Diplomacy & Crisis News

A year ago, the state shot to death scores of citizens. No one has been held accountable.

Talk of secession is on the rise among Americans—and already weakening the country.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin meets with his Ukrainian counterpart on Thursday as Washington keeps its attention on Russia.

Even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and other global challenges, children and youth are nearly 50 per cent more likely than older people to believe that the world is becoming a better place, according to the results of a landmark intergenerational poll published on Thursday. 

The project of a stronger, more united continent is on life support. It’s time for a new vision.

Despite a crisis of trust both within the country and abroad, three months after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, it is taking halting steps to pursue international legitimacy, a senior UN official in Kabul told the Security Council on Wednesday.

Not for the first time, the U.S. president misspoke about the island at the center of U.S.-China tensions.

The White House still lacks a coherent China strategy.

Relaxing restrictions on the Punjab border could lead to a bigger shift as both sides recalibrate relations.

Kyiv and the West can work together to strengthen security.

 

The border crisis between Poland and Belarus is more complex than a dispute between two sovereign nations. The extension of the EU border into the former Warsaw Pack area and towards the former border of the Soviet Union was always a source of tension as Poland was seen as a barrier to large armies coming from Western Europe. The trauma of the Second World War on Soviet citizens is notable in foreign policy arrangements since that time, and mirrors much of the history of Central Europe as a bulk-ward against the Wehrmacht, The Grand Armee of Napoleon, and many other historical disputes that placed the Polish people in the middle of wider conflicts.

The resulting Realpolitik that motivated the West and East of Europe to be weary of sharing a direct border with each other placed the Polish people into a revolving wheel of suffering and of erased identity. While the Polish people and culture survived and thrived in the areas known as historic Poland, the maintenance of a nation state was often determined by outside forces, making the Polish people strangers without a nation of their own in their historical homelands. The Poland once ruled by Medieval kings was not the same one that Napoleon stepped foot in, and was still drastically different than the Poland that came out of the Second World War. The end result is that Poland was a nation that often remained nameless despite having a rich culture and history. Poland is one of the oldest nations in European history, but remained absent as a state within Europe for much of the last 800 years.

The irony of citizens from Iraq, Syria and Yemen being trapped between the Belorussians and European Union at the Polish border mirrors much of European history as well as their own. As Poland was always the target of power politics in its region, the people of Iraq, Syria and Yemen are now often seen to be citizens of countries in a power vacuum, victims of political agents at home and now abroad that are used as a part of a larger conflict. When negotiations are taking place between Western Powers and those in the region, a missile launched at Iraq that murders its citizens is not mentioned or considered by any negotiators. Despite being indigenous peoples in their own lands, their nations are always at risk of disappearing due to external factors and foreign interests.

In reality, the conflict on the border is not between the Polish people and those from Iraq, Syria and Yemen. This latest clash has mostly been orchestrated by outside forces, wishing to keep their treatment of nameless nations maintained and who deem inequality as the norm. This is an experience Polish, Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni people have always shared, and negotiations between these nations should reflect their own culture and experiences, not those of the real outsiders.

Although progress has been made in Somalia’s electoral process, it has been slow and uneven, the UN Special Representative for the country said in a briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday.

Tehran needs to restore the nuclear deal—but the Raisi administration’s officials aren’t up for the job.

Mardi 25 juin, un camion piégé a explosé sur la base aérienne de Khobar, en Arabie saoudite. L'attentat, qui aurait causé la mort d'une vingtaine de personnes, toutes américaines, confirme la montée des tensions dans le royaume, où une forte contestation s'est développée depuis la guerre du Golfe. Dans (...) / Démocratie, Politique, Bahreïn - 1996/07

Months after the coup, Beijing seeks stability—and protections for its investments—above all.

Moscow occupying its neighbor would be expensive, dangerous, and pointless.

Les fantastiques avancées de la science comportent des risques dont l'opinion est rarement avertie. Le serait-elle qu'un autre danger apparaît : celui — faustien — de réaliser tout ce qui est potentiellement faisable. L'Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l'Europe a certes publié, le 8 novembre, un (...) - 1988/12

As civil war spreads, Kenya and the African Union are trying to broker a cease-fire.

Career diplomats are concerned that the State Department won’t institute changes to address bullying or mismanagement in the future.

Kris Osborn

Aircraft Carriers, Americas

The US Navy is getting another aircraft carrier, get excited!

Here's What You Need to Remember: While there is naturally much focus upon the first-in-class USS Ford, which is nearing its first deployment, as well as the second-in-class USS Kennedy, the new USS Enterprise (CVN 80) is slated for delivery by as soon as 2028.

Progressing quietly beneath the ongoing discussion about just what the future may hold for America’s aircraft carriers, the Navy’s third Ford-class carrier is powering along toward being ready for duty.

While there is naturally much focus upon the first-in-class USS Ford, which is nearing its first deployment, as well as the second-in-class USS Kennedy, the new USS Enterprise (CVN 80) is slated for delivery by as soon as 2028. Construction on the ship began in 2017, and builders are now performing early manufacturing and structural fabrication, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) Vice President of New Construction Aircraft Carriers, Lucas Hicks, told The National Interest in a written statement.

Most of the technologies are expected to be quite similar to the first two Ford-class carriers, yet they will likely integrate more quickly given that the Navy has had practice with the Kennedy and Ford. There are also new shipbuilding methods which have been progressing throughout the trajectory of Ford-class development, according to Hicks, who said HII is incorporating a number of lessons learned from building the Ford and Kennedy. The “build strategy” improvements, he said, including more outfitted superlifts, described at larger and more complete than on prior carriers.

“It will be the first aircraft carrier built completely using digital drawings and procedures rather than traditional paper work packages and products. The use of digital data and digital tools is more user-friendly and intuitive, making the execution of shipbuilders’ work more efficient,” Hicks explained.

Some of these construction innovations have already been underway with the USS Kennedy, the second Ford carrier slated to hit the ocean in the next few years. It involves a process Newport News Shipbuilders, a division of HII, describe as “modular construction” wherein ship compartments are assembled together before moving them to the dock to expedite the building process. Smaller segments of the ship are welded together into a structural “superlift,” as Hicks described with the Enterprise, to advance construction before the ship is lifted up into drydock.

Construction begins with the bottom of the ship and works up with inner-bottoms and side shells before moving to box units. The bottom third of the ship gets built first. Also, some of the design methods now used for the Kennedy include efforts to fabricate or forge some parts of the ship—instead of casting them because it makes the process less expensive, builders explained.

HII is working to take some of these newer methods to a new level with the Enterprise, a process which is in large measure being assisted or improved through the use of digital modeling. The Enterprise’s keel is slated to be laid in 2022, HII reports.

The Enterprise is part of a Navy “two-carrier” buy plan designed by the Navy to lower production costs and streamline technological integration. The fourth Ford-class carrier, called CVN 81 is already progressing through several key planning and preparation phases.

Kris Osborn serves as Defense Editor for the National Interest. He 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 been an anchor and on-air military analyst for national TV networks.  

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr