Diplomacy & Crisis News

War Is Boring

World War II, Germany

One unlucky U-boat, the U-1206, sank during its maiden combat voyage after its captain used its high-tech toilet improperly.

Key Point: The toilet was extremely complicated. First, it directed human waste through a series of chambers to a pressurized airlock. The contraption then blasted it into the sea with compressed air, sort of like a poop torpedo.

By World War II standards, the German Type VIIC submarine was an advanced hunter of the seas. But one unlucky vessel of its class, the U-1206, sank during its maiden combat voyage after its captain used its high-tech toilet improperly.

Yes, this really happened, and was an unexpected and tragic consequence of a real naval engineering problem.

For years. crafty German engineers had been busy developing what they thought was the next generation in undersea plumbing. While Allied subs piped their sewage into onboard septic tanks, German U-boats saved precious weight and space by discharging waste directly into the sea.

But pulling off this latter operation posed unique challenges. The system only worked when the submarine floated near the surface, where the water pressure was low. One can only imagine the unpleasant work-arounds forced upon the crew when boats had to stay submerged for prolonged periods.

As the war — and Allied anti-submarine technology — progressed, submarines were increasingly dead meat in shallow water or on the surface. But by 1945, Germany’s toilet technology had matured.

Germany’s top minds had produced a newfangled “deepwater high-pressure toilet” which allowed them to flush while submerged deep below the waves.

Advanced as it was, the toilet was extremely complicated. First, it directed human waste through a series of chambers to a pressurized airlock. The contraption then blasted it into the sea with compressed air, sort of like a poop torpedo.

A specialist on each submarine received training on proper toilet operating procedures. There was an exact order of opening and closing valves to ensure the system flowed in the correct direction.

Now meet U-1206 and its proud 27-year-old captain, Karl-Adolf Schlitt. On April 14, 1945, Schlitt and his submarine were eight days into their first combat patrol of the war. The submarine lurked 200 feet beneath the surface of the North Sea when Schlitt decided that he could figure the toilet out himself.

But Schlitt was not properly trained as a toilet specialist. After calling an engineer to help, the engineer turned a wrong valve and accidentally unleashed a torrent of sewage and seawater back into the sub.

The situation escalated quickly. The unpleasant liquid filled the toilet compartment and began to stream down onto the submarine’s giant internal batteries — located directly beneath the bathroom — which reacted chemically and began producing chlorine gas.

As the poisonous gas filled the submarine, Schlitt frantically ordered the boat to the surface. The crew blew the ballast tanks and fired their torpedoes in an effort to improve the flooded vessel’s buoyancy.

Somehow, it got worse when the submarine reached the surface. “At this point in time British planes and patrols discovered us,” Schlitt wrote in his official account.

After taking damage from an air attack, the only option was to scuttle the sub and order the sailors overboard.

“The crew reached the Scottish coast in rubber dinghies,” Schlitt added. “In the attempt to negotiate the steep coast in heavy seas, three crewmembers tragically died. Several men were taken onboard a British sloop. The dead were Hans Berkhauer, Karl Koren and Emil Kupper.”

Schlitt survived the war and died in 2009. U-1206 rests on the bottom of the North Sea to this day.

This article by Elliot Carter originally appeared at War is Boring in 2015.

Image: Flickr. 

Stephen Silver

Omicron,

Fauci also recently had a contentious testimony on Capitol Hill. 

These days, it can often feel like everyone either has coronavirus or had it recently. That’s a result of the Omicron variant, which is rapidly spreading throughout the United States.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief White House medical advisor, said this week that he expects most people will ultimately be reached by Omicron. “Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will, ultimately, find just about everybody,” Dr. Fauci said in a recent “fireside chat” with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Fauci was asked for his thoughts on the group of former Biden administration transition officers that recently suggested the government move past the “emergency” phase and into one of “living with the virus.”

Fauci added that while most people will be exposed to the virus during the Omicron phase, unvaccinated people will suffer the worst of it. Ultimately, Dr. Fauci said, the goal is to reach “control,” in which “getting the level of infection that causes severe disease low enough that we can incorporate this infection” is the ultimate endgame.

However, he added that while we’re not currently at the point where it’s safe to just “live with it,” we are heading in that direction.

It has been quite an eventful week for the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Per NBC News, Fauci recently had the latest in a series of Capitol Hill dustups with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a longtime critic.

During Fauci’s testimony before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Senator Paul criticized Fauci, who responded by blaming Paul for threats that have been directed towards Fauci’s family. This includes a heavily armed man who was arrested in Iowa in December after saying he was on his way to kill Dr. Fauci.

For a witness before Congress to accuse a senator of such things is extraordinarily rare, even in the most contentious of hearings.

During his testimony before the Senate, Fauci was also asked about a report from the controversial media outfit Project Veritas, which alleged that EcoHealth Alliance asked the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2018 to fund gain of function research related to bat coronaviruses. NIAID, which is directed by Fauci, went ahead with the research. Fauci denied the report before Congress, per Real Clear Politics.

"What came out last night in Project Veritas was a grant that was submitted to DARPA, then it distorted it to say we funded the grant. We have never seen that grant and we have never funded that grant,” Fauci said.

Fauci was also criticized in some quarters, and praised in others, for appearing to call Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) a “moron” during the hearing.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

MH-53E Helicopter, United States

The three-engine MH-53E, 37 tons fully loaded, is one of the military’s most crash-prone aircraft.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The worst MH-53 crash occurred in 1988. Eight sailors died. Among other incidents, MH-53Es also crashed in 2000, twice in 2002, once in 2003 and again in 2005 and 2008.

On Jan. 8, 2014, a U.S. Navy MH-53E Sea Dragon minesweeping helicopter crashed off Virginia Beach. Of the five people aboard, four were rescued. Two died in the hospital. The Navy called off the search for the fifth crewman, pilot Sean Christopher Snyder.

The three-engine MH-53E, 37 tons fully loaded, is one of the military’s most crash-prone aircraft. The Navy bought 46 Sea Dragons from Sikorsky in the early 1980s. Fourteen of them have been destroyed, killing 32 people in total.

It’s not for no reason that the Navy is eager to retire the MH-53E. The fleet’s 2021 budget proposal asks Congress for permission to sideline the Sea Dragons starting in 2022. Smaller MH-60s could replace them, although some lawmakers have urged the Navy to acquire new CH-53Ks for the minesweeping role.

As of 2008, the MH-53E fleet had a crash rate of nearly six incidents per 100,000 flight hours. On average, the Navy loses one of its approximately 3,000 aircraft every 100,000 flight hours. Helicopters crash at a slightly higher rate of roughly two per 100,000 hours. Depending on what you’re comparing it to, the MH-53E crashes at a rate between three and six times normal.

The giant helicopter’s old, complex design is one reason. Leadership is another. The way the Sea Dragon is used is also a factor.

The worst crash occurred in 1988. Eight sailors died. Among other incidents, MH-53Es also crashed in 2000, twice in 2002, once in 2003 and again in 2005 and 2008. In 2012, two Sea Dragons were destroyed in accidents and another was damaged. A Navy investigation of Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 15 and the overall Sea Dragon force uncovered lax training procedures.

The sailing branch fired HM-15 commander Sara Santoski. “Initial findings from the assessment show that Cmdr. Santoski failed to strictly enforce appropriate operational, maintenance and safety standards and that she failed to ensure a proper command climate,” the Navy said in a statement.

But the MH-53E itself is partly to blame for its history of destruction. An upgraded version of Sikorsky’s classic S-65, the Sea Dragon is an analogue helicopter in a digital age. “When you pull the stick, you’re pulling actual metal wires on an engine,” a former sailor told Military.com on condition of anonymity.

“There’s not some electronic signal telling the engine to rev up or rev down, or telling the blades to angle up or angle down. It’s just a really old system and leads to a lot of mishaps.”

Moreover, the MH-53E spends most of its time at low altitude, towing a pickup truck-size mine-hunting sled—a sort of raft fitted with equipment for triggering sea mines. “If you can imagine fighting the winds over the ocean,” the sailor told Military.com. “It puts a lot of stress on the aircraft.”

The Navy for a long time stood by the Sea Dragon despite its high accident rate. “The MH-53E has been a workforce for the Navy for [many years],” Capt. Todd Flannery said in 2014. “I am confident and proud of the contributions the Sea Dragon has made and look forward to its continued service to the fleet.”

That “continued service” could end in just a couple of years.

David Axe served as the defense editor of The National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: U.S. Navy Flickr. 

Trevor Filseth

Lebanon Crisis, Middle East

Lebanon's government has done little to address the country's economic woes. 

Traffic delays mounted throughout Lebanon on Thursday as striking members of the country’s public transportation union blocked roads with their vehicles to protest the government’s ineffective response to the country’s deepening economic crisis.

Several other labor unions also participated in the strike, leading Lebanon’s remaining businesses to largely halt their operations throughout Thursday. Universities and schools throughout the country were also closed due to road closures, and protests took place on highways and city streets from 5 a.m. until the evening. The drivers’ main demand has been the restoration of fuel subsidies, which the government lifted earlier in the year in order to save money.

Lebanon’s banking sector, once the largest and most sophisticated in the Middle East, failed in 2019. The World Bank described the resulting collapse, in which the Lebanese pound fell from 1,500 per dollar to more than 30,000 per dollar, as one of the worst financial collapses in the world since 1850. Today, four out of five Lebanese citizens live in poverty, and the army’s food is being supplied by a foreign country. The country’s economy shrunk by an estimated 7 percent in 2021, a significant improvement from its loss of 20.2 percent in 2020, per the World Bank.

The devastation of the country’s economy has also been complemented by ongoing fallout from the enormous explosion that leveled downtown Beirut in August 2020. Many citizens are upset that the government has not revealed the cause of the explosion.

In addition to the anger caused by the economic crisis, many Lebanese citizens have expressed frustration that their government’s apparent corruption and mismanagement seem to have remained intact. A new cabinet that committed to fixing the economy in September has not met in three months, and various factions have battled over the investigation into the causes of the port explosion.

The country’s embattled president, Michel Aoun, has pushed for the creation of a cross-sectarian commission to open a national dialogue regarding the country’s economic situation. However, this proposal has failed to attract support in the country’s sharply divided sectarian parliament.

In the West, observers have argued that Lebanon’s failure to implement badly needed reforms is in large part due to a political elite’s reluctance to surrender its power by reforming the country’s political and economic system, even though changes have been demanded by Lebanon’s international creditors.

Human Rights Watch indicated in its world report on Thursday that the “corrupt and incompetent Lebanese authorities” had “deliberately” failed to solve the economic crisis in order to protect their own interests, which the organization argued constituted blatant disregard for the country’s citizens.

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

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

North Korea, Pacific

A four-hour rescue effort saved 170 crew from Pledge and Pirate—though a dozen crew from Pirate and Pledge would never make it back home

Here’s What You Need to Remember: In February 1951, the port was subject to a U.N. naval blockade that would become the longest in modern history. During the 861-day long blockade, three more small boats were sunk by mines.

At noon sharp on October 12, 1950, the minesweeper USS Pirate had just completed a busy but productive morning off the North Korean port of Wonsan when everything went wrong at once. 

Hours earlier, the small, 625-ton vessel had led the five ships of Mine Division 32 based in Sasebo, Japan through two belts of contact mines laid in a channel just one mile wide, and fourteen miles long leading into Wonsan Harbor in North Korea. 

At the time U.N. troops were on the offensive following a successful amphibious landing at Inchon on the western coast of the Korean peninsula. Therefore, a second landing called Operation Tailboard at Wonsan on the eastern coastline was planned. But that meant the minefields barring access to Wonsan had to be cleared first. 

This was no piece of cake, as North Korean boats had laid over 3,000 Soviet-supplied contact and magnetic mines in the 400 island-congested square miles surrounding the port.

Knowing the division was entering dangerous waters, skipper Lt. Cornelius McMullen ordered all non-essential personnel on deck with life jackets to minimize the number that might be trapped below should things go wrong. Cornelius’s superior, Lt. Commander Bruce Hyatt, was also aboard to coordinate the actions of the five-ship division.

But for the first few hours things went swimmingly. Pirate’s crew detected and disabled six mines spaced 50 meters apart using the vessel’s mechanical “sweep” that fanned the water behind it, cutting the cables connecting mines to the seafloor. The mines then floated to the surface where they could be blasted by the ship’s gunners. Fellow Admirable-class minesweepers Pledge and Incredible located another string of four.

But at a minute past noon, a Navy helicopter orbiting overhead reported a third, dense ‘cabbage patch’ of mines near Pirate’s position. At the same time, Pirate’s sonar operator reported multiple contacts all about her hull.

Then eight minutes later a lookout spotted a large spiky contact mine straight before the Pirate.

Pirate’s sweep was designed to disable mines behind her, but her current trajectory meant she was bound for a deadly collision.

McMullen faced a terrible choice, as turning risked triggering the mine as well.

Crew member Earl Richard, at the time manning an anti-aircraft gun close to the bridge, recalled what happened next to the CNO’s Naval History Division:

“The skipper called for a hard left rudder to try and turn away from the mine, but we were so close that by the time the ship began its turn, the port side of the ship came right on to the mine and it stuck the back quarter of the ship on the port side. The hole was wider than a two-car garage.

Everyone on the bridge was blown in different directions. Some were blown over the side, and I was blown to the main deck. I can only remember being showered by what smelled like diesel oil and tons of dust and debris.”

Her back broken in two, the Pirate’s separate halves rapidly sank. 

Richard recounted the horrifying four minutes:

“When I finally realized what had happened, I was picking myself up from the main deck and heard a shipmate yelling, only to find he was trapped under several hundred feet of 2 inch diameter mooring line that had been coiled on top of ventilating unit. When the ship listed the line slid off and trapped his legs. One other shipmate and myself were able to get him out from under at the same time the ship was going down. It had listed to the starboard side and when it came back to the port side, we slid off into the water. With the other guy and myself we were able to drag the injured guy away from the ship before it went completely under water which was in about four minutes.

I remember the water was very cold and at first most of the crew began swimming towards the shore until the beach guns opened fire and began blowing guys out of the water.”

The three coastal batteries were situated upon Sin Do island three miles to the southwest. Another battery of smaller, rapid-fire guns opened fire from Ryo-Do island to the southeast. This map shows the positioning of the minefield belts and the two islands here.

Fellow minesweepers Pledge, Incredible and Kite began dueling the battery with their single 3” deck guns. But the most effective fire came from beefier 1,600-ton USS Endicott, with her four 5” gun turrets. 

Six years earlier during World War II, the Gleaves-class destroyer had sunk two German corvettes in a swashbuckling action off southern France. Since then she had been converted into a “fast minesweeper,” but had not lost her fighting spirit (nor her guns).

Meanwhile, Pledge surged towards the Pirate’s position in an effort to rescue the scattered survivors but was bracketed by accurate shellfire.

Just ten minutes into the engagement, a second huge explosion announced that Pledge too struck a mine while engaged in a hard turn attempting to dodge shellfire.

For 45 minutes, skipper Lt. Richard Young led a frantic effort to save his wounded ship as water poured into her ruptured hull. But the North Korean shore gunners zeroed in on the floundering minesweeper.

Finally, Young too had to give the order to abandon ship.

It was the turn of the even smaller 320-ton USS Redhead—named after the duck, not gingers—to come to the rescue.

The YMS-1 class boat managed to weave around the numerous mines in the channel, but was repeatedly battered by North Korean shells as she trawled for thirty minutes picking up survivors, all the while her smaller 3” deck gun returned fire at her tormentors.

The Incredible too helped rescue twenty-seven sailors before her engines seized up and she had to disengage.

Soon, Corsair fighter bombers from the carrier USS Leyte came howling overhead, blasting gun positions with napalm, rockets and bombs. Meanwhile, a paunchy PBM5 Marine flying boat from Navy squadron VP-47 flew overhead to help the Endicott’s and Redhead’s shellfire.

Together, shells from Endicott and Redhead managed to silence all three North Korea batteries. Navy divers belonging the Underwater Demolition Teams swam and boats launched from the Endicott recovered additional sailors.

The four-hour rescue effort saved 170 crew from Pledge and Pirate—though a dozen crew from Pirate and Pledge would never make it back home. 

The following day, Navy divers swam to the sunken Pledge and Pirate and recovered their sensitive encryption systems, before demolishing the wrecks. The ships and their commanders would all be decorated for their valor in action.

The amphibious landing at Wonsan never took place as it would be overrun by U.N. troops advancing on land. But just a few weeks later Wonsan fell to a massive Chinese-North Korean counterattack. Beginning in February 1951, the port was subject to a U.N. naval blockade that would become the longest in modern history. During the 861-day long blockade, three more small boats were sunk by mines, and over two dozen more ships were damaged by them and coastal gunfire.

Two years after the traumatic incident, the Pirate’s skipper McMullen received a mysterious package in the mail: the Pirate’s flag, recovered by an anonymous benefactor.

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

This article first appeared in September 2019 and is being reprinted for reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Osama Rizvi

Supply Chains, World

Some data points may suggest that things are getting better but that is only in relative terms—supply chain pressures are still at historic highs.

There seems to be nothing new about this new year. We have an even worse wave of Covid-19 sweeping the globe, with governments reimposing restrictions, flights being canceled, and health infrastructure coming under pressure. Yet what is new is a realization that inflation isn’t transitory and that there is a need to raise interest rates—which the U.S. Federal Reserve will do, faster than previously thought.

However, another issue that has spilled over into 2022 is that of supply chain disturbances. Some data points may suggest that things are getting better but that is only in relative terms—supply chain pressures are still at historic highs.

The case of Hong Kong provides a good example. Bloomberg recently covered the country’s plight: new restrictions on general mobility in Hong Kong will negatively affect the services sector while flights continue being canceled and cargo capacity is impacted as the cost of logistics surges an expected 40 percent in the next three weeks. Many companies have shifted to air cargo as shipping remains problematic which is costing them dearly—these costs will certainly be transferred to the consumers at some point, contributing to the overall rising trend in inflation. Businesses are expecting a rise in delivery times and an increase in costs by 30 percent.

