The National Interest

Stefano Graziosi, James Jay Carafano

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President Joe Biden’s plan to outsource the stability of Europe to Berlin and Paris will bear close watching. Washington and Berlin may find working together far more difficult.

Angela Merkel's long chancellorship is coming to an end. In September, Germany will elect a new government and a new leader. Merkel’s legacy of balancing relations between Washington, Beijing and Moscow will be put to the test.  

There is every expectation that a coalition government will emerge, likely including the Greens. The result will be a pairing of odd bedfellows creating a regime ruled by a fragile consensus with a weird admixture of domestic and foreign priorities.  

In this scenario, President Joe Biden’s plan to outsource the stability of Europe to Berlin and Paris will bear close watching. Washington and Berlin may find working together far more difficult. It may take a great deal more work than previously imagined to keep the transatlantic community stable in the era of great-power competition. 

Even under Merkel, Berlin struggled to find a realistic policy that challenged China’s malicious intrusions into transatlantic affairs without compromising Germany’s interests. For starters, Berlin is Beijing's most important European trading partner. Merkel was the main supporter of the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment—a controversial deal opposed by the United States and many in Europe. Last month, the EU trade commissioner announced the ratification of the agreement had been put on hold after China sanctioned European ambassadors, politicians and academics in response to EU sanctions on officials in Xinjiang Province. 

Merkel was also soft on Chinese 5G technology, despite widespread security concerns flagged by the United States and others. Last December, the German government introduced a bill that required companies involved in building 5G networks to ensure that their equipment was not used for espionage and terrorism. The bill was deemed too bland by “Chinese hawks,” who instead pushed through a law giving the government the power to block “untrustworthy” 5G technology providers.  

Meanwhile, Chinese shipping giant Cosco was in talks with Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG to take over a minority share of one of the container terminals in the port of Hamburg—a move reportedly made with the approval of the German government. This has also sparked controversy.

Nevertheless, at the last G7 Summit, the chancellor continued to cautiously oppose the hard line on China, mainly advocated by the United States.  

Merkel's balancing act doesn’t stop with China. The chancellor has strongly supported the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia and shown interest in partnering on the production of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. She also recently called for a “direct contact” between the European Union and Russia, a move rebuffed by several European nations.  

Even within her party, there is dissent. That was clear during the competition for the election of the new party leader. Former MEP Friedrich Merz, a staunch supporter of NATO, called for strengthening transatlantic relations and adopting a tougher approach towards Beijing. He garnered the most votes in the first round of a three-way race for party chairman, only to lose narrowly in the second ballot.

Armin Laschet, the eventual winner of the party contest and the front runner to become the next chancellor, looks to try to follow Merkel’s lead. “I support the government's China strategy,” he recently told the Financial Times. “We must talk about our concerns (on human rights) but there is no need to turn our China policy on its head.” He also told a conference organized, by the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, he wanted a softer approach towards Russia.  

Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party is also soft on China. Its candidate for the chancellorship, Olaf Scholz, is the current vice chancellor and finance minister. He favors cooperation with Beijing in the digital economy sector. Another important member of the Social Democratic Party, the current Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, recently said “In the EU, we have been describing China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time” he said. “In all these three dimensions,” he added, “we need strong, sustainable communication channels with Beijing. De-coupling is the wrong way to go.”

Some opposition parties, however, take a different view. Currently running second in the polls, the Greens candidate for chancellor—Annalena Baerbock—has called for more pressure on Russia and opposed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. She is also a harsh critic of Beijing. Tough positions towards Beijing are also held by the Free Democratic Party. 

The geopolitical implications of the upcoming federal elections, therefore, remain uncertain at the moment. The two most likely scenarios are: either a grand coalition made up of CDU, Greens and Social Democratic Party or a grand coalition made up of CDU, Greens and Free Democratic Party. The second scenario might well drive changes to German foreign policy, especially in regard to China and Russia—producing a weird admixture of alignment and discord with the U.S. 

Both governments will likely align on one issue, getting the United States back in the Iran Deal. This is one point of common ground that is not likely to help either government. Behind the scenes, many admit the Iran Deal is bound to fail to restrain Iran in the end. The hope is it will give allies time to develop alternatives and proceed with a unity of effort. That seems just wishful thinking. In the end, the transatlantic community will likely be as bedeviled by Tehran as Beijing and Moscow.

The reality is, in addition to not solving their Iran problem, the United States will be frustrated in outsourcing transatlantic solidarity to what will be, at best, ambivalent German leadership. Washington won’t see Western allies stem Beijing's influence and fight to hold Moscow accountable.

Looking ahead, Washington cannot rely on Berlin for much. As a result, rather than disengaging from Europeans, the Biden administration will find itself spending more time across the Atlantic or risk losing ground to Beijing, Moscow and Tehran at the same time.  

Stefano Graziosi is an essayist and a political analyst who writes for the Italian newspaper La Verità and the weekly magazine Panorama. Heritage Foundation Vice President, James Jay Carafano directs the think tank’s research in matters of national security and foreign relations. 

Image: Reuters

Kevin J. McNamara

economy, Europe

Pre-pandemic economic and social progress looked very good for Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, and troubling for Germany and France. If these trends resume—and there is no reason to think they won’t—the East will soon outshine the West.

AS EUROPE emerges from the depths of quarantine and recession, its geopolitical landscape will reveal a significant change, the result of trends that emerged before 2020. Since these trends disturb a status quo that sustains illusory feelings of confidence and superiority among elites in Western Europe, it can only slowly, and barely, be acknowledged.

Before the pandemic, many saw the East-West divide of the European Union (EU) as a “Rich Man-Poor Man” rift between a prosperous, modern, worldly Western Europe, on one hand, and a poor, backward, isolated Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), on the other. Western leaders easily took a skeptical and condescending tone toward the EU’s eastern members, in large part due to the lingering perception of these states as the misfortunate orphans of Nazi and Soviet rule. To say nothing of the low opinion of Central and Eastern Europe in popular culture; in Paris and Berlin, Central Europe is viewed as a regional backwater—Europe’s version of West Virginia.

Indeed, right up until the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe liberated themselves from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, they were routinely ignored, misunderstood, or ritually described as “backward.” One of the most popular English-language books about Europe, The Europeans, by Luigi Barzini, focuses on Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the former West Germany—and, weirdly, even the United States—but not a single country in Central or Eastern Europe. And neither the European Union nor its predecessor, the European Economic Community, ever called themselves West European, even though until 2004 all of their members were located in Western Europe. In Brussels, “Europe” usually means Western Europe.

Yet some CEE countries are, in terms of national progress, becoming the equals of, and even superior to, France and Germany—two EU founders and its two largest, wealthiest members. Recent statistical measures of economic growth, employment, income, prosperity, strong currencies, life expectancy, tax and debt burdens, global engagement, Chinese economic penetration, innovation, entrepreneurship, manufacturing, immigration, crime, and terrorism all show that four ex-Soviet satellites on the EU’s eastern frontier—the Visegrád Group or V4—demonstrate better performance than France or Germany in almost every benchmark metric.

And why is this important? Because the better-performing CEE countries are undermining the reputations, governance models, and leadership of Berlin and Paris, and evident, systemic failings by the EU’s Western European capitals can only sustain the populist, or “illiberal,” politics of Central Europe and Eastern Europe. West European elites are understandably not anxious to confront their widespread, persistent policy failures, so they remain little-known. But the long-established reputations of Paris and Berlin are being undermined by reams of data. Western Europe still sports larger economies, higher incomes, and longer life expectancies, but these represent a fading legacy of decades of prosperity and peace that was denied to the EU’s eastern members. The indicators in which some CEE states still lag, like corruption or pollution, are similarly an inheritance of ex-communist rule. Pre-pandemic economic and social progress looked very good for Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, and troubling for Germany and France. If these trends resume—and there is no reason to think they won’t—the East will soon outshine the West.

THE ECONOMIES and finances of the V4, for example, are far healthier across many sectors than France and Germany. Pre-pandemic data indicated that the four Central European countries were rapidly gaining on the economic prosperity and financial stability of Europe’s two largest powers. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the Visegrád Four long enjoyed significantly higher levels of economic growth and employment than Paris or Berlin. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the V4 grew an average of 4.3 percent in 2018, compared to 1.6 for France and Germany. In both Hungary and Poland, the growth of GDP was 5.1 percent, more than three times the average rate for France and Germany. The worst growth rate among the V4—Czechia’s 3.0 percent—was still double Germany’s growth rate. Given Germany’s stellar reputation as Europe’s economic powerhouse, this is significant. Yet inflation remained mild across all four Visegrád countries, ranging from 1.7 percent in Poland to 2.9 percent in Hungary.

Slower growth was forecast for France and Germany in 2020, even before the coronavirus pandemic, with the International Monetary Fund predicting 1.1 percent growth for Germany and 1.3 percent for France. Somewhat slower growth was also forecast for the V4 countries—from 3.3 percent for Hungary to 2.6 percent for Czechia—but again, the worst-performing V4 country was still going to enjoy a rate of growth expected to be double that of France and even better than Germany’s. And some analysts saw this trend continuing for at least another decade. A recent HSBC Global Research report, The World in 2030, anticipated the V4 countries would continue vigorous GDP growth rates of 3.4—3.6 percent to the year 2030, when it forecast a 0.9 percent growth rate for Germany and a 1.1 percent rate for France.

The economies of the V4 are more vigorous in many other respects. Commercial real estate investment in the V4, for example, was still skyrocketing in the first quarter of 2020, when more than €3.78 billion was invested in the four countries, plus Romania. This was an increase of 79 percent over Q1 2019 for these countries. By contrast, Germany’s growth in real estate investment was 35 percent, France’s was 21 percent, and the average for Western Europe was 51 percent. And speaking of real estate, Warsaw will soon host the tallest building in the entire European Union, Varso Tower, in a project led by a Slovak developer, HB Reavis.

Given this, it is unsurprising that the V4 nations also enjoyed higher levels of employment than Germany and France, both on average and in most one-to-one comparisons. Average unemployment in the Visegrád countries in 2018 was 4.1 percent, while it averaged 6.3 percent in France and Germany. The latter’s poor showing was due almost entirely to France, whose steep 9.1 percent rate would be associated in the United States with a serious recession. Yet Czechia enjoyed a lower rate (2.3 percent) than even Germany (3.4 percent). Hungary’s rate of 3.7 percent was only slightly higher than Germany’s, and every V4 country had much less unemployment than France.

Skeptics of high GDP growth in the V4 countries, of course, can point to their EU subsidies. Indeed, Slovakia received €11.3 billion in EU funds in the most recent seven-year budget cycle (2007–15) and is set to receive €13.8 billion in the current (2014–20) cycle. Czechia received €23.3 billion in the previous cycle and is budgeted for €21.6 billion in the new cycle; Hungry got €27.7 billion previously and is in line for €21.5 billion; and Poland got €61.6 billion before and is getting €76.9 billion now.

Yet there are serious flaws in this approach. Despite the fact that Germany is the largest net contributor of EU funds, its economy has benefited the most under the euro, gaining €1.9 trillion from 1999 and 2007, or about €23,000 per German. Berlin’s economy benefits from the EU’s eurozone in many ways, according to Bertelsmann Stiftung, a respected German think-tank. Without the euro, Germany’s GDP would be about 0.5 percentage points lower, taking it down to 1 percent in 2018 (see GDP figures above). By 2025, the benefits could amount to €170 billion more for Germany. The higher German GDP also accounts for about 0.5 percent less unemployment.

In fact, the GDP of almost every EU member is higher as a result of the integration of Europe’s economies, according to a study by the American Chamber of Commerce of the EU, and France and Germany enjoy an even higher percentage increase in annual GDP than do the V4 countries. According to the report, Germany gained a 1.55 percent increase in GDP per capita, and France gained 1.14 percent, while the gains for the V4 ranged from 0.79 percent for Czechia to 0.49 percent for Poland. 

Even if EU subsidies account for some portion of the GDP in the V4 countries, the issue of dramatically lower rates of GDP growth in France or Germany hang over the issue and beg a question—is it smart for Paris and Berlin to “impoverish” themselves by allotting billions of euros to other countries while their own economies sputter?

AS A result of stronger economic growth and lower unemployment, Central European incomes were growing dramatically and gaining on incomes in France and Germany, both of whose national incomes have stagnated for decades. Starting out in poverty and isolation under communist rule in 1989–91, average national income in Slovakia rose from 50 percent of Europe’s average in 2000 to 75 percent by 2017—a 50 percent increase. Incomes rose in Hungary from 53 to 65 percent of Europe’s average, from 53-70 percent among Poles, and from 62–76 percent among Czechs. 

France and Germany, meanwhile, have long been accustomed to stagnating—even declining—national incomes as far back as 1980. In France, national income was 117 percent of the European average in 1980 but fell to 110 percent by 2017. In Germany, income was 126 percent of the average in 1980 and 123 percent in 2017. At this rate, V4 national incomes will match the European average in two decades.

EVEN MORE remarkable is the failure of the euro, one of the central “achievements” of the EU, championed by Germany and France. Twenty years after its introduction, according to the Centre for European Policy (CEP), a German think-tank, most countries that adopted the euro have experienced a drop in prosperity. While the economies of Germany and Denmark have gained by adopting the euro, five of the eight countries CEP studied—Spain, Belgium, Portugal, France, and Italy—all suffered negative impacts, ranging from about €5,000 to almost €74,000 per person. Italy’s losses totaled €4.325 billion, and France’s were €3.591 billion from 1999 to 2007. Greece experienced a modest gain in this period, but all of it before the crash of 2008–09; in every year since, Greece has suffered increasing drops in per-capita GDP. 

While the CEP study has its skeptics, a recent report on the twentieth anniversary of the euro from the European Parliament acknowledged,

While the euro may have contributed to some efficiency gains, it seems to have done little to facilitate intra-euro-area trade … and the process of greater financial integration has thus far provided to be a destabilizing factor for the euro area rather than a force for sustainable growth.

This currency—lacking a common state, budget, or finance ministry—will always remain hostage to its weakest members, which makes the euro very weak indeed. This is why Czechia, Hungary, and Poland have thus far avoided the eurozone.

AVERAGE LIFE expectancy across Western, Central, and Eastern Europe is 78.3 years, as measured by the United Nations for the years 2015–2020, and it is 82.5 years in France and 81.1 years in Germany. Despite living very impoverished lives as recently as 1991, however, life expectancy in the V4 countries has been advancing rapidly, pegged now at 79.2 years in Czechia (an increase of 6.7 years since the period 1990–1995), 76.6 years in Hungary (an increase of 7.2 years), 78.5 years in Poland (7.3 more years), and 77.3 years in Slovakia (up by 5.7 years). During this same period, the average increase in life expectancy was only 5.1 years in both France and Germany.

This is supported by health and welfare metrics moving in unexpected directions. Such metrics still show mixed results in comparisons between France and Germany, on one hand, and the V4 countries, but it remains surprising, for example, that the 2019 Bloomberg Global Health Index scores show Germany dropping seven places, from the sixteenth to the twenty-third healthiest country, while Hungary moved up four places and Czechia and Slovakia each moved up one place, albeit with overall lagging health scores.

IN THE Visegrád countries, the tax burden on both individuals and families is lighter, reflecting an average of 4.6 percent of GDP in these four countries, whereas it doubles to an average of 9.7 percent of GDP on the French and Germans. Total national taxes are also higher in France and Germany, which collect taxes amounting to an average 45 percent of GDP, while in the V4 countries that average is 36 percent.  

Despite lower taxes, government debt is also lower in Central Europe, with total public debt in the V4 countries averaging 50.3 percent of GDP in 2018, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office. Paris and Berlin do much worse on debt, and in ways that undermine the stability of the euro. National debt rose to 60.9 percent in Germany and a whopping 98.4 percent in France. This is not only a policy failure and a sign of weak leadership, but it shows how Berlin and Paris break EU rules rather than lead by example—yet without any criticism that they undermine the “rule of law,” so often invoked by critics of the EU’s easterly members.

The Maastricht Treaty governing the EU prohibits its members from incurring debt in excess of 60 percent of GDP, a rule long violated by France and Germany. Indeed, public debt has been growing among most eurozone members since the financial crisis of 2008, and France ranks among seven nations with the highest government debt ratios. Hungary, meanwhile, is the only V4 country whose 2018 debt likewise exceeded the EU’s threshold; Prague, Warsaw, and Bratislava all obeyed the rule.

Stronger economies and fiscally conservative governments made Central and East European countries better prepared than West European countries to weather the covid-19 pandemic and recession, according to financial analysts. In the V4, a report in Euromoney said, 

Government debt-to-GDP levels across the region have declined substantially over the last decade on the back of strong economic growth, falling borrowing costs, and prudent budget management. This means most [V4] countries have room for fiscal stimulus to mitigate the impact of coronavirus.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development forecasted a GDP contraction of 4.3 percent for the eight Central European countries it monitors but said the region will “bounce back strongly in 2021.” By comparison, in the eurozone—which includes Slovakia but none of the other V4 countries—the economy will contract by 8–12 percent, according to the European Central Bank.

REFUTING AN impression that the V4 countries are isolated, backward, and unable to compete, they are much more engaged in the global economy than either Paris or Berlin. Exports account for an average of 73.4 percent of GDP in the V4 countries, while imports account for 70.8 percent. By comparison, exports account for an average of only 30.2 percent of GDP for France and Germany, and imports account for 28.4 percent. As with their rates of GDP growth, moreover, exports of goods and services are growing in the V4 countries, increasing an average of 5.3 percent in 2018 over the prior year, compared to France and Germany’s anemic growth rate of 2.8 percent. To put this in perspective, if the Visegrád 4 were one country, according to an analysis by Brussels-based Carnegie Europe, “they would be by far Germany’s largest trading partner, with an annual turnover in bilateral trade nearly twice the size of China.”

Global engagement at the most personal level—travel and tourism—shows that Hungary has a higher ratio of tourists to local residents, 145 percent, than does France at 126.4 percent, and that Hungary, Czechia (109.2 percent), and Poland (43.4 percent) all have higher ratios of foreign visitors to locals than does Germany (43.3 percent). Another example of Central and Eastern Europe’s larger global role is the €7.7 billion that has been invested in the CEE’s commercial real estate market by East Asian sources since 2013—with South Korea leading the pack—a mere €1 billion less than Europe’s economic giant, Germany, has invested. Another sign is the twenty-six Indian software firms—one of which employs 2,000 people—that established operations in 2019 in Hungary, where more than 20,000 Chinese expatriates are also working.

