Diplomacy & Crisis News

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of participating in the conversations held in the various lounges and side events connected to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. One topic was on everyone’s lips, from the official sessions at the Congress Center to the late-hour conversations at Hotel Europe’s Piano Bar: decoupling between the United States and China. This decoupling can be described using the metaphor of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. In the classic book, the two cities of Paris and London are depicted as vastly different from one another, yet connected through the tumultuous events of the French Revolution. Similarly, the United States and China, closely interconnected through trade and investment only several years ago, are now moving in separate directions as tensions rise and their relationship becomes increasingly fraught. Chinese vice premier Liu He warned against the “Cold War mindset” at Davos, but he failed to convince the world that Beijing is back. Just the title of this year’s gathering, “Cooperation in a fragmented world,” spoke volumes about the state of play in global affairs.

Just as the French Revolution in 1789 created a divide between Paris and London, trade tensions and geopolitical disputes between the United States and China are resulting in the decoupling of the two of the world’s largest economies. This global divide is defined by a growing sense of mistrust between the two economic engines of global trade.

The Bretton Woods system, established in the ruins of a world left devastated by World War II, was a set of international monetary arrangements that aimed to promote economic stability and growth by linking national currencies to the U.S. dollar and fixing exchange rates. In a multipolar world, the Bretton Woods system faces several challenges, including

• U.S. dollar dependency: The system is heavily dependent on the stability of the U.S. dollar, and fluctuations or disorderly devaluations in its value could have major impacts on other currencies and the global economy.

• Limited adaptability: The fixed exchange rate regime can’t easily adjust to changes in the global economy and will often lead to imbalances and trade conflicts.

• Unequal economic growth: The Bretton Woods system was designed for a world dominated by two major powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In a multipolar world with multiple centers of power, such a system will struggle to accommodate diverse levels and systems of economic growth and development.

• Increased monetary competition: The rise of China and Russia’s pullout from the global financial system, together with increased monetary competition, has made it more difficult for the United States to maintain its dominant position in the global monetary system.

• Inadequate response to crises: The system has been criticized for its inability to respond effectively to economic shocks and crises, such as the oil crisis of the 1970s.

The systemic challenges faced by the Bretton Woods institutions in a multipolar world have contributed to its gradual decline and calls for a shift toward a new diverse and inclusive global monetary system, in which the various regions can come together to agree on a common playbook and rules of engagement. With the old order on the retreat, the new order is yet to take its final form, but we are beginning to see signs of the shape of things to come.

The reluctance of developing countries to accept the “Washington consensus” can be seen as a rejection of the old system and its shortcomings. The economic paradigms that have dominated the post-World War II era are no longer seen as relevant or effective in a rapidly changing and highly volatile multipolar world, and developing countries are seeking new ways to promote stability and growth that take into account their unique challenges and needs.

Where the World Islands Come Into Play

The notorious Russian political analyst Alexander Dugin has coined a theory of world geography known as the theory of World Islands. It is based on the idea that the world can be divided into several distinct cultural and political spheres, or "islands," each with its own unique characteristics and history. According to Dugin, these islands have distinct cultural and political identities and are defined by the way they relate to each other and to the world at large.

Dugin, sometimes described as the ideological mastermind behind Putin’s Russia, has argued that these islands will be organized into a hierarchy, with the West at the top and other regions, such as Russia, China, and the Islamic world, lower down. Dugin argues that the world is undergoing a profound transformation, with the rise of new powers and the decline of the West, and that this shift will have major implications for the future of the world. He believes that the world is moving away from a unipolar order dominated by the West and toward a multipolar order in which the various world islands will have greater autonomy and influence.

Currently, we are seeing several world islands appearing, with the United States leading the united West, although occasional cracks in the transatlantic bond are emerging over trade issues and protectionist policies on both sides of the Atlantic. Russia was kicked out of the Western financial system and has been forced to develop its own system or integrate its payment systems with China’s. Africa remains largely a question mark, with one of the panelists at the Davos Africa House reminding the audience that it is still more difficult for most Africans to visit neighboring countries than it is for foreigners. We see similar islands, or varying standards, emerging in the sphere of digital technologies.

The Future Is Both Digital and Backed by Real Assets

Fintech, or financial technology, may play a significant role in shaping the form and structure of the future global monetary system. The innovative use of technology through collaborative investment and finance platforms has the potential to reach populations that have been excluded from traditional financial services and to increase access to financial services for areas that haven’t benefited from being part of the Washington Consensus. Fintech solutions often use digital infrastructure and low-cost operating models to provide financial services at lower costs, making them accessible to a wider range of customers. Fintech has also opened up new forms of finance, such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, allowing everyone to become their own banker. The recent crash of cryptocurrencies has revealed the weakness of fintech solutions that aren’t backed by real assets.

Thus, it is crucial that the new global monetary system be backed by real assets, as such a system can provide greater stability and build confidence in high-volatility environments. Stability has become the new alpha that investors are seeking. Real assets are tangible items such as gold or real estate that have intrinsic value and are not subject to the same fluctuations and uncertainties as other forms of currency. Currencies backed by real assets are seen as more trustworthy and reliable, as their value is directly linked to the value of the underlying assets. Digital assets backed by real assets can also provide a powerful hedge against inflation. As the global economy is looking for more real asset-based solutions, the question then becomes: how do we bring the fragmented world together to discuss the common rules of the game, and where should such a meeting take place?

Will Bretton Woods 2.0 Be Based In the Gulf?

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are a natural choice to bring nations together in a multipolar world to discuss the future of the global monetary system. This is due to their role as bridge builders and their diplomatic efforts to become platforms for conversation around the future direction of global development and leadership, signified by the recent Dubai Expo 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar, together with the United Arab Emirates’ upcoming chairmanship of the COP28 climate conference.

The GCC countries have a long history of serving as intermediaries between nations and have established the region as a hub for economic, political, and cultural exchange. Strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the GCC states have significant geopolitical influence in the wider region, making the Gulf well-suited to serve as a future platform for international collaboration and cooperation. The GCC countries have strong diplomatic ties with nations around the world and have a reputation for serving as neutral intermediaries in conflicts and disputes. While Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called neutrality ‘immoral’ in the light of the war in Ukraine, the reality of our world is that when the war ends—and all wars eventually end—there will be a Ukraine and there will be a Russia, and they will have to learn to live with each other again.

Even the fragmented world needs its meeting places. During World War II, there was the Bank for International Settlements, where the warring parties could still come together to discuss both outstanding commercial issues and the future of the global order after the war. Similarly, the Gulf is uniquely positioned to bring the parts of the world that are not talking to each other back together and map out the architecture of the future global monetary system.

Ville Korpela is Executive Director at Impact Innovation Institute. He is also a member of the Councilors Program at the Atlantic Council.

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Once upon a time, the leaders of a mighty military power, which was the successor to a great historic empire that had lost much of its territories after the end of an international war, were concerned that political instability and a regime change in a nearby country that had once been one of its provinces could threaten its ethnic brethren that resided in that lost domain. Further, these leaders feared that a rival historic power with ties to the country’s other ethnic group would exploit the situation to attain a military presence there.

So, in violation of international law, the ex-empire deployed its troops into the country and invaded part of its territory under the pretext of saving its compatriots and defending its core interests.

After occupying more than one-third of that country’s territory, the military power declared that territory to be an autonomous region, and later as an independent state. This move for all practical purposes divided that country, and it wasn’t recognized by members of the international community, including the power’s leading allies.

That “independent state” has survived for close to half a century, as repeated diplomatic efforts to bring the two parts of the country together have failed. The illegal occupation, coupled with human rights violations, has ignited criticism, while the unoccupied part of the country has developed into a modern and prosperous liberal democratic state.

Bottom line is that the status quo has remained intact and in line with the interests of all the players involved. And notwithstanding its illegal occupation of the territory, the nation-state that continues to dream about re-establishing its old empire has emerged as a major regional and global player that maintains diplomatic ties with all members of the international community.

Of course, the aforementioned aggressor country is not Russia, and the situation described is not the Russian occupation of Ukraine and the events leading to it. Instead, it is the story of the island of Cyprus, which has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to a Greek-backed military coup. Certainly, the prospects for a possible diplomatic deal on the island are remote; for all practical purposes, Turkey’s occupation has been accepted as part of the status quo in Cyprus and the region.

That reality allows all the players involved to place Cyprus’ territorial division at the bottom of the global agenda. This is in stark contrast to, say, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which continues to stir international tension, and is more like the independence of Kosovo that permits everyone, including those who don’t recognize that state, to live with it.

But while Ukraine isn’t exactly “like Cyprus,” and there are some major differences between Russia’s invasion of its neighbor and Turkey’s occupation of a Mediterranean island, there are intriguing similarities that raise the possibility of a solution along similar lines. Under such a plan, Ukraine remains divided between a Russian-controlled autonomous territory and an independent and prosperous Western-oriented Ukraine.

To recall, Cyprus, which was once part of the Ottoman Empire before it was taken by the British following a post-World War I settlement, experienced growing violence between its Greek and Turkish communities after winning independence in 1950. Relations further deteriorated throughout the 1960s, and intercommunal violence became more common. Then, in July 1974, a Greek military regime instigated a military coup in Cyprus with the intention of uniting the island with Greece, or “Enosis,” provoking a Turkish invasion. Turkish leaders justified their country’s invasion and initial occupation of 3 percent of the island as part of an attempt to protect its Turkish minority, which constituted 20 percent of the population.

After ensuing peace talks between the two communities failed to lead to a peace agreement, the Turks expanded their occupation to 36 percent of the island. That resulted in the de facto partition of Cyprus with a United Nations buffer zone—known as the Green Line—separating Cyprus from the Turkish-occupied areas in the north which absorbed many of the Turks that were displaced from the south.

In 1983, the de facto Turkish Cypriot Administration declared independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus—not to be confused with the Republic of Cyprus. There the government, backed by the United States and the European Union, which Nicosia joined in 2004, transformed itself into a prosperous economy. Nicosia still regards the northern part of the country as Turkish-occupied territory and supports the idea of negotiations aimed to bring the country together. Meanwhile, the northern part has been settled by Turkish immigrants and has gradually become a province of Turkey.

In this context, the United States and the EU, which publicly insist that Russia should vacate Crimea and the other Ukrainian areas that it has illegally occupied, seem to have no major problem turning the Turkish occupation of Cyprus into a marginal international issue; in fact, Turkey remains an important member of NATO and Ankara has conducted negotiations with Brussels over joining the EU, even as its forces have occupied Cyprus.

One of the main reasons that the status quo on the island has lasted for so many years is the reluctance of Nicosia and Athens to challenge the Turkish occupation through the use of military force. It seems that the leaders in Nicosia have made their cost-benefit analysis and decided that the benefits of becoming a thriving Western society and ally of the United States and the EU outweigh the costs of confronting Ankara. 

From that perspective, Ukraine’s leaders in Kyiv may reach a point where the costs of continuing the war with Russia in order to liberate Crimea and other Russian-occupied territories would be perceived as outweighing the benefits of a cease-fire that would provide for the reconstruction of Ukraine and permit its future accession to the EU and NATO.

That shouldn't prevent Kyiv from continuing to challenge the illegal Russian occupation of Ukraine and calling for the return of those territories to Ukraine’s control at some point in the future.

Of course, a deal that accepts the current status quo in Ukraine would not satisfy everyone, but it would allow the United States and the EU to rebuild Ukraine and help it join the West. Further, it would assist the West in restoring ties with Moscow and finding ways to ensure that Russia becomes part of a new and peaceful postwar balance of power in Europe.

Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor at The National Interest, has taught international relations at American University and was a research fellow with the Cato Institute. A former UN correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, he currently covers Washington for the Business Times of Singapore and is a columnist/blogger with Israel’s Haaretz (Hebrew).

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Beijing makes no secret that it wants China’s yuan to replace the dollar as the world’s premier reserve currency. During his recent trip to the Middle East, President Xi Jinping tried to advance that objective. In promoting trade relations with oil-rich nations, especially Saudi Arabia, he went out of his way to announce that oil contracts would settle in yuan and not, as usual, in dollars. Much of China’s Belt and Road scheme also aims to elevate the yuan to international status. Someday Beijing might succeed. The yuan might overtake the dollar. Stranger things have happened. If it does, it will take a very long time, and will require a lot of change in China. For now, though, China’s yuan lacks all the attributes required of a global reserve.

At the top of the list is widespread acceptance. The dollar may not have the dominance it once enjoyed in the late 1940s and the 1950s, but it is accepted for transactions much more widely than the yuan. Many other currencies are also accepted more widely than the yuan. According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, China’s yuan features in some 2 percent of global import and export contracts. That is well up for five or ten years ago, but still well short of the dollar, which accounts for some 75 percent of world trade contracts and settlements, whether an American is involved or not. Euros, Japan’s yen, and Britain’s pound sterling fall far short of the dollar’s use but still play a greater role than the yuan.

Nor does the yuan fare much better as a vehicle for currency trading. In 2022, according to the Bank for International Settlements, some 7 percent of global currency trading occurred in yuan. China’s currency has received an extra fillip recently because Western sanctions against Russia have made Chinese links valuable to anyone who wanted to buy or sell in Russia. At the present, elevated level, the yuan has surpassed both the Canadian and the Australian dollar in this regard, as well as the Swiss franc. But even with this year’s special jump, the yuan falls far short of the amount of currency trading done in the euro, the yen, or sterling. And it is well behind the dollar, which dominates some 90 percent of all global currency trading.

Preferences by central banks to hold each currency in reserve approach this matter from a different perspective. The yuan clearly is not preferred. Some 70 central banks do hold yuan in reserve, a much greater number than a few years ago, but still, according to the International Monetary Fund, these holdings amount to only a bit over 2 percent of the global total. That figure falls short of the euro, for instance, which amounts to some 20.6 percent of global central bank reserves, or even the yen, which amounts to 5.8 percent. The yuan’s role certainly falls far short of the dollar, which amounts to about 59 percent of these reserves. As should be apparent from these trading proportions, the dollar, on strictly practical grounds, should have a higher proportion of central bank reserves than it does. Diplomacy and politics explain this difference.

Perhaps the greatest of the yuan’s inadequacies concerns China’s own financial system. For a currency to serve as the global reserve, it must have liquid, active financial markets denominated in it. These markets must offer all who must hold the global reserve currency—importers, exporters, currency traders, international banks, and central banks—a wide range of investment options for their holdings: liquid short-term deposits, for instance, longer-term bonds, stocks, options, futures, forward contracts, and the like. Those financial markets must offer people the ability to trade in and out of such investments quickly and easily. Dollar-based markets—in the United States and elsewhere—offer an abundance of such support. China does not.

A sense of this difference emerges from a comparison of the relative size of financial markets in the United States and China. U.S. equity markets amount to about 33 percent of all global stocks, whereas China’s stock market equals slightly less than 8 percent of the global total. In bonds, the figures are respectively 39 percent and 17 percent. Vast as these differences are, they do not capture the still wider difference in the sorts of investment and trading vehicles that are offered in dollar-based markets but are limited or non-existent in yuan-based markets. Far from offering liquid, easily accessed markets for yuan-based investments, China still distinguishes between domestic and foreign uses of its currency. It controls flows of money into and out of the country. It has limited trading in futures and forward contracts, including those directly concerned with currency.

Some yuan enthusiasts have pointed to the advent of a digital yuan as the key to that currency’s future dominance. It will, these enthusiasts claim, enable the yuan to acquire a global reach denied to the dollar until it, too, acquires a digital version. While it is true that the People’s Bank of China issues a digital version of its currency, and that the Federal Reserve does not issue a digital dollar, that in no way limits the dollar’s digital global reach. On the contrary, well-established networks of wire transfers, credit cards, debit cards, and ATMs, along with payment services such as Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle, have long enabled exchanges across the globe, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A tourist from Omaha, Nebraska, can use an ATM card from a local Omaha bank just about anywhere on Earth to digitally authorize an instantaneous currency transaction between his or her local bank account and the currency of the nation he or she is visiting. The digital yuan lacks any such support, or any other similar financial support.

As China’s economy grows, the yuan will gain traction as a portion of global trade, currency trading, and even reserves held by the world’s central banks. It will, however, take a long time to challenge the dollar, especially now that China’s economy and trade will likely grow at a slower pace than they did previously. What is more, the undeniable affection for control exhibited by the country’s leadership makes it doubtful that China will ever permit the open, flexible financial markets needed to support a global reserve currency. Unless China changes dramatically, it is more likely that some other currency or system will replace the dollar before the yuan has a chance, though nothing is presently on the horizon. Far from making the required changes, it is not even apparent that Xi or the Chinese Communist Party is aware of what is needed.

Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, the New York-based communications firm. His latest books are Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live and Bite-Sized Investing.

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A credible military threat might be enough.

Iran’s transformational season of protest.

With overwhelming bipartisan support and his infamous sharpie in hand, former President Donald Trump made Ronald Reagan’s dreams a reality. Nearly four decades after the Cold War-era president called for the weaponization of space, the Trump administration created the first new military branch since 1947: the United States Space Force (USSF).

The USSF’s inception expanded on Washington’s existing and persisting goals to expand U.S. influence in space. Since 2017, NASA and the State Department have worked to recruit signees to the Artemis Accords, a seven-page document outlining Washington’s vision for space governance. While typical Washington partners—including Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates—were quick to join as founding members, the twenty-one country list of signees is notably missing Russia and China as terrestrial rivalries threaten to go interstellar.

In an effort formally initialized under the uniquely space-forward Trump presidency, Washington is trying to call dibs on writing the rules in space, eager to create a model that mirrors America’s terrestrial geopolitical and commercial preeminence. But Russia and China aren’t going to sit idle, and, according to some, Moscow and Beijing—not Washington—are leading the charge.

In the last two years, China and Russia expanded their in-orbit assets by 70 percent following their already impressive three-fold increase in space presence from 2015 to 2018. While large swaths of this growth have—thus far—been civilian-led, the same technologies that achieve scientific goals could also achieve military goals. But even those more peaceful commercial endeavors make Washington nervous, and rightfully so. The prospect of losing out on a $1.4 trillion industry risks undercutting U.S. dominance, both in space and on earth. If the quest for geopolitical clout wasn’t going to force confrontation, economic interests will.

Beijing and Moscow understand this, so they’ve been preparing. The core of this conversation is satellites, the backbone of U.S. command and control and prime targets of preliminary strikes preceding a broader conflict. As early as 2007, China was bolstering its ability to take out satellites in low earth orbit (LEO), where over 80 percent of the world’s satellites are located. Chinese defense academics haven’t been vague about the purpose of these ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) systems, frequently arguing that they could be used to “blind and deafen the enemy” by targeting the communication, navigation, and early warning systems that help protect Washington from attacks. Putin, not one to let Russia lag behind, reminded the world of Moscow’s space abilities by testing one of its ASAT systems on an inactive Russian satellite. That satellite is now some 1,500 pieces of space debris.

These ground-based capabilities, however, only scratch the surface, as Russia and China work to take out U.S. satellites with “on-orbit” technology “via jamming, cyberspace, [and] directed-energy weapons,” or lasers. Russia, for example, has proved it can now launch ASAT missiles from satellites. Exciting, right?

As Beijing and Moscow push the needle on offensive space capabilities, Washington has started to grapple with whether it should pursue space-based missile defense systems. For fear that the ability to reliably intercept missiles would undermine the stabilizing theory of mutually assured destruction (MAD), these capabilities have been put on the back burner as State Department and Department of Defense officials heed the warnings of domestic critics. At least for now, that is.

Navigating arms races on earth is difficult and dangerous enough, but this trend towards militarization in space carries heightened risks as countries face minimal restrictions from credible, widely agreed-upon international institutions and norms. While the half-century-old Outer Space Treaty (OST) calls for peaceful space exploration and the UN Moon Agreement of 1979 limits inequitable commercial exploitation of space resources, the OST lacks actionable detail, and the UN failed to get the United States, Russia, and China on board. Even though the Artemis Accords are relatively benign in substance and just a series of bilateral agreements, a “revolutionary” U.S.-centric model has deterred even some of Washington’s closest partners—Germany, France, and others—from joining on.

And to be sure, the United States is not exactly a benevolent actor. Trump was clear that “space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea,” and the Biden administration gave permanence to this policy as it backed the USSF’s creation with “full support.” So, yes, Washington is not some space arbitrator, but that's to be expected. As threats from its near-peer rivals abound, the United States has to be able to protect itself and threaten its adversaries. It's too late for pacifism.

At the very least, Washington must support a concerted effort to reduce its vulnerability and create redundancies. Historically, America has relied on large satellites that accomplish many different goals. Though logistically simpler, this “all-eggs-in-one-basket” architecture increases the potential damage done by a single attack. But now, the Pentagon is pursuing a redesign of its space presence to deploy thousands of satellites—what it is calling constellations—in LEO to create system resilience that ensures Washington is able to fight, no matter how unexpected or successful a preliminary strike is. While the immediate development and deployment of space-based missile defense might be a step too far, Washington must also take steps to explore direct counters—preferably defensive, though maybe offensive—to Russia and China’s growing militarized space presence.

The goal of efficacious space capabilities isn’t to win an arms race; it's to make sure what happens in space stays in space. Paired with careful diplomacy and the expansion of a space-specific rules-based order, advancements in U.S. space capacity both deter and inhibit adversarial adventurism, limiting the scope of potential confrontation.

But if the United States lacks first-class diplomatic, strategic, and technological space infrastructure, a future president, faced with a space-based attack on significant U.S. military or commercial assets, may be pressured to expand the conflict horizon and take terrestrial action. Developing a wide array of measures helps ensure no U.S. president has to make an all-or-nothing decision.

Kendall Carll is an undergraduate at Harvard studying History and Government. His interests are primarily in grand strategy, great power competition, East Asia, and weapons of mass destruction.

Image: DVIDS.

Last month, the Yemen War Powers Resolution (YWPR), which, if passed, would have ended direct U.S. military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthis in Yemen, was withdrawn from an impending Senate vote by its sponsor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT). This move came after President Joe Biden and his administration promised to veto the resolution if it passed and urged other senators to vote against the bill. While the resolution has likely not seen its last bit of daylight, this was another major setback in the effort to terminate U.S. involvement in a conflict that has produced one of the most devastating and least discussed humanitarian crises of our time. The war has brought immense suffering to the Yemeni people, with civilian casualties, diseases, internal displacement, and famine ravaging the populace.

Ending U.S. involvement in this conflict has garnered bipartisan support in Congress over the years despite various failed attempts to pass forms of a YWPR. The movement has hit many roadblocks, such as several vetoes of legislation by President Donald Trump, but has also seen some recent success, with Biden shifting some policies held by his predecessors, vowing to stop supporting offensive Saudi military operations and moving the Houthis off the terrorist designation list. However, these shifts have largely failed to address the key issues that have kept this conflict and all associated atrocities in motion. The United States has remained Saudi Arabia’s primary arms supplier, and many U.S.-made planes and weapons used in offensive operations by the coalition receive maintenance and support from the U.S. military and U.S. contractors well after Biden’s pledge to cease such support. The Biden administration justified its decision to lobby against the current iteration of the YWPR by claiming that the situation on the ground has changed, as a UN truce had managed to reduce violence for much of 2022 and keep Saudi airstrikes at bay—even after the truce ended in October. The administration worries that passing the YWPR would harm the peace process by reducing Saudi Arabia’s position at the negotiating table, while critics of the move argue that this leaves the door open for Saudi Arabia to open a new bombing campaign with U.S. assistance.

This decision has also appeared to be a serious reversal by Biden and several of his key foreign policy officials. Top confidants, such as national security advisor Jake Sullivan, signed letters to Trump supporting previous iterations of the YWPR, and Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah in his presidential campaign. The move to block the YWPR seems to be the latest instance of a major shift in the administration's attitude towards the Saudis, which has garnered much attention since Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia this past July, which was marked by Biden’s failure to secure increased oil output by the Saudis and the rest of OPEC+. The administration blocking the resolution thus looks to be another effort to appease the Saudis, preceded by a recommendation from the administration to grant Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) immunity in a lawsuit by the fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi, as well as sustained weapons sales. Meanwhile, MBS recently hosted Chinese president Xi Jinping and signed several investment deals with Beijing. This was the latest move to increase bonds between Saudi Arabia and China, and it is apparent that this developing relationship, compared to a perceived fraying of U.S.-Saudi ties, is causing concern in Washington.

While it is true that such developments could cause significant changes to U.S. policy in the Middle East, the possible outcomes do not justify an alarmist reaction that includes appeasement, further facilitating catastrophes such as the war in Yemen. The United States has the capability to invest in alternative energy sources, including domestic oil production. A Saudi shift towards China would also motivate the United States to define its relationship more clearly with Saudi Arabia, unraveling itself from the often frustrating and contradictory status of quasi-alliance, which constrains U.S. policy flexibility in the region. Attempts to sway states away from their natural interests rarely lead to success, and it is reasonable to assert that the largest global oil exporter seeking closer relations with their biggest buyer is a natural development, especially since the Saudi economy is almost entirely reliant on oil exports. Additionally, China’s budding interest in Saudi Arabia will be complicated by its established affiliation with Iran.

The war in Yemen has been a disaster, and desperate and unnecessary attempts to prevent Saudi Arabia from pursuing alternative relationships are no reason for the United States to continue aiding in the destruction by providing direct military assistance. A resolution that seeks to curb that potential is worth the possible disruption of longstanding policy, especially when that policy is counterproductive to U.S. interests and more beneficial alternatives exist.

Chad Kunkle is a Recipient of a B.S. and M.S. in International Affairs from Florida State University and a former intern at the Hudson Institute.

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The decision by the United States and NATO to provide Abrams and Leopard II main battle tanks to Ukraine for its war against Russia is a logical follow-on to the events of the past calendar year. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine in February 2022 did not turn out as well as the Kremlin expected. Instead of a coup de main that toppled the government in Kyiv, Russia has found itself locked into a costly protracted war of attrition. The Russian forces’ military performance has also been disappointing to its political and military leadership, and a periodic reshuffling of field commanders has not improved matters very much. Heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces continues in the east and south of Ukraine. Russia is now maintaining a 1,300-kilometer defensive line and regrouping in order for what many expect will be a major offensive later this year.

To meet the expected Russian offensive in the late winter or early spring, Ukraine needs additional components for modern air-land battle, including main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, long-range artillery, advanced missile defense systems, and trained operators who can use this up-gunned equipment to good effect. Thus the announcements by President Joseph Biden and NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg on January 25 that the United States would send thirty-one Abrams tanks to Ukraine—in order to clear the way for Germany, Poland, and other NATO members to send hundreds of Leopard tanks to that beleaguered country—appears as only an incremental upping of the ante. 

But Russia may not see it that way. The problem of escalation in times of war has at least two parts: the military-technical and the political-psychological. The military-technical aspect is the conduct of battle and the provision of the necessary ingredients for doing so: troops; equipment; ammunition; command, control, and communications; intelligence; and so forth. These components of the effective management of the battlefield are challenging enough. Few battles ever go exactly as planned, and a great deal of uncertainty, chaos, and friction can be expected as the fighting continues. 

The political-psychological aspect of escalation is even more challenging. This aspect appears in two ways: first, in the perceptions and expectations of political leaders and their senior military advisors; and, second, in the views of the major domestic political forces in each country, including elite influencers of various sorts and the mass public. 

With respect to the political-psychological aspects of escalation, it appears that Russia has already taken a considerable hit. Its subpar military performance compared to prewar expectations has embarrassed the Kremlin’s leaders and senior military commanders. Troop morale has lagged and widespread resistance to calling up reserve forces has been outspoken. Putin appears to believe that he has convinced the Russian public of the necessity for this prolonged war. But that presumed approval is fragile, and it depends on the ability of Russian forces to provide convincing evidence of meaningful progress on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Ukrainian military forces have outperformed most prewar expectations. This has led Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his advisors to believe that more state-of-the-art military equipment from NATO, together with other support that includes intelligence, training, logistics, and command-control systems, will permit Ukraine’s forces to go on the offensive and retake territory previously occupied or declared annexed by Russia.

Going forward, there are at least two potential scenarios of escalation: vertical and horizontal. Vertical escalation would imply the use of larger and more destructive conventional weapons and, in the worst case, the resort to short- or medium-range tactical nuclear weapons by Russia. Horizontal escalation implies an expansion of the conflict into other countries, including possibly some NATO member states. From Russia’s perspective, NATO is already engaged in a proxy war against Russia, and the symbolism of American tanks and trainers being forward deployed in Ukraine might appear as a very personal challenge to Putin and his military leadership by Washington.

In addition to horizontal and vertical escalation, either Russia or NATO might engage in domain escalation. One example of domain escalation would be large-scale cyberattacks by one side against the other side’s military, economic, or social assets. We know that major powers already have the capability for constant probing of one another’s military and civil computer and communications networks. In the event of war, even more aggressive efforts to steal secrets and to plant destructive bots can be expected. A side that feels it is losing the kinetic war might turn to cyber war in order to compensate by escalation into another domain

Another example of domain escalation could be more widespread uses of drones for attack or defense of military and other assets which Russia has already done much more than Ukraine. Both sides have used drones for reconnaissance, command control, and strikes. The expansion of limited drone attacks into more massive sorties as the technology improves will appeal to technology-minded commanders and software engineers.

Domain escalation might also take the form of targeted assassinations against political or military leaders, a tactic that Russia, not Ukraine, has repeatedly used. In fact, allegations of Russian clandestine efforts to take out Ukrainian leaders during the early stages of the war were widely reported. In addition to hit squads of commandos, Russia might also use advanced technologies for precision strikes with drones, microwaves, or lasers, among other possibilities, against individual Ukrainian leaders or vital centers of decisionmaking in Ukraine.

Finally, and most regrettably, escalation can take the form of crimes against humanity. The purposeful targeting of civilians for terror and shock effect, apart from any legitimate military purpose, is one option that appeals to frustrated leaders facing battlefield disappointments. In this regard, Russia has deliberately targeted missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians, including attacks on schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, and electric power grids. This shock and awe against civilians by Russia is intended to discourage support for the war, but it has had the opposite effect in Ukraine. Public support for the war against Russia and for the Zelenskyy government has remained strong—Russian atrocities only serve to delegitimate the Kremlin’s rationale for war, and thereby, serve to further empower Ukraine and NATO to accomplish their objective of preventing Russia from taking permanent control of any part of Ukraine, no matter how long it takes.

Stephen Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State, Brandywine.

Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Image: DVIDS.

Aux yeux des Occidentaux, l'art peut servir l'argent mais pas la politique : toute création issue d'une république socialiste est nécessairement suspecte. Suivant ce principe, des trésors artistiques destinés aux ouvriers ont été abandonnés aux souris dans les friches industrielles d'Allemagne de l'Est (...) / URSS, RDA 1949-1990, Allemagne, Peinture, Nucléaire militaire, Art, Matières premières - 2023/02

Parce qu'il met en jeu des masses considérables d'hommes et de matériels ou parce qu'il se déroule sur de nouveaux terrains — l'espace, notamment —, le conflit entre Kiev et Moscou est d'une nature inédite. Sauf épuisement brutal d'une des parties, il paraît peu susceptible d'aboutir à une victoire (...) / Conflit, Armement, Armée, Conflit russo-ukrainien 2022-, Guérilla, Terrorisme - 2023/02

The pliant majority sustaining Putin’s rule.

Why companies must build safety into tech products.

This week is critical for Sudan’s Western orientation. The country’s military leaders and political and civilian actors will develop a roadmap for implementing the Framework Agreement, which they signed last month and pledges the organization of elections in Sudan after a two-year transition period. Upon the signing of the Framework Agreement, the United States, in a joint statement with Norway, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom, welcomed it as “an essential first step toward establishing a civilian-led government and defining constitutional arrangements” and called for “continued, inclusive dialogue on all issues of concern and cooperation to build the future of Sudan.”

This week's negotiations are an important component of this dialogue, and the United States and its partners should view them as an opportunity to assess how various Sudanese actors will implement the Framework Agreement. The United States should also use the negotiations as an opportunity to assess the role of these Sudanese actors in building support for the Framework Agreement, ensuring there is ongoing engagement with and support for those in Sudan who can further pro-Western policies and prevent the expansion of Russian, Chinese, and extremist influence in the country.

The Framework Agreement, signed on December 5, was the culmination of months of political unrest following the October 2021 coup by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan that ousted the government headed by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The coup frayed relations between Sudan’s military, political parties, and civil society, resulting in violent clashes between protesters and the military, which led to Hamdock’s reinstatement two months later. Still, Hamdock resigned in January 2022 amid ongoing demonstrations against the government.

Given Sudan’s fragile start to pluralistic governance, which began following the overthrow in 2019 of the country’s longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir, the Framework Agreement signed by the country’s military leaders and forty political and civil society groups is the best path toward peace in the country, which the United States and its partners recognize. However, as negotiations get underway this week, it will not be easy to reconcile the contentious issues on the agenda, which include transitional justice, security and military reform, the implementation of the October 2020 Juba Peace Agreement between Sudan’s transitional government and representatives of armed groups in Darfur, and the dismantling of the Bashir regime’s residual power structures.

Recognition of the difficulty that lies ahead must be accompanied by an assessment of what is at stake for the United States in Sudan: mutually beneficial counter-terror cooperation; Sudan’s recognition of Israel following its signing of the Abraham Accords, and efforts to further Sudan-Israel ties; and the need to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the country, especially when it comes to Sudan’s naval and port facilities along the Red Sea. The stakes are indeed high for U.S. interests. As such, the United States must work with the Sudanese leaders who backed the Framework Agreement to create an incentive structure for Sudan’s elites to implement the agreement and pursue a pro-American course for the country.