It isn’t only Hong Kong facing such problems; the issue is global. The disruptions in supply chains have understandably affected the food business as well. KFC has recently confessed to reducing its menu as the famous food outlet faces problems procuring certain items due to coronavirus outbreaks in different meat processing plants. Many other industries are facing a similar fate. Semiconductors, part and parcel of our life, is another one. According to a recent report, chip shortages will continue this year as well because of the Omicron variant. Mark Rossano from Primary Vision Network has discussed these issues in detail, revealing how lead times for chips are higher once again.

Global shipping rates also remain on the higher side with some moderate reduction. In fact, the Baltic Dry Index and China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI) have started to inch up and a continued trend in this direction might be worrisome. This is especially concerning given the rise in inflation. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index was up 76 percent in the last week of December 2021 as compared to 2020. The number of container ships waiting at Los Angeles ports is still near its peak. Xeneta, in their latest outlook for 2022, highlighted that contracts for 2022 will be “at record-high levels.”

Due to shifts in global consumption patterns and subsequent changes in trade, the whole schedule of shipping containers, that are responsible for moving more than 1.9 billion tonnes annually, was disturbed and now a typical container spends more than 20 percent of its time in transit compared to pre-pandemic levels. As explained above, this has resulted in an increase in shipping rates to the tune of 80 percent on a year to year basis—according to one estimate, a 10 percent uptick in rates can lessen industrial production by 1 percent.

A very interesting barometer, the Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI), also points towards the higher side. On the other hand, vaccine mandates may provide another hiatus in streamlining supply chains disruptions as an estimate says that such a mandate will lead to 22,000 Canadian workers leaving there jobs.

Many industry insiders and business leaders share the view that the current supply chain disruptions, that started because of Covid-19, will take time to improve. Almost everyone expects it to carry on for the rest of the current year. It may take well longer for supplies to run smoothly. The issue is not that the contemporary conditions are better but the fact of how bad the circumstances were. Manufacturing, transport, shipping, etc. all are long term process that can’t be restarted or realigned to function at an optimum level: the back-log needs to be cleared, the issue of manpower (people who are responsible for different checks and regulations and documentations as containers come and go) still persists and might get worse due to Omicron, inventory to sale ratio is still skewed, and once again the current coronavirus wave makes future planning a real challenge. These and other issues will persist. On top of which we must not forget that rising inflation across the globe will continue to raise shipping rates as well create further complications for global supply chains.

Osama Rizvi is an economic and energy analyst at Primary Vision Network.

 

 

David Axe

Cyclone Patrol Boat, Middle East

If the United States and Iran go to war in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy’s smallest warships could be the first to see combat.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Ten Cyclones, operating from a base in Bahrain, comprise America’s naval vanguard in the Persian Gulf.

If the United States and Iran go to war in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy’s smallest warships could be the first to see combat.

The Navy’s 13 Cyclone-class patrol boats -- also known as “PCs” for “patrol, coastal” -- each displace just 330 tons of water. An Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, by contrast, displaces more than 9,000 tons of water. A standard crew aboard a Cyclone includes just 28 officers and sailors.

Ten Cyclones, operating from a base in Bahrain, comprise America’s naval vanguard in the Persian Gulf. They are the only U.S. warships that permanently operate off the Iranian coast. Other, larger vessels periodically deploy to the region.

The Cyclones are not widely known. Even the Navy in the past has failed to appreciate the 180-foot-long vessels, despite the extreme danger they could encounter during wartime. Congress in 2015 struck the Cyclones from the official tally of around 280 “battle force ships” that the Navy expects to play a major role in a large-scale conflict.

Each packing two 25-millimeter cannons plus machine guns, grenade-launchers and two quadruple mounts for short-range Griffin anti-ship missiles, the Cyclones arguably are the most heavily-armed American warships relative to their size.

Since acquiring the patrol boats in the mid-1990s until recently, the Navy struggled to find a place for the diminutive vessels in a fleet dominated by much larger, ocean-going aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. The patrol boats lack the range and seakeeping to deploy on their own, so the fleet must hire heavy-lift vessels to haul the tiny warships across oceans.

The Cyclones spent a decade in a kind of planning limbo. But then in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. The patrol boats suddenly found their calling.

The waters of the Persian Gulf around Iraq’s sole oil terminal, where tanker ships hook up to load the precious crude, are too shallow for destroyers and cruisers. So to protect the strategic oil facility, the Navy deployed Cyclones.

The tiny but hard-hitting boats proved adept at shallow-water patrols. After the reborn Iraqi navy took over oil-terminal protection in the mid-2000s, the Cyclones shifted to more general missions in the waters separating Iraq and Iran.

“They are fulfilling long-standing and validated naval missions, functions and tasks, protecting U.S. national interests while providing stabilizing assurance to our allies and partners in a volatile region of the world,” the Navy said of the Cyclones.

To better prepare the patrol boats for combat in crowded, chaotic waters, in 2013 the Navy began improving the vessels — adding the Griffin missiles to greatly boost the boats’ firepower.

The Cyclones perhaps could outfight many of the gun- and rocket-armed boats and corvettes that make up the bulk of the Iranian navy and the naval militia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. But any patrol boat lacking serious air-defense systems is vulnerable to shore- and air-launched heavy anti-ship missiles.

The Navy plans to keep the Cyclones in service beyond the current five-year planning period that ends in 2024. After that, the fleet should consider replacing the patrol boats with “PC(R)” robotic vessels, Navy lieutenant commander Collin Fox argued in the February 2019 issue of Proceedings, the professional journal of the U.S. Naval Institute.

"Medium-displacement unmanned surface vessels are coming to the fleet; but when, how, and what roles they will fill are open questions," Fox writes. "Rather than developing a new MDUSV from scratch, the Navy should take advantage of the requirement to replace the Cyclone-class patrol coastal ships to develop a capable, mature MDUSV—killing two birds with one stone."

The new robotic patrol boat could borrow the hull of the Coast Guard’s 350-ton-displacement Sentinel-class cutter, Fox pointed out. The Coast Guard also refers to the Sentinels by their class code “WPC.”

“The Navy should latch onto the Coast Guard’s WPC program to acquire a PC(R) that could also serve as a MDUSV development platform and, eventually, a MDUSV,” Fox wrote. “A vessel based on the WPC would take advantage of the Coast Guard’s sunk development costs and production learning curve, while also leveraging multiyear procurement to achieve still greater cost savings.

A robotic patrol boat, in theory, could perform the same dangerous mission that the Cyclones do, but without risking American lives.

David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in June 2019 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: U.S. Navy, Flickr.

Trevor Filseth

Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Europe

Russian leaders have questioned the value of continued talks.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) met in Vienna on Wednesday in the most recent attempt to de-escalate the crisis along the Russo-Ukrainian border.

The OSCE meeting marks the third attempt to negotiate an end to the crisis in the past week. Although a breakthrough is not expected, most security professionals have agreed that it is preferable to continue discussions than to break them off. The OSCE is a vital venue for discussion over the Russo-Ukrainian issue because it contains all parties to the crisis: Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and the rest of NATO.

Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, indicated on Wednesday that concrete results were not expected from the first week of OSCE meetings. The ambassador claimed that the priority of the meetings would be to find mechanisms capable of deepening international dialogue between Russia and the West throughout 2022.

“Our main goal is … to establish a dialogue,” Carpenter told a Russian television network. “Our positions are polar, but this does not mean that there are no elements and areas on which we cannot agree.”

The Russo-Ukrainian crisis has built up over several months as Russian troops have steadily gathered on the border, leading to alarm over a potential Russian military intervention. An estimated 100,000 Russian troops are present on the border, although precise numbers are difficult to determine.

Russian leaders have denied any plans of invading Ukraine and have defended their right to position troops within their own country. In spite of these denials, the Kremlin has also expressed its anger over NATO’s eastward expansion, claiming that the presence of NATO members on its borders, and the military alliance’s outreach to Ukraine, represents a major national security threat.

To resolve the crisis, Russia has demanded an unequivocal NATO commitment not to expand further east and an end to NATO training exercises in Eastern Europe. NATO’s leaders have rejected these demands, and talks have thus far failed to resolve the crisis.

The Kremlin announced on Wednesday that it will be evaluating whether it is worth continuing to attend the talks.

At the NATO-Russia Council meeting earlier in the week, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko claimed that NATO was “trying to gain supremacy in all areas and all possible theaters of war.”

The deputy foreign minister warned that “unpredictable and … severe consequences” could result if Russian demands are ignored or brushed aside.

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

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

H-6K, China

Today just three countries operate long-range heavy bombers. Russia has 170 or so Bears, Backfires and Blackjacks. America fields 160 swing-wing B-1s, radar-evading B-2s and stalwart B-52s. China’s bomber force is smaller with around 130 H-6s.

Here's What You Need to Know: But the H-6K could have a big weakness — one that actually has little to do with the bomber itself.

Today just three countries operate long-range heavy bombers. Russia has 170 or so Bears, Backfires and Blackjacks. America fields 160 swing-wing B-1s, radar-evading B-2s and stalwart B-52s.

China’s bomber force is smaller with around 130 H-6s. And most of the H-6s, copies of Russia’s Cold War Tu-16, lack the long range and heavy payload that many of the Russian and American bombers boast.

But that’s changing. After years of work, the Chinese air force has reportedly outfitted two regiments—together possessing around 36 bombers — with a new, much more capable “K” version of the H-6.

The H-6K is Beijing’s B-52 — a far-flying, fuel-efficient heavy bomber combining a simple, time-tested airframe with modern electronics and powerful, precision weaponry. Although to be fair, the B-52 flies much farther with more bombs and missiles.

Still, over the vast Pacific Ocean, where the tyranny of distance prevents most aircraft from operating efficiently, the H-6K could prove to be one of China’s most important planes in wartime.

But the H-6K could have a big weakness — one that actually has little to do with the bomber itself.

Tupolevs forever

The H-6K is a 21st-century version of a Soviet bomber that first flew in April 1952. The Tupolev design bureau’s Tu-16 was the Soviet Union’s first big, jet-propelled bomber. Powered by two AM-3 turbojets buried in the wing roots, the subsonic Tu-16 could haul up to 10 tons of bombs — nuclear or conventional.

With a standard bombload and no aerial refueling, a Tu-16 could fly more than 1,000 miles before needing to turn back.

The Tu-16, which NATO called “Badger,” proved to be a solid, reliable airplane, much like the United States’ B-52, which first flew in 1954 and, with lots of upgrades, is still going strong.

Moscow quickly developed different versions of the Tu-16 for reconnaissance, electronic warfare, aerial refueling and to haul cruise missiles for attacks on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.

Faster and more modern Tu-22Ms and Tu-160s — NATO designations “Backfire” and “Blackjack,” respectively — replaced the Badgers as the Cold War ended. But the Tu-16 soldiered on … in China.

Beijing’s heavy bomber

China bought the rights to the Tu-16 in the late 1950s. Over the next 60 years, state-owned manufacturer Xian churned out nearly 200 copies of the redesignated H-6.

Like the Soviets, the Chinese modified the basic, four-person H-6 for a wide range of missions. The H-6A was an atomic bomber. The H-6B was a recon plane. The H-6C was a conventional bomber. There’s an H-6U tanker version. The H-6H, M and K models carry cruise missiles.

But until the H-6K first flew in 2007, all of Beijing’s bombers were still 1950s-vintage Tu-16s in their guts. Swapping old engines and electronics for modern gear, the H-6K represents a huge evolutionary leap over the old Xian bombers.

The H-6K replaces the original AM-3 turbojets — which one analyst called “thirsty and maintenance intensive by current standards” — with much more efficient D-30 turbofans. Without aerial refueling, an armed H-6K can cruise 1,900 miles or so before needing to turn around — a big improvement over older models.

Even more impressive, an H-6K that refuels in mid-air twice can reportedly range 3,100 miles from base while hauling 12 tons of weapons, including up to six YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles or CJ-20 subsonic land-attack cruise missiles, capable of striking targets 250 and 1,500 miles away, respectively.

Supported by tankers, an H-6K armed with YJ-12s or CJ-20s could venture deep into the Pacific, hunting for American ships or even flying within striking distance of America’s own main bomber outpost in Guam, some 3,000 miles from the Chinese mainland.

“That is, if it can slip through air defenses,” analyst Hans Kristensen pointed out. But Jon Solomon at Information Dissemination assumed Chinese fighters would accompany the bombers in order to protect them. “H-6Ks can be escorted thousands of miles out to sea by J-11s,” Solomon wrote.

Targeting dilemma

But it’s not enough to just safely fly that far. Long-range strikes — especially against moving ships at sea — require careful planning and precise targeting. The H-6K sports a new nose radome housing a modern air-to-ground radar, which might help guide a YJ-12 but undoubtedly lacks the power to spot targets for a CJ-20.

Instead, the CJ-20 probably requires mission planners to pre-load precise coordinates into the missile’s computer prior to launch. The YJ-12 has its own seeker but the bomber needs to lob the missile into the right general area for the munition to have any chance of detecting and hitting a ship.

“It is not clear whether China has the capability to collect accurate targeting information and pass it to launch platforms in time for successful strikes in sea areas beyond the first island chain” — that is, a couple thousand miles from the Chinese coast, the Pentagon explained in its 2013 report on China’s military.

Targeting, more than the physics of flight and fuel consumption, is likely the current practical limit on the H-6K’s reach, and thus its wartime usefulness to Chinese commanders.

In battle, a long-range bomber is only as good as the intelligence that tells it where to strike. And when it comes to intel for bomber raids, China might not be quite ready to steer its new H-6Ks.

Just wait. According to William Murray from the U.S. Naval War College, “it seems reasonable to assume that China has assessed what is necessary and is investing aggressively to satisfy those requirements.”

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad.

This article first appeared in 2015 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr.

Trevor Filseth

Yemen War, Middle East

Millions of Yemenis have seen their rations reduced due to budget cuts. 

The United Nations is seeking $3.9 billion in donations to continue its humanitarian programs in Yemen in 2022, according to a top UN official.

Ramesh Rajasingham, the acting assistant secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator, told the UN Security Council that the body’s “biggest constraint right now is funding” with regard to its programs in Yemen.

These programs currently provide aid to 16 million Yemenis, or nearly two-thirds of the country’s population, Rajasingham said.

“I call on all donors to sustain—and if possible to increase—their support this year,” the official added, noting that the program had only received 58 percent of the budget it needs to operate last year. Rajasingham argued that funding shortfalls have directly impacted Yemenis’ lives, noting that “vital programs” including access to clean drinking water, reproductive services, and security saw cutbacks in recent weeks.

Because of budget cuts, the UN World Food Programme’s mission in Yemen was forced to cut its assistance programs and provide reduced rations to 8 million Yemenis.

Humanitarian aid is often difficult to provide in Yemen, where an ongoing civil war has leveled much of the country’s infrastructure and caused widespread poverty and famine. A Saudi-led military intervention failed to end the conflict, and while Saudi Arabia’s leaders have sought to extricate themselves from Yemen in recent months, they have continued to maintain a strict blockade on the country.

Although the war has reached an effective stalemate—with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels occupying the country’s north, the Southern Transitional Council secessionist group controlling the city of Aden in the south, and the internationally recognized government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi controlling the rest—it has continued unabated, with Houthis fighting against government forces for control over the oil-rich Marib province.

UN envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg suggested that violence in the country was “entering an escalatory cycle, with predictable devastating implications for civilians and for the immediate prospect of peace.” He estimated that 350 Yemeni civilians had been killed in December and at least 15,000 had been displaced by violence.

Grundberg emphasized that there would be “no sustainable long-term solution [to the conflict] to be found on the battlefield,” and argued that all sides should open negotiations to end the war, “even if they are not ready to put down their arms."

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

Image: Reuters

Kris Osborn

Drones,

ZALA Aero is a leading Russian developer and manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles and mobile systems.

Here's What to Remember: Having a mini drone organically tied to ground units could potentially bring significant advantages to Arctic warfare, simply given the terrain.

Russia is now operating hand-held military drones able to function in temperatures as extreme as minus 52 degrees Celsius, a technology that introduces new operational combat options for fast-increasing numbers of Russian forces in the Arctic.

The drone, according to a report in Russia’s TASS news agency, can fly in both the Arctic and Antarctica. Called the ZALA 421-08M, the five-pound drone is hand-launched and able to fly for an hour and half and transmit data at ranges up to 30m using thermal imaging and EO/IR video cameras.

“The drone’s fixed design, lightweight and smart control system allow for its operation by the personnel with the minimum training level,” the TASS report says.

Having a mini drone organically tied to ground units could potentially bring significant advantages to Arctic warfare, simply given the terrain. A hand-launched drone could transmit video images back from the opposite side of a glacier, mountain or other kinds of extreme cold-weather terrain. While snowstorms or inclement weather might obscure any kind of EO/IR signal, however thermal imagers in that kind of environment might be well-positioned to detect heat signatures from enemy forces, vehicles, or ships seeking to remain undetected.

The ZALA might be able to launch from a ship or Arctic vessel of some kind with great impact, given that water, ice and mountain-like glacier structures are often in close proximity to one another. The greatest advantage something like a ZALA might offer could be described in terms of man-vehicle interface. If the drone can operate in extreme temperatures less amenable to ground infantry in any way, soldiers could remain warmer inside a vehicle to sustain operations. The Arctic landscape, by extension, may not lend itself to dismounted operations involving infantry moving away from or outside of armored vehicles. While the military services are making strides with efforts to engineer cold-weather capable platforms such as fighter jets, ships, weapons and armored vehicles, the Arctic environment does not necessarily allow for armored ground advances with surrounding infantry.

The underlying significance of this Russian report on Arctic drones may simply be that it adds new elements to Russia’s well-documented military build-up in the region which includes the addition of land facilities as well as icebreakers, air and naval assets, and a visible uptick in operations in the region. 

ZALA Aero is a leading Russian developer and manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles and mobile systems. The company has been part of the Kalashnikov Group since January 2015, TASS report.

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.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Defense Post.

Mark Episkopos

BrahMos Missile, Indo-Pacific

BrahMos is expected to be succeeded by BrahMos-II, a hypersonic cruise missile that can reportedly reach speeds of up to Mach 8, or around 9800 kilometers per hour, and boasts an operational range of up to 1,000 km.

India’s military has test-launched an improved version of the BrahMos cruise missile from its latest stealth guided missile destroyer, according to a statement issued by the country’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

"Advanced sea to sea variant of BrahMos Supersonic Cruise missile was tested from INS Visakhapatnam (destroyer) today,” the DRDO tweeted on Tuesday. “The missile hit the designated target ship precisely.” India’s Navy added that the test “represents a twin achievement,” attesting to the “accuracy of the ship’s [Visakhapatnam’s] combat system” and validating the BrahMos missile’s capabilities. Indian minister of defense Rajnard Singh congratulated the team working on the project, according to Naval News. “The robustness of the Indian Navy mission readiness is reconfirmed today after the successful launch of the advanced version of BrahMos Missile from INS Vishakhapatnam today,” he stated.

The Vishakhapatnam is the lead ship of the P-15 Bravo-class of guided-missile stealth destroyers, laid down in 2013 and commissioned in late November 2021. The other three vessels of the  P-15 Bravo-class are in various stages of testing and construction and are expected to be introduced into service through the mid-2020s. The Vishakhapatnam improves on its Kolkata-class predecessor with upgraded onboard electronics, a more robust 127 mm naval gun, and revised bridge design intended to minimize the vessel’s radar cross-section (RCS). The Vishakhapatnam carries up to sixteen BrahMos missiles and thirty-two Barak-8 surface-to-air missiles.

BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile jointly developed by Russian design bureau NPO Mashinostroyeniya and the DRDO. The missile, which was first test-fired in 2001, boasts an operational range of up to 400 kilometers when air-launched and 500 km on surface and sea platforms. The BrahMos missile is expected to be compatible with a wide range of Indian surface vessels, land-based systems, submarines, and aircraft, the latter including as many as forty of the Indian Air Force’s modified SU-30MKI multirole fighters. The missile’s air-launched version, BrahMos-A, was cleared by the Indian Defense Ministry for serial production after a successful test launch in  December 2021. Russian state news outlet TASS reported that Rajnath Singh previously hailed the BrahMos project as “a symbol of the Russia-India strategic partnership.” The Defense Minister also reportedly stressed that the missile substantively boosts India’s capability to repel sophisticated threats.

BrahMos is expected to be succeeded by BrahMos-II, a hypersonic cruise missile that can reportedly reach speeds of up to Mach 8, or around 9800 kilometers per hour, and boasts an operational range of up to 1,000 km. The new missile, which will be carried by both Russian and Indian platforms, is expected to enter testing in the mid-2020s.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Hypersonic Missiles,

The Missile Defense Agency believes hypersonic missile defense is achievable.

Here's What to Remember: This emphasis on prioritizing R&D is entirely consistent with the Pentagon's effort to confront the current challenges facing missile defense.

The Missile Defense Agency is investing in a new kind of space sensor intended to track and ultimately stop hypersonic weapons traveling at more than five times the speed of sound, a modern weapon expected to greatly inform, if not change, paradigms for future warfare. 

As part of its 2022 budget submission, the Missile Defense Agency has requested funds to deliver a “hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor,” intended to “provide fire control quality data to track dim ballistics threats and global maneuvering hypersonic threats,” Navy Vice Admiral Jon Hill, Director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), told reporters according to a Pentagon transcript. 

The new sensor program, which the MDA is developing with the U.S. Space Force and Space Development Agency will deploy its first two satellites in 2023, Hill added.  The new technology will ultimately replace the existing Space Tracking and Surveillance System, or STSS, which is now in orbit. 

Interestingly, the emerging program is consistent with a broad emphasis throughout the MDA budget request, which is the massive amount of money being devoted to research and development. Of the entire $8.9 billion 2022 budget request, $7.2 billion, or eighty percent, is slated for research and development. 

This emphasis on prioritizing R&D is entirely consistent with the Pentagon's effort to confront the current challenges facing missile defense. Not only are hypersonic weapons causing new problems for existing missile defense technologies, but lasers are approaching operational readiness for space and potential rivals are massively expanding their Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) arsenals. As part of this threat equation, adversaries are likely to deploy newer kinds of advanced countermeasures, decoys, or anti-jam technologies intended to ensure an attacking ICBM is able to continue on to its intended target.  

The budget request also includes requests for money to develop a regional hypersonic defense glide phase intercept capability, a kind of sensor-tracking system potentially analogous to what is being developed in space. Upon target approach, a hypersonic glide weapon uses its speed of descent to hit targets and destroy or overwhelm them before there is an opportunity to respond. Hill mentioned this intercept capability in coordination with mentioning funding defenses for Guam to support specific requests from the Pacific theater. 

Advanced space-based sensing to track hypersonic weapons might represent one of just several areas of hope for Pentagon weapons developers confronting the challenge of how to attempt defending against hypersonic weapons. Guided missiles traveling at hypersonic speeds may simply be arriving so quickly that ground-based commanders will not be able to detect a threat in time to respond. Part of this challenge is compounded by the fact that a weapon traveling at hypersonic speeds will likely transit from one radar aperture to another so quickly, that coordinated radar systems may not be able to keep a consistent track on a target across different geographical reasons, something it is able to do with non-hypersonic weapons. 

Detecting hypersonic weapons from space, however, at very rapid speeds, can greatly change the equation and increase the likelihood that defenders could establish a more continuous track of the approaching weapon sufficient to coordinate some defense or intercept. 

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.

This article is being republished due to reader interest. 

Image: Air Force Mag. 

Caleb Larson

Tu-160M, Europe

Though the Tu-160’s relaunch is being heralded in Russian media as a great triumph, the reality is somewhat less rosy.

One of Russia’s older bombers is relaunching for modern combat.

Although the Tu-160 first flew in the early 1980s, during the depths of the Cold War, Russia is remaking one of the largest and fastest Soviet bombers.

The United Aircraft Corporation statement covering the Tu-160M explains how difficult it was to restart the bomber’s production line while incorporating some modernized components.

“As part of the implementation of the program under the state contract between the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia and Tupolev, the design documentation for the Tu-160M aircraft has been fully digitized in a short time, the vacuum welding technology for titanium products has been restored, the production of airframe units has been resumed, a new cooperation has been formed from leading industrial enterprises in the field of metallurgy, aircraft construction, mechanical engineering and instrument making, the main part of which is part of the State Corporation Rostec.”

Out with the Old, in with the New

A Russian official explained that UAC “restored the full production cycle of the Tu-160, but already in the M modification, using modernized engines, modernized aircraft control systems, navigation systems, and weapons control systems,” no small feat considering the original Tu-160’s engines were the most powerful combat aircraft engines ever built.

This latest Tu-160’s engines are thought to be an evolution of the original Kuznetsov NK-32 engines that the manufacturer, Tupolev, claims boost fuel efficiency by a whopping 13 percent.

“The modernization of the Kazan Aviation Plant played an important role in restoring the production of unique aircraft: the equipment of the shops, the flight test base was updated, the world’s largest installation for electron beam welding and vacuum annealing of titanium was put into operation” Denis Manturov, minister of industry and trade of the Russian Federation explained.

“Today we see significant prospects for the Tu-160 platform: further development will make it possible to use it for new types of weapons, including promising ones.”

Why relaunch old production lines for a Cold War-era bomber when Russia has other, newer options available? The Tu-160s relaunch story is, in fact, a decade old.

Hopes were high for Russia's next-generation PAK DA stealth bomber, which on paper is somewhat akin to the United States B-2 Spirit strategic bomber, a stealthy flying-wing design. However, unlike the United States B-2—or new B-21 Raider—Russia's PAK DA design has not been realized, though a few prototypes may exist.

Until Russia is able to rectify problems with the PAK DA design, the new and improved Tu-160M will serve as an interim bomber.

Though the Tu-160’s relaunch is being heralded in Russian media as a great triumph, the reality is somewhat less rosy: Though re-engined and digitally upgraded, the Tu-160 remains, in essence, a Cold War-era design pressed into service in the twenty-first century.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and defense writer with the National Interest. A graduate of UCLA, he also holds a Master of Public Policy and lives in Berlin. He covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society for both print and radio. Follow him on Twitter @calebmlarson

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Travis Pike

Guns,

Will the United States ever adopt a bullpup rifle?

Here’s What You Need to Remember: Bullpup service rifles are more than a simple fad.

You can learn a lot about the differences in national cultures by looking at the service rifles they issue their troops. In some ways, different countries, continents, and cultures take turns swapping in advancements in small arms technology. The United States has led the way with peep sights and semi-automatic battle rifles. Large parts of western Europe lead the way with general issue optics. Germany started the assault rifle craze, but Russia pushed it ahead.

As a result, it sometimes takes time for new and improved elements of weapon design to become ubiquitous around the world. But with that in mind, one type of firearm that has quickly become prevalent across large parts of the world in recent years is the bullpup rifle.

Yet, in North America, the bullpup never really caught on. The U.K. has the SA-80 series of rifles. France has the FAMAS. Austria, Ireland, and Australia love the Steyr AUG. And China, Israel, Singapore, and Croatia all have domestically produced bullpup rifles of their own. Bullpups have this futuristic quality to them, and it’s hard to deny that futurism does have a bit of an appeal.

In fact, there’s an old joke that goes, “Bullpups are the future…and they always will be."

In reality, the first bullpup seemingly dates back to the Curtis rifle of 1866. Then, in 1901, the Thorneycroft carbine saw life. The Thorneycroft was a somewhat practical design that mixed a bolt action 303 British rifle with a bullpup stock. In 1977, the Austrian army broke new ground by adopting a bullpup, specifically the Steyr AUG, as their service rifle that they dubbed the Stg 77.

But what’s the point of the bullpup? Is it really the rifle choice of the future, or is it just another rifle fad that will eventually go the way of the Dodo (or the Advanced Combat Rifle)?

What Is a Bullpup Rifle?

In case you aren’t a military technology nerd, you might see a group of guns called bullpups and wonder exactly what’s going on. Well, bullpup rifles are rifles with the action located behind the trigger. Most rifles have the action, or their functional mechanisms, in front of the trigger. Along with the action, the magazine often sits behind the trigger as well.

Rifles, shotguns, and even pistols can be bullpups. Albeit, I only know of one traditional pistol that uses a bullpup layout. In the military world, the weapon most commonly used in this configuration is a rifle, as rifles typically benefit most from this sort of design.

The primary benefit of using a bullpup design is that the overall length of the weapon can be much shorter without reducing barrel length. Barrel length can be incredibly important with rifle calibers. For example, the 5.56 caliber round is designed for a 20-inch barrel. Anytime the barrel gets shorter, the rifle loses ballistic capability… But a traditional rifle with a 20-inch barrel, like the M16A4, is quite long, which makes urban warfare (entering and exiting doors, buildings, rooms) more difficult. The longer your weapon, the tougher it is to maneuver in tight spaces.

A bullpup rifle can be extremely short and compact but still retain its barrel length because it places the action behind the trigger. Most bullpups with 16-inch barrels can be the same length as an Mk 18 M4A1 Carbine with a 10.3-inch barrel. Again, smaller rifles work better in close quarter’s combat, in and out of vehicles, and stay out of the way for non-front line troops like artillerymen.

Something like the Israeli Tavor can give you a proper rifle barrel for engagements out to 300 to 500 meters and still be small and maneuverable. An Mk 18’s short 10.3-inch barrel drastically reduces the weapon’s overall capabilities outside of a CQB (Close Quarters Battle) environment. In other words, a bullpup rifle can be shorter than a conventional rifle, allowing for good performance both in close quarters and at longer ranges.

The Benefits and Downsides of a Bullpup

While length is the most critical benefit, there are other considerations. First and foremost, the weight is shifted mostly to the rear in a bullpup rifle. Thus the weight sits against the shoulder. This helps balance the rifle and makes it much easier to hold up for longer periods of time. Additionally, bullpups are much easier to fire one-handed and to even hold one-handed while using the other hand for various tasks, and that matters when you’re spending extended periods of time in a combat zone.

The shorter distance between the action and the butt plate also tends to mitigate muzzle rise. This makes the weapon easier to control, especially when rapid firing or firing full auto. Bullpup infantry automatic rifles have been produced as part of the AUG and SA-80 series rifles, and they make it easy to see the benefits of a bullpup layout.

We can’t get a free lunch, though, and everything that’s much better at one thing is sure to be worse at another. One of the primary downsides to adopting bullpup rifles is the placement of the shooter’s cheek in relation to the action. First, should a catastrophic failure occur, the user’s face is more likely to be injured.

Second, bullpups often eject empty casings out of the right-hand side. This produces a problem for lefties as they tend to take casings to the face. That being said, some do allow you to swap the ejection ports or eject casings downwards.

Another issue is the placement of magazines. Being placed so far rearward makes reloads less intuitive. Slow reloads suck, especially if you are laying down suppressive fire. On top of that, the long linkage required to run from the trigger to the action often creates a rather crappy trigger situation. Though, in recent years companies have produced much better bullpup triggers than in the past.

Are Bullpups Really the Future?

Sure, for some countries. I do believe bullpup service rifles are more than a simple fad. In fact, General Dynamics introduced their own bullpup rifle and infantry automatic rifle in the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons, or NGSW, competition. That may have been a fluke in the hunt for America’s next top boomstick, but it could also indicate that Uncle Sam may be warming up to the idea. Plenty of countries seem happy with their bullpups, but it’s also interesting to see a variety of special operations forces turning to Stoner-designed or derivative rifles instead. In other words, they’re sticking with tried and true approaches to traditional rifle design, making changes and modifications to what’s proven to work.

To date, the United States has leaned toward the latter approach as well, but the times, they are a’changin’.

Will the United States ever adopt a bullpup rifle? I don’t see it happening, but the world is a crazy place, and I’ll never say never.

Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine gunner who served with 2nd Bn 2nd Marines for 5 years. He deployed in 2009 to Afghanistan and again in 2011 with the 22nd MEU(SOC) during a record-setting 11 months at sea. He’s trained with the Romanian Army, the Spanish Marines, the Emirate Marines, and the Afghan National Army. He serves as an NRA certified pistol instructor and teaches concealed carry classes.

This article was first published by Sandboxx.

Image: Reuters

Trevor Filseth

Syrian Civil War,

Germany pursued the case under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

At the first trial concerning war crimes since Syria’s civil war began a decade ago, Anwar Raslan, a former colonel in the Syrian Army, was convicted of committing crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

Raslan’s tribunal had been held in Koblenz, a city in southwest Germany, two years after Raslan was arrested by German police. Raslan originally sought asylum there in 2014.

German authorities accused Raslan of complicity in crimes against humanity during his tenure in “Branch 251,” the Syrian secret service. Prosecutors claimed that he was personally involved in supervising the torture and sexual assault of at least 4,000 political dissidents and presided over the deaths of nearly 60 prisoners.

The German court opened its session in April 2020. During the trial’s 106 separate hearings, more than 80 witnesses were called to testify about Branch 251’s activities and Raslan’s role in them.

The trial also featured pictures taken by “Caesar,” an anonymous Syrian military photographer who defected in 2013 and smuggled out more than 50,000 photographs documenting terrible conditions and abuses in Syrian prisons. His photographs led to war crimes accusations and contributed to the United States’ decision to impose significant sanctions on Syria under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.

During the trial, Raslan’s state-appointed lawyers suggested that the colonel, who defected from Syria in 2012, had never personally engaged in torture and had attempted to help prisoners when possible.

Although the trial concerned a Syrian being tried for crimes against other Syrians that took place within Syria, Germany has claimed a right to hold the trial on the basis of “universal jurisdiction,” a legal principle stating that countries have an obligation to try serious crimes regarding human rights and other universal principles. A similar principle has been used to try heads of state accused of war crimes at international tribunals.

Raslan was originally tried alongside Eyad al-Gharib, a former Syrian intelligence officer who also participated in activities at Branch 251. However, al-Gharib, who was lower in rank than Raslan, had his case separated. Al-Gharib was also convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity and sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

Raslan’s criminal charges were much more expansive. His sentence of life in prison is the most severe punishment in the European Union’s criminal justice system. In a personal statement delivered at the end of the trial, but prior to the verdict’s announcement, the former colonel claimed that he was prepared to accept the court’s decision.

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

Image: Reuters.

TNI Staff

North Korean Military, Asia

Scary stuff.

Here's What You Need to Remember: North Korea is also modernizing its armored forces—but the mechanized troops are not the main focus of the regime in Pyongyang. 

While analysts often focus on the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s arsenal of ballistic missiles, the real threat emanating from the North comes in the form of heavy artillery and special operations forces, which could wreak havoc on the South. In the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang’s ground forces are the greatest threat to the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the U.S. forces stationed there—short of nuclear weapons.

“With 70% of the Ground Force positioned south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line, North Korea is maintaining a military posture capable of conducting a surprise attack at any time,” reads the South Korean Ministry of National Defense 2014 defense white paper. “In particular, the 170 mm self-propelled guns and 240 mm MRLS [multiple launch rocket systems] in forward positions are capable of surprise, massive concentrated fire on the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area (GSMA). The 300 mm MRL currently under test development by North Korea is able to reach the middle part of the ROK considering its maximum firing range.”

Additionally, North Korea has reinforced its artillery forces with 122mm towed MLRS systems in the coastal area near the West Sea coast and near the frontlines. The North Korean artillery pieces would be protected by covered trenches to enhance their survivability during combat operations. Altogether, the South Korea estimates that the North has some 8,600 pieces of tube artillery and 5,500 MLRS batteries available to its forces.

Meanwhile, North Korea is also modernizing its armored forces—but the mechanized troops are not the main focus of the regime in Pyongyang. “Equipment modernization is also constantly pursued, such as replacing the existing T-54 and T-55, the main tanks of the armored and mechanized units, with the Chonma-ho and Songun-ho tanks,” the white paper reads. The DPRK has more than 4,300 tanks and 2,500 other armored vehicles at its disposal according to South Korea.

Other than North Korea’s massed dug in artillery forces, Pyongyang’s enormous and well training special operations forces are the most dangerous threat facing the United States and the South. According to U.S. military sources, Pyongyang’s special operations troops are well trained and well equipped and pose a significant danger.

“Special operation forces are currently estimated at 200,000 strong. The special operation forces have a diverse array of strategic, operational, and tactical units, including the 11th Corps, the light infantry division of the forward corps, and light regiment of the forward divisions,” the South Korean white paper reads. “The role of these special operation forces is extended to cover infiltration into the forward and rear areas to strike major units and facilities, assassinations of key personnel, disruption of rear areas and hybrid operations. Infiltration is to be made during a war through underground tunnels, holding areas for infiltration in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), submarines, Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCACs), AN-2 aircraft, helicopters and various other methods.”