While foreign direct investment is important to the V4, the largest driver of Hungary’s booming national economy is a 15 percent annual surge in wages. Partly as a result, Budapest ranked number one in 2018 in housing price increases across 150 cities worldwide, while Berlin ranked twenty-ninth and Paris sixty-third, placing the City of Light behind Bucharest, Romania; Bratislava, Slovakia; Warsaw, Poland; and Sofia, Bulgaria.

DESPITE ITS more expansive engagement with the world, Central and Eastern Europe have avoided the high levels of Chinese state-driven investments in key industries that is widespread in Western Europe, where Beijing’s role and influence is often hidden. Since 2012, when China launched its 16+1 initiative to invest billions in sixteen CEE countries, there has been much alarm about Chinese economic influence in this region, especially since eleven of the sixteen countries are EU members.

Yet as with so many issues, the real picture is the opposite to what the alarmists imagine. In fact, Chinese economic penetration of Western Europe far surpasses its role in Central Europe. Overall, Beijing’s investment in all EU-member countries has risen dramatically since 2000, from fewer than 500 million euros to more than 3.5 billion euros in 2018, according to Dutch data sciences firm Datenna, whose “China-EU FDI Radar” tracks Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU to provide greater transparency regarding the investments and their ties to the Chinese government.

There is often a significant government role in such investments, which are often disguised as private investments, giving Beijing hidden control or influence inside European industry. “In many of the European mergers and acquisitions, Chinese state influence was effectively hidden by layers of ownership, complex shareholding structures, and deals executed via European subsidiaries,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Datenna’s analysis of the complex structures concludes that Chinese parties have acquired 479 companies in Western Europe (including Cyprus and Malta), with Chinese government influence in at least 181 of them. In Central Europe, there were only forty acquisitions and in only twenty-one of them does Beijing exercise influence.

The EU’s own European Court of Auditors agrees with this broad outline of the problem, saying in a recent report that “it was difficult to obtain complete and timely data and thus to gain an overview of [Chinese] investments,” and that “concerns have been raised … in the EU about the dependence on Chinese investments in strategic industries [and] their concentration in sensitive or strategically important sectors.” Yet the agency’s country-level data also reveal that every one of the top thirteen recipients of Chinese investments are in Western Europe, while thirteen of the fifteen countries that receive the least investment are located in Central and Eastern Europe.

THE V4 countries, moreover, have embraced both entrepreneurship and innovation, and they are outpacing France and Germany, sometimes dramatically, in these areas. For instance, it would surprise no one that higher levels of education would help spark higher levels of innovation, but many might be surprised to learn that three Polish cities have larger percentages of people with higher education than either Berlin or Paris, and that the populations of the capitals of V4 countries Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia have higher levels of post-secondary education than Berlin.

One result is that patent applications increased in 2018 by an average of 21 percent over the previous year across all four Visegrád countries, according to the European Patent Office (EPO), while in France and Germany applications increased by fewer than one (0.95) percent. In France, applications actually fell by 2.8 percent. The best-performing Visegrád country was Hungary, which enjoyed a 26.3 percent increase in applications, while the worst was Czechia (17.5 percent), whose increase in patent applications was still almost four times as great as Germany’s (4.7 percent). The average increase for all thirty-eight state members of the EPO was 3.8 percent. 

The V4 capitals of Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw were ranked in February 2019 among “The Best 50 Cities for a Startup in the World,” according to Valuer, a start-up incubator in Copenhagen, which ranked Bratislava, Slovakia, and Wroclaw, Poland, among “25 Up-and-Coming Startup Cities to Watch.” Speaking of cities, a study of the CEE’s business climate ranked all EU cities of 250,000 or more people by productivity (GDP per person), connectivity, and human capital. Of the top twenty cities, sixteen were in Central and Eastern Europe and eight were in the V4.

Manufacturing, in general, is stronger in three of the V4 countries than it is in France, Germany, and, indeed, most West European countries, according to one very reputable industry study. Cushman & Wakefield’s “2020 Global Manufacturing Risk Index” ranks Czechia, Hungary, and Poland among its top twelve countries, alongside the United States and China. Germany is ranked alongside Slovakia in its third tier, while France is ranked in the fourth tier along with nine other West European countries.

With so much business activity, corporate aviation is soaring in the V4 countries. While growth in the size of aviation fleets declined 1.7 percent on average across Europe since 2017, they jumped 41 percent in Czechia and 37.5 percent in Poland. Looking forward, Central and Eastern Europe has almost two aircraft on order for every five aircraft in service, indicating much greater ambitions for growth than Western Europe, which has ordered just over one aircraft for every four in service.

Higher rates of technological adaptation in the V4 countries are driving higher rates of innovation and entrepreneurship. The adoption of digital technologies across all major EU industries, for example, is higher in Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia than in France or Germany, according to a 2019 survey of 13,500 firms across Europe by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB ranked Czechia among Europe’s top five “frontrunner” countries; Slovakia placed among the next nine “strong” countries, Hungary led the next category of eight “moderate” digitizing nations—outperforming France and Germany in this same category—and Poland lagged in the middle of the final seven countries with “modest” levels of digitalization. Czechia and Slovakia also rank above the EU average, while France and Germany rank behind it.

These statistics are even more striking in light of the fact that, according to the EIB study, “larger firms have higher rates of digital adoption than smaller firms,” and Western Europe’s much larger and more mature economy likely has many more larger firms, on average, than Central and Eastern Europe. Digitalization matters because, according to the study, “Digital firms perform better and are more dynamic: they have higher labor productivity, grow faster, and have better management practices.”

The technologies being adopted in CEE countries include both hardware and software. Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia, for example, rank in the top one-half of countries using industrial robots, according to the HSBC Global Research report, based on the ratio of robots per worker, and Slovakia ranks even higher than France in its usage of robotics. Broadband speed is higher in Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland than it is in France or Germany. Moreover, Czech cyber-security group Avast was in 2018 the largest tech initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.

Perhaps innovation and entrepreneurship are flourishing in Central Europe because one of the V4 countries outranks Germany in measures of economic freedom, and all four of them outrank France, according to the Heritage Foundation’s “2020 Index of Economic Freedom.” The index places Czechia and Germany in the “mostly free” category, but with Czechia out-ranking Germany. The index ranks the other V4 countries as “moderately free,” along with France, which is outranked by the entire quartet of V4 countries in the annual study’s twelve measures of economic freedom. The V4 still have progress to make, according to the annual competitiveness rankings of the World Economic Forum and the Swiss research group, IMD, but they are gaining on a Western Europe whose competitive position is stagnant or declining.

THE MOST significant violation of the law in the EU also had the largest negative consequences, yet it is hardly even acknowledged that there was something rather willful about German chancellor Angela Merkel’s very personal decision in 2015 to allow more than one million migrants into Europe. What followed were waves of violence and terrorism not seen in Europe since World War Two, the rise of new populist and Euro-skeptic parties, and a steady string of electoral defeats for Merkel that stalled any new leadership initiatives by Berlin or Paris.

Two years after her decision, the German Bundestag concluded there was no legal basis for Merkel’s decision, and her government offered none. She neither put the issue to the EU nor the Bundestag but simply discussed throwing open Europe’s borders with a few aides. A detailed report by Der Spiegel said Merkel ignored pleas by her Interior Minister and the head of the German Federal Police that she stiffen border controls. She also violated both Germany’s asylum laws and the EU’s “Dublin rule,” which agreed that all migrants be returned to the EU country-of-entry. Perhaps most important, EU treaties do not call for open borders on Europe’s frontiers.

Merkel later made it plain that the decision was purely personal. In an interview with a German newspaper in August 2017, she said—referring four times to her decision’s personal nature—“I’d make all of the important decisions of 2015 the same way again. It was an extraordinary situation, and I made my decision based on what I thought was right from a political and humanitarian standpoint” (italics added).

MERKEL’S DECISION prompted a surge in terrorism, which the V4 countries avoided. The vast majority of deaths and injuries from terrorism in Europe were due to jihadist terror during the period 2011–2019. The data shows clearly that terrorism spiked in 2015, the year Merkel opened Europe’s doors. The number of jihadist incidents (completed, failed, or foiled attacks) jumped from four in 2014 to seventeen in 2015. Deaths shot up from four to 150, and arrests ballooned from 395 to 687. By 2019, all three data points remained dramatically higher than before 2015.

France in particular ranks first among European nations for jihadist violence, but Western Europe generally sees a great deal more terrorism than does Central Europe. Of the seventeen jihadist attacks across Europe in 2015, fifteen of them occurred in France, where 377 people were arrested for jihadist-inspired terrorism. Germany was among six other West European countries that had between twenty and seventy-five jihadist-related arrests.

The V4 countries, on the other hand, had five arrests among them and zero attacks.

More recently, France ranked first and Germany second for completed, failed, or foiled jihadist attacks (seven) in 2019, and Western Europe accounted for seventeen of eighteen jihadist incidents that year. France also ranked first for jihadist arrests, with 202 in 2019, and Germany came in third, with thirty-two arrests (Spain was second with fifty-six suspects). West European countries accounted for 411 of Europe’s 436 arrests of jihadist-terror suspects in 2019. That year, the V4 countries arrested a mere three suspects.

Of course, France and Germany have much larger populations than the V4 countries, but the annual ratio of terror arrests during the period 2017–19 ranged from 1:179,357 people to 1:331,188 in France, while the highest annual ratios in any V4 country ranged from 1:2.6 million people in Czechia to 1:9.6 million in Poland.

Terrorism has not been the only consequence of the migrant crisis. About 1,200 women were assaulted by as many as 2,000 men on New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Stuttgart, and other German cities, according to the national police. Holger Münch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, said, “There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration of 2015.” In a related development, female genital mutilation is growing dramatically in Germany due to immigration, increasing by 44 percent since 2017, according to German Minister Franziska Giffey, who issued a report in June 2020, citing greater immigration from countries where the practice is common.

The migrant crisis aside, rates of crime and violence have been reaching historic lows in the V4 countries, trending downward for ten years in three of the countries—while crime in Germany remains stubbornly high and is increasing in France, according to statistics from Eurostat. The murder rate in Czechia in 2018 was about half its 2009 rate. In Hungary, the rate is 61 percent of its 2009 level and in Poland, 55 percent. While declining slightly, Slovakia’s relatively high murder rate is comparable to France’s, ranging from 1.0 to 1.5 murders per 100,000 people in the years 2016–18. Germany’s murder rate is comparable to current rates in the V4, but in both France and Germany murder remains at the same level since 2009, showing no progress.

The incidence of rape is almost twice as high in France as it was a decade ago, and its twenty-nine-plus rapes per 100,000 people in 2018 were almost five times the number in Czechia (6.14), which has the highest incidence of rape in the V4 countries. Germany’s incidence rate has remained stable at about ten rapes per 100,000 people, but that is dramatically higher than all four V4 countries. Even Hungary—where rapes have increased from 2.27 in 2009 to 5.53 in 2018—has about one-half of Germany’s rate.

Theft is also much more common in France and Germany than in the V4. Theft is five times more likely in Germany, and almost eight times more likely in France, than it is in Poland. The worst rate in the V4—Hungary’s 656 thefts per 100,000 people in 2018—is about half Germany’s rate and less than a third of the rate in France. Incidents of theft dropped 42-57 percent in all V4 countries since 2009, but remain stubbornly high in France, while Germany reported a slight decrease since 2016.

While the worst effects of the migrant crisis were blunted by the leaders of the V4 countries, the future of the EU is now on hold. EU immigration policy remains unclear since the V4 countries rebelled in 2016, creating border controls to stem the flows of migrants, which Western Europe criticized—and then copied. This was the first breakdown of the EU’s Schengen Zone open borders accord. Five years later, the EU is still wrestling to craft an immigration policy its members can support.

The Merkel-made crisis crippled very ambitious plans by French president Emmanuel Macron to deepen and strengthen the EU. It also led to a third consecutive defeat for Merkel’s governing coalition in local elections on October 29, 2018. The next day, Merkel announced she would surrender leadership of her party and step down as chancellor in 2021, creating a lame-duck administration that would last three years.

Finally, many analysts believe Merkel’s migrant crisis led to the Brexit vote of 2016, both for reasons related to terrorism, but also because EU member states and their voters were not consulted. Alain Finkielkraut, the French philosopher, said, “If it weren’t for Merkel’s Wir schaffen das (‘We can do this’) and the million migrants Germany took in in 2015, Brexit wouldn’t have happened. That sent a shockwave through Europe. Europeans weren’t asked.” In Great Britain itself, Justice Minister Dominic Raab made a pro-Brexit speech in which he said, “It is undeniable that regaining control over our borders would be a valuable defensive tool in protecting Britain from future terrorist attacks.”

IT REMAINS to be seen how many more ways the EU can fail itself, but it is clear that the enterprise is failing in Western Europe, not Central Europe, and this is due to the actions of Berlin and Paris, not Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, or Warsaw.

In the twilight years of his eventful life, French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau warned besieged Polish leaders seeking his advice to avoid the example set by their West European peers, since their customs, he said, “are daily being bastardized by the general European tendency to adopt the tastes and manners of the French.” It seems that much of Central Europe has gotten the message, if not from the French philosopher, perhaps from the wanton examples established by Berlin and Paris.

Kevin J. McNamara is an Associate Scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe, a history of the dramatic role of the Czecho-Slovak Legion in World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the founding of Czecho-Slovakia in 1918.

Image: Unsplash / Bence Balla-Schottner

Ethen Kim Lieser

economy,

To be eligible for this round, individuals must be a resident of California who filed their 2020 taxes and earned $75,000 or less.

Here's What You Need to Remember: 

As the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department continue to send out the remaining $1,400 coronavirus stimulus checks to eligible Americans, the state of California has already moved on to issue even more financial help to its struggling residents. 

Earlier this week, both chambers of the California legislature approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to disburse additional $600 stimulus checks, which have come to be known as “Golden State Stimulus II.” These payments essentially expand on the first round of payments that headed out to eligible Californians in April.  

For that first round, individuals with incomes of less than $30,000 qualified for the checks. But to be eligible for this round, individuals must be a resident of California who filed their 2020 taxes and earned $75,000 or less. They must have also lived in the state for at least six months.

Moreover, families with dependents will receive an additional $500 in direct payments. Another $500 will be issued to undocumented families.  

In all, California state officials are estimating that approximately two-thirds of all residents will receive some form of stimulus payment.

Tenants in California were also recently given eviction protections for another three months, and those individuals with low incomes will have all of their past-due rent covered.  

“California will significantly increase cash assistance to low-income tenants and small landlords under the state’s $5.2 billion rent relief program, making it the largest and most comprehensive COVID rental protection and rent relief program of any state in the nation,” Newsom’s office said in a statement.

For those who are deemed eligible for federal rental assistance, they could potentially be on the receiving end of $25,000 to cover both missed and future rent for up to eighteen months.

“The Treasury (Emergency Rental Assistance) program includes an unprecedented amount of funding for emergency rental assistance to help renters stay stably housed,” writes the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Other states are also taking the initiative to offer more financial help to their low-income residents. For example, New Jersey’s legislature recently approved a $46 billion state budget that green-lighted tax rebates of up to $500 for nearly eight hundred thousand households in the state.

In order to qualify for the full rebate, married couples must have incomes below $150,000 and at least one dependent child. Those individuals who earn less than $75,000 and have at least one dependent child will also be eligible.  

“This is direct tax relief to middle income families and senior citizens who need it most,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney said in a press statement. “The income tax rebate will put money into the pockets of working families so they can support themselves and their children.”  

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters

Michael Peck

U.S. Military History, World

The concept of eliminating the Soviet Union and China as “viable societies" is some heavy stuff. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: The report included questions and answers regarding the various nuclear targeting options. These ranged from attacks on enemy nuclear and conventional forces while minimizing collateral damage to enemy cities, to attacking cities as well as military forces on purpose. This latter option would have been "in order to destroy the will and ability of the Sino-Soviet Bloc to wage war, remove the enemy from the category of a major industrial power, and assure a post-war balance of power favorable to the United States."

“Bomb them back into the Stone Age,” ex-Air Force general Curtis LeMay is reported to have once urged as a way to defeat North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

But it turns out that had global nuclear war erupted during the early 1960s, it would have been the Russians and Chinese who would have reverted to living like the Flintstones.

U.S. nuclear war plans called for the destruction of the Soviet Union and China as “viable societies,” according to documents revealed by the non-profit National Security Archive.

The document in question pertains to the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP, which governs the numerous war plans and their associated options that govern how America would fight a nuclear war. In June 1964, senior military leaders (including Air Force Chief of Staff LeMay) were sent a staff review of the current SIOP.

The report included questions and answers regarding the various nuclear targeting options. These ranged from attacks on enemy nuclear and conventional forces while minimizing collateral damage to enemy cities, to attacking cities as well as military forces on purpose. This latter option would have been "in order to destroy the will and ability of the Sino-Soviet Bloc to wage war, remove the enemy from the category of a major industrial power, and assure a post-war balance of power favorable to the United States."

“Should these options give more stress to population as the main target?” asked one question.

The answer was that Pentagon war plans already included the destruction of cities as a way to destroy the urban and industrial backbone. “This should result in greater population casualties in that a larger portion of the urban population may be placed at risk.”

In another Pentagon analysis “on the effect of placing greater emphasis on the attack of urban/industrial targets in order to destroy the USSR and China as viable societies, it was indicated that the achievement of a 30 per cent fatality level (i.e., 212.7 million people) in the total population (709 million people) of China would necessitate an exorbitant weight of effort.”

This was because of China’s rural society at the time. “Thus, the attack of a large number of place names [towns] would destroy only a small fraction of the total population of China. The rate of return for a [nuclear] weapon expended diminishes after accounting for the 30 top priority cities.”

Note that while annihilating one-third of China’s population was deemed uneconomical, the U.S. military took it for granted that the Soviet Union and China would be destroyed as viable societies.

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Interestingly, Russia and China would be reduced to the level of Conan the Barbarian—but not Albania. “Should there be capability to withhold all attacks in Albania, Bulgaria and Romania?” asks the document.

The answer was that “the capability should exist to withhold attacks against Soviet satellites (either individually or collectively).” Other documents state that potential nuclear targets included the Sino-Soviet bloc—but not Yugoslavia.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Rachel Bucchino

Tax Return,

You're not the only one.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The coronavirus pandemic forced the agency to halt in-person operations to mitigate the spread of the deadly disease, prompting the returns to pile up. This poses major challenges for the IRS, as some low-income families are depending on the money from their 2020 tax refund.

The IRS is swamped with a massive backlog of 35 million tax returns that still need to be manually processed, according to a new report released Wednesday from a government watchdog.

The report from the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent entity within the agency, noted that the backlog includes about 16.8 million paper tax returns, nearly 15.8 million returns that are suspended for further review, and an additional 2.7 million amended returns. The backlog is a fourfold increase from 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic forced the agency to halt in-person operations to mitigate the spread of the deadly disease, prompting the returns to pile up, according to the report. But the backlog poses major challenges for the IRS, as some low-income families are depending on the money from their 2020 tax refund, as well as the economic relief provided to individuals during the pandemic, like stimulus checks and child tax credit.

“For taxpayers who can afford to wait, the best advice is to be patient and give the IRS time to work through its processing backlog,” Erin Collins, the National Taxpayer Advocate, wrote in her report to Congress. “But particularly for low-income taxpayers and small businesses operating on the margin, refund delays can impose significant financial hardships.”

The report comes as the IRS has been distributing the third round of direct relief to eligible Americans. And now, the agency is tasked with pumping out the child tax credit to millions of families who qualify. The enhanced credit is also available to low-income families who don’t normally file taxes since they do not make enough money to file.

The IRS could also gain a load of other responsibilities, as President Joe Biden is pushing for the agency to manage the growing tax gap, particularly to remain laser-focused on wealthy individuals who may engage in tax dodging. The bipartisan infrastructure package set aside money to boost funding for the IRS.

John Koskinen, former IRS commissioner under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, pinned the blame on Congress for implementing too many requirements on an agency with already low funds.

“It’s a problem, but nobody should be surprised. You can’t keep loading more things on an agency without enough people and expect things to go smoothly,” Koskinen told The Washington Post. “The problem is not with IRS employees who work very hard. It’s with Republicans in Congress who have refused to provide adequate funding for 10 years.”

From 2010 to 2018, a report from the House Committee Budget found that the agency’s funding has fallen by about 20 percent and as a result, the IRS has been less prepared to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and other tax-related needs.

“Taxpayers cannot experience similar challenges in future filing seasons,” Collins wrote in the report. “We cannot allow the agency to face the staffing and technology limitations it has experienced this past year.”

Rachel Bucchino is a reporter at the National Interest. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill.

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

U.S. Navy, Global

If it does things wisely, the U.S. Navy can turn technical shortcomings to strategic and political advantage.

Here's What You Need To Know: Adding American boats would impart mass to the fleet—further easing the challenge of keeping enough boats plying the deep. The more subs in the rotation, the shorter voyages can be. Bottom line, having the fleet make its home near likely Asian hotspots would solve many ills, as would expanding and diversifying logistics arrangements

What madman would propose adding diesel submarines to the U.S. Navy’s all-nuclear silent service?

There are a few. The topic came up at an early March hearing before the U.S. House Seapower and Force Projection Subcommittee. Representatives from three teams that have compiled competing “Future Fleet Architecture” studies convened to debate their visions with the committee. Published by the Navy Staff itself, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and the MITRE Corporation, the studies explore everything from overall ship numbers to the types of hulls comprising the future fleet to the mix between manned and unmanned platforms.

Navy potentates will now evaluate and compare the studies. The end product will be an official navy statement about force-structure questions, useful to Congress as lawmakers determine how many—and which—ships, planes, and armaments to fund. One consensus, however, already unites the protagonists to this debate: the U.S. Navy needs more of just about everything. The navy estimates it needs 355 vessels to fulfill its missions in increasingly contested settings, principally around the margins of Eurasia. That portends about a 30 percent boost to the force.

A naval expansion of such proportions will put a premium on low-cost yet effective platforms that can be acquired in bulk. Diesel-electric submarines constitute one such platform. The last boat in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) Soryu class—a class widely acclaimed the world’s finest of its kind—ran Japanese taxpayers $540 million. Let’s use that as a benchmark for discussion. Meanwhile, each Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack boat sets back American taxpayers a cool $2.688 billion. That’s five for the price of one—a low, low price by any standard!

Reports Megan Eckstein of USNI News, however, Charles Werchado, the deputy director of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ assessments division, “firmly denounced” the MITRE analysts’ vision of a hybrid nuclear/conventional submarine force. Quoth Werchado:

“If I was a country like China, I would buy a lot of diesels because I know you’re going to come and fight me here at home. We have to deploy, and the only way to deploy is to bring your own fuel with you. When we buy a Virginia, it comes with a lifetime of fuel. So I have nothing against diesel submarines, but you have to say, am I’m going to be fighting within 200 miles of where I’m based at? Or else now I have to buy extra oilers. I’m going to make them vulnerable when I refuel them; they’re going to have to snorkel and they’ll become vulnerable. It’s just not an option for us as long as we have to be a global navy."

He thus objected to diesels based on geography, logistics, and military capability. Let’s take those objections in turn. First, geography. Werchado’s critique seemingly presupposes that a U.S. diesel contingent would be based on U.S. territory—in other words, no closer to East Asia than Guam. QED: diesels are a non-starter. They would be positioned too far from the Yellow and East China seas, a likely combat theater, to do much good. And indeed, the cruising-range limitations on diesel boats are real and immutable. But let’s not overstate their impact. Distance can be managed through savvy force dispositions on the map.

In fact, if it does things wisely, the U.S. Navy can turn technical shortcomings to strategic and political advantage. Here’s how: it could procure a squadron of diesel boats in large numbers, station it permanently in the Far East, close to potential scenes of action, and place it under a combined U.S.-Japanese submarine command. Doing so would confer a host of benefits. Forward basing would obviate the range problem. For instance, Soryu-class boats boast a cruising range of 6,100 nautical miles—more than adequate for prowling the depths in Northeast Asia. A U.S.-Japanese force founded on a common hull—whether the Soryu or some other design—could presumably match or exceed this performance.

Nor would this represent some leap in the dark. Diesel subs have proven themselves in Northeast Asia across many decades—witness the U.S. submarine campaign against Japan during World War II. And after six-plus decades of practice dating to the JMSDF’s founding, Japanese subs excel at regulating east-west movement through the first island chain, as well as north-south movement along the East Asian periphery. Indeed, undersea warfare represented one of Japan’s chief contributions to allied strategy during the Cold War. Japanese boats lurked along the island chains to detect and trail Soviet subs trying to exit the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk for the broad Pacific Ocean. Soviet skippers commonly sheltered within Asia’s near seas rather than make the attempt.

This constitutes an ideal approach for an age when island-chain defense is regaining its prominence in allied maritime strategy. Want to deter China from seizing the Senkaku Islands or venturing other forms of aggression? Threaten something Beijing prizes dearly, namely ready access to the Western Pacific. Proliferate subs in Northeast Asia, and demonstrate the capability to use them to bar the straits piercing the first island chain. That should give Beijing pause when the leadership contemplates adventurism. If it’s good for China to procure diesels for anti-access/area-denial purposes in the near seas, then it’s good for Americans and Japanese if they want to deny the denier access it covets.

So the strategic logic cuts both ways. Now think about such a deployment from an alliance-relations standpoint. China is a breaker of alliances. It hopes to divide the allies into manageable bits while dislodging the United States from its strategic position in the Western Pacific. Accordingly, Tokyo fears abandonment by its superpower patron. How better to make a statement about American steadfastness than by permanently forward-deploying a fleet of submarines to Japan while embedding U.S. boats and crews within a multinational command? That would show America is in Asia to stay.

And heck, if Tokyo and Washington were willing to take the diplomatic heat from Beijing, they could even equip the Taiwan Navy with a flotilla of diesel boats built on the common design. The George W. Bush administration offered Taipei eight diesel submarines sixteen years ago. But no American shipbuilder has constructed conventional subs in decades, while no foreign government was prepared to help construct the craft—and thereby incur Beijing’s wrath. The deal languished.

Now might be the time to consummate it. Supplying the boats would help Taiwan defend itself, replacing its flotilla of two Dutch-built subs of 1980s vintage and—astonishingly—two World War II-era relics. And furnishing Taipei with boats interoperable with the U.S.-Japanese diesel fleet would allow for coordinated operations should the allies summon the political moxie to work with Taiwan. A diesel program, then, could open new strategic and diplomatic vistas.

Second, logistics. The U.S. Navy combat-logistics fleet doubtless needs expanding, but not because of prospective conventional subs. Forward-deployed U.S. boats would presumably adopt Japanese logistical patterns, meaning they would go on patrol and refuel in port after returning from sea. Now, the allies could stand to bolster their shore logistical arrangements. China’s military would not exempt Japanese seaports such as Yokosuka and Sasebo from attack in wartime. If it did so it would grant its foes a safe haven for naval warmaking. Missile strikes would be sure to come, and might impair or disable shore infrastructure—starving the fleet of precious fuel and stores.

To cope with this prospect, the allies should rediscover their Pacific War past. During its westward advance across the Pacific, the U.S. Navy fashioned techniques and hardware to refuel, resupply, and repair ships from dispersed, often improvised island bases. The allies should ransack history for insight—thinking ahead about how to use Japan’s many islands and inlets as impromptu logistics hubs. But again, the allies need to make themselves resilient as a matter of course. After all, the conventionally powered surface fleets based in Japan need fuel too. And nuclear-powered warships need every other form of replenishment except fuel for their main engines. (Try running aircraft-carrier flight operations without jet fuel.) Logistical demands, in short, are hardly unique to diesel subs.

And third, diesel subs’ supposed vulnerability. Diesel subs have to surface periodically to snorkel, taking in air to help power their engines. They’re exposed to radar detection while snorkeling. Soryu-class boats, however, sport “air-independent propulsion” that lets them stay submerged for up to two weeks. JMSDF commanders and their political masters evidently find the design wholly adequate, while Japanese submariners have mastered tactics and deployment patterns that let them reach Northeast Asian patrol grounds, loiter on station for a satisfactory amount of time, and return to port.

Adding American boats would impart mass to the fleet—further easing the challenge of keeping enough boats plying the deep. The more subs in the rotation, the shorter voyages can be. Bottom line, having the fleet make its home near likely Asian hotspots would solve many ills, as would expanding and diversifying logistics arrangements. Such measures, furthermore, would cow prospective antagonists while comforting allies and friends. This constitutes a promising venture in manifold respects.

The MITRE proposal, then, deserves a fair hearing—not denunciation. Every ship in a global navy need not be a globe-spanning ship. Diesel submarines are an option for the future U.S. Navy. Whether to exercise that option is the question before Congress and the navy.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.

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

Image: Reuters.

Warfare History Network, Michael D. Hull

Security, Europe

FDR unveiled an ambitious program for building 10,000 military aircraft a year with no increase in supporting forces.

Key Point: On April 23 (St. George’s Day), 1939, FDR made one of the most significant choices of his presidency.

Shortly after the infamous accord on September 29, the president instituted a series of White House meetings at which he and his military advisers discussed the ominous situation in Europe. One of the early formal sessions was attended by the Assistant Secretary of War, the Solicitor General, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Army and Air Corps Chiefs of Staff, and a tall, blue-eyed, and courtly brigadier general named George C. Marshall, who had recently been appointed the Army Deputy Chief of Staff and head of the War Plans Division.

An Army Smaller Than Portugal’s

FDR unveiled an ambitious program for building 10,000 military aircraft a year with no increase in supporting forces. As the proceedings drew to a close, the president summed up his plan and turned to Marshall, whom he scarcely knew. “Don’t you think so, George?” he asked. Marshall replied, “I am sorry, Mr. President, but I don’t agree with that at all.” The general was painfully aware of the state of America’s defenses and knew that it would require much more than airplanes to rectify the situation. The U.S. Army, numbering only 174,000 men, was ranked 19th in the world, just behind that of tiny Portugal.

Roosevelt gave a startled look, and the outspoken Marshall received expressions of sympathy from the other conferees, who feared that his promising tour of duty in Washington was about to come to a swift end. But they underestimated both the president and the general, and stiff formalities were observed. FDR never again called Marshall “George” in public, and the general always called FDR “Mr. President.” He refused to succumb to the well-known Roosevelt charm and determined never to laugh at his jokes.

On April 23 (St. George’s Day), 1939, FDR made one of the most significant choices of his presidency. Vaulting over 34 names on the senior generals’ rank list, he asked Marshall to succeed retiring General Malin Craig as Army Chief of Staff. In a hasty ceremony at the old Munitions Building in the nation’s capital, Marshall took the oath of office on Friday, September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. He was promoted automatically to four-star rank.

Revitalizing the Army: “A Fight for its Very Life”​

With Great Britain and France allied against Germany and the expansionist Japanese rampaging in China and threatening stability throughout the Far East, Marshall faced the possibility of both a global conflict and a mammoth task at home. The U.S. Army was a threat to no one. Its divisions were half under strength and scattered, it had no combat-ready units, and joint two-week maneuvers were conducted only every fourth year. “During the lean years,” he observed, “the Army’s fight for personnel was a fight for its very life.”

Enthusiasm and resources for a large army were lacking. Instead of 800 men, many infantry battalions could muster only 200, including clerks and cooks, and equipment was hopelessly obsolete and inadequate. Marshall was no interventionist, but it was his responsibility to prepare the Army for a modern war. Despite opposition from the Navy, the Air Corps, isolationists, Congress, and even the president, Marshall went to work with decisiveness and often drastic moves. He gave his best effort.

Reorganizing the Military Bureaucracy

Marshall set out early to reorganize the War Department, where the thinking and bureaucracy had advanced little since 1919. He sought to create “some kind of organization that would give the chief of staff time to devote to strategic policy and the strategic aspects and direction of the war.” There were too many people reporting to him, and too many forced to approve too many documents before the War Department shambled into action.

The major change was the elimination of the fiefdoms of the major generals commanding the infantry, cavalry, field artillery, and coast artillery, each of whom jealously guarded his service branch and personal prerogatives. Marshall was intent on creating a unified, efficient army rather than a loose collection of separate services. The reorganization was undertaken by a committee headed by blunt, ruthless Maj. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, a former Air Corps pilot.

Efficiency was stressed, and the men immediately below Marshall were given increased authority. Instead of 60 officers having access to the chief of staff, the plan reduced the number to six. Nevertheless, Marshall often plumbed the lower ranks to hear from younger men with worthwhile ideas. The new Army was made up of three commands—the Ground Forces, led by the bantam, energetic Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, Marshall’s longtime friend from World War I; the Services of Supply, under Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, a hard taskmaster; and the Army Air Forces, commanded by genial Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold. For his command post, Marshall reorganized the War Plans Division and renamed it the Operations Division.

Arnold had the authority to mold the Army Air Forces into an effective bombardment and pursuit force capable of challenging the powerful Luftwaffe, while Somervell was responsible for procurement, supply, support services, morale, and military justice. McNair had the job of turning loosely disciplined, unmotivated ground troops into a fighting army. Regarded by Marshall as “the brains of the Army,” McNair recognized the primacy of the foot soldier. “Our Army is no better than its infantry,” he pointed out, “and victory will come only when and as our infantry gains it. The price will be predominantly what the infantry pays.”

Working with the Executive Branch

While undertaking the massive reorganization, Marshall also found time to institute another reform in America’s military command structure. His plan to reorganize the Joint Chiefs of Staff proved to be one of his most enduring achievements.

Marshall worked closely with his immediate civilian superior, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and managed to cultivate a good relationship with Admiral Ernest J. King, the irascible Chief of Naval Operations, despite fierce Army-Navy rivalries. Marshall gained the cooperation of Congress and worked harmoniously with President Roosevelt, though in temperaments and habits they were oddly matched. After harboring doubts about him until the Pearl Harbor attack, the austere general came to trust and respect FDR for his intelligent, decisive leadership. “It took me a long time to get to him,” Marshall noted.

A Young Lieutenant George Calett Marshall

George Catlett Marshall was born in Uniontown, southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday, December 31, 1880, the youngest son of a stern, prosperous coalfield owner, Democrat, and Episcopal vestryman. Nicknamed “Flicker,” the gangling, red-haired boy became fascinated with local history, but his progress in school was indifferent. Sensitive and shy, he floundered in grammar, spelling, and mathematics and was an average student in everything but history. Benjamin Franklin and General Robert E. Lee were his early heroes.

Young George decided on a military career, and the Virginia Military Institute was the first choice because several Marshalls had attended the school. His grades remained unimpressive, but the young man mastered drill regulations and enjoyed exercising command. He grew into a model cadet and advanced from first sergeant to first captain. Meanwhile, he courted a 26-year-old woman who would become his wife—auburn-haired, shapely Elizabeth “Lily” Carter Coles of Lexington, Virginia. Graduating from VMI in late 1901, Marshall received his commission as a second lieutenant in January 1902 and was assigned to the 30th Infantry Regiment stationed in the Philippines. After a hasty marriage and brief honeymoon with Lily that February, George kissed her goodbye and headed for a remote, dismal Army post on Mindoro Island.

At the end of 1902, Lieutenant Marshall and his company were transferred to bustling Manila, where he borrowed cavalry mounts and took up riding, which would become his lifelong recreation.

Marshall was posted back to the United States in November 1903, and served at Fort Reno in the Oklahoma Territory. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1907 and graduated that year from the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He graduated from the staff college there in 1908, and remained as an instructor until 1910.

America’s Premier Soldier

Flicker Marshall’s career got into gear when America entered World War I in April 1917. That July, he went to France as a staff and operations officer with Maj. Gen. William L. Sibert’s 1st Infantry Division. Marshall quickly showed a flair for staff work and leadership, and the experience prepared him for his considerable role in the later world war.

Promoted to temporary colonel in August 1918, Marshall moved up to the staff of the U.S. First Army. The following month, he accomplished a brilliant feat of staff work by overseeing the rapid night movement of 500,000 troops, 2,700 guns, and 40,000 tons of ammunition from St.-Mihiel to the Argonne Forest for the big Meuse-Argonne offensive. Marshall continued to move upward in the Army hierarchy, gaining recognition as a first-rate staff officer and trainer. He was appointed operations chief of the First Army in October 1918, chief of staff in the Eighth Corps the following month, and served as an aide to Pershing in 1919-1924. Pershing championed Marshall’s career and later directly petitioned President Roosevelt to consider him for Army Chief of Staff.

