Diplomacy & Crisis News

More than $138 million is needed to assist rural communities affected by extended drought in the Horn of Africa, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday, launching a comprehensive response plan for the region. 

Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, is covered in ash and dust following the underwater volcanic eruption at the weekend, but the situation is calm there and first clean-up efforts are underway, UN humanitarians said on Monday.

The Boxer Rebellion still shapes Beijing’s attitude toward the United States.

As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on and global labour markets continue to struggle, the latest International Labour Organization (ILO) report, published on Monday, warns that recovery will remain slow.

It’s time to talk about managing the world’s likely overshoot beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.

What the French president’s choice of swear word reveals about his style of governance.

With a 1.1 million jab delivery in Rwanda this weekend, the World Health Organization’s multilateral initiative to provide equal access to vaccines for all reached the one billion milestone.

An often-disparaged technology is a lifesaver, not a luxury.

Can Valérie Pécresse reunite the right and defeat French President Emmanuel Macron?

Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his deep concern after reports of a tsunami and ash affecting Tonga following the eruption of an undersea volcano near the Pacific nation.

The slow fall of the nation-state’s monopoly on violence will shape future conflicts.

The UN Office in Geneva is celebrating a 60-year collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union of public-service broadcasters, which has helped transparent, fair and impartial television news to be seen around the world.

Despite the annihilation of two major Japanese cities in 1945, atomic bombs have not been relegated to the pages of history books, but continue to be developed today – with increasingly more power to destroy than they had when unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945.  

Richard Douglas

Firearms, United States

Ruger’s SP101 is a small, durable, and elegant-looking revolver that’s great for concealed carry, personal defense, or even home defense.

Here's What You Need to Know: The SP101 is small enough to fit in your pocket and designed for ultimate concealability and easy storage. Weighing in at around twenty-five ounces, it is a bit heavy for its size. However, this heft does help to mitigate some of the recoil.

Ruger’s SP101 is a small, durable, and elegant-looking revolver that’s great for concealed carry, personal defense, or even home defense. It’s available in a variety of calibers, including .357 Magnum, .38 Special, .327 Federal, and .22 LR. Throughout my years of owning this little revolver, I’ve never had any failures whatsoever. It’s incredibly reliable and built for years of consistent service.

The SP101 features a triple-locking cylinder, locked into the front, bottom, and rear of the frame to ensure dependability and positive alignment. There’s also a transfer bar safety, which will prevent any accidental discharges during concealed carry. The SP101 is very easy to take down for cleaning or maintenance, and requires no special tools to do so.

It comes with a sleek, brushed stainless steel finish for extra aesthetic appeal. While it’s not quite as nice as what you might find on a Smith & Wesson revolver, it’s still very high-quality. The SP101 also features a cushioned rubber grip with either a black synthetic or hardwood insert, depending on which model you choose. It feels nice in your hand, and there’s no exposed metal in the backstrap to further ensure a secure, comfortable grip. It’s great for me, but if the grip doesn’t quite meet your standards, the frame easily accommodates custom grips as well.

Most SP101 models come with a five-round capacity, apart from the .22 LR model (which comes with an eight-round capacity) and the .327 Federal (six-round capacity). You can shoot the revolver in double-action or single-action by manually cocking the hammer. I’d recommend shooting in single-action for a quick, light pull that breaks around 4 lbs, as the double-action pull can be long, gritty, and quite heavy, breaking around ten to eleven pounds.

This revolver comes in several different barrel lengths, including 2.25-inch, 3-inch, and 4.2-inch. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and designed for ultimate concealability and easy storage. Weighing in at around twenty-five ounces, it is a bit heavy for its size. However, this heft does help to mitigate some of the recoil.

Just like the Taurus 380, it’s relatively soft shooting despite its small size. The .357 loads are much more snappy than .38 loads, but the combination of the revolver’s heavier weight, solidity, and cushioned grip make the recoil much more manageable than most snubnose revolvers.

As far as accuracy goes, you’ll have the best chance at hitting your target from short distances. Shooting in single-action helps with accuracy, as well. In fact, when I switched from double-action, I was able to cut my five-shot groups in half! My average grouping in single-action was just 1.5 inches from twenty-five yards, using various .38 Special loads. Getting small groupings from close distances (up to thirty yards) is easy, but anything further requires a bit of practice.

It comes standard with some basic sights, lowered to reduce the chances of snagging on your clothes when you draw the revolver from the concealed carry position. Both are adjustable for windage and elevation and set within the frame.

The MSRP of the Ruger SP101 is between $719–$769, depending on which model you choose, but you can usually find them online for around $550. It is a higher-than-average price, but extremely durable, soft shooting, and an excellent choice for anyone who needs an easy-to-conceal revolver for personal or home defense.

Richard Douglas writes on firearms, defense and security issues. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field, and a columnist at The National Interest, 1945, Daily Caller and other publications.

This article first appeared in April 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia.