One such Sudanese leader is Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, who publicly denounced the October 2021 coup as a failure and advocated for the military to join the December 5 Framework Agreement. It is important to recognize that the agreement, which is the first step toward elections in Sudan, would not have happened without the support of Hemeti, arguably the most influential decision-maker in Sudan. Hemeti, moreover, has advocated for a greater U.S. presence in Sudan and has been the primary Sudanese leader in expanding the country’s military, economic, and political ties with Israel. While military actors in Sudan and throughout the region have poor human rights and governance records, it is critical that the United States recognize when these actors align with pro-American policies and that Washington increase cooperation with them when they do.

Some segments of the U.S. foreign policy establishment would like to eschew military engagement for civilian engagement in Sudan. This would not serve to further U.S. national security but would instead curtail American influence in Sudan and the broader region. All non-extremist actors are coming to the table to negotiate the conditions for an electoral process in Sudan. The success of these negotiations will depend on agreement by all parties—civilian and military. Attempting to work solely with civilian actors would be a short-sighted approach by the United States, imperiling Sudan’s first real chance at progress since Bashir was overthrown in 2019.

Washington should increase its engagement with all relevant actors in Sudan who support U.S. policy priorities to transform Sudan into a permanent Western ally.

Dr. Felipe Pathé Duarte is an Assistant Professor at the Higher Institute of Police Sciences and Internal Security, Autonomous University of Lisbon.

Image: Flickr/U.S. State Department.

It has been 342 days since the Russian invasion began. On Tuesday, there was heavy fighting on the ground in the Donbas as the Russian forces tried to take advantage of Ukrainian weak spots and achieve a breakthrough.

Fighting in the Donbas

There is heavy fighting to the southwest of Donetsk City around the towns of Pavlivka and Vuhledar.  A Russian brigade-sized force is trying to push the Ukrainian forces back from the Kashlahach River, a small water obstacle that had been the frontline for several months. 

The Russian forces had been conducting probing assaults in the area for weeks now, but now there are throwing more units into the fray. Russian commanders have tried to achieve a breakthrough in the area before. The Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade suffered extremely heavy casualties trying to capture Pavlivka back in November.

In the east, the Russian forces are trying to regain lost ground around the town of Kreminna, while the Ukrainian military is conducting counteroffensive operations to the northwest toward Svatove, a key logistical hub. The two towns have been at the center of the fighting in the region since September.

The situation in the south has remained unchanged.

Russian casualties

Every day, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is providing an update on its claimed Russian casualties. These numbers are official figures and haven’t been separately verified.

However, Western intelligence assessments and independent reporting corroborate, to a certain extent, the Ukrainian casualty claims. For example, the Oryx open-source intelligence research page has visually verified the destruction or capture of close to 1,700 Russian tanks (which amounts to more tanks than the combined armor capabilities of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and more than 8,300 weapon systems of all types; this assessment has been confirmed by the British Ministry of Defense.

The same independent verification exists for most of the other Ukrainian claims. Recently, the Pentagon acknowledged that the Russian military has lost thousands of combat vehicles of all types, including over 1,000 tanks, and dozens of fighter jets and helicopters.

Furthermore, more recent reports that are citing Western intelligence officials indicate that the Russian military has suffered more than 100,000 casualties (killed and wounded) in the war so far.

In the summer, Sir Tony Radakin, the British Chief of the Defence Staff, had told the BBC that the West understands that more than 50,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the conflict thus far. If we were to take the Ukrainian figures as accurate, the number mentioned by Sir Radakin is on the low side of the spectrum.

In November, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley shared the U.S. military’s assessment that the Russian military has lost way more than 100,000 troops so far in the war.

Yet, it is very hard to verify the actual numbers unless one is on the ground. However, after adjusting for the fog of war and other factors, the Western official numbers are fairly close to the Ukrainian claims.

As of Tuesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming the following Russian casualties:

* 127,500 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)

* 6,378 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed

* 5,048 vehicles and fuel tanks

* 3,201 tanks

* 2,197 artillery pieces

* 1,951 tactical unmanned aerial systems

* 796 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses

* 454 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)

* 293 fighter, attack, and transport jets

* 284 attack and transport helicopters

* 221 anti-aircraft batteries

* 200 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment

* 18 boats and cutters

* four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces continued to inflict the heaviest in the direction of Bakhmut, which is located in the south of the Donbas, and along the Kreminna-Svatove line in the east.

The stated goal of the Russian military for the renewed offensive in the east is to establish full control over the pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and create and maintain a land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

This article was first published by Sandboxx.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a Greek Army veteran (National service with 575th Marines Battalion and Army HQ). Johns Hopkins University. You will usually find him on the top of a mountain admiring the view and wondering how he got there.

Image: Dredger/Shutterstock.com.

In 2006, a team from Boeing proposed an incredible new use for America’s legendary F-15 Eagle that called for mounting a 45-foot rocket to its back. This rocket-carrying fighter would be given the seemingly logical (while still entirely dramatic) moniker of F-15 Global Strike Eagle, and it could have revolutionized how America deployed hypersonic weapons or put small payloads into orbit.

The idea was to use the Eagle’s powerful afterburning turbofan engines and the incredible amount of lift offered by its design to ferry rockets up to high speeds and altitudes before releasing them to ignite and fly the remainder of the journey into orbit. Launching orbital payloads from an aircraft would eliminate the need for expensive rocket launch facilities while making it possible for F-15s to rapidly deploy small payloads into orbit from anywhere on the planet with an airstrip and a hangar.

It was a relatively low-cost solution to a very expensive problem America’s military, particularly the Space Force, continues to tangle with today. But despite a very realistic approach to the Global Strike Eagle design, Boeing’s pitch likely still seemed a bit too crazy to put into practice… at least as far as we know.

The idea and its accompanying designs may look more like something Wile E. Coyote might build than anything to come out of Boeing’s brain trust, but the official proposal offers a number of startling conclusions about the feasibility of such an effort. In fact, although Boeing’s Global Strike Eagle never made it past the proposal stage, their data seems to suggest that a rocket-packing Eagle could actually work.

Why the F-15?

When the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle first took to the skies in 1972, the stakes felt a lot higher than we can really appreciate today. Just five years earlier, American analysts had gotten their first glimpse of the Soviet’s newest and most capable fighter, a platform that evoked chilled whispers about broken speed and altitude records for years before any American had even seen it. Within the halls of the Pentagon, this powerful new fighter was known only by its prototype designation: the Ye-155.

But the United States and its NATO allies would soon have another name for their Mach 3 boogeyman: The MiG-25 Foxbat.

The Foxbat, America wouldn’t know for years to come, was more about propaganda than power, and while the MiG-25 would fail to live up to its reputation, the F-15 McDonnell Douglas produced to counter it would be everything America had hoped and then some. With a top speed in excess of Mach 2.5, a climb rate of more than 67,000 feet per minute, low wing loading, and a high thrust-to-weight ratio, America’s new Eagle became the game changer the Pentagon feared the Foxbat already was, and it would go on to prove it in fight after fight. Eventually, the F-15 would rack up an incredible 104 wins against enemy aircraft, and all without ever losing a single jet in an air-to-air scrap.

With the immense success of the Eagle, it wasn’t long before the U.S. began exploring other uses for their powerful and acrobatic new airframe. By 1986, just ten years after the first F-15s entered active service, flight testing began on the next iteration of the Eagle lineage; the ground-attack-oriented F-15E Strike Eagle. With the same pair of Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 afterburning turbofan engines pumping out a bit more than a combined 58,000 pounds of thrust and new hard points and avionics to support a broad variety of conventional and even nuclear payloads, the Strike Eagle quickly followed in the Eagle’s footsteps, making a name for itself as an attack aircraft with such potent air-to-air capabilities that it had no need for a fighter escort.

Over the span of the past 50 years, the F-15 has proven so incredibly capable that it’s been considered by the Navy for duty aboard aircraft carriers, been modified to take off at speeds at low as 42 miles per hour, been landed by a student pilot after losing an entire wing, scored an air-to-air kill with a bomb, and even nearly got the stealth treatment complete with conformal weapons bays. In fact, today, 46 years after entering service in the U.S. Air Force, brand new F-15s, dubbed F-15EXs, are still rolling off the assembly line and straight into Uncle Sam’s hangars.

F-15s have been chosen for plenty of other experimental efforts too, from launching hypersonic Phoenix missiles for NASA to literally shooting down a satellite, but as incredible (or even downright crazy) as many of these efforts may have been, they all pale in comparison to one 2006 Boeing proposal that aimed to mount a 45-foot-long, three-stage rocket to the Eagle’s back.