After having reverted to the rank of captain, Marshall was promoted to major in 1920 and lieutenant colonel in 1923. He served with the 15th Infantry Regiment in China in 1924-1927, and then was named assistant commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he left a strong imprint on the tactics the Army would use in World War II. Promoted to colonel in 1933, Marshall commanded the 8th Infantry Regiment at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, served as senior instructor of the Illinois National Guard, and was promoted to brigadier general in 1936. Two years later, he was attached to the Army General Staff.

Although he had never commanded a division or been in action, Marshall proved to be the ideal man—intelligent, resolute, and widely respected—to build and lead the Army when his unready nation was thrust into global war. He assumed Pershing’s mantle as America’s premier soldier.

“We Cannot Have a Political Club and Call it an Army”

Marshall inspired and guided almost every aspect of the Army’s growth and effectiveness —recruitment, mobilization, training, logistics, commissions, racial problems, utilization of women, and morale, one of his primary concerns. He traveled widely, usually by air, from camp to camp to check on conditions and needs. He moved without parades or other ceremonies and made morale a “command responsibility.” He also went in civilian clothes to visit the towns near large bases.

Marshall was seeking to build a citizen army based on “respect rather than fear; on the effect of good example given by officers; on the intelligent comprehension by all ranks of why an order has to be.” He said, “We must treat them [draftees] as soldiers; we cannot have a political club and call it an army.”

Marshall respected officers with initiative who did not wait to be told what to do and encouraged them to disagree with him when necessary. He insisted on concise briefings, sought to “expunge ponderosities,” used telephones sparingly, and instituted 9 am show and tell sessions that kept him on top of military and political situations around the world.

Marshall Gives the Go-Ahead on the Iconic Jeep

Marshall remained a firm believer in staff initiative. One day early in 1941, he was conferring with some generals when then Major Walter Bedell Smith came in to report the plight of a salesman who was being given the runaround in Washington. His company had designed a small, lightweight, low-silhouette vehicle that could carry four or five soldiers and be lifted out of mudholes by its passengers. The blueprint had been rejected by the Ordnance Department, but, from his days as an instructor under Marshall at the Infantry School, Smith believed that such a vehicle could be useful to the Army.

“Well,” asked the chief of staff, “what do you think of it?” Smith replied, “I think it is good.” Marshall responded crisply, “Well, do it.” And that was how the durable quarter-ton jeep entered Army service, used for myriad functions in all theaters of operations during the war. By the end of 1945, a total of 653,568 jeeps were in service—634,000 delivered to the Army and almost 20,000 to the Allies and the other services.

Marshal’s “Little Black Book” of Generals

Marshall found it necessary to be ruthless when it came to upgrading the Army for combat and weeding out officers he considered unsuited for it. “The present general officers of the line are for the most part too old to command troops in battle under the terrific pressures of modern war,” he had told a columnist. “Many of them have their minds set in outmoded patterns and can’t change to meet the new conditions they may face if we become involved in the war that’s started in Europe. I do not propose to send our young citizen soldiers into action, if they must go into action, under commanders whose minds are no longer adaptable to the making of split-second decisions in the fast-moving war of today, nor whose bodies are no longer capable of standing up under the demands of field service.”

So Marshall screened the roster of senior generals to see who could lead an army or corps in combat and eliminated all except the gallant German-born Walter Krueger, who would lead the Sixth Army with distinction in the Pacific War. Meanwhile, the chief of staff compiled a list of officers—some known to him and some recommended—in whose judgment he had confidence. The names in his “little black book” included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, Mark W. Clark, Courtney H. Hodges, Jacob L. Devers, George S. Patton, Jr., J. Lawton Collins, Alexander M. Patch, William H. Simpson, Lucian K. Truscott, and Robert L. Eichelberger.

These men achieved distinction, but Marshall was not infallible in his choices of fighting generals. He overlooked the able James Van Fleet, and three of his chosen corps commanders had to be relieved—Lloyd R. Fredendall after the Kasserine Pass rout, Ernest J. Dawley after the near disastrous Salerno invasion, and John Millikin after the Rhine River crossing at Remagen.

Under Marshall’s wise leadership, the U.S. Army was shaped into an effective fighting force. By the time it began lining up beside the British to fight the Germans in 1942, its combat strength had increased more than tenfold. The Army grew from 1.8 million men in December 1941 to 8.25 million by the war’s end.

“Modern Battles are Fought by Platoon Leaders”

Marshall’s buildup of the Army from a loose peacetime conglomeration into a mobilized, hard-hitting force capable of challenging the seasoned Germans and Japanese was a remarkable achievement. After some humiliating reverses in North Africa, the Pacific, and Italy, it matured into the most powerful army America had yet put into the field. Although he had seen no combat, Marshall understood the realities of 20th-century war, particularly the key role of infantry in any land campaign. “Modern battles are fought by platoon leaders,” he said. “The carefully prepared plans of higher commanders can do no more than project you to the line of departure at the proper time and place, in proper formation, and start you off in the right direction.”

Marshall’s Relationship with the British​

Marshall enjoyed a cherished relationship with Field Marshal Sir John “Jack” Dill, head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, and when the latter died in November 1944, Marshall skirted regulations to enable him to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Dill and Maj. Gen. Orde C. Wingate are the only British officers to be laid there.

But Marshall and the British clashed over strategy a number of times during the war. He had proved himself a brilliant organizer but was less sure footed in his approach to the most important strategic choice facing America in World War II: when and where to deploy U.S. forces on a large scale. He correctly supported the Germany first strategic priority, but the timing he proposed was premature and caused serious misunderstandings with the British. He advocated a cross-English Channel invasion in 1942, when manpower and resources, particularly landing craft, were limited, and which, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rightly warned, would have been catastrophic.

Marshall fiercely opposed the North African campaign and pressed again for an invasion of France in 1943. But manpower and resources were still inadequate, the U.S. Army had still not gained enough experience against the hard-fighting Germans, and the Allies had yet to achieve mastery in the Atlantic and in the skies over Europe. A cross-Channel invasion in 1943 would have carried great military risk.

Operation Overlord: The Choice Between Marshall and Eisenhower

From his Washington desk, Marshall coordinated the operations of American armies around the world, and coordinated these operations with the Navy and the Allied forces. But he was far more than a chair-borne manager of U.S. military resources. He became a leading figure in the U.S. and Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff and attended all the wartime summit conferences. He also visited the armies in the field—from Algeria to New Guinea, from Anzio to Normandy, and from Belgium to Holland—and maintained intellectual and emotional contact with the fighting fronts. Marshall made a special point of talking to subalterns and enlisted men without the presence of their superiors and used liaison officers to prowl the combat zones and report on conditions, needs, and GI morale.

The chief of staff viewed war in the same basic terms as General Ulysses S. Grant: go after the enemy and smash him. Marshall’s simple strategy was to mass the maximum possible weight of men, materiel, and firepower against the enemy where he considered success would bring the swiftest and most decisive results. To him, the armed forces’ singular responsibility was total victory.

Roosevelt insisted that Marshall should command Operation Overlord but wavered when the moment of decision came. FDR left it to Marshall, who refused to request the post. The president then appointed General Eisenhower, telling Marshall, “Well, I didn’t feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington.” The chief of staff was crestfallen but characteristically never uttered a word of complaint.

Only One Medal for the War

Marshall saw the great army he had forged mature in combat from North Africa to the Pacific, from the Aleutian Islands to Sicily and Italy, and take its place alongside the British, Canadians, Free French, and Poles in the great crusade across the English Channel on June 6, 1944. After bitter struggles in Normandy and a critical setback in the Ardennes, Marshall’s force vaulted across the Rhine and into the Third Reich as Nazi resistance faltered and then crumbled.

The chief of staff was promoted to five-star general in December 1944, and on November 26, 1945, he received his only American military decoration of the war—a second oak leaf cluster to the Distinguished Service Medal he had been awarded in 1919. He had refused U.S. decorations during World War II, saying that it was not proper for him to accept such honors as chief of staff and while men were dying. President Harry S. Truman had reluctantly accepted Marshall’s resignation on November 20, and General Eisenhower became the new Army chief of staff.

Two Cold War Cabinet Positions

Churchill hailed Marshall in 1945 as “the true organizer of victory” and called him “the noblest Roman of them all.” Time magazine honored him twice as its “man of the year,” and President Truman said, “In a war unparalleled in magnitude and horror, millions of Americans gave their country outstanding service. General of the Army George C. Marshall gave it victory.” Truman termed him “the greatest military man that this country has ever produced.”

Marshall was gone from the War Department, returning to his home in Leesburg, Virginia. But his respite was short lived. Late in 1945, Truman sent him to China in a bid to avert a civil war between the Nationalist Kuomintang government and Mao Tse-tung’s Communists. Marshall’s force of character was unsuccessful in bringing about a durable compromise, but the experience proved beneficial when Truman appointed him Secretary of State in January 1947. Marshall resigned his Army commission the following month.

On June 5, 1947, Secretary Marshall went to Harvard University to receive an honorary degree. In his speech, he outlined a program of foreign assistance—the largest ever undertaken by the U.S. government—to help war-torn European countries, including Germany, restore their economies. He invited the Soviet Union to participate, but it refused and responded by tightening its control over Eastern Europe. The momentous Marshall Plan, which laid the foundations for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the Atlantic alliance, was hailed by Churchill as “the most unsordid act in history.”

Marshall left the cabinet in January 1949, but returned in September 1950 as Secretary of Defense. He held the post for a year during the early phase of the Korean War and retired permanently from public affairs in September 1951. In war and peace, he had given his country sterling service for more than half a century. Marshall acted briefly as President of the American Red Cross and was awarded the Nobel Prize, primarily for his plan for European recovery, on December 10, 1953.

The warrior’s health failed, and he was taken to Walter Reed Hospital in the spring of 1959. He suffered a stroke, grew frail, and died quietly on the evening of Friday, October 16. Marshall had left instructions ruling out a state funeral, saying that he wanted no eulogy or long list of honorary pallbearers, and a private interment. On October 20, after a brief, simple service in the Fort Myer (Virginia) Chapel, attended by President Eisenhower and former President Truman, Marshall’s body was taken by caisson to Arlington National Cemetery. He was buried down the hill from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as an honor guard fired rifle volleys and taps was sounded.

Originally Published in 2018.

This article by Michael D. Hull originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Kris Osborn

MQ-4C Triton,

There are only a few Triton’s operating in the Pacific Ocean area, leading some to believe more might be needed to address the threats and vast geographical expanse of the region.

Just when concerned observers, weapons developers, lawmakers and other critics began to lament the “lower-than-expected” numbers emerging from the administration’s budget proposal, and advocates for medium-to-large drones began to fear that upgraded platforms such as the Triton maritime surveillance drone might be reduced or even eliminated, there is reason to rethink those worries.

While there is what the Navy calls a “procurement pause” regarding Navy plans to acquire some new weapons such as the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft, military service leaders appear quite committed to the longevity of the drone, in part through a series of massive upgrades in the areas of Multi-Intelligence gathering capability. 

“Investment in MQ-4C’s Multi-Intelligence configuration is critical to the execution of the Navy’s Maritime Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance and Targeting Transition Plan that will enable the sundown of the legacy EP-3E,” Navy spokeswoman Courtney Callaghan told the National Interest.

The MQ-4C Triton drone, a Navy-specific intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance asset now operating in the Pacific theater, has been specifically engineered to operate in a maritime environment, meaning it can change altitude as needed, track moving targets on the ocean, sense through weather obscurants and function with “de-icing” technologies for extreme environmental conditions. It uses an inverse synthetic aperture radar, which is an imaging technology that develops rendering or two-dimensional images of high-value targets by tracking movements at sea.

Despite this tactical advantage, there are only a few Triton’s operating in the Pacific Ocean area, leading some to believe more might be needed to address the threats and vast geographical expanse of the region. However, while procurement of new Tritons may be “paused” at the moment, Navy officials tell the National Interest that it is now immersed in a series of targeting and command and control upgrades to the Triton in order to prepare it for long-term service life. 

During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on the Department of the Navy fiscal year 2022 budget Request on June 15, 2021, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday explained the service’s emphasis upon intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance hardening, reliability, targeting, networking and command and control.

“The two biggest challenges that we’re getting after on unmanned are one—reliability. So, the engineering plants have to be reliable so they can operate primarily unattended. The second is command and control and we feel like we’re on a good path on both. But . . . we don’t have any intentions of scaling any of these efforts until we get to a place where we’re comfortable with both of those aspects,” Gilday said.

Stating that “since arriving in Guam in January 2020, MQ-4C has executed over 2,100 ISR hours which has enhanced maritime situational awareness in the theater,” Callaghan seemed to indicate the Navy’s commitment to “targeting” upgrades for the Triton. 

Targeting, command and control, long-range sensing, and extensive multi-domain networking are a few reasons why the service may be looking for drones like the Triton to fly in future high-end warfare environments, despite being less stealthy than other smaller drones. 

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters.

Warfare History Network, Al Hemingway

Security, Asia

The Battle of the Hook was a coalitional effort to resist the communists and secure the hill. 

Key Point: On July 27, an armistice was signed, ending the Korean conflict.

Peering intently through a telescope, General Lemuel C. Shepherd, the commandant of the Marine Corps, scanned the shell-pocked Korean terrain in front of his position. Shepherd had made a special visit to the Korean front lines to obtain a firsthand view of the Main of Line of Resistance (MLR) his Marines were defending. In the early spring of 1952, under orders from the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea, the entire 25,000-man 1st Marine Division had moved from the east-central sector of the country to the western part of I Corps to man positions along the extreme left flank of an area called the Jamestown Line. In early March the Marines, joined by the attached 1st Korean Mari­ne Corps, completed the move. Maj. Gen. John T. Selden, 1st Marine Division commander, now had 32 miles of harsh country to defend.

The Hook

Shepherd, for his part, was concerned about the leathernecks’ difficult assignment. In front of their positions was a small speck of land protruding beyond the MLR like a huge thumb. This seemingly insignificant feature, called the Hook by those who had to defend it, dominated the approach to the vital Samichon Valley. The landscape surrounding the Hook was a defender’s nightmare—steep, rugged hills inundated the countryside. If the Chinese managed to break through the Marines’ lines, they could march unhindered all the way to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. As poor a military position as the Hook was, the Marines had no alternative but to occupy it. In enemy hands, the consequences would be catastrophic. Chinese occupation of the Hook would afford a corridor for the enemy to outflank the right flank and reach the Imjin River. This in turn would not only cut off the Marines from the adjacent 1st Commonwealth Division, but also probably render the entire United Nations position beyond the Imjin untenable.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1952, Marines and other Allied units battled the Communists for the various hills and other important terrain features. These bitter, sharp clashes were dubbed “the outpost battles.” In early October, the 7th Marines occupied the Jamestown Line near the Hook. To keep a watchful eye on their adversaries, the Marines established two small combat outposts, Seattle and Warsaw. On October 2, the Chinese struck at Seattle and seized it. Concerned about the Hook, the defenders decided to create another position dubbed Ronson (so named after a Marine had misplaced his Ronson lighter there after a night patrol) about 275 yards west of the Hook. Warsaw was 600 yards northeast of the salient.

Outmanned and Outgunned

The leathernecks’ main problem was manpower. The Marines, plus attached units, had 5,000 troops to defend the Hook. To alleviate the shortage, “clutch platoons” were organized, using Marine cooks, clerks, and motor transport personnel to perform Minuteman-type assignments. They could quickly be formed into reserve rifle platoons in extreme emergency conditions. The leathernecks were not only outmanned, but they were outgunned. To their front were the 356th and 357th Regiments, 119th Division, and 40th Chinese Communist Forces (CCF). Numbering about 7,000 men, the Chinese also possessed 10 battalions of artillery—something the Marines notably lacked—approximately 120 guns in all. In addition, the Marines also suffered from a severe shortage of 105mm and 155mm howitzer shells.

Enemy activity increased dramatically in the last week of October; thousands of artillery rounds were fired on Marine emplacements. Most of the enemy fire was concentrated on the Hook, Warsaw, and Ronson. Marine and Army artillery units responded, trying to silence the enemy guns. Air strikes and tanks guided by forward observers attempted to halt the incessant bombardment. Everyone was braced for the inevitable assault.

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On the cold night of October 26, a company from the 3rd Battalion, 357th Regiment attacked Ronson’s small group, raining down mortar and artillery rounds. Trying in vain to hold on, the riflemen responded with automatic weapons fire. It was no use—every American defender was killed. While Ronson was being overrun, a large enemy force from the 9th Company, 357th Regiment descended on Warsaw, which was defended by a reinforced platoon from Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Lieutenant John Babson quickly radioed for “box me in” fire (artillery fire that formed a protective shield around the outpost). Despite the heavy shelling, the Chinese penetrated the perimeter. The fighting was hand-to-hand. Just past 7 pm, a clutch platoon was readied to reinforce Warsaw when a radio transmission was received: “We are being overrun.” The outpost was assumed lost. However, just before 8 pm another message requested variable-time fuses to be detonated over the imperiled position. This was the last word heard from the defenders of Warsaw. Only three Marines survived the Communist attack.

As the two outposts were being decimated, a massive bombardment saturated the Hook itself. “Some 34,000 rounds of CCF artillery were used to soften the position before seizure,” Lt. Col. Norman Hicks wrote, “and when the enemy assault came, there were few able to resist.” Captain Paul Byrum’s Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines guarded the important hill. He decided to reconnoiter the ridgeline after receiving a call from Ronson that they were being overrun. He and a sergeant were forced to split up because of the Communist mortar barrage. The sergeant was later killed, and Byrum was buried four times with dirt from near misses.

The Chinese Advance

At exactly 7 pm, the Chinese converged on the Hook in a classic three-pronged maneuver. In less than an hour the enemy had reached the main trench line of Charlie Company. “They were coming over the ridge, gangs of them yelling and blowing horns,” said Pfc. James Yarborough. “They had a horn that sounded like a milk cow. We couldn’t get our guns to work, and we only had two hand grenades. I threw one and my buddy had the pin pulled and was ready to throw the other when he got hit. I threw it.”

Yarborough and his friend managed to emerge from the bunker and lay motionless near the concertina wire on the perimeter. “I lay there and watched the bunker about two and a half hours,” he recalled. “My buddy was still close to it. Finally they came out and it looked as if they were going to shoot him. I still had my carbine and I fired to scatter them. Somehow I got through the wire. My buddy, he got away too.”