Though technologically backwards for the most part—in the event of war—the North Koreans could inflict severe damage to South Korea and the U.S. forces stationed on the peninsula.

This article appeared earlier. It is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Mark Episkopos

M1 Abrams Tank, Indo-Pacific

The first vehicles from the new Australia-U.S. contract will be delivered in 2024 and are expected to enter service in 2025.

Australia has committed to an arms import deal with the United States to purchase 120 tanks and other armored vehicles.

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia seeks to procure seventy-five M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks (MBTs), twenty-nine explosive-clearing assault breacher vehicles, seventeen assault bridge vehicles, and six armored recovery vehicles as part of a $3.5 billion deal.

“The M1A2 Abrams will incorporate the latest developments in Australian sovereign defence capabilities, including command, control, communications, computers and intelligence systems, and benefit from the intended manufacture of tank ammunition in Australia,” said Australia’s Minister for Defense Peter Dutton. “The introduction of the new M1A2 vehicles will take advantage of the existing support infrastructure, with significant investment in Australian industry continuing in the areas of sustainment, simulation and training.” The Australian government clarified that its M1A2 tanks will be of the SEPv3 revision, featuring an improved communications suite, streamlined maintenance protocols, an Ammunition DataLink (ADL) with airburst rounds, and a new Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) setup. The latest version of the M1A2, the SEPv4, is expected to enter testing in 2021.

According to the Australian Defence Magazine, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Rick Burr argued that modernized tanks are essential to the Australian Armed Forces’ interoperability with joint and coalition forces. But the Sydney Morning Herald reported that some Australian security experts are skeptical of Canberra’s procurement decision, noting that heavy armored vehicles do not contribute to the air and naval capabilities crucial to a major military conflict with China. “Tanks are always one of those controversial things - you either love tanks or you hate them,” said Marcus Hellyer, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “The issue is not so much ‘should we be getting tanks?’ The issue is we are spending $30-$42 billion overall on armoured vehicles. Is that the right balance of investment across the [Australian Defense Force] ADF?”

The first vehicles from the new Australia-U.S. contract will be delivered in 2024 and are expected to enter service in 2025. The deal comes amid mounting military tensions between Canberra and Beijing, as Australia seeks to build a web of regional defense partnerships to balance against the Chinese Communist Party’s growing geopolitical ambitions. Australia signed a security treaty with Japan, dubbed a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), earlier in January. Canberra also entered into the AUKUS trilateral security alliance with Washington and London last year. The alliance, which is widely seen as a measure to contain China, has drawn sharp condemnation from Beijing, with a top Chinese Foreign Ministry official charging that AUKUS "seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race".

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

There is widespread fear of an escalation of the current Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict into a large and prolonged inter-state war in Europe. This could lead West European governments to agree to Putin’s key demand of reneging on NATO’s future inclusion pledge for Ukraine and Georgia. Should this happen, the West needs to compensate the two countries for the de facto broken 2008 Bucharest NATO summit promise. Ukraine and Georgia as well as Moldova can be provided with official EU membership perspectives and an assurance that Brussels will start accession negotiations once the three republics’ Association Agreements have been implemented.

In his yearly large press conference on 23 December 2021, Vladimir Putin has raised the stakes of Russia’s current confrontation with the West. In barely coded language, the Russian President has announced that Moscow will increase its military posture in Europe, and extend its current covert military invasion of Ukraine: “We must think about the prospects of our own security. We have to keep an eye on what is happening in Ukraine, and on when they might attack.” Putin is threatening Europe with a major war in its east, if Moscow’s demand for “security guarantees” from the West is not met.

This request is as ridiculous as Russia’s alleged worries about a Ukrainian offensive. Russia controls the world’s largest territory, is one of the two supreme nuclear-weapons states, and has one of the three biggest conventional armies. It is thus one of the militarily most secure countries in the world. The Kremlin recently extended Russia’s territory and has the capacity to erase the whole of humanity several times. Yet, Putin and his assistants represent Russia as a beleaguered underdog in fear of deadly assault from outside.

 

Playing Mad

Russian government officials and propaganda outlets are, on a daily basis, hammering into national and world public opinion the message that the Russian state is under an existential threat. Allegedly, NATO’s current cooperation programs and possible further enlargement in Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus are posing fundamental risks to the future of the Russian nation. They are nothing less than “a matter of life and death for us,” in the words of the Kremlin’s official spokesman Dmitriy Peskov.

To be sure, few people outside Russia are buying into the Kremlin’s paranoid narratives. It is not the tale about NATO, however, but its deep resentment that the Russian leadership is communicating. Putin is purposefully signaling that he may be losing his mind, could snap, and might press the button if provoked. In 2018, the Russian president said: “An aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead.”

Having had to deal with Russian imperialism for centuries, most East Europeans will see through the calculation behind the Kremlin’s warmongering. The US and UK too may not be impressed by Putin’s arguments. They might instead note the risks emanating from Russia’s continued undermining of the worldwide regime to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is an official nuclear-weapons state, legal successor of the USSR, and, as such, together with the US and UK, a founder of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Despite far-reaching obligations emerging from this status, Moscow has, since 2014, put the purpose of the NPT on its head. Rather than providing security for non-nuclear weapons states, such as Ukraine, the NPT’s provisions have been transmuted into an advantage of an official nuclear-weapons state. The NPT guarantor Russia has increased its territory at the expense of a country forbidden to acquire atomic arms, under this ratified treaty. Moreover, Ukraine had, in the early 1990s, the world’s third larges nuclear warheads arsenal, but chose to give it not only partially, but fully up, in exchange for US, UK, and Russian security assurances, in the now infamous 1994 Budapest Memorandum, attached to the NPT.   

The fundamental incoherence and blatant contradictions in Russia’s current stand may not impede its psychological effectiveness in Western Europe, however. Among continental European political and intellectual elites, geopolitical naivety about the functioning of international affairs and simplistic pacifism oblivious of the reasons for war and peace are widespread. It is thus likely that various West European publics, above all the German, will eventually succumb to Russia’s shrill demands.

 

The German Predisposition

Germany is neither a nuclear-weapons state, nor a member of the UN Security Council, nor a signatory of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the NPT, nor an exporter of any weapons to Ukraine. The German government has thus little contributed in the past and little to offer in the future to increase Ukrainian hard security. Instead, Berlin has, during NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008 prevented, the start of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s accession to the North-Atlantic alliance.

The opening of the first Russian-German Nord Stream pipeline in 2011-2012 lowered Russian dependence on Ukraine’s gas transportation system. Nord Stream as well as Turk Stream, a new pipeline through the Black Sea that started operation in 2020, have deprived Kyiv of one of its key instruments of leverage vis-à-vis Moscow. The Nord Stream-2 pipeline scheduled to become operational in 2022-2023 would end any Russian future need for Ukrainian gas transportation capacity and fully free Putin’s hands regarding the recalcitrant “brother nation.”

Despite its ambivalent role in Eastern Europe, Germany has taken in the past and may also in the future assume a lead in the EU’s relations with Russia. Traditionally conciliatory German and other continental West European approaches to Russian imperialism could thus again trump more consistent and principled Western approaches towards Moscow. We might soon see a replay of the scandalous Germany- and France-promoted re-admission of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). This controversial 2019 decision was an embarrassing reversal of the initial position that PACE had taken after the start of Russia’s military attack on Ukraine. The Russian PACE delegation had been banned from the Assembly in 2014, and none of the conditions for Russia’s readmission had been met five years later. Yet the delegation again became a full part of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly in summer 2019.

A similarly awkward West European backtracking could now be in the wings concerning the April 2008 NATO Bucharest summit declaration, in which the North-Atlantic alliance had announced that Ukraine and Georgia “will become” its members. NATO’s enlargement decisions are taken by full consensus meaning that each member country has the possibility to veto the accession of a new state to the alliance. Against the background of their 2019 behavior in the Council of Europe, it is possible that countries like Germany and France will, regarding NATO’s position toward Kyiv and Tbilisi, show now inconsistency similar to that about Russia’s membership in PACE.

Berlin, Paris, Rome, or/and other West European capitals may start sending public signals that Ukraine’s and Georgia’s future accession to NATO is conditional upon Russia’s agreement, or that the Alliance’s 2008 promise to them was not meant seriously, or even that the crucial message of the Bucharest declaration is null and void. Such a signal would cause disappointment throughout Eastern Europe and constitute a blow to the credibility of NATO. Still, such a course of events seems entirely plausible in view of Putin’s manifest determination to keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit, and against the backdrop of earlier West European dovishness vis-à-vis the Kremlin.

 

The EU as an Alternative to NATO

If it indeed comes to a new self-denigration of the West and its fundamental values, it would be important that Western Europe does, at least, some reputation repair in Europe’s East. Regarding an im- or even explicit reversal of the North-Atlantic alliance’s 2008 entry promise to Ukraine and Georgia, various forms of bi- or multilateral damage control could be imagined. One can consist of a replacement of a serious NATO accession prospect with an official and written EU membership perspective for Ukraine and Georgia. The offer could be extended to Moldova which is also part of these three countries’ so-called Association Trio within the EU’s Eastern Partnership program, and has, like the other two, undesired Russian troops on its territory. An explicit EU membership perspective could especially smoothen Ukraine’s already third betrayal by the West, in the form of the devaluation of the 1994 NPT founders’ Budapest Memorandum, 2008 NATO members’ Bucharest Declaration, and 2014 demonstrative exclusion of Russia from PACE.

The announcement of an official EU membership perspective for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova would not be a big step, in fact. The three countries already possess fully ratified and especially far-reaching EU Association Agreements (AAs). The complicated multi-year implementation of the three AAs de facto constitutes a veiled preparation of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova for accession to the Union. A principal inconsistency of the three Agreements signed in 2014 has always been their lack of a membership prospect. The exceptional depth of the integration of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, via the AAs, into the EU’s economic and legal space, is in contradiction to the absence of a statement on the eventual aim of the vast approximation program that these three Agreements are meant to bring about.

Moreover, the EU’s unofficial constitution, the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, already states, in its Article 49: “Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 [respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities] and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union.” There can be no doubt that Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova are European countries. Georgia, for instance, has one of the oldest Christian churches in Europe.

An official announcement that the three associated countries have the opportunity to become full members of the EU would thus be little more than explicating an already promulgated general provision. In substance, it would change little in the Union’s future relations with Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Sooner or later, the three countries would have – in case they implement their AAs successfully – received official EU membership perspectives, in any way.

Symbolically, however, an official and written confirmation by Brussels of the EU accession prospect for the Association Trio already today would be important. It will constitute an especially appropriate gesture to Ukraine and Georgia once various West European countries start to soften, subvert, or sneak away from, NATO’s 2008 membership promise. A public commitment by the EU could function not only as a psychological compensation, as well as a demonstrative re-affirmation of Western values and solidarity concerning democracy in Europe.

It could also represent an alternative security-political framework for Ukraine and Georgia, as the EU has recently also become an official defense Union. The 2007 EU Treaty’s new Article 42.7 says: “If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations charter.”

The EU’s mutual aid guarantee is still a weaker security instrument than Washington Treaty’s Article 5 for NATO, to be sure. The EU does not primarily constitute a military alliance and excludes the US as, since 2016, also the UK as nuclear powers. Brussels prefers to use soft rather than hard power in its foreign affairs. Still, the Union’s considerable economic leverage and conventional military strength as well as France’s nuclear capability mean that the EU is, by no means, a mere paper tiger. Against this background, accession of the Association Trio to the EU would lift the three countries out of the geopolitical grey zone they are currently in.

 

Taking the Wind out of Putin’s Sail

Such a course of events would force Putin into a domestic and international oath of disclosure. The EU is perceived as far less threatening around the world, including in Russia’s population, than NATO (whose alleged aggressiveness is a misperception too). The Union’s enlargement cannot easily be portrayed as an existential military security risk to Russia. This makes the Union’s enlargement less geopolitically significant than NATO’s. It would be more easily justifiable vis-à-vis Russia whose various political and other representatives, before and under Putin, have made numerous and even today make occasionally pro-European statements.

Geopolitical dovishness and fundamentalist pacifism are widespread in Western Europe, including Germany. It is to be expected that the coming months will see a softening, in one way or another, of NATO’s 2008 membership commitment to Ukraine and Georgia. The consistency and coherence of NATO’s and its member states’ public communication have already suffered in the past. While the Bucharest Declaration may remain formally in place, the alliance’s credibility could decline even further in 2022. An EU membership perspective for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova can save the West’s and especially Western Europe’s face.

Such an announcement would pose a complicated conceptual challenge, to the neo-imperialist Russian elite. The Kremlin’s appetite for inclusion of post-Soviet states and especially of Ukraine into Russia’s sphere of influence would, to be sure, remain in place. In fact, an EU membership perspective for Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine may be seen as more threatening to the powerholders in the Kremlin than NATO’s accession promise. In view of the high popularity of Europe in Russia, it would suggest to ordinary Russians that the future of post-Soviet states is not predetermined by their common past as parts of the Tsarist and Soviet empires. The Kremlin would thus be as opposed to accession of Ukraine to the EU as to NATO.

Yet, the so-far dominant apology for Russian neo-imperialism – namely, its alleged defensiveness – would become implausible in the case of EU expansion. Conjuring up the image of an allegedly existential security threat to the Russian nation would not easily work regarding a possible new enlargement of the EU to the east. A public offer by Brussels to Kyiv, Tbilisi, and Chisinau of the possibility of a future accession of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to the EU would create an ultimately unsolvable ideological conundrum for Moscow. It would revitalize the all-European integration process, bolster the international reputation of such countries as Germany and France, as well as energize domestic reform processes in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.

 

Andreas Umland is an Analyst in the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the general editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” published by ibidem Press in Stuttgart. This article was first published by the French website Desk-Russie.EU.

 

Expected Coverage of Russian S-500 Missile Systems From Kaliningrad, Central Province and Crimea – Militarywatchmagazine.com

Lemberg, known today as Lviv under Ukrainian rule and Lvov/Lwow under former Polish administrations, was the principal city of the region of Galicia that is now split between Ukraine and Poland. The city of Lemberg was the historical name when that region was under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After being part of the front during First World War, Galicia switched hands between several different nations with many of the same residents often experiencing the horrific changeovers, ethnic conflicts, war and genocide. With the end of the Second World War, the region was officially ceded to Stalin’s Soviet Government and many of the residents expelled from their home region. Ethnic tensions were often the catalyst for the various bouts of violence, and were used as a cause de la guerre for regional power politics.

A foreshadowing of further military conflict in the region has been the focus on news reports regarding Russian relations with Ukraine. Russia looks to be seeking a reset of its boundaries in an effort to boost local support for its Government and play on national concerns of historic threats to Russia coming from Western powers. With the end of the Warsaw Pact, nations that were once controlled from Moscow and acted as a physical barrier to Germany and NATO were now becoming part of NATO. This placed NATO weapons and radar systems closer to Russia’s borders. The Ukraine, as one of the largest countries in Central/Eastern Europe, was always a large barrier between Russia and the West. Ukraine was always the focus of Moscow’s leadership in negotiations with NATO, placing Ukraine at a distance when NATO had no reservations accepting Poland, the Czechs or Hungarians into their fold.

Modern Russian expansion policy often takes place for tactical reasons, but is shrouded in claims of ethnic divisions in border regions between local people and local citizens of Russian descent living in the disputed territories. Conflicts between Russia and Georgia were based in this policy and lead to a short conflict. Russia assaulting and occupying Crimea also came from a similar catalyst, but it was well regarded as a strategic move as Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was always stationed at Sebastopol; even when under Ukraine’s Government, and is considered a key historic battle ground for Russia’s Government and people.

With Russian influence waning in Ukraine’s Government after the 2014 elections, Russian support for separatist forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine started to mirror Russian moves on Crimea a few months earlier. While political tactics lead to a takeover without much violent conflict in Crimea, heavy fighting took place between Russian supported forces and Ukrainian Defence Forces in the Donbas region. The conflict spilled outside the region and garnered international attention when Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a SA-11 BUK missile over the disputed territory, killing all abroad while the flight was peacefully making its journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

News of the larger conflict was reduced when the shooting down of MH17 occurred. In the past, international condemnation of the Soviet Union when its SU-15 fighter plane shot down a Korean Airlines 747 with two missiles lead to a permanent scar on Soviet relations with the rest of the world in the 1980s. This is said to have contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, and President Putin likely was aware of this effect. Blame for the act was mixed with hidden information and spin, and created a blueprint for hiding the blame for these types of murders by military equipment when it occurred again over Iran in January of 2020.

The focus on relations with Russia changed drastically as Russia gave direct military support to Syria in combatting what they likely saw as fascist elements trying to overthrow the Assad Regime after months of gains by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The US and other allies rhetorically opposed Russia’s increased influence in the Middle East, but did little to counter it, and coordinated with Russian Forces to avoid conflict and perhaps target their mutual enemy. Power politics in the Middle East shifted with Russian Armed Forces participating in the conflict, and showed that the US and Europeans were no longer to be depended on for full support. The long term effect was not only to legitimise Russian Foreign Policy actions in the region, but also took the focus off the Donbas and made US Foreign Policy appear as it was entering a phase of decline.

With a weak United States after the Afghanistan pullout, Russia is likely taking the opportunity to rearm and renegotiate the terms of its historical deal post Soviet Union in Europe. Russian fuel to Western Europe, combined with their influence in the Middle East and modernising military with S-500 missiles has been countered by US military aid to Poland and Ukraine, but has received little attention by media in the United States over the last few years. The Donbas has almost become a forgotten issue outside of Eastern Europe, and current posturing by President Putin may be successful as Americans would never support sending troops to fight in a muddy field in Ukraine when they have daily local political drama to contend with, to Russia’s benefit. While the value of the Donbas region may be limited to a large country like Russia, the current state of global affairs may the the biggest catalyst for the conflict, and Russia is likely using it to expand its distance from NATO to gain local support. Its a situation that will not be resolved by foreshadowing a hot war, insults, nor lost lives of soldiers or locals, but through appropriate and measured foreign policy measures.