helldiver Bomber January 23, 2025 By: Christian D. Orr Share

What can be said about these iconic warbirds that hasn’t already been said? Let us tell you.

As was the case with torpedo bombers, the heyday of the dive bomber did not last beyond World War II. But during its comparatively brief moment in the (literal and figurative) sun, the dive bomber concept blasted its way into the pages of military history in a big way.

On the Axis side of the ledger, there was the infamous Nazi German Junkers Ju-87 Stuka and Imperial Japanese Aichi D3A “Val.” On the Allied side, there was the Soviet Union’s Petlyakov Pe-2 “Peshka,” Great Britain’s Blackburn B-24 Skua, and America’s Douglas SBD Dauntless and Curtiss SB2C Helldiver. Yes, the United States was lucky to have not just one but two highly successful dive bombers. So that raises the question: between the Dauntless and the Helldiver, which was the better warbird?

The Case for the Douglas SBD Dauntless

What can be said about this iconic warbird that hasn’t already been said?

The Dauntless made its maiden flight on May 1, 1940, and entered into official operational service with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps later that year. Two years later, it cemented its place in history as the game changer of the WWII Pacific Theatre.

The SBD turned the tide of that campaign by sinking the Imperial Japanese Navy’s (IJN) four aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway, one of the most decisive naval battles in history. The “slow but deadly” warbird sank more Japanese shipping than any other Allied aircraft.

As if that wasn’t amazing enough, the Dauntless stands out as the only WWII bomber with a positive kill ratio against enemy aircraft, 138:43.

Out of 5,936 built, Fewer than thirty Dauntlesses survive today, and only one of those survivors is from the Battle of Midway. It is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida (I toured it back in 2002 and can therefore personally vouch for it). Six of those surviving airframes are airworthy, and thanks to Commemorative Air Force Airbase Georgia Chapter, you can take a ride in one—an SBD-5 variant—for either $1,195, $1,650, or $2,195 (those dollar amounts cover the twenty-, thirty-, and forty-minute rides, respectively).

The Case for the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver

As beautifully as the SBD performed during WWII, its critics point out that it was already obsolescent by the start of the war, and the Navy brass concurred; the Helldiver completely supplanted the Dauntless on aircraft carrier flight decks by the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 (the Battle of the Philippine Sea was the Dauntless’s swan song in USN service, though it would remain in USMC service until the end of the war).

The Helldiver, which made its maiden flight on December 18, 1940, and officially went operational in December 1942, was indeed superior on paper to the Dauntless in terms of speed and armament: the SB2C was 40 mph (64.37 km/h) faster; packed a payload of 2,500 lbs. (1,020 kg) worth of bombs; and wielded two 20mm cannons, four Browning M2 “Ma Deuce” .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine guns, two M1919 .30 caliber machine guns, and eight 5-inch (127mm) High Velocity Aircraft Rockets. The Dauntless had a comparatively modest 2,250-lb. (1,020-kg) bomb load, two Ma Deuces, and two .30 cals.

In actual combat performance, the Helldiver made its mark by its contribution to the sinking of the IJN’s biggest battleships, the Yamato and the Musashi, scoring six bomb hits on the former battlewagon and thirteen on the latter.

Nine Helldivers survive today out of 7,140 airframes built; only one is airworthy (though a couple of others are currently in the restoration process), courtesy of the Commemorative Air Force West Texas Wing in Houston.

And the Winner Is…?

Journalistic ideals of impartiality and objectivity notwithstanding, the SBD is my favorite WWII warplane and my second favorite warbird of all time (second only to the B-52 “BUFF”); this has been the case ever since I was eleven years old when I (1) built a plastic model of one and (2) read about the plane’s Battle of Midway exploits in Gordon W. Prange’s excellent bestselling book Miracle at Midway. Accordingly, I’ve had a personal bias against the Helldiver for that same amount of time.

But putting aside personal biases, the numbers don’t lie. Yes, the Helldiver had its fair share of successes, including those aforementioned contributions to the killing of the IJN’s super-battleships, but even then, those weren’t solo performances. The Helldiver shared kill credit with the Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, and if anything, the Avengers probably contributed a greater portion to those battleships’ deaths proportionately speaking: nineteen torpedo hits on Musashi and eleven torpedo hits on Yamato, which caused major flooding far greater than that caused by the SB2Cs’ bomb strikes.

Moreover, whilst the Dauntless was beloved by the men who flew her, the Helldiver absolutely was hated. As noted by the Smithsonian’s info page:

“Some SB2Cs experienced structural failures that included the loss of wings in steep dives or tails breaking off mid-air or at landing … As a result, crews came up with new names for the Helldiver. They nicknamed it the ‘Beast’ due to its size and handling qualities. Irreverent naval aviators and air crewmen also called it an ‘S.O.B. 2nd Class,’ which was a profane play on the official Navy designation ‘SB2C’ and the Navy’s enlisted personnel ratings.”

Just how bad were the reliability issues of the so-called “S.O.B. 2nd Class?” It’s summed up in the title of a video from the Rex’s Hangar YouTube channel: “A Bomber So Bad It Took 800+ Changes To Fix.” Indeed, the narrator points out that the plane was “often considered the trigger-point for the downfall of Curtiss as an aircraft manufacturer.” That’s a pretty damning implication when you consider what an excellent reputation Curtiss-Wright had previously garnered thanks to the P-40 fighter plane that was immortalized by the Flying Tigers!

By contrast, you hear no such reliable horror stories about the Dauntless.

Winner: Dauntless!

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Image: Angel DiBilio / Shutterstock.com

The post Head-to-head: The Douglas SBD Dauntless vs. Curtiss SB2C Helldiver Bomber appeared first on The National Interest.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Trump to Reinstate Servicemembers Expelled for Not Taking COVID Vaccine

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 19:15

Topic: Politics Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Donald Trump, Politics, and U.S. Military Trump to Reinstate Servicemembers Expelled for Not Taking COVID Vaccine January 23, 2025 By: Harrison Kass Share

The Department of Defense mandated a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for all members of the U.S. military from August 2021 to January 2023.

President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term on Monday, becoming just the second president in history to serve non-consecutive terms. Trump’s inauguration speech, delivered from inside the Capitol building, began on an optimistic note before pivoting to a list of grievances—and ultimately, a slew of policy proposals. Many of the policy proposals have driven the news, like immigration reforms, energy reforms, and the withdrawal from the World Health Organization. But one promise, made explicitly during his inauguration speech, and pertaining directly to U.S. military personnel, has received less media attention: the vow to reinstate troops who were dismissed from military service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine—with full backpay.

“I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the COVID vaccine mandate with full back pay,” Trump said. “And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty.”

The exact “radical political theories and social experiments” to which Trump was referring are unclear but can be assumed to be the same DEI/”woke” initiatives that incoming defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth derided during his confirmation hearing. Hegseth, for his part, also promised to bring back servicemembers dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, stating that “tens of thousands of service members were kicked out because of an experimental vaccine” before promising that those servicemembers would be “apologized to” and reinstated in the military.

Refusing the vaccine

The Department of Defense mandated a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for all members of the U.S. military from August 2021 to January 2023. During the seventeen-month mandate, roughly 8,000 troops refused to comply and were expelled from service.

“In the years since the mandate was lifted, conservative lawmakers have accused Defense Department officials of severely impacting force readiness with the dismissals, and called for those individuals to be allowed to return to the ranks,” Military Timesreported. “Pentagon leaders,” meanwhile, “have said the dismissals did not hurt readiness or morale.” Nevertheless, the Pentagon did allow dismissed troops to reapply for military service after the vaccine mandate was ended.

The vast majority of U.S. military personnel voluntarily accepted the COVID-19 vaccine. And indeed, service in the U.S. military is predicated upon the receipt of more than a dozen vaccines. But the COVID-19 vaccine sparked controversy and raised concerns that the vaccine hadn’t been properly vetted. Of course, the vaccine and the larger COVID-19 pandemic were flashpoints in the most politically polarized moment since the Vietnam War. Neither COVID nor the vaccine were singularly responsible for the polarization—but each amplified tensions that were at a generational peak, on account of the pandemic, racial tensions, and ideological fissures. Now, years after the vaccine mandate went into effect, Trump’s promises are serving as something of a last word on the issue, and a vindication to many who were skeptical of the government’s COVID response.

About the author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a senior defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

Image: Shutterstock.

The post Trump to Reinstate Servicemembers Expelled for Not Taking COVID Vaccine appeared first on The National Interest.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Drones on the Homefront

Thu, 23/01/2025 - 17:34

Topic: Drones Blog Brand: Techland Region: Americas Tags: Aircraft, Drones, Hysteria, New Jersey, Panic, and U.S. Military Drones on the Homefront January 23, 2025 By: Brandon Valeriano, Steven Ochoa, Maximillian Otto, and Qing Leasure Share

The reality is drones are here, they are common, and they are now a fact of daily life. 

It starts with the distant buzz and hum, the sense that something is above. The realization quickly comes: It is not a bee or a plane; rather, it is a drone hovering above. This is the modern reality of war, and it also comes to the homefront. Our lives are irrevocably altered by unmanned vehicles, and our general inability to process this development has led to mass hysteria over drones in New Jersey.   

Now that the excitement has died down, it’s time to reflect on drones over New Jersey. The news cycle has moved on with most focusing on the fires in Los Angeles and the inauguration. Incoming President Donald Trump himself still doubts conventional wisdom that nothing nefarious is afoot, stating, “I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration. Because I think it’s ridiculous that they are not telling you about what is going on with the drones.”

President Trump will find nothing to report. Drones are commonly available at the corner store. As of October 2024, there are a total of 791,597 registered drones in the U.S., with 396,746 of those registered for recreational use with more going unregistered. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that drones over 250g be registered and imposes strict penalties on those who operate unregistered drones over this weight. A substantial portion of recreational drones available for purchase are below 250g, with some being specifically marketed as 249g.  

Drones are easily accessible through retail stores and Amazon and available at cheaper prices on China’s e-commerce platform, Temu. They are usually simple machines made of plastic, a battery, and basic computer components but modifications are often made by hobbyists. These devices are extremely easy to operate, either through a smartphone or a remote control.  

With rudimentary technical knowledge, drones can be modified to have controllable LED lights with sound systems and be made to be controlled in a group or “swarm.” No shortage of YouTube tutorials describing the straightforward process of making these modifications, as well as how to source necessary components in bulk and as cheaply as possible. In short, anyone with the time and money can purchase and modify several drones putting them up in the night sky, in and out of warzones.    

Mass Hysteria

The U.S. government’s response before Trump’s recent inauguration and addressing the situation, has been bar none. One Congressmember states confidently it’s Iranian drones launched from a mothership hovering off the coast of New Jersey, seemingly cloaked to the entire world. Others confidently point to the sky, noting drones when they are just seeing common astrological constellations.

The lack of trust in institutions has led us here. It is common to reject government responses stoked by the fires of partisanship. Now local municipalities want the capabilities to track and shoot down common drones, no matter that targeting these devices with physical or electronic countermeasures can have cascading effects from blinding pilots to disrupting important communications.  

Mass hysteria has started. One drone in the sky leads to others sending up their drones to investigate, including law enforcement. With everyone having access to drones, the knock-on impact begins. The United States itself is very familiar with mass hysteria events throughout its history, with examples being the Salem Witch trials, the two Red Scares, and even evil clowns.  

It is a familiar story, with the most famous example being the French dancing plague of 1518, where an estimated 400 people danced until exhaustion, and even death, for weeks. Some have attributed this event to supernatural phenomena such as the devil, just like in the modern instance of blame falling on aliens or Iranians. Sadly, the French example was more likely caused by a unique combination of social unrest, famine, and possible hallucinogenic mold. 

A modern example of a similar event in the U.S. that caused conspiracy and mass hysteria is the controversial Havana Syndrome, a mysterious condition that affected U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives beginning in 2016. There are many theories regarding this sickness, including conspiracies that it was caused by devices that emit sonic or microwaves. Havana Syndrome has been investigated by several intelligence agencies as well as physicians, and it is “highly unlikely” that any device caused any symptoms. It is much more likely that the media inflated the phenomenon with novel fictitious ideas, inserting mass hysteria into the situation, just as it has done now with the New Jersey story. 

Drones in War and for Entertainment

Drones have become a common part of entertainment. The drone light show market size has grown to $5 billion as of 2023 and is projected to grow to about $12.5 billion by 2028. These light shows consist of the usage of drone swarms. The swarms work together towards a common goal with the guidance of algorithms, and they can be controlled in multiple ways.

For example, a centralized control scheme involves a single control point that processes information and issues commands to each drone, a decentralized control scheme allows the drones to manage themselves through a distributed decision-making process, and a distributed control scheme sends the information to the drones but allows them to share it to collaborate and make decisions that will help accomplish their goal.  

In September 2012, the world’s first large-scale and outdoor formation drone flight was conducted over the Danube River in Linz, Austria, as part of the Klangwolke music festival. Since then, the illumination of the sky captivated millions around the world. The drone swarms used to produce these light shows have been incorporated into high-profile events such as the 2017 Super Bowl Halftime Show, the 2018 Winter Olympics, the 2023 Coachella Festival, and the 2024 Walt Disney World “Dreams that Soar” show with over 800 drones.  

Drones are also obviously used for war, having an assumed critical impact on the Russian Ukrainian War. The United States had become a chief pioneer of this during its counterterrorism efforts within Iraq and Afghanistan. Through the principle of swarm intelligence, using them for espionage collection purposes or lethal force on enemy targets.

To this day, we see the ubiquity of drones in ongoing conflicts. Volunteer networks, including patriotic citizens for both sides, have played an important role in creating self-made drones used to perform Kamikaze attacks, which has caused both sides in the Russo-Ukraine War to also experiment with counter-drone capabilities such as electronic warfare and wire net barriers, even carrying shotguns to battle now.  

The motivation for the continuous usage of these drones is that they are cheap, abundant, and can be a substitute for an actual combatant. The reality is drones are here, they are common, and they are now a fact of daily life. Americans must wake up to this reality without freaking out at aliens, Iranians, or mysterious government programs.  

The simplest explanation is that the use of unmanned systems and the inability of general civilians to distinguish items in the night sky has led to new forms of mass hysteria. Overreacting will only enable greater government control of our lives and skies, forcing civilian police squads to monitor local air traffic, exactly the thing most people fear in the first place. 

Learn to accept our new drone overlords.  

About the Authors

Brandon Valeriano is an Assistant Professor at Seton Hall University. He directs the DiploLab, the School of Diplomacy’s student research arm, which includes Steven Ochoa, Maximillian Otto, and Qingan Leasure.  

Steven Ochoa is a graduate student at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, where he specializes in International Security and Global Negotiation.

Maximillian Otto is an undergraduate studying International Economics and International Relations at Seton Hall University and co-founder of Zero Chains Initiative, an organization devoted to advocating for victims of human trafficking.

Qing Leasure is a sophomore student in Seton Hall’s School of Diplomacy and part of the DiploLab, the Undergraduate research arm of the School.

Image: Shutterstock.

The post Drones on the Homefront appeared first on The National Interest.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

From CHIPS to Ships: The Next Step in the U.S.-ROK Alliance

Mon, 20/01/2025 - 10:12

Tags: CHIPS Act, Defense Industrial Base, Jones Act, Shipbuilding, and South Korea From CHIPS to Ships: The Next Step in the U.S.-ROK Alliance January 20, 2025 By: Thomas Byrne, and Joseph Lim Share

The Chinese Naval fleet has become the world’s largest, threatening the U.S. maritime dominance and unrestricted freedom of navigation in East Asia and the South China Sea. Although the U.S. Navy wants to build 381 ships by FY2042, public shipyards have their hands full. Delays in ship production and industrial inefficiencies have ramped up costs. Yet reforms to shore up the shipbuilding ecosystem remain insufficient. Amid this backdrop, President-elect Trump said in a post-election phone call with President Yoon that the United States seeks cooperation with South Korea, namely in the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO).

The U.S. Naval military-industrial base needs a SHIPS Initiative with shipbuilders from close allies—namely South Korea—just as the American manufacturing base is being bolstered by South Korean firms participating in the CHIPS Act (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America). In contrast, bilateral naval cooperation can be accomplished through deregulation supplemented with tax and supply-side incentives rather than through massive cash subsidies. Such constructive cooperation would have to surmount political hurdles in the United States. Still, industrial collaboration would avoid adding to unsustainable federal budgetary spending on subsidies—already interest payments on government debt exceed defense expenditures.

How South Korean Companies Can Help

South Korea can make world-class ships for the U.S. Navy. The Norway, Philippines, and Peru navies have relied on South Korea to manufacture their next-generation naval vessels. South Korean shipyards have already collaborated with the U.S. Navy to overhaul support ships and with U.S. private shipyards to design state-of-the-art U.S. commercial vessels. They have used high-tech production processes to churn out high-quality vessels on time without cost overruns. This is exactly the capability the U.S. Navy needs, and Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro was blown away on his visits to South Korean shipyards.

South Korean firms’ capabilities in localizing production and transferring technology will improve U.S. shipyard productivity and create new local jobs. Paula Zorensky, vice president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, said that American shipyards “are willing to work with our fellow Korean shipbuilders and allied shipyards to improve our processes and increase efficiencies.” HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, the University of Michigan, and Seoul National University signed a memorandum of understanding in July 2024 to establish a shipbuilding design and engineering exchange program to train the U.S. workforce.

Getting Around the Jones Act

The U.S. Navy is prohibited from outsourcing the construction of naval vessels to foreign shipyards under 10 USC 7309 and 10 USC 8679 (the Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment). The laws allow the president to issue a waiver to lift such prohibitions if he determines it is in the national security interest of the United States to do so. So conceivably, President Trump could issue a waiver, and Congress could amend such laws to allow the construction of naval vessels in shipyards in countries like South Korea, with which the United States has a mutual defense treaty.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, known as the Jones Act, requires all shipping between U.S. ports to be conducted by U.S.-built, owned, and crewed ships. The Military Cargo Preference Act extends this requirement to military cargo destined for foreign ports. These laws have the effect of jacking up the price of shipping between the American mainland, U.S. territories, and foreign ports by forcing the U.S. military to rely on a small number of Jones Act-compliant carriers to move cargo. However, repealing these acts will be politically difficult, as such action would expose American shipbuilders to superior foreign competition.

Proposing a work-around, Senator Todd Young (R-IN), Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) introduced the bipartisan and bicameral “Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security for America Act of 2024” (SHIPS Act) in December. The draft of the bill opens opportunities for South Korean firms. Vessels constructed in foreign shipyards can be incorporated into the U.S. strategic merchant fleet as “interim vessels” through 2029. Deregulation would free U.S. and South Korean firms to develop economies of scale and deliver ship orders on time.

Finally, the Trump administration could approve South Korean firms’ acquisitions of U.S. shipyards. In what Secretary Del Toro lauded as a “game-changing milestone in [the U.S.] new Maritime Statecraft,” Hanwha Group agreed in June 2024 to acquire Philly Shipyard from its Norwegian parent company, Aker ASA, for $100 million. The acquisition received approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) in September and was completed in December 2024.

From CHIPS to SHIPS

Former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Mac Thornberry noted the U.S. needs geographic diversity in its defense suppliers to provide better competition and sources of innovation. The advancement of U.S. security and prosperity will be far cheaper and more effective if Washington can tap into synergies with its global network of allies and partners.

However, long-term economic and geostrategic interests do not always prevail over domestic political considerations. The most recent example is that the Biden administration rejected Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel on January 3, citing national security concerns despite no clear and direct defense rationale.

The South Korea-U.S. business relationship has blossomed into a vibrant two-way investment partnership spanning joint ventures on COVID-19 vaccines and electric vehicle batteries. Trusted and competitive foreign shipbuilders, such as those in South Korea, have also demonstrated their global comparative advantage. It’s time for the U.S. to more deeply tap into its capabilities and move into a new, robust military-industrial cooperation paradigm.

Thomas Byrne is the President and CEO of the Korea Society. Previously, he was the Asia-Pacific Regional Sovereign Risk Manager for Moody’s Investors Service.

Joseph Lim is a graduate student at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Image: Panwasin Seemala / Shutterstock.com.

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The post From CHIPS to Ships: The Next Step in the U.S.-ROK Alliance appeared first on The National Interest.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

The Ukraine War Cannot End With A Russian Crimea

Thu, 09/01/2025 - 22:18

Any just and lasting peace agreement to the Ukraine conflict must account for a Crimea free of Russian occupation for the sake of regional peace and security. Crimea, under Putin’s control, would likely turn the Black Sea into a Russian lake, severing the Caucasus and Central Asia from Europe and directly threatening NATO members Romania and Bulgaria and effectively precluding Baltic-Black Seas connectivity.

A Russian Crimea mortally endangers Odesa and Ukraine’s entire southern coast, sowing the seeds for an enduring simmering Ukraine-Russia conflict fueled by concerns over national security, sovereignty, and pride. Russian control would return Crimea to its centuries-old violent history: a flashpoint of regional instability and power competition among all interested in accessing the Black Sea. Furthermore, Russian dominance in the area would significantly boost Chinese and Iranian influence across the Black and Caspian Seas and greater Central Asia more broadly, undermining American, European, and broader free-world interests.

Putin is a puppeteer who is quickly running out of puppets, strings, and stage space. His war economy is fueling unsustainable inflation at home and is unable to replace men and material on the battlefield. According to a recent article in Foreign Policy, Russia is producing twenty artillery and tank cannons a month to replace over 300 lost over the same period. The Russian army is losing over 40,000 soldiers per month and recruiting around 20,000–30,000 around the same period despite lucrative bonuses. As a result, North Korean soldiers are fighting in Kursk, and hapless migrant workers find themselves shanghaied to the frontlines.

According to present indicators, Ukraine can hold out longer with stronger allied support than Russia can. Putin’s hope could be that American support for Ukraine dries up so Russia can consolidate its battleground gains under the guise of a ceasefire or peace agreement. Consequently, Putin is throwing the kitchen sink at Ukraine in anticipation of a ceasefire on existing lines soon after President Trump is sworn in. Any acknowledgment of a Russian Crimea as part of a (temporary) peace deal would be a big win for Putin and a greater loss for the United States, Europe, and the wider region.