Chinese infantrymen breached the wire and infiltrated the trenches. A forward observation team from Battery F, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines directed accurate fire on the enemy attackers. When they lost communications, 2nd Lt. Sherrod Skinner, Jr., directed his men to leave the bunker and continue to fight. Trapped by the overwhelming enemy numbers, he organized a makeshift defensive position and poured fire into the advancing Communists. During the intense combat, Skinner was struck twice while attempting to replenish the machine-gun squads with ammunition and grenades.

Despite their heroic stand, the Marines were outnumbered by the Chinese. Skinner ordered everyone back to their bunkers. Corporal Franklin Roy and Pfc. Vance Worster killed a dozen enemy soldiers before depleting their ammunition. Skinner felt their only hope was to play dead. As the men lay motionless, the enemy searched them. As they were departing, they tossed chicoms (Chinese hand grenades) into the bunker opening. One of the projectiles peppered Worster’s legs with shrapnel. Skinner rolled over on another one, taking the full brunt of the explosion, which killed him instantly.

Although wounded several times, Roy crawled from the sandbagged bunker and discovered a box of hand grenades. He began lobbing them at the enemy until he exhausted his supply. He finally made his way to friendly lines and informed them of what had happened. Unknown to Roy, Worster had already succumbed to his wounds. Skinner was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor, and Roy and Worster received Navy Crosses for their bravery.

The determined attack on the Hook soon forced Charlie Company from its positions. By dawn, the Communists had gained a toehold on the Hook. Marine historian Lt. Col. Robert Heinl, Jr., present during the battle, later commented, “Soon it was apparent that a serious situation confronted the 7th Marines. This was clearly reflected in the faces and demeanor of the regimental commander and executive officer. Enemy fire was unceasing, and his attack continued.” What remained of Charlie Company had climbed a crest overlooking the Hook and began firing down on the occupants. A platoon from Able Company, originally slated to go to Warsaw, joined them there, keeping the Communists in check and preventing their advance.

Retaking the Hook

More reinforcements were needed, however, if the enemy was to be driven from the Hook. Captain Fred McLaughlin’s Able Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines was tapped to link up with Charlie Company and retake the all-important position. McLaughlin had just minutes to devise a plan of attack. He told Lieutenant Stanley Rauh to take a platoon, dig in on the left flank, and deliver as much firepower as possible to create a diversion. Meanwhile, he would take the remaining force of approximately 150 men around the right flank.

Just before daylight, Rauh’s men moved out. As the Marines made their way toward the Hook, the Communist shelling became heavier. When their radio was destroyed by enemy fire, Rauh grabbed a tank’s infantry phone in the rear of the tracked vehicle. Suddenly a white phosphorous round impacted close to them, and Rauh and a sergeant were wounded. The intense heat from the shell fused shut the bolt on Rauh’s carbine and scorched his hands. Because of the lack of water, his men urinated on his hands to stop the burning.

Reaching the command post, Rauh found Byrum still alive. He set out to rescue several isolated pockets of trapped Marines who had been fighting all night. Pfc. Enrique Romero-Nieves picked up an armful of hand grenades and singlehandedly assaulted an enemy bunker. When a bullet shattered his arm, he continued his advance using his belt buckle to pull the pins from the grenades as he moved forward. He survived to be presented a Navy Cross.

Marine and Army rounds began impacting on Warsaw to prevent the enemy from using the position as a forward observation point. Heavy fighting continued at the Hook as Marine tanks positioned themselves on any flat surface they could find and pounded the Chinese now holding fortifications that had been held by the leathernecks a few hours before. Fighter aircraft strafed and napalmed enemy troops attempting to reinforce the Hook from the former Marine outpost on Warsaw. In spite of the superb support, the battle was far from over. The enemy displayed no signs of retreating from the Hook. Rauh recalled: “Communications on the hook were terrible due to the incoming, the terrain and the general confusion of battle. At one point I was talking to the battalion by radio not three feet away from and facing my radioman when a grenade landed on his chest, killing him—I didn’t get touched—only severely jarred. A few moments later a mortar fragment tore the flesh off above my knee.”

The situation at the Hook was desperate. Colonel Thomas C. Moore, Jr., 7th Marines commander, had no choice but to release his last reserve company. Realizing that Able Company and the remnants of Charlie were too weak to push the enemy off the Hook, Moore decided to send in Company H, 3rd Battalion. The enemy, now consolidating forces and moving on the adjacent Hill 146, had to be stopped.

While the beleaguered Marines were immersed in bitter fighting to regain the Hook, the CCF hurled themselves against the nearby outposts of Carson-Reno-Vegas. Defending these positions were elements of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. A patrol from Company E had just set up an ambush when two CCF companies, moving to attack Reno, wandered into their fields of fire. Just as the enemy was about to advance, the riflemen opened fire, catching the Communists completely by surprise. A few hours later the Chinese returned in force, assaulting the Marines’ perimeter in waves. As the enemy pressed forward, the leathernecks took shelter in their reinforced bunkers while artillery from the 11th Marines caught the CCF units in the open, forcing them to retreat. Reno had been saved.

In the predawn hours, How Company slowly made its way toward the Hook. At 8 am, Captain Bernard Belant ordered his company forward. Leading the charge was 2nd Lt. George H. O’Brien, Jr., from Fort Worth, Texas. With his platoon following him, he zigzagged down the slope toward the main trench line. A burst from an enemy rifle struck him in the arm, slamming him to the ground. Undaunted, O’Brien leaped to his feet and continued the assault. He tossed hand grenades in enemy bunkers as he urged his men on.

One eyewitness account of O’Brien’s actions that day noted, “Five gooks jumped out of nowhere and went for O’Brien. The guy must have had tremendous reflexes, because he dropped all five. He was also wounded, but did this stop him? Hell, no! He continued to lead his platoon. He must have been a hell of an officer.” For four hours O’Brien’s platoon held off the Chinese. When they could advance no farther, the platoon formed a defensive perimeter and waited for any enemy counterattack. O’Brien remained with his men until they were relieved by a fresh unit. For his actions at the Hook, O’Brien later would have the Medal of Honor draped around his neck by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In spite of the valorous attempts to retake the Hook, the enemy still held onto it. On the morning of October 27, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines was told to move up and attack. With artillery support from the 11th Marines and additional firepower from four Corsairs, the first platoon had made it to the crest and by mid-afternoon the entire company was advancing. A company of CCF troops was pouring rifle and automatic weapons fire at the leathernecks, who literally had to crawl toward their objective. Chinese gunners were also delivering devastating fire on the regimental command post.

By 5 pm, Item Company Marines had fought their way to the trenches but were forced to pull back when the Communists opened an overwhelming broadside of machine-gun and rifle fire. Most of the riflemen sought refuge on the reverse slope to avoid being caught in an enemy barrage. By nightfall, Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines was assaulting the enemy trenches at the Hook on the left of Company I. Baker Company infantrymen found it tough going as they reconnoitered the many shell craters that dotted the battle-scarred landscape to reach their jumping-off point and strike at the enemy.

Just past midnight on the 28th, the Marines charged, blasting the Chinese with small-arms fire. A flurry of chicoms met the attackers head-on. Throughout the night, Marine artillery hammered the CCF units. By dawn the Hook was taken. Captain Fred McLaughlin, in charge of retrieving any dead and wounded after the battle, later remembered, “I went around an abandoned trench line at one point and there was a face looking at me from the side of the hill. It was just like it was painted on the side of the hill. It was a Chinese trooper who had been blown into the side of the hill, just the face. We dug these people out. I don’t know how many. It seems to me that over a period from 0800 in the morning until 1500 in the afternoon, we probably located 40-50. Most of them were Chinese but we did recover quite a number of American boys who had given their lives up there on that awful hill that day.”

After the savage fighting to seize the Hook, General Mark W. Clark, commander of Allied forces in the Far East, penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett admonishing the Department of Defense for the shortage of artillery shells. The following year, Congress conducted a series of hearings to explore the situation. It was too late for the young men who had died at the Hook. The penetration by the Chinese of the MLR and the capture of the Hook for 36 hours was the first time the enemy had held any Marine outpost for a long time. In the end, the Chinese paid dearly for their incursion, losing 494 killed and 370 wounded. Marine losses were significant as well, with 82 killed, 386 wounded, and 27 missing. The Chinese, however, were determined to capture and hold the valuable piece of land at any price. Soon they would return.

Another Chinese Assault

On November 3, Company D of the 1st Black Watch Regiment and the Canadian Princess Patricia Light Infantry relieved the Marines. Lt. Col. David Rose, commanding officer of the 1st Black Watch Regiment, immediately set out to rebuild and reinforce the fortifications on the Hook, Ronson, Warsaw, the Sausage (a ridge near Hill 121), and Hills 121 and 146. Although the Jocks (slang for British soldiers) did not particularly like their new assignment of digging improved trenches, Rose realized the importance of the task. An improved barbed wire system was installed and communication units laid a new complex pattern of wireless sets and field phones, in some cases doubling and even tripling the number to enhance communications in the event of another attack.

Rose’s elaborate plan was only half completed when, on the night of November 18, Chinese soldiers were spotted by sentries at Warsaw. The enemy quickly overran Warsaw and assaulted the Hook. From their positions at Yong Dong, about 2,500 yards away, machine gunners from the Duke of Wellington Regiment supported the Black Watch by firing on fixed lines across the Samichon Valley and over the heads of the Black Watch. In the end, the Dukes expended over 50,000 rounds in 11 hours. Private Neil Deck of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Princess Pats later recalled, “In total, we were on the Hook three nights that time. On the second and third nights, I dug the trench deeper as it had been destroyed by the shelling. It was cold and the ground was frozen, so I used a pick when I heard a hissing noise coming from the bottom of the trench. I reached down and felt some cloth. Pulling on it, I realized it was a coat with a body inside. It was one of the British. He was bloated and the noise I heard was the air coming out of him after I had punctured him with the pick. I got sick to my stomach again.”

The Chinese withdrew, but a short time later the all-too familiar sound of a bugle pierced the night air as the enemy swarmed back over the Hook with a vengeance. The Jocks of the Black Watch were forced to pull back under the sheer weight of the advancing Chinese. With the support of the Centurion tanks from B Squadron, the Royal Inniskilling Dragoons finally drove off the CCF soldiers, and the Hook was once again in Allied hands.

After a two-month respite, the Black Watch returned to the Hook in January 1953. Companies were deployed to Hills 121 and the Sausage. One company from the Dukes established headquarters on Hill 146. Nothing changed as the Chinese artillery kept up the tempo with steady bombardments. Their guns, secreted in the sides of hills, were pulled out to fire and then rolled back to be hidden away from U.N. spotter planes.

“The Black Watch Do Not Withdraw”

In the spring, the Hook exploded in colors as the fields came alive again with flowers and weeds. There was no time, however, to admire the scenery. On May 7, 1953, an observation plane was shot down as it was attempted to locate Communist artillery pounding Commonwealth positions on the Hook and surrounding hills. The Jocks on Warsaw saw CCF units massing for an apparent assault. After ordering a withdrawal from Warsaw, Rose radioed for artillery support. Corps artillery sent 72 eight-inch shells screaming into the enemy troops. This seemed to take the wind out of the Chinese for the moment.

By 2 am, the Communists were back. This time the British soldiers from Ronson anticipated the enemy’s intentions. The Chinese were cut to pieces as the 20th Field Regiment sent proximity-fused high-explosive rounds and three-inch mortar shells near Ronson. Turkish units assisted the Black Watch with additional support. Fearing that the British unit had been overrun, an English-speaking Turkish officer telephoned the Black Watch CP and talked to Lt. Col. Rose. “How, many casualties have you?” the Turkish officer asked. “A few,” replied Rose. “Have you withdrawn?” the officer asked. “The Black Watch do not withdraw,” snapped Rose.

Rose, however, was close to being overrun; the Chinese had managed to crawl to within a mere 20 yards of his forward trench line. One machine gun nest, manned by Black Watch privates, let loose 7,500 rounds at the enemy hordes. After a fierce counterattack, the Black Watch drove the enemy back. On May 12, the battered Black Watch was relieved by elements of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. In addition, two troops from C Squadron, 1st Royal Tanks brought their Centurions up for additional punch in the event of another attack.

As the night progressed, Chinese loudspeakers kept up a constant haranguing, warning the Dukes that they would be ousted from the Hook by an overwhelming CCF force. At 11 pm on May 17, the enemy was heard approaching the Hook. An artillery barrage made them retreat, and in the ensuing action a CCF soldier was captured. He relayed the unpleasant information that the Dukes were outnumbered five-to-one and that another major assault was imminent. For the following 10 days, the Communists and the Dukes were in a constant sparring match. Patrols from both sides were dispatched to learn each other’s intentions. Sometimes they would engage in brief but hot firefights. Artillery duels were a daily occurrence. “Bunker life was particularly unsavory with having to share one’s abode with rats, mice and other vermin and being inundated with various insecticides and smells of petroleum-burning heaters in a confined underground situation,” recalled Lieutenant Alec Weaver of the 2nd Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) of his tour of duty on the Hook.

In the darkness on May 29, approximately 100 Chinese infantrymen attempted a lateral approach from Hill 121, trying to capture Ronson. They were spotted and annihilated as they tried in a vain attempt to charge, and 30 mangled bodies were on the wire the next morning as testimony to the futility of the attack. During this period, more than 37,000 shells were fired from British guns. In addition, an unbelievable 10,000 mortar rounds were discharged, as well as 500,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition. One American howitzer let loose an illumination round every two minutes for seven hours. When the full extent of the devastation on the Hook was revealed, 10,000 Chinese shells had ploughed the terrain into six-foot furrows and leveled it like a well-worn football field. Hundreds of Chinese had been killed and thousands wounded. The Dukes had lost 28 killed and 121 wounded and 16 missing. For their heroic defense of the Hook, the Dukes were presented with a battle honor for their colors that read: “The Hook 1953.” Headquarters Company of the 1st Battalion was even renamed Hook Company.

Nearing Armistice

The war, unfortunately, was not over—peace talks between the two sides were painfully slow. Realizing that a truce was near, the Chinese were determined to seize as much terrain as possible, and the Hook was high on their list. Another series of attacks against the Hods and the surrounding hills was planned. Throughout the month of July, the Chinese stepped up offensive operations near the Hook. Boulder City, a Marine outpost, came under heavy attack as well. On the night of July 24, Chinese forces with orders to fight to the last man moved against Hills 111 and 119. Company H, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines was tied in with a machine-gun section from the 2nd RAR led by Sergeant Brian C. Cooper.

In an area designated Betty Grable, the enemy began to form. Allied artillery hammered them as they readied themselves for the coming attack. The CCF units descended on Hill 111 and were soon in the trenches fighting hand-to-hand. British artillery sent scores of high-explosive rounds toward Hills 111 and 119. The machine-gun section from the 2nd RAR on the leathernecks’ right flank also provided timely support. “The scream and thud of incoming artillery and mortar fire was constant,” wrote Private Ron Walker of the 2nd RAR, “the only difference being the closeness of the burst. Whilst being showered with lumps of dirt and debris I waited for the one burst that might be destined to silence me forever.”

Fighting also erupted on Hill 121 as action continued for the next several days on almost every hill and outpost. “Medium shells sounding like express trains passed over us with plenty of crest clearance,” wrote Bruce Matthews of the New Zealand 16th Field Regiment. “But right above our heads 16th Field’s 25-pounder shells were just clearing our crest. An occasional shell exploded over us. Toward midnight, the tempo of the artillery eased off. The U.S. Marines still had an intact line.” After the battle was over, a young British officer from one of the artillery units that had supported the Marines visited their regimental headquarters. He read to the amazed leathernecks the long list of the different types of rounds that had been fired in their behalf. When he finished, the Marine staff was astounded at his flawless rendition. He then smiled and said, “But I am authorized to settle for two bottles of your best whiskey.”

On July 27, an armistice was signed, ending the Korean conflict. Search parties combed the area around the Hook for any dead, wounded, or missing. Lieutenant Weaver of the 2nd RAR remembered, “The carnage was awe inspiring and the stench overbearing. It was a great relief to be able to leave our battered trenches and the horrific scene.” Sadly, the heroic actions of those who fought so bravely on the Hook have been swept into the dustbin of history. But for those who were there, it remains as vivid today as it did more than 50 years ago. Survivor Ron Walker summed it up best: “There was a certain reluctance to leave, as if a certain something had been left behind and more time should be spent looking for it.”

Originally Published in 2018.

This article by Al Hemingway originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rachel Bucchino

National Debt,

The legislation focuses spending on traditional infrastructures, such as roads and bridges, water infrastructure, energy investments, and climate resiliency. Can it also help balance the budget?

Here's What you Need to Remember: During the first decade of the bill’s framework, debt would increase by 0.4 percent compared to the baseline while GDP stays the same as under the current-law baseline, citing that spending would outpace the increases in revenue for the first ten years. 

The bipartisan infrastructure deal that the Biden administration agreed to last week would decrease government debt and add billions of dollars to the economy, according to a new analysis released Wednesday. 

The report, conducted by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, estimated that during the first decade of the bill’s framework, debt would increase by 0.4 percent compared to the baseline while GDP stays the same as under the current-law baseline, citing that spending would outpace the increases in revenue for the first ten years. 

“It will take us a long time for the infrastructure to become productive, but it will provide a small but significant increase in output over the long term,” Jonathan Huntley, one of the authors of the analysis, told The Hill. 

In 2050, however, government debt would decline by 0.9 percent compared to baseline and GDP would climb by 0.1 percent. 

The authors noted that over time the new spending from the infrastructure framework will decline while IRS enforcement continues. This will prompt an increase in GDP and revenue growth. 

The report comes as President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators last week struck an infrastructure deal that proposes $579 billion in new spending over the next five years, with a total of $1.2 trillion in spending over eight years. The legislation focuses spending on traditional infrastructures, such as roads and bridges, water infrastructure, energy investments and climate resiliency.

The proposal calls for any “unused” coronavirus relief funds and increased IRS enforcement activities to help fund the new spending.

Biden traveled to Wisconsin on Tuesday to sell the infrastructure deal, where he argued that improving America’s infrastructure is a critical investment that would also help mitigate the climate change crisis and build millions of new jobs in the energy and transportation sectors.

“This deal isn’t just the sum of its parts. It’s a signal to ourselves, and to the world, that American democracy can come through and deliver for all our people,” Biden said. “America has always been propelled into the future by landmark investments.” 

He added. “We’re not just tinkering around the edges.” 

Biden and congressional Democrats are also reportedly considering passing a Democratic-only measure this year that includes investments that weren’t featured in the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Rachel Bucchino is a reporter at the National Interest. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and The Hill. 

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

Security, Asia

An estimated 85 percent of Chapei was razed to the ground. Nothing was spared...

Key Point: Shanghai was a bastion of Western capitalism, business its life blood.

In the 1930s Shanghai was in its heyday, a teeming metropolis of some 3.5 million people. The great city was a fascinating blend of cultures, its very existence refuting Rudyard Kipling’s famous aphorism. Here, on the lazily snaking banks of the Huangpu River, East and West did meet. The river was literally an artery of commerce, pumping trade into the city’s vibrant commercial heart.

China Forced To Open Trade Relations

Shanghai was a bastion of Western capitalism, business its life blood. British and American Tai-pans (heads of business firms) might attend church on Sunday, but on weekdays Mammon, not God, was Shanghai’s principal deity. The city was one of the original “Treaty Ports” opened up by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. China had just been disastrously defeated in the so-called “Opium War” and had to bow to British demands. Largely self-sufficient, despising foreigners as “outer barbarians,” China had to be forced to establish normal diplomatic and trade relations with the outside world. The British took the lead, but the United States, France, Japan, and a host of other countries were quick to follow.

Beset by foreign encroachments from without and internal rebellion from within, China was in turmoil throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Seeking China’s trade, yet wanting to distance themselves from its social and political troubles, treaty powers established the principle of “extraterritoriality” which the Chinese naturally resented. Foreign enclaves would be set apart, largely self-governing and above all not subject to Chinese law.

Shanghai’s International Settlement and French Concession were outgrowths of these developments. Although physically connected to the Chinese-ruled greater Shanghai, the International Settlement was a largely self-governing territory administered by the Shanghai Municipal Council, which was dominated by foreign business interests, largely British, though other powers such as the United States had seats. The International Settlement had been formed by uniting the British and American enclaves in 1863. The French Concession, ruled from Paris, was a separate entity.

Bund Was Noisy Display Of Foreign Wealth

The Bund—the word is derived from an Anglo-Indian word meaning “quay” or embankment—was the International Settlement’s grand showplace, an imposing row of banks, hotels, and office buildings that stretched for a mile along a bend of the river. To the visitor, the buildings were exotic outgrowths, massive symbols of Europe and America that were somehow magically transplanted to Chinese soil. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Yokohama Specie Bank, the exclusive Shanghai Club, and the Cathay Hotel—these were powerful institutions whose soaring domes and stately columns were outward symbols of inner wealth.

The Bund’s grand boulevard was crowded day and night, an ever-changing spectacle that revealed both the best and the worst of humanity. Gawking tourists rubbed elbows with swaggering off-duty sailors, White Russian refugees, British businessmen, and petty criminals. Rickshaw men pulled beautiful Chinese women dressed in silk qi paos, and red-turbaned Sikh policemen kept a wary eye out for trouble. And above all there was noise—autos honking, ship whistles blowing, swarming Chinese rickshaw men crying for fares—an ear-splitting cacophony of commerce.

The International Settlement and neighboring French Concession were artificial creations, safe harbors from the turbulent social and political storms that plagued China. Events were to prove this safety was more an apparition than reality. In the 1930s there were around 60,000 foreigners in the International Settlement and French Concession. They were vastly outnumbered by the million or so Chinese who also lived there.

Strong Japanese Presence In Shanghai

The Japanese also had a strong presence in Shanghai, a presence second only to the British. Japan was a modern nation whose rapid industrialization in the 19th century had amazed the world. Most Europeans and Americans looked on the Japanese as “honorary” Westerners whose accomplishments and growing military power won a grudging admiration.

But Japan’s Westernization was in some respects superficial. Beneath the modern, progressive veneer, some of the more disturbing aspects of Japanese culture still existed and threatened to break to the surface. The Bushido code, or “way of the warrior,” exalted military virtue, dedication to the emperor, and an almost fanatical contempt for death. Japan’s celebrated samurai warriors had practiced Bushido in one form or another for centuries, but in the 1920s and 1930s the world saw its modern reincarnation.

Japan’s population had grown from about 30 million in 1868 to about 65 million in 1930. Japanese farmers were hard-pressed to feed this expanding population, and some argued territorial expansion was the only solution. Of course, aggressive Japanese imperialism was an old story. In 1910 Japan had annexed Korea, beginning a nightmare of cultural suppression, economic exploitation, and political terror on the long-suffering peninsula. But Korea was Japan’s foothold on the Asian mainland, springboard to a greater prize—China.

Ancient Codes And Worldwide Depression Drove Japanese Ambitions

In the 1920s and early 1930s Japan became infected with nationalism and militarism. When combined with the samurai traditions and the Bushido code, this militarism and ultranationalism produced a particularly virulent brand of imperialism. The worldwide economic depression of the 1930s hit Japan hard, making imperial and foreign conquest seem a viable solution to the island nation’s troubles.

In 1931, the “Manchurian Incident” began a whole new round of Japanese aggression. Manchuria was the northern province of China, and Japan maintained a garrison there, Kwantung Army, to protect Japanese property and economic interests. Officers in the Kwantung Army needed a pretext to conquer Manchuria, so they created one. They blew up a portion of a Japanese-owned Manchurian railway and blamed the destruction on the Chinese. It was a transparent deception, but provided the excuse the Japanese Army needed. In due course Manchuria was invaded, weak Chinese armies routed, and a puppet state called “Manchukuo” established.

Japanese Provocation Ignites Passions In Shanghai

The Manchurian Incident sparked condemnation from around the world, particularly the United States, but most countries were more concerned with the Depression than with far-off China. Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, was duly installed as ruler of an “independent” Manchukuo, but his tinsel regime was nothing more than clumsy window dressing. Japan’s naked aggression provoked a storm of protest all over China, but nowhere was the patriotic furor greater than in Shanghai.

Chinese demonstrators crowded the streets, angrily shouting anti-Japanese slogans, and posters were tacked up that denounced Japanese imperialism or simply urged Chinese citizens to “Kill All Japanese.” Soon talk was transformed into action, and the city’s Chinese business community organized an effective boycott of all Japanese goods. All Japanese products, even innocuous toys and bicycles, disappeared from Chinese store shelves. Goods piled up in Japanese warehouses because no Chinese businessman would accept Japanese products.

Boycotted Japanese Goods Pile Up On Shanghai Piers

The Japanese were an important part of the International Settlement’s foreign community. A small waterway called Soochow (now Suzhou) Creek meandered through Shanghai, a watery finger that formed a boundary between the International Settlement and the Chinese-controlled Greater Shanghai before turning sharply and dividing the settlement itself into two distinct halves. Soochow Creek was spanned by the Garden Bridge (now Waibaidu Bridge) near where it emptied into the Huangpu River.

A traveler crossing the Garden Bridge from the Bund would find himself in the International Settlement’s Hongkew District. Hongkew was the Japanese section of the settlement, boasting a population of 30,000 Japanese residents. Numerous shops, bars, and even Geisha houses gave the area its local name of “Little Tokyo.” Hongkew was a natural target for Chinese patriotism. Normally, Japanese imports comprised 29 percent of Shanghai’s yearly total. Once the boycott took effect, that figure plummeted to 3 percent. Seven hundred tons of unsold Japanese goods gathered dust on Hongkew’s piers and godowns (local term for warehouses).

Japanese shops in Hongkew were forced to close, and Japanese residents boarded ships to return to the Home Islands. They had little alternative. Chinese merchants would not even sell them food. These events played into the hands of the Japanese military, which was encouraged by the relative ease of its Manchurian conquest.

Unpaid Chinese Troops Pose Greater Threat Than Japanese

Chapei was a Shanghai district to the north of Hongkew, just beyond the boundary of the International Settlement. It was a heavily industrialized area and home to thousands of impoverished Chinese workers. Streets were lined with dingy, red-brick buildings and grimy factories. The Commercial Press, a Chinese-owned publishing house in Chapei, was a huge concern that supplied three out of every four school textbooks in China.

The situation was becoming more and more volatile, and tensions were not eased when the 31,000-man Chinese Nineteenth Route Army under the command of General Cai Tingkai arrived. The majority of these troops were southerners, Cantonese speakers from Guangdong, and only nominally under the control of Chiang Kai-shek’s national government. General Cai paid lip service to the national government, but few doubted who was really in command.

The Nineteenth Route Army had not been paid in some time, which sent shivers of fear coursing down the backs of many foreigners residing in the settlement. General Cai might turn warlord and replenish his coffers by sacking the International Settlement. Ironically, the Chinese, not the Japanese, were considered the greater threat by the Western powers at this stage. To defuse the situation, funds were to be raised to pay the soldiers.

Japanese Send In Monks To Stir Up Trouble

Deliberately seeking to provoke an incident, the Japanese sent five members of the Buddhist Nichiren sect into Shanghai. The Nichiren sect was ultranationalist, believing it was Japan’s divine mission to rule Asia.

On January 18, 1932, the Japanese Buddhist monks paraded through Chapei, according to some accounts loudly chanting anti-Chinese slogans. It was a deliberate provocation, and the Chinese were quick to respond with violence. One monk was killed and two others wounded. In retaliation, a Japanese mob set San Yu Towel Company on fire, and two Chinese died in the conflagration.

They had played right into the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese consul general presented Shanghai Mayor Wu Tiecheng with a series of demands, including the arrest of those responsible for the monk’s death, an immediate suppression of all anti-Japanese organizations, and an end to the boycott within 10 days. Mayor Wu consulted with the central government in Nanking (Nanjing), but ultimately the decision would be his. While the mayor deliberated, the Japanese were busy sending naval reinforcements to Shanghai, including a cruiser and 12 destroyers from Sasebo. On Saturday, January 23, a contingent of 500 Japanese Marines landed at the Yantzepoo section of the International Settlement, the vanguard of many more troops to come.

As the crisis deepened, the International Settlement’s Defense Committee was galvanized into action. Most of the major powers had small military units in Shanghai whose primary mission was to guard the lives and property of their nationals. The Defense Committee was composed of the chairman of the Municipal Council, the commissioner of police, and various officers from the British, American, French, Japanese, and Italian military.

An International Band Of “Weekend Warriors”

The Shanghai Volunteer Force, a curious multinational militia that mirrored the cosmopolitan nature of the International Settlement, was also represented. Most of these men were “weekend warriors,” Shanghai businessmen who joined partly as a civic duty and partly because they were defending their own interests. There were over 20 units in all, including the American Company, the Shanghai Scottish, the Portuguese Company, and a White Russian regiment. All were volunteers, save the Russians, who were paid a salary.

On Tuesday, January 26, Chinese authorities declared martial law and began stringing barbed wire and laying down sandbags. Events were clearly spiraling out of control, prompting the International Settlement’s Municipal Council to declare a state of emergency. The Shanghai Volunteer Corps was mobilized, as well as various foreign military units. The International Settlement was approximately 8.73 square miles (5,883 acres), while the French Concession was almost four square miles (2,525 acres). Each unit, both professional and volunteer, was assigned a place in the defensive perimeter.

Mayor Wu accepted all the terms of the Japanese ultimatum on the afternoon of January 28, even going so far as to close down the offices of the anti-Japanese boycott organization. In reality, the demands had been more of a sop to world public opinion than a real policy. Admiral Shiozawa was determined to punish the Chinese for their acts of defiance. He admitted as much to New York Timesreporter Hallett Abend, when the two men met aboard the Japanese flagship, the cruiser Idzumo, which was anchored in the Huangpu.

Fishing For Another Excuse

The admiral admitted Mayor Wu’s capitulation was “beside the point,” adding, “I’m not satisfied with conditions in Chapei. At 11 o’clock tonight I’m sending my marines into Chapei to protect our nationals and preserve order.” Shiozawa tried to cultivate Abend by feeding him caviar and pouring cocktails, but the American was not fooled by this sudden hospitality.

Abend left to file his story, pausing only to warn the American Consul-General, Edwin S. Cunningham, of what he had learned. Chapei was just across the International Settlement’s border from Japanese-dominated Hongkew. Shiozawa’s target was Chapei’s North Station, where a tangle of railroad tracks filtered through a labyrinth of locomotive sheds, warehouses, and outbuildings. The Japanese admiral had utter contempt for the Chinese, predicting he would take North Station “within three hours, without firing a shot.”

Chinese Brace For Onslaught

The men of the Nineteenth Route Army, some of them teenagers, awaited the Japanese onslaught. They were indifferently armed, and their dirty tennis shoes, caps, and faded cotton uniforms gave them a rag-tag appearance. But they made up in courage what they lacked in training or weaponry, and were determined to resist to the last man.

At 11 o’clock, 400 Japanese Marines of the Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF) marched from their headquarters on Kaingwan Road in Hongkew and clambered into 18 trucks. Japanese civilians were on hand to cheer them on their way, filling the Marines’ ears with triumphant shouts of “Banzai!”

The Japanese Marines were driven to a point near North Station, then disembarked and sorted themselves out for the offensive. Each unit was guided by men carrying flashlights. The light beams stabbed through the darkness and also made the advancing Japanese perfect targets. About 50 yards from the station the Japanese saw a makeshift barricade of barbed wire and sandbags; any holes in the wall were plugged by an odd table or chair.

Cai Springs Trap For Japanese Marines

At that moment, Abend strained his ears, listening in the darkness for the sounds of fighting he knew must come. He was not disappointed, because the sharp crack of two rifle shots echoed through the night, followed by the staccato chatter of machine-gun fire. General Cai had sprung a trap on the unsuspecting Japanese; the whole area was swarming with Chinese snipers positioned in every building. They were crack shots, and soon many Japanese Marines lay sprawled in the street in rapidly spreading pools of blood.

As the fighting intensified, the noise of battle attracted curious foreigners from the International Settlement. They lived in a privileged world, and the International Settlement’s semi-colonial status made it a safe haven from China’s endless strife. Some foreigners may have sympathized with China, but many British and American businessmen looked at Asians with a kind of bemused and cynical indifference.

Foreigners Come Out To “Watch the Fun”

As it neared midnight, foreigners came out of the settlement’s many hotels, theaters, and nightclubs to “watch the fun.” Many were in evening clothes, laughing and chatting as they ate sandwiches or gulped hot coffee to ward off the evening chill. Throngs of foreigners watched the battle from North Szechueh Road, acting as if the fighting was a sporting event staged for their benefit. Bullets whizzed nearby, and some Japanese Marines were setting up defensive positions just across the street from the curious onlookers.

Frustrated at the delays, and fearing a loss of face, the Japanese resorted to heavy-handed measures. As the weeks passed, Japanese heavy artillery pounded Chapei, the shellfire complemented by salvoes from Japanese warships on the river. But above all there were the bombers, fleets of aircraft that pummeled Chapei without mercy. Cotton mills, tenements, factories, churches, all were reduced to smoldering rubble. Foreign journalists were aghast at the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. Flames sent thick coils of black smoke into the sky, and at night the conflagration turned Chapei into an incandescent hell.

Japanese Show No Mercy To Chapei

An estimated 85 percent of Chapei was razed to the ground. Nothing was spared; even the famed Commercial Press was gutted, its many books reduced to ashes. Thousands of Chinese civilians were killed or horribly wounded, some maimed for life. Over 600,000 Chinese refugees poured into the International Settlement, an endless stream of victims carrying what little remained of their earthly possessions.

Cai and the hard-pressed Nineteenth Route Army refused to yield, though casualties were heavy. The heroic stand made headlines around the world and made General Cai an international celebrity. The Chinese community in the Philippines contributed thousands of dollars to General Cai, and in San Francisco there were fund-raising dinners.

For the Japanese, it was a public relations disaster. Clumsy attempts at damage control only made it worse. Admiral Shiozawa hosted a cocktail party for the foreign press aboard his flagship Idzumo, where he noted that American newspapers had labeled him a “baby killer.” The admiral petulantly reminded Abend, ”I used only 30-pound bombs, and if I had chosen to do so I might have used the 500-pound variety.”

A Hollow Triumph For Japanese

The Nineteenth Route Army had won a moral if not physical victory against impossible odds, but at last flesh and blood could stand no more. General Cai now had 16,000 effectives, down from the original 31,000. The arrival of 8,000 more Japanese reinforcements signaled the beginning of the end. On March 8, 1932, Japanese soldiers raised their distinctive rising sun flag over what remained of North Station. Buildings were blackened shells, and corpses were everywhere. Despite the exuberant “Banzai!” shouts, it was a hollow triumph.

Negotiations opened and dragged on for weeks. A cease-fire pact was settled with a demilitarization scheme that required Japan to remove all troops from Shanghai save its normal garrison. The Chinese were also required to withdraw and keep troops from entering a 30-mile zone around the city.

The battered Nineteenth Route Army withdrew, but its stand had humiliated the Japanese high command and boosted Chinese morale. Peace was restored, and for the next five years Shanghai returned to its magnificent, gilded decadence. Business boomed, ships steamed up the Huangpo, and the Bund was crowded by more people than ever.

Chiang Kai-shek Has Change Of Heart After Kidnapping

General Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Chinese leader, had offered no help to the Nineteenth Route Army during its weeks of struggle. Chiang had little love for the Japanese, considering them a “disease of the skin,” whereas the Communists under Mao Zedong were a “disease of the body.” He was basically hoarding his best divisions for his continuing campaign against the Communists.

The general had a change of heart when he was kidnapped by a warlord, who demanded he form a united anti-Japanese front against the common enemy. Chastened, Chiang agreed, and was released. This “united front” was formed in the very nick of time, because in the summer of 1937 the Japanese were on the move again. On July 7, 1937 (“Double Seven”), a missing Japanese soldier in Peking (now Beijing) formed a sufficient pretext for war. Accusing the Chinese of kidnapping him (he was supposedly later found in a brothel, sheepish but unharmed), the Japanese poured thousands of troops into North China. Peking soon fell, as did the port city of Tientsin (Tianjin).

Chiang Kai-shek knew the Chinese had little chance of opposing a determined Japanese offensive in the north. The Yangtze Valley was a different matter. Shanghai was China’s window on the world, its international showplace, and home to the largest foreign press corps east of Suez. The Chinese would challenge the Japanese at Shanghai, and in giving the Western powers a “ringside seat” in the contest, they hoped to create enough sympathy to provoke intervention.

Chinese Send German-Trained Elite Troops To Fight Japanese

Sensing trouble, the Japanese began sending reinforcements to Shanghai, at the same time evacuating their civilian nationals. The initial Japanese commitment was around 1,300 Marines of the Special Naval Landing Force. Chiang threw down the gauntlet by sending his best troops to Shanghai, the German-trained 87th and 88th Divisions. These were elite formations, tough and well equipped, and they were determined to give the Japanese invaders the fight of their lives.

On August 9, Sublieutenant Isao Ohyama of the SNLF got into a car that quickly sped along Monument Road—his alleged mission, to “inspect” the Chinese Hungjiao Aerodrome. He never reached his destination. The bullet-riddled bodies of Ohyama and his driver were found later.

On Friday, August 12, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps was mobilized and took its defensive positions along the International Settlement perimeter. The volunteers were more cosmopolitan than ever, and included a Filipino company and a Jewish company.

Volunteer Corps Rises To Occasion Once Again

B Battalion of the Volunteers, which consisted of the American, Portuguese, Filipino, and American machine-gun companies, occupied the Polytechnic Public School on Pakhoi Road. By contrast, the White Russian C Battalion manned blockhouses along Elgin Road. There was even a Chinese Company, which occupied the Cathedral Boys’ School.

Regular troops defending the International Settlement included British soldiers and sailors, the Fourth U.S. Marines, Dutch Marines, and Italian Savoyard grenadiers. The nearby French Concession was also in a defensive mode, but the French preferred to go it alone. They had their own soldiers on hand, a battalion of French-officered colonial Vietnamese troops.

The Fourth U.S. Marines occupied a section of the perimeter along Soochow Creek. It was an area where the river itself formed the boundary between the International Settlement and Chinese-ruled Greater Shanghai. On the other side of the creek was Chapei, newly rebuilt and occupied once again by Chinese troops.

Bitter Memories Of 1932 Lingered

Sporadic fighting broke out on August 12, triggering a mass exodus of Chinese refugees from northern Shanghai, particularly from the Chapei district. Chapei may have been rebuilt, but the searing memory of the 1932 conflagration had left deep psychological wounds, still fresh even after the passage of five years. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians sought safety in the International Settlement, first entering through Japanese-held Hongkew before going on to the Garden Bridge and the Bund.

Whole families were on the move—men, women, and children of all ages. The teeming mass of humanity formed a column 10 miles long, a tragic exodus whose main goal was the supposed haven of the settlement. But the Garden Bridge that spanned Soochow Creek had not been designed to handle such a surging hoard, and a bottleneck developed. All other entrances to the Western, non-Japanese portions of the settlement had been blocked, leaving only the Garden Bridge. Once they caught sight of their goal, the refugees began to grow restless at the prospect of this entrance being sealed off.

Horrible And Deadly Stampede

The fear of not reaching safety triggered an unreasoning panic. People fell only to be tramped by hundreds of surging feet. An American named Rhodes Farmer had the misfortune of being caught in this panicking crowd, and the memory of the ensuing horror stayed with him for years. He later recalled, “My feet were slipping … on blood and flesh … a half-dozen times I knew I was walking on the bodies of children or old people sucked under by the torrent, trampled flat by countless feet….”

Worse was to follow. The Huangpu River was crowded with military ships of many different nationalities. There was, of course, the Japanese flotilla, whose destroyers used their 4.7-inch guns on the Chinese-held docks and jetties along the shore. The Idzumo, the 9,500-ton flagship of Vice Admiral Hasegawa, was moored to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Wharf close to the Japanese Consulate and the mouth of Soochow Creek. Idzumo was an old ship, a three-funneled relic of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, but its symbolic importance made it a prime target.

The American heavy cruiser USS Augusta had recently arrived in port, carrying Admiral Harry E. Yarnell. American neutrality made for some bizarre incidents. Even in the midst of a war, Japanese destroyers and light cruisers paused to render military honors to Augusta’s embarked admiral. American civilians were being evacuated by ship, and Augusta was there to oversee and protect the operation. Several British warships were also in Shanghai, including the Kent-class cruiser HMSCumberland.

Approaching Storms—Manmade And Natural

On Saturday morning, August 14, 1937, there were signs in the sky of an approaching typhoon. Storm warning flags were hoisted, and the residents could feel the heavy gusts that blew upward of 60 mph. Few could realize that the natural storm was going to be preceded by a man-made one of even greater intensity.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees were now jammed into the International Settlement, trying to be as normal as possible in an abnormal situation. The International Settlement authorities did what they could, and free tea and rice were distributed at the New World Amusement Center.

For foreign nationals life went on as usual. Business was conducted with the same profit-driven intensity, and the city’s decadent pleasures were just as enticing as ever. The legendary luxury of the Cathay Hotel made it a mecca for the International Settlement’s social elite. Its rooftop restaurant, redolent with the sweet scent of hyacinths, was the scene of many dances.

American Bombs Go Astray

That same afternoon, a formation of four U.S.-built Northrop 2E attack aircraft from the Second Group of the Chinese Air Force took off from Lungwha Airfield. Their destination was Shanghai, and their target the flagship Idzumo. The planes appeared over the great city around 4:15 and lost no time in diving to the attack. The Bund was densely packed with the usual cross-section of foreign businessmen, street vendors, and beggars, leavened with new Chinese refugees.

In the first moments, the bombing had the air of a sporting event, with foreigners and Chinese alike crowding rooftops and the Bund promenade to watch the show. The first one or two misses were greeted with a chorus of cheers and boos from the assembled multitude. The cheers turned to screams of anguish when two bombs completely missed their target by about a half-mile and detonated in the International Settlement.

The first bomb pierced the roof of the Palace Hotel, collapsing its upper stories like a house of cards, while the second bomb landed on the intersection of the Bund and Nanking Road, just outside the fabled Cathay Hotel. The Cathay’s wealthy guests found that death was literally at their doorstep. Charred and mangled bodies lay everywhere, and tongues of flame leaped fiercely from wrecked cars. Motorists had been waiting for a red light to change at the time of the explosion; now each vehicle became a funeral pyre for its incinerated passengers.

The First American Casualty Of WWII

The misguided Chinese attack had also affected the foreign warships anchored in the Huangpu. A 1,300-pound bomb splashed down near the Augusta’s starboard side, showering the vessel with metal splinters. Twenty-one-year-old Seaman 1st Class Freddie Falgout of Raceland, La., was killed instantly, and about 18 sailors were wounded. A case can be made that Falgout was the first American military casualty of World War II.

One of the Chinese airplanes, by some accounts damaged by Japanese antiaircraft fire, moved northwest, as if to limp home. The pilot suddenly released his payload on the intersection of Tibet Road and Avenue Edward VII just outside the Great Amusement Center. The Bund bombing had been terrible, but it paled to insignificance when compared to the Avenue Edward VII disaster. The bomb or bombs—the number is disputed—landed right in the middle of a densely packed thoroughfare.

Wealthy And Common Share Equality In Death

Eviscerated bodies of men, women, and children lay in heaps, many burned beyond recognition. There were foreigners among the largely Chinese victims. Amid the carnage, one apparent businessman was seen with both legs and part of an arm blown off. He expired before help could come. The haughty Westerners and lowly Chinese refugees had come together at last, in a kind of equality of death. The Avenue Edward VII holocaust established a record up to that time of civilians killed by a single bomb. Altogether 1,123 people were killed, and as many as a thousand wounded. If the Bund victims are added to the total, it stands at 1,956 dead and 2,426 wounded.

What had caused this terrible tragedy? Various theories were put forward, most of them plausible but hard to prove. It was said that the pilot knew his aircraft was badly shot up, so he intended to release his bombs above an empty racetrack. Some said his bomb rack was itself so damaged it caused the premature release. As for the Idzumo bombing attempt, it was said that the pilots had been trained for level bombing at 7,500 feet. The approaching typhoon had lowered the ceiling to 1,500 feet, but the pilots had failed to adjust the bomb sites for the differences. The gusting winds were also advanced as a possible cause.

Land War In China Expands

In the meantime, the land war continued and the front expanded. Shanghai remained the focal point of a battle line that stretched 70 miles and encompassed both sides of the Yangtze River. Chiang Kai-shek sent the equivalent of nine divisions against the Japanese, forcing them to respond in kind. A Shanghai Expeditionary Army under General Iwace Mitsui landed on August 23, an impressive force of two large divisions and a tank corps.

August passed, then September, and the fighting showed no sign of abating. Chinese General Chang Chih-Chung began with four reinforced divisions in the Shanghai region. By September that number had jumped to 15. Foreign journalists observed the fighting from atop the 16-floor Broadway Mansions (now Shanghai Mansions). They watched in comfort, sipping drinks from a well-stocked bar. Surfeited with gin and carnage, they repaired to their typewriters to file their stories.

On November 5, 1937, four Japanese divisions (the 6th, 16th, 18th, and 114th) made simultaneous landings near Fushon and at Cha-pu on Hangchow (Hangzhou) Bay. The dual thrusts formed a pincer movement that threatened to engulf the defenders of Shanghai. The Chinese were forced to withdraw from the great port city to avoid encirclement and annihilation. The battle for Shanghai had been costly, with some 80,000 Chinese casualties; Japanese totals reached upward of 30,000.

Japanese Ratchet Up Pressure On Shanghai

Fleets of Japanese bombers came over the city every day, filling the air with a rain of death. Greater Shanghai was pulverized—smashed and burned almost beyond recognition. On August 28, 1937, Shanghai’s South Station was subjected to a particularly brutal bombing. Paramount newsreel cameraman H.S. Wong photographed a burned and blackened Chinese infant sitting alone amid the ruins. The photo was one of the most poignant and enduring images of the 1930s, a symbol of China as well as a searing indictment of the horrors of war.

A rear-guard Chinese unit refused to retreat, its heroic stand evoking memories of the Nineteenth Route Army five years before. These men were not callow youths, however, but part of the elite 88th Division. There were some 411 men in this unit, quickly dubbed the “Doomed Battalion”by the watching foreign press. They barricaded the five-story-high godown owned by the Joint Savings Society.

By accident or by design, the “Doomed Battalion”chose to make its stand just across the street from the Thibet Road Bridge and the entrance to the International Settlement. The Chinese performed great acts of valor. At one point, a Chinese soldier saw 20 Japanese soldiers advance near the godown. He grabbed some hand grenades, jumped in among the startled Japanese, and pulled the pins. The Japanese peppered the godown with heavy machine-gun fire, punctuated with artillery salvoes.

Reluctant And Tearful Chinese Surrender

Food was passed to the stubborn defenders from the International Settlement just beyond. The British tried to arrange a truce, keeping the phone lines busy between Japanese headquarters and the besieged godown. Finally the “Doomed Battalion” survivors were allowed to “surrender” to the British in the International Settlement, not the Japanese. Other Chinese units that had been trapped in Shanghai followed their example. When some isolated Chinese soldiers “surrendered” to the French in the French Concession, tears of defeat streamed down their faces.

Victorious Japanese troops soon rushed up the Yangtze River Valley, leaving a path of unprecedented destruction in their wake. In December they reached Nanking, where they committed one of the great atrocities of world history. The infamous Rape of Nanking was a hellish six-week session of wholesale rape, murder, and pillage. Thousands were tortured to death for sport, and perhaps as many as 80,000 women were brutally raped. The Sino-Japanese War continued, finally merging with World War II in 1941.

The 1932 and 1937 battles at Shanghai can be considered a dress rehearsal for the later, wider war. In a sense, the first shots of World War II were fired at the great port on the Huangpu. With the wisdom of hindsight, we can say that many events at Shanghai foreshadowed the tragedies to come. The utter destruction of Chapei in 1932 and the carnage of 1937 were copied, and even surpassed, at Rotterdam, London, Dresden, and Hiroshima.

Originally Published October 1, 2018.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Michael Peck

India Nuclear Weapons, India

India has one of the world's younger nuclear weapons programs, but has already developed an array of ballistic missiles to accompany its nukes. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: India is also developing the Nirbhay ground-launched cruise missile, similar to the U.S. Tomahawk. In addition, there is Dhanush sea-based, short-range ballistic missile, which is fired from two specially-configured patrol vessels. The report estimates that India is building three or four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which will be equipped with a short-range missile, or a bigger missile with a range of 2,000 miles.

“India is estimated to have produced enough military plutonium for 150 to 200 nuclear warheads, but has likely produced only 130 to 140,” according to Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. “Nonetheless, additional plutonium will be required to produce warheads for missiles now under development, and India is reportedly building several new plutonium production facilities.”

In addition, “India continues to modernize its nuclear arsenal, with at least five new weapon systems now under development to complement or replace existing nuclear-capable aircraft, land-based delivery systems, and sea-based systems.”

Unlike the missile-centric U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, India still heavily relies on bombers, perhaps not unexpected for a nation that fielded its first nuclear-capable ballistic missile in 2003. Kristensen and Korda estimate India maintains three or four nuclear strike squadrons of Cold War-vintage, French-made Mirage 2000H and Jaguar IS/IB aircraft targeted at Pakistan and China.

“Despite the upgrades, the original nuclear bombers are getting old and India is probably searching for a modern fighter-bomber that could potentially take over the air-based nuclear strike role in the future,” the report notes. India is buying thirty-six French Rafale fighters that carry nuclear weapons in French service, and presumably could do for India.

India’s nuclear missile force is only fifteen years old, but it already has four types of land-based ballistic missiles: the short-range Prithvi-II and Agni-I, the medium-range Agni-II and the intermediate-range Agni-III. “At least two other longer-range Agni missiles are under development: the Agni-IV and Agni-V,” says the report. “It remains to be seen how many of these missile types India plans to fully develop and keep in its arsenal. Some may serve as technology development programs toward longer-range missiles.”

“Although the Indian government has made no statements about the future size or composition of its land-based missile force, short-range and redundant missile types could potentially be discontinued, with only medium- and long-range missiles deployed in the future to provide a mix of strike options against near and distant targets,” the report noted.

India is also developing the Nirbhay ground-launched cruise missile, similar to the U.S. Tomahawk. In addition, there is Dhanush sea-based, short-range ballistic missile, which is fired from two specially-configured patrol vessels. The report estimates that India is building three or four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which will be equipped with a short-range missile, or a bigger missile with a range of 2,000 miles.

It’s an ambitious program. “The government appears to be planning to field a diverse missile force that will be expensive to maintain and operate,” the report points out.

What remains to be seen is what will be the command and control system to make sure these missiles are fired when—and only when—they should be. And, of course, since Pakistan and China also have nuclear weapons, Indian leaders may find that more nukes only lead to an arms race that paradoxically leaves their nation less secure.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This article first appeared last year and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Michael Peck

Security, Europe

A greater American troop presence in Poland could serve as an important deterrant. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: The idea of beefing up U.S. forces in Poland raises a few questions. If one U.S. brigade isn’t sufficient to deter Russia, will one division be any more effective? Dispatched to the Baltic States, it would still be outnumbered and with supply lines vulnerable to interdiction. And while the Polish economy is humming for now, revamping the Polish military to Western standards would be an expensive proposition.

Want to stop Russia from invading the Baltic States? Then bolster Poland’s military strength, and beef up U.S. troops in Poland.

That’s the message of a new report on how NATO can defend its Eastern European border.

“A future, more capable Polish military backed by a more robust U.S. forward presence in Poland could also foster the confidence needed for Warsaw to support the defense of NATO member territory located beyond its borders,” says the study, titled “Strengthening the Defense of NATO’s Eastern Frontier,” by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).

“A more capable Polish force, combined with a robust presence of U.S. forces in Poland, could assure Warsaw that it could both deter and defend against a Russian attack with fewer forces, thereby freeing up units for allied operations outside of Poland,” the study argues.

CSBA researchers started with the premise that Russia could overrun, or seize portions of, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania before NATO could intervene. This would trap the Western alliance in a dilemma between acquiescing to Moscow’s conquests or accepting the burden of launching a counteroffensive to liberate the territories. “The consequences of losing even a limited war with Russia on the European continent could prove fatal for the Alliance’s cohesion,” the authors conclude. “A Russian fait accompli, especially in the face of an unsuccessful NATO military response, could reorder Europe geopolitically and greatly reduce the credibility of U.S. security commitments to its allies and friends in Europe and other regions, including in the Indo-Pacific.”

Which leaves the question of how to deter an invasion, and how to respond if one does occur? Geography is not on NATO’s side. The Baltic States are on Russia’s western border, near Russian bases, supplies and reinforcements, while NATO forces are mostly in Western Europe and the United States. An array of Russian missiles could interdict NATO land, air and sea movements deep into Western Europe and the Atlantic, which means that NATO can’t count on relieving the Baltic nations before Russia had time to entrench.

The U.S. presence is Poland is a rotating force of an Army brigade, plus a few support elements, stationed on temporary bases. Not surprisingly, Poland would like permanent U.S. bases (what Polish president Andrzej Duda has dubbed “Fort Trump”) as a deterrent to Russia. CSBA calls for stationing what is essentially a full U.S. division, including a divisional headquarters, two Armored Brigade Combat Teams, a Stryker infantry battalion, artillery and air defense units, a combat helicopter brigade, and support units such as engineers, electronic warfare and logistics units.

In this defensive scheme, Poland isn’t a junior member of NATO, but the key to defending Eastern Europe. For example, Polish forces could neutralize the Russian enclave on Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast.

“A scenario in which Russia seeks to seize a land bridge to Kaliningrad through Lithuania provides an example of how the Polish military could perform these roles,” CSBA argues. “In such a scenario, the Polish military could defend eastern and northeastern Poland against Russian attacks while protecting and repairing ground lines of communication within Poland to facilitate the movement of NATO reinforcements to the conflict area. At the same time, Polish forces could employ their ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] and long-range fires to attack Russian A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] capabilities in Kaliningrad and Belarus, as well as integrate an armored brigade into a U.S.-led division to defend the Suwalki Gap.”

This would require improving Polish military readiness, and enhancing combat enablers such as precision weapons, electronic and cyber warfare, and ISR. “Poland should replace its aging Soviet-era equipment as rapidly as possible with new capabilities that are better suited to modern high-intensity warfare and would better integrate with other NATO capabilities,” the study said.

