Diplomacy & Crisis News

Ethen Kim Lieser

Child Tax Credit, Americas

Roughly four million children from low-income families are at risk of missing out on the recurring monthly payments if the tax agency does not receive pertinent personal and financial information on time.

The Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Friday that the second batch of advance monthly payments worth about $15 billion from the expanded child tax credits were issued to thirty-six million families. 

The agencies added that “like the first payments, the vast majority of families will receive these payments by direct deposit,” according to an IRS press statement.

However, “the IRS wants to alert some recipients who received direct deposits in July that they will receive the August payments by mail. Due to an issue expected to be resolved by the September payments, a percentage of these recipients—less than 15 percent—who received payments by direct deposit in July will be mailed paper checks for the August payment. For those affected, no additional action is needed for the September payment to be issued by direct deposit,” the statement explained.

The next payments are slated to head out on the fifteenth of every month through December.  

Focus on Low-Income Households 

The IRS has also made it known that “it’s not too late for low-income families to sign up for advance CTC payments,” urging people to take advantage of the Non-filer Sign-up Tool that will give the IRS the necessary information—such as an address and routing and bank account numbers—to promptly disburse the funds.

Being able to reach the nation’s poorest households has been a primary goal of the agency, and in an effort to achieve that, it has partnered with nonprofit organizations, churches, and community groups to get the word out regarding the new tax credits.

“This important new tax change affects millions of families across the nation, and the IRS wants to do everything it can to help people get the payments,” IRS Wage & Investment Commissioner Ken Corbin, who also serves as the agency’s Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer, noted in a press statement. “Many people miss out on tax benefits simply because they don’t file a tax return.”

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggests that about four million children from low-income families are at risk of missing out on the recurring monthly payments if the tax agency does not get that necessary personal and financial information on time.

Payments Broken Down

These child tax credit payments—seen by many as being similar to another round of stimulus checks—were approved under President Joe Biden’s highly ambitious American Rescue Plan, which now allows eligible parents to receive as much as $3,600 per year for a child under the age of six and up to $3,000 for children between ages six and seventeen.

Broken down, what this all means is that a $250 or a $300 payment for each child will be deposited into the bank accounts of parents each and every month through the end of 2021—and possibly for years to come if the American Families Plan is ever green-lighted by Congress.

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

Image: Reuters

Mark Episkopos

Guns,

Kimber’s 1911 lineup is a remarkable achievement in diversity and versatility, revitalizing a 110-year-old platform with a dizzying array of performance improvements and customization options.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Founded in 1979, Kimber Manufacturing is a Troy, Alabama-based small arms manufacturer. Kimber spent the 1980’s striving to define itself in a highly saturated market, first dabbling in a wide spectrum of .22 LR products. Toward the end of the twentieth century, Kimber had found its niche: breathing new life into the 1911 platform.

One of the most prolific handgun designs in U.S. firearms history, the 1911 has spawned countless models over the twentieth- and early twenty-first century. But few manufacturers have done as much as Kimber to keep the 1911 relevant as a modern pistol platform. Here what makes Kimber’s 1911 line special.

First, some context. The original Colt M1911 has its roots in 1890’s efforts to design a “self-loading,” or semi-automatic, pistol. As its name suggests, the M1911 was adopted by the U.S. army just three years prior to the onset of World War I. The M1911 is a single-action, .45 ACP-chambered, short recoil-operated pistol that rose to prominence through its usage as a prolific military sidearm not only during the two world wars, but also in the Korean and Vietnam wars. The pistol has seen minor revisions throughout the century, but the core 1911 design has stayed remarkably consistent—for better and for worse. Both the consumer and military handgun markets have changed dramatically since the early twentieth century, and the 1911 has sometimes struggled to keep pace with the relentless handling, ergonomics, and reliability innovations of competing platforms. That’s where Kimber comes in.

Founded in 1979, Kimber Manufacturing is a Troy, Alabama-based small arms manufacturer. Kimber spent the 1980’s striving to define itself in a highly saturated market, first dabbling in a wide spectrum of .22 LR products. Toward the end of the twentieth century, Kimber had found its niche: breathing new life into the 1911 platform. Since then, the company has earned a well-deserved reputation as a leading 1911 manufacturer.

“Kimber builds the world’s finest 1911 pistols right here in America—something that makes sense, as few things are as American as a 1911 .45 ACP,” reads Kimber’s introduction to its vast online catalog of 1911-style firearms.

Kimber’s design approach to its 1911 lineup hinges first and foremost on customizability. Those looking for a conventional 1911 format should feel right at home with the top-selling Stainless II .45 ACP family, offering checkered grips, fiber optics front sights, and a stainless steel construction. From there, Kimber offers enthusiasts, collectors, and specialists numerous options for a bespoke 1911 experience. Armed with pre-mounted 6.8-inch venom optic red dot sights, improved feed ramp, and host of ergonomic changes, the Kimber Aegis Elite Custom Optic Installed (OI) is a high-performance option that oozes quality at its price point. The 1911 CDP is a plug-and-play personal defense solution that comes with some custom features including a commander-style hammer and three-dot night sights, while the Super Jagare is a 10mm, 1911 hunting pistol. Speaking of calibers, a great chunk of Kimbers’ 1911 range comes with 9mm— and somewhat less commonly, 10mm—choices in addition to the traditional .45 ACP option. Finally, the special edition lineup will appeal to handgun collectors and consumers seeking a particular aesthetic. The Amethyst, Sapphire, and Rose Gold personal defense pistols are nothing if not visually striking; meanwhile, the new Rapide (Black Ice) is a somewhat more subdued performance option for enthusiasts looking to make a strong statement.

Kimber’s 1911 lineup is a remarkable achievement in diversity and versatility, revitalizing a 110-year-old platform with a dizzying array of performance improvements and customization options. If you’re in the market for a 1911-style pistol, Kimber quite likely has you covered.

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

This piece first appeared earlier this year and is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Mark Episkopos

M1 Abrams,

Poland isn't messing around. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: There is little question that their acquisition will substantially enhance the capabilities of Poland’s ground forces in a pitched conflict with Russia.

Poland’s defense minister Mariusz Błaszczak has confirmed the country’s plans to buy as many as 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 main battle tanks (MBTs). The announcement follows prior reports indicating that Warsaw is looking to refresh its aging stock T-72 and PT-91 tanks with a modernized MBT platform.

The first M1A2 shipments are scheduled to be delivered to the Polish military as early as 2022, according to Polish officials. Reuters reported that the contract is worth 23.3 billion zlotys—or $6 billion—and includes an additional logistics/training package that’s focused on infrastructure upgrades and ammunition procurements.

Whereas most arms import contracts are typically framed in diplomatically neutral terms, Błaszczak did not mince words in describing the reason behind Poland MBT purchase: "Of course this is a response to the challenges we face in terms of international security. Our task is to deter a potential aggressor. We all know where that aggressor is,” he said, in what is a clear reference to Russia.

Not only did Błaszczak cite a specific adversary, but he went as far as to identify the exact Russian product that Poland’s new M1A2’s are intended to counteract: “So we are ordering the most modern tanks. Tanks available in the best-equipped version, tanks that are combat-proven, tanks which were constructed to counter the most modern Russian T-14 Armata tanks,” he said. The SEPv3 revision introduced across-the-board improvements to the tried-and-true M1 Abrams formula, bringing a new radio system, revised infrared (FLIR) systems for enhanced target acquisition, a new electronic warfare system, auxiliary power unit for increased efficiency, and more. The T-14 Armata is Russia’s next-generation MBT platform, notably boasting an unmanned turret design with a 125-millimeter 2A82-1M smoothbore gun featuring autoloader compatibility.

Earlier this year, the Polish military conducted a massive wargame against the Western Military District—arguably the most capable and best-equipped of Russia’s five military districts.  Dubbed “Winter-20,” the wargame involved Patriot missile systems, M142 HIMARS rocket launcher systems, and other examples of Poland’s latest military hardware. The outcome was nothing short of a crushing defeat. Poland’s Air Force and Navy were rapidly degraded and destroyed, while the country’s front-line battalions suffered a staggering loss rate of sixty to eighty percent. The original plan envisioned a twenty-two-day timeframe for repelling the Russian assault but, by the fifth day, Russian troops were already fighting for control of Warsaw on the Vistula River.

The specifics of the wargame remain unknown, with the Polish government telling reporters that  “the winter exercise, its course and conclusions are classified information.” It is unclear whether or not T-14 Armata tanks, which are currently too few in number to make a meaningful battlefield impact, took part in the Winter-20 simulation. Given the confidentiality of the exercise, it is likewise impossible to assess the impact that 250 M1A2 SEPv3 tanks could have had on the course of the wargame. Though it is difficult to see exactly how these tanks could have altered the outcome of the wargame, there is little question that their acquisition will substantially enhance the capabilities of Poland’s ground forces in a pitched conflict with Russia. There may also be potential political benefits, with experts arguing that the purchase sends a clear message to Moscow about Washington’s commitment to NATO’s deterrence mission.

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

Image: Reuters

Mark Episkopos

F-35, Americas

“This year we’re going to fully unleash the full maneuvering envelope of the F-35. This airplane just takes the flight controls, and puts it on a whole different level.”

Here's What You Need to Remember: “The stuff you see at the airshow is really awesome, but it doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg of what this airplane is...you’re talking stealth, you’re talking sensor fusion, and then ‘information fusion… we can paint the battlespace for everybody and share that situational awareness with our fourth-generation brothers and sisters and be a more effective fighting force.”

In a potential preview of the team’s fresh routines for its upcoming shows, a highly-circulated 2019 video depicts Capt. Andrew "Dojo" Olson performing an impressive series of maneuvers never-before-seen by an F-35 demo pilot.

The videos, first posted to Instagram, show snippets from one of Olson’s training sessions at Luke Airforce Base (AFB) in Arizona. The first video shows Olson approaching from the left, flying straight up in what is vaguely reminiscent of the first half of a stall turn; but then, Olson pulls back and executes a remarkably tight loop before descending in a slow, flat spin. The remaining clips show Olson flying at a high angle of attack (AOA), performing tighter oops, and demonstrating what appears to be part of a falling leaf maneuver.

It was revealed late last year that Capt. Olson left the F-35A demo team, having given his last performance at Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, in November 2019. These videos, and others like it that are regularly covered by the National Interest, show just how far the F-35A demo team has come in refining their routines since their initial debut at the Paris Airshow in 2017.

Olson played a central role in the public relations campaign to restore public faith in the F-35 project on the heels of reported engine problems, onboard systems malfunctions, and widespread cost concerns, going out of his way to convince a skeptical defense commentary sphere that the F-35A demo team has barely begun to scrape the surface of the fighter’s performance potential: “This year we’re going to fully unleash the full maneuvering envelope of the F-35. This airplane just takes the flight controls, and puts it on a whole different level. We’ll be able to do some similar maneuvers that [F-22] Raptor does, and without thrust vectoring, just with the advanced flight controls that put the aircraft into a post-stall flight regime and keep it fully controllable,” he said in an interview given last year to The Aviationist, while also stressing the F-35’s under-the-hood features that are otherwise overlooked in the airshow format: “The stuff you see at the airshow is really awesome, but it doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg of what this airplane is...you’re talking stealth, you’re talking sensor fusion, and then ‘information fusion… we can paint the battlespace for everybody and share that situational awareness with our fourth-generation brothers and sisters and be a more effective fighting force.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Olson has also become the face of a surprisingly successful social media and branding campaign to marshall grassroots enthusiasm for the F-35 program.

It remains to be seen to what extent the maneuvers depicted in these clips, as well as the rest of Olson’s 2019 lineup, will be absorbed into the F-35 demo team’s 2020 routine, beginning with their first airshow at the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Arizona, in March 13-14, and subsequent March 21-22 performance at Luke AFB.

Olson will go on to become an F-35 instructor at Luke AFB, but not before helping the incoming F-35 demo team ease into their new jobs. It’s clear that Olson’s successor, who was yet to be named by the 388th Fighter Wing, has quite the shoes to fill—not just in a highly demanding technical capacity, but as a brand ambassador for the F-35 program.

Mark Episkopos is a frequent contributor to The National Interest. Mark is also a PhD student in History at American University. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Some 30,000 Palestine refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in south Syria have become increasingly vulnerable, following recent clashes in and around the Dera’a Governorate, the UN agency warned on Sunday.

Robert W. Merry

Government Spending,

In the long struggle between the managerial oligarchs of the federal leviathan state and the ordinary folks who have been resisting their power accumulation, the managerial oligarchs may have positioned themselves for the ultimate kill. 

The economic debate unfolding in Congress over President Joe Biden’s massive spending plans is much more far-reaching and consequential than most people realize, even most people in Washington engaged in the fight. It isn’t just about the numbers or the potential inflationary impact from the magnitude of spending that Biden wants or the extent of the sway that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has over the Democratic Party. At its foundation, it represents an ongoing epic struggle over the nature of the American political system, a struggle that has been at the center of American politics ever since President Franklin Roosevelt unveiled the New Deal.  

Its focus is the extent of the federal government’s scope, reach, and power to intervene in the daily lives of Americans and into their economic activities. We seem to be at an inflection point in that long struggle.  

To understand it, we must understand its context, extending back to 1941 and the publication of James Burnham’s pivotal study, The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World. Much has been written about Burnham in conservative journals of recent years. But his treatise bears noting here as early recognition of a cultural phenomenon of vast significance—the emergence of a new elite structure in America and a new power clash attending that emergence.  

Burnham argued that the great development of the twentieth century wasn’t the competition of Communism vs. Capitalism, as many at the time believed, but rather the rise of a new managerial class of business executives, technocrats, soldiers, government bureaucrats, and various kinds of experts in various kinds of organizations. He predicted that this managerial elite would face resistance from traditional elements of the country but would successfully embed itself into the folds of American society and use its growing power to protect itself from societal adversaries bent on curtailing its reach. Also, the power-enhancement impulse led inevitably to a growing faith in socialism among the new managerial elites who needed a justification for ever greater power accumulation in the name of helping people.  

History has demonstrated that Burnham’s thesis was correct in many respects. To the extent that the American polity is today an oligarchy (as many believe), it is such because of that managerial revolution that elevated the oligarchs to their current dominance. But Burnham was wrong about one significant element of his vision--in the extent to which he believed the oligarchs of the federal government would entrench themselves in the bureaucracy sufficiently to fend off the political opposition and rule at will.  

It never quite happened. Although Democratic presidents (and some Republican ones as well) have sought consistently to aggrandize federal power, and Lyndon Johnson did so with considerable abandon following his landslide 1964 election victory, the managerial bureaucrats always seemed to run up against political forces that curtailed their most extensive big-government plans.  

Even Roosevelt had to downgrade his domestic ambitions following the fiasco of his “court packing” effort in 1937. While the American people thoroughly supported his New Deal transfer of power to the federal government through his first-term legislative blitz, his audacious political assault on the Supreme Court frightened enough voters and siphoned off enough support that further New Deal expansion became impossible. Besides, Roosevelt was turning his attention more and more to the international scene in any event.  

Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, while a thorough New Dealer, didn’t build on the Roosevelt legacy to any significant extent, and his effort to get through Congress major health-insurance legislation fell flat.  

As for President Lyndon B. Johnson, no one can downplay the magnitude of his federal power enlargement through multifarious bills that essentially redefined federalism. Much of it was designed to address the nation’s unfinished business of guaranteeing civil rights to black Americans and protecting their voting rights. But, with total command over Congress, he went much further in fostering enactment of Medicare, Medicaid, the Equal Opportunity Act, and a host of direct-benefit programs in areas such as housing, education, and nutrition.  

All in all, it certainly fit the Burnham thesis. But much of the Johnson domestic-policy legacy proved destabilizing. Coupled with the severe political fallout from the president’s Vietnam debacle, this led to feelings that much of the president’s leadership had failed.  The civil rights initiatives couldn’t prevent rage-filled race riots in American cities that led to scores of deaths. Johnson’s ill-fated decision to protect his Great Society spending while also paying for the Vietnam War led to highly problematic inflationary pressures. Troublesome deficits led the president to push for an unpopular income tax surcharge, eventually passed by Congress as the Johnson presidency disintegrated in the spring of 1968.  

That led to the election of Richard Nixon, a bit of a managerial type himself. But Nixon sought to separate himself from the Democratic power enhancers by crafting federal benefit programs, such as revenue sharing and the Family Assistance Plan, that didn’t significantly enlarge federal bureaucratic power. We’ll never know if that could have proved to be a successful approach because Nixon’s great Watergate transgressions destroyed his presidency.  

The next Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, couldn’t muster enough popular support to get through Congress any major domestic-policy legislation, and so he left the size and scope of the federal government pretty much as they had been when he took power. But his failures in office, especially the deadly mix of simultaneous recession and inflation, proved to be so threatening that the American people turned against the federal government and against any initiatives designed to enhance its power.  

That led to Ronald Reagan, the greatest skeptic of federal power to reach the White House since Roosevelt. While he insisted he didn’t want to undo the New Deal, he unabashedly sought to roll back as much of Johnson’s Great Society as he could. As New York’s Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan repeatedly complained prior to his death, Reagan cut taxes to curtail federal spending. This was only partly true; he also sought to spur production as a way of sopping up those excess inflationary dollars and producing noninflationary economic growth. Reagan excoriated out-of-control government for causing the country’s ills and said that returning power to the people and the states would prove to be the solution. 

Reagan backed up his rhetoric with presidential success in bringing down inflation (with much help from Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker), spurring economic growth, and undoing much of the federal regulatory regimen. He changed the terms of domestic-policy debate, and that contributed to his success--and his popularity.  

But he didn’t roll back much of the Great Society. As Burnham had foreseen, federal power had become too entrenched by that time. He had to content himself with merely curbing its further entrenchment and creating a political environment in which further federal power enhancement would be difficult.  

He succeeded in that goal, as evidenced in the presidency of Bill Clinton, who entered the Oval Office saying he intended to repeal Reaganism and within two years altered that pronouncement to, “The era of big government is over.” In between came the 1994 midterm elections in which Clinton had his head handed to him following his failed attempt to get a major health insurance bill through Congress, for which he lacked a sufficient electoral mandate. Acknowledging Reagan’s legacy, Clinton served the following six years as a generally successful president governing from the center-left.  

Finally, there was Barack Obama, who enacted his big Affordable Care Act despite widespread opposition but who failed in efforts to pass a major energy bill, took a “shellacking” at the next midterm election, lost his mandate for further major legislation, and coasted through the remainder of his presidency without any further major accomplishments. His first term, a mild success, assured his reelection; his second term, a mild failure, gave America Donald Trump.  

What this shows that the one great impediment to excessive federal power accumulation throughout the last ninety years has been the American people and the politicians they sent to Washington. No president since Roosevelt has governed successfully from the far left. Johnson pulled off a series of major power-enhancement initiatives, but his success in doing so ultimately was undermined by his failures, some of them attributable directly to his power-grabbing ways.  

Now comes Biden, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with every intention of upending the decades-long balance of power between the forces of big-government socialism and the forces opposed to that kind of power enhancement. And the big-government players appear to have substantial prospects for reaching their goal. They may not have an electoral mandate, but they make up for it in brazen resolve.   

The key is entitlement programs, those that spend automatically based on eligibility. These thoroughly entrenched programs—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, etc.—are almost impossible to curtail or even reform, and they always seem to grow inexorably. Already the nation’s entitlement structure constitutes “the largest money-shuffling machine in human history,” as John Cogan and Daniel Heil of Stanford’s Hoover Institution wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Now, Democrats want to expand the nation’s entitlement reach to some twenty-one million additional Americans.  

Such a broad expansion in federal largess, the largest since Johnson, would constitute not just a major new thrust in income redistribution but also a major thrust in the distribution of governmental power. According to Cogan and Heil, the Biden initiative would increase the numbers of American households on entitlement rolls to more than 50 percent, while adding $1 trillion to the national debt over a decade.  

The obvious aim of the Biden team is to get as many Americans on the federal dole as possible, including middle-class Americans who don’t need such a dependency status but who, it is hoped, will be lured to the Democratic fold by the illusion of getting something for nothing. Indeed, Cogan and Heil estimate that 40 percent of the new entitlement benefits would go to households in the upper half of the nonelderly income-distribution scale.  

Among the items on the list: extending the child-care tax credit; universal pre-kindergarten funding; tuition-free community college; major expansions in Medicare, including a possible lowering of the eligibility age; expansions in the Affordable Care Act; federally financed wage subsidies to cover time off to care for new babies or sick relatives; and more. The concept of personal self-reliance isn’t to be seen anywhere in this program.  

America’s entitlement structure already is under severe financial strain because of decades of mismanagement. In a little more than a decade, according to the latest Social Security Trustee Report, the trust fund that pays out retirement and survivor benefits will be unable to meet its entitlement commitments. Based on current projections, benefits would have to be cut by 25 percent to maintain trust fund solvency. The pandemic could require further cuts. 

And yet now the Biden team wants to layer on ever greater entitlement commitments while absorbing another $1 trillion in federal debt.  

This isn’t about helping people. It’s about power, as Burnham perceived so clearly eighty years ago. In the long struggle between the managerial oligarchs of the federal leviathan state and the ordinary folks who have been resisting their power accumulation, the managerial oligarchs may have positioned themselves for the ultimate kill.   

Robert W. Merry, former Congressional Quarterly CEO and the National Interest editor, is the author of five books on American history and foreign policy, including most recently President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.

Image: Reuters

Trevor Filseth

Coronavirus,

Florida has been hit particularly hard by the virus. Its hospital admission rate, formerly around 1,100 cases per day in January, has now increased to more than 2,000. By comparison, Texas’s daily rate is 1,403, and California’s is 772.

The United States has faced an increased load of COVID-19 cases as the summer has progressed, owing mostly to the prevalence of the highly infectious Delta variant. To date, more than 600,000 Americans have died from the virus, out of 4.3 million deaths worldwide.

While the vaccination program in the United States, which the Biden administration regards as essential for fighting against the spread of the disease, was initially very successful in its rollout, the number of Americans receiving new vaccine shots has trended steadily downward over the summer, at the same time that cases have increased. So far, around fifty-eight percent of the vaccine-eligible population, including all Americans aged twelve and up, are fully vaccinated against the virus.

One telling statistic has been the increasingly divergent new case rate between states that have actively pushed for strict COVID-19 lockdown measures, such as mask mandates and restrictions on unvaccinated Americans, and states that have actively discouraged these measures, such as South Dakota, Texas, and Florida. All three state governments have strongly opposed allowing local authorities to enforce mask mandates, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have argued can significantly decrease the transmission of the virus. 

The result has been that California, which reintroduced coronavirus lockdowns only a month after lifting them in June, has reported 141.1 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the last week—only half of Texas’s transmission rate, at 297.8 cases, and less than one-fourth of Florida’s, at 653.8.

Florida has been hit particularly hard by the virus. Its hospital admission rate, formerly around 1,100 cases per day in January, has now increased to more than 2,000. By comparison, Texas’s daily rate is 1,403, and California’s is 772.

The White House highlighted that Florida had more COVID-19 cases than the thirty states reporting the lowest new case rates. Much of this discrepancy comes from Florida’s relatively high population, although its per capita infection rate is still one of the highest in the United States.

California’s lower rate is mostly explained by the enforcement of its health and safety guidelines by Sacramento, and by the mask mandates in California’s most populated areas, including Los Angeles County. Furthermore, more than three-fourths of eligible Californians have been vaccinated, compared to 57 percent in Florida and 53.7 percent in Texas.

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

Image: Reuters

Trevor Filseth

Retirement, Americas

While it is possible to live on nothing except Social Security payments, the limited quality of life that they provide is not what many people hope for in their retirement.

When Americans reach retirement age, it is expected that they will file for Social Security, which pays a reliable monthly benefit for the rest of their life. The program, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the New Deal in 1935, was regarded as an effective anti-poverty program for elderly Americans, and quickly became one of the most popular government programs in the United States. It still is; according to AARP, a senior citizens’ advocacy group, 96 percent of Americans want to continue or increase the payments.

However, while Social Security unquestionably keeps elderly Americans out of poverty, its ability to provide for them above a basic level is limited. The income from the benefits is designed to replace 40 percent of a person’s pre-retirement income, according to the Social Security Administration itself. But 40 percent of one’s pre-retirement income is not enough for most Americans to live comfortably on, especially without other sources of money.

There are some ways that this income can be supplemented. A key way is to wait as long as possible to claim benefits. Waiting until the age of seventy to file for Social Security, for instance, can increase the monthly payments by 25 to 30 percent. Retiring later can also help a person increase the size of their benefits, since the monthly amount is based on the thirty-five highest-paying years of a person’s career and most people make more money at the end of their careers than at the beginning.

Even so, these tricks can only increase the amount by so far. While it is possible to live on nothing except Social Security payments, the limited quality of life that they provide is not what many people hope for in their retirement. To enjoy a more comfortable retirement, it is vital for families to save money and create a nest egg.

There are several ways that this can be done, but the two most effective are by opening a 401(k) and a Roth IRA account during one’s career. Although these differ slightly, they are both essentially tax-free retirement accounts that can be invested during one’s life. Although they cannot be withdrawn until a person’s retirement, they can grow considerably if invested in a relatively safe fund with a reasonable rate of return—such as an S&P 500 index fund, which averages a return of 10 percent per year.

Consider the following. If a person is able to save $5,000 per year from the age of twenty-five until the age of seventy and deposit it into a Roth IRA with an average yearly return of 8 percent, by the age of seventy, they will be sitting on more than $2 million, although this amount will decrease somewhat in real terms because of inflation.

Even if the annual deposit is decreased to only $2,000, the amount is still more than $800,000—and in both scenarios, the retirees will receive Social Security payments on top of this.

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

Image: Reuters.

Thousands await evacuation from Afghanistan as Biden faces criticism for U.S. withdrawal.

Mark Episkopos

SR-72,

The SR-72 is the planned successor to the SR-71, the iconic Cold War-era reconnaissance plane that shattered world records for the fastest manned airbreathing jet engine aircraft.

Here's What You Need To Know: It remains to be seen whether or not Lockheed manages to secure the considerable funding required to mass-produce a product as complex and cutting-edge as the SR-72, especially when it’s unclear what specific, pressing operational purpose it is supposed to fill.

Long a source of speculation throughout the defense commentary sphere, the SR-72 “Son of Blackbird” next-generation drone has been mired in mystery for over a decade.

The SR-72 is the planned successor to the SR-71, the iconic Cold War-era reconnaissance plane that shattered world records for the fastest manned airbreathing jet engine aircraft. Initial reports emerged as early as 2007, but it was only in 2013 that Lockheed Martin official Robert Weiss publicly confirmed that the company had made significant headway into developing a hypersonic plane that he called the “SR-72.” Lockheed Martin proceeded to release widely shared concept art for the project—the SR-72 appears to be an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), boasting a groundbreaking purported top speed approaching Mach 6.

In yet another difference with its manned SR-71 predecessor, the SR-72 is a reconnaissance and surveillance craft that doubles as a strike weapon. The UAV will reportedly support hypersonic armaments such as Lockheed Martin’s High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), making the SR-72 a potent tool for delivering precision strikes against agile or otherwise hard-to-reach targets.

Following a four-year information drought, Lockheed Martin dropped the announcement that the SR-72 will enter development by the early 2020s. Lockheed rationalized this prolonged interlude on the grounds that the technologies required to produce a plane that fast were not yet sufficiently mature: “Without the digital transformation the aircraft you see there could not have been made. In fact, five years ago, it could not have been made,” said Lockheed Vice President Jack O’Banion, referencing an artist’s SR-72 rendering presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ annual SciTech Forum in 2018. O’Banion’s statement seemed to imply that an SR-72 prototype or concept demonstrator already exists, prompting fevered interest from defense observers. Lockheed refused to clarify his comments, adding to what increasingly seems to be the company’s purposely cultivated aura of mystery surrounding the SR-72.

“We couldn’t have made the engine itself—it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago,” O’Banion added. “But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself, and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation.”

Lockheed Martin maintains that an SR-72 concept demonstrator will take to the skies by the mid-2020s, possibly entering service as soon as 2030. However, unanswered questions—and serious design challenges—linger. For one, it remains unclear exactly how the SR-72 is piloted; will it be operated in real-time by remote pilots, or will it boast a sufficiently robust artificial intelligence (AI) suite to run missions with either no or minimal manual control? Further still, scramjet engine development is notoriously costly and complex. It will likely take many years and colossal investment for a possible SR-72 prototype to be realized as a serially-produced model.

It remains to be seen whether or not Lockheed manages to secure the considerable funding required to mass-produce a product as complex and cutting-edge as the SR-72, especially when it’s unclear what specific, pressing operational purpose it is supposed to fill. From sophisticated satellite surveillance methods to the next-generation B-21 bomber and Northrop Grumman’s new RQ-180 stealth drone, the U.S. military seems to have somewhat covered many of the individual capabilities being offered by the SR-72.

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

This piece first appeared earlier this month and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Mark Episkopos

F-35 vs. F-15EX,

In spite of these salient updates, the F-15EX can never fully escape its fourth-generation roots.

Here's What You Need to Remember: A side-by-side comparison between these two aircraft leaves no room for ambiguity as to which is the better choice for countering the increasingly sophisticated threats posed by America’s great-power competitors. Though it is a capable fourth-generation fighter in its own right, the F-15EX simply cannot keep pace with the next-generation design, avionics, and offensive capabilities of the F-35.

Boeing’s F-15EX is among the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF’s) latest procurements, with the service moving forward with plans to purchase as many as 144 units through the mid-2030s. But how does the F-15EX stack up against USAF’s other major acquisition, the F-35 fifth-generation fighter?

F-15EX, Explained

The F-15EX is an advanced development of the F-15E Strike Eagle strike fighter, bringing an enhanced radar, new avionics, and revised cockpit display. But in spite of these salient updates, the F-15EX can never fully escape its fourth-generation roots— the fighter is based on a 45-year old airframe, with all of the performance drawbacks that entails. The designers can update some of the plane’s onboard features, but they cannot change the fact that its construction, coating, shape, and armament configuration is simply not stealthy, making it what Heritage Senior Research Fellow John Venable described as a “homing beacon” for next-generation Russian and Chinese air defense systems.

It was revealed in March that the Pentagon decided to waive survivability testing for the F-15EX. The government is citing cost and time savings, but the decision will do little to assuage the growing concerns of critics who argue that the F-15X lacks the survivability to overcome either Russia’s echeloned missile and air defenses, or China’s sophisticated anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD) network in the Pacific. This gaping vulnerability will be further exacerbated as more F-15EX’s enter service over the coming decades, only to be threatened by cutting-edge missile systems like Russia’s upcoming S-500 Triumfator-M. Boasting the latest advancements in detection, tracking, and targeting technologies, these new weapons can and will restrict the ability of fourth-generation fighters like the F-15EX to operate effectively in contested airspace. By stark contrast, the F-35 Lightning II is among the stealthiest fighters in its category. With a radar cross-section (RCS) comparable to that of a metal golf ball and a class-leading electronic countermeasures (ECM) suite, the F-35 is one of few fighters in USAF’s current inventory with the survivability to spearhead penetration missions deep into enemy airspace.

The Weapons

But what about armaments? It is true that the F-15EX can carry an impressive twenty-two onboard air-to-air missiles, but, as noted above, a large payload capacity is irrelevant if the fighter can’t survive long enough to make use of it. Further still, it seems exceedingly unlikely that the F-15EX would find itself in a position to accomplish a meaningful battlefield goal through unloading all of these missiles in a single sortie. The F-35 can carry up to sixteen air-to-air missiles by fully leveraging its external hardpoints in what is sometimes called the fighter’s “beast mode” configuration, which should still be more than enough to accomplish virtually any real-world mission. Unlike the F-15EX, the F-35 also offers the operational versatility of a “first day of war” internal armament configuration, trading some of its payload capacity in exchange for maximized stealth performance. Beyond raw aerodynamic performance, the F-35 offers a whole other dimension of tactical value through sensor fusion— namely, its ability to act as a force multiplier by using its onboard sensors to generate a dynamic picture of the battlefield that can be fed to nearby friendly units. The F-15EX offers nothing by way of similar capabilities.

A side-by-side comparison between these two aircraft leaves no room for ambiguity as to which is the better choice for countering the increasingly sophisticated threats posed by America’s great-power competitors. Though it is a capable fourth-generation fighter in its own right, the F-15EX simply cannot keep pace with the next-generation design, avionics, and offensive capabilities of the F-35.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for The National Interest. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Mark Episkopos

F-35, Americas

Combined with the Air Force’s planned purchase of 1,763 F-35A jets, the U.S. military is currently projected to acquire over 2,400 F-35 units through 2044.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The F-35 jet is on track to become one of the world’s most numerous jet fighter aircraft, spurring the retirement of many currently-serving aircraft along the way. And considering countless data points that prove it has no rival in the sky, the U.S. military is well-positioned for decades to come as the era of great power competition becomes even more intense. 

As serial deliveries of the F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter continue en masse, the face of a new U.S. military begins to take shape. 

The U.S. Air Force reported last month that, following fourteen serial production lots, the service now has more F-35 jets than either F-15 Eagles or A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. At 283 models in service, the F-35 jet is now Air Force’s second-most numerous jet fighter after the F-16 Fighting Falcon. These numbers are expected to shift in coming decades, as the conventional takeoff and landing variant of the F-35 jet—the F-35A—continues to replace currently-serving F-16 units.

Why the F-35 Is Desperately Needed

Despite its several iterations, the Fighting Falcon is increasingly verging on obsolescence after forty-two years of service; though it can still fulfill some battlefield roles, the F-16 is increasingly showing its age against the sophisticated air defenses and air-to-air capabilities being rapidly acquired by the Russian and Chinese militaries. With its class-leading stealth performance, sensor fusion capabilities, large payload potential, and vast suite of electronic warfare tools, the F-35 jet can counter the sophisticated threats posed by America’s major adversaries in ways that the Fighting Falcon cannot.  

Russia and China Should Worry: The F-35 Will be the Stealth Spine of the U.S. Military 

But the story of what is the largest procurement program in U.S. military history doesn’t end here. The F-35A jet is only one of three distinct models being acquired by the U.S. military. The Marine Corps’ F-35B jet is a short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the fighter, designed to completely replace the service’s aging stock of F/A-18 Hornet fighters as they approach their planned sundown date of 2030. The F-35B jet is also slated to replace the Marines’ McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II attack aircraft, of which eighty are currently in service, into the mid-2020s. The Harrier II platform has had its service life cut short after proving increasingly cost-inefficient to maintain; a similar story is playing out for the aging Hornets, with the Marine Corps estimating that the service can save as much as $1 billion by replacing its F-18 jets with F-35 jets at a faster pace than previously planned.

Finally, the F-35C is a catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery variant that boasts a series of design changes allowing it to operate from aircraft carriers. The Navy’s ongoing F-35 orders are a major part of the service’s efforts to gradually replace its roster of over five hundred Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, which are increasingly undermining the ability of U.S. carrier wings to effectively project power in certain high-risk environments. With an unrefueled combat range of just under 400 nautical miles, the carriers deploying these aircraft are putting themselves within striking distance of a growing number of advanced Russian and Chinese anti-ship missiles, including the hypersonic 3M22 Tsirkon from the former and DF-17 from the latter. Boasting a combat radius of 670 nautical miles, the F-35C jet ensures a greater degree of operational flexibility and provides substantially improved chances of being deployed at a safer range.

The U.S. Marine Corps seeks to procure 353 F-35B jets and 67 more F-35C jets, while the Navy is eyeing a purchase of 260 F-35C jets. Combined with the Air Force’s planned purchase of 1,763 F-35A jets, the U.S. military is currently projected to acquire over 2,400 F-35 units through 2044.

The F-35 jet is on track to become one of the world’s most numerous jet fighter aircraft, spurring the retirement of many currently-serving aircraft along the way. And considering countless data points that prove it has no rival in the sky, the U.S. military is well-positioned for decades to come as the era of great power competition becomes even more intense. 

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Mark Episkopos

F-35, Americas

The MQ-25 Stingray is an uncrewed aerial refueling drone that is being developed by Boeing.

Here's What You Need to Remember: By greatly enhancing the combat radius of carrier-based fighters, the MQ-25 Stingray allows carrier fleets to project power from safer ranges. With this new refueling capability, the F-35C jet can leverage its advanced survivability and attack potential without being artificially limited by its carrier. Offensive operations that would previously be considered too risky or impractical could finally be feasible, vastly expanding the Navy’s scope of possibilities against its toughest adversaries.

The MQ-25 Stingray promises to bring new functionality to the F-35 fighter jet, enhancing the U.S. Navy’s lethality against its great power competitors.

The MQ-25 Stingray is an uncrewed aerial refueling drone that is being developed by Boeing. The Stingray can almost double the effective strike range of the U.S. carrier wing. “The MQ-25 will give us the ability to extend the air wing out probably 300 or 400 miles beyond where we typically go,” former Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker told U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings. For a sense of scale, consider that the Navy’s Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter has a combat range of no more than 450 miles.

This is a major potential liability at a time when both China and Russia are relentlessly investing in anti-ship missile technology. The former has the DF-21D, a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) with an operational range of up to one thousand miles, as well as the new hypersonic DF-17 missile with a reported range of over one thousand miles. The latter has the 3M22 Tsirkon winged, hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a range of at least six hundred miles and quite possibly more depending on the target and firing circumstances. The risks are stark: a growing number of defense observers are warning that a single hit from a missile with the performance characteristics of the Tsirkon can disable, if not destroy, a U.S. carrier. Having to operate within the effective ranges of the latest Russian and Chinese missiles potentially hampers the power projection capabilities of U.S. carrier fleets. This bears clear and immediate implications for American security interests in the Pacific, which is where China’s emerging anti-access, area-denial approach makes it increasingly harder for U.S. assets to operate effectively. 

It is precisely this problem that the Stingray is designed to address. Controlled through an interlinked navigation system, the MQ-25 Stingray can deliver up to fifteen thousand pounds of fuel to a distance of just under six hundred miles. The Navy is making arrangements for all Ford and Nimitz-class carriers to “eventually be MQ-25 capable.” 

By greatly enhancing the combat radius of carrier-based fighters, the MQ-25 Stingray allows carrier fleets to project power from safer ranges. With this new refueling capability, the F-35C jet can leverage its advanced survivability and attack potential without being artificially limited by its carrier. Offensive operations that would previously be considered too risky or impractical could finally be feasible, vastly expanding the Navy’s scope of possibilities against its toughest adversaries. These possibilities include high-risk strikes against critical infrastructure and assets deep in enemy territory, strikes against multiple targets in a single sortie, and a greater ability to adjust to changing mission circumstances while deployed.

As former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson put it, the Stingray “represents a dramatic shift in the way we define warfighting requirements.” It exemplifies the U.S Navy’s focus, shared by the world’s leading military powers, on an increasingly sophisticated kind of mission interoperability between drones, manned aircraft, and surface vessels. The MQ-25 Stingray is expected to reach initial operating capability by 2024.  

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Mark Episkopos

Guns,

 What the Glock 20 sacrifices in size, it makes up for with raw performance. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Seeking to maintain their foothold in the U.S. market, Glock rushed to release the Glock 20 in 1991 shortly after the FBI’s official adoption of the 10mm caliber.

In a catalog saturated with popular 9mm offerings, the 10mm Glock 20 Gen4 stands apart as the Austrian gun manufacturer’s most powerful semi-automatic pistol. The Glock 20 is also the oldest 10mm in continuous production, successfully blending Glock’s legendary reliability with a newfound focus on stopping power.

Glock made its initial splash in the U.S. handgun market with the Glock 17, which fast became a bestseller in the early 1980’s for its lightweight, modular, and ergonomically friendly design. Market trends sharply changed, however, with the infamous Miami shootout 1986. It took eight FBI agents armed with 9mm guns a total of 18 gunshot wounds to incapacitate only two suspects, armed with a 12-gauge pump shotgun and semi-automatic rifle respectively; two agents were killed, and five more wounded in the protracted firefight. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies concluded that .38 special and 9mm guns lack the penetration necessary to reliably incapacitate targets. 10mm cartridge-based weapons quickly emerged as a leading alternative; traveling at supersonic speeds and hitting with a muzzle energy of up to 750 pounds, the 10mm round destroys soft tissue and disrupts the nervous system far more efficiently than its 9mm counterpart.

Seeking to maintain their foothold in the U.S. market, Glock rushed to release the Glock 20 in 1991 shortly after the FBI’s official adoption of the 10mm caliber. The FBI quickly went on to reverse their decision over recoil concerns, opting instead for a halfway compromise between power and handling in the form of the new .40 Smith and Wesson caliber; still, the Glock 20 has not only endured but thrived as a leading consumer 10mm pistol.

Built with Glock’s Gen4 guidelines, the Glock 20 is easily distinguished from its 9mm counterparts by its prodigious size. At an overall length of 8.07 inches, there is no way around the fact that the Glock 20 is a large handgun that cannot be comfortably concealed. Those looking for a high-powered everyday carry (EDC) solution would be more tempted by the Glock 20’s more compact Glock 29 cousin.

But what the Glock 20 sacrifices in size, it makes up for with raw performance. The Glock 20 combines the impressive stopping power of the 10mm caliber with a 15-round capacity magazine that’s capable of accommodating a wide range of ammunition, all within the reliable and ergonomically friendly frame that is a trademark of the Glock brand.

Excessive recoil has always been the Achilles' heel of 10mm handguns, and the Glock 20 is not entirely an exception. There is, however, some good news: a customizable backstrap system and new Rough Textured Frame (RTF) can help to mitigate the intense recoil generated from firing high-caliber ammunition. More importantly, subsequent Glock 20 testing has demonstrated that the gun’s recoil heavily depends on the specific type of 10mm round that is being used. With some practice and the correct choice of ammunition, the Glock 20 shouldn’t generate an unbearable degree of recoil as compared with similarly-situated .40 caliber weapons.

Where does all this leave the Glock 20 today, just under 30 years after its introduction? While not an ideal solution in tactical and urban scenarios, the Glock 20 has earned a sizable following as a reliable hunting and survival handgun; notably, Denmark’s Sirius Sled Patrol continues to use the Glock 20 as a defensive weapon against polar bears. For everyone else, the Glock 20 is a well-rounded 10mm handgun that offers serious firepower at little compromise.

Mark Episkopos is a frequent contributor to The National Interest and serves as research assistant at the Center for the National Interest. Mark is also a PhD student in History at American University.

This article first appeared in 2019.

Image: Reuters

Mark Episkopos

T-14 Armata, Eurasia

Most recently, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the first serial T-14 batch will arrive in 2022

The T-14 Armata boasts a bevy of best-in-class features, but can Russia produce enough of them? 

By far the most anticipated product in the next-generation Armata Universal Combat platform, the T-14 Armata is a main battle tank (MBT) that clocks in at forty-eight tons and can reportedly reach speeds of ninety kilometers per hour. The tank is designed around an unmanned turret scheme, boasting a 125-millimeter 2A82-1M smoothbore gun with autoloader compatibility. The T-14 also sports the Kord 12.7mm heavy machine gun with a sophisticated “remote reloading” mechanism, in addition to the latest in Russian explosive reactive armor technology, laser-guided missile integration, partially automated targeting algorithms, and digitized onboard equipment. The tank’s other features may include future potential compatibility with laser weapons and hypersonic missile systems.  

These strides in firepower, mobility, and survivability suggest that the T-14 is more than able to give any currently-serving NATO MBT a run for its money, but the Armata faces a different kind of challenge: all those bells and whistles don’t come cheap.  

In absolute terms, Armata’s cost metrics look fairly healthy. The current projected per-unit cost of the T-14 Armata is just under $4 million dollars, which puts the Armata well under its older and less advanced M1 Abrams counterpart. For more of an apples-to-apples comparison, consider that South Korea’s fourth-generation K2 Black Panther has a per model cost of over $8 million and Turkey’s fourth-generation Altay MBT comes in at just under $14 million, more than double and triple the Armata’s price tag respectively. Given how expensive fourth-generation tanks are to research, develop, and mass-produce, one could argue that the T-14 offers fairly good value for its reported features and performance-- at least, in absolute terms. But the full picture is far grimmer.  

Russia’s relatively modest defense budget (typically seen in the neighborhood of $60 billion, though experts have compellingly argued there is much more to this number than meets the eye) is being stretched thin across a wide gamut of ambitious modernization projects being simultaneously pursued across every service branch. Output has fallen woefully short of the military’s apparent plan to serially produce 2,300 T-14’s by 2020. It was reported earlier that twenty pre-production units had been delivered to the Russian army for testing, with eighty more to follow.

Top Russian defense officials have previously argued that the prior generation of Russian MBTs, including the T-72, T-80, and T-90, still fares well enough against its western counterparts that there is no pressing military need to rush the T-14 out of the gate. “Having a military budget ten times smaller than that of NATO, we are achieving our objectives due to such efficient solutions,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said in 2018. “Why flood all Armed Forces with the Armata tanks, we have the T-72s in great demand in the market, they take it all, compared to the Abrams, Leclercs and Leopards, for their price, efficiency, and quality,” he said.

Most recently, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the first serial T-14 batch will arrive in 2022. It remains unclear how fast, and how widely, serial T-14’s will be circulated throughout Russia’s Armed Forces.  

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Two decades of mistakes, misjudgments, and collective failure

Mark Episkopos

,

But would it have solved the F-35's problems?

Here's What You Need to Remember: The F-35 as a technological standard bearer for the U.S. Air Force was anything but inevitable.

Over a decade after its introduction, the F-35 stealth fighter jet is among the most recognizable symbols of American airpower. And yet, the emergence of the F-35 as a technological standard bearer for the U.S. Air Force was anything but inevitable.

Here is the F-32 that could have been.

In 1993, the U.S. government launched the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter project (CALF) to phase out a slew of older fighters— including the F-15 and F-16— and provide a cost-effective development platform for the next generation of U.S. fighter aircraft. CALF was rolled into the Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF) in the following year, and the bidding phase ensued. Emerging as the front runners from the first selection round, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were both offered contracts to produce two concept demonstrator fighters.

With little flexibility on the Pentagon’s highly detailed checklist of features and specifications, Boeing sought to distinguish itself based on cost. To this end, the X-32 used the same, massive delta wing as the foundation for all of the three fighter variants mandated by the JSF program. The result was, by wide consensus, an exceedingly ugly-looking aircraft. There is some indication that Boeing planned big design changes for future models, including a sleeker delta wing and redesigned nose, but nevertheless: the X-32 demonstrator model’s bizarre aesthetic hardly did Boeing any favors.

Employing a direct-lift thrust vectoring system, the X-32 reached top speeds of just under 1.6 mach. The X-32’s internal bay loadout supported six AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, or a combination of up to two air-to-air missiles and two bombs. Despite their significantly different designs, the X-32’s performance was roughly in line with rival Lockheed’s Martin’s X-35 concept demonstrator.

So, why didn’t the X-32 make the cut? For one, its direct lift system was prone to pop stalls, or severe malfunction caused by hot air being ingested into the engine. The government also expressed concerns as to whether the X-32’s engine was powerful enough to support its reported maximum take-off weight of 50,000 pounds.

Worse still, eight months into the competition, the JSF’s aerodynamic requirements were revised at the behest of the Navy. Boeing engineers managed to make some slight changes to the tail, but it was too late to meaningfully redesign the delta wing to fully comport with the new JSF guidelines.

Despite its cost-cutting strategy, Boeing wound up building two prototypes, each demonstrating different aspects of the JSF’s specifications guidelines: a conventional-flight model demonstrating supersonic performance, and an X-32B short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant. Boeing insisted that these features will be unified with the serial F-32, but its rival X-35 demonstrator model was already capable of doing both. Vertical take-off/landing capability was a core pillar of the JSF guidelines, and the Pentagon simply did not buy into Boeing’s vision for STOVL integration.

The Lockheed Martin X-35 was formally declared the winner over Boeing’s X-32 in 2001. In hindsight, it’s difficult to gauge whether or not the DoD made the right decision. From rampant budget concerns to the implicit technical challenges of implementing cutting-edge technologies like sensor fusion, it’s highly likely that Boeing would have encountered broadly similar problems as to those that have plagued the F-35 program for the past decade.

Boeing, for its part, has taken the loss in stride, describing the X-32’s R&D process as a “strategic investment” that paid off during subsequent work done on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter and X-45A drone.

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

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Mark Episkopos

F-35I Adir, Middle East

Israel moved to import Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation stealth fighter in the early 2010s, but with a special arrangement: the first nineteen imported units would be standard F-35A models, but the following thirty-one will be specially modified by Israeli defense firms to better fit the IAF’s mission parameters.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Israel’s conventional and specially modified F-35 fleet is poised to greatly enhance Jerusalem’s ability to project power in the region, as it strives to hold on to the mantle of the best Air Force in the Middle East into the coming decades.

Israel’s F-35I Adir fighters have taken part in drills in Italy, marking their first foreign outing. Six of the jets departed on Thursday to participate in the Falcon Strike 2021 exercises. Accompanying the F-35’s are16A/Bs from the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IAF) 116th Squadron, G550 Airborne early warning and control planes, and support units, for a total of around thirty Israeli aircraft.

The U.S., Britain, and Italy have sent their fighters to participate in Falcon Strike 2021; all three have dispatched F-35B short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) variants, with Italy also sending F-35A conventional takeoff fighters. The Israeli Air Force's (IAF) F-35 squadron is scheduled to take part in two sorties each day through June 17, including simulated air strikes behind enemy lines, ground support missions, and mock dogfights.

Nominally, the IAF joined Falcon Strike 2021 to hone joint operations capabilities with allies and to train aircraft maneuvers in an unfamiliar setting. But an IAF officer reportedly admitted off the record that there is a more immediate purpose to these exercises: “Iran is in our focus,” he said tersely. Tensions between Israel and Iran have spiked in recent months, with Tehran “cheering” on — and reportedly arming — Hamas in the recent resurgence of the Gaza conflict, shortly on the heels of allegations that Israel carried out strikes against Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.

Israel moved to import Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation stealth fighter in the early 2010s, but with a special arrangement: the first nineteen imported units would be standard F-35A models, but the following thirty-one will be specially modified by Israeli defense firms to better fit the IAF’s mission parameters. This compromise helped to allay the fears of Israeli Defense contractors that the massive export contract is leaving local industry out of the equation.

The Pentagon is famously loath to greenlight foreign hardware changes to the F-35 (with a few notable exceptions, including the European-made Meteor missile for British F-35’s and the Norwegian Naval Strike Missile for Japan and South Korea), especially on the level being sought by the IAF. Israeli officials have been nothing if not explicit in their assessment of the F-35’s stealth performance.  “We think the stealth protection will be good for 5–10 years, but the aircraft will be in service for 30–40 years,” a senior IAF official said. Rather, the IAF is more interested in the F-35 as an advanced electronic warfare (EW) platform: “So we need electronic warfare capabilities that can be rapidly improved. The basic F-35 design is OK. We can make do with adding more software.”

Jerusalem appears to have reached a tentative understanding with Washington: the IAF will not make changes to the plane’s core design, but will instead layer its EW modifications on top of the aircraft’s existing avionics infrastructure. The changes include datalink functionality that is unique to Israel’s Armed Forces, as well as Israeli-manufactured helmet-mounted displays. Israeli defense industry insiders said that the country’s bespoke command, control, communications, and computing (C4) architecture layers on top of the F-35’s existing electronics suite as non-invasively as a smartphone app. But the special arrangement doesn’t end here: while exported F-35’s are required to undergo deep maintenance only at Lockheed Martin facilities, Israel’s Nevatim Air Base reportedly has the equipment to conduct deep F-35 repairs and other non-routine overhauls.

Israel’s conventional and specially modified F-35 fleet is poised to greatly enhance Jerusalem’s ability to project power in the region, as it strives to hold on to the mantle of the best Air Force in the Middle East into the coming decades.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for The National Interest. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Mark Episkopos

B-52 Bomber,

In keeping with its raison dêtre, B-52 is prodigiously armed.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The B-52 bomber’s greatest long-term strength has proven to be its flexibility, and nowhere is this more apparent than its remarkable ability to assimilate new weapons platforms.

One of America’s most iconic bombers, the B-52 Stratofortress has managed to outlive its Cold War roots and is set to see service through the mid-twenty-first century.

The B-52 strategic bomber has its roots in a postwar procurement search for a heavy strategic bomber. Boeing, along with several competing companies, submitted dueling proposals. Boeing’s candidate, a colossal straight-wing aircraft called the Model 462, went on to win the tender in 1946. The process stalled amid a prolonged series of negotiations between Boeing and the Air Force, with the latter expressing concerns over the proposed bomber’s weight, speed, and bulky design. In the years that followed, Boeing churned out additional concept models that were lighter and faster—the initial design was eventually abandoned in favor of swept wings. It was only after six years, in 1952, that prototypes began to enter pre-production. By then, the strategic bomber was a thoroughly different plane from the early design concept introduced by Boeing in 1946.

Powered by Pratt & Whitney J57-P-1W turbojets that were later replaced by the markedly more powerful P&W TF33-P-3 turbofans, the B-52 supports a payload of up to 31,500 kilograms and boasts an operational range of just over fourteen thousand kilometers without aerial refueling. The B-52 isn’t particularly maneuverable or fast at a top speed of just over one thousand kilometers per hour, nor does it need to be; its primary purpose was to fly deterrence missions against the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

In keeping with its raison dêtre, B-52 is prodigiously armed. Beginning with its “H” revision, the B-52 bomber’s nuclear weapons capability was headlined by twelve AGM-129 advanced cruise missiles and twenty AGM-86A air-launched cruise missiles? The AGM-86A was theoretically able to overwhelm Soviet missile defenses with saturation strikes launched outside of Soviet airspace. The B-52 bomber likewise supports an exhaustive list of weapons for a wide range of conventional missions: among them, AGM-84 Harpoon missiles, joint direct-attack munitions (JDAM), AGM-142 Raptor missiles, and AGM-86C conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCM).

Capable of delivering huge payloads at vast distances, the B-52 bomber quickly became a U.S. Air Force staple in the Vietnam War. The strategic bombers flew hundreds of combat sorties and dropped over fifteen tons of bombs on North Vietnamese targets during Operation Linebacker II. More recently, the B-52 bomber distinguished itself during Operation Desert Storm: “B-52s struck wide-area troop concentrations, fixed installations and bunkers, and decimated the morale of Iraq’s Republican Guard,” read an Air Force statement.

The B-52 bomber’s greatest long-term strength has proven to be its flexibility, and nowhere is this more apparent than its remarkable ability to assimilate new weapons platforms. There are plans to upgrade B-52 bombers with AGM-183A hypersonic missiles as part of the U.S. military’s response to Russia’s recent strides in test-launching hypersonic cruise missiles.

In addition to new weapons, the Air Force’s fleet of seventy-six B-52s is slated to receive a raft of avionics and targeting updates to keep them relevant into the coming decades. B-52’s are currently being retrofitted with new data links and upgraded communications suites, as well as additional countermeasures and navigation features.

Combining a remarkably resilient airframe with a modular design approach, the B-52 bomber will be among America’s longest-serving aircraft when it eventually retires in the 2050s.

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

Image: Reuters

Mark Episkopos

B-2 Bomber,

The B-2 Spirit is the most advanced strategic bomber in the US Air Force (USAF) roster, occupying a vital role in the American nuclear triad for its blend of deep penetration and heavy ordnance delivery capabilities.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Aside from the changes to the Fuze mechanism, Boeing engineers have worked to mitigate the effects of ground impact through sheer size and mass; coming in at a whopping 30,000 pounds and with a 32-inch diameter, GBU-57’s warhead is encased in a massive hunk of protective steel as it burrows toward its target.

The B-2 Spirit is the most advanced strategic bomber in the US Air Force (USAF) roster, occupying a vital role in the American nuclear triad for its blend of deep penetration and heavy ordnance delivery capabilities.

There has been no shortage of B-2 footage over the past several decades, extensively capturing its takeoff and maintenance routines as well as a wide range of aerial shots. However, there has been a curious dearth of B-2 weapons exercise clips-- until now.

A few years back, the US Air Force posted a two-minute long video of the B-2 dropping GBU-57A/B “bunker buster” bombs from a past training event. The clip, shot with an unusually high video fidelity for a military exercise, shows a B-2 opening its internal weapons bay to drop two GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bombs. One of the bombs drills into the earth beneath the designated area, marked with a red cone, before detonating in a powerful explosion with good effect on target (GEOT).

As depicted in the video, the GBU-57 is designed to penetrate fortifications up to 200 feet below ground before detonating its 5,300-pound warhead, clearing out enemy positions that are otherwise unreachable by surface-level bombing runs. 

The GBU-57 is arguably the most destructive weapon of its kind, hailing from a long line of smaller cousins and air blast variants.  When combined with the infiltration capabilities of the B-2 Spirit, MOP provides the US military with a robust toolkit for neutralizing enemy underground structure of the kind widely used by the North Korean and even Chinese militaries.

The latest iteration of MOP-- the GBU-57/B-- is slated to fix its predecessor’s most crucial shortcoming: its fuze system. The detonation fuze of prior models was prone to triggering before or after reaching the target, or not denoting at all. The US military is currently in the process of upgrading their MOP arsenal to “smarter fuzes,” capable of counting layers, resisting several feet of concrete impact, and even transmitting mission information back to military command.

Aside from the changes to the Fuze mechanism, Boeing engineers have worked to mitigate the effects of ground impact through sheer size and mass; coming in at a whopping 30,000 pounds and with a 32-inch diameter, GBU-57’s warhead is encased in a massive hunk of protective steel as it burrows toward its target.

The B-2, while not getting any younger from its 1997 debut, is anything but a slouch in the heavy bomber stealth performance department. It likewise features a remarkable viable avionics package for its day, boasting a coterie of digital displays (including a Synthetic Aperture Radar). Nonetheless, anti-air missile technology has advanced dramatically over the past two decades; Russia has since introduced its capable S-400 system, which is now on the cusp of being succeeded by the upcoming S-500.

As such, the USAF plans to modernize the B-2 platform over the coming decades while retaining the core performance features that have made it America’s staple heavy nuclear bomber. The ongoing B-2 modernization program is focused around a deep avionics overhaul, integrating a new flight management control processor and “Defense Management System (DMS),” a collection of sensors calibrated to reveal the precise location of enemy anti-air systems.

Mark Episkopos is a frequent contributor to The National Interest. Mark is also a Ph.D. student in History at American University. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.