Diplomacy & Crisis News

Women, children and other vulnerable groups are more likely to have their human rights impacted by unilateral sanctions, an independent UN human rights expert alerted on Wednesday.

Stephen Silver

Omicrom, Americas

Warning: a severe illness takes time to develop and the new variant was only spotted less than two weeks ago.  

Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the Omicron variant, the latest major variant of the coronavirus, is in fifty countries and nineteen U.S. states. 

“While we are still working to understand the severity of omicron as well as how it responds to therapeutics and vaccines, we anticipate that all of the same measures will at least, in part, provide some protection against omicron,” Walensky said during a White House briefing on the coronavirus.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients added that the U.S. administered 12.5 million shots, more than half of them boosters, in the last week, the highest weekly total since May of this year.

As for the trajectory of the new variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the same briefing that data will likely be available by next week about how well the current vaccines hold up against the new variant. 

Fauci said during the briefing that while early reports from South Africa indicate that the new variant leads to more mild illness, it’s also true that much of the cohort of those infected so far in that country is younger. Many people who have become infected had already been infected by the previous variants and recovered.

Meanwhile, also Tuesday, CNN looked at the reports that Omicron cases in South Africa have been milder, concluding that while it’s too soon to tell, there are positive indicators.

The news network cited a pre-print study stating that the Omicron variant “carries a portion of genetic material that’s very similar to segments seen in one of the types of coronaviruses that causes the common colds,” which is an indicator that the new variant might resemble a “nuisance virus” more than something deadlier. 

However, multiple experts told CNN that it’s too soon to reach any conclusions.  

“Even assuming the insert came from a common cold virus—that’s very dicey—it probably would not make it more like the common cold virus,” Robert Garry a virologist at Tulane University’s medical school, told CNN.  

The other warning from doctors and other experts is that severe illness takes time to develop, the new variant was only spotted less than two weeks ago.  

“There’s a distinction between hopeful and reality. It’s good to hope but it is much too early to conclude that Omicron only produces mild infections. We don’t have those data," William Schaffner, medical director at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, told CNN. He added that “Covid has thrown us several curveballs.”  

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

Stephen Silver

Coronavirus,

Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Division of Infectious Disease at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNBC that it appears the Omicron variant will lead to more mild infections for the fully vaccinated.

Ever since the Omicron variant of the coronavirus appeared for the first time the week of Thanksgiving, researchers, as well as the general public, have been wondering whether the variant has the ability to resist existing vaccines.

One study, albeit an early one, indicates that is indeed the case.

According to CNBC, an early preprint study out of South Africa, from the Africa Health Research Institute, finds a “41-fold drop” in antibodies’ ability to “neutralize” the new variant, compared to the original coronavirus, among subjects who received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The study is preliminary, based on very early data, and is not yet peer-reviewed. It also has a very small sample size, consisting of fourteen plasma samples from twelve vaccinated people.

“The results we present here with Omicron show much more extensive escape” than was the case with the previous variant, the study said, per CNBC. “Previous infection, followed by vaccination or booster is likely to increase the neutralization level and likely confer protection from severe disease in Omicron infection.

Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Division of Infectious Disease at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNBC that it appears the Omicron variant will lead to more mild infections for the fully vaccinated.

“I think that there’s still going to be protection against serious illness,” Offit told the network. “I think with either vaccination or natural infection or both. You’re going to be protected against serious illness.”

While it remains very early in the life of the new variant, early indications are that the Omicron spreads faster than earlier variants, but doesn’t lead to illness that’s as severe, especially in vaccinated people.

Meanwhile, the CDC said Tuesday, per NPR, that cases of Omicron have been reported in 50 different countries, as well as 19 states- both numbers that the CDC expect to get larger. She added that at least in the U.S. the Delta variant remains the dominant one.

“While we are still working to understand the severity of omicron as well as how it responds to therapeutics and vaccines, we anticipate that all of the same measures will at least, in part, provide some protection against omicron,” the CDC’s director, Rochelle Walensky, said Tuesday.

On the same day, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that data will be available, likely by next week, in terms of how well vaccines hold up against the new variant. He added that while early indications out of South Africa are that the disease is less severe than past variants, not much time has passed, while many of those infected so far in that country are younger individuals.

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

Professional provocateur Éric Zemmour makes Marine Le Pen look like a moderate.

Paul Richard Huard

Aircraft Carriers, Asia

The sinking of the Card was stunning victory for the Viet Cong, yet little remembered today.

Here's What You Need to Know: The USNS Card was the last carrier in U.S. military history to date sunk by enemy action.

It was shortly after midnight when two Viet Cong commandos emerged from a sewer tunnel that emptied into Saigon Port, each man carrying nearly 90 pounds of high explosives and the components needed to make two time bombs.

Their target was the largest American ship in port, USNS Card. An escort carrier that saw distinguished service as a submarine-hunter in the North Atlantic during World War II, during the early morning hours of May 2, 1964, Card was part of U.S. Military Sealift Command.

The ship supported an escalating military commitment of the South Vietnamese government that occurred well before the Tonkin Gulf Incident. Since 1961, Card had transported both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to the beleaguered nation as well as the U.S. pilots and support crews need to operate them.

The commandos swam toward Card, where they spent about an hour in the water attaching the charges just above the waterline near the bilge and the engine compartment on the ship’s starboard side. They set the timers and quickly swam away.

The charges exploded. Five civilian crewmen on board Card died, the explosion tore a huge hole in the engine-room compartment and a proud ship that had survived German U-boat attacks was on her way to the bottom — the last aircraft carrier in U.S. military history to date sunk by enemy action.

The sinking of the Card was stunning victory for the Viet Cong, yet little remembered today. It illustrated how vulnerable naval vessels can be even when faced with a low-tech enemy … and how difficult maintaining port security can be in a war with no real front.

But it also demonstrated how resilient American naval forces are. In 17 days, salvage crews raised Card out of nearly 50 feet of water, and six months later the ship returned to service for another six years.

Not surprisingly, North Vietnam celebrated the sinking of Card, considering it a propaganda victory of the first rank. The U.S. government refused to even acknowledge the vessel’s sinking, telling the public the carrier had only been damaged.

The North Vietnamese government even commemorated the event by portraying the operation on a 1964 postage stamp.

Naval vessels often have a mystique about them — they look formidable, bristle with weapons and aircraft, and have the ability to project a nation’s power anywhere on the planet. In particular, aircraft carriers are the symbol of a nation possessing “great power” status.

But they are vulnerable to attack. For example, there are reasons why even aircraft carriers have numerous escort vessels — destroyers, guided-missile cruisers, even submarines — to protect a carrier as well as engage the enemy.

We shouldn’t be too surprised when an enemy takes out a naval vessel in combat, even if it is a commando with a time bomb, James Holmes, a naval historian and analyst who teaches at the U.S. Naval War College, told War Is Boring.

“We shouldn’t get carried away with thinking of warships as ‘castles of steel,’ or latter-day dreadnoughts, or whatever,” Holmes said. “A castle is a fortification whose walls can take enormous punishment, whereas most modern warships have thin sides — the nuclear-powered carrier being an honorable exception. So a guy with a charge can do a lot of damage.”

Holmes said the sinking of Card “provided a preview” of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 — a textbook case of a low-tech assault taking out a prime example of U.S. naval might.

Al Qaeda operatives mounted a suicide attack against Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, using a small boat packed with explosives that targeted the American ship while she was docked in Aden harbor. The blast tore a huge hole in the vessel, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 — the deadliest attack on a U.S. Navy ship in recent history.

The blast from the explosion reached Cole’s galley, killing and wounding many there as sailors were lining up for lunch. Investigators later said they did not consider the timing of the attack a coincidence.

Fifty years ago, penetrating harbor security was a major concern as well for the perpetrators of the attack on Card.

Lam Son Nao, 79, the leader of the Viet Cong commandos, was a maintenance worker at the port at the time of the attack. He used his job as cover while he gathered intelligence, hid explosives and planned the mission.

Despite patrol boats filled with harbor police, Nao and his companion were able to mount their operation because of careful planning and the corruption of Saigon law enforcement.

“For the Card mission, my fellow operative and I pretended to be fishermen,” Nao said in an April 22, 2015 interview with Vietnamese News Service. “When our boat reached Nha Rong Wharf, the police chased us to the bank of the Thu Thiem Peninsula. To avoid having my boat inspected, we pushed the boat to a swamp, so that the police boat could not reach it.”

Nao told the harbor police that he wanted to shop at a market on a nearby island, offering to share part of the clothing and radios he planned to buy there. Then, he gave the police a generous bribe — and they let Nao go his way.

The aftermath of the attack on the Card rallied American rescue and salvage crews to deal with a severe crisis. The American brass and Pres. Lyndon Johnson wanted to keep the results of the attack as quiet as possible.

However, raising Card would be a major salvage operation.

Five Navy divers investigated damage to Card. One said he found the remains of a U.S.-made demolitions pack — evidence that the Viet Cong might have used stolen American military munitions.

In the meantime, the Navy sent the salvage vessel USS Reclaimer and the tug USS Tawakoni to Saigon Port to begin pumping water out of the sunken vessel. Despite poor diving conditions and numerous equipment malfunctions, salvage crews raised Card in a little more than two weeks.

Soon, both Reclaimer and Tawakoni towed Card out of Saigon harbor on their way to the U.S. Navy port of Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs.

Naval vessels are very flexible ships capable of recuperating from serious battle damage. Apparently, Card was no exception — ships are often “re-purposed” in the U.S. Navy and enjoy long lives in service, Holmes said.

“The carrier Midway went from being a World War II carrier to a modern supercarrier over the course of her life, which reached into the 1990s,” he said. “That philosophy — deliberately build ships to allow for easy changes and upgrades over a long life — is making a comeback.”

Even Cole survived her attackers. After 14 months of repair, Cole departed dry-dock on April 19, 2002, and returned to her homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.

The ship deployed again in 2003. Cole remains in operation with the Sixth Fleet. Card decommissioned in 1970.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Trevor Filseth

Russia, Eurasia

President Joe Biden expressed reservations to Putin about Russia’s role in fomenting the border crisis. He urged diplomacy and de-escalation on both sides. 

President Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin outlined their positions on the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian crisis during a virtual meeting on Tuesday. The two political leaders largely steered clear of confrontation. Instead, they voiced their concerns about the situation in Eastern Europe to one another. 

Tensions have risen in eastern Ukraine after Russian military forces, numbering as many as 175,000, have taken up positions along the border. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has described this move as a precursor to an invasion. 

The White House summarized the leaders’ two-hour meeting in a statement, which described how they discussed “a range of issues.” These issues included the escalation of forces along the border, broader tensions in Russo-American relations and opportunities for dialogue, and ransomware and cyberattacks between the two nations.  

During the meeting, Biden expressed reservations to Putin about Russia’s role in fomenting the border crisis. He urged diplomacy and de-escalation on both sides. Also, he raised the issue of economic sanctions against Russia—which he had previously described as “high impact economic measures”—in the event of a conflict, extracting a price from Moscow if it pursued military action in Ukraine. The president indicated that the United States supported Ukrainian sovereignty and opposed Russia’s attempts to influence decisionmaking in Kiev through coercion. 

For his part, Putin has expressed frustration at NATO’s eastward expansion into the historically Soviet bloc, including the proposed admission of Ukraine, which has proceeded since the Euromaidan revolution of 2014. Earlier in the week, Putin had asked for a guarantee from Biden that NATO would not be expanded further east, which he described as a “red line” for Moscow. The White House rejected this request, noting that decisions regarding NATO membership are made with the alliance as a whole.  

Biden and Putin also explored areas for cooperation, most prominently the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations in Vienna, in which both Washington and Moscow are part of the “P5+1” signatories to the original 2015 agreement.  

While no concessions were made from either side, both leaders “tasked their teams to follow up,” according to the White House statement.  

The Kremlin spoke positively about the meeting. It said the discussion served as an entry point for further negotiations. “It’s hard to expect any sudden breakthroughs, but the presidents demonstrated their willingness to continue practical work and begin discussing sensitive issues that seriously concern Moscow,” Kremlin official Yuri Ushakov said after the talks had concluded. 

It is expected that Biden will also hold a meeting with Zelensky in the coming days, to reassure the Ukrainian government of continued American support. 

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

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Cavalry, Europe

Cavalry charges once defined European warfare. World War I made it virtually irrelevant in the European theatre. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Cavalry was all but useless after the opening weeks of the First World War, at least on the Western Front. The static trench lines made it impossible for cavalry to flank enemy positions, while direct assaults against machine guns and fortified positions resulted in horrific bloodbaths.

In countless wars around the world over the centuries, cavalry was a flexible multipurpose force that offered greater mobility than infantry, while it performed long-range reconnaissance and security for commanders. During battle, cavalry secured and protected the flanks and rear of the infantry line, and could be used to counter enemy cavalry or counter an enemy infantry attack.

Cavalry was used to cover a retreat as well as to push back a retreating enemy. It was thus an effective unit that was part scout, part strike force and part rearguard all in one. Soldiers on large, heavy horses could break enemy formations while small lighter horses could scout, patrol and pursue.

During the nineteenth century, cavalry further evolved with specialized heavy cavalry, and in some European armies continued to wear metal breastplates or "cuirass" armor as well as steel helmets; while light cavalry were armed with lances or rifle carbines. Horses also gave generals and their staff extra height and ability to move around a battlefield to direct their soldiers.

Before the outbreak of the First World War almost all military officers, especially in Europe, could ride a horse; while many of the men who entered the army and ended up serving in the ranks also had some riding skills. Yet, even a generation later, during the Second World War, few younger officers had ever been on horseback and apart from those men who grew up on farms hardly any of the ranks could ride.

In other words, in a single generation, the traditional cavalry all but disappeared from the battlefield, and the reason was that warfare changed in unexpected ways.

Cavalry was all but useless after the opening weeks of the First World War, at least on the Western Front. The static trench lines made it impossible for cavalry to flank enemy positions, while direct assaults against machine guns and fortified positions resulted in horrific bloodbaths. Yet, cavalry along with mounted infantry played a role in some of the other theaters of operation, notably the Palestine Front, where Australian Light Horse (mounted infantry that typically dismounted to attack) took part in a class "cavalry charge" against Turkish lines on October 31, 1917, at the Battle of Beersheba.

Yet apart from such moments, it was clear the days of glorious charges were a thing of the past. It wasn't just the defensive weapons that included rapid-fire machine guns, but also the introduction of the tank, the truck and the airplane. Tanks quickly became the spearhead of a new strike force, trucks could move men and materials faster and further and the airplane could scout much further and more accurately than the mounted scout.

It wasn't just the military innovations that changed and evolved. During the industrial revolution across Europe and much of North America, vast segments of the population moved to cities, and by the turn of the century trolleys followed by subways came to move people to work. Then the automobile arrived and as people learned to drive they never bothered to learn to ride.

By World War II, the armies of the world were increasingly mechanized. While it is true that Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union with more horses in 1941 than the Emperor Napoleon had when he invaded Russia in 1812, the size of the armies were vastly different. Moreover, the Germans largely used the horses to transport material because of a lack of trucks and few of the millions of men who marched towards Moscow knew how to ride.

Horses did play a minor role in a few engagements on the Russian Front. The Charge of the "Savoia Cavalleria" at Izbushensky in August 1942 is considered the last "significant" cavalry charge in history, where 700 Italian soldiers of the Regiment "Savoia Cavalleria" successfully attacked some 2,500 Soviet soldiers of the 812th Siberian Infantry Regiment. The last true “charge” took part during the Battle of Schoenfeld near the end of the Second World War in March 1945, when a small united of Polish cavalry, supporting Soviet infantry overwhelmed a German artillery position.

Cavalry is now relegated to parades and other ceremonial duties, but how it disappeared should still be viewed as a portent to what could come in the future. While superior weapons led to the end of the cavalry, so too did the fact that fewer people could ride horses. Today many millennials, as well as members of Generation-Z, are opting not to drive. That could hasten a need for self-driving tanks and other military vehicles if the know-how to drive isn't there. Thus, we could see a future where the tanker went the way of the cavalryman.

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. 

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Features of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron, including the extent to which it will spread, and the sheer number of mutations, suggest that it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic, but it’s still too early to say for sure. 

Charlie Gao

Israel, Middle East

American equipment in Israeli service is often extensively modified to fit the IDF’s unique mission.

Here's What You Need to Know: Israel is a key customer of American weaponry.

The Israel Defense Forces field a wide variety of American military equipment, due to significant amounts of American military aid to Israel. However, American equipment has not always been the best suited to the tough desert and urban conditions encountered by the IDF. As a result, American equipment in Israeli service is often extensively modified to fit the IDF’s unique mission. Here are some unique derivatives of American equipment that the IDF fields.

1. MAPATS Antitank Missile

The IDF has had a long relationship with the antitank guided missile. In the long desert approaches that surround Israel, antitank missiles can direct the flow of combat and are very effective weapons. While the first ATGMs fielded by Israel were the French SS.10 and SS.11, it was replaced in the late 1970s by the American TOW (Orev in IDF service) missile. However, due to its wire-guided nature, the TOW has range limitations and cannot be used in all circumstances. Bodies of water, trees and power lines can disrupt the TOW’s guidance or endanger the TOW’s operator. As a result, the Israelis developed a version of the TOW that used laser guidance to avoid these issues. A new engine and improved warhead also gave it superior penetration and speed to the original TOW. The MAPATS has seen export success, although it is being replaced by other, newer Israeli ATGMs of wholly indigenous design.

2. Israeli M16 and CAR-15 Variants

While nominally most of the IDF has switched over to the Tavor, variants of the M16 continue to serve in the IDF. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, these rifles were the frontline rifles of the IDF, replacing the heavier FN FAL and the Israeli Galil (although Galil carbines remained in service in the Armored corps, due to their shorter lengths with stocks folded). In the aughts, Israel set about modernizing these rifles. Due to the largely urban nature of combat the IDF Infantry engaged in, the long twenty-inch and 14.5-inch barrels of the M16s and Colt 653s were deemed too long. The barrels were sawn off to around 12.5 inch length, and the resulting carbines were called “mekut’zrar.” Furniture on these varied, but always had an eye towards the practical. Fabric bands could be wrapped around the plastic handguards to make them more rigid and stop them from creaking, red dots were added straight onto the carry handles and stocks were often replaced with modern six-position M4 stocks. The results were relatively modern, lightweight carbines on the cheap. Mekut’zrar carbines are still seen in service today, although they’ve been supplanted by new stocks of M4s and the Tavor series.

3. Machbet Self-Propelled Antiaircraft Gun

While the M163 VADS was always considered to be kind of a “stopgap” solution for the short-range antiair defense solution for the U.S. military, the VADS saw significant Israeli service in the 1982 Lebanon War. In addition to scoring a kill on a Syrian MiG-21, they provided valuable ground support, suppressing infantry in urban and mountainous areas with their rapid-fire twenty-millimeter cannons. While they were phased out of American service in the 1990s and replaced with the better-armored but slower-firing M6 Bradley Linebacker, Israel opted to upgrade its VADS to the new “Machbet” standard instead, fitting an optoelectronic tracking system, better radar, a quad-Stinger pod and an ADA network datalink to the VADS to make it effective against a wider variety of targets and faster reacting.

4. The F15 Baz Meshopar

Israel was one of the first customers for the American F-15 fighter. It has served admirably as the backbone of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) throughout the late 1970s to the present day. In addition to its superb performance in the air-to-air role during the 1982 Lebanon War, the F-15 was also used in Operation Opera and Operation Wooden Leg, both long-range-strike missions. These were done with the addition of some indigenous guidance and sensor pods. While Israel later acquired variants of the ground-attack F-15E Strike Eagle under the name F15I Ra’am, they also updated their first- and second-gen F-15s to a new standard with indigenous electronics and parts, under the name F-15 Baz Meshopar, or Baz 2000. The upgrade included a new radar with AIM-120 and Israeli Python missile compatibility, redone cockpits with a new throttle and stick and glass cockpit, and improved electronic-warfare capability. This upgrade program ran from 1995 to 2001, and these upgraded F-15s are expected to continue to serve far into the future.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in 2019.

Image: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Charlie Gao

Fighters, World

The JF-17 is a relatively new single-engine fighter, meant to compete against other light fighters.

Here's What You Need to Know: A JF-17 pilot said that the Su-30 was one of the most formidable threats.

The 2019 India-Pakistan border skirmish resulted in major shake-ups within the Indian Air Force (IAF). The most accepted narrative, that of a loss of an IAF MiG-21 Bison to no losses of the Pakistan Air Force bodes poorly for the IAF. But interestingly, according to a July interview, the skirmish marked one of the first “hot” use of Pakistan’s new Chinese JF-17 “Thunder” fighters.

The JF-17 is a relatively new single-engine fighter, meant to compete against other light fighters like the F-16, Gripen, and MiG-29 for export contracts. As the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is the only large user, most solid information about the aircraft is from Chinese marketing documents. But the July interview gives one pilot’s opinion on how the JF-17 stacks up against most common adversaries, from Sukhois to F-16s.

The extent of the JF-17’s “hot” usage following the border skirmish was in patrols near the border. In some incidents, the pilot said that during these patrols, he was getting radar lock-on Su-30MKIs at ranges in excess of 100 kilometers.

However, this doesn’t mean that a JF-17 could kill with a missile at that range. The JF-17’s primary beyond-visual-range (BVR) armament is the PL-12 missile, which is still undergoing integration (as of February 2019). During the actual border air skirmish, PAF F-16s lobbed AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles at similar ranges, which forced IAF aircraft to go defensive to dodge the missiles, but no kills were scored. As the PL-12 is said to have a similar range to the AMRAAM, it’s likely that its kinematic performance at range is similar, and it too wouldn’t be able to score a kill.

But if the JF-17 allows the pilot to “lob” a missile at planes at such ranges, it still might be a step ahead of the IAF’s Su-30MKIs. According to an NDTV report, the Russian R-77 missiles cannot engage targets past 80 km.

Despite the Su-30’s missile limitations, the JF-17 pilot said that the Su-30 was one of the most formidable threats the PAF faces. This is likely due to the strong engines and maneuvering capability of the Su-30, which allows it to recover energy quickly after maneuvering and makes it hard to shoot down in a within visual range (WVR) engagement.

Interestingly, the pilot then goes onto state that he’s not that afraid of the Su-30 because he’s trained against F-16s with AMRAAMs, which he thinks is a far superior missile. The pilot also states that the MICA on the Mirage is also a significant threat.

This suggests that the pilot probably thinks that the fight will be largely decided, or largely influenced by the BVR stage of the engagement and that the JF-17’s capabilities in that arena are competitive to the F-16 and Mirage. However, the pilot does say that the JF-17’s limited BVR loadout is its main weakness, as most models of the JF-17 can only carry four BVR missiles, compared to the Su-30MKI which can carry eight or more.

The pilot also gives good marks to the JF-17 for reliability, flight characteristics, and maintenance. As the JF-17 is one of China’s “clean slate” designs, this bodes well for the reliability characteristics of the current generation of Chinese aircraft. However, the JF-17 still uses a Russian engine, and the PAF rejected offers to use Chinese engines in their JF-17s in 2015. Engines remain a critical weakness in the Chinese aerospace industry.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in 2019.

Image: REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

Fast and flexible, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) was set up to promote swift, coordinated action in humanitarian crises, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told a High-level Pledging Event on Wednesday, adding: “It has more than fulfilled its mission”. 

Robert Farley

Chinese Military, Asia

China would fight another war on the Korean Peninsula if it had to.

Here's What You Need to Remember: In almost every conceivable scenario, Beijing would work hard to try to restrain Pyongyang from using its nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals. 

Three years ago I outlined what the contours of a war between China and the United States might look like. Although disagreements between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan and the South China Sea have hardly subsided, it increasingly appears that affairs on the Korean Peninsula would provide the spark for conflict. If the tense situation in Korea led to war between the United States and China, how would the conflict start? Who would have the advantage? And how would it end?

How it Would Start

War between North Korea, or the DPRK, and America is more likely to ignite a war between China and the U.S. than vice versa, although it’s not incomprehensible that Pyongyang might take advantage of U.S. distraction with China to make a move against South Korea. But if we assume the former, it would change the military situation at the beginning of the U.S.-China conflict. Whereas in most scenarios a war happens according to Beijing’s timetable, and consequently to Beijing’s advantage, if North Korea triggers a conflict China may be forced into a fight that it does not want and is not fully prepared for. At the very least, it would allow U.S. forces to fully mobilize in expectation of fighting against China. Even if the Chinese were allowed to launch the first blow, U.S. forces would be on high alert, tracking Chinese moves and capable of responding immediately. The experience of November 1950, in which China was allowed to launch a surprise attack, would surely be at the top of the minds of U.S. commanders.

China could decide to intervene in a new Korean War under two circumstances; first, if it believed that the U.S.-ROK coalition was on the verge of destroying the DPRK (as was the case in 1950), and second, if it believed that the DPRK was winning and that Chinese intervention could preempt U.S. escalation. If the former case, China’s war objectives would be to prevent the destruction of the DPRK, and to prevent the DPRK from unleashing its nuclear arsenal. In the latter, the objective would be the opposite; to secure North Korean gains (whether these amounted to the entire Korean Peninsula or not), and to eliminate any temptation on the U.S. part to escalate to nuclear weapons. In either case, U.S. and ROK planners would pay careful attention to Chinese maneuvers, and both countries would have fully mobilized for war.

The Allies

Neither China nor North Korea have a lot of friends around the world. Still, both would likely enjoy benevolent neutrality from Russia, which would help significantly in keeping the militaries of both supplied with fuel, spare parts and ammunition.

The rest of the world would likely support the United States and the ROK to various degrees, less if the U.S .started the war, more if the DPRK started it. China would undoubtedly worry about its southwestern flank, but India is unlikely to intervene in any conflict that does not directly involve its interests. America’s European and Pacific allies would offer rhetorical and potentially some minor military support.

Japan’s participation would be the biggest question mark. Tokyo regards both North Korea and the growth of Chinese military power as key national security threats. Japan might well come under attack from North Korea during intra-Korean hostilities. At the very least, Japan would offer basing and support to the United States and (more quietly) to the ROK. But if Tokyo perceived that a Chinese-North Korean axis might win (as apart from merely preserving a rump DPRK), then Tokyo might well intervene on the U.S. side in a meaningful way. The combination of Tokyo’s military, financial, and economic might could significantly affect the course of the conflict.

The Course of Combat

On balance, South Korea is considerably more powerful than North Korea. While North Korea’s forces can cause enormous damage to South Korea in a conventional conflict, they cannot hope to destroy the Republic of Korea, or ROK, on their own. Attacks in depth against North Korean communications and logistics would make it difficult for the North Korean Army, or KPA, to maneuver. And in the early days of the conflict, South Korean and American airpower would utterly control the sky.

Chinese intervention could change this equation. War between the Koreas would create a problem for the U.S. by introducing the necessity to supply and maintain large scale land forces on the Korean Peninsula. Unleashed against South Korea, Chinese ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles could wreak havoc on U.S. and ROK military installations. Missiles would destroy Coalition aircraft on the ground, and reduce airfield readiness. Attacks on staging and logistics areas would give U.S. and ROK forces a taste of the same problems they had dished out to the North Koreans. US naval forces and installations would also come under attack.

In the first Korean War, the United States restrained itself from attacking China directly. In a new Korean War, the Americans would not exercise such forbearance. Chinese military installations associated with strikes against Korea would come under attack from U.S. air, missile, and naval assets. The PLAN, whether it took to sea or remained in port, would find itself a juicy target, although the U.S. Navy might limit its attacks geographically. Chinese air bases within China, and the aircraft based on them, would also suffer from U.S. attacks.

How it Would End

In almost every conceivable scenario, Beijing would work hard to try to restrain Pyongyang from using its nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals. Indeed, the United States might well declare from an early point that it viewed any use of nuclear weapons by the Beijing-Pyongyang axis as implicating both partners, and thus requiring retaliation against both.

If Beijing and Washington could avoid nuclear combat, the end of the war would turn on the survival of the DPRK. North Korea cannot indefinitely stand against the combined might of the U.S. and the ROK, much less the addition of Japan to the Coalition. If Chinese intervention can either disrupt the U.S.-ROK war machine through brute force (the destruction of sufficient military assets to make it impossible to continue), or coerce the U.S. to give up through the imposition of high costs, the DPRK could survive and remain in control of some portion of the Korean Peninsula (whether large or small would depend on the timing and extent of Chinese intervention). If the Chinese can’t accomplish this, then the DPRK will cease to exist, and the ROK will extend to the Chinese border.

In the first scenario, the world looks much like it does today, only with substantial destruction across Northeast Asia, and profound disruption to global economic and financial systems. The second scenario sees the same kind of disruption and destruction, but China is the clear loser, with potentially dire implications for the power and legitimacy of the Communist Party of China.

Parting Thoughts

It is unlikely that the Chinese could win the war for North Korea, but they might well be able to prevent the DPRK from losing. But there is little question that China does not want to yoke its growing military machine to the whims of Pyongyang. Even if China could win such a war, the devastation to its trade and financial relationships would vastly exceed the value of preserving the DPRK. This is a war that China wants to avoid, and would only join in desperation.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat.

This first appeared in 2017 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

 

She is outspoken, candid, and speaks truth to power. She is known to lecture governments and tell them how to improve their track record on xenophobia, racism, racial discrimination, and all forms of intolerance.

Kris Osborn

U.S. Navy, United States

Adding large numbers of new next-generation destroyers will substantially change the Navy’s ability to conduct major maritime warfare operations by enabling surface forces to detect enemy attacks at much farther distances.

Here's What You Need to Know: Within just the next fifteen years, the Navy plans to add as many as thirty DDG 51 Destroyers, including twenty-two new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers.

The Navy accepted delivery of the guided missile destroyer, the future USS Daniel Inouye, from shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, March 8. As the Navy adds another new Destroyer to its growing fleet of attack warships, many wonder if the service’s 500-ship ambitions remain afloat given the new budget environment led by a new Joe Biden administration.

The Navy’s ambitious fleet-size expansion plan, still believed to be largely intact as seeking a 500-ship “aim point,” relies upon a massive increase in heavily armed destroyers able to launch long-range attacks, fire interceptor missiles, defend carrier strike groups and engage in massive open blue water warfare.

Within just the next fifteen years, the Navy plans to add as many as thirty DDG 51 Destroyers, including twenty-two new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers, according to the service’s most recent thirty-year shipbuilding plan.

“DDG 118 is a Flight IIA destroyer equipped with Aegis Baseline 9, which provides improved Integrated Air and Missile Defense capabilities, increased computing power, and radar upgrades that improve detection range and reaction time against modern air warfare and Ballistic Missile Defense threats,” a Navy report states.

Prioritizing such a large number of these warships offers an interesting analytical window into Navy thinking about the next five decades of ocean war. The plan signifies a broad service alignment with its Distributed Maritime Operations strategy which, among other things, seeks to massively increase lethality and sensor networking across vast swaths of ocean in real time.

Adding large numbers of new next-generation destroyers will substantially change the Navy’s ability to conduct major maritime warfare operations by enabling surface forces to detect enemy attacks at much farther distances. Moreover, these warships will be able to launch long-range strikes with greater precision and destructive force and disperse otherwise overly congested offensive forces across much wider maritime areas.

In addition to adding thirty new destroyers, the Navy’ also seeks fifteen Littoral Combat Ships, eighteen of the new frigates and as many as thirty-two new attack submarines in the next fifteen years. While many new ships are now under construction, the current number of Navy ships is roughly in the high 280s, a number the Navy hopes to grow to 355 by 2034.

Interestingly, while 355 ships by 2034 may still appear to be the objective, one thought to consider is that during President Biden’s previous time in the Barack Obama administration, there was a decided interest among the political leadership to operate a smaller number of actual ship platforms while making a special effort to ensure technological overmatch and tactical advantages. The concept during the Obama years was to embark upon a massive Pacific pivot with a technologically superior, yet numerically smaller Naval force. This plan was further enabled by new long-range precision weapons and more robust ship-to-ship networking systems connecting otherwise separated points of attack. Effective networking, high fidelity sensors, manned-drone-boat teaming and precision weaponry, however, are all expected to figure prominently as the service surges forward into an entirely new threat environment.

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 Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

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

Image: Reuters.

Charlie Gao

Artillery, Europe

And why did Sweden desire such a system to begin with?

Here's What You Need to Know: Peace-loving Sweden is also an arms exporter.

During the twentieth century, Sweden developed many weapons at the top of their class despite not being a superpower. From the Swedish K SMG to the AT4, Swedish weapons have won American orders and proven themselves to be excellent in the field. However, one of the most interesting and innovative Swedish designs never was exported. The Bandkanon 1 self propelled howitzer was a Swedish design with only twenty-six vehicles built. It still holds the records for being the fastest firing artillery system of its caliber. It possessed the ability to empty its entire magazine of fifteen shells within forty-five seconds, a world record. While the Bandkanons were never exported and were phased out of service in 2003, the legacy of their magazine-style loading system lives on in Sweden’s new Archer artillery system. But how can the Bandkanon fire so fast? Why did Sweden desire such a system, to begin with?

To answer those questions, we must look at the circumstances that brought about the development of the Bandkanon. In the late 1940s, Sweden had a desperate need to modernize its artillery, as most of it was turn-of-the-century vintage. For most of the requirements, foreign-designed artillery fulfilled the requirements and was purchased. In contrast, the requirements for a heavy self-propelled artillery piece was set extremely high. This is where the extremely high rate of fire requirement came around, as the HQ wanted a rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute for the self-propelled artillery piece. The reasons for this are not exactly clear, but some speculation exists. The Swedish military didn’t field multiple rocket launchers (MLRs) (such as the BM-21 Grad or M270 MLRs) during the Cold War at all, so the use of conventional artillery that has similar capability to MRLs would allow the Swedish artillery to fulfill two roles with one platform, making it more economical. The Bandkanon was also designed with a fast automated loading system that allowed it to prepare for a second fire mission much faster than MRLs. In addition to this, Swedish studies also came to the same conclusion as Soviet ones after WWII: that a fast rate of fire is desirable as artillery inflicts the most casualties at the beginning of the barrage when soldiers have not yet hunkered down in bunkers or fortified positions.

To fulfill these requirements, the Bandkanon required a design radically different from existing self-propelled artillery. Most self-propelled artillery at the time was laid out similar to tanks, with the gun breech being enclosed in a manned turret. The Bandkanon did away with that, with the gun being counterbalanced by a massive ammunition compartment on the rear of the turret, with no manual loader. The loading of the gun was done automatically via a rammer that stripped rounds from the magazine in the ammo compartment. This arrangement of all fourteen rounds pointed in the direction of the barrel gave the Bandkanon its incredible rate of fire. By the time the first round impacted the target at the maximum range of twenty-five kilometers, all other thirteen rounds would be in the air. Reloading the Bandkanon was also incredibly fast, thanks to the built in crane on the rear of the artillery piece. This crane would simply pick up an entire fresh set of fourteen rounds and place it in the ammo compartment. Manuals suggest that this was almost fully automatic, requiring pressing only three buttons once everything was positioned properly. The entire process of reloading only took two minutes.

While this incredible rate of fire was definitely an advantage, to achieve it the Bandkanon made significant compromises. The whole vehicle was incredibly heavy for its time, weighing in in excess of fifty tons. Combined with relatively weak engines, this meant that the Bandkanon could not move rapidly off road or on road. Unlike traditional manually loaded howitzers, the amount of charge could not be altered for the Bandkanon due to the unitary nature of its ammunition. This limited its flexibility in employment, especially on closer targets.

Despite these advantages, the Swedish army only procured twenty-six Bandkanons in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the modern FH77 field howitzer became the primary artillery system of the Swedish military. While it too had the capability to rapidly fire, it was not as fast nor as protected as the Bandkanon with its novel ammunition layout.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Abdul Rahman Rahmani

Afghanistan, South Asia

The lives of more than 6,300 Afghan women who served in the Afghan military are at risk.

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan once again. In the previous twenty years, the United States and NATO countries promoted women’s rights, equality, and justice in Afghanistan. As part of those efforts, they provided opportunities for women to voluntarily serve in the Afghan military. This service has traditionally been subject to male domination in Afghanistan. Despite cultural difficulties, the United States and its allies trained a cadre of Afghan women in the military to do jobs that typically hadn’t been open to them. They served in U.S.-backed combat units, handled the cases of Taliban prisoners, and a small number of them even flew helicopters and military planes. Before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, over 6,300 women served in the Afghan army, police, and air force.

These women did not just serve in the military and fight the Taliban, they also promoted democracy, equality, and justice as part of the transformation of Afghanistan. The international community, especially the United States, purposefully encouraged and supported women in the military as part of the broader transformation to a more democratic, just, and equal Afghanistan. Because these programs directly and symbolically put these women at war with the Taliban and what it stood for, the United States has incurred a moral obligation not to abandon them in the face of the Taliban resurgence. These women would likely face Taliban retribution and possibly death. The most straightforward way for the United States to meet its moral obligation is to grant those women U.S. visas and support their safe evacuation from Afghanistan.

From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until they were removed during the United States’ invasion. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to their extremist interpretation of Islamic Sharia Law, which, among other restrictions, banned girls from school and prevented women from serving in the government or military. The Taliban’s leadership would not allow women to serve in their regime because they “publicly humiliated and beat women if they didn’t comply [with their will]” during their rule. The best solution to potential Taliban brutality against those women is to get them out of Afghanistan.

The United States must evacuate these women because their lives are in great danger. Afghan women who served in the military fought the Taliban in both the land and the air domains. The majority of the 6,300 women in the Afghan National Army fought on the ground, but around 146 women served in the Afghan air force, flying combat and logistics aircraft. Several also served in the police, interrogating Taliban fighters at the Bagram military base and other prisons around Afghanistan. Some of the Taliban fighters interrogated by women police were freed from Afghan prisons under the peace agreement signed by the Taliban and the United States in in February 2020 in Doha. Those released Taliban prisoners actively participated in the recent fight against the Afghan government. Therefore, the work that these women did as army ground forces, as pilots, and as police interrogators put them at risk of being identified and executed by the Taliban.

Moreover, these women risked their lives to protect the United States, its allies, and the Afghan government’s interests in promoting values such as democracy, equality, and justice as part of Afghanistan’s transformation toward a democratic country. They were perfect examples of those values. For example, my work at the Office of National Security Council in the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan required me to read, analyze, and report on all of the U.S. reports on Afghanistan to the national security advisor and the president of Afghanistan. During my two-and-a-half-year tenure, I never saw a single report in which these women were not mentioned as a sign of progress in promoting democracy, justice, and equality. Moreover, many intellectuals, journalists, think tank experts, and other people involved in women’s rights in Afghanistan have claimed that the participation of Afghan women in the military was a positive sign in promoting these important values.

The values that the Afghan military women fought for are contrary to the Taliban way of life and its extremely conservative interpretation of Sharia Law, the Taliban’s code of conduct. Those values are also against those held by the people who supported the Taliban for twenty years and contributed to overthrowing the Afghan government. These women have no room to live in societies under the Taliban’s control. If they somehow survive the Taliban’s brutality, they will be subjected to forced marriages—despite the recently decreed ban—rapes, and their families will face social isolation and extreme poverty.

How could the United States help these women safely evacuate Afghanistan? To safely evacuate them from Afghanistan, the United States must negotiate with Pakistan for leverage over the Taliban to allow these women a safe passage. From an ethical perspective, the United States must not speak to the Taliban leaders who are still on the UN sanctions list. The United States should talk to Pakistani authorities and ask for their assistance. According to Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on South Asia, “the Taliban are desperate to be recognized by the US and its allies in the international arena.” They will be willing to do anything in exchange for international recognition. The United States and the international community are observing the Taliban’s behavior, particularly their conduct with Afghan women. As part of the deal, the United States can convince the Pakistani government that if the Taliban allow these women a safe passage, as they did for Westerners, it might help their quest for recognition in the international community.

However, the promise must be condition-based: if the Taliban do not change their code of conduct in accordance with the international community’s demands, the international community must retain the ability to sanction their regime. Given that Pakistan is under intense pressure from the United States and the international community for supporting the Taliban, it will likely help the United States negotiate a deal. While the Taliban is a pariah in the international arena, there is a strong possibility that they will allow those women a safe passage from Afghanistan.

The United States and its allies must act quickly to save these women’s lives or else they will be abandoned to suffer the Taliban’s brutality and eventually die in poverty. Allowing this to happen to Afghan military women will make future gender promotion in Afghanistan impossible. Some experts may argue that the Taliban will allow women to serve their regime to leverage and influence the international community. In pure Islamic governance, governance that the Taliban have fought for, it is against Sharia law to have women serve in the military. Prime examples of this fact are found in Saudi Arabia and Iran, where women cannot fully participate in the military. Furthermore, most Afghans who supported the Taliban view women’s service in the military, an environment of mixed genders, contrary to their values and way of life. Given the limited foreign aid the Taliban will receive from foreign countries compared to previous governments, and given the growing workforce in Afghanistan, it seems impossible for these women to find proper jobs and sustain themselves and their families in a male-dominated country.

The lives of more than 6,300 Afghan women who served in the Afghan military are at risk. They will potentially face the wrath of the Taliban, which could include brutality and killing. The Afghan military women put their lives in harm’s way fighting the Taliban and sacrificed to promote democracy, equality, and justice. They are now facing a great struggle for their lives under the Taliban’s brutality in Afghanistan. Therefore, the international community, particularly the United States, has a moral obligation to grant them visas and support their safe evacuation from Afghanistan.

Abdul Rahman Rahmani is a former colonel, Afghan pilot, and head of Presidential Information Coordination Center at the Office of National Security Council in Afghanistan. He is currently studying at National Defense University in Washington DC.

Image: Reuters.

Aaron Crimmins

Ransomware, United States

The nature of cyber threats is to evolve constantly. To effectively combat them, we must as well.

In the first year of his presidency, Joe Biden has made strong efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to get tough on national cybersecurity. This pledge came both as a natural accompaniment to his campaign agenda of renewing American infrastructure as well as a way to differentiate himself from the former administration. To those in the cybersecurity field, President-Elect Biden’s messaging on cybersecurity was encouragingly robust following his election. Looking back on almost a year of the Biden administration, those encouraging pre-inauguration overtures have begun to bear real fruit. Importantly, the president has pushed for an effective means to improve the nation’s cyber fortitude to combat one of today’s most onerous and widespread cyber threats: ransomware.

The Biden administration hit the ground running and quickly began working to combat ransomware. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a call for action to tackle ransomware more effectively in February, setting off a cascading series of initiatives in the following months. In March, DHS launched a series of sixty-day sprints to streamline and standardize the federal response to ransomware and cyber criminality. The U.S. Secret Service held a virtual cyber incident response simulation with state and local governments, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the Treasury Department, engaged the cyber insurance industry on the future of their collaborative response to the ransomware threat. The U.S. Coast Guard trained to synchronize its own incident response plans with that of individual states, and many Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) symposia were held on cybercrime and ransomware.

In collaboration with European partners, the Treasury Department has sought to streamline information sharing dedicated to disrupting and deterring ransomware ecosystems that are often used to launder and hide illicitly obtained funds. The Treasury Department has also targeted the safe harbors ransomware criminals and syndicates rely on. Ransomware payments, denominated in cryptocurrencies, topped $400 million globally in 2020, to say nothing of the downstream economic losses from downtime, data-loss, and rebuilding efforts. The Treasury’s offensive includes more aggressively monitoring cryptocurrency exchanges such as the Russian SUEX-OTC, a broker said to have facilitated transactions for at least eight ransomware variants. The Treasury sanctioned SUEX-OTC in September in an international effort to go after the financial enablers of ransomware gangs, according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.

The cryptocurrency-tracking firm Chainalysis said in a blog post that SUEX is among the most active of a small group of illicit services that handle most money laundering for cybercriminals.

Chainalysis said SUEX has been laundering money from another shady cryptocurrency exchange, BTC-e, which U.S. authorities had previously shut down. BTC-e's operator was extradited to France and sentenced to five years in prison in December for financial crimes. This was the first time such actions were taken against a cryptocurrency exchange. With expanding international campaigns targeting cybercrime, it is not likely to be the last time.

In October, the Biden administration again stepped up its international efforts to fight ransomware. The White House led an international counter-ransomware event with over thirty partners meant to accelerate cooperation in addressing ransomware’s impact on the financial and critical infrastructure sectors. Specific efforts included campaigns to encourage network resilience, including voluntary cyber performance goals, classified briefings for critical infrastructure executives, and collaboration on international industrial control systems cybersecurity. Industrial control systems, being the breed of computerized infrastructure that controls power grids, manufacturing plants, and nuclear centrifuges, play an enormous role in both civilian and military cybersecurity. A well-timed ransomware attack on such systems could bring industrial states to their knees in moments.

An October 13 fact sheet produced by the White House put it bluntly:

Responsible states do not permit criminals to operate with impunity from within their borders. We are working with international partners to disrupt ransomware networks and improve partner capacity for detecting and responding to such activity within their own borders, including imposing consequences and holding accountable those states that allow criminals to operate from within their jurisdictions.

This strong statement, in the context of renewed international collaboration in cyberspace between the United States and its partners, was likely meant to serve as a warning to Russia and other adversarial cyber actors that there will be material consequences for facilitating international cybercrime syndicates, including those focused on perpetrating ransomware attacks on the West.

Following these efforts, in April the White House launched a follow-on industrial control system cybersecurity initiative linking the federal government and the private critical infrastructure community. This initiative has led to over 150 privately owned electricity utilities initiating plans to upgrade cybersecurity technologies. Additionally, this effort is being expanded into the natural gas and water utility sectors.

In early November, the Department of Justice issued a statement regarding an indictment against Russian and Ukrainian nationals on ransomware-related charges. Yaroslav Vasinskyi and Yevgeniy Polyanin were both indicted for perpetrating a series of ransomware attacks using the REvil software against a Miami-based IT management company, Kaseya, and JBS Foods, a global agriculture and meat processing company. The indictment, arrest, and extradition of these criminals were made possible in large part due to international collaboration and intelligence sharing with European partners. When Vasinskyi attempted to cross into Poland from Ukraine, he was arrested. Polish authorities are currently holding Vasinskyi pending extradition to the United States. Attorney General Merrick Garland also announced that the Justice Department had seized $6.1 million of ransom payments that the REvil group had obtained through its exploits.

Biden’s headlining legislative achievement thus far has been the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The landmark bipartisan law devotes about $2 billion to cybersecurity infrastructure. Half of this grant is to go to state and local level government entities in order to improve and harden their cyberinfrastructure and capabilities. This alone is poised to make dramatic improvements in how the ransomware threat is addressed. Any security system, cyber or otherwise, is only as strong as its weakest link. This billion-dollar grant is aimed at forging stronger links at all levels of government, especially the thus-far overlooked state and local offices. Ransomware attacks are often tailored to hit an organization at a choke point so as to inflict maximum damage and increase the likelihood that the organization will pay the ransom. This provision of the IIJA may become a direly needed deterrent in the federal government’s ransomware prevention strategy.

Biden’s IIJA also devotes $100 million over four years to a DHS rainy day fund to be used when the agency declares a “significant incident.” A ransomware attack on a critical government infrastructure node would certainly qualify, giving the government a new and versatile tool in combating the threat. This would allow the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to allocate aid to the public and private sectors and facilitate collaboration between them. Biden’s White House likely learned this bridge would be critical to the cybersecurity challenge after the 2014 Sony Hack, which occurred while Biden was vice president. At the time, then-President Barack Obama publicly gave little aid to the private company, citing a reluctance to use government power to come to the aid of private firms. This public-private collaboration funding comes on the heels of CISA’s August formation of The Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC). The JCDC is the first and only federal cyber entity that proactively scopes out the threat environment through partnership with the private sector and federal cyber capabilities.

Another $500 million is reserved for the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency for two programs, one for rural and municipal utilities security and another for power grid security improvements.

The Biden administration’s overall strategy against ransomware and international hackers relies on international collaboration with partners and allies. European and Israeli counterparts have already begun to play important roles in data sharing and criminal apprehension methods. The Biden administration is overseeing and guiding an expedited development of agreements concerning how the rules-based-order coalition will define acceptable practices in the financial and cybersecurity sectors. The next steps, should American leadership persist, must not be to assume progress made will keep the coalition ahead of its adversaries. The coalition must continue to apply pressure and challenge itself to maintain a constant, if not accelerating, pace of progression. Agreements should continue to be made, evolve, and become more strongly codified. Additional measures will need to be taken domestically as well. DHS representatives, speaking on November 17 to Congress’ Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, & Innovation and the Subcommittee on Intelligence & Counterterrorism said: “Additional legislative steps and new authorities are necessary to understanding the full scope of the ransomware problem [...] Together we must stand united to support the adoption of, and adhere to, international cyber norms and condemn countries who violate these norms or harbor cyber criminals, or support their criminal activities.” The nature of cyber threats is to evolve constantly. To effectively combat them, we must as well.

Aaron Crimmins is a cyber strategy and governance consultant and writer based in San Diego, California. He tweets @00crims.

Image: Reuters.

Rainer Zitelmann

Germany, Europe

Will the coalition of such unequal partners—SPD and Greens, on the one hand, FDP on the other—survive for four years?

On Wednesday, December 8, the German Bundestag elected Social Democrat Olaf Scholz as Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor. He received 395 votes out of a total of 707 and heads the new coalition government of three parties: The Social Democrats (SPD), the environmental party The Greens, and the pro-market FDP.

Three Partners Who Don’t Really Fit

The three coalition partners do not actually fit together. The two left-wing parties, the SPD and the Greens, would have preferred to govern together with Germany’s third leftist party, Die Linke (the former communist party that used to govern the GDR). This was not possible because the three parties did not win enough votes to secure a combined majority in the German parliament. The FDP would have preferred to govern with the centrist CDU/CSU. However, the CDU/CSU posted the worst result in its history and is currently leaderless.

Germany’s new coalition government is comprised of three very unequal partners. The SPD and the Greens campaigned for massive tax increases for the rich, while the FDP called for tax cuts for all. The result: nothing will change. The SPD and the Greens blocked tax cuts, the FDP blocked tax increases.

In many other areas, too, the parties’ completely different policy agendas ended up neutralizing each other. Take tenancy law, for example: The SPD and the Greens wanted to massively curtail landlords’ rights and ban rent increases. The FDP would have liked to liberalize tenancy law. The result: German rental law will remain unchanged—with just a little bit of tinkering around the edges. The free-market FDP on the one hand and the two left-wing parties on the other have effectively canceled each other out. The FDP has managed to impede many socialist-leaning policies, and for that the free-market-oriented voters will be grateful. Moreover, the FDP has pushed through its picks for two key ministries: The Ministry of Finance will be headed by the FDP’s Chairman Christian Lindner, while the Ministry of Justice goes to Marco Buschmann, who is widely regarded as an outstanding lawyer. This is reassuring for the German business community, which supported the FDP, while the staffing of other ministries is a cause for concern:

A New Direction for Germany?

The ministries of economics and foreign affairs will be headed by the Green Party’s dual chairpersons. Annalena Baerbock is set to take on the role of foreign minister, an appointment that could cause irritation in many countries. She can hardly deal with her opposite numbers in other countries as an equal. During the election campaign, it emerged that she had garnished her curriculum vitae, which included a number of falsehoods. In addition, she published a book during the election campaign that turned out to contain large sections of plagiarized text—she eventually had to withdraw the entire book, and it will no longer be printed. This had severely damaged Baerbock’s credibility and ended up costing her party a substantial number of votes.

The Greens are committed to a “hypermoral” foreign policy, which is likely to lead to problems with China and Russia, in particular. With regard to Russia, however, the SPD, which has spoken in favor of a Russia-friendly policy, will probably prevail. The situation is different with regard to China. The Greens don’t care about Germany’s economic interests. This could lead to a new approach toward China and a departure from the policies pursued by Merkel, who recognized the importance of healthy relations with China. Even before Baerbock’s appointment as foreign minister, she called for a ban on imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang and refused to rule out a boycott of the Winter Olympics in China, which angered the Chinese.

The Greens have no concept of realpolitik; they want to gear German foreign policy to morality and ideology. One of their key demands is that Germany should have a “feminist foreign policy.”  The three parties’ coalition agreement explicitly specifies a ‘feminist foreign policy,’ whatever that is supposed to mean.

One can only hope that Chancellor Scholz will succeed in limiting the potential damage that Foreign Minister Baerbock could do and will set the main outlines of foreign policy himself.

What About NATO's “2 Percent Target?”

And what about Germany’s NATO commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense? The SPD and the Greens oppose this target, while the FDP supports it. The parties have agreed the following compromise: “We want Germany to invest 3 percent of its GDP in long-term, integrated and comprehensive international action, thus strengthening its diplomacy and development policy and fulfilling its commitments to NATO,” reads the coalition agreement on page 144 under the heading “Multilateralism.” Sure, 3 percent sounds more than 2 percent, but the 3 percent includes all sorts of other spending, such as development aid.

Continuing the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy”

Robert Habeck, co-leader of the Green Party alongside Baerbock, will lead the Ministry of Economics with responsibility for climate policy. Habeck is a philosopher and the author of numerous children’s books but has proven in several interviews that he doesn’t know the first thing about economics. The Greens want to subordinate all economic policy to the fight against climate change. This year, the last three German nuclear power plants will be taken offline and, over the next few years, they will be followed by all coal-fired power plants—without any other energy sources lined up to replace them! Even today, as a result of this policy, Germany has the highest electricity prices in the G20. The paradoxical result of this policy is that Germany will probably need to import even more nuclear power from France and other countries because the country can no longer supply itself with energy. The Wall Street Journal branded this the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy”—and the Greens want to head down this wrong path even faster.

How Stable Is This Coalition?

Will the coalition of such unequal partners—SPD and Greens, on the one hand, FDP on the other—survive for four years? One point of conflict could be migration policy. Like Merkel, the SPD and the Greens want to base German migration policy primarily on moral principles. Merkel opened Germany’s borders in 2015—and was supported by the SPD and the Greens.

The FDP also wants immigration but wants to restrict migrants’ access to Germany’s welfare system and wants to prioritize migrants who will benefit Germany economically, in particular skilled workers. As all polls show, FDP voters oppose an open-borders policy. If the FDP surrenders to the demands of the Greens and the SPD on immigration, it could lose alienate large sections of voting base—again. At the same time, the SPD and the Greens are under pressure from their own representatives in the German parliament, the Bundestag, many of whom are very, very far to the left of the political spectrum. The SPD’s new secretary-general, Kevin Kühnert, is a hardline socialist who gained notoriety for proposing the expropriation of companies such as BMW and for saying that only the state should be allowed to rent apartments. Kühnert is known for preferring to work with Die Linke and rejecting everything the FDP stands for politically. Even though Scholz says he hopes to govern with the FDP beyond its initial four-year term, his party and the Greens think differently: In four years, they would prefer to form a coalition with the Die Linke, as they already have at a regional level in many federal states.

Rainer Zitelmann is a German historian and sociologist and the author of twenty-five books, including The Power of Capitalism.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Mi-28, Russia

The use of drones for manned-unmanned networking could reduce sensor-to-shooter time and make the Mi-28 even more dangerous.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The Russian paper also makes vague references to the Mi-28's communications systems and “network-centric” capabilities and its ability to enable aircraft to “interact in a group.”

A Russian newspaper claims the country’s new combat helicopter gunship contains breakthrough technology to the point wherein its weapons, drone connectivity, communications networking, sensors and long-range targeting enable it to attack successfully from “outside of the enemy’s effective air defenses.” 

Called the Russian “Night Hunter,” the new Mi-28NM is built with modernized engines, a new fuselage and an auxiliary power plant able to support next-generation onboard networking and electronic warfare systems. 

“The Mi-28NM’s onboard armament allows it to detect and destroy enemy targets round the clock and in any weather conditions while operating outside of the enemy’s effective air defenses,” Vitaly Shcherbina, the Chief Designer of the Combat Helicopters Program at Rostec, reportedly told TASS.

Shcherbina also explained that the layout of the chopper’s fuselage has been newly configured to integrate new targeting sights. The report also makes unspecified statements about the aircraft’s defensive aids suite, claiming it can defeat an enemy's “ground and airborne air defense systems.” It does not seem at all clear what this might mean, as it seems extremely unlikely that even an extremely advanced helicopter with a new generation of sensors and countermeasures would be able to all air defenses, given that helicopters fly at lower altitudes and have structural limitations regarding how stealthy they can be.

Also, perhaps of greatest significance, the Russian paper also makes vague references to the helicopter’s communications systems and “network-centric” capabilities and its ability to enable aircraft to “interact in a group.”

While the report offers little to no actual technologies or weapons applications in a discernable or clear way, it does make reference to the often emphasized sphere of networking concepts. “Network-centric methods of weapons’ control on the battlefield,” the article claims, can reduce latency, expedite targeting and “get information on the enemy and friendly forces in a secure jam-resistant mode.”

There are several interesting aspects to this, including the use of drones for manned-unmanned networking and, in a fashion quite similar to U.S. conceptual thinking about networks, massively reduce sensor-to-shooter time. This reference to networking and group or “meshed” information sharing across multiple combat “nodes” in real time closely mirrors cutting edge U.S. thinking on modern war, a circumstance which leads one to wonder if Russian innovators are truly gaining breakthrough traction with new, secure networking technologies or simply copying the current U.S. strategy.

The answer to this may reside amid a series of unknowns, such as the actual specifics of the new weapons, countermeasures and networked sensors incorporated into the new Russian helicopter. Perhaps Russia is emulating or seeking to replicate U.S. strategic and tactical thinking. But is the technology truly there to bring it to operational effect ahead of the United States? 

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 reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

There are dangers to hosting diplomatic meetings without a clear purpose.