Nonetheless, the idea of beefing up U.S. forces in Poland raises a few questions. If one U.S. brigade isn’t sufficient to deter Russia, will one division be any more effective? Dispatched to the Baltic States, it would still be outnumbered and with supply lines vulnerable to interdiction. And while the Polish economy is humming for now, revamping the Polish military to Western standards would be an expensive proposition.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. 

This article was published previously and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters

David Axe

Chinese Submarines, Asia

As far as its sub fleet goes, China has made great progress in the two decades since the 1996 crisis.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Of course, a chance to attack doesn’t guarantee a successful attack. And the U.S. Navy isn’t exactly standing still as Chinese forces improve, RAND pointed out.

In 1995 and 1996, Taiwanese politicians signaled greater support for declaring their island country officially independent of China. Beijing’s response was swift, forceful … and ultimately an embarrassment to China. The Chinese fired several missiles toward small, Taiwanese-held islands.

That’s when the United States intervened in a big way, sending two entire aircraft carrier battle groups into the waters around Taiwan — and even sailing one carrier through the Taiwan Strait.

The Chinese military was powerless against this show of force. Beijing couldn’t even reliably track the American warships, and had no forces of its own capable of threatening the powerful U.S. vessels.

The Chinese backed down.

Years later, the situation has changed.

According to the California think tank RAND, if the same crises occurred today, Chinese submarines could target a U.S. flattop several times during a weeklong campaign. “China has rapidly improved its ability to reliably locate and to attack U.S. carrier strike groups at distances of up to 2,000 kilometers from its coast,” RAND warned.

Beijing’s ability to target carriers from below the sea depends on two related capabilities. First, China needs modern and reliable submarines. Second, these subs need some way of finding the flattops.

As far as its sub fleet goes, China has made great progress in the two decades since the 1996 crisis. “In 1996, China had taken delivery of only two submarines that could be described, by any reasonable definition, as modern,” RAND explained. “The remainder of its fleet consisted of legacy boats based on 1950s technology, lacking teardrop shaped hulls and armed only with torpedoes.”

By 2017, China will possess a smaller but more capable undersea fleet with 49 modern subs. “China’s recent submarine classes are armed with both sophisticated cruise missiles and torpedoes, greatly increasing the range from which they can attack,” according to the think tank. “Although most Chinese boats are diesel-powered and none is not up to U.S. standards, they could nevertheless threaten U.S. surface ships.”

Just how much Beijing’s subs could attack a single American carrier during a seven-day campaign depends on what RAND called “cueing.” In other words, the ability of Chinese satellites, drones, spy planes, land-based radars and other so-called “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” systems, or ISR, to detect the carrier and pass along the flattop’s location to the subs.

“Improvements to Chinese ISR have improved the chances that Chinese submarines will receive such information,” RAND reported.

In 1996, Chinese subs had basically zero chances to take a shot at a U.S. carrier, with or without cueing. By 2010 that was no longer the case. Without cueing, Beijing’s subs were still pretty much blind, but with help from ISR the undersea vessels would have gotten two or three chances to attack a carrier with missiles or torpedoes.

RAND projected that Chinese subs with no cueing probably still won’t be able to attack a carrier. But with cueing in the same timeframe, the undersea warships could get three, four or even five chances to attack.

Of course, a chance to attack doesn’t guarantee a successful attack. And the U.S. Navy isn’t exactly standing still as Chinese forces improve, RAND pointed out. “The United States will look to counter this growing threat by developing ways to degrade Chinese intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and by improving its own anti-missile, anti-submarine and defensive counterair capabilities.”

Image: Reuters.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Unemployment Tax Refund,

With only a week left in the current month, millions of eligible Americans are still left on the sidelines—and the IRS has provided few updates on the matter.

Here's What You Need to Remember:

In the post-$1,400 coronavirus stimulus check world, it appears that there will be plenty of waiting for millions of cash-strapped Americans as they look forward to other government-issued payments.

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that tax refunds on 2020 unemployment benefits—part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—are slated to start landing in eligible bank accounts this month.

But with only a week left in the current month, millions of eligible Americans are still left on the sidelines—and the IRS has provided few updates on the matter.

Know that these potentially generous payments are from the waiving of federal tax on up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits—or $20,400 for married couples filing jointly—that were collected last year. Unemployment benefits are generally treated as taxable income, the IRS says.

The agency has noted that as many as ten million Americans likely overpaid on their unemployment taxes and could be in line for the refunds.

According to a recent Treasury report, more than seven million tax returns already processed by the IRS appear to qualify for the tax refunds. “Of the 7.4 million tax returns, nearly 7.3 million—or 98.6 percent—had modified adjusted gross income of less than $150,000 and would likely qualify for the exclusion,” the report’s authors wrote.

Current refund estimates are indicating that for single taxpayers who are eligible for the $10,200 tax break and fit into the 22 percent tax bracket, they could be potentially refunded more than $2,200. That monetary figure would double for eligible married couples.

The agency also recently confirmed that it will automatically adjust tax returns if individuals qualify for a refund.

“Because the change occurred after some people filed their taxes, the IRS will take steps in the spring and summer to make the appropriate change to their return, which may result in a refund,” the IRS stated.

“The first refunds are expected to be made in May and will continue into the summer. Any resulting overpayment of tax will be either refunded or applied to other outstanding taxes owed,” the agency added.

For those who are still waiting for these funds to arrive, perhaps late summer is the better timeline for getting their hands on the checks. Do also take note that married couples who file a joint tax return may have to wait longer than individual taxpayers due to the higher complexity of calculating their respective refunds.

The IRS is expected to disburse the refunds in two separate phases—and currently, it appears that most married couples who filed jointly will be part of the second phase. No details have been released regarding when the second phase will start.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Stimulus Check,

Do take note that the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill enabled the expansion of child tax credits that generally allowed families to claim a credit of up to $2,000 for children under the age of seventeen. But they now qualify to collect as much as $3,600 per year for a child under the age of six and up to $3,000 for children between ages six and seventeen.

Child Tax Credit Looks to Take Sting Out of States Ending Enhanced Unemployment

 

With the Internal Revenue Service in the final weeks of disbursing coronavirus stimulus checks and two dozen states announcing that they will end their participation in an enhanced unemployment program that pays an extra $300 a week, it appears that those Americans who are still struggling financially amid the ongoing pandemic can’t catch a break.

But thanks to President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, they can take comfort knowing that more help is indeed on the way via the expanded child tax credit. 

Do take note that the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill enabled the expansion of child tax credits that generally allowed families to claim a credit of up to $2,000 for children under the age of seventeen. But they now qualify to collect as much as $3,600 per year for a child under the age of six and up to $3,000 for children between ages six and seventeen.

This all means that eligible parents can receive a $250 or a $300 direct payment each month through the end of this year. In addition, eighteen-year-olds and full-time college students who are aged twenty-four and under can give parents a one-time $500 payment.

“The American Rescue Plan is delivering critical tax relief to middle class and hard-pressed working families with children. With today’s announcement, about 90 percent of families with children will get this new tax relief automatically, starting in July,” Biden said in a statement.

“While the American Rescue Plan provides for this vital tax relief to hard working families for this year, Congress must pass the American Families Plan to ensure that working families will be able to count on this relief for years to come. For working families with children, this tax cut sends a clear message: help is here,” the president added.

If the nearly $2 trillion American Families Plan ever gets green-lighted, know that the child tax credit could be extended four more years through 2025. In a recent press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki touted the bill’s potential reach.  

“If passed, the families of tens of millions of children will continue to get regular payments … we think that’s a proposal with a long-term benefit,” she said.

Meanwhile, some states that are withdrawing from the enhanced unemployment program are offering financial incentives to unemployed workers who eventually accept a job. For example, in Arizona, the state’s Back to Work program is giving a one-time $1,000 cash payment to unemployment recipients who accept part-time employment and $2,000 to full-timers.

“In Arizona, we’re going to use federal money to encourage people to work instead of paying people not to work,” Gov. Doug Ducey recently said in a press conference.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Trevor Filseth

Stimulus Stimulus Update,

The logic for such payments, on one level, is sound. Despite general improvements in the economy, the pandemic has had profoundly negative effects on blue-collar workers, whose jobs cannot easily be done from home.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While some polls anecdotally suggest support for additional stimulus measures among Americans, perhaps the most striking sign of support for further payments has been a Change.org petition for $2000 monthly stimulus checks – which has exceeded 2 million signatures since 2020.

By the end of May, it is estimated that most of the nation’s third stimulus checks, authorized in March 2021, will have been sent out. The IRS has claimed that roughly 90% of the payments have already been mailed, with a total of over $380 billion deposited in Americans’ accounts. While there is not likely to be a firm end date after which stimulus payments will be finished – invariably, some will be lost in the mail, while others will remain uncashed for months – the IRS has provided ways for concerned Americans to request their payments more quickly, meaning that anyone urgently waiting for a stimulus check will probably have it by mid-summer.

The passing of the third check, however, has led to requests for a fourth. In the two months since the beginning of the third stimulus check, more than eighty members of Congress – all Democrats – have publicly come out in support for a fourth measure. Of the eighty, the majority support further stimulus proposals that advocate for recurring, rather than one-time, checks for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.

The logic for such payments, on one level, is sound. Despite general improvements in the economy, the pandemic has had profoundly negative effects on blue-collar workers, whose jobs cannot easily be done from home. Unemployment in these sectors remains high, and it is clear that another stimulus payment would go a long way towards covering their bills.

While President Biden has not indicated his support for a fourth stimulus measure, he has been the recipient of at least three letters urging him to consider it. The most recent of these was sent last week by Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). Gomez’s letter highlights the fact that, so far, most stimulus money has been spent on urgent necessities, such as food and housing, rather than more discretionary items.

In the letter, Gomez indicates his support for a fourth stimulus check. He also suggests a novel approach, designed to allay concerns over whether the measure would actually be needed, by tying the issuance of the check to economic factors such as the unemployment rate. In this way, if the economy took another downturn, the stimulus measure could kick in, providing economic relief as needed.

While some polls anecdotally suggest support for additional stimulus measures among Americans, perhaps the most striking sign of support for further payments has been a Change.org petition for $2000 monthly stimulus checks – which has exceeded 2 million signatures since 2020.

Trevor Filseth is a news reporter and writer for the National Interest. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Amphibious Assault Ships,

With its long flight deck and the ability for aircraft to take off and land, it would be easy to think that vessels such as the USS America (LHA-6) are "aircraft carriers."

Here's What You Need To Remember: However, while these warships are similar – similar doesn't mean the same. There are jobs that only a carrier can do, and there are jobs that the LHA can do. That is why both will likely remain floating runways for the foreseeable future and likely beyond.

With its long flight deck and the ability for aircraft to take off and land, it would be easy to think that vessels such as the USS America (LHA-6) are "aircraft carriers." However, looks can be deceiving and there is far more than meets the eye to these warships. USS America is an amphibious assault ship – concept that dates back to the Second World War, when escort carriers wouldn't "escort" just the larger carriers but rather the landing ships and troop carriers.

The Imperial Japanese Navy's Shinshū Maru was the first to be designated a landing craft carrier and served as a proto-amphibious assault ship. Unlike the modern version of the LHA, the Shinshū Maru could only launch aircraft via a catapult to support an amphibious assault, and aircraft had to (hopefully) land on captured airfields!

During the Cold War, the British Royal Navy was the first to transform a small carrier, the HMS Ocean (R68), into an assault ship. The Colossus­­-class carrier saw service during the Suez Crisis when it was used in the first-ever large-scale helicopter-borne assault.

The United States Navy built on this concept with a special class of ships specifically built to carry up to 20 helicopters. This was the Iwo Jima-class, which bore the hull classification LPH, referred to as "Landing Platform Helicopter. These vessels could transport more than 1,700 fully equipped Marine Assault Troops into combat areas and land them by helicopter at designated inland positions.

The subsequent Tawara-class Landing Helicopter Assault, which is why even today Amphibious Assault Ships are designated LHA and not AAS. Five of the planned nine Tawara-class LHA were built from 1971 and 1980, before it was succeeded by the Wasp-class, which first entered service in the late 1980s. These LHA's have provided the Marine Corps with a means of ship-to-shore movement by helicopter in addition to movement by landing craft. 

All eight of these ships are still active today, along with two of the America-class, and while the primary role is to carry about a battalion's worth of Marines, the LHA is far more versatile. But the LHA has shortcomings. All U.S. Navy Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft are catapult-launched, which the LHA can't perform, and it can't project airpower ashore utilizing organic electronic warfare assets such as the F/A-18G.

The development of vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft such as the AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft and the F-35B Lightning II have further changed the way these smaller flattops could be used.

The USS America operates with at least five Marine F-35B Lightning II fighters as well as MV-22Bs tiltrotors and CH-53 helicopters as part of a typical Maine air combat element. But it can be reconfigured as needed, carrying 16 of the F-35Bs instead – which would provide an air group on board that is essentially on par with almost any actual aircraft carrier in the world, apart the U.S. Navy's Nimitz­-class and Ford­-class or the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle.

However, while these warships are similar – similar doesn't mean the same. There are jobs that only a carrier can do, and there are jobs that the LHA can do. That is why both will likely remain floating runways for the foreseeable future and likely beyond.

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

Image: Flickr.

Eli Fuhrman

Stimulus Payment Crime,

This is not the first example of a crime involving stimulus payments. Attempts at fraud involving stimulus payments have been a concern since the government first began sending them out.

Here's What You Need to Remember: A particularly gruesome example of violent crime involving stimulus payments comes out of Indianapolis, where a disagreement over a stimulus payment ended in a quadruple murder.

An elderly woman’s stimulus payment was part of a recent theft attempt. A couple in Ohio is facing charges of theft from a person in a protected class after they duped a woman into signing over a number of assets to them. Investigators say that Karen Laborde and Peter Laborde III managed to trick the woman into signing a quitclaim deed, used to transfer ownership of a property before they then placed her into a nursing home.

They also stole a number of other assets worth over $47,500 from her, including her social security and stimulus payment.

This is not the first example of a crime involving stimulus payments. Attempts at fraud involving stimulus payments have been a concern since the government first began sending them out. One Oklahoma woman, for example, reported that shortly after receiving her first $1,200 stimulus payment she was notified by her bank about more than one attempt to cash fraudulent checks against her account.

More organized attempts at fraud involving stimulus payments have also taken place, with one Chicago man accused of working with his brother, a postal worker, to steal stimulus payments from the mail and then resell them.

Those people accused of engaging in fraud related to stimulus payments could face very severe penalties, including fines of up to $1,000,000 as well as jail time.

Violent crimes involving stimulus payments have also occurred. An Indiana postal worker was killed by a man on her regular delivery route who was reportedly angry over having his mail withheld which resulted in a delay in his receiving his stimulus payment, while a man in Illinois was killed following an attempted home invasion and burglary that was targeting his stimulus payment.

Other examples of violent crime involving stimulus payments include a shooting in Detroit that followed an argument over a stimulus payment, as well as one man who set both his house and an ex-girlfriend’s car on fire after reportedly being angry that his $600 stimulus payment was being diverted for child support.

A particularly gruesome example of violent crime involving stimulus payments comes out of Indianapolis, where a disagreement over a stimulus payment ended in a quadruple murder.

Eli Fuhrman is a contributing writer for The National Interest. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

Anti-Satellite, Middle East

Striking a target just across a national border is relatively easy. What is much harder, however, is striking an adversary’s satellites. Could Iran do it?

Here's What You Need to Remember: Converting a missile from ground attack to space attack is not necessarily difficult. And space is a ripe target. Satellites are virtually defenseless from strikes by kill vehicles.

After the targeted killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Iran flexed a bit of its ballistic missile muscle in retaliation, striking several bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops. Striking a target just across a national border is relatively easy. What is much harder, however, is striking an adversary’s satellites. Could Iran do it?

Bombs Away

A report from CSIS stated that Iran’s “missile forces [are] a potent tool for Iranian power projection and a credible threat to U.S. and partner military forces in the region.”

While referencing Iran’s conventional ballistic missile capabilities, the report fails to mention that Iran’s missile arsenal is fully adequate for reaching satellites of varying orbits.

Converting a missile from ground attack to space attack is not necessarily difficult. And space is a ripe target. Satellites are virtually defenseless from strikes by kill vehicles.

The United States, and virtually the entire world is dependent on satellites for peaceful reasons like communications, for navigating by GPS—and for violent reasons, like guiding precision-guided munition, or snapping photos from nuclear test sites.

One expert on the danger posed by anti-satellite capabilities wrote, “the military applications of ASAT missiles appear fairly obvious. China would seek to use the ASAT missiles to knock out U.S. satellites in order to degrade its C5ISR [Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] capabilities, rendering distributed U.S. military and allied assets unable to communicate or share information.”

If enough satellites were knocked out in a conflict scenario, troops would have to dust of the ole map and compass.

Still, striking a satellite is no walk in the park—and more complicated that just launching a missile into space. Satellites are small, and some travel along their orbits quite fast. Striking satellites has been compared to hitting a bullet with another bullet.

No Mental Limitations

Challenges aside, could Iran knock out the United State’s satellites? A Defense Intelligence Agency report acknowledged Iran’s desire to shape the space battlefield. "Iran recognizes the strategic value of space and counterspace capabilities and will attempt to deny an adversary use of space during a conflict.”

Iran does also have some capabilities, due to the aforementioned ballistic missile arsenal it maintains: “Because of the inherent overlap in technology between ICBMs and SLVs, Iran’s development of larger, more capable SLV boosters remains a concern for a future ICBM capability. Also, these advancements could be applied to developing a basic ground-based ASAT missile, should Iran choose to do so in the future.”

Desire aside, Iran has some practical limitations to deal with: “Tehran states it has developed sophisticated capabilities, including SLVs and communications and remote sensing satellites, but its SLVs are only able to launch microsatellites into LEO [Low Earth Orbit} and have proven unreliable.”

Deny > Control

Iran’s capabilities in space are most effective in denying the space sphere to adversaries, rather than actually controlling it themselves. In 2011, Iran was able to capture an American drone by jamming the drone’s GPS signal and spoofing another GPS signal. This is much easier to do than taking out a satellite.

It is unlikely that Iran would be able to strike satellites from their orbit, though the desire and ballistic missile base is there. There are just cheaper and easier alternatives like GPS jamming and spoofing. If you do lose your GPS signal soon—it probably wasn’t Iran.

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

Image: Reuters.