Diplomacy & Crisis News

Peter Suciu

India, Asia

India has been aggressively emphasizing its “Made in India” program. Under this deal, it will receive what is considered one of the best modern assault rifles in production and build it domestically. 

Earlier this year the Indian Army signed a deal with the U.S.-based Sig Sauer to receive 72,400 Sig 716 G2 Patrol assault/battlefield rifles, which are intended to equip its 400+ infantry battalions. The deal, which was signed in March, was modified from an original plan to arm only the frontline troops with the latest weapon. In 2019, the Indian Army had procured the rifles under a “fast-tracked process” (FTP) for use with troops posted at the borders as well as those involved in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. 

Last December, the Indian Defence Acquisition Council had accorded approval for the procurement of additional 72,400 Sig 716 rifles for approximately Rs 780 crore. The contract with Sig Sauer was expanded after a much-awaited deal with Russia since the AK-203 assault rifle was delayed. 

At least two companies, about one hundred soldiers each, in all of the Indian infantry battalions would be armed with the Sig 716, which is chambered for the widely-used high-powered 7.62x51-millimeter NATO cartridge. The select-fire military assault rifle features a short-stroke pushrod gas system and an advanced operating system that was developed to reduce carbon fouling, excessive heat and unburned powder in the action. 

The Indian-made AK-203 

Now, it seems that India is finally moving forward with those Russian weapons as well. TASS reported this week that Russia and India have signed a contract for the delivery of more than 600,000 7.62x39 millimeter AK-203 assault rifles, which will be produced in India. The new model will replace the Indian military’s INSAS rifles, the domestically-produced assault rifles that were introduced in the late 1990s. 

“On December 6, a contract was signed as part of a meeting of the defense ministers of Russia and India on the delivery of over 600,000 AK-203 assault rifles produced in India to the Defense Ministry of India,” the Kalashnikov press office said in a statement. 

In addition, the Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited (IRRPL) further highlights the new Russian-Indian military-technical cooperation. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi first announced the plans in early March 2019 to set up a joint Indo-Russian venture for the production of Kalashnikov assault rifles in the country.

The joint venture IRRPL for the manufacture of AK-203 assault rifles has already been established at a production facility in the town of Korwa of the Amethi district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Under this agreement, India will become the first foreign country to produce the two hundredth series Kalashnikov assault rifles.

“Russian and Indian specialists have carried out large-scale preparatory work over three years to optimize the project’s price and technological parameters,” said Kalashnikov CEO Vladimir Lepin. “Now that the contract has been signed, we are ready to start the production of advanced AK-203s in the town of Korwa in the coming months.”  

India has been aggressively emphasizing its “Made in India” program. Under this deal, it will receive what is considered one of the best modern assault rifles in production and build it domestically. 

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Reuters

Paul Richard Huard

T-34, Eurasia

"The T-34, for all its faults, is now often referred to by tank experts and historians as possibly the best tank of the war."

Here's What You Need to Know: The T-34 in the hands of determined Soviet tankers routed the Germans at Kursk, the greatest tank battle of all time.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi German launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive attack on the Soviet Union that was the largest invasion in history.

More than three million German soldiers, 150 divisions and 3,000 tanks comprised three mammoth army groups that created a front more than 1,800 miles long.

The Germans expected to face an inferior enemy. Giddy from victories in Poland and France, Hitler and many in his military high command believed it was the destiny of Germany to invade Russia. “The end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state,” Hitler announced in his manifesto Mein Kampf.

For months Germans won victory after resounding victory. But then the attack stalled—and the appearance of a new Soviet tank stunned the Wehrmacht.

It was the T-34. The new armored vehicle had an excellent 76-millimeter gun and thick sloped armor and cruised at more than 35 miles per hour. It possessed many advanced design features for the time—and it could blow German Panzers to Hell.

The T-34 had its problems—something we often forget when discussing a tank with a legendary reputation. The shortfalls included bad visibility for the crew and shoddy Soviet workmanship.

“They were good, but they were not miracle weapons and they had their faults,” writes Philip Kaplan in Rolling Thunder: A Century of Tank Warfare. “But the T-34, for all its faults, is now often referred to by tank experts and historians as possibly the best tank of the war.”

World War II German Field Marshall Ewald Von Kleist was more succinct. “The finest tank in the world,” is how he described the T-34.

The origins of the T-34 are simple enough. The Red Army sought a replacement for the BT-7 cavalry tank, which was fast-moving and lightly armored for use in maneuver warfare. It also had Christie suspension, one reason for the tank’s increased speed.

But during a 1938-to-1939 border war with Japan, the BT-7 fared poorly. Even with a low-powered gun, Japanese Type 95 tanks easily destroyed the BT-7s. Tank attack crews also assaulted the BT-7s with Molotov cocktails, reducing the Soviet tank to a flaming wreck when ignited gasoline dripped through chinks between poorly welded armor into the tank’s engine compartment.

The T-34 was the solution. It kept the Christie suspension, replaced the gasoline engine with a V-2 34 V12 diesel power plant and offered the crew speeds that were 10 miles per hour faster than the German Panzer III or Panzer IV.

Furthermore, the T-34’s high-velocity gun was capable of killing any tank in the world at the time.

“In 1941 when Hitler launched Barbarossa, the tank was indisputably the best in the world,” Jason Belcourt, a veteran of the U.S. Army who served in the armor branch, told War Is Boring. “The combination of sloped armor, big gun, good speed and good maneuverability was so much better than anything the Germans had on tracks.”

By mid-1941, the USSR had more than 22,000 tanks—more tanks than all the armies of the world combined, and four times the number of tanks in the German arsenal.

By the end of the war, the Soviet Union had produced nearly 60,000 T-34 tanks—proving the point that quantity does have a quality all of its own.

At first, the Germans were at a loss when it came to countering the threat the T-34 posed. The Germans’ standard anti-tank guns, the 37-millimeter Kwk36 and the 50-millimeter Kwk 38, couldn’t put a dent in the Soviet tank with a shot to its front.

That left the Germans with a limited set of tactics. German tankers could attempt flank shots with their guns. The Wehrmacht could lay mines. Soldiers risked their lives in close assaults employing satchel charges and Molotov cocktails.

In what could be called an act of desperation, the Germans even used modified 88-millimeter anti-aircraft guns to stop attacking T-34s with direct fire.

But the Russians never had enough trained crews for the tanks the Red Army fielded. The Soviets wasted the T-34 and its crews in vast numbers.

By the time the Soviets trained enough crews to man the T-34s, the Germans had tanks with high-velocity guns and better anti-tank weapons like the Panzerfaust, a recoilless anti-tank weapon with a high-explosive warhead.

But the Russians always had more T-34s than the Germans had Panzers or Tigers.

“Where the tank was decisive was in the battle of production,” Belcourt said. “From June 1941 until the end of the war, the Soviets were always producing a tank that was often good and never worse than adequate.”

The final verdict on the T-34 perhaps is less glowing than the legend that the Soviets weaved around the tank—but is still complimentary. The T-34 tipped the balance in favor of the USSR when it came to armored battle; mass production of the tank outmatched anything the Germans could do when it came to manufacturing.

The T-34 in the hands of determined Soviet tankers routed the Germans at Kursk, the greatest tank battle of all time.

The T-34 was “undeniably revolutionary, but it was not the first in anything except how to combine thick sloped armor with a diesel engine, wide tracks and a big, relatively powerful gun,” Belcourt said. “They had all been done before, but never together.”

This piece first appeared in WarIsBoring here. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The COVID-19 pandemic is rolling back progress on key childhood challenges such as poverty, health and access to education, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a new report on Thursday, representing the biggest global crisis for children since the agency was founded 75 years ago. 

Peter Suciu

China, Asia

China currently maintains a single overseas naval base in the nation of Djibouti, located on the “Horn of Africa” at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which separates the Gulf of Aden from the Red Sea.

The United States is home to more than forty naval bases spread along the eastern and western coasts, while there are also overseas bases in the U.S. territories of Guam and Puerto Rico, as well as twenty-some bases around the world. These bases are critical to the global reach of the U.S. Navy but are also a crucial part of the national defense. 

Now, China is looking to change that and according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, citing classified intelligence, the People’s Liberation Army Navy could create its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of the small African nation of Equatorial Guinea. 

While the plans for the PLAN haven’t been described in detail, the facilities at the port city of Bata would escalate the threat China poses to the United States. The deepwater port at Bata, which was already upgraded by the China Road & Bridge Co. between 2009 and 2014, could be used by Chinese warships to rearm and refit opposite of the East Coast. According to the report, U.S. intelligence first learned of the possibility of the PLAN base in 2019. 

Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S. Africa Command, told the Senate in April that China’s “most significant threat” would be “a militarily useful naval facility on the Atlantic coast of Africa,” The Hill reported. Such a facility might enable China to “rearm with munitions and repair naval vessels,” Townsend added. 

President Joe Biden has said that it remains a top priority of his administration not to let China surpass the U.S. military during his presidency. The Defense Department recently announced plans for major infrastructure improvements to be made at the U.S. military airfields in Guam and Australia as part of larger efforts to counter China.  

It was in October that Jon Finer, Biden’s principal deputy national security adviser, traveled to Equatorial Guinea to meet with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his son, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. He urged them to reject China’s proposal to build a naval facility.   

“As part of our diplomacy to address maritime-security issues, we have made clear to Equatorial Guinea that certain potential steps involving [Chinese] activity there would raise national-security concerns,” a senior Biden administration official said, according to Wall Street Journal. 

China currently maintains a single overseas naval base in the nation of Djibouti, located on the “Horn of Africa” at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which separates the Gulf of Aden from the Red Sea. It protects the approach to the Suez Canal. The African nation is unique because it hosts the United States Naval Expeditionary Base next to the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport and other foreign military bases including a French airbase, an Italian support base and the Japan Self-Defense Force Base Djibouti—the first JSDF full-scale, long term overseas base—as well as PLAN’s first overseas military base.   

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Reuters

David Axe

Strategic Bombers, Guam

The abrupt end to the Continuous Bomber Rotation effort in Guam could signal a further decline in the Air Force’s ability to project long-range firepower.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Bombers aren’t necessarily going to deploy less often or in fewer numbers, the Air Force implied. Rather, they’re simply going to deploy less predictably under a new scheme the service calls “dynamic force employment.”

In mid-April 2020 the Air Force abruptly ended its 16-year-old rotation of B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

At least one expert believes the abrupt end to the Continuous Bomber Rotation effort signals a further decline in the Air Force’s ability to project long-range firepower.

“The Air Force knows this mission area is stretched too thin,” retired Air Force major general Larry Stutzriem and Douglas Birkey wrote in Defense News.

Stutzriem is the director of studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Virginia. Birkey is the institute’s executive director

The flying branch, however, put a happy spin on the decision to halt the bomber rotation, which since 2004 has maintained a small force of bombers in the western Pacific region in order to deter Chinese aggression.

Bombers aren’t necessarily going to deploy less often or in fewer numbers, the Air Force implied. Rather, they’re simply going to deploy less predictably under a new scheme the service calls “dynamic force employment.”

“Our diverse bomber fleet – B-52, B-1, and B-2 – allows us to respond to global events anytime, anywhere. Whether they’re launched from Louisiana, Guam or the U.K., long-range strategic bombers have and will remain a bedrock of our deterrence!” Air Force Global Strike Command tweeted on April 16, 2020.

The Air Force six days later launched its first dynamic bomber sortie. A single B-1 took off from its base in South Dakota and, over the course of a 30-hour sortie, flew all the way to Japan and formed up with Japanese air force F-2 and F-15 fighters and locally-based U.S. Air Force F-16s before turning back toward the United States.

The B-1 sortie might have seemed to underscore the Air Force’s continuing commitment to a global bomber presence despite the flying branch also planning on cutting its 157-strong bomber fleet by one B-2 and 17 B-1s.

The service as part of its 2021 budget submission has asked Congress for permission to begin decommissioning the bombers. The B-1s, in particular, suffered from overuse over Afghanistan and the Middle East in the decades following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks -- and also suffered from a dearth of maintenance.

The result in 2019 was an abysmal readiness rate for the swing-wing bomber. In July 2019 just seven of 62 B-1s were fully mission-capable, South Dakota senator Mike Rounds revealed. Readiness somewhat improved in 2020.

The Air Force framed the first “dynamic” B-1 mission as evidence of the service’s enduring an undiminished ability to deploy long-range airpower. But Stutzriem and Birkey see the situation differently.

The defunct bomber-rotation was “a tremendous success,” they wrote. “It clearly communicated U.S. readiness to act decisively when U.S. and allied interests were challenged.”

Halting the bomber rotation “now sends the opposite message, just as the region grows more dangerous,” Stutzriem and Birkey added. “This is a decision with significant risk, yet it is an outcome compelled by past choices resulting in a bomber force on the edge.”

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

This article first appeared last year and is being reprinted for reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Trevor Filseth

Iran, Middle East

The Iranian government has criticized the most recent sanctions and warned that they would not help the United States achieve its goals in the Vienna talks.

As nuclear negotiations between the United States, the other P5+1 nations, and Iran enter their second week in Vienna, Austria, the Biden administration has imposed a new round of sanctions on Iranian officials, leading Tehran to warn Washington that further sanctions could not be considered a source of leverage in the talks.  

In the most recent round of economic sanctions, the Treasury Department placed restrictions on the Special Units of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) and Counter-Terror Special Forces, accusing them of human rights violations. Several Iranian officials associated with the two organizations, including LEF commanders Hassan Karami and Seyed Reza Mousavi Azami and Basij militia commander Gholamreza Soleimani, were also blacklisted. 

The Treasury Department issued a statement on Tuesday that said the sanctions were put into place after those organizations violently suppressed civilian protests in Iran in November 2019. The statement included sanctions implemented against accused human-rights violators in Syria and Uganda, sanctioning them on the basis of the 2017 Global Magnitsky Act. 

The Iranian government has criticized the most recent sanctions and warned that they would not help the United States achieve its goals in the Vienna talks. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh slammed the move on Twitter, arguing that “doubling down on sanctions won’t create leverage—and is anything but seriousness & goodwill.” 

The most recent sanctions on Iran, and the Iranian response, are further strains on the nuclear negotiations, which have struggled to move forward in spite of rhetorical support from both President Joe Biden and Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. American officials have sought to re-enter the deal, but have argued that Iran has attempted to gain more from the deal while conceding less. For their part, Iranian negotiators have insisted that all U.S. sanctions be lifted prior to the agreement’s restoration—a demand that has been criticized as a non-starter in Washington. The most recent talks between the two sides ended on Friday after U.S. negotiators accused the Iranian delegation of acting in bad faith. 

“What we’ve seen in the last couple of days is that Iran right now does not seem to be serious about doing what’s necessary to return to compliance, which is why we ended this round of talks in Vienna,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during the Reuters Next conference, which was hosted by the Reuters news agency on Friday. 

Nuclear talks are expected to resume this Thursday in Vienna. 

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

Kris Osborn

Chinese Navy, Asia

The new Chinese ships are armed with rocket-propelled torpedoes, operate sub-hunting helicopters and advanced sonar systems. 

China has now already built eight new Type 055 stealthy destroyers, a class of next-generation destroyers likely intended to rival the U.S. Navy’s emerging Arleigh Burke-class DDG 51 Flight III destroyers or even Zumwalt-class warships. 

Three of these new Type 055 destroyers are already operational. 

While the weapons, technologies, and stealth characteristics of these ships are likely to be of interest to Pentagon officials, the sheer pace of Chinese shipbuilding continues to be a cause of concern. China’s industrial apparatus and ability to rapidly build ships enable the People's Republic of China (PRC) to continue its large-scale Naval expansion at a pace that is tough for the United States to match. Multiple reports say China is on pace to double its fleet of destroyers within just the next five years. The concern, however, is by no means restricted to pure numbers but also grounded in uncertainties related to the relative sophistication and capability of China’s new destroyers. Having more destroyers does not necessarily equate to any kind of maritime superiority if they cannot compete with the range, precision, networking, and overall capability of U.S. destroyers. 

Furthermore, the U.S. Navy has as many as ten DDG Flight III destroyers under contract and is moving quickly to modernize their sensors, radar systems, computing, and ship-integrated weapons. 

The Chinese Communist party-backed newspaper the Global Times reported that the Type 055 destroyers are engineered for multi-mission operations to include land-attack, open water maritime warfare, and anti-submarine missions. The new Chinese ships are armed with rocket-propelled torpedoes, operate sub-hunting helicopters and advanced sonar systems. 

The first Type 055 Chinese destroyer, the Nanchang, looks a bit like a hybrid between the U.S. Zumwalt-class and Arleigh Burke DDG 51 class destroyers. It does have what appear to be some stealthy attributes such as a rounded front hull and smooth exterior with fewer protruding structures, but there are mounted antennas and what look like masts on the back end as well. The helicopter landing area on the back of the Nanchang also looks like that of a U.S. DDG 51. 

China's three operational Type 055 destroyers seem to match the U.S. Navy’s plan for three Zumwalt-class destroyers. The kind of weapons range, radar, fire control and computing aboard the Nanchang will most likely determine the margin of difference regarding its ability to rival its U.S. counterparts. 

Perhaps of greatest consequence is the question of whether these Type 055 destroyers have any kind of Aegis-radar-like ballistic missile defense technology. Does it have the ability to link fire-control, air and cruise missile defense, ballistic missile defense, and interceptor missiles capable of firing from deck-mounted Vertical Launch Systems?

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

Image: Reuters

But Biden’s talk of accommodating Russia has Congress worried.

David Axe

F-5E Tiger II, Iran

All things being equal, the F-5 might still possesses the agility to gain the advantage over an F-35 if it can close the distance.

Here's What You Need to Remember: If an Iranian pilot can survive a merge with an F-35 and engage the stealth fighter in a turning dogfight, the Iranian might just bag himself a stealth fighter.

Amid escalating tensions between Iran and the United States, in part resulting from U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision unilaterally to withdraw the United States from the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. armed forces have deployed a wide array of ships, planes and other weapons to the Middle East.

The American arsenal in the region includes F-35 stealth fighters. If tensions turn into warfare, the factory-fresh F-35s could face an Iranian air force operating some of the oldest active fighters in the world.

The Iranians with their four-decade-old F-4s, F-5s and F-14s might not seem to have a chance against the Americans flying arguably the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. But history, and recent testing show how Iranian pilots flying old planes could defeat Americans flying brand-new ones.

For one, the F-35, while new, isn’t necessarily a stellar aerial performer. In 2015 someone associated with the F-35 test effort leaked an official report explaining the stealth fighter’s limitations in air-to-air maneuvers with an F-16.

“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” an unnamed F-35 test pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief. “Insufficient pitch rate,” he added. “Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time.”

The complaints continued. “The flying qualities in the blended region (20 to 26 degrees [angle of attack]) were not intuitive or favorable,” the pilot wrote, adding that there’s no point for an F-35 pilot to get into a sustained, close turning battle with an enemy pilot. “There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.”

The pilot’s revelations underscore what many observers long have suspected about the F-35. While its radar-evading qualities and high-end sensors might allow it to gain a favorable position for long-range missile shots, in a close fight the F-35 hardly excels.

If an Iranian pilot can survive a merge with an F-35 and engage the stealth fighter in a turning dogfight, the Iranian might just bag himself a stealth fighter. It’s worth noting that the Iranian air force flies scores of fighters that excel precisely in that regime.

American-made F-5 Tigers, for instance. Former U.S. Navy pilot Francesco Chierici who flew F-5s in the adversary role, sang the plane’s praise in a 2019 article for The War Zone. “The Tiger was clean, just an AIM-9 and a telemetry pod on the wingtips, and occasionally a centerline fuel tank,” Chierici wrote. “She slipped through the ‘number’ (Mach 1) easily. … The F-5 was a pair of engines and wings. It was so simple …”

Aerodynamically, the F-5 will always be what we call a category-three fighter, where the F-35 and F-22 are now category-five fighters. Compared to modern jets, it is underpowered, slow and bleeds airspeed badly in a sustained turn, not to mention it has no stealth other than its tiny size.

But with just a few modifications, the F-5 is being turned into a threat plane with a legitimate sting. The newest upgrades include an [electronically-scanned] radar, good [radar-warning] gear, chaff and flares, a jamming pod and a helmet-mounted cueing system for a high off-boresight IR (infrared-guided) missiles. 

A Tiger so outfitted can provide Super Hornets and F-35s a legitimate threat, especially in the training environment.

Iran indeed has been upgrading its F-5 fleet, although the modifications likely will not include the latest sensors and helmet sights.

Still, all things being equal the F-5 despite its age might still possesses the agility to gain the advantage over an F-35. Again, provided the F-5 pilot survives the merge to a close-in fight.

That’s a big assumption. F-35 pilots understand the limitations of their aircraft and certainly would do their best to avoid a dogfight. The Iranians might have to ambush the Americans in order to force the fight to close range. It’s unclear how the Iranians might do so, given the Americans’ huge advantage in sensors and situational awareness.

David Axe was 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: Reuters.

If Imran Khan cares about foreign investment and economic growth, he must abolish the country’s blasphemy law.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday expressed outrage over an attack on a convoy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in which one of its vehicles was hit, wounding three staff members

Trevor Filseth

Insurrection, Americas

Former president Donald Trump has sought to prevent the committee from questioning former members of his administration.

Former North Carolina Republican senator and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has abruptly ceased his cooperation with the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, according to his lawyer, George Terwilliger. 

Terwilliger indicated that Meadows had pulled out of the scheduled hearings because he was concerned that the committee, which includes seven Democrats and two Republicans, would have “no intention of respecting boundaries” with regard to topics that former president Donald Trump regarded as off-limits. The lawyer added that Meadows had reached his decision after learning that the committee had “issued wide-ranging subpoenas for information from a third-party communications provider,” ostensibly violating the agreement that Meadows had reached with the committee. 

From political exile in Florida, Trump has sought to prevent the committee from questioning former members of his administration. The former president has issued legal challenges to the committee’s authority based on “executive privilege,” a legal doctrine giving presidents some ability to withhold information from the public. It remains unclear, however, if executive privilege can be invoked by former presidents; President Joe Biden has expressly indicated that he will not invoke it on behalf of Trump administration officials. 

Although the matter of executive privilege is still being decided in the courts, Meadows, along with former Trump administration officials Steve Bannon, Dan Scavino, and Kash Patel, have all been subpoenaed to appear before the committee. All four men initially indicated that they would not testify to the committee while the question of executive privilege was being decided. After the committee initiated legal proceedings against Bannon, Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist, Meadows changed his mind and agreed to testify. Bannon has persisted in his refusal and was indicted in November for contempt of Congress; his trial is scheduled for July 2022. 

White House Chief of Staff, Meadows is the highest-ranking official to be called before the committee. His testimony could ultimately make or break the committee’s hypothesis that Trump was directly responsible for the storming of the U.S. Capitol, an attack in which more than one hundred police officers were injured and five died within days. To date, the connection between the officers’ deaths and the Capitol riot remains tepid. 

January 6 Committee members Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) indicated in a joint statement that Meadows would face legal consequences for his refusal. 

“If indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution,” the two representatives said in the joint statement. 

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

Image: Reuters

To show the world the United States is back as a democratic leader, Biden should hold the U.S. military and its allies accountable in warfare.

On Wednesday morning, seven UN peacekeepers from Togo died and three others were seriously injured when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in the Bandiagara region in central Mali. 

Paul Richard Huard

A-10 Warthog, Europe

The Henschel Hs 129 wasn't a Warthog. It was a turkey.

Here's What You Need to Know: By the time that the Hs 129 entered service in quantity, the German army was on the defensive.

At first glance, you might think the Henschel Hs 129 was the perfect ground-attack airplane.

Twin engines. A heavily armored cockpit that protected the pilot from small-arms fire. The aircraft even eventually had the heaviest and most powerful forward-firing cannon ever fitted to a production military aircraft during World War II.

The Hs 129 was supposed to be the Luftwaffe’s ultimate aerial tank-killer, dealing death from above to Soviet T-34s on the Russian front. In other words, it would be easy to see it as a World War II-forerunner of today’s formidable A-10 Warthog.

There was just one problem: By all accounts, the Hs 129 was a questionable performer. In fact, the original Hs 129 A-1 series was so bad that the Luftwaffe refused to accept any of the A-1s for service.

The Hs 129 wasn’t a Warthog. It was a turkey.

Still, the aircraft occupies an interesting niche in aviation history. It’s an aeronautical also-ran that reminds us that despite their reputation for Teutonic technical superiority that included producing jet fighters and ballistic missiles, the Nazis could screw up, too.

“The Hs 129 was intended to be the A-10 Warthog of its time, but never came close to achieving that exalted status,” John Little, assistant curator and research team leader at The Museum of Flight, Seattle, told War Is Boring. “Though slow, the A-10 is extremely maneuverable, pleasant to fly and does everything extremely well from plinking tanks to bringing its pilots home alive.”

“The Hs 129 was a dog of an airplane that should have been completely redesigned to incorporate more powerful engines, more reliable engines, lower stick forces, better maneuverability and better visibility,” Little continued. “Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, the need for the Hs 129 was so great that it had to enter service even though it was far from combat-ready. With that said, the Hs 129 was rugged and popular with its pilots—that’s about all that it has in common with the A-10.”

By the late 1930s, German military planners decided the Luftwaffe needed a dedicated ground-attack aircraft. German pilots who flew ground-attack missions as members of the Kondor Legion during the Spanish Civil War learned that low-level attacks could demoralize the Republicans with strafing runs, destroy installations with more accurate bombing, disrupt communications and pinpoint enemy artillery.

There was nothing revolutionary about the idea of a dedicated attack aircraft — the first planes for that purpose were developed during World War I.

But Hitler didn’t want to fight a war like World War I. He wanted rapid movement that swept away Germany’s adversaries. That strategy called for special aircraft that could support German ground forces.

But design difficulties, intelligence failures and poor decision-making in the Luftwaffe high command plagued the manufacture and deployment of the Hs 129, Little said.

The high command “underestimated the need for a dedicated ground-attack aircraft— and particularly a dedicated tank-killer—until it was far too late,” he said. “For example, prior to Operation Barbarossa, the German Abwehr had estimated that the Soviets had only about 10,000 main battle tanks. The actual number was about 24,000. By the time the Germans realized that they needed a dedicated tank-busting aircraft such as the Hs 129, the die had already been cast.”

What’s more, the German government treated Henschel as an all-purpose manufacturer and often directed it to build aircraft for other firms.

“Henschel spent much of the war ‘tooling up’ to produce other companies’ aircraft, only to be ordered to switch to another aircraft before having actually produced any airplanes,” Little said.

The result was that Henschel made relatively few aircraft. Counting the three Hs 129 design prototypes and the eight Hs 129 production prototypes, only 870 Hs 129s appear to have been built, compared to more than 33,000 Messerschmitt Bf 109s and 20,000 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, the Luftwaffe’s main fighter aircraft.

By the time that the Hs 129 entered service in quantity, the German army was on the defensive and the most urgent mission was destroying Soviet armor. When available in sufficient quantity and equipped with adequate armament, the Hs 129 proved to be fairly effective against Soviet tanks.

Unfortunately for the Germans, there were never more than five squadrons of Hs 129s, and they often carried inadequate weapons.

Then there were the design problems. The Hs 129 was slow, with a top speed of less than two hundred miles per hour when fully loaded. The plane’s three-inch-thick canopy glass impeded the pilot’s view.

What’s more, the Hs 129’s French Gnôme-Rhône 14M engines were hypersensitive to dust and sand.  The engines would frequently seize during flight with no advance warning.

Perhaps embracing the idea that flying a plane that doesn’t kill them might make them stronger, most pilots of Hs 129 actually liked the aircraft for one significant reason—it was damn near indestructible. It could also haul could carry some very heavy Rüstsätze—armament packages—for destroying armored vehicles.

In fact, Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer, Luftwaffe ground-attack ace and recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, achieved most of his 80 tank kills while piloting an Hs 129. His record made Ruffer was one of history’s most successful tank-killing pilots.

But his love affair with the Hs 129 did not end well. In 1944, Soviet flak hit Ruffer’s aircraft while he was flying a mission over Poland.

He was killed instantly when his Hs 129 exploded.

Paul Richard Huard is a military historian, free-lance journalist and contributor to War Is Boring, where this article first appeared.

Image: Alf van Beem / Wikimedia Commons

A meeting to boost support for UN Peacekeeping ended on Wednesday with 62 countries making new pledges, and advancing existing commitments, to help enhance the performance and impact of these operations worldwide. 

Serious domestic efforts at justice in Colombia have led the court to suspend its longest-running examination to date.

In a long overdue step, the U.N. Security Council may finally address climate security.

With productivity-boosting measures, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement could reduce poverty and inequality while spurring sustainable and inclusive growth, according to a report launched on Wednesday by the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Coronavirus,

In all, more than one-third of Americans between the ages of thirteen and fifty-six have cited the nearly two-year-long pandemic as a chief source of stress.

Results from a new poll are indicating that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has taken a huge toll on most Americans—but the heaviest struggles are being experienced by teenagers and young adults.

In all, more than one-third of Americans between the ages of thirteen and fifty-six have cited the nearly two-year-long pandemic as a chief source of stress, and many have admitted that it has made certain parts of their lives harder, according to a survey conducted by MTV Entertainment Group and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

However, when it came to education, friendships, and dating, the impact was found to be more pronounced among Gen Zers.

“Among Americans in Gen Z—the survey included ages thirteen to twenty-four—46 percent said the pandemic has made it harder to pursue their education or career goals, compared with 36 percent of Millennials and 31 percent in Generation X. There was a similar gap when it came to dating and romantic relationships, with 40 percent of Gen Z saying it became harder,” the Associated Press writes.

“Forty-five percent of Gen Z also reported greater difficulty maintaining good relationships with friends, compared with 39 percent of Gen X Americans. While many Millennials also said friendships were harder, Gen Z was less likely than Millennials to say the pandemic actually made that easier, 18 percent vs. 24 percent. Roughly half of Americans across generations, including Gen Z, said the pandemic led to struggles having fun and maintaining mental health,” it continues.

Developing Brains

According to Dr. Cora Breuner, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital, the outsized impact on Gen Z could be partly blamed on where the children are in their respective brain development.

“It’s this perfect storm where you have isolated learning, decreased social interaction with peers, and parents who also are struggling with similar issues,” she told the news agency, adding that many children do lack the necessary skills to be able to cope with stress and make complex decisions.

Deteriorating Mental Health

The poll’s findings shared similarities with a separate national study conducted by FAIR Health earlier this year. The nonprofit, which collects data for the largest database of privately billed health insurance claims in the United States, examined thirty-two billion records to closely study individuals in the younger age groups.

What the researchers discovered was that in March and April of 2020, mental health claims for those aged thirteen to eighteen approximately doubled compared to the year prior. Moreover, in the Northeast region for the thirteen to eighteen age group, claim lines for generalized anxiety disorder surged 93.6 percent, while major depressive disorder claim lines increased 83.9 percent.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health, particularly on that of young people,” FAIR Health president Robin Gelburd said in a statement. “The findings in our new report have implications for all those responsible for the care of young people, including providers, parents, educators, policymakers, and payors.”

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

Image: Reuters