Why add a rocket to a fighter jet at all?

The first and most obvious use for an F-15 with a rocket on its back would be the rapid deployment of orbital or suborbital munitions like many modern hypersonic glide-body weapons, and indeed, mention of using this system to deploy America’s Mach 5 “Common Aero Vehicle” did make its way into the proposal. But the bigger benefit, Boeing seems to suggest, would be as a readily available, low-cost launch platform that could put small payloads into Low Earth Orbit from practically anywhere on the globe.

Despite a greater availability of space-launch platforms than ever before, America’s orbital efforts have long faced challenges related to launch infrastructure and the incredibly high costs associated with single-use rockets. But despite the waiting lists for launch complexes and the immense expense, America and most of the world continues to find itself more reliant than ever on space-based assets for everything from the operation of advanced combat systems to streaming the first season of “How I Met Your Mother.”

For the most part, these jobs are filled by large, complex, and expensive satellites in high geosynchronous orbits that take years to get from the designer’s pad to the launch pad. As a result, cutting-edge defense and intelligence satellites are often already outdated by the time they reach orbit.

“Today our satellites are very exquisite. And they’re the world’s best but they’re not cheap, and they’re not something that we can procure overnight. They take time to acquire … We put a lot of mission assurance on it, which then drives increased costs and increased timelines, because you can’t take the risk of failure,” Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of the U.S. Space Force, explained last year.

In the United States, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station sees the majority of large American launches aiming for a West-East orbit, while Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is America’s primary gateway to North-South orbits. These facilities are designed specifically to manage large rockets carrying heavy payloads, but the U.S. also uses contractors and international partnerships to launch payloads aboard smaller rockets from facilities the world over.

America’s “exquisite” satellites are extremely vulnerable

The lengthy timelines associated with deploying new satellites aren’t just a problem for observation and deterrence. Were a conflict to break out between the United States and a near-peer opponent like Russia or China, America’s fragile satellite infrastructure would be among the first targets. Both Russia and China have demonstrated the ability to engage satellites with kinetic weapons, and in recent years, both have deployed “inspector” satellites capable of grabbing, interfering with, or destroying other satellites in orbit. Russia has secretly deployed and tested weapons in space before, including a cannon, and it stands to reason that these nations may have orbital assets the general public is unaware of.

Unfortunately, many of the satellites America’s defense apparatus relies on were designed and built in an era when space-based conflicts seemed more like science fiction than the disconcerting reality of today.

“We built exquisite glass houses in a world without stones,” former Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson explained about the vulnerability of America’s satellite infrastructure in 2018.

So, to put a fine point on it, America’s commercial, defense, and intelligence sectors all rely on a constellation of extremely expensive satellites that take years to design and build, cost a fortune to launch, and are extremely vulnerable to attack. It’s the perfect recipe for a very bad day, and that’s exactly why the U.S. Space Force was founded with satellite security and redundancy as one of its primary goals.

In order to help accomplish this mission, the Space Force is placing a new focus on quickly fielding a much larger number of smaller, cheaper satellites that would fly in Low Earth Orbit to supplement the bigger, more expensive platforms. These satellites could fill gaps created by damaged satellites, provide rapid communications or intelligence information in areas that would otherwise be very difficult to do so, and even help to locate the sources of radio frequency jamming that’s interfering with access to those higher-flying and more capable assets.

But in order to leverage this approach amid a large-scale conflict with a technologically capable opponent, America needs a method of getting a high volume of small satellites into Low Earth Orbit very quickly and from locations all around the globe.

And it would seem that in 2006, Boeing took a look at their incredibly powerful F-15, and thought to themselves, “that thing might just work as a launch vehicle…“

The F-15 GSE Global Strike Eagle concept

On April 24, 2006, a Boeing team led by Timothy T. Chen, Preston W. Ferguson, David A. Deamer, and John Hensley attended the 4th Responsive Space Conference in Los Angeles with their unique proposal in hand. The proposal, which came in the form of a 17-slide PowerPoint and accompanying 10-page write-up, was built upon a previous study conducted by a team of seven Boeing staffers led by Payloads and Structures Engineer (at the time) Tom Mead.

Of course, there had been plenty of crazy proposals to come out of aviation firms over the years, from massive nuclear-powered flying aircraft carriers to genuine flying saucers — but despite targeting space itself, this proposal was decidedly quite grounded. The idea behind the Global Strike Eagle wasn’t to sell the U.S. government on developing a pricey new aircraft for space launch operations. Instead, Boeing aimed to take the equipment Uncle Sam already had laying around and assemble it in a way that would offer a groundbreaking new capability for an extremely low cost.

As the proposal puts it: “The utilization of the F-15 as the initial stage of the launch system provides not only the expected performance benefits – reduced velocity requirements for the rocket stages, lower aerodynamic drag, and decreased atmospheric pressure but also the operational advantages inherent in using the existing support infrastructure.”

In keeping with that low-budget mindset, the proposal calls for using an existing F-15C or D with “high hours” as the initial technology demonstrator intended to serve as an airborne launch platform for a small rocket (likely from under-wing or center-line pylon), with plans to move on to using a more highly modified F-15E Strike Eagle as the basis for what would become the first true Global Strike Eagle.

How do you attach a 45-foot rocket to an F-15?

Of course, the first significant hurdle the concept would have to overcome was already apparent at this stage: despite the power and payload capabilities offered by the F-15 airframe, it would be utterly impossible to mount a rocket of this size or weight beneath the fighter. Previous studies of F-15E payload capabilities suggested that under-wing pylons couldn’t manage anything heavier than 220 pounds. NASA would successfully mount a 1,000-pound, 13-foot AIM-54 Phoenix missile on a custom center-line hard point devised for their F-15B in 2006, but their limited success in the effort only further confirmed that mounting a 45-foot, 30,000-pound rocket to the bottom of this aircraft would prevent it from rolling down the runway at all, let alone pitching up for take-off.

As a result, the decision was made to mount the rocket launch vehicle on top of the F-15, taking advantage of the wide tail span between upright stabilizers to allow for a larger diameter rocket. This new top center-line pylon concept was substantiated by testing originally intended for added ordnance, and according to Boeing, four internal bulkheads within the fuselage would provide adequate strength to support their massive rocket.

But even with the rocket now riding atop the fighter, its massive size still created problems for the Global Strike Eagle concept. The rocket’s nosecone would not only cause clearance issues with the cockpit canopy, it would interfere with the F-15’s ejection apparatus if used… and by interfere, Boeing meant that any pilot crazy enough to fly an F-15 with a rocket on its back would also be unable to eject without hitting the rocket itself. This seemed like reason enough to eliminate the pilot altogether and convert the Global Strike Eagle to use a communication link-based flight control system like those employed by Boeing’s X-45 or X-36 technology demonstrators. This change also offered the added benefit of not having to find a pilot with an affinity for rockets and a death wish.

Of course, operating an aircraft without a pilot is nothing out of the ordinary for the U.S. Air Force, which operates a wide variety of uncrewed platforms. The branch even has experience with converting crewed fighters into uncrewed jets, with none other than Boeing assisting in fielding QF-16 aerial target drones made from retiring F-16 airframes.

Because there would be no pilot onboard, the conversion from Strike Eagle to Global Strike Eagle would require very little in the way of avionics or system changes, and in fact, many systems, like onboard radar, could be removed entirely because of the aircraft’s non-combat role.

The Air Force already operates more than 400 F-15 Eagles and F-15E Strike Eagles the world over, so the vast majority of the infrastructure required to operate the Global Strike Eagle already exists, and many of the aircraft’s systems could be maintained by existing Air Force personnel. This offered both a means of reducing costs and of ensuring the Air Force could have orbital launch capabilities from practically any airfield found under a friendly flag, and just as importantly, it could be done quickly.

Theoretically speaking, a Global Strike Eagle and its support team could be flown to any airstrip with a few thousand feet of runway, prep their aircraft for launch, and deploy a payload into orbit in fairly short order. When conducting these operations from military airstrips with existing F-15 infrastructure, these launch operations could be easily hidden, as most of the launch preparations that would take place outside the hangar would look like any other F-15 sortie.

How to launch a rocket from an F-15

Like the fighter launch platform, the rocket carried by Boeing’s Global Strike Eagle would also be a bargain. Boeing intended to use off-the-shelf solid rocket motors in conjunction with solid rocket motors already produced for America’s arsenal of ICBMs. Using rockets America already had a supply of wasn’t just a cost-saving measure, however, it would substantially reduce development time.