Trevor Filseth

Donald Trump, Middle East

It is not the first edited video depicting Trump that Iran has released. 

The official website of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, published an animation depicting the assassination of former President Donald Trump on Wednesday. The video’s release came shortly after the second anniversary of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani’s death in an airstrike ordered by Trump.

The video, titled “Revenge is Definite,” shows a similar airstrike taking place at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s current residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

The video depicts a ground drone infiltrating the residence with the assistance of an Iranian hacker who deactivates a series of security cameras. The mansion is then surveyed by an aerial vehicle described as an “AC-130,” although the Iranian air force does not operate the Lockheed/Boeing C-130 Hercules or its AC-130 gunship variant. The Jerusalem Post noted that the heads-up display depicted in the video is nearly identical to a display seen in the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, suggesting that it could have been lifted from that game.

The drone then moves to a golf course where the video’s animated version of Trump—complete with a red “MAGA” hat—is playing with a group of associates. One of the people accompanying Trump is then sent a text message informing him that “Soleimani’s murderer and the one who gave the order will pay the price.”

The ground drone helps guide an aircraft that resembles a Shahed Saegheh drone toward Trump’s golfing party. Finally, a red button is pressed, and a picture of Soleimani comes into focus.

Khamenei and a number of Iranian-affiliated media outlets have made repeated promises to take revenge against Trump for his role in Soleimani’s killing. On January 22, 2021, an image, also titled “Revenge is Definite,” depicted Trump golfing as the shadow of an Iranian aircraft passed overhead.

A second video published on the website of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi showed alternating cuts of speeches made by Raisi and Trump. The video, which was titled “Hard Revenge is Certain,” also showed photos of Soleimani and ended with a title card that described the general as a “#Hero.”

At the time of the killing, Iranian officials and state media described the assassination as an “act of war” and promised to avenge Soleimani’s death. There has been an escalation in attacks against U.S. military targets in Iraq and Syria in the two years since his death. During his lifetime, Soleimani led the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, a military unit tasked with aiding Iranian-backed militias elsewhere in the Middle East.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters

Anastasia Kapetas

Nuclear Proliferation, United States, Australia

Australia has said that it doesn’t want to develop either nuclear weapons or an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle, but other countries will be asking whether that will remain true over time.

If the architects of the AUKUS pact and its headline initiative to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines imagined it would be seen as proliferation neutral, the reality might not be so straightforward. The announcement was extremely sketchy on many critical details, particularly from a non-proliferation perspective.

Of course, how nuclear non-proliferation issues are addressed isn’t the sole test of this deal, but it will be part of managing its future trajectory. It’s notable that the State Department doesn’t seem to have been in the loop on negotiations. It has carriage of US non-proliferation commitments, so some of the proliferation consequences may not have been front of mind.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said the deal will comply with Australia’s international non-proliferation commitments. That’s true, as there’s a massive loophole in Article III of the United Nations Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that exempts naval reactors from nuclear safeguards. However, the non-proliferation community has long seen the loophole as a major threat to one of the treaty’s key aims—to limit the production and use of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Morrison’s statement is less certain when it comes to transfers of Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Royal Australian Navy’s Hobart-class destroyers and Australia’s commitments under the Missile Technology and Control Regime.

This non-treaty association of states aims to limit the risks of nuclear proliferation arising from the sale and transfer of nuclear-capable delivery systems. In the past, the US has backed the MTCR with stringent sanctions for non-compliance.

The last time a country transferred missiles with a range of more than 600 kilometres to another country (not counting US sales of Polaris, Trident and Tomahawk missiles to the UK) was in 1988 when China sold 3,000-kilometre-range missiles to the Saudis. The backlash was immediate and helped consolidate MTCR norms. The Tomahawk family of missiles has at least a 1,000-kilometre range and can be configured for either a nuclear or conventional payload. Some analysts suggest that the transfer of Tomahawks to Australia may erode the MTCR norm of denying transfers of missiles with ranges over 300 kilometres.

There could also be implications for negotiations on the proposed fissile material cut-off treaty, historically supported by Australia, which aims to strictly limit the amount of fissile material that nucelar-weapon states can manufacture. Negotiations are locked in a stalemate, largely thanks to Pakistan. Nonetheless, the treaty’s goals have broad international support and the manufacture of more weapons-grade uranium to power Australia’s submarines will likely also set those goals back.

There seems to be an emerging consensus in the global arms-control community that the AUKUS submarine deal could have a hugely negative effect on non-proliferation norms and practices. Depending on how Washington responds, this could have an impact on how the program unfolds.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, says that the deal ‘will further intensify the arms race in the region and dynamics that fuel military competition’. Pointing to the sparse strategic rationale offered so far, he adds, ‘Other than fielding more and better weapons, does anyone have a plan?’

Similar views have rippled across non-proliferation and arms-control circles, driven by fears that the deal will set a precedent ushering in a dangerous era of loosened nuclear restraints.

Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, points out that if Australia gets a HEU submarine like the US Virginia class, it will be the first non-nuclear-weapon state to have such a capability.

What will Washington say to other allies, such as Israel, that might want the same technology? What normative leverage will the US have if China and Russia decide to proliferate naval reactor technology and long-range nuclear-capable missiles, or if other nations—let’s say Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil—seize on this precedent as an excuse to develop HEU for naval purposes?

Others have pointed out that the deal could be inconsistent with the US–Australia 123 agreement on nuclear transfers, as well as the US Nuclear Non-proliferation Act and Atomic Energy Act. If that proves correct, there’ll need to be a legislative component to make the deal legal from the US side.

All of this depends on the nature of the technology transfer on naval reactor design and HEU enrichment—whether it’s a ‘black box’, with no Australian involvement in the nuclear side of the submarine project, or if Australia will have to develop some capability on reactor repair, fuel manufacture, storage and refuelling to accommodate a wartime scenario where total dependence on the US might not be feasible.

In either case, Australia will probably need to modify its safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency, given all the questions this deal raises about how the American HEU nuclear fuel cycle will extend to Australia.

Australia has said that it doesn’t want to develop either nuclear weapons or an indigenous nuclear fuel cycle, but other countries will be asking whether that will remain true over time.

Verbal assurances won’t be enough, argues Kimball. He and other arms-control advocates suggest that the US needs to develop legislation ensuring that Australia won’t use this agreement to develop an indigenous enrichment capability.

The non-proliferation community, and other nations, could decide to lobby for another legislative requirement—that the Australian naval reactors be designed for low enriched uranium (LEU) rather than HEU.

HEU is anything above 20% enrichment, but US naval reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers use fuel that is 93–97% enriched weapons-grade uranium.

Transferring HEU technology to a non-nuclear-weapon state is seen as a grave proliferation risk, because it could enable that state to move closer to a nuclear weapons breakout capability without penalty and because it increases the risk of nuclear theft by non-state actors for use in a basic gun-type nuclear device.

The international community went through this issue with Brazil from the late 1970s, when the military junta developed HEU for use in naval rectors, and probably for nuclear weapons. After sanctions and the signing of a special Brazil–Argentina nuclear non-proliferation agreement, Brazil has been developing nuclear-powered submarines with France, which are believed to be LEU fuelled.

There’s been a push in the US Congress to phase out HEU in US naval reactors, consistent with domestic legislation on non-proliferation and Washington’s international non-proliferation commitments.

In 2020, the House Armed Services Committee, controlled by the Democrats, called for continued study into the use of LEU in the next generation of US submarines.

The Republican-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee disagreed and recommended banning the use of public funds to explore the option. It cited a 2016 JASON defence advisory panel report which found that the use of LEU reactors wasn’t feasible in current submarine designs. Using LEU requires bigger reactors as around 4.7% more enriched uranium is needed than for HEU. Submarines using LEU must be refuelled every one to three years. The Virginia-class HEU fuel lasts for 33 years—the life of the submarine.

But the JASON report also recommends a compromise, using what it calls LEU+. This is 25% enriched uranium, technically HEU but well below the enrichment level needed for nuclear weapons. It would provide roughly the same performance as higher enriched HEU.

The first opportunity to use LEU or LEU+ would be in the Virginia class’s replacement, the SSN(X) or Improved Virginia class, to be designed before 2030.

There are many reasons Australia might want to explore LEU+ as well as working towards best-practice nuclear safeguards. A deal that was meant to demonstrate unified resolve to China has generated considerable blowback, opening up divisions in NATO and the Five Eyes and generating distrust of Australia’s motives—all of which adversaries will be quick to exploit. Working to ameliorate the non-proliferation harms of this deal could help manage some of these effects.

And continuing to discourage a proliferation-permissive environment by upholding global rules is definitely in Australia’s interest, especially in a geopolitical environment where potential adversaries are fielding ever-increasing numbers of weapons.

The US and Australia both recognise the importance of strengthening global rules and the institutions that allow existential nuclear-proliferation issues to be mediated. Conventional nuclear and military deterrence might make state adversaries think twice before using nuclear weapons, but it’s of little use in stopping acquisition and the attendant risks of catastrophic miscalculation.

The article was first published by The Strategist.

Anastasia Kapetas is the national security editor at The Strategist. Image: US Navy/Flickr.

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

History, Asia

The CIA considers the case unsolved. But we all know who did it—and why.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Unlike other North Korean terrorist incidents, the agents responsible for the Gimpo bombing have never been caught and the CIA described the bombing as “unsolved” in a 1988 intelligence document. 

Given the intense passions and rivalries that sports events are known to inspire, it should surprise no one that they so frequently become theatres on which domestic and international political conflicts are liable to play out—sometimes with explosive consequences.

That was certainly the case on September 14, 1986, when a bomb placed in a trash can exploded in the entry to Gimpo International Airport as it was receiving athletes from around twenty-five countries just five days before the tenth Asian Games. Between 1958 and 2001, Gimpo served as Seoul’s primary international airport.

The blast shattered the terminal’s large glass panes (as you can see in this photo) and killed an airport electrician and a family of four who had just bid goodbye to a departing relative. It injured a further thirty-six persons.

The Asian Games, begun in 1951, have taken place at four-year intervals since and are the world’s second-largest multi-sport event, behind only the Olympics. Seoul had previously been slated to host the sixth Asian Games in 1970 but was forced to cede the role due to threats from North Korea.

Now a significantly more modernized, and gradually democratizing Seoul would have a second shot as a host in 1986. Seoul had its sights on an even more prestigious prize: hosting the 1988 Olympic Games. The same facilities could even be used for both events! But Seoul would have to prove that it could manage its responsibilities hosting a sprawling international sports event smoothly—and that North Korea would not find some way to derail everything.

Fundamentally, Pyongyang refused to see its southern neighbor as a legitimate state and placed enormous symbolic weight on curbing its participation in highly public international sporting events.

Not only was Pyongyang boycotting the 1986 Asian Games, but it also didn’t want anyone else to attend either. Most of North Korea’s Communist-aligned allies in Asia, like Vietnam and Cambodia, complied with the boycott—save for the most important of all, China. That defection stung Pyongyang and amounted to a diplomatic victory for the South.

Pyongyang had just three years earlier come very close to blowing up South Korea’s president during a visit to Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar today) in October 1983. Due to an error in timing, a bomb planted in the roof of a sacred mausoleum instead killed twenty-one attendees, including much of the South Korean cabinet

But since then, relations seemingly had begun to improve, with Pyongyang allowing the first-ever reunion between family members separated between the divided Koreas in 1985.

The Gimpo airport itself had a history intertwined with past conflicts in Korea. Built on the western outskirts of Seoul during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1935-1942, Gimpo was the scene of repeated air battles and aerial bombings in the early weeks of the Korean War as it was air-evacuated by South Korea in June 1950, then captured and used as a base for North Korean piston-engine Yak-7 fighters and Il-10 attack planes. Recaptured in September, it became a major hub for U.S. transport and fighter operations for the remainder of the Korean War, known as Kimpo AFB or K-14.

In 1958, Gimpo was re-designated as an international airport, and rapidly became Seoul’s primary air transit location while older, flood-prone Yeouido airport was demolished. 

The attack on Gimpo was held culpable for decreasing international attendance of the Asian Games, with hotels reporting only 94,000 foreign checks ins out of a projected 160,000, resulting in financial difficulties. 

However, it didn’t prevent the tenth Asian Games from being generally perceived as a success, paving the way for Seoul’s participation in the 1988 Olympics, which would coincide with its full transition to democratic elections.

Unlike other North Korean terrorist incidents, the agents responsible for the Gimpo bombing have never been caught and the CIA described the bombing as “unsolved” in a 1988 intelligence document.

However, it’s a stretch to say there’s much doubt as to North Korea’s culpability in the attack. The following year, two North Korean agents planted a bomb on Korean Air flight 858, killing all 115 aboard. Both agents were subsequently captured. While one managed to commit suicide, the other eventually confessed they had been instructed to perform the bombing to cast a shadow over the 1988 Olympics.

 A lot has changed in the last three decades since. As Gimpo struggled to cope with the mounting volume of international travelers to South Korea, it was eventually replaced by an airport in Incheon for international arrivals, though Gimpo still handles domestic flights.

South Korea and North Korean teams have also played together in multiple sporting events, starting with a joint World Table Tennis team in 1991, and culminating in unified Korean teams in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. 

Unfortunately, North Korea has repeatedly rebuffed overtures from South Korea’s president Moon for deeper improvements of relations, while discussions between Washington and Pyongyang appear to be on a negative trajectory. But hopefully, we have seen the last of sports-event terrorism on the Korean Peninsula.

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

This article is being republished due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Sebastien Roblin

V-280 Helicopter,

Unmanned vehicles are the way of the future.

Here's What You Need to Remember: If more advanced algorithms for operating in a combat environment can be developed, an autonomous option could make employing a tiltrotor on riskier attack or reconnaissance missions more appealing without having to worry about losing a human crew alongside the expensive aircraft.

In December 2019, Bell had its V-280 Valor tilt rotor demonstrator aircraft perform an entire test mission drive driven according to computer algorithms—almost without any human inputs.

To be exact, the V-280’s software individually performed all of the tasks that might be expected of it in a routine non-combat mission without human input, but a human operator was onboard and the helicopter during the transitions between each tasks. Those tasks include:

1) Taking off vertically in “helicopter” mode, with the V-280’s propellers tilted upward to serve as rotors.

2) Transitioning the rotors to horizontally oriented “airplane mode” with greater speed and fuel efficiency.