The Crimean Peninsula, located at the northern center of the Black Sea, dominates the region’s geography—hence Putin’s unlawful seizure in 2014. With Crimea, Russia effectively controls the northern half of the Black Sea, from Georgia to Romania. This strategic advantage allows Russia to reassert dominance across the region, consolidating its influence in Moldova, Georgia, and the Caucasus, strangling Ukraine’s maritime access and threatening Romania’s critical Danube transportation corridor stretching to southern Germany and connecting through the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal to northwest Europe.

Romania, in partnership with American industry, is poised to develop its significant offshore natural gas fields. By 2027, Romania is projected to become Europe’s largest natural gas producer. Bulgaria and Turkey are also progressing with their offshore gas developments. All of these projects face serious jeopardy if Crimea is officially handed to Putin.

A Russian Crimea jeopardizes European energy independence, threatening not only Black Sea energy development and transit pipelines from the Caucasus and Central Asia but also the connectivity of the Baltic and Black Seas. The Three Seas Initiative, championed by thirteen eastern European nations and President Trump, calls for improved digital, energy, and transport connectivity between the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black Seas. The initiative’s robust implementation holds the key to the economic prosperity and resilience of Eastern Europe, NATO mobility readiness, and Ukraine’s integration into Europe. A Russian stranglehold on the Black Sea from Crimea presents an insurmountable barrier to the fulfillment of the Three Seas Initiative.

Russian dominance over Crimea also jeopardizes transatlantic initiatives to establish digital and physical infrastructure connecting Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia through the Black and Caspian Seas. The EU’s subsea fiber-optic and energy cables across the Black Sea would be vulnerable to industrial sabotage, similar to the threats in the Baltic Sea.

From its Crimean stronghold, Putin can veto any economic activities across the Black Sea (like the Middle Corridor) that contradict Russian interests. This de facto blockade would suffocate Ukraine’s maritime economy and slowly strangle Odesa. It would exponentially heighten pressure on Moldova with the possibility of a reinvigorated Russian presence in Transnistria and fulfill Russia’s goal to turn the republic into a vassal state.

A Crimea under Russian control poses a grave threat to Romania, the United States’ closest Black Sea ally and NATO member. Accepting Putin’s annexation would enable further territorial aggression, following the pattern of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. With Crimea secured, Putin would likely push across the Dnipro River toward Odesa, energizing Russian-backed forces in Transnistria and prompting calls from Moldova’s Gagauz minority for Russian intervention. The Russian playbook of fabricated “patriotic” interventions, seen in Donbas and elsewhere, would likely be repeated in Moldova, bringing Russian troops to Romania’s border. This would make Romania’s 420-mile frontier the second-longest NATO-Russia border after Finland.

The strategically vital Snake Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta would also be endangered. Although Ukrainian resistance has thus far kept Russian naval forces at bay, a hasty peace would reopen the path for a renewed Russian effort to seize the island. This would allow Russia to choke the Danube River gateway, the second-largest maritime route into the Black Sea after the Dardanelles. This would effectively blockade Ukraine, Moldova, and much of Romania, provoking sustained harassment and instability in the region. Currently, 4,500 U.S. troops are stationed at the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, only 100 miles from Snake Island.

Turkey, the dominant Black Sea power, stands to lose the most if the sea becomes a Russian lake. Unfortunately, despite its public support for Ukraine in solidarity with Crimean Tatars, Ankara has been complicit in Russia’s creeping dominance by insisting on a rigid interpretation of the Montreux Convention, which restricts NATO’s naval presence in the Black Sea. As a NATO member, Turkey must recognize that Russian hegemony poses a far greater threat than NATO presence in the region.

Any peace agreement that leaves Crimea under Russian control would be a victory for Putin’s expansionist ambitions to reconstitute the Russian imperial sphere of influence. History suggests such an agreement would only lead to bloodier and more expansive conflicts in the near future, substantially increasing the likelihood of direct NATO involvement.

For the United States, allowing a peace deal that leaves Crimea with Putin would constitute a strategic blunder comparable to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. History might judge such an agreement alongside the infamous Munich Pact of 1938, which attempted to appease Hitler by ceding Sudetenland, with disastrous consequences. Munich defined and tarnished British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s legacy for appeasing Hitler. History will be equally unkind to those who appease Putin.

President-elect Trump, by many accounts, is more akin to Churchill than Chamberlain. He should reject any short-sighted peace deal that leaves Crimea in Russian hands and instead make a free Crimea central to a just and lasting peace. With his focus on business and infrastructure and making America great again, Trump could leverage a free Crimea to transform the region into a future of peace and prosperity backed by American industry and ingenuity. Like President Harry Truman and General George Marshall before him, Trump could leave a legacy of reshaping Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Those who underestimate him—and the potential for such a vision—do so at their peril.

Kaush Arha is president of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.

George Scutaru is the CEO of the New Strategy Center and a former national security advisor to the President of Romania.

Justina Budginaite-Froehly is a security and defense policy expert focusing on defense industrial developments, military mobility, and energy security in Europe.

Image: NickolayV / Shutterstock.com.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

The Long Road to Trudeau’s Resignation

Thu, 09/01/2025 - 16:47

In a wintry Ottawa, the Canadian prime minister contemplated his political future. Much had changed since he was first elected. The excitement around his youthful vigor, avowed multiculturalism, and sex appeal that had propelled him to office—“Trudeaumania,” the press had dubbed it—was gone. Critics called him arrogant and out-of-touch. The sheen had even worn off his personal life, with he and his glamorous wife in the midst of a divorce.

His political fortunes had fallen for substantive reasons, too. Canadians were fed up with the high inflation and growing government deficits that had characterized his economic stewardship. Many disliked his energy policy, especially in Western Canada. Many worried about bad relations with the United States under a Republican president.

Within his Liberal Party, the knives were coming out; conservatives, for their part, were reenergized under their younger leader. Indeed, around the world, conservatives seemed to have the momentum, with liberals facing backlash for their unpopular policies. The times had moved past Trudeau. And so, after a tenure that spanned multiple decades, he decided: it was time to step down.

This is not just the story of Justin Trudeau, who announced Monday that he is resigning as leader of the Liberal Party, paving the way for Canada’s first new prime minister in nearly a decade. It is also the story of his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who stepped down in 1984 after having been in power, apart from a nine-month period in opposition, since 1968. Ultimately, both prime ministers were felled by global trends they struggled to respond to.

There are differences, of course. On immigration, both Trudeaus made a point of welcoming refugees, especially from non-white-majority countries, but compared with his son’s, Pierre’s immigration policy was miserly. The number of immigrants actually fell in each of his final three years in office, ending at 89,000 in 1983—or 3.5 per 1,000 people. In 2024, some 485,000 immigrants moved to Canada—or 12 per 1,000 people.

On energy, Trudeau père’s undoing was his National Energy Program, a statist plan entailing price controls that alienated Canada’s Western provinces. Trudeau fils tried nothing so radical or unpopular, although his carbon tax has divided Canadians. The specific economic ailments also differ: inflation and unemployment were much higher when the elder Trudeau resigned, while today, GDP growth is in worse shape.

Yet in both cases, shocks to employment, prices, and growth generated a fierce backlash against incumbents the world over. In the 1980s, it manifested in the Reagan-Thatcher free-market revolution, a wave that swept far beyond the United States and the United Kingdom—provoking France’s socialist president, François Mitterrand, to embrace austerity, and sending the leader of Canada’s conservative party, Brian Mulroney, into the prime minister’s office after Trudeau.

The current anti-incumbent backlash is even more powerful, and Justin Trudeau is merely its latest victim. Add his name to the list of democratic leaders who have suffered electoral setbacks or outright defeats in the last year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the United States, Rishi Sunak in the United Kingdom, Emmanuel Macron in France, Olaf Scholz in Germany, Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Narendra Modi in India, Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea, and Fumio Kishida in Japan. Like voters in the rest of the world, Canadians punished their political elites for COVID-19 policies they considered too restrictive and fiscal policies they considered inflationary (and in many, though not all, cases, immigration policies they considered too permissive).

Canada is a progressive country, one where socialized medicine, abortion, gun control, and gay rights are not hot-button issues but questions settled long ago. Yet this is not an unalloyed progressivism. As Trudeau discovered, there are limits to Canadians’ liberal inclinations. On immigration, it turned out that the median voter held more conservative views than he did (a lesson Harris also learned). His policy was decidedly unpopular, particularly for the way that the growing population was raising housing prices and straining the healthcare system. In October, he made a U-turn, announcing that he was dropping the annual targets for the number of new permanent residents by more than 100,000.

This identity crisis is most evident in economic policy. The nature of the Canadian economy has always tugged the country rightward. While not quite Saudi Arabia with snow and elections, Canada depends heavily on oil and gas production, along with mining, which explains why its environmental policies have long been more industry-friendly than one might otherwise expect, and why Trudeau’s climate policies were less popular than they might have been in, say, Denmark. Canada is also a major manufacturing exporter, which explains why Canadian prime ministers of all political stripes have been avowed free traders.

Yet unlike other fallen leaders, Trudeau faced a particular second-order effect of the anti-incumbent wave: the change of government it produced in Canada’s neighbor, closest ally, and biggest trading partner. Pierre Trudeau once quipped that living next to the United States was like “sleeping with an elephant: no matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” And in November, Americans reelected a leader whom most Canadians considered neither friendly nor temperate.

Pursuing Canada’s interests without offending the United States is hard in the best of times, but that task became impossible for Trudeau with Donald Trump’s second electoral victory. The two leaders had a poor relationship during Trump’s first term: in 2018, after Trudeau promised that Canada would “not be pushed around” on tariffs, Trump called him “weak” and “dishonest,” and at a 2019 NATO summit, Trudeau was caught on camera joking with other leaders about Trump’s erratic ways. And relations were on track to be even worse during Trump’s second term.

In November, after Trump pledged to slap a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods, Trudeau made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, promising enhanced border security to appease the incoming president. It didn’t work: the following month, Trump belittled Trudeau on social media, calling him the “governor” of the “state” of Canada. Any Canadian prime minister was destined to have a strained relationship with Trump, given his protectionist impulses, but none more so than Trudeau, given their history, a reality that even his supporters recognized. Trudeau probably wouldn’t have lasted long during a Harris administration, but Trump’s election sealed his fate.

Historically, relations between Canada and the United States have been frosty when their leaders hail from opposing political tribes. Richard Nixon called Pierre Trudeau “a pompous egghead” and a “son of a bitch.” (Trudeau responded in his memoirs by saying he had “been called worse things by better people.”) Trudeau got along better with Ronald Reagan, although the American president later recalled being “horrified by his rudeness” at a G-7 summit in London.

Mulroney came to office promising to “refurbish relationships with the United States, our best and closest friend” and ended up becoming a personal friend of Reagan’s. There has perhaps never been a greater display of warmth between the two countries’ leaders than the “Shamrock Summit,” which began on St. Patrick’s Day of 1985 and ended with the two leaders, both of Irish heritage, singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” (Fittingly, Mulroney delivered a eulogy at Reagan’s funeral.)

Mulroney’s eventual Liberal successor, Jean Chrétien, got along famously with Bill Clinton, spending hours with him on the golf course. But Chrétien and his successor, Paul Martin, also a Liberal, clashed with George W. Bush over Iraq and a U.S. missile defense plan. And so the hot-and-cold pattern continued, through the elections of Stephen Harper, Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, Trump, and Biden. If Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party, is elected prime minister this year, as polls suggest he has a good shot of doing, then one can expect a measure of cross-border calm to prevail. In a podcast interview with the psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson, he pitched Trump on the “great deal” the two leaders could make on trade.

With Trudeau’s resignation, Trump may now imagine that just as he has the power to tip GOP primaries and kill Congressional legislation, he can bring about the downfall of foreign leaders. In this way, by treating the leader of a close ally as a subservient political opponent deserving of mockery, Trump was acting out the fantasy he relayed to Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago and repeated Monday: that Canada is “the 51st state.” But for the most part, Trudeau was swept out of the prime minister’s office by the same global wave that Trump rode back into the White House.

Stuart A. Reid is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Lumumba Plot.

Image: Shutterstock.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

In Yemen, China Has Quietly Helped the Houthi Militants

Thu, 09/01/2025 - 14:56

The United States Navy has protected commercial shipping in the Middle East from Houthi attacks for more than 15 months, but in that time, Chinese vessels haven't come under attack. That is because the Iran-back proxy group, which controls vast swaths of Yemen, has been backed by Beijing.

As Maya Carlin reported for The National Interest, citing a report from Israeli-based i24 News, the Houthis have even been employing Chinese-designed weapons to carry out their attacks.

"In exchange, the terror group will cease attacks on ships flying the Chinese flag. With a shared mutual contempt for the West, Beijing and Tehran's collaboration in the region makes sense," Carlin wrote.

China's support for the militant group has ensured its vessels have been spared from Houthi attacks, although one Chinese-linked oil tanker did come under fire in March of last year. This is more than Beijing just paying off the Houthis.

"We now have credible reports that China's communist rulers are supplying arms to the Houthi Islamists in Yemen supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran," explained Clifford D. May, founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in a post earlier this month.

"By now it should be apparent that the West is literally under fire from an Axis of Aggressors: Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and its proxies, and Pyongyang," May added. "They are determined to establish a new international order based on their power and their rules. The United States and its European allies have not responded effectively to this reality. Perhaps the incoming administration will do a better job."

China's Great Game in the Middle East

The fact that the PRC may have taken such a position on Houthis should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone closely watching the unfolding events for a few reasons, geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of Scarab Rising, told The National Interest.

"China has been assisting Houthis in the past for pragmatic business reasons, such as selling their drones considered inferior to Western and Turkish variants, which were allegedly paid for by Qatar – without ever being held accountable," she explained.

She noted that Beijing already has a long history of doing business with all sides in the Middle East. This is in part to secure as broad an economic influence as possible and in part to fund its domestic and international priorities through such trade schemes.

"Over time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been increasingly gravitating towards closer cooperation with Iran and Russia, which colored all aspects of domestic and international priorities," Tsukerman warned. "The CCP has been using TikTok and other government-linked platforms, for instance, to spread outright antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda and to provide open political backing to Hamas, Iranian, Hezbollah, and Russian propaganda."

For those reasons, it absolutely should come as no surprise that it would be part of a broader network among these countries that would favor the proxies of one of its top oil suppliers and anti-Western counterparts.

China's self-interests are also at stake.

"Part of the reasons for the expanded cooperation with the Houthis is the need to protect Chinese vessels in the Red Sea from attacks, and this level of backing is part of the self-serving agenda at the cost to everyone else," Tsukerman said candidly.

Moreover, the PRC remains dedicated to countering Western interests whenever possible and an increased Red Sea presence and coordination with the Houthis provides an opportunity to put pressure on the U.S., UK, and Israeli shipping industry, militarily and financially, to gather valuable intelligence about its competitors and adversaries, to take advantage of the problems facing Western insurance companies, flagging companies, and the shipping sector to do business in those areas, and to position itself as a new naval power in the Middle East, Tsukerman further acknowledged.

This is the first part in a three-part series on China's growing influence in the Middle East. Thank you to Irina Tsukerman for her insight.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Kratos Has a Plan to Save America's Hypersonic Weapons Development

Thu, 09/01/2025 - 02:00

Uncle Sam is getting his rear-end kicked by the Russians and Chinese (heck, even the North Koreans are starting to outdo the Americans) in the all-important realm of hypersonic weapons. Indeed, it’s possible that China is even already creating working defenses against hypersonic weapons (meaning that Beijing is doubling up on success whereas the Americans are still languishing in the design phase).

But a new U.S. defense project between the Department of Defense and contractor Kratos is desperately trying to change that with a new project. Given how key hypersonic weapons are, and will continue to be, the Kratos effort must be assessed.

Kratos Saves the Day?

Under the rubric of “MACH TB 2.0,” Kratos is attempting to “enhance the United States’ capabilities in hypersonic technology through rapid, affordable testing,” according to Kalif Shaikh at Interesting Engineering, a trade publication.

Both the Kratos leadership and the top brass at the Pentagon believe that one of the key reasons that the Russians and Chinese have surpassed the Americans in developing a reliable, real-world hypersonic weapons capacity has to do with the extreme costs of hypersonic weapons development and testing.

In fact, when it comes to testing hypersonic systems, the United States is far behind the curve. Wind tunnels are key elements behind testing hypersonic systems. Guess where the world’s most powerful wind tunnel is for testing hypersonic systems? China.

Kratos is leading a group of powerful defense contractors, including the likes of Leidos and Rocket Lab, all of which are keen on expediting the R&D cycles of American hypersonic weapons. Kratos believes that it can reduce the risks and costs associated with hypersonic weapons development by accelerating the delivery of these systems in the field. One way to do that is by deploying advanced flying testbeds to allow for researchers to assess the efficacy of their hypersonic systems in real-world conditions.

Is the Problem Fundamental or Can It Be Resolved Quickly?

Pentagon insiders (and those at Kratos) do not believe that the United States lacks the fundamentals to achieve parity with both Russia and China in hypersonic weapons. They think the problem is taking all the disparate pieces the Pentagon has been assembling for hypersonic weapons research and development and accelerating those projects. There might be something to this theory.

After all, hypersonic weapons have been researched since the last part of the Cold War. It’s not really new technology. The Americans, however, did not develop these systems, which left a gap for both Russia and China to fill.

So, it might very well be that this is an application problem rather than a fundamental inability to compete. Of course, the United States is being shown up by its rivals, notably China, in multiple other domains. Yet, the Americans are right to give the Kratos team a chance to see if it can accelerate the American development of hypersonic weapons. If Kratos is right, then the United Statees could achieve real parity with China and Russia in hypersonic weapons in the five years or so.

There are some problems with this outlook.

Fundamentally, the defense industrial base is broken and the procurement systems for these weapons systems are increasingly corrupt and inefficient. The quest for greater weapons has been hindered by defense firms’ massive profit seeking—even at the expense of national readiness.

Should the Kratos team be wrong, and the problems affecting America’s hypersonic weapons development are far more fundamental and systemic, then the United States will find itself in a world of hurt, as Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons threaten the homeland in ways that conventional missiles simply cannot.

A global arms race is occurring, and the Americans are in the unenviable position of being on the defensive. Hopefully Kratos can help overcome these problems soon.

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Russia Launched 8,060 Iranian Shahed-136 Drones Against Ukraine in 2024

Thu, 09/01/2025 - 00:00

In September of last year, it was reported that Russia had launched an astonishing 8,060 drones developed by the long-time Russian ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

At the time, it was an extraordinary number. The reporting back in September 2024 highlighted the importance that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of all shapes and sizes had for both sides fighting in Ukraine (the Ukrainians use overwhelming numbers of Turkish-produced drones).

The Iranian drones that Russia loves are the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 one-way attack unmanned aerial systems. In an October 2022 assessment by the Council of Foreign Relations, the bulk of the drones Iran handed over to Russia belonged to the Shahed-136 model. That’s the specific Iranian-built drone we’ll be analyzing here.

Back in March, the Russians signed a licensing agreement with Iran that allowed them to domestically produce these systems. According to a November 2024 report by Iran International, a website that advocates the end of the Islamist regime in Iran, the presence of large numbers of cheaply produced Iranian drones “supercharged Russia’s 1,000-day fight in Ukraine.”

An Iranian Nightmare in Ukraine

With Russia now mass producing the Iranian drones indigenously, the Russians will likely continue enjoying the boost that the drones gave their forces when the Iranians first sold the drones to Russia. As the fight over control of the Russian enclave of Kursk, located just across the border from Ukraine has shown, Russian drones are wreaking havoc on the entrenched Ukrainian forces operating there.

The Shahed-136, also known as “Witness” (or, Geran-2, meaning “Geranium-2” in Russian), is a delta-winged loitering munition designed for long-range attacks. The brilliance of the system lies in its relative simplicity that allows for cheap mass production and lower maintenance costs compared to other, more sophisticated drones. It has a range of a little more than 1,200 miles and can carry a warhead weighing between 88 and 110 pounds. Shahed-136 drones typically have a subsonic cruising speed of 111 miles per hour.

The basic tactics underlying the deployment of these systems involve the saturation of enemy defenses with swarms of cheaply produced Shahed-136 drones, thereby overwhelming an enemy’s air defenses and allowing for the attacking force to achieve dominance over a contested area. Another tactic involves stealthy, surgical strikes, since these drones’ relatively small size and low-flying capability makes it more difficult for defenders to see and defend against them.

Iranian Shahed-136 drones have also been used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their efforts to terrorize international shipping—and the mighty United States Navy—in the Red Sea and Strait of Bab El-Mandeb. That Tehran is the producer of this specific drone should not surprise anyone. Being a relatively small power under immense international sanctions has meant that the Iranian regime has had to innovate unique asymmetrical warfare capabilities.

No Easy Defense

The Shahed-136 is particularly vexing for nations on the receiving end of its attacks. The drone poses significant defensive challenges, as both the Houthis out of Yemen and the Russians fighting in Ukraine have shown. Drones have proven that only layered air defense systems have a chance at reliably countering the threat that drone swarms pose to defenders.

Such systems, however, are expensive to maintain—especially when compared to the relative cost and the overwhelming lethality of the Shahed-136 drones. What’s more, the risk of Iran proliferating these systems to other actors, particularly non-state actors, such as terrorist organizations beyond the Houthis, is a real complicating factor when it comes to defense.

Iranian weapons designers have already learned a great deal from the experience of their systems in various theaters of global warfare. They are applying those lessons learned to future iterations both of the Shahed-136 and other, more advanced Iranian drones.

It is obvious that drone warfare will continue to evolve and to increasingly dominate the future of modern warfare. The Iranians understand this. As do the Turks and Russians. We shall see if the Western world truly understands this new reality.

Image: Shutterstock.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

The Wars That Could Define The Donald Trump Presidency

Wed, 08/01/2025 - 23:49

Almost every president since the end of the Cold War had his foreign policy legacy defined by a war no one could have foreseen. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Bill Clinton sought to deflect Bush’s 90 percent popularity after the successful 100-hour ground war by focusing on bread-and-butter issues. In 1992, Clinton campaign consultant James Carville summarized the strategy with the famous quip, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Clinton genuinely hoped to focus on the economy. He extricated U.S. forces from Somalia following the “Black Hawk Down” incident but found himself drawn first into Bosnia and then more reluctantly into Kosovo. George W. Bush, too, sought to be a domestic president but, after the 9/11 attacks, ordered U.S. forces into Afghanistan and, more controversially, into Iraq. Barack Obama pledged to end “dumb war[s],” but not only remained in Afghanistan and returned to Iraq but then involved the United States in Syria and Libya.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated the Biden administration’s foreign policy. Joe Biden did not send U.S. forces into the theater, but he did provide Ukraine with weaponry and other forms of support for their war effort. For all his talk about his genuine interest in Africa, Biden has paid little attention to the world’s deadliest conflict, the civil war in Sudan. He staked out the middle ground in the Israel-Hamas conflict, meddling diplomatically and virtue signaling with humanitarian schemes while otherwise standing largely aloof. Biden also claimed to be “the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world.” However, he omitted U.S. involvement off the coast of Yemen.

While the COVID-19 Pandemic overshadowed Donald Trump’s first term (thanks to a Chinese lab leak), he is correct in saying that he did not involve the United States in new wars. His second term will likely not be so placid.

Several wars loom, all of which could impact Trump’s legacy, whether he chooses to involve himself or not.

Turkey And Syria Vs. The Kurds

After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Turkish-sponsored Sunni Islamist group that previously aligned with Al Qaeda rampaged through Syria and ended Bashar al-Assad’s dynasty after nearly a quarter-century. Trump celebrated. “I think Turkey is very smart...Turkey did an unfriendly takeover, without a lot of lives being lost,” he said.

Trump’s assessment of Turkey’s wisdom may be premature. While Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Bakr al-Jolani) seeks to win international recognition, he does so less because he has yet to consolidate control and more because recognition will bring access and control over the nearly $400 billion that Syrians will need to reconstruct their country.

The broader issue that could impact the Trump administration is what the new Syrian regime will mean for the Syrian Kurds. Trump may not care about the Kurds personally—he certainly did not hesitate to betray them during his first term—but the stakes are arguably higher. Both Al-Sharaa and Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani are pawns of Turkey; both trade sovereignty and nationalist causes for cash and power. Both will turn on Syrian Kurds to remain in the good graces of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the past, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was a brake on Turkish ambitions. With him gone, Turkey and its proxies may seek to overrun Syria’s Kurdish regions. The short-term impact of this could be the release of thousands of Islamic State prisoners. They will tip the balance inside Syria toward militancy. They could spread throughout not only the Middle East—destabilizing Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—but also become another tool by which Erdogan could blackmail Europe, as he did with Syrian refugees. It will only be a matter of time until some cross the southern border. What happens in Syria does not stay in Syria.

Azerbaijan Vs. Armenia

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev took advantage of U.S. distraction during the 2020 election to launch an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, a self-governing and democratic ethnic Armenian territory that Azerbaijan demanded to subordinate itself to Azerbaijan’s direct rule. On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed a ceasefire sparing about half the region’s territory and enabling 120,000 indigenous Armenians to remain in the rump region. With Putin preoccupied with the Ukraine War and with Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaling moral equivalency and weakness, Aliyev finished the job in September 2023, driving the entire 1,700-year-old Armenian Christian community into exile. Blinken’s refusal to describe that episode as “ethnic cleansing,” preferring instead to describe events in the passive voice as “depopulation,” leads Aliyev to believe he can continue his anti-Armenian jihad. In recent weeks, Aliyev has demanded the European border observation team evacuate and Armenia stop arming itself. His rhetoric about Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan” mirrors the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s quip about Kuwait being Iraq’s “nineteenth province.”

The Caucasus could become even bloodier if Ukraine falls. Since 2018, Armenia has pivoted toward the West. Putin has a long memory. If given the opportunity, he will exact his revenge on Armenia. The same holds true for Moldova, which has also oriented itself increasingly toward Europe and NATO. Russia has already tightened its grip on Georgia. Trump must consider whether he is fine with the reconstitution of the Soviet Union.

China’s Proxy Wars In Africa

Trump would not be the first president to ignore African conflicts, but he may be the first for whom doing so would put the United States at untenable risk. China is no stranger to the continent. In 2017, it opened its first overseas naval base in tiny Djibouti in the Hord of Africa, just a few miles from Camp Lemonnier, where the Pentagon still stations its Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

During the Biden administration, China consolidated its strategic position without any serious U.S. pushback. Rather than counter China’s economic and military inroads, the State Department often facilitated them.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may be one of the world’s most dysfunctional states. Still, it nevertheless will be indispensable for the twenty-first-century economy. The lithium-ion batteries (upon which so many technologies depend) require cobalt, tantalum, germanium, and other rare earth elements that the DRC possesses in abundance. Some geologists estimate that Congo’s mineral wealth is worth up to $24 trillion.

China has taken a two-pronged approach to the DRC. It has bribed successive presidents for lucrative and exclusive mining concessions and simultaneously sold high-tech weaponry to support its investment in President Félix Tshisekedi, who now seeks an unconstitutional third term. Meanwhile, U.S. officials still celebrate Tshisekedi as a democrat. Under Michael Hammer, the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa recommended lifting UN reporting requirements on Congolese military purchases, thus injecting an opacity that only benefits Beijing.

Tshisekedi is not an intellectual. He appears to believe that a top-shelf, multibillion-dollar military can buy victory, regardless of his regime’s corruption and general incompetence. Such a dynamic can lead rulers like Tshisekedi to pull the trigger. He has grown increasingly bellicose toward Rwanda, a pro-Western neighbor that has previously fought to protect itself from genocide-era terrorists who now call the DRC home. Anti-Rwanda rhetoric can both distract Congolese from Tshisekedi’s own mismanagement and also serve China’s interests as Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has taken a balanced approach that has effectively blocked Beijing’s ambitions. If a third Congo War erupts—and odds are it will—Trump will be forced to deal with a conflict that could disrupt the twenty-first-century economy just as much as the Arab oil embargo disrupted the twentieth-century economy.

Chinese interference in the Horn of Africa is an even greater threat. Somaliland, an unrecognized country that is nonetheless the region’s only democracy, also possesses rare earth deposits. It hosts an airfield that, prior to Somalia’s collapse into chaos, was an emergency landing strip for NASA’s space shuttle program, a deep water port that today is one of Africa’s top-ranked facilities, and several hundred miles of strategic coast along the Gulf of Aden. While countries like Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates take a transactional approach between the United States and China, Somaliland stands on principle and openly sides with Taiwan.

China, alongside the Somali government in Mogadishu, has responded by sponsoring an insurgency in Somaliland’s Sool region. The Biden team bizarrely sided not with democratic, pro-Western, pro-Taiwan, and reasonably transparent Somaliland but rather with Mogadishu and Beijing. If Trump does not side unequivocally with Somaliland and recognize it, expect China to increase its efforts to destabilize the country. Simply put, it is impossible for Trump to stand up to China without working to checkmate its projects in Africa.

China Vs. Taiwan

The one possible conflict for which Trump’s team recognizes the need for preparation is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Make no mistake: Taiwan is not China. Historically, it has been distinct for most of the last 500 years. Even Mao Zedong recognized that Taiwan was as distinct from China as Korea.

Taiwan, however, is not simply the single island that many Americans picture. It also includes several outlying islands—some in the Taiwan Strait and some further afield. Trump’s advisors must not assume, as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy-designate Elbridge Colby does, that China would “go big” with an immediate effort to conquer Taiwan’s main island. After all, the Taiwan Relations Act does not cover the islands Matsu or Quemoy, the epicenter of the Eisenhower-era Taiwan crises, let alone those further afield like Taiping or Dongsha.

For Beijing, Chinese “salami slicing” tactics in the South China Sea have been a success. Why should they change them now? Rather than simply address a theoretical invasion of Taiwan proper, Trump needs to determine in advance whether he will stand down should that invasion come in slow motion. After all, if China occupies Dongsha or Matsu absent American pushback, it is conditioning the American public for inaction.

Every president enters office with an agenda, but reality quickly intrudes. Biden allowed problems to fester, and the weakness and vacillation of aides like Blinken only encouraged irredentists and adversaries.

The foreign policy crises Trump does not expect and that his aides hope to ignore will likely define Trump’s legacy in ways he does not now imagine. Trump side-stepped wars in his first administration. He may not be so lucky in his next one.

Michael Rubin is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum.

Image: M2M_PL / Shutterstock.com.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 Drone is a Sky Demon

Wed, 08/01/2025 - 22:04

If there is one untold, or completely misunderstood, geopolitical story of the twenty-first century, it is the rise of Turkey as a great power. Possessed of an Islamist political ideology and a commitment to restoring Turkey’s long-dead Ottoman Empire, the country that sits at the “Crossroads of Civilization,” between Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, is the only great power that has seen its political power and military strength enhance since the dawn of this century.

One area where Turkey is showcasing its newfound power and potency is in the realm of indigenous weapons. Turkey is a global leader in drone technology and its Bayraktar TB2 Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is a perfect exemplar of Turkey’s military technological prowess. The TB2 is known for having reshaped the dynamics of contemporary warfare with its affordability, effectiveness, and adaptability.

The History of TB2 Drones

Built by Baykar Makina, a Turkish defense contractor for the Turkish Air Force, the Bayraktar TB2 has become a massively popular system both in Turkey’s Armed Forces and as an export model. It has enjoyed extensive service with the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they war against their neighbor, Russia, for control over the eastern portion of Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula (both of which Russia views as its own).

A common theme of Turkey’s development as a major military technological power is that Ankara is consistently denied access to key American and NATO military assets. And because Turkey is prevented from gaining access to advanced Western technologies, Ankara has endeavored to become militarily self-sufficient. That is precisely what has occurred over the last decade.

So, again, after the Americans embargoed Turkey from purchasing armed drones (because the West did not want those systems being used by Turkey against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in the Middle East), Turkey’s domestic drone industry was catalyzed into action. The TB2 made its initial flight in August 2014. By 2021, the drone had logged over 400,000 flight hours globally.

The Specs

Turkey equipped the TB2 with advanced systems allowing for both autonomous and remotely controlled operations. Constructed predominantly of carbon fiber and Kevlar, this V-tail-signature craft has proven itself time and time again over the last decade, meaning that Turkey has become an unmanned aerial vehicle-producing superpower. The TB2 carries a payload of up to 330 pounds.

TB2s integrate electro-optical, infrared cameras, and laser designators (and laser range finders), making these birds a perfect ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) craft as well as effective for targeted strikes.

It has an operational altitude of 25,000 feet and an endurance of 27 hours, meaning that the TB2 can remain over targets for a protracted time, augmenting the user’s real-time battlefield information flow (granting greater situational awareness upon the force deploying the TB2).

Over the years, TB2s have participated in conflicts in Syria and Iraq. They were used to neutralize enemy air defenses on behalf of Turkish-backed elements fighting in war-torn Libya. In the brutal Nagorno-Karabakh war, Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan deployed TB2 drones so well that many believe these systems led to Armenia’s defeat in that conflict.

A Powerful Export Model

As noted above, though, the TB2 drones became most well-known internationally for their use by Ukrainian forces against the invading Russians, giving the TB2 positive press.

In all the conflicts these drones have fought, they have performed brilliantly, making them a key system that Turkey produces. What’s more, the relatively cheap price of individual TB2s (around $5 million), makes these drones an attractive purchase for nations operating under constrained defense budgets.

Nearly twenty-four foreign nations have purchased these drones from Turkey, boosting Turkey’s arms industry as well as Turkey’s national influence and prestige.

Thanks to the unqualified success of the TB2 program, Turkey has invested in a new round of systems augmenting the capabilities of the TB2. For instance, the even more advanced Bayraktar TB3 has been developed as well as the Akinci, promising greater strike and surveillance capabilities—at affordable rates—than what the legendary TB2 provided.

Turkey has arrived as a great regional power and its indigenous arms industry proves this. It is now only a matter of time before Turkey exerts its power beyond its present borders. Indeed, it has already started enhancing its power in the Middle East. The Bayraktar TB2 (and subsequent drone systems) are but a few of the symbols proving Turkey’s return to greatness.

Image: Flickr.

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

Boeing Awarded $615 Million Contract for F-15 Electronic Warfare Upgrades

Wed, 08/01/2025 - 21:20

Boeing is set to move full-rate production (FRP) for its electronic warfare (EW) kit that will be employed on the U.S. Air Force's fleet of F-15E Strike Eagle and F-15EX Eagle II aircraft. On Monday, the aerospace firm was awarded a $615 million Pentagon contract for the F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS) FRP, which will see the multirole aircraft updated with the kits through the end of 2030.

"This contract provides for procurement of Group A and Group B kits, system engineering program management, and interim contractor support lay-in material," the Department of Defense (DoD) announced.

The EPAWSS was developed in a partnership between BAE Systems and the U.S. Air Force to replace the analog F-15 Tactical Electronic Warfare System (TEWS) and promises to increase the survivability of the F-15 from modern air defense platforms. Initial operational and test evaluations were conducted last year.

"BAE Systems is currently on schedule in support of Boeing's F-15 EPAWSS LRIP [low-rate initial production] activities and is looking forward to supporting Boeing in the FRP [full rate production] phase of the program," Kevin Fournier, EPAWSS program director at BAE Systems, said in a statement, per Breaking Defense.

A highly capable electronic warfare (EW) suite, EPAWSS is an all-digital radar warning, geolocation, situational awareness platform that was developed to aid in the detection and to counter surface and airborne threats in what BAE Systems describes as " highly contested, dense signal environments." It further provides radio frequency (RF) electronic countermeasures (ECM), while it is smaller and lighter than previous EW platforms employed in the F-15. The number of chaff and flare dispensers has also been increased with a full dozen holding 360 cartridges.

"EPAWSS is a leap in technology, improving the lethality and combat capabilities of the F-15E and F-15EX in contested, degraded environments against advanced threats," Explained EPAWSS test director Maj Bryant 'Jager' Baum. "EPAWSS has set the baseline for EW within the fighter community."

The installation of EPAWSS could help deliver on Boeing's efforts to transform the F-15EX into an Air Force version of the U.S. Navy's EA-18G Growler – the EW variant of the carrier-based F/A-18 Super Hornet.

Upgrading the Eagle Fleet

The U.S. Air Force inventory currently includes 218 F-15Es, and according to a December 2023 Pentagon Modernized Selected Acquisition Report (MSAR), 99 of the Strike Eagles will receive the upgrades – while all of the planned 98 F-15EX Eagles IIs that the service is acquiring will be equipped with the EPAWSS.

The numbers are a significant reduction noted in an April 2022 Select Acquisition Report (SAR), which stated that the procurement quantity would include "217 F-15E and 144 F-15EX aircraft." However, the Air Force scaled back on the upgrades citing the high costs. The totals could still be adjusted depending on how many F-15EXs the Air Force ends up acquiring, while it is also likely the oldest F-15Es (with the most flight hours) won't receive the enhancement given that their remaining service life.

"Used 34 years as a hybrid number for life-cycle since EPAWSS on F-15E has a 24 year while F-15EX has a 44 year life-cycle expectancy," the DoD's MSAR stated.

The work will be carried out at Boeing's facility in St. Louis, Missouri, and by BAE Systems in Nashua, New Hampshire. It was not stated how the work would be divided, but it is likely that Boeing would handle the installation of the EW suite in all of the F-15EX aircraft.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Categories: Diplomacy & Crisis News

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