The first stage of the Global Strike Eagle’s “Launch Vehicle” rocket would carry an SR-19 solid rocket engine sourced from the second stage of a Minuteman II ICBM, producing 60,300 pounds of thrust for 287.5 seconds. The second stage would carry an Orion 50XL sourced from the third stage of the same Minuteman II, which would provide another 34,500 pounds of thrust for the next 289 seconds. Finally, the third stage would pack an Orion 38 rocket motor used in a variety of small rockets, which would provide 10,600 pounds of thrust for 289.6 more seconds of powered flight, finally putting the payload into Low Earth Orbit.

The rear portion of the rocket would carry a cone-body during flight for improved aerodynamics that would be ejected almost immediately after the rocket separated from the F-15. According to Boeing’s study, the F-15’s aerodynamic design would not only sustain adding a rocket to its back, but some elements even seemed well suited for it.

“Preliminary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling was conducted on the F-15GSE/ LV configuration to ensure no aerodynamic show- stoppers,” the Boeing proposal reads. “The analysis indicates only minor reduction in F-15 lift due to the payload/ LV and increased vertical tail loading, which is compensated by a change of aircraft’s angle of attack by 1 degree.”

In order to eventually ferry rockets as big as 30,000 pounds into the sky (with payloads as large as 1,200 pounds), Boeing suggested incorporating “JATO” (Jet-Assisted Take Off) rocket boosters on the F-15 itself. They also suggested leveraging a technique known as mass injection pre-compression cooling (MIPCC) for a bit more power throughout the flight envelope. MIPCC is effectively a water or coolant injection ahead of the engine’s compressor that evaporates and cools as it passes through. This cooling effect allows the engine to operate at higher velocities and altitudes than the heat produced by the engine would normally allow.

It’s not quite like Dom hitting the NOS in his fart-canned Supra, but it is a cheap and effective way of pulling a bit more power out of an existing jet engine.

Boeing’s approach called for the Global Strike Eagle to begin the launch process by pitching upward at a 40.4-degree angle and increasing speed to Mach 1.7 at an altitude of 27,700 feet. At 47,800 feet and a speed of Mach 1.35, the rocket launch vehicle would detach from the F-15 and give the fighter enough time (about four seconds) to pitch down and away before the first stage rocket motor ignited.

From there, the rocket would do what rockets have long done best: burn through each successive stage until payload separation occurred in Low Earth Orbit approximately 400 seconds (an ominous 6.66 minutes) after the F-15 began the launch maneuver.

If this concept could work, why haven’t we seen it happen?

To be clear, despite the proposal offering a number of promising claims about the feasibility of the Global Strike Eagle concept, that seems to be as far as this concept has gone, at least publicly.

If we take Boeing’s claims at face value, this concept could indeed offer the U.S. Air Force a comparably inexpensive option for launching the very sort of micro and nano-satellites the Space Force is now placing an increased emphasis on rapidly fielding, seemingly making this fighter-based launch system even more promising than it was when first proposed in 2006. But the United States has a number of rocket launch options available to it and no pressing need to invent novel ones that include strapping really big rockets to perfectly good F-15s, at least not yet.

Today, the United States is investing heavily in hypersonic weapons ranging from scramjet-powered cruise missiles to glide-bodies that could indeed be launched from rockets like those proposed for the Global Strike Eagle, but that might actually be a big part of the reason this effort didn’t go any further. The air-launched hypersonic weapons the United States is developing don’t require a 45-foot rocket to be mounted atop the fighter that launches them. It would be cheaper to convert an F-15 into a Global Strike Eagle to deploy these weapons in testing, but in practical application, a weapon that can be mounted under the wing of a bomber just has far more strategic value than one that requires a specially modified and rare launch platform.

But that doesn’t mean this concept doesn’t have some intriguing benefits, especially for the rapid launch of small satellite payloads into low earth orbit. We may never see the Global Strike Eagle manifest as it appears on the pages of these Boeing documents, but there are a number of publicly disclosed efforts to get payloads into space from aircraft, and almost certainly a number of others tucked behind a curtain of classified funding.

So, while the Global Strike Eagle may seem crazy, the impetus behind it and the approach it takes to deploying payloads aren’t really all that crazy at all.

This article was first published by Sandboxx.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran who specializes in foreign policy and defense technology analysis. He holds a master’s degree in Communications from Southern New Hampshire University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Corporate and Organizational Communications from Framingham State University.

Image: Flickr/U.S. Air Force.

Nikki Haley isn’t cowering before Donald Trump. Unlike other potential Republican contenders, Haley is trying to demonstrate her mettle by getting in the ring with him right away. Can she deck him?

Trump may be the GOP frontrunner, but he looks wobbly. He’s mired in a variety of lawsuits and potential indictments, ranging from New York to Georgia. Even Stormy Daniels is back. Then there is his Potemkin campaign for the presidency. Trump, whose speeches have been lackluster, has not demonstrated that he can recapture the mojo that propelled him to victory in 2016.

As the former governor of South Carolina, Haley would appear to be well-positioned to capture the state in the Republican primaries. Her appeal to independent voters and suburban women is assuredly more potent than Trump’s. She would be the first woman and non-white candidate to secure the nomination. In 2015, Haley signed a bill that hauled down the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol. But she also made sure to campaign for candidates who backed Trump’s bogus election fraud allegations. Still, she is politically ambidextrous enough to point to the fact that Trump’s record in the midterm elections, when Republicans failed to capture the Senate and lost key governorships, can hardly be termed as anything but abysmal.

But in jabbing at Trump, it is her old job as United Nations ambassador that may actually come to the fore. Like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also sees himself as presidential timber, Haley represents the Republican old guard, at least when it comes to foreign policy. Put otherwise, she is a foreign policy hawk who has never made the least effort to disguise her plumage. She was UN ambassador when Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal, the bête noire of the right as it was signed by Barack Obama.

The issue that could sunder the Republican party in the upcoming election is Ukraine. Support for the war is eroding, at least among Republicans. America has spent over $27 billion in military aid over the past year for Ukraine. According to a new Pew Charitable Trust poll, the share of adults who believe that America is providing excessive aid to Ukraine has grown by six percentage points since last September. Right now, 40 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that America is doing too much.

Former British prime minister Boris Johnson is currently visiting America to try and drum up support for the war and, incidentally, to boost his own political prospects back home. Much like Trump, he wants another go at high office. But unlike Trump, who has been blasting away at Ukraine, claiming he could solve the war “within twenty-four hours,” most likely by handing Kyiv over to Russian president Vladimir Putin on a silver platter, Johnson is pleading with House Republicans to remain steadfast. As Alistair Dawber reports, Johnson is meeting today with the House Republican Study Committee. But convincing recalcitrant Republicans to back Ukraine could make Brexit look like a tea party.

William Ruger, president of the American Institute for Economic Research, said:

Republicans are going to have to work out for themselves in the midst of a primary campaign whether they want to return to the approach of George W. Bush, [which] people like Haley represent, or something closer to where Trump was headed in breaking the status quo in the party and opening up debate about what America First ought to entail.  The Ukraine debate on the Right highlights the tensions in the party right now. If establishment hawks like Haley, Pence, and Pompeo jump into the race, this will provide an opportunity for Trump or DeSantis or another candidate to differentiate themselves and speak for Americans who liked the idea of ending endless wars and putting our vital interests first. It certainly helped Trump in 2016 to do so.

The blunt truth is that the GOP may be moving further away from its traditional hawkish positions. Whether Trump can capitalize on this trend is an open question. But he will almost surely try to deploy it as a battering ram against his Republican opponents. A battle royale may be about to begin in the GOP over America’s commitments abroad.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest.

Image: Lev radin/Shutterstock.com

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Last month, Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu unveiled a new plan to restructure the Russian military away from the brigade model and back to its pre-2008 division structure. These details are being announced as the Russian military struggles to maintain momentum in Ukraine and as NATO membership for Finland and Sweden looms into 2023. Even though implementing such military reforms is not new in the history of the Soviet and Russian militaries, these new restructuring attempts seek to create a new army postured to safeguard Russian interests vis-à-vis NATO, closely mirroring Soviet threat perception of large-scale war.

Even though Russian proposals and their outcomes are often quite different, Western analysts will soon have to contest the feasibility of these reforms and how they will affect Russian force posture across Eastern Europe. The Russian Armed Forces will have to make drastic investments in human capital, both in manpower and training and in equipping these new formations. After massive losses in Ukraine, reaching these new goals can prove troublesome for the Kremlin.

Soviet and Russian Reforms

A brief history of Soviet and Russian military reforms, their aims, and their outcomes are essential when considering what comes next.

During the late Stalin era, the emphasis on Soviet military strength was on a massive ground force. After World War II, the Soviets envisioned a third World War that resembled World War II, albeit enhanced with nuclear weapons. The Soviet military experienced considerable changes in the late 1950s and 1960s, and between 1968 and 1987, the Soviet Ground Forces grew from 138 divisions to 220.

After the disaster in Chechnya in the 1990s, the Russian General Staff was compelled to create mixed units from all military districts to sustain a relatively small-scale conflict, highlighting a degraded force from its Soviet past. As early as 1992, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (MoD) began cutting Russian formations as the Russian economy collapsed. Even though military officials and policymakers aimed at restructuring the decaying Russian military, the 1990s mostly brought troop reductions and not genuine military reforms, and between 1992 and 2000 the Russian Ground Forces shrank from 1.4 million to 348,000. It was not until 2008, with the poor performance of the Russian Ground Forces in Georgia, that Anatoly Serdyukov, the Russian minister of defense, began massive cuts in the Russian Armed forces, moving from the division to brigade model and reducing the size of the officer corps by 57.7 percent. Serdyukov’s reforms, generally known as the New Look Reforms, likewise reduced the size of the Armed Forces by 278,500 personnel. At the time of the Russian attack on Georgia, the Russian military consisted of 80 percent legacy Soviet weapons. Serdyukov’s reforms aimed at reducing the size of the military to ensure proper investment in Russian State Armament Programs.

Putin’s Reforms 

The special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine has not delivered the intended outcomes for the Kremlin. After a disastrous northern offensive to Kyiv from Belarus, Russia shifted its operational objectives in favor of an attack on Donbas in late March. In a clear shift in threat perception and to expand the overall combat capacity of the Russian armed forces, Putin unveiled a plan that called for a 30 percent increase in the military, which would increase the size of the Russian army from 1.15 million to 1.5 million, and an additional 300,000 Kontraktniki, or contract service members. Overall, Putin’s plan would increase the size of ground forces by 22 total divisions and include two new divisions in the Russian VDV (airborne forces), bringing the VDV to a force structure force equal to Soviet times. One of these VDV divisions, the 104th Guards Air Assault Division, has already been formed against the backdrop of the former 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade and is currently operating in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Lastly, five naval infantry divisions would be raised from five existing naval infantry brigades. According to Shoygu, two motorized rifle divisions will be formed in the occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The new plan also reestablishes the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts, opposite NATO, from the current Western Military District, whose dismal failures during the SMO may have contributed to its downfall. Shoygu likewise highlighted the creation of an army corps in Karelia, opposite the Finnish border with Russia, and aviation support brigades and regiments who would support the Combined Arms Armies. 

Russia’s proposal, although ambitious, must be compartmentalized for proper analysis. For example, if the new motorized rifle divisions that Shoygu mentioned mirror those in the existing Russian force structure, equipping the force will be challenging. Take the 2nd Guard Motorized Rifle Division in the Western Military District: this division has three regiments, encompassing two motorized rifles and one tank regiment. Given the current table of organization & equipment of Russian divisions, each motorized rifle division requires 264 BTR-80s or 82s, plus 124 T-72s, 80s, 90s. If this number were consistent with the announced divisions, it would make Russian requirements for new Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) and tanks for the new ground troops at 2,640 IFVs and 1,240 tanks. The two VDV divisions would require 588 BMD-4Ms plus the additional artillery support that each regiment and division demands. 

Replacing these losses will prove difficult for the Russian Armed Forces. According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source research organization that analyzes military losses during conflicts, Russia has lost 1,642 tanks, 1,958 infantry fighting vehicles, 291 armored personnel carriers, and 759 armored fighting vehicles—a figure difficult to replace, given that Russia has lost 47 percent of its best tank force since the start of the SMO. At the current level of maintenance, force degradation in Ukraine, and Russian production capacity, it will be difficult for Russia to equip the existing force and raise 17 new divisions. The only way the Russian MoD can supply these new divisions is by digging into storage; however, these are older model T-72s whose performance in the SMO has been abysmal and are in less-than-optimal operating conditions after years of neglect in Russian open storage facilities. The Russian military industry will have difficulty adjusting personnel and production rates and decreasing dependency on foreign parts, which Western sanctions will probably strain. Russian production manpower will also be an obstacle, as it faces a shortage of 400,000 people in its production line. Lastly, the MoD began modernizing 800 T-62 tanks, first seen in the early 1960s, for deployment to Ukraine—a clear indication of the growing shortfalls. 

In keeping with the Russian military tradition of artillery use, Shoygu announced that Russia would create five new artillery divisions and five new heavy artillery brigades. This would enhance Russian artillery, as there are no artillery divisions in the Russian Armed Forces, and constitute a significant increase in firepower, adding to the notion of mass over precision as the common practice of the Russian military in Ukraine. Even though the Russian military does not have artillery divisions in its current force structure, a look at Soviet and early Russian artillery divisions may help predict how these new divisions may be manned and equipped. Take for instance the 34th Guards Artillery Division, formed in 1945 and disbanded in 2009. The division had a structure of 288 152MM guns per division. If Shoygu’s plan for five divisions mirrors a similar structure, the Russian Armed Forces would require 1,440 guns to fully equip these new formations, on top of backfilling losses to the existing figures currently fighting in Ukraine, whose artillery losses now stand at 475, according to Oryx. The heavy artillery brigades would likely deploy the 203MM 2S7 Pion howitzers and 240MM 2S4 Tyulpan heavy mortars to enhance the strategic direction of the maneuver unit. Currently, Russia maintains 68 2S7s or 2S7Ms, of which six have been destroyed in Ukraine, and 40-50 2S4 with 400 in storage, of which four have been destroyed in Ukraine. As of July 2022, the 94th Arsenal in Omsk maintained 110 2S7s. Some of these 2S7 are in poor readiness and may be more suitable for parts after years of maintenance issues and corruption cases. Adding these weapons to the proposed formations may seem numerically feasible, given the amount of equipment in storage. However, Russia must invest considerable resources to restore them properly. Even if the Russian military can man and equip these formations with older weapons like modernized T-72s and T-62s, they will have a sizeable qualitative disadvantage with other NATO members whose stocks include newer generation tank platforms, artillery, and multiple launched rocket systems (MLRS). 

Properly training and manning military formations has placed the Russian military in precarious positions even before the breakout of the war when Russian units were consistently below their manning structure. Russia’s mobilization in September worked as intended in that the MoD added a substantial force to immediately stabilize the lines as the Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv collapsed Russian defenses in the region. With the 2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division again as the model to follow, Russia would need 144,500 soldiers to man these new motorized rifle divisions; 11,000 new soldiers for the VDV; 5,000 for the artillery brigades; and 12,500 naval infantry (marines). Even though questions regarding proper training and officer billets in this new structure still loom, the manning portion of the proposal seems attainable, given that Russia’s twice-a-year draft, which calls up about 263,000 conscripts a year and allowing new conscripts to sign contracts from day one, can provide forces to man these new formations and reconstitute the existing force. Going back to a two-year compulsory service will likely improve manning issues within the Russian Armed Forces. Moreover, according to Russian open-sourced information, seven motorized rifle divisions will be raised from the seven existing brigades within the Southern and Western military districts and the Northern Fleet. Even though some of these brigades have been reconstituted multiple times after being destroyed in Ukraine, manning the divisions from the existing brigade personnel will ease the burden. 

Closing Thoughts

In contrast with Serdyukov’s reforms of 2008, in which Russia sacrificed manpower to invest in weapons development, the new reforms show a significant increase in manpower while at the same time investing in new weapons, backfilling the existing force with new equipment, and also standing new divisions. Serdyukov’s plan created a Russian military posture against internal and external threats and away from large-scale war in the European plain or China. These formations performed well, highlighting their combat potential in 2014 and Syria.

However, the real test had not come until earlier last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine. With this move, Russian signals that the primary threat has shifted from small-scale combat operations, which saw terrorism as its main threat, to a large-scale conflict, in which NATO is once again the main danger. But Russia is not the Soviet Union, and many barriers will prevent the MoD from successfully implementing these reforms, at least in how the Kremlin envisions them. Russia’s ability to use all available methods to man these formations will likely yield enough personnel. The issue is that modernization and procurement of existing and new systems will suffer, creating an army that will be quantitatively inferior to NATO forces.

Jorge L. Rivero is a Foreign Area Specialist concentrating in Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Marine Corps and is currently stationed in Quantico, Virginia. Jorge focuses on the Russian military and Russian information operations. The views expressed here are his own.

Image: Shutterstock.

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