3) Cruising towards multiple waypoints in horizontal flight mode.

4) Loitering by flying in circles above a waypoint.

5) Tilting the rotor back to vertical and landing helicopter-style at a destination.

If further tests are undertaken—none are presently schedule—they would likely seek to seamlessly integrate those tasks in one continuous autonomous flight operation.

What’s especially striking is that the tech demonstrator isn’t even primarily intended to serve as an unmanned system. It’s competing with the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant compound-rotor helicopter in the Army’s Future Vertical Lift competition, particularly the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft program which seeks a successor to workhorse UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter used both for cargo missions and to deliver troops into combat. 

FVL is one of the Army’s priorities in its Big Six modernization program to reequip its forces for twenty-first century warfare.

Like for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle intended to replace the Army’s M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (recently canceled but likely be rebooted soon), Bell’s tests suggest that unmanned capability may increasingly become a standard feature in platforms that aren’t even primarily intended for use as drones.

Despite being more expensive and historically crash-prone, tiltrotors ideally combine the maneuverability and vertical takeoff and landing abilities of a helicopter with the superior speed, high-altitude performance and fuel efficiency of a fixed-wing airplane. You can see a V-280 in both flight modes here.

The V-280 takes its name from its cruising speed of 280 knots (320 miles per hour), nearly twice maximum speed of an average military helicopter. It also boasts a vastly greater combat range of 520 to 920 miles, depending on loadout.

By contrast, the V-280’s competitor, the SB>1 is a more compact helicopter with compound rotor blades stacked on top of each other. Compared to the V-280s, it’s projected to cruise a bit slower (250 knots) and significantly less far (280 miles), but in theory would be more maneuverable in tight quarters and cost less to procure and operate.

However, the V-280 began test flights on December 2017, whereas the first SB>1 flight only took place on March 21, 2019 due to technical problems. Meanwhile, the V-280 has chalked up 160 flight hours.

Yet while Bell’s enthused about how well advanced the unmanned flight testing had proceeded, Army aviation modernization director Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen reportedly threw cold water on the notion that unmanned operation would show up in early FVL aircraft according to Breaking Defense.

“It’ll be a very tall order to get it into Increment 1,” he said, referring to the initial batch of production FVL aircraft due in the early 2030s. “We’ll have it in another spiral [upgrade cycle] for sure.”

After all, it’s one thing to fly unmanned on a routine delivery mission. It’s another to perform complex combat tasks such inserting into or extracting personnel from constricted landing zones possibly at night or in inclement weather, evading enemy fire and sensors, searching an area on a rescue or reconnaissance missions, and attacking targets with weapons. If desired, such capabilities would require far more advanced algorithms.

There may even be reservations about entrusting living soldiers for transportation to a fully autonomous aircraft.

So what exactly would be the concept of operations behind an optionally unmanned V-280? Unlike many unmanned systems which are cheap enough to be treated as relatively expendable, a high-performance tilt-rotor transport simply can’t be sacrificed like cannon fire. 

Nonetheless, an unmanned tiltrotor might be used to perform routine cargo delivery missions to forward outposts without having to keep a rescue crew on standby in the event of an accident or combat loss.

If more advanced algorithms for operating in a combat environment can be developed, an autonomous option could make employing a tiltrotor on riskier attack or reconnaissance missions more appealing without having to worry about losing a human crew alongside the expensive aircraft.

Thus, Bell’s achievement with the V-280 helicopters is an indicator as to how unmanned capability is growing ubiquitous in modern military systems—but also the limitations and technical problems that will need to be addressed before autonomous systems can begin replacing traditionally manned combat platforms such as helicopters, tanks and submarines.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States.

This article first appeared in 2019. It is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr 

 

Vincenzo Caporale

Belt and Road Initiative, Southeast Asia

Commentators and China watchers have gotten accustomed to generalizing Chinese investments as a malicious attempt to trap smaller nations through debt. Southeast Asian countries have more leverage and negotiating power than is acknowledged.

In December, China and Laos inaugurated the $5.9 billion highspeed rail (HSR) that linked China’s southern Yunnan province and the Laotian capital, Vientiane. Eventually, the Chinese and Laotians hope to connect much of the region by extending the rail to Thailand and Malaysia. It is a massive undertaking for an underdeveloped nation with a high debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio like Laos. As a result, the project has been decried as another example of China’s “debt trap diplomacy”—predatory lending to small and underdeveloped countries to ensure deferential concessions to China when the loans are not paid back on time or in full. However, this antiquated view does not represent reality as countries in Southeast Asia have more leverage and negotiating power than is commonly understood.

To begin, China does have a history of predatory lending to underdeveloped countries through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As Mark Green warns, “China’s efforts to use its [BRI] to broaden its geopolitical and economic clout risk saddling developing countries with unsustainable debt while increasing their dependency on China.” A four-year study by researchers at AidData found that 165 countries owe debts exceeding $385 billion to China. More striking, they discovered that forty-two countries had debt exposures to China exceeding 10 percent of their GDP.

As a result, we have seen countries defer to Chinese geopolitical interests as we did when Cambodia blocked the 2012 Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) meeting communique because it indirectly mentioned Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or when China utilized the significant debt it owns in Djibouti to establish its first foreign military base there.

The prime example of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy is Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port Development Project. After the port’s completion, it became famous for being a failure. Although it sits near one of the busiest sea lanes globally, only thirty-four ships in total docked there in 2012. As a result, Sri Lanka struggled to keep up with the interest and payments and was saddled with debt. As repayment, the newly elected Sri Lankan government in 2015 handed over the port and 1,500 acres of land for the next ninety-nine years. More than just the port, this gave China strategic footing in the Indian ocean.

Yet, cases like the Sri Lankan one, although worrisome, have created a false set of assumptions that all Chinese investments are predatory and, more importantly, the receivers of the investment are helpless. The situation is more complicated.

Laos exemplifies the complexity of the relationship between China and the countries it invests in. On the one hand, Laos has an unhealthy economic dependence on China: as of 2021, “Laos overall level of debt exposure to China is equivalent 64.8 percent of its GDP.” Laos also had to sell a part of its national security grid to China due to its dependence on its northern neighbor.

Yet, at the same time, this most recent HSR project demonstrates that recipients can engage with China on projects of vital importance without accepting predatory terms. The new rail line will serve as a lifeline for Laos, a landlocked country with one of the most underdeveloped transportation networks in the region. With the train crossing over rough terrain through 167 bridges and seventy-five tunnels at a speed of 160kph, it will radically connect the country. For example, the northern leg of the line from Boten to Vientiane that traverses mountains normally would take two days. With the HSR, it is cut down to only three hours. The potential future payoffs of this project are also enticing as there are plans to extend the line through Thailand and Malaysia. It will connect Laos with essential regional supply chains.

Moreover, the project languished for five years because Laotian negotiators held out for better terms. As  journalist Murray Hiebert remarks in his book, Under Beijing’s Shadow, “Beijing and Vientiane wrangled for years over the conditions of the project and China relented on several of its initial demands, even though Laos held a relatively weak hand.” Initially, Laos was going to take out a $7.2 billion loan from the Chinese EXIM Bank for the project. After the Laotian parliament and international banking institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank criticized the deal, the Laotian government took only a $500 million loan. As a result, China took a much larger stake in financing the project. Regarding the interest rate, Laos renegotiated the interest rate down from 3 percent to 2 percent. Finally, China wanted fifty-five yards on each side of the rail tracks to set up businesses, and eventually, it agreed to only sixteen yards.

It is important to note that these concessions weren’t due to Chinese benevolence. Without a doubt, a part of Laos’ leverage in this situation was that Beijing highly valued this project due to its importance for China’s regional connectivity objectives. But overall, countries like Laos, which are now economically stronger and have more options than before, have more leverage today than they had in the past. First, consider that Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. In 2019, the region averaged 5.4 percent growth and was responsible for 7 percent of global exports. For its part, Laotian GDP growth was 6.5 percent.

Secondly, and partly as a result, the region is attracting more investor interest than before. The emergence of great power competition between China and the United States and its allies has only intensified foreign direct investment in the region. In 2021, Japan, the European Union, and the United States were the largest investors in the region—not China. In other words, Southeast Asian nations have other options than China.

Like other Southeast Asian nations, Laos has recently begun balancing its economic over-dependence on China. In terms of developmental aid, Japan—if counted with the Asian Development Bank, in which Japan is the largest shareholder and investor—is the largest donor to the region. In 2016, Japan launched the Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (EPQI)—an infrastructure investment initiative positioned as an alternative to China’s BRI—and in early in 2021, Japan and Laos affirmed plans to pursue a strategic partnership. Thus, further opportunities for Laos to engage with Japan should continue to present themselves.

Laos is also increasing its relations with other powers like the United States. In 2012, Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the country since 1955. In 2016, the two countries set up the U.S.-Laos Comprehensive Partnership, including a trade and investment framework agreement. Between 2013 and 2019, trade has increased threefold, and the United States Trade and Development Agency is inspecting the viability of a 20-megawatt solar project in the country.

Laos is engaging with smaller countries as well. After Joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2013, Laos signed bilateral trade agreements with over fourteen countries. One of those countries, Vietnam, has a history of close ties with Laos given their geographic proximity and similar governments and economic systems. Between 2016 and 2020, Vietnam was Laos third-largest investor—with investments growing by 35 percent since 2010, and in 2020 Vietnam had a total investment capital of $143 million spread across nine projects, marking a 130 percent increase year over year. These investments included major infrastructure projects such as airports, roadways, and a new National Assembly building. Vietnam also expanded its bilateral free trade agreement originally signed in 1998. Similarly, Laos has increased its engagement with South Korea, which is already the fifth-largest investor there. Earlier this year, South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong visited Laos—marking the first visit by a South Korean foreign minister in over twenty years—to discuss ways to increase South Korean investment there.

Laos is not the only example of a Southeast Asian nation engaging with Chinese investment from a secure negotiating position. Malaysia also successfully renegotiated nearly all of its BRI projects after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was rushed back to power in a 2018 election. Mahathir’s election and the subsequent renegotiation of Chinese-related projects came after the previous administration was found to have corruptly accepted BRI projects at inflated prices in return for China bailing out the state’s investment fund. Likewise, Vietnam rejected all Chinese bids on its own crucial connectivity project, the North-South Expressway, after a domestic backlash against Chinese influence in the country bubbled up..

Despite this reality, commentators and China watchers have gotten accustomed to generalizing Chinese investment in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—depicting it all as a malicious attempt to trap smaller nations through debt. Of course, much of Chinese investment is predatory and should be noted as such. However, aside from a few examples like Cambodia, Southeast Asian countries have more leverage and negotiating power than is acknowledged. U.S. strategists can’t accurately depict and predict Chinese strategy and motivation without the subtlety of fine distinctions in analyzing Chinese actions. Laos and the HSR project illustrate the nuance of Chinese investment and recipients’ relationship to it.

Vincenzo Caporale holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. He is currently a feature writer at the Borgen Magazine and focuses on development and geopolitics in Southeast Asia. You can reach Vincenzo or follow his work on Twitter @VincenzoCIV

Image: Reuters.

Daniel L. Davis

Battle of Stalingrad, Europe

Because the city bore the name of the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, Hitler took particular interest in capturing the city as a personal hit on the Soviet leader.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: Though Stalingrad carried significant military importance, the psychological importance both leaders placed on the city elevated it to a level of importance above perhaps even the capital city of Moscow. The price both armies were willing to pay to possess it transcended military utility and entered fully into the category of obsession.

Since July 2012, the world has watched in horror as the once-beautiful and vibrant Syrian city of Aleppo has been transformed into a perpetual battlefield. Those killed in Aleppo, as well as throughout the rest of Syria during the civil war, are reported to be approximately three hundred thousand. During the U.S.-led war in Iraq from 2003–11, one study reported that 405,000 Iraqis were killed as a direct result of combat, and from 2001–15, an additional 91,991 people were killed due to war in Afghanistan, for a three-country total, over a fifteen-year period, of 796,991. As staggering as the death toll in these wars have been, it pales in comparison to what remains the world’s most barbaric city fight, the Battle of Stalingrad, in which an incomprehensible 1.9 million German and Soviet soldiers and civilians are estimated to have been killed in six months.

In June 1941 Hitler ordered a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union, and for most of the next year the German army routed the Soviet troops, capturing thousands of square kilometers of their country in the process. In August 1942 the German VI Army had pushed all the way to the banks of the Volga River, near the industrial heartland of the USSR. Once captured, the Nazis could sever the Volga, and potentially destroy Moscow’s ability to continue fighting. All they had to do was take one more city. Stalingrad.

The prewar population of Stalingrad was four hundred thousand. It was home to a key river port as well as numerous important war and civilian industries. Because the city bore the name of the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, Hitler took particular interest in capturing the city as a personal hit on the Soviet leader. Stalin likewise placed great importance on holding the city to prevent Hitler from capturing the city carrying his name.

Though Stalingrad carried significant military importance, the psychological importance both leaders placed on the city elevated it to a level of importance above perhaps even the capital city of Moscow. The price both armies were willing to pay to possess it transcended military utility and entered fully into the category of obsession.

Initially the Germans made substantial and rapid progress in conquering the city. The Nazis attacked the city and its defenders with almost uncontested bombardment from the sky, tanks, artillery, mortars and other heavy weapons. By early September 1942 the Germans were still making progress, but the rate of advance had slowed considerably. As a result of the enormous bombardment, the city and its buildings had been pulverized into one giant heap of rubble. The Russians began to develop defensive tactics that took advantage of the wrecked buildings, which ironically gave them advantages.

Nevertheless, by November the relentless German assault had pushed the Soviet line almost all the way to the Volga River. Both sides had endured hundreds of thousands of casualties at this point, and the barbarity of the fighting on both sides of the line had transcended all bounds of human behavior. Right and wrong, morality, and honor among combatants had ceased to exist. The battle had literally descended into an animalistic struggle to survive.

The 2001 Hollywood movie Enemy at the Gates depicted a duel between a specific German and Russian sniper. Snipers had become one of the most feared opponents for both sides. Due to their ability to fire from long ranges, soldiers never felt they were safe and often were shot even in areas they thought to be secure.

One particular Russian sniper, Anatoly Chechov, said of the time he took his first human life. “I felt terrible. I had killed a human being.” But after time and the knowledge of how German troops had killed many of his countrymen, Chechov said when interviewed during the battle, “I started to mercilessly fire on them. I've become a barbaric person, I kill them. I hate them.” To give just a glimpse into the hell of the world that was the battle of Stalingrad, consider these few stories from both countries’ perspectives.

As described in detail in the excellent book by Michael K. Jones, Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught, on September 14, 1942, the Germans had pushed almost all the way through the city to the Volga, a mere two hundred yards from their objective. The Russians were on the verge of defeat. Because the German Luftwaffe had air supremacy in the skies, it was near suicide for any reinforcements or resupply to be ferried over the Volga during daylight. But because the Soviet commander of the Thirteenth Guards Division believed that the Russian defenders near the river’s edge would not hold out until nightfall, he ordered his division to cross anyway, believing the battle and perhaps the war was on the line.

Gen. Alexander Rodimtsev led his troops onto the barges and started across the river. According to eyewitness accounts, the general’s boat was hit with a German bomb before reaching the far shore, killing most on board—but miraculously, he survived. Most of his men were not so lucky. Several eyewitnesses described the scene.

Albert Burkovski, one of the few Soviet defenders still holding on the Stalingrad side of the river, described the approach of the Thirteenth Guards Division troops. “We were lying on the ground. Everything was on fire,” he said. “The boats were being bombed and shelled. I saw a big barge – full of soldiers, with their big coats, grenades, sapper’s spades, ammunition and machine guns – go down right before my eyes.” Another defender, Ivan Schylaev, described a similar horrifying scene.

“There was a flash of flame, dark smoke enveloped the ferry, an explosion was heard, and immediately afterwards, a drawling scream. . . . The ship was maneuvering, then a sheet of fire erupted on the upper decks; the force of the explosion shook the Volga. When it was over – and the smoke had cleared away – there was nothing, just waves where the ferry had been. The scene froze our blood.”

As Michael Jones noted, the Red troops shouldn’t have been able to hold the line. “The Germans occupied the high river embankment and brought overwhelming firepower to bear on the advancing Russians,” he wrote. “It did not seem possible that they could succeed – and yet they did. In ferocious hand-to-hand combat, Rodimtsev’s soldiers recaptured a key building from the Germans and secured the river crossing.” (For a graphic depiction of this action, see this excerpt from the 2013 Russian movie Stalingrad.) The view from the German side was even more horrific.

In a WW2History.com interview, German survivor Helmut Walz described the dehumanizing effects inflicted on him during the house-to-house fighting in Stalingrad. Walz was in the midst of an assault on a certain Russian-held building when he came face to face with an enemy soldier. He said he raised his weapon to shoot, but all of a sudden, “I saw little stars in front of my eyes. I looked to my right, and I ran my left hand over my face and a jet of blood comes out and my teeth flew out of my mouth.”

He thought, “Now it’s all over,” and expected the Russian soldier to finish him off. But then one of his friends came to his aid and “crushed the head of the Russian who had shot me. He crushed his head despite the steel helmet he was wearing, right into the middle of his face. That made such a cracking noise, I can still hear it today.”

But his horror for the day wasn’t finished. As his friend bandaged Walz’s wounds, Walz looked up and tried to warn the friend that another Russian fighter was right behind him. But it was too late. Shots rang out and his friend’s helmet “flew through the air and then I looked at him and I saw how he was shot in his head and how his head split. That’s the first time I saw a brain. On the left-hand side and on the right hand side there were parts of the brain, and in the middle there was water. No blood, but water. And he looked at me and he was standing on the soil with his wound.”

Scenes like those of the Thirteenth Guards Division and Helmut Walz were repeated a thousand times over during the six months of the battle for Stalingrad. I fought in high intensity combat during my twenty-one-year military career, as well as participating in counterinsurgency operations against guerrilla foes. Yet without equivocation I confess that I cannot fathom, cannot even truly imagine, what the living hell of Stalingrad combat must have been like. It is frightening to consider how remorseless and vicious men can become when stripped of their humanity.

The carnage of the Battle of Stalingrad finally came to an end in February 1943, when the German Sixth Army Commander, Gen. Friedrich Paulus, surrendered the remaining ninety thousand troops of his army to the Soviet Forces. After the Red Army stopped the Nazis at the Volga, they would push the Germans back, relentlessly, for the next two years, culminating with the destruction of Berlin, the death of Adolf Hitler and the end of the war.

Of the ninety thousand Germans that went into Soviet captivity, fewer than six thousand would live to see their homeland again, and those didn’t come until the mid-1950s. However bad and inhumane we believe the wars in the Middle East have been—and they have been horrific, especially for the poor civilians caught in the middle—they are a mere shadow of wars past.

May those shadows never return.

Daniel L. Davis is a widely published analyst on national security and foreign policy. He retired as a Lt. Col. after twenty-one years in the U.S. Army, including four combat deployments, and is a Foreign Policy Fellow for Defense Priorities and a member of the Center for Defense Information's Military Advisory Board. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1.​

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters