Diplomacy & Crisis News

Afin de résoudre le conflit entre la Russie et l'Ukraine, M. Jean-Pierre Chevènement avait rencontré M. Vladimir Poutine le 5 mai 2014, à la demande du président français. Il décrit ici le chemin qui a conduit à la défiance, et dessine les moyens d'en sortir. / Allemagne, États-Unis, États-Unis (...) / Allemagne, États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Europe, Europe de l'Est, France, Russie, Ukraine, URSS, Conflit, Géopolitique, Guérilla, Médias, Mouvement de contestation, Presse, Relations internationales, Diplomatie, Frontières, Mer noire - 2015/06

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’hiver 2020-2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 4/2020). Hans Stark, ancien secrétaire général du Cerfa à l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage dirigé par Joachim Lange et Henrik Uterwedde, Frankreich und Deustchland: Yin und Yang der EU-Reform  (Nomos Verlag, 2019, 200 pages).

Le 18 mai 2020, le gouvernement allemand provoquait une surprise générale en annonçant avec son partenaire français un plan de relance de 500 milliards d’euros, empruntés par l’Union européenne (UE). Avec cette initiative, partiellement diluée au Conseil européen du mois de juillet, l’Allemagne acceptait le principe d’une mutualisation des dettes européennes – même si elle soulignait par la suite qu’il s’agissait d’une mesure exceptionnelle rendue nécessaire par le contexte de la crise sanitaire et la crise économique qu’elle a déclenchée. Pourtant, s’il s’agit bien d’un véritable tournant dans la politique allemande en matière de gouvernance de la zone euro, il ne s’explique évidemment pas par la seule crise sanitaire.

Pour comprendre le cheminement du gouvernement fédéral, mais aussi le rapprochement, lent mais constant des positions françaises et allemandes depuis le sommet de Meseberg de juin 2018, l’ouvrage de Joachim Lange et de Henrik Uterwedde tombe à point nommé. Réunissant les analyses croisées de neuf économistes allemands et français, il analyse la politique économique des deux pays sous l’angle de l’évolution de la zone euro depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir d’Emmanuel Macron, en trois parties : les propositions de réformes économiques de Macron et les réponses allemandes ; Paris et Berlin face à la zone euro dix ans après la crise de la dette souveraine ; au-delà d’Emmanuel Macron : les réformes dont la zone euro a besoin.

Il ressort de ce plan que les différences structurelles entre les politiques et les performances économiques des deux pays forment certes le cadre général dans lequel évolue l’économie de l’UE dans son ensemble, mais que ces différences, qui s’accentuent, menacent dans le même temps les fondements du marché unique, et donc de la zone euro. Cet avertissement ressort clairement des contributions de Henrik Uterwedde, Rémy Lallement et Martin Hallet, qui passent chacun à la loupe, et donc avec une précision chirurgicale fort peu complaisante, l’évolution économique de nos deux pays.

S’ils critiquent les aléas des politiques de réforme économique en France, et notamment les concessions faites à ceux qui y résistent, les auteurs se montrent tout aussi sévères à l’égard des postulats ordo-libéraux allemands. Michael Thöne revendique ainsi une programmation financière plus audacieuse dans le cadre l’UE, tandis que Christian Kastrop, Frédéric Petit et Birgit Honé réclament des réformes plus ambitieuses, qu’ils détaillent dans leurs analyses.

L’ouvrage mérite clairement une traduction en français, qui pourrait aller de pair avec une actualisation tenant compte des événements de 2020. Il en ressort que les économistes allemands sont conscients des risques que le décrochage économique et les divergences idéologiques entre les 19 (et surtout entre Paris et Berlin) font peser sur le projet européen. En témoignent le retournement allemand face au financement de l’UE, mais aussi les prises d’initiative d’Ursula Von der Leyen. Cet ouvrage, en conclusion, permet de comprendre un changement de paradigme.

Hans Stark

>> S’abonner à Politique étrangère <<

Crimes impunis, déficit extérieur colossal, chômage de masse… le patronage de l'Union européenne n'a pas permis au Kosovo de décoller, et des affaires de corruption entachent la mission internationale visant à instaurer un Etat de droit. / Balkans, Europe, Kosovo, Criminalité, Guérilla, Information, (...) / Balkans, Europe, Kosovo, Criminalité, Guérilla, Information, Justice, Médias, Presse, Corruption, Indépendance - 2015/06

Nombreux sont les projets de réforme de l'Organisation des Nations unies. Au-delà des aspects techniques, c'est le rôle même de l'ONU comme outil de construction de la paix et ses valeurs humanistes qui sont en jeu. / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Europe, Droit, Droit international, (...) / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Europe, Droit, Droit international, Droits humains, État, Géopolitique, Histoire, Relations Nord-Sud, Pacifisme, Relations internationales, Diplomatie, Droit international humanitaire, Organisation internationale - 2015/06

En octobre 1990, la Ligue musulmane mondiale Rabitah tenta de créer un consensus international en faveur de la coalition américano-saoudienne contre l'Irak. Aux Etats-Unis, cet effort se porta notamment en direction des Noirs musulmans. Cherchant à contrecarrer le mouvement d'opposition à la (...) / Islam, Afro-Américains - 1993/02

Robert Farley

Security, Americas

The Cold War saw radical shifts in the balance between fighters and bombers.

Here's What You Need to Know:

As the Cold War opened, fighters and bombers both underwent a transformation.

For instance, Jet engines and the airframes that could handle them transformed both kinds of aircraft. Just as important, the development of nuclear weapons radically increased the lethality of bombers, giving a single plane as much or more killing power than a fleet.

The Cold War saw radical, violent shifts in the balance between fighters and bombers. It also saw the emergence of unmanned missiles, which in different configurations could either kill or replace bombers. Nevertheless, both the Soviets and the Americans continued to invest in both kinds of aircraft, all the way until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and beyond.

Korea:

The first test of bombers would come in Korea. The B-29 Superfortress entered service in the last two years of World War II, but because of ineffective Japanese air defenses and a lack of aviation fuel, was never really tested against the best fighters of the day. Indeed, most Japanese successes against the Superfortress came in the form of ramming tactics, which were obviously unsustainable. For the sake of convenience, the Soviets adopted the same bomber; the Tu-4, a near exact copy of the B-29 (12,000 lbs of bombs at medium altitude, maximum speed 350 mph), meaning that the superpowers depended on the same bomber in the early years of the Cold War.

The ultimate test for the B-29 came over Korea, where it first encountered a modern jet interceptor. The MiG-15 was a hundred miles faster than the Me-262, with twice the thrust-weight ratio and three times the rate of climb. With relatively predictable approach-paths to North Korea targets, Communist MiG-15s enjoyed plentiful hunting against B-29 formations, even when the latter had fighter escort. Some two dozen B-29s were lost to air-to-air combat, at which point the USAF shifted to night-bombing tactics, just as it had during World War II.

The newly-minted United States Air Force had other bombers, including the gigantic B-36 Peacemaker. While the B-36 could carry a heavier load and travel farther than the B-29 (nearly 4,000 miles with a load of 70,000 lbs, and a maximum speed of over 400 mph), no one believed that it could survive in the face of concerted fighter opposition. Indeed, General Curtis Lemay kept the B-36 as far away from Korea as possible for specifically this reason. The USAF even developed a scheme to attach a parasite fighter to the B-36, which would (ineffectually) have tried to fight off Soviet interceptors. On the upside, the B-36 could carry a hydrogen bomb, meaning that not terribly many needed to get through in order to have a major impact on Soviet attitudes.

Jet Bombers vs. Jet Interceptors:

The Soviets and the Americans dove into a race between bombers and interceptors even before the guns of the Korean War had fallen silent. The bomber-obsessed USAF developed the B-47 Stratojet, capable of carrying 25000 lbs of bombs at a speed over 600 mph. It followed this up with the legendary B-52 Stratofortress, which could carry 70000 lbs of bombs over 4000 miles with a maximum speed of 650 mph. The Soviets developed the Tu-16 “Badger,” capable of 650 mph with a 20000 lbs bomb load, and the Tu-95 “Bear,” a massive turboprop-driven plane with a speed of 500 plus mph and a payload of some 24000 lbs.

Developments on the interceptor side followed. Vulnerable to enemy attack for the first time in a long while, the Americans adopted a range of interceptors capable of catching and killing Soviet bombers before they could unleash their payloads. The Soviets, paranoid about the security of their vast airspace, did the same. The rapid rate of technological change in the 1950s meant that many designs were obsolete before they left the drawing board, but by the mid-1960s most of the major fighter producers had settled upon a basic template. There were many interceptors, ranging from the Convair F-106 Delta Dart to the English Electric Lightning to the Saab Draken to the Soviet Su-15 to the ill-fated CF-105 Avro Arrow. All of them tended to max out with speeds around 1500 mph, generally carried substantial radar suites, and had long ranges to cover considerable ground in a hurry. They also carried air-to-air missiles designed to kill their large prey at range (sometimes armed with nuclear warheads).

The next generation of jet bombers would have equaled the interceptors in speed and high altitude performance, but fate intervened. The majestic B-70 Valkyrie had a top speed more than Mach 3 and inspired the Soviet T-4, an aircraft with similar performance. Fortunately or not, by the time the B-70 was ready for production, it had become apparent that surface-to-air missiles and fast interceptors were making high altitude penetration missions suicidal. The XB-70 was canceled, and the Mach 2-capable B-58 “Hustler” retired early. For their part, the Soviets responded to the threat of the B-70 by developing the MiG-25 “Foxbat,” an interceptor that could exceed Mach 2.8 and that carried long-range air-to-air missiles.

Rise of the Fighter-Bomber, and the Diversification of Roles:

But the day of the fighter-bomber was also arriving. Since World War I, the trade-off between heavy, long-range bombers and light, short-range fighters was reasonably well-understood. The high-performance bombers of the interwar period, and the use of a few bomber-type aircraft in night-fighter configuration notwithstanding, fighters enjoyed advantages in speed and maneuverability that made them lethal to bombers, while bombers could carry heavy loads to distant targets.

Fighters had always operated in an attack role, even in World War I. But over time, fighters carried ever-greater payloads of munitions. In the early years of the Vietnam War, the F-105 Thunderchief (nicknamed “Thud”) took on the workhorse bomber role in Rolling Thunder. It could carry 14000 lbs of bombs at Mach 2, although it lacked maneuverability. The North Vietnamese hunted Thuds with the MiG-17 and MiG-21, the latter itself capable of Mach 2 flight.

Bombers did have some advantages; even though they couldn’t run faster than fighters, they could run farther, which could be enough to escape a pursuer. Bombers were also large enough to carry sophisticated electronic warfare equipment, capable of jamming or disorienting the radars on pursuing fighters. The B-52 survived as a low altitude penetration bomber and continued to operate as a conventional bomber over Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Bombers also survived by diversifying. The Soviets developed the Tu-95 into the Tu-142, a long-range sub-hunting plane. They designed the Tu-22M “Backfire” bomber to hunt American aircraft carriers with long-range cruise missiles. The Americans responded to the cruise missile threat with the F-14 Tomcat, a long-range, fast, carrier-borne interceptor with beyond visual range missiles.

The last two generations of bombers began to come into service in the 1980s. They represented a division of effort. On the one hand, the B-1B “Lancer” and the Soviet Tu-160 combined supersonic speeds with low-level penetration capabilities. On the other, the B-2 “Spirit” took advantage of developments in stealth technology to evade radar, missiles, and interceptors. All of these bombers are also capable of traditional conventional bombing and have been pressed into those missions in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Final Bombs:

A single F-15E Strike Eagle can carry a load as heavy as forty-six Gotha IV bombers, larger than any one of the raids that the terrified London in the First World War. The same aircraft can carry as much ordnance as almost five B-17s, and reach its targets considerably faster. With precision-guidance, those munitions can have a much greater impact on military and civilian targets. The F-15 can do all of that, and yet remains a formidable air-to-air fighter.

And yet the biggest air forces continue to buy big bombers. The United States recently placed an order for one hundred B-21 “Raider” stealth bombers. Russia and China have also ordered new stealth bombers, although the ability of the former to complete the project remains in question. The success of the latter depends to a great extent on how well China can integrate stolen technology, as well as develop workable engines. In short, big planes still confer big advantages for air forces interested in strike capabilities. But fighters, whether of the legacy or the stealth variety, will continue to pose a major obstacle for any bomber trying to reach its target.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is the author of The Battleship Book. The views expressed here are his personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, the Army War College, or any other department or agency of the U.S. government.

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Ethen Kim Lieser

Public Health, Americas

However, Dr. Fauci did agree with Biden that a degree of normalcy would be possible by the end of 2021.

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has projected that the United States will be “approaching a degree of normality” by the end of this year, but that pandemic-weary Americans may still be wearing face masks and coverings well into 2022.

“You know, I think it is possible that that’s the case (that Americans will be wearing masks in 2022) and, again, it really depends on what you mean by normality,” President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor on the coronavirus said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

Fauci added that he believes that by the end of 2021, “we’re going to have a significant degree of normality beyond the terrible burden that all of us have been through over the last year. As we get into the fall and the winter, by the end of the year, I agree with (Biden) completely that we will be approaching a degree of normality.”

The comments from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases come as the U.S. death toll from the yearlong coronavirus pandemic recently surpassed five hundred thousand, representing more than six average NFL stadiums worth of victims. More than a fifth of all deaths worldwide have occurred in the United States, which has less than 5 percent of the global population, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Like Fauci, health experts and top government officials have asserted that necessary coronavirus precautions must remain in place to further slow the spread of the virus.

“While the progress we’re making toward recovery is exciting, it’s critical that we don’t ease up on the precautions that we know have worked thus far,” Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, chief quality and patient safety officer at The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, told the National Interest.

“Masks and physical distancing are still our best weapons for limiting spread and, now that we have a vaccine, will make those precautions even more effective and will drive new cases way down if we stay the course.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shared similar sentiments Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“We are still at about a hundred thousand cases a day. We are still at around fifteen hundred to thirty-five hundred deaths per day. The cases are more two and a half fold times what we saw over the summer,” she said.

“It’s encouraging to see these trends coming down, but they’re coming down from an extraordinarily high place.”

Other experts have taken on a more wait-and-see approach.

“It is probably too early to speculate on 2022, but it’s certainly probable that masks will still have some type of role,” Dr. Jason Keonin, of Northwest Iowa Surgeons PC, told the National Interest.

The CDC also has recently confirmed that double-masking, or the wearing of two face masks at once, can provide extremely high levels of protection against spreading or contracting the virus.

In addition, the agency’s study discovered that a tighter fit can markedly improve the overall effectiveness of masks. One particular way to improve the fit of medical masks is to make sure they are “knotted and tucked”—which can be achieved “by bringing together the corners and ear loops on each side, knotting the ear loops together where they attach to the mask, and then tucking in and flattening the resulting extra mask material to minimize the side gaps,” the CDC noted.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-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.

Accédez à l’article de Florian Vidal ici.

Retrouvez le sommaire du numéro 4/2020 de Politique étrangère ici.

Robert Farley

Security,

Many of the technologies and practices of advanced submarine warfare were never employed in anger. However, every country in the world that pretends to serious maritime power is building or acquiring advanced submarines.

Here's What You Need to Remember: We take for granted the most common form of today’s nuclear deterrent; a nuclear submarine, bristling with missiles, capable of destroying a dozen cities a continent away. These submarines provide the most secure leg of the deterrent triad, as no foe could reasonably expect to destroy the entire submarine fleet before the missiles fly.

There have been three great submarine campaigns in history, and one prolonged duel. The First and Second Battles of the Atlantic pitted German U-boats against the escorts and aircraft of the United Kingdom and the United States. The Germans very nearly won World War I with the first campaign, and badly drained Allied resources in the second. In the third great campaign, the submarines of the US Navy destroyed virtually the entire commercial fleet of Japan, bringing the Japanese economy to its knees. US subs also devastated the Imperial Japanese Navy, sinking several of Tokyo’s most important capital ships.

But the period most evocative of our modern sense of submarine warfare was surely the forty year duel between the submarines of the USSR and the boats of the various NATO navies. Over the course of the Cold War, the strategic nature of the submarine changed; it moved from being a cheap, effective killer of capital ships to a capital ship in its own right. This was especially the case with the boomers, submarines that carried enough nuclear weapons to kill millions in a few minutes.

As with previous “5 Greatest” lists, the answers depend on the parameters; different sets of metrics will generate different lists. Our metrics concentrate on the strategic utility of specific submarine classes, rather than solely on their technical capabilities.

· Was the submarine a cost-effective solution to a national strategic problem?

· Did the submarine compare favorably with its contemporaries?

· Was the submarine’s design innovative?

And with that, the five best submarines of all time:

U-31:

The eleven boats of the U-31 class were constructed between 1912 and 1915. They operated in both of the periods of heavy action for German U-boats, early in the war before the suspension of unrestricted warfare, and again in 1917 when Germany decided to go for broke and cut the British Empire off at the knees. Four of these eleven boats (U-35, U-39, U-38, and U-34) were the four top killers of World War I; indeed, they were four of the five top submarines of all time in terms of tonnage sunk (the Type VII boat U-48 sneaks in at number 3). U-35, the top killer, sank 224 ships amounting to over half a million tons.

The U-31 boats were evolutionary, rather than revolutionary; they represented the latest in German submarine technology for the time, but did not differ dramatically from their immediate predecessors or successors. These boats had good range, a deck gun for destroying small shipping, and faster speeds surfaced than submerged. These characteristics allowed the U-31 class and their peers to wreak havoc while avoiding faster, more powerful surface units. They did offer a secure, stealthy platform for carrying out a campaign that nearly forced Great Britain from the war. Only the entry of the United States, combined with the development of innovative convoy tactics by the Royal Navy, would stifle the submarine offensive. Three of the eleven boats survived the war, and were eventually surrendered to the Allies.

Balao:

The potential for a submarine campaign against the Japanese Empire was clear from early in the war. Japanese industry depended for survival on access to the natural resources of Southeast Asia. Separating Japan from those resources could win the war. However, the pre-war USN submarine arm was relatively small, and operated with poor doctrine and bad torpedoes. Boats built during the war, including primarily the Gato and Balao class, would eventually destroy virtually the entire Japanese merchant marine.

The Balao class represented very nearly the zenith of the pre-streamline submarine type. War in the Pacific demanded longer ranges and more habitability than the relatively snug Atlantic. Like their predecessors the Gato, the Balaos were less maneuverable than the German Type VII subs, but they made up for this in strength of hull and quality of construction. Compared with the Type VII, the Balaos had longer range, a larger gun, more torpedo tubes, and a higher speed. Of course, the Balaos operated in a much different environment, and against an opponent less skilled in anti-submarine warfare. The greatest victory of a Balao was the sinking of the 58000 ton HIJMS Shinano by Archerfish.

Eleven of 120 boats were lost, two in post-war accidents. After the war Balao class subs were transferred to several friendly navies, and continued to serve for decades. One, the former USS Tusk, remains in partial commission in Taiwan as Hai Pao.

Type XXI

In some ways akin to the Me 262, the Type XXI was a potentially war-winning weapon that arrived too late to have serious effect. The Type XXI was the first mass produced, ocean-going streamlined or “true” submarine, capable of better performance submerged than on the surface. It gave up its deck gun in return for speed and stealth, and set the terms of design for generations of submarines.

Allied anti-submarine efforts focused on identifying boats on the surface (usually in transit to their patrol areas) then vectoring killers (including ships and aircraft) to those areas. In 1944 the Allies began developing techniques for fighting “schnorkel” U-boats that did not need to surface, but remained unprepared for combat against a submarine that could move at 20 knots submerged.

In effect, the Type XXI had the stealth to avoid detection prior to an attack, and the speed to escape afterward. Germany completed 118 of these boats, but because of a variety of industrial problems could only put four into service, none of which sank an enemy ship. All of the Allies seized surviving examples of the Type XXI, using them both as models for their own designs and in order to develop more advanced anti-submarine technologies and techniques. For example, the Type XXI was the model for the Soviet “Whiskey” class, and eventually for a large flotilla of Chinese submarines.

George Washington:

We take for granted the most common form of today’s nuclear deterrent; a nuclear submarine, bristling with missiles, capable of destroying a dozen cities a continent away. These submarines provide the most secure leg of the deterrent triad, as no foe could reasonably expect to destroy the entire submarine fleet before the missiles fly.

The secure submarine deterrent began in 1960, with the USS George Washington. An enlarged version of the Skipjack class nuclear attack sub, George Washington’s design incorporated space for sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles. When the Polaris became operational, USS George Washington had the capability from striking targets up to 1000 miles distant with 600 KT warheads. The boats would eventually upgrade to the Polaris A3, with three warheads and a 2500 mile range. Slow relative to attack subs but extremely quiet, the George Washington class pioneered the “go away and hide” form of nuclear deterrence that is still practiced by five of the world’s nine nuclear powers.

And until 1967, the George Washington and her sisters were the only modern boomers. Their clunky Soviet counterparts carried only three missiles each, and usually had to surface in order to fire. This made them of limited deterrent value. But soon, virtually every nuclear power copied the George Washington class. The first “Yankee” class SSBN entered service in 1967, the first Resolution boat in 1968, and the first of the French Redoutables in 1971. China would eventually follow suit, although the PLAN’s first genuinely modern SSBNs have only entered service recently. The Indian Navy’s INS Arihant will likely enter service in the next year or so.

The five boats of the George Washington class conducted deterrent patrols until 1982, when the SALT II Treaty forced their retirement. Three of the five (including George Washington) continued in service as nuclear attack submarines for several more years.

Los Angeles:

Immortalized in the Tom Clancy novels Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, the U.S. Los Angeles class is the longest production line of nuclear submarines in history, constituting sixty-two boats and first entering service in 1976. Forty-one subs remain in commission today, continuing to form the backbone of the USN’s submarine fleet.

The Los Angeles (or 688) class are outstanding examples of Cold War submarines, equally capable of conducting anti-surface or anti-submarine warfare. In wartime, they would have been used to penetrate Soviet base areas, where Russian boomers were protected by rings of subs, surface ships, and aircraft, and to protect American carrier battle groups.

In 1991, two Los Angeles class attack boats launched the first ever salvo of cruise missiles against land targets, ushering in an entirely new vision of how submarines could impact warfare. While cruise missile armed submarines had long been part of the Cold War duel between the United States and the Soviet Union, most attention focused either on nuclear delivery or anti-ship attacks. Submarine launched Tomahawks gave the United States a new means for kicking in the doors of anti-access/area denial systems. The concept has proven so successful that four Ohio class boomers were refitted as cruise missile submarines, with the USS Florida delivering the initial strikes of the Libya intervention.

The last Los Angeles class submarine is expected to leave service in at some point in the 2020s, although outside factors may delay that date. By that time, new designs will undoubtedly have exceeded the 688 in terms of striking land targets, and in capacity for conducting anti-submarine warfare. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles class will have carved out a space as the sub-surface mainstay of the world’s most powerful Navy for five decades.

Conclusion

Fortunately, the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct conflict during the Cold War, meaning that many of the technologies and practices of advanced submarine warfare were never employed in anger. However, every country in the world that pretends to serious maritime power is building or acquiring advanced submarines. The next submarine war will look very different from the last, and it’s difficult to predict how it will play out. We can be certain, however, that the fight will be conducted in silence.

Honorable Mention: Ohio, 260O-21, Akula, Alfa, Seawolf, Swiftsure, I-201, Kilo, S class, Type VII

Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls.

All Images: Wikicommons.

Editor's Note: This piece first appeared on January 18. It is being recirculated due to reader interest. 

Peter Suciu

Japan, Asia

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force increasingly resembles the former Imperial Japanese Navy, but in a smaller size.

Here's What You Need to Remember: One type of warship the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force won't operate is a battleship, and there are no plans for a 21st-century version of the Yamato super battleship.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force increasingly resembles the former Imperial Japanese Navy, but in a smaller size. It has a fleet of some 154 ships and operates 346 aircraft. In 2000 it has also been the world's fourth-largest navy by tonnage, and likely will only increase in size.

In December 2018, Tokyo approved a plan to modify its two Izumo-class helicopter carriers to embark the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II jet fighter. The modifications would enable Japan to operate flattops with fixed-wing aircraft for the first time since World War II. The Japanese government also announced as part of its record-setting defense budget it would purchase additional F-35 aircraft.

With an eventual plan to be equipped with 105 F-35As and 42 F-35Bs, Japan would become the largest operator of the fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft outside of the United States. 

Not Battleships But The Next Best Thing

One type of warship the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force won't operate is a battleship, and there are no plans for a 21st-century version of the Yamato super battleship.

However, according to a recent report from TheDrive, citing Japanese media, Tokyo is now considering the feasibility of procuring two "super-destroyers." Such warships – much like the modified flattops – would seem to be in contradiction of Japan's 1947 Constitution, which renounced war, but is also seen to suggest that Japan's military forces are maintained for the purpose of self-defense.

In this case, however, the super-destroyers would serve as a replacement to the pair of planned land-based Aegis Ashore systems. Work on those was suspended due to technical issues, costs and domestic criticism. The destroyers would be focused on missile defense – primarily from North Korea – and would be equipped with a version of the Aegis combat system that is equipped with Lockheed Martin's AN/SPY-7 Long Range Discrimination Radar. That platform was originally intended for the shore-based Aegis system.

Nikkei Asia reported that the funding for the system modifications of the AN/SPY-7 will be allocated in Japan's fiscal 2021 budget.

While the Defense Ministry has been expected to approve the vessels, based on an interim report that is due later this month from a private-sector technical study, officials have also considered the option of a special-purpose warship that could be dedicated to intercepting missiles. However, despite the fact that such a vessel would cost less, it could be far more vulnerable to submarine and air attacks.

The other consideration is that even as North Korean missiles are seen as the primary threat, Japan has other priorities that include patrolling the East China Sea due to increased Chinese aggression, and new Aegis-equipped destroyers could be a practical addition to the fleet due to their maneuverability and defenses.

One issue outstanding could be that of personnel. Tokyo opted for the Aegis Ashore system to address the lack of personnel, but now the Maritime SDF may need to be further expanded with the addition of such warships.

A New Class

Yet to come into focus is whether Tokyo would opt to build a new warship or a derivative of vessels currently in the fleet. TheDrive cited a report from Tokyo's Kyodo News agency, which suggested that the government was considering a vessel with a standard displacement of around 8,000 tons – which would be larger than the current Maya-class's displacement of 8,200 tons.

The Maya-class is a modified version of the Atago-class, and the lead vessel Maya was commissioned on March 19, 2020, with a second vessel, Haguro, set to enter service in March of next year. These vessels were also designed to enhance Japan's ballistic missile defense capabilities, but now it seems that Tokyo is thinking even bigger.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Security, Asia

This was the first time since Washington and Taipei ended formal diplomatic ties in 1979 that the island nation has admitted the presence of U.S. forces.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Despite the fact that Washington has not officially acknowledged the presence of U.S. troops in Taiwan for more than forty years, it is known that military exchanges had been commonplace prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.

This week the Taiwanese government publicly acknowledged that members of the United States Marine Corps have begun training operations on the island nation. A unit of Marine Raiders was reportedly deployed to Taiwan to help boost Taipei's military readiness.

This was the first time since Washington and Taipei ended formal diplomatic ties in 1979—when the United States formally recognized the People's Republic of China—that the island nation has admitted the presence of U.S. forces.

According to Newsweek, which cited the Taipei-based United Daily News, the Taiwan Marine Corps will receive four weeks of training under the American Special Forces unit. The Raiders will reportedly provide training on amphibious assault operations and speedboat infiltration techniques at the Tsoying military base in the southwestern port city of Kaohsiung.

The Marine Raiders were believed to have arrived on the island nation as early as October 26, and subsequently observed two weeks of quarantine as part of the island's measures to contain the novel coronavirus. These are the first troops to conduct training with the Taiwanese military since the Covid-19 outbreak began earlier this year.

"In order to maintain regional peace and stability, routine security cooperation and exchanges between the militaries of Taiwan and the United States are proceeding as usual," the Taiwanese Navy said in a statement on its website.

Plausible deniability 

Despite the acknowledgement from Taipei, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) on Tuesday refused to confirm if the Marines have been deployed to the island nation. Stars & Stripes reported that Pentagon spokesperson John Supple said in a statement to the news outlet via Indo-Pacific Command that reports about the Marines on Taiwan were inaccurate.

"The United States remains committed to our One-China Policy," Supple noted, referring to a policy acknowledging that Beijing believes it has sovereignty over Taiwan. Beijing maintains that the island is a breakaway province that would be brought under its control, even if force is required.

Despite the fact that Washington maintains no formal relations with Taiwan, which has a democratically-elected government, current U.S. law—the Taiwan Relations Act—requires that it ensures that Taiwan can defend itself. It has been in place for more than forty years, and ensures Taipei's defense needs.

"The United States will continue to make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities," added Supple.

Last month, the United States Department of State approved a second weapons sale to Taiwan in just over a week. This most recent deal was for 400 anti-ship cruise missiles, worth a reported $2.37 billion. That followed the sale of three weapons systems in a separate deal worth $1.8 billion. It was the ninth weapons sale approved by Washington to Taipei since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

In addition to the 400 Boeing Harpoon Block II missiles, the recent deal also includes 100 Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems and exercise missiles, radar trucks, and test equipment, along with U.S. technical assistance.

Worst Kept Secret 

Despite the fact that Washington has not officially acknowledged the presence of U.S. troops in Taiwan for more than forty years, it is known that military exchanges had been commonplace prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.

U.S. Army Special Forces have been invited for annual joint sessions with Taiwan's equivalent Army Aviation and Special Forces Command in past years, while U.S. Army Green Berets had taken part in Operation Balance Temper, which took place in the mountainous regions in the center of the island nation. Additionally, U.S. Navy SEALs have trained with Taiwanese frogmen off the coast of the Penghu Islands during Operation Flash Tamper.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

History, Europe

The casualties number in the tens of millions. 

Here's What You Need To Remember: The scars of the war remain, not least in the absence of the populations exterminated during the conflict. The states occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war (including Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine) remain deeply suspicious of Russian intentions. For its part, memory of the war in Russia continues to condition Russian foreign policy, and Russia’s broader response to Europe.

The war between Germany and the Soviet Union officially began in late June 1941, although the threat of conflict had loomed since the early 1930s. Germany and the USSR launched a joint war against Poland in September of 1939, which the Soviets followed up with invasions of Finland, Romania, and the Baltic states across the following year.

After Germany crushed France, and determined that it could not easily drive Great Britain from the war, the Wehrmacht turned its attention back to the East. Following the conquests of Greece and Yugolavia in the spring of 1941, Berlin prepared its most ambitious campaign; the destruction of Soviet Russia. The ensuing war would result in a staggering loss of human life, and in the final destruction of the Nazi regime.

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The Fight on Land

On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe struck Soviet forces across a wide front along the German-Soviet frontier. Romanian forces attacked into Soviet-occupied Bessarabia on the same day. The Finnish armed forces joined the fight later that week, with Hungarian troops and aircraft entering combat at the beginning of July. By that time, a significant contribution of Italian troops was on its way to the Eastern Front. A Spanish volunteer division would eventually join the fight, along with large formations recruited from Soviet prisoners of war and from the local civilian population of occupied Soviet territories.

The course of the war is far too complicated to detail in this article. Suffice to say that the German enjoyed overwhelming success for the first five months of the war, before weather and stiffening Red Army resistance led to a Soviet victory in the Battle of Moscow. Germany resumed the offensive in 1942, only to suffer a major defeat at Stalingrad. The Battle of Kursk, in 1943, ended the Wehrmacht’s offensive ambitions. 1943, 1944, and 1945 saw the pace of Soviet conquest gradually accelerate, with the monumental offensives of late 1944 shattering the German armed forces. The war turned the Wehrmacht and the Red Army into finely honed fighting machines, while also draining both of equipment and manpower. The Soviets enjoyed the support of Western industry, while the Germans relied on the resources of occupied Europe.

The Fight in the Air

Mercifully, the nature of the war did not offer many opportunities for strategic bombing. Russia launched a few sorties against German cities in the first days of the war, usually suffering catastrophic casualties. For their part, the German Luftwaffe concentrated on tactical support of the Wehrmacht. Germany did launch a few large air raids against Russian cities, but did not maintain anything approaching a strategic campaign.

Notwithstanding the improvement of the Soviet Air Force across the war, and the effectiveness in particular of attack aircraft, in general the Luftwaffe mauled its Soviet foe. This remained the case even as the Soviet aviation industry far outstripped the German, and as the Combined Bomber Offensive drew the attention of the Luftwaffe to the west.

The Fight at Sea

Naval combat does not normally loom large in histories of the War in the East. Nevertheless, Soviet and Axis forces fought in the Arctic, the Baltic, and the Black Sea for most of the conflict. In the north, Soviet air and naval forces supported convoys from the Western allies to Murmansk, and harassed German positions in Norway. In the Black Sea, German and Romanian ships struggled against the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, winning important victories until the tide of the land battle turned. In the Baltic, Russian submarines and small craft fought a guerilla conflict against Germany and Finland for the first three years, although the Germans successfully leveraged their surface naval superiority in support of retreats in the final year of the war.

The Fight Against Civilians

The Holocaust is perhaps the most remembered legacy of the War in the East. The invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union brought the bulk of Eastern Europe’s Jewish population under Nazi control, facilitating a German policy of extermination. For non-Jews, German occupation policies were nearly as brutal, although populations sympathetic to the anti-Soviet crusade were sometimes spared.

Towards the end of the war, the Soviets did their best to return the favor. Soviet depredations against the German civilian population of East and Central Europe do not generally received the same degree of attention as German actions, in no small part because of an enduring (if problematic) sense that the German deserved what they got. Other Eastern European populations were caught in the crossfire, suffering starvation and other depredations from both sides. Nevertheless, there is no question that the Soviets (and the peoples of Eastern Europe) suffered far more deeply from the war than the Germans.

The Costs

The raw statistics of the war are nothing short of stunning. On the Soviet side, some seven million soldiers died in action, with another 3.6 million dying in German POW camps. The Germans lost four million soldiers in action, and another 370000 to the Soviet camp system. Some 600000 soldiers from other participants (mostly Eastern European) died as well. These numbers do not include soldiers lost on either side of the German-Polish War, or the Russo-Finnish War.

The civilian population of the territory in conflict suffered terribly from the war, in part because of the horrific occupation policies of the German (and the Soviets), and in part because of a lack of food and other necessities of life. Around 15 million Soviet civilians are thought to have been killed. Some three million ethnic Poles died (some before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but many after) along with around three million Jews of Polish and another two million of Soviet citizenship (included in the Soviet statistics). Somewhere between 500000 and 2 million German civilians died in the expulsions that followed the war.

Statistics of this magnitude are inevitably imprecise, and scholars on all sides of the war continue to debate the size of military and civilian losses. There is little question, however, that the War in the East was the most brutal conflict ever endured by humankind. There is also little question that the Red Army provided the most decisive blows against Nazi Germany, causing the vast majority of German casualties during World War II as a whole.

Postwar

The end of the War in the East left the Soviet Union in control of a vast portion of the Eurasian continent. Red Army forces occupied Germany, Poland, Czechosolvakia, parts of the Balkans, the Baltic states, and parts of Finland. The Western allies remained in control of Greece and much of western Germany, while Joseph Tito established an independent communist regime in Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union redrew the map of Eastern Europe, annexing large chunks of Poland, Germany, and the Baltics, and ceding much of Germany to Polish control. Russian domination over the region would last into the early 1990s, when the layers of the Soviet Empire began to peel away.

The scars of the war remain, not least in the absence of the populations exterminated during the conflict. The states occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of the war (including Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine) remain deeply suspicious of Russian intentions. For its part, memory of the war in Russia continues to condition Russian foreign policy, and Russia’s broader response to Europe.

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

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

This first appeared in 2016. 

Peter Suciu

Security, Asia

South Korean missile defenses are getting an upgrade.

Here's What You Need to Remember: "JTAGS is vital to warfighters and of growing importance as we create true Joint All-Domain Command and Control systems, especially as we find new ways to integrate and leverage space-based assets.”

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Army have enhanced the Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) capabilities in South Korea. The deployment of the JTAGS system will improve battle-space awareness and improve missile defense. This has marked the completion of phase one of the platform's modernization efforts.

JTAGS was first fielded in tactical shelters in 1997 to provide in-theater missile warning using data directly from satellite sensors. It receives and processes data that is directly down-linked from the Overhead Persistent Infrared constellation of satellites, which include the Defense Support Program and Space-Based Infrared System sensors, and other infrared satellite sensors. Networked sensor data is also provided from the Highly Elliptical Orbit sensor.

Additionally, 3D stereo processing of multiple sensors is performed to greatly improve tactical parameters. This technology was first developed at Northrop Grumman in 1994 and is still used today throughout the missile warning community. The system disseminates near-real-time warning, alerting and cueing information on ballistic missile launches and other tactical events of interest throughout the theater using multiple communications networks. This allows for the dissemination of data directly to combatant commanders.

Phase One 

As part of the phase one modernization efforts, Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Army installed JTAGS Block II in permanent facilities in Japan, Qatar, Italy, and most recently the Republic of Korea (South Korea). This has included updates to the hardware, software, and communication systems, as well as enhancements to cybersecurity and soldier-machine interface.

The deployments include soldier training as well as exercise support capabilities.

“This is a tremendous milestone in our decades-long mission of delivering missile warning and defense capabilities to protect our joint warfighters and allies," said Kenn Todorov, vice president and general manager, combat systems and mission readiness, Northrop Grumman. "JTAGS is vital to warfighters and of growing importance as we create true Joint All-Domain Command and Control systems, especially as we find new ways to integrate and leverage space-based assets.”

Four JTAGS are deployed worldwide as part of the U.S. Strategic Command's Theater Event System. U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command soldiers operate JTAGS, providing 24/7 support to theater operations.

Phase Two 

With the completion of phase one, the defense contractor has already begun executing phase two of the JTAGS Pre-planned Product improvement (P3I) modernization program. It includes the delivery of additional sensor processing capabilities and updating software architecture.

Under the direction of the JTAGS Product Office, Integrated Fires Mission Command (IFMC) Project Office, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, Northrop Grumman has been the JTAGS prime contractor since 1994, responsible for developing, fielding, maintaining and enhancing the system worldwide.

Joint Army-Navy crews operate the JTAGS system, which consists of a deployable towed shelter and a crew of fifteen soldiers and sailors which provides 24-hour, 365 day-a-year, all weather threat monitoring.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Security, Asia

The Chinese People’s Armed Forces Coast Guard Corps (CPAFCGC) is also the world’s largest coast guard and has increasingly been taking on a role of a naval force.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The “militarization” of the China Coast Guard actually began in 2007 when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) transferred two Type 728 cutters, which at the time were the largest China Coast Guard ships in its fleet.

Despite being one of the newest—and certainly lesser-known—branches of the Central Military Commission, the Chinese People’s Armed Forces Coast Guard Corps (CPAFCGC) is also the world’s largest coast guard and has increasingly been taking on a role of a naval force. This month the Chinese Communist Party released a draft law that would empower the Chinese Coast Guard to use actual “military force” against foreign vessels, and that could potentially be applied in disputes in the South China Sea.

Under this new law, China will allow its coast guard personnel to use weapons when foreign vessels are involved in illegal activities in waters under Beijing’s jurisdiction. The draft details, which were first revealed by the National People’s Congress on Wednesday, maintain that the coast guard has the authority to also forcibly drive away foreign vessels that intrude into Chinese territorial waters or even to interrogate their crews.

Paramilitary Unit

This empowerment of the coast guard comes after the service was incorporated into the armed police force, which also included the coast guard fleet being upgraded with significantly larger vessels.

The unit was formerly the maritime branch of the People’s Armed Police (PAP) Border Security, which served the Ministry of Public Security until 2013. Then in March of that year, Beijing announced it would form a unified coast guard commanded by the State Oceanic Administration, and that new unit was then transferred from civilian control to the PAP in 2018 and ultimately under the command of the Central Military Commission.

The “militarization” of the China Coast Guard actually began in 2007 when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) transferred two Type 728 cutters, which at the time were the largest China Coast Guard ships in its fleet. In March 2017, the service sent its 12,000 ton China Coast Guard (CCG) 3901 cutter—which is not only the largest cutter in the world, but it is also larger in size the U.S. Navy’s aging 9,800 ton Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers or the 8,300-9,800 ton Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyed.

The CCG 3901 is a true warship and is armed 76mm H/PJ-26 rapid fire naval guns, two auxiliary guns, and two anti-aircraft guns. It has a maximum speed of twenty-five knots and given its size it is easy to see why some analysts have nicknamed the white hulled ship the “Monster.”

China’s legal changes come as Beijing has amplified its claims to the Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu by Beijing), which are administered by Tokyo, and could be used to target Japanese fishing vessels near the uninhabited islands.

The draft law’s rules of engagement are just the latest transition of the China Coast Guard into a true quasi-military force—and one under the PAP, which answers directly to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year and is being republished due to reader interest.​

Image: Reuters

Robert Farley

History, Asia

Friendly fire casualties were common in the Vietnam War.

Here's What You Need to Know: The mistaken attack killed three Australian sailors.

Friendly fire casualties were common in the Vietnam War. The unconventional nature of the conflict made for more than the occasional artillery mishap and engagements in dense vegetation often meant combatants had little opportunity to visually identify their targets before firing. As morale deteriorated late in the war, “fragging” incidents became common, with enlisted personnel turning upon their officers. And of course, relations between American and South Vietnamese forces were always strained.

Even in this context, however, one “friendly fire” incident stands out. On June 17, 1968, U.S. fighter jets apparently launched air-to-air missiles that struck a U.S. Navy heavy cruiser and a Royal Australian Navy guided-missile destroyer. How did this happen?

The Ships

In mid-June 1968, numerous U.S. Navy and allied vessels were operating in the vicinity of Tiger Island, just on the North Vietnamese side of the DMZ. The ships were deployed to interdict the “maritime Ho Chi Minh Trail,” which used small boats to deliver supplies to insurgents in coastal areas, as well as to engage North Vietnamese targets with gunfire. 

The USS Boston was a 17,000-ton heavy cruiser, modified from her original World War II configuration to carry a Terrier surface-to-air missile aft. Commissioned in 1944, Boston had served in the final campaigns of the Second World War before entering the reserve fleet. Reactivated for Korea, she was later one of a few vessels to receive a single-end conversion, with the aft turret replaced by the Terrier missile system. Ironically, the guns of USS Boston would prove more lasting than the missiles, which were quickly rendered obsolete by rapid advances in missile technology. Boston was in Vietnam primarily because of what her guns could deliver to Vietnamese shore targets. Boston was accompanied by USS Edson, a 4,000 ton Forest Sherman class destroyer with a heavy gun armament, two small patrol vessels, “swift boats” PCF-12 and PCF-19, and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter were also in the area. 

Alongside the U.S. ships served the Australian destroyer HMAS Hobart. Hobart was a 4,600-ton guided-missile destroyer of a modified Charles F. Adams design. Australia had attempted to build its own class of destroyers, but the effort had resulted in over-priced, underperforming ships. Consequently, Canberra made the decision to buy destroyers from the United States, part of a historic shift of alignment from the United Kingdom to the United States. Hobart was primarily designed for air warfare (with a Tartar SAM system) but also carried a 5” gun and various anti-submarine equipment.

The Incident

On the night of June 16, 1968, unidentified aircraft fired missiles at PCF-12 and PCF-19. Two missiles hit PCF-19, sinking it rapidly. PCF-12 and the Coast Guard cutter responded, pulling survivors out of the water. PCF-12 claimed to identify a pair of North Vietnamese helicopters as the assailants, although such craft had not previously been reported in the area. 

Some hours later, jet aircraft approached the allied flotilla. Hobart and Boston evaluated the aircraft as friendly, rendering them completely surprised when missiles struck the ships. The destroyer USS Edson also came under attack but was not hit. Boston, heavily armored by the standards of the day, suffered only minor damage. Hobart, however, was hit by a missile that killed one sailor and wounded two others. The aircraft circled around for a second pass, firing another two missiles, both of which hit the destroyer. Another sailor was killed and six wounded by the second salvo. One of the missiles ended up in an empty magazine devoted to Hobart’s anti-submarine warheads; had it been filled with weapons, the consequences could have been dire. Hobart opened up when it appeared that the aircraft was swinging around for another pass, firing five 5” shells from its forward gun. Analysis later determined that the missiles were AIM-7s, not generally known to be of use in the Vietnamese People’s Air Force.

The Appraisal

It was quickly apparent that the attack against the large ships could only have come from U.S. aircraft, and it was soon determined that U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantoms were responsible. How did F-4s mistake U.S. ships for North Vietnamese targets? USS Boston, in particular, was a huge ship by the standards of the Vietnam War. By contrast, the largest ships available to the Vietnamese People’s Navy were small patrol boats, generally less than 100 tons in displacement.

The best explanation for the confused night action is that PCF-12 identified enemy helicopters as the assailants that sank PCF-19. The precise type of helicopter remains unclear, but the Phantoms were summoned to deal with the helicopters. Reportedly, USAF Phantoms of the era carried radars that could not distinguish low-flying helicopters from even large surface vessels. An inquiry determined that the attack on Hobart was definitely a friendly fire incident, but also that the attack on PCF-19 earlier in the evening was the result of friendly fire. However, USAF pilots in Vietnam faced significant restrictions against firing on targets that could not be visually identified, making it curious that the Phantoms let loose against the purported helicopters. For what it’s worth, the case has become famous among UFO enthusiasts, who suggested that the F-4s were targeting UFOs when they struck the Australian ship.

Concluding Thoughts

Some lessons; even relatively small weapons (such as an AIM-7) can inflict significant damage on modern warships. While Boston was armored as a World War II heavy cruiser and thus was unlikely to suffer any real damage, the missiles that hit Hobart inflicted casualties and could have done serious damage under the right (or wrong) circumstances. The death of three Australian sailors was tragic, but an unlucky hit could have resulted in the loss of the ship.

Second, simple courtesy should demand that pilots tasked to missions over water should be trained to identify the difference between an American heavy cruiser and a North Vietnamese patrol boat (or helicopter for that matter). At the very least, pilots operating over water in the same area as friendly surface vessels should have had a sense of the danger implicit in launching missiles without clear targets. The Vietnam War was riven with inter-service conflict and inappropriate joint training, although the results weren’t always as dramatic as a missile attack on a cruiser.

Modern technology makes incidents like this far less likely, with improved friend or foe recognition systems and radars that are better at discriminating between surface and air targets. At the same time, the increased lethality of modern weapons threatens to make the impact of friendly fire incidents considerably more devastating.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article first appeared in March 2020.

Image: Flickr

Robert Farley

Security, Middle East

Built on a foundation of pre-independence militias, supplied with cast-off World War II weapons, the Israel Defense Forces have enjoyed remarkable success in the field.

Here's What You Need To Remember: When considering the effectiveness of Israeli weapons, and the expertise of the men and women who wield them, it’s worth noting that for all the tactical and operational success the IDF has enjoyed, Israel remains in a strategically perilous position. The inability of Israel to develop long-term, stable, positive relationships with its immediate neighbors, regional powers, and the subject populations of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip means that Jerusalem continues to feel insecure, its dominance on land, air, and sea notwithstanding.

Since 1948, the state of Israel has fielded a frighteningly effective military machine. Built on a foundation of pre-independence militias, supplied with cast-off World War II weapons, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have enjoyed remarkable success in the field. In the 1960s and 1970s, both because of its unique needs and because of international boycotts, Israel began developing its own military technologies, as well as augmenting the best foreign tech. Today, Israel boasts one of the most technologically advanced military stockpiles in the world, and one of the world’s most effective workforces.

(This first appeared in 2015.)

Here are five of the most deadly systems that the Israeli Defense Forces currently employ.

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Merkava

The Merkava tank joined the IDF in 1979, replacing the modified foreign tanks (most recently of British and American vintage) that the Israelis had used since 1948. Domestic design and construction avoided problems of unsteady foreign supply, while also allowing the Israelis to focus on designs optimized for their environment, rather than for Central Europe.  Around 1,600 Merkavas of various types have entered service, with several hundred more still on the way.

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The Merkava entered service after the great tank battles of the Middle East had ended (at least for Israel). Consequently, the Merkavas have often seen combat in different contexts that their designers expected. The United States took major steps forward with the employment of armor in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly in the former) in a counter-insurgency context, but the Israelis have gone even farther. After mixed results during the Hezbollah war, the IDF, using updated Merkava IVs, has worked hard to integrate the tanks into urban fighting. In both of the recent Gaza wars, the IDF has used Merkavas to penetrate Palestinian positions while active defense systems keep crews safe. Israel has also developed modifications that enhance the Merkavas’ capabilities in urban and low-intensity combat.

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Indeed, the Merkavas have proved so useful in this regard that Israel has cancelled plans to stop line production, despite a lack of significant foreign orders.

F-15I Thunder:

The Israeli Air Force has flown variants of the F-15 since the 1970s, and has become the world’s most versatile and effective user of the Eagle. As Tyler Rogoway’s recent story on the IAF fleet makes clear, the Israelis have perfected the F-15 both for air supremacy and for strike purposes. Flown by elite pilots, the F-15Is (nicknamed “thunder”) of the IAF remain the most lethal squadron of aircraft in the Middle East.

The F-15I provides Israel with several core capabilities. It remains an effective air-to-air combat platform, superior to the aircraft available to Israel’s most plausible foes (although the Eurofighter Typhoons and Dassault Rafales entering service in the Gulf, not to mention Saudi Arabia’s own force of F-15SAs, undoubtedly would provide some competition. But as Rogoway suggests, the Israelis have worked long and hard at turning the F-15 into an extraordinarily effective strike platform, one capable of hitting targets with precision at long range. Most analysts expect that the F-15I would play a key role in any Israeli strike against Iran, along with some of its older brethren.

Jericho III:

The earliest Israeli nuclear deterrent came in the form of the F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers that the IAF used to such great effect in conventional missions in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. Soon, however, Israel determined that it required a more effective and secure deterrent, and began to invest heavily in ballistic missiles. The Jericho I ballistic missile entered service in the early 1970s, to eventually be replaced by the Jericho II and Jericho III.

The Jericho III is the most advanced ballistic missile in the region, presumably (Israel does not offer much data on its operation) capable of striking targets not only in the Middle East, but also across Europe, Asia, and potentially North America. The Jericho III ensures that any nuclear attack against Israel would be met with devastating retaliation, especially as it is unlikely that Israel could be disarmed by a first strike. Of course, given that no potential Israeli foe has nuclear weapons (or will have them in the next decade, at least), the missiles give Jerusalem presumptive nuclear superiority across the region.

Dolphin:

Israel acquired its first submarine, a former British “S” class, in 1958. That submarine and others acquired in the 1960s played several important military roles, including defense of the Israeli coastline, offensive operations against Egyptian and Syrian shipping, and the delivery of commando teams in war and peace. These early boats were superseded by the Gal class, and finally by the German Dolphin class (really two separate classes related to the Type 212) boats, which are state-of-the-art diesel-electric subs.

The role of the Dolphin class in Israel’s nuclear deterrent has almost certainly been wildly overstated. The ability of a diesel electric submarine to carry out deterrent patrols is starkly limited, no matter what ordnance they carry. However, the Dolphin remains an effective platform for all sorts of other missions required by the IDF. Capable of maritime reconnaissance, of sinking or otherwise interdicting enemy ships, and also of delivering special forces to unfriendly coastlines, the Dolphins represent a major Israeli security investment, and one of the most potentially lethal undersea forces in the region.

The Israeli Soldier:

The technology that binds all of these other systems together is the Israeli soldier. Since 1948 (and even before) Israel has committed the best of its human capital to the armed forces. The creation of fantastic soldiers, sailors, and airmen doesn’t happen by accident, and doesn’t result simply from the enthusiasm and competence of the recruits. The IDF has developed systems of recruitment, training, and retention that allow it to field some of the most competent, capable soldiers in the world. None of the technologies above work unless they have smart, dedicated, well-trained operators to make them function at their fullest potential.

Parting Thoughts: 

When considering the effectiveness of Israeli weapons, and the expertise of the men and women who wield them, it’s worth noting that for all the tactical and operational success the IDF has enjoyed, Israel remains in a strategically perilous position. The inability of Israel to develop long-term, stable, positive relationships with its immediate neighbors, regional powers, and the subject populations of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip means that Jerusalem continues to feel insecure, its dominance on land, air, and sea notwithstanding. Tactics and technologies, however effective and impressive, cannot solve these problems; only politics can.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

 

James Holmes, Robert Farley

Security,

An impressive list.

Here's What You Need to Know: These weapons of war were the best in their day.

(This is a series of 5 pieces combined for your reading pleasure that have ranked as some of our most popular ever.)

5 Best Battleships:

Ranking the greatest battleships of all time is a tad easier than ranking naval battles. Both involve comparing apples with oranges. But at least taking the measure of individual men-of-war involves comparing one apple with one orange. That's a compact endeavor relative to sorting through history to discern how seesaw interactions shaped the destinies of peoples and civilizations.

Still, we need some standard for distinguishing between battlewagons. What makes a ship great? It makes sense, first of all, to exclude any ship before the reign of Henry VIII. There was no line-of-battle ship in the modern sense before England's "great sea-king" founded the sail-driven Royal Navy in the 16th century. Galley warfare was quite a different affair from lining up capital ships and pounding away with naval gunnery.

One inescapable chore is to compare ships' technical characteristics. A recent piece over at War Is Boring revisits an old debate among battleship and World War II enthusiasts. Namely, who would've prevailed in a tilt between a U.S. Navy Iowa-class dreadnought and the Imperial Japanese Navy's Yamato? Author Michael Peck restates the common wisdom from when I served in mighty Wisconsin, last of the battleships: it depends on who landed the first blow. Iowas commanded edges in speed and fire control, while Yamato and her sister Musashi outranged us and boasted heavier weight of shot. We would've made out fine had we closed the range before the enemy scored a lucky hit from afar. If not, things may have turned ugly.

Though not in so many words, Peck walks through the basic design features that help qualify a battleship for history's elite -- namely guns, armor, and speed. Makes sense, doesn't it? Offensive punch, defensive resiliency, and speed remain the hallmarks of any surface combatant even in this missile age. Note, however, that asymmetries among combat vessels result in large part from the tradeoffs naval architects must make among desirable attributes.

Only sci-fi lets shipwrights escape such choices. A Death Star of the sea would sport irresistible weaponry, impenetrable armor, and engines able to drive the vessel at breakneck speed. But again, you can't have everything in the real world. Weight is a huge challenge. A battleship loaded down with the biggest guns and thickest armor would waddle from place to place. It would make itself an easy target for nimbler opponents or let them run away. On the other hand, assigning guns and speed top priority works against rugged sides. A ship that's fleet of foot but lightly armored exposes its innards and crew to enemy gunfire. And so forth. Different navies have different philosophies about tradeoffs. Hence the mismatches between Yamato and Iowa along certain parameters. Thus has it always been when fighting ships square off.

But a battleship is more than a machine. Machines neither rule the waves nor lose out in contests for mastery. People do. People ply the seas, and ideas about shiphandling and tactics guide their combat endeavors. Great Britain's Royal Navy triumphed repeatedly during the age of sail. Its success owed less to superior materiel -- adversaries such as France and the United States sometimes fielded better ships -- than to prolonged voyages that raised seamanship and gunnery to a high art. Indeed, a friend likes to joke that the 18th century's finest warship was a French 74-gun ship captured -- and crewed -- by Royal Navy mariners. The best hardware meets the best software.

That's why in the end, debating Jane's Fighting Ships entries -- lists of statistics -- for Iowa, Yamato, and their brethren from other times and places fails to satisfy. What looks like the best ship on paper may not win. A ship need not outmatch its opponents by every technical measure. It needs to be good enough. That is, it must match up well enough to give an entrepreneurial crew, mindful of the tactical surroundings, a reasonable chance to win. The greatest battleship thus numbers among the foremost vessels of its age by material measures, and is handled by masterful seamen.

But adding the human factor to the mix still isn't enough. There's an element of opportunity, of sheer chance. True greatness comes when ship and crew find themselves in the right place at the right time to make history. A battleship's name becomes legend if it helps win a grand victory, loses in dramatic fashion, or perhaps accomplishes some landmark diplomatic feat. A vessel favored (or damned) by fortune, furthermore, becomes a strategic compass rose. It becomes part of the intellectual fund on which future generations draw when making maritime strategy. It's an artifact of history that helps make history.

So we arrive at one guy's gauge for a vessel's worth: strong ship, iron men, historical consequence. In effect, then, I define greatest as most iconic. Herewith, my list of history's five most iconic battleships, in ascending order:

Bismarck:

The German Navy's Bismarck lived a short life that supplies the stuff of literature to this day. Widely considered the most capable battleship in the Atlantic during World War II, Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, with a single round from her main battery. On the other hand, the leadership's martial spirit proved brittle when the going got tough. In fact, it shattered at the first sharp rap. As commanders' resolve went, so went the crew's.

Notes Bernard Brodie, the dreadnought underwent an "extreme oscillation" in mood. Exaltation stoked by the encounter with Hood gave way to despair following a minor torpedo strike from a British warplane. Admiral Günther Lütjens, the senior officer on board, gathered Bismarck crewmen after the air attack and "implored them to meet death in a fashion becoming to good Nazis." A great coach Lütjens was not. The result? An "abysmally poor showing" in the final showdown with HMS Rodney, King George V, and their entourage. One turret crew fled their guns. Turret officers reportedly kept another on station only at gunpoint. Marksmanship and the guns' rate of fire -- key determinants of victory in gunnery duels -- suffered badly.

In short, Bismarck turned out to be a bologna flask (hat tip: Clausewitz), an outwardly tough vessel that shatters at the slightest tap from within. In 1939 Grand Admiral Erich Raeder lamented that the German surface fleet, flung into battle long before it matured, could do little more than "die with honor." Raeder was righter than he knew. Bismarck's death furnishes a parable that captivates navalists decades hence. How would things have turned out had the battlewagon's human factor proved less fragile? We'll never know. Doubtless her measure of honor would be bigger.

Yamato:

As noted at the outset, Yamato was an imposing craft by any standard. She displaced more than any battleship in history, as much as an early supercarrier, and bore the heaviest armament. Her mammoth 18-inch guns could sling 3,200-lb. projectiles some 25 nautical miles. Armor was over two feet thick in places. Among the three attributes of warship design, then, Yamato's designers clearly prized offensive and defensive strength over speed. The dreadnought could steam at 27 knots, not bad for a vessel of her proportions. But that was markedly slower than the 33 knots attainable by U.S. fast battleships.

Like Bismarck, Yamato is remembered mainly for falling short of her promise. She provides another cautionary tale about human fallibility. At Leyte Gulf in October 1944, a task force centered on Yamato bore down on the transports that had ferried General Douglas MacArthur's landing force ashore on Leyte, and on the sparse force of light aircraft carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts guarding the transports from seaward assault.

Next ensued the immortal charge of the tin-can sailors. The outclassed American ships charged Yamato and her retinue. Like Lütjens, Admiral Takeo Kurita, the task-force commander, appeared to wilt under less-than-dire circumstances. Historians still argue about whether he mistook Taffy 3, the U.S. Navy contingent, for a far stronger force; lost his nerve; or simply saw little point in sacrificing his ships and men. Whatever the case, Kurita ordered his fleet to turn back -- leaving MacArthur's expeditionary force mostly unmolested from the sea.

Yamato met a quixotic fate, though less ignominious than Bismarck's. In April 1945 the superbattleship was ordered to steam toward Okinawain company with remnants of the surface fleet, there to contest the Allied landings. The vessel would deliberately beach itself offshore, becoming an unsinkable gun emplacement until it was destroyed or its ammunition was exhausted. U.S. naval intelligence got wind of the scheme, however, and aerial bombardment dispatched Yamato before she could reach her destination. A lackluster end for history's most fearsome battlewagon.

Missouri:

Iowa and New Jersey were the first of the Iowa class and compiled the most enviable fighting records in the class, mostly in the Pacific War. Missouri was no slouch as a warrior, but -- alone on this list -- she's celebrated mainly for diplomatic achievements rather than feats of arms. General MacArthur accepted Japan's surrender on her weatherdecks in Tokyo Bay, leaving behind some of the most enduring images from 20th-century warfare. Missouri has been a metaphor for how to terminate big, open-ended conflicts ever since. For instance, President Bush the Elder invoked the surrender in his memoir. Missouri supplied a measuring stick for how Desert Storm might unfold. (And as it happens, a modernized Missouri was in Desert Storm.)

Missouri remained a diplomatic emissary after World War II. The battlewagon cruised to Turkey in the early months after the war, as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe and communist insurgencies menaced Greece and Turkey. Observers interpreted the voyage as a token of President Harry Truman's, and America's, commitment to keeping the Soviet bloc from subverting friendly countries. Message: the United States was in Europe to stay. Missouri thus played a part in the development of containment strategy while easing anxieties about American abandonment. Naval diplomacy doesn't get much better than that.

Mikasa:

Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō's flagship is an emblem for maritime command. The British-built Mikasa was arguably the finest battleship afloat during the fin de siècle years, striking the best balance among speed, protection, and armament. The human factor was strong as well. Imperial Japanese Navy seamen were known for their proficiency and élan, while Tōgō was renowned for combining shrewdness with derring-do. Mikasa was central to fleet actions in the Yellow Sea in 1904 and the Tsushima Strait in 1905 -- battles that left the wreckage of two Russian fleets strewn across the seafloor. The likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan considered Tsushima a near-perfect fleet encounter.

Like the other battleships listed here, Mikasa molded how subsequent generations thought about diplomacy and warfare. IJN commanders of the interwar years planned to replicate Tsushima Strait should Japan fall out with the United States. More broadly, Mikasa and the rest of the IJN electrified peoples throughout Asia and beyond. Japan, that is, proved that Western imperial powers could be beaten in battle and ultimately expelled from lands they had subjugated. Figures ranging from Sun Yat-sen to Mohandas Gandhi to W. E. B. Du Bois paid homage to Tsushima, crediting Japan with firing their enthusiasm for overthrowing colonial rule.

Mikasa, then, was more than the victor in a sea fight of modest scope. And her reputation outlived her strange fate. The vessel returned home in triumph following the Russo-Japanese War, only to suffer a magazine explosion and sink. For the Japanese people, the disaster confirmed that they had gotten a raw deal at the Portsmouth Peace Conference. Nevertheless, it did little to dim foreign observers' enthusiasm for Japan's accomplishments.Mikasa remained a talisman.

Victory:

Topping this list is the only battleship from the age of sail. HMS Victory was a formidable first-rate man-of-war, cannon bristling from its three gun decks. But her fame comes mainly from her association with Lord Horatio Nelson, whom Mahan styles "the embodiment of the sea power of Great Britain." In 1805 Nelson led his outnumbered fleet into combat against a combined Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar, near Gibraltar. Nelson and right-hand man Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood led columns of ships that punctured the enemy line of battle. The Royal Navy crushed its opponent in the ensuing melee, putting paid to Napoleon's dreams of invading the British Isles.

Felled on board his flagship that day, Nelson remains a synonym for decisive battle. Indeed, replicating Trafalgar became a Holy Grail for naval strategists across the globe. Permanently drydocked at Portsmouth, Victory is a shrine to Nelson and his exploits -- and the standard of excellence for seafarers everywhere. That entitles her to the laurels of history's greatest battleship.

Surveying this list of icons, two battleships made the cut because of defeats stemming from slipshod leadership, two for triumphs owing to good leadership, and one for becoming a diplomatic paragon. That's not a bad reminder that human virtues and frailties -- not wood, or metal, or shot -- are what make the difference in nautical enterprises.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College

*****

5 Best Aircraft Carriers:

Anyone who's tried to compare one piece of kit—ships, aircraft, weaponry of various types—to another will testify to how hard this chore is. Ranking aircraft carriers is no exception. Consulting the pages of Jane's Fighting Ships or Combat Fleets of the World sheds some light on the problem. For instance, a flattop whose innards house a nuclear propulsion plant boasts virtually unlimited cruising range, whereas a carrier powered by fossil fuels is tethered to its fuel source. As Alfred Thayer Mahan puts it, a conventional warship bereft of bases or a coterie of logistics ships is a "land bird" unable to fly far from home.

Or, size matters. The air wing—the complement of interceptors, attack planes and support aircraft that populate a carrier's decks—comprise its main battery or primary armament. The bigger the ship, the bigger the hangar and flight decks that accommodate the air wing.

Nor, as U.S. Navy carrier proponents like to point out, is the relationship between a carrier's tonnage and number of aircraft it can carry strictly linear. Consider two carriers that dominate headlines in Asia. Liaoning, the Chinese navy's refitted Soviet flattop, displaces about sixty-five thousand tons and sports twenty-six fixed-wing combat aircraft and twenty-four helicopters. Not bad. USS George Washington, however, tips the scales at around one hundred thousand tons but can operate some eighty-five to ninety aircraft.

And the disparity involves more than raw numbers of airframes. George Washington's warplanes are not just more numerous but generally more capable than their Chinese counterparts. U.S. flattops boast steam catapults to vault larger, heavier-laden aircraft into the wild blue. Less robust carriers use ski jumps to launch aircraft. That limits the size, fuel capacity, and weapons load—and thus the range, flight times and firepower—of their air wings. Larger, more capable carriers, then, can accommodate a larger, more capable, and changing mixes of aircraft with greater ease than their lesser brethren. Aircraft carriers' main batteries were modular before modular was cool.

And yet straight-up comparisons can mislead. The real litmus test for any man-of-war is its capacity to fulfill the missions for which it was built. In that sense George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, may not be "superior" to USS America, the U.S. Navy's latest amphibious helicopter carrier, or to Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force "helicopter destroyers"—a.k.a. light aircraft carriers—despite a far more lethal air wing and other material attributes. Nor do carriers meant to operate within range of shore-based fire support—tactical aircraft, anti-ship missiles—necessarily need to measure up to a Washington on a one-to-one basis. Land-based implements of sea power can be the great equalizer. Like any weapon system, then, a great carrier does the job for which it was designed superbly.

And lastly, there's no separating the weapon from its user. A fighting ship isn't just a hunk of steel but a symbiosis of crewmen and materiel. The finest aircraft carrier is one that's both well-suited to its missions and handled with skill and derring-do when and where it matters most. Those three indices—brute material capability, fitness for assigned missions, a zealous crew—are the indices for this utterly objective, completely indisputable list of the Top Five Aircraft Carriers of All Time.

5. USS Midway (CV-41):

Now a museum ship on the San Diego waterfront, Midway qualifies for this list less for great feats of arms than for longevity, and for being arguably history's most versatile warship. In all likelihood she was the most modified. Laid down during World War II, the flattop entered service just after the war. During the Cold War she received an angled flight deck, steam catapults, and other trappings befitting a supercarrier. Indeed, Midway's service spanned the entire Cold War, winding down after combat action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1991. Sheer endurance and flexibility entitles the old warhorse to a spot on this list.

4. USS Franklin (CV-13):

If Midway deserves a place mainly for technical reasons, the Essex-class carrier Franklin earns laurels for the resiliency of her hull and fortitude of her crew in battle. She was damaged in heavy fighting at Leyte Gulf in 1944. After refitting at Puget Sound Navy Yard, the flattop returned to the Western Pacific combat theater. In March 1945, having ventured closer to the Japanese home islands than any carrier to date, she fell under surprise assault by a single enemy dive bomber. Two semi-armor-piercing bombs penetrated her decks. The ensuing conflagration killed 724 and wounded 265, detonated ammunition below decks, and left the ship listing 13 degrees to starboard. One hundred six officers and 604 enlisted men remained on board voluntarily, bringing Franklin safely back to Pearl Harbor and thence to Brooklyn Navy Yard. Her gallantry in surviving such a pounding and returning to harbor merits the fourth position on this list.

3. Akagi:

Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's flagship serves as proxy for the whole Pearl Harbor strike force, a body composed of all six Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) frontline carriers and their escorts. Nagumo's was the most formidable such force of its day. Commanders and crewmen, moreover, displayed the audacity to do what appeared unthinkable—strike at the U.S. Pacific Fleet at its moorings thousands of miles away. Extraordinary measures were necessary to pull off such a feat. For example, freshwater tanks were filled with fuel to extend the ships' range and make a transpacific journey possible—barely.

The Pearl Harbor expedition exposed logistical problems that plagued the IJN throughout World War II. Indeed, Japan's navy never fully mastered the art of underway replenishment or built enough logistics ships to sustain operations far from home. As a result, Nagumo's force had too little time on station off Oahu to wreck the infrastructure the Pacific Fleet needed to wage war. And, admittedly, Akagi was lost at the Battle of Midway, not many months after it scaled the heights of operational excellence. Still, you have to give Akagi and the rest of the IJN task force their due. However deplorable Tokyo's purposes in the Pacific, her aircraft-carrier force ranks among the greatest of all time for sheer boldness and vision.

2. HMS Hermes (now the Indian Navy's Viraat):

It's hard to steam thousands of miles into an enemy's environs, fight a war on his ground, and win. And yet the Centaur-class flattop Hermes, flagship of a hurriedly assembled Royal Navy task force, pulled it off during the Falklands War of 1982. Like Midway, the British carrier saw repeated modifications, most recently for service as an anti-submarine vessel in the North Atlantic. Slated for decommissioning, her air wing was reconfigured for strike and fleet-air-defense missions when war broke out in the South Atlantic. For flexibility, and for successfully defying the Argentine contested zone, Hermes rates second billing here.

1. USS Enterprise (CV-6):

Having joined the Pacific Fleet in 1939, the Yorktown-class carrier was fortunate to be at sea on December 7, 1941, and thus to evade Nagumo's bolt from the blue. Enterprise went on to become the most decorated U.S. Navy ship of World War II, taking part in eighteen of twenty major engagements of the Pacific War. She sank, or helped sink, three IJN carriers and a cruiser at the Battle of Midway in 1942; suffered grave damage in the Solomons campaign, yet managed to send her air wing to help win the climatic Naval Battle of Guadalcanal; and went on to fight in such engagements as the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, and Okinawa. That's the stuff of legend. For compiling such a combat record, Enterprise deserves to be known as history's greatest aircraft carrier.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College

*****

5 Best Submarines: 

There have been three great submarine campaigns in history, and one prolonged duel. The First and Second Battles of the Atlantic pitted German U-boats against the escorts and aircraft of the United Kingdom and the United States. The Germans very nearly won World War I with the first campaign, and badly drained Allied resources in the second. In the third great campaign, the submarines of the US Navy destroyed virtually the entire commercial fleet of Japan, bringing the Japanese economy to its knees. US subs also devastated the Imperial Japanese Navy, sinking several of Tokyo’s most important capital ships.

But the period most evocative of our modern sense of submarine warfare was surely the forty year duel between the submarines of the USSR and the boats of the various NATO navies. Over the course of the Cold War, the strategic nature of the submarine changed; it moved from being a cheap, effective killer of capital ships to a capital ship in its own right. This was especially the case with the boomers, submarines that carried enough nuclear weapons to kill millions in a few minutes.

As with previous “5 Greatest” lists, the answers depend on the parameters; different sets of metrics will generate different lists. Our metrics concentrate on the strategic utility of specific submarine classes, rather than solely on their technical capabilities.

· Was the submarine a cost-effective solution to a national strategic problem?

· Did the submarine compare favorably with its contemporaries?

· Was the submarine’s design innovative?

And with that, the five best submarines of all time:

U-31:

The eleven boats of the U-31 class were constructed between 1912 and 1915. They operated in both of the periods of heavy action for German U-boats, early in the war before the suspension of unrestricted warfare, and again in 1917 when Germany decided to go for broke and cut the British Empire off at the knees. Four of these eleven boats (U-35, U-39, U-38, and U-34) were the four top killers of World War I; indeed, they were four of the five top submarines of all time in terms of tonnage sunk (the Type VII boat U-48 sneaks in at number 3). U-35, the top killer, sank 224 ships amounting to over half a million tons.

The U-31 boats were evolutionary, rather than revolutionary; they represented the latest in German submarine technology for the time, but did not differ dramatically from their immediate predecessors or successors. These boats had good range, a deck gun for destroying small shipping, and faster speeds surfaced than submerged. These characteristics allowed the U-31 class and their peers to wreak havoc while avoiding faster, more powerful surface units. They did offer a secure, stealthy platform for carrying out a campaign that nearly forced Great Britain from the war. Only the entry of the United States, combined with the development of innovative convoy tactics by the Royal Navy, would stifle the submarine offensive. Three of the eleven boats survived the war, and were eventually surrendered to the Allies.

Balao:

The potential for a submarine campaign against the Japanese Empire was clear from early in the war. Japanese industry depended for survival on access to the natural resources of Southeast Asia. Separating Japan from those resources could win the war. However, the pre-war USN submarine arm was relatively small, and operated with poor doctrine and bad torpedoes. Boats built during the war, including primarily the Gato and Balao class, would eventually destroy virtually the entire Japanese merchant marine.

The Balao class represented very nearly the zenith of the pre-streamline submarine type. War in the Pacific demanded longer ranges and more habitability than the relatively snug Atlantic. Like their predecessors the Gato, the Balaos were less maneuverable than the German Type VII subs, but they made up for this in strength of hull and quality of construction. Compared with the Type VII, the Balaos had longer range, a larger gun, more torpedo tubes, and a higher speed. Of course, the Balaos operated in a much different environment, and against an opponent less skilled in anti-submarine warfare. The greatest victory of a Balao was the sinking of the 58000 ton HIJMS Shinano by Archerfish.

Eleven of 120 boats were lost, two in post-war accidents. After the war Balao class subs were transferred to several friendly navies, and continued to serve for decades. One, the former USS Tusk, remains in partial commission in Taiwan as Hai Pao.

Type XXI:

In some ways akin to the Me 262, the Type XXI was a potentially war-winning weapon that arrived too late to have serious effect. The Type XXI was the first mass produced, ocean-going streamlined or “true” submarine, capable of better performance submerged than on the surface. It gave up its deck gun in return for speed and stealth, and set the terms of design for generations of submarines.

Allied anti-submarine efforts focused on identifying boats on the surface (usually in transit to their patrol areas) then vectoring killers (including ships and aircraft) to those areas. In 1944 the Allies began developing techniques for fighting “schnorkel” U-boats that did not need to surface, but remained unprepared for combat against a submarine that could move at 20 knots submerged.

In effect, the Type XXI had the stealth to avoid detection prior to an attack, and the speed to escape afterward. Germany completed 118 of these boats, but because of a variety of industrial problems could only put four into service, none of which sank an enemy ship. All of the Allies seized surviving examples of the Type XXI, using them both as models for their own designs and in order to develop more advanced anti-submarine technologies and techniques. For example, the Type XXI was the model for the Soviet “Whiskey” class, and eventually for a large flotilla of Chinese submarines.

George Washington:

We take for granted the most common form of today’s nuclear deterrent; a nuclear submarine, bristling with missiles, capable of destroying a dozen cities a continent away. These submarines provide the most secure leg of the deterrent triad, as no foe could reasonably expect to destroy the entire submarine fleet before the missiles fly.

The secure submarine deterrent began in 1960, with the USS George Washington. An enlarged version of the Skipjack class nuclear attack sub, George Washington’s design incorporated space for sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles. When the Polaris became operational, USS George Washington had the capability from striking targets up to 1000 miles distant with 600 KT warheads. The boats would eventually upgrade to the Polaris A3, with three warheads and a 2500 mile range. Slow relative to attack subs but extremely quiet, the George Washington class pioneered the “go away and hide” form of nuclear deterrence that is still practiced by five of the world’s nine nuclear powers.

And until 1967, the George Washington and her sisters were the only modern boomers. Their clunky Soviet counterparts carried only three missiles each, and usually had to surface in order to fire. This made them of limited deterrent value. But soon, virtually every nuclear power copied the George Washington class. The first “Yankee” class SSBN entered service in 1967, the first Resolution boat in 1968, and the first of the French Redoutables in 1971. China would eventually follow suit, although the PLAN’s first genuinely modern SSBNs have only entered service recently. The Indian Navy’s INS Arihant will likely enter service in the next year or so.

The five boats of the George Washington class conducted deterrent patrols until 1982, when the SALT II Treaty forced their retirement. Three of the five (including George Washington) continued in service as nuclear attack submarines for several more years.

Los Angeles:

Immortalized in the Tom Clancy novels Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, the U.S. Los Angeles class is the longest production line of nuclear submarines in history, constituting sixty-two boats and first entering service in 1976. Forty-one subs remain in commission today, continuing to form the backbone of the USN’s submarine fleet.

The Los Angeles (or 688) class are outstanding examples of Cold War submarines, equally capable of conducting anti-surface or anti-submarine warfare. In wartime, they would have been used to penetrate Soviet base areas, where Russian boomers were protected by rings of subs, surface ships, and aircraft, and to protect American carrier battle groups.

In 1991, two Los Angeles class attack boats launched the first ever salvo of cruise missiles against land targets, ushering in an entirely new vision of how submarines could impact warfare. While cruise missile armed submarines had long been part of the Cold War duel between the United States and the Soviet Union, most attention focused either on nuclear delivery or anti-ship attacks. Submarine launched Tomahawks gave the United States a new means for kicking in the doors of anti-access/area denial systems. The concept has proven so successful that four Ohio class boomers were refitted as cruise missile submarines, with the USS Florida delivering the initial strikes of the Libya intervention.

The last Los Angeles class submarine is expected to leave service in at some point in the 2020s, although outside factors may delay that date. By that time, new designs will undoubtedly have exceeded the 688 in terms of striking land targets, and in capacity for conducting anti-submarine warfare. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles class will have carved out a space as the sub-surface mainstay of the world’s most powerful Navy for five decades.

Conclusion

Fortunately, the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct conflict during the Cold War, meaning that many of the technologies and practices of advanced submarine warfare were never employed in anger. However, every country in the world that pretends to serious maritime power is building or acquiring advanced submarines. The next submarine war will look very different from the last, and it’s difficult to predict how it will play out. We can be certain, however, that the fight will be conducted in silence.

Honorable Mention: Ohio, 260O-21, Akula, Alfa, Seawolf, Swiftsure, I-201, Kilo, S class, Type VII

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

*****

5 Best Bombers:

Bombers are the essence of strategic airpower. While fighters have often been important to air forces, it was the promise of the heavy bomber than won and kept independence for the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force. At different points in time, air forces in the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Italy have treated bomber design and construction as a virtually all-consuming obsession, setting fighter and attack aviation aside.

However, even the best bombers are effective over only limited timespans. The unlucky state-of-the-art bombers of the early 1930s met disaster when put into service against the pursuit aircraft of the late 1930s. The B-29s that ruled the skies over Japan in 1945 were cut to pieces above North Korea in 1950. The B-36 Peacemaker, obsolete before it was even built, left service in a decade. Most of the early Cold War bombers were expensive failures, eventually to be superseded by ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

States procure bombers, like all weapons, to serve strategic purposes. This list employs the following metrics of evaluation:

· Did the bomber serve the strategic purpose envisioned by its developers?

· Was the bomber a sufficiently flexible platform to perform other missions, and to persist in service?

· How did the bomber compare with its contemporaries in terms of price, capability, and effectiveness?

And with that, the five best bombers of all time:

Handley Page Type O 400:

The first strategic bombing raids of World War I were carried out by German zeppelins, enormous lighter than aircraft that could travel at higher altitudes than the interceptors of the day, and deliver payloads against London and other targets. Over time, the capabilities of interceptors and anti-aircraft artillery grew, driving the Zeppelins to other missions. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and others began working on bombers capable of delivering heavy loads over long distance, a trail blazed (oddly enough) by the Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets.

Even the modest capabilities of the early bombers excited the airpower theorists of the day, who imagined the idea of fleets of bombers striking enemy cities and enemy industry. The Italians developed the Caproni family of bombers, which operated in the service of most Allied countries at one time or another. German Gotha bombers would eventually terrorize London again, catalyzing the Smuts Report and the creation of the world’s first air force.

Faster and capable of carrying more bombs than either the Gotha IVs or the Caproni Ca.3, the Type O 400 had a wingspan nearly as large as the Avro Lancaster. With a maximum speed of 97 miles per hour with a payload of up to 2000 lbs, O 400s were the mainstay of Hugh Trenchard’s Independent Air Force near the end of the war, a unit which struck German airfields and logistics concentration well behind German lines. These raids helped lay the foundation of interwar airpower theory, which (at least in the US and the UK) envisioned self-protecting bombers striking enemy targets en masse.

Roughly 600 Type O bombers were produced during World War I, with the last retiring in 1922. Small numbers served in the Chinese, Australian, and American armed forces.

Junkers Ju 88:

The Junkers Ju-88 was one of the most versatile aircraft of World War II. Although it spent most of its career as a medium bomber, it moonlighted as a close attack aircraft, a naval attack aircraft, a reconnaissance plane, and a night fighter. Effective and relatively cheap, the Luftwaffe used the Ju 88 to good effect in most theaters of war, but especially on the Eastern Front and in the Mediterranean.

Designed with dive bomber capability, the Ju 88 served in relatively small numbers in the invasion of Poland, the invasion of Norway, and the Battle of France. The Ju-88 was not well suited to the strategic bombing role into which it was forced during the Battle of Britain, especially in its early variants. It lacked the armament to sufficiently defend itself, and the payload to cause much destruction to British industry and infrastructure. The measure of an excellent bomber, however, goes well beyond its effectiveness at any particular mission. Ju 88s were devastating in Operation Barbarossa, tearing apart Soviet tank formations and destroying much of the Soviet Air Forces on the ground. Later variants were built as or converted into night fighters, attacking Royal Air Force bomber formations on the way to their targets.

In spite of heavy Allied bombing of the German aviation industry, Germany built over 15,000 Ju 88s between 1939 and 1945. They operated in several Axis air forces.

De Havilland Mosquito:

The de Havilland Mosquito was a remarkable little aircraft, capable of a wide variety of different missions. Not unlike the Ju 88, the Mosquito operated in bomber, fighter, night fighter, attack, and reconnaissance roles. The RAF was better positioned than the Luftwaffe to utilized the specific qualities of the Mosquito, and avoid forcing it into missions in could not perform.

Relatively lightly armed and constructed entirely of wood, the Mosquito was quite unlike the rest of the RAF bomber fleet. Barely escaping design committee, the Mosquito was regarded as easy to fly, and featured a pressurized cockpit with a high service ceiling. Most of all, however, the Mosquito was fast. With advanced Merlin engines, a Mosquito could outpace the German Bf109 and most other Axis fighters.

Although the bomb load of the Mosquito was limited, its great speed, combined with sophisticated instrumentation, allowed it to deliver ordnance with more precision than most other bombers. During the war, the RAF used Mosquitoes for various precision attacks against high value targets, including German government installations and V weapon launching sites. As pathfinders, Mosquitoes flew point on bomber formations, leading night time bombing raids that might otherwise have missed their targets. Mosquitos also served in a diversionary role, distracting German night fighters from the streams of Halifaxes and Lancasters striking urban areas.

De Havilland produced over 7000 Mosquitoes for the RAF and other allied air forces. Examples persisted in post-war service with countries as varied as Israel, the Republic of China, Yugoslavia, and the Dominican Republic

Avro Lancaster:

The workhorse of the RAF in World War II, the Lancaster carried out the greater part of the British portion of the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO). Led by Arthur Harris, Bomber Command believed that area bombing raids, targeted against German civilians, conducted at night, would destroy German morale and economic capacity and bring the war to a close. Accordingly, the Lancaster was less heavily armed than its American contemporaries, as it depended less on self-defense in order to carry out its mission.

The first Lancasters entered service in 1942. The Lancaster could carry a much heavier bomb load than the B-17 or the B-24, while operating at similar speeds and at a slightly longer range. The Lancaster also enjoyed a payload advantage over the Handley Page Halifax. From 1942 until 1945, the Lancaster would anchor the British half of the CBO, eventually resulting in the destruction of most of urban Germany and the death of several hundred thousand German civilians.

There are reasons to be skeptical of the inclusion of the Lancaster. The Combined Bomber Offensive was a strategic dead-end, serving up expensive four-engine bombers as a feast for smaller, cheaper German fighters. Battles were fought under conditions deeply advantageous to the Germans, as damaged German planes could land, and shot down German pilots rescued and returned to service. Overall, the enormous Western investment in strategic bombing was probably one of the greatest grand strategic miscalculations of the Second World War. Nevertheless, this list needs a bomber from the most identifiable bomber offensive in history, and the Lancaster was the best of the bunch.

Over 7000 Lancasters were built, with the last retiring in the early 1960s after Canadian service as recon and maritime patrol aircraft.

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress:

The disastrous experience of B-29 Superfortresses over North Korea in 1950 demonstrated that the United States would require a new strategic bomber, and soon. Unfortunately, the first two generations of bombers chosen by the USAF were almost uniformly duds; the hopeless B-36, the short-legged B-47, the dangerous-to-its-own-pilots B-58, and the obsolete-before-it-flew XB-70. The vast bulk of these bombers quickly went from wastes of taxpayer money to wastes of space at the Boneyard. None of the over 2500 early Cold War bombers ever dropped a bomb in anger.

The exception was the B-52.The BUFF was originally intended for high altitude penetration bombing into the Soviet Union. It replaced the B-36 and the B-47, the former too slow and vulnerable to continue in the nuclear strike mission, and the latter too short-legged to reach the USSR from U.S. bases. Slated for replacement by the B-58 and the B-70, the B-52 survived because it was versatile enough to shift to low altitude penetration after the increasing sophistication of Soviet SAMs made the high altitude mission suicidal.

And this versatility has been the real story of the B-52. The BUFF was first committed to conventional strike missions in service of Operation Arc Light during the Vietnam War. In Operation Linebacker II, the vulnerability of the B-52 to air defenses was made manifest when nine Stratofortresses were lost in the first days of the campaign. But the B-52 persisted. In the Gulf War, B-52s carried out saturation bombing campaigns against the forward positions of the Iraqi Army, softening and demoralizing the Iraqis for the eventual ground campaign. In the War on Terror, the B-52 has acted in a close air support role, delivering precision-guided ordnance against small concentrations of Iraqi and Taliban insurgents.

Most recently, the B-52 showed its diplomatic chops when two BUFFs were dispatched to violate China’s newly declared Air Defense Zone. The BUFF was perfect for this mission; the Chinese could not pretend not to notice two enormous bombers travelling at slow speed through the ADIZ.

742 B-52s were delivered between 1954 and 1963. Seventy-eight remain in service, having undergone multiple upgrades over the decades that promise to extend their lives into the 2030s, or potentially beyond. In a family of short-lived airframes, the B-52 has demonstrated remarkable endurance and longevity.

Conclusion

Over the last century, nations have invested tremendous resources in bomber aircraft. More often than not, this investment has failed to bear strategic fruit. The very best aircraft have been those that could not only conduct their primary mission effectively, but that were also sufficiently flexible to perform other tasks that might be asked of them. Current air forces have, with some exceptions, effectively done away with the distinctions between fighters and bombers, instead relying on multi-role fighter-bombers for both missions. The last big, manned bomber may be the American LRS-B, assuming that project ever gets off the ground.

Honorable Mention

Grumman A-6 Intruder, MQ-1 Predator, Caproni Ca.3, Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear,” Avro Vulcan, Tupolev Tu-22M “Backfire.”

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

*****

What are the five greatest fighter aircraft of all time?

Like the same question asked of tanks, cars, or rock and roll guitarists, the answer invariably depends on parameters. For example, there are few sets of consistent parameters that would include both the T-34 and the King Tiger among the greatest of all tanks. I know which one I’d like to be driving in a fight, but I also appreciate that this isn’t the most appropriate way to approach the question. Similarly, while I’d love to drive a Porsche 959 to work every morning, I’d be hesitant to list it ahead of the Toyota Corolla on a “best of” compilation.

Nations buy fighter aircraft to resolve national strategic problems, and the aircraft should accordingly be evaluated on their ability to solve or ameliorate these problems. Thus, the motivating question is this: how well did this aircraft help solve the strategic problems of the nations that built or bought it? This question leads to the following points of evaluation:

Fighting characteristics: How did this plane stack up against the competition, including not just other fighters but also bombers and ground installations?

Reliability: Could people count on this aircraft to fight when it needed to, or did it spend more time under repair than in the air?

Cost: What did the organization and the nation have to pay in terms of blood and treasure to make this aircraft fly?

These are the parameters; here are my answers:

Spad S.XIII:

In the early era of military aviation, technological innovation moved at such speed that state of the art aircraft became obsolete deathtraps within a year. Engineers in France, Britain, Germany and Italy worked constantly to outpace their competitors, producing new aircraft every year to throw into the fight. The development of operational tactics trailed technology, although the input of the best flyers played an important role in how designers put new aircraft together.

In this context, picking a dominant fighter from the era is difficult. Nevertheless, the Spad S.XIII stands out in terms of its fighting characteristics and ease of production. Based in significant part on the advice of French aviators such as Georges Guynemer, the XIII lacked the maneuverability of some of its contemporaries, but could outpace most of them and performed very well in either a climb or a dive. It was simple enough to produce that nearly 8,500 such aircraft eventually entered service. Significant early reliability problems were worked out by the end of the war, and in any case were overwhelmed by the XIII’s fighting ability.

The S.XIII filled out not only French fighter squadrons, but also the air services of Allied countries. American ace Eddie Rickenbacker scored twenty of his kills flying an XIII, many over the most advanced German fighters of the day, including the Fokker D.VII.

The Spad XIII helped the Allies hold the line during the Ludendorff Offensive, and controlled the skies above France during the counter-offensive. After the war, it remained in service in France, the United States, and a dozen other countries for several years. In an important sense, the Spad XIII set the post-war standard for what a pursuit aircraft needed to do.

Grumman F6F Hellcat:

Of course, it is not only air forces that fly fighter aircraft. The F6F Hellcat can’t compare with the Spitfire, the P-51, or the Bf 109 on many basic flight characteristics, although its ability to climb was first-rate. What the F6F could do, however, was reliably fly from aircraft carriers, and it rode point on the great, decisive U.S. Navy carrier offensive of World War II. Entering the war in September 1943, it won 75% of USN aerial victories in the Pacific. USN ace David McCampbell shot down nine Japanese aircraft in one day flying a Hellcat .The F6F was heavily armed, and could take considerably more battle damage than its contemporaries. Overall, the F6F claimed nearly 5,200 kills at a loss of 270 aircraft in aerial combat, including a 13:1 ratio against the Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

The USN carrier offensive of the latter part of World War II is probably the greatest single example of the use of decisive airpower in world history. Hellcats and their kin (the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber and the Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber) destroyed the fighting power of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), cracked open Japan’s island empire, and exposed the Japanese homeland to devastating air attack and the threat of invasion.

In 1943, the United States needed a fighter robust enough to endure a campaign fought distant from most bases, yet fast and agile enough to defeat the best that the IJN could offer. Tough and reliable as a brick, the Hellcat fit that role. Put simply, the Honda Accord is, in its own way, a great car; the Honda Accords of the fighter world also deserve their day.

Messerschmitt Me-262 Swallow:

The Me 262 Schwalbe (Swallow, in English) failed to win the war for Germany, and couldn’t stop the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO). Had German military authorities made the right decisions, however, it might at least have accomplished the second.

Known as the world’s first operational jet fighter, full-scale production of the Me 262 was delayed by resistance within the German government and the Luftwaffe to devoting resources to an experimental aircraft without a clear role. Early efforts to turn it into a fighter-bomber fell flat. As the need for a superlative interceptor become apparent, however, the Me 262 found its place. The Swallow proved devastating against American bomber formations, and could outrun American pursuit aircraft.

The Me 262 was hardly a perfect fighter: it lacked the maneuverability of the best American interceptors, and both American and British pilots developed tactics for managing the Swallow. Although production suffered from some early problems with engines, by the later stages of the conflict, manufacturing was sufficiently easy that the plane could be mass-produced in dispersed, underground facilities.

But had it come on line a bit earlier, the Me 262 might have torn the heart out of the CBO. The CBO in 1943 was a touch and go affair; dramatically higher bomber losses in 1943 could well have led Churchill and Roosevelt to scale back the production of four engine bombers in favor of additional tactical aircraft. Without the advantage of long-range escorts, American bombers would have proven easy prey for the German jet. Moreover, the Me 262 would have been far more effective without the constant worry of P-47s and P-51s strafing its airfields and tracking its landings.

Nazi Germany needed a game changer, a plane capable of making the price too high for the Allies to keep up the CBO. The Me 262 came onto the scene too late to solve that problem, but it’s hard to imagine any aircraft that could have come closer. Ironically, this might have accelerated Allied victory, as the Combined Bomber Offensive resulted in not only the destruction of urban Germany, but in the waste of substantial Allied resources. Win-win.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 “Fishbed”: 

An odd choice for this list? The MiG-21 is known largely as fodder for the other great fighters of the Cold War, and for having an abysmal kill ratio. The Fishbed (in NATO terminology) has served as a convenient victim in Vietnam and in a variety of Middle Eastern wars, some of which it fought on both sides.

But… the MiG-21 is cheap, fast, maneuverable, has low maintenance requirements. It’s relatively easy to learn to fly, although not necessarily easy to learn how to fly well. Air forces continued to buy the MiG-21 for a long time. Counting the Chengdu J-7 variant, perhaps 13,000 MiG-21s have entered service around the world. In some sense, the Fishbed is the AK-47 (or the T-34, if you prefer) of the fighter world. Fifty countries have flown the MiG-21, and it has flown for fifty-five years. It continues to fly as a key part of twenty-six different air forces, including the Indian Air Force, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, the Vietnamese People’s Air Force, and the Romanian Air Force. Would anyone be surprised if the Fishbed and its variants are still flying in 2034?

The MiG-21 won plaudits from American aggressor pilots at Red Flag, who celebrated its speed and maneuverability, and played (through the contribution of North Vietnamese aces such as Nguyễn Văn Cốc ) an important role in redefining the requirements of air superiority in the United States. When flown well, it remains a dangerous foe.

Most of life is about just showing up, and since 1960 no fighter has shown up as consistently, and in as many places, as has the MiG-21. For countries needing a cheap option for claiming control of their national airspace, the MiG-21 has long solved problems, and will likely continue to serve in this role.

McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle: 

What to say about the F-15 Eagle? When it came into service in 1976, it was immediately recognized as the best fighter in the world. Today, it is arguably still the best all-around, cost-adjusted fighter, even if the Su-27 and F-22 have surpassed it in some ways. If one fighter in American history could take the name of the national symbol of the United States, how could it be anything other than the F-15?

The Eagle symbolizes the era of American hegemony, from the Vietnam hangover to the post-Cold War period of dominance. Designed in light of the lessons of Vietnam, at a time where tactical aviation was taking control of the US Air Force, the F-15 outperformed existing fighters and set a new standard for a modern air superiority aircraft. Despite repeated tests in combat, no F-15 has ever been lost to an aerial foe. The production line for the F-15 will run until at least 2019, and longer if Boeing can manage to sell anyone on the Silent Eagle.

In the wake of Vietnam, the United States needed an air superiority platform that could consistently defeat the best that the Soviet Union had to offer. The F-15 (eventually complemented by the F-16) provided this platform, and then some. After the end of the Cold War, the United States needed an airframe versatile enough to carry out the air superiority mission while also becoming an effective strike aircraft. Again, the F-15 solved the problem.

And it’s a plane that can land with one wing. Hard to beat that.

A Contest Based on Parameters:

Again, this exercise depends entirely on decisions about the parameters. A different set of criteria of effectiveness would generate an entirely different list (although the F-15 would probably still be here; it’s invulnerable). Nevertheless, the basic elements of the argument are sound: weapons should be evaluated in terms of how they help achieve national objectives.

Honorable mentions include the North American Aviation F-86 Sabre, the Fokker D.VII, the Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the Supermarine Spitfire, the North American Aviation P-51 Mustang, the McDonnell Douglas EA-18 Growler, the English Electric Lightning, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Sukhoi Su-27 “Flanker,” and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone.

Robert Farley , a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article appeared earlier last year.

Image: DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Todd Cichonowicz, U.S. Navy

Michael Peck

Security,

Russian tanks are now firing depleted uranium shells.

Here's What You Need to Remember:  “Taken into the body via metal fragments or dust-like particles, depleted uranium may pose a long-term health hazard to personnel if the amount is large. However, the amount which remains in the body depends on a number of factors, including the amount inhaled or ingested, the particle size and the ability of the particles to dissolve in body fluids.”

Russia is arming its tanks with controversial depleted uranium shells.

While depleted uranium, or DU, is extremely dense and can punch through thick tank armor, many believe that these shells release small doses of radiation, like miniature neutron bombs. The U.S. has used DU shells in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

A Russian Defense Ministry bulletin said Russian T-80BV tanks would be armed with these powerful munitions, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. The bulletin noted that “the T-80BVM (the letter M stands for ‘modernized’) features ‘the improved weapons stabilizer and the loading mechanism for the 3BM59 Svinets-1 and 3BM60 Svinets-2 munitions.’”

The Svinets-1 has a tungsten carbide core, while the Svinets-2 uses depleted uranium. according to the Below the Ring armor site, published by a pair of Dutch defense experts. A 2016 post speculated that Russia might have been producing these special rounds for several years as replacements for existing tank ammunition.

The shells “utilize an aluminum sabot with three points of contact - this is rather unique, as most other types of APFSDS sabot use only two points of contacts,” Below the Ring said. “If and how this affects accuracy and barrel wear is currently not known.”

The Svinets-2 is not the first Russian shell to use depleted uranium. The 3BM-32 Vant, designed for Soviet 125-millimeter tank cannon, also contained a DU core. But the new rounds are longer.

“Compared to the 3BM-32 Vant APFSDS with a 380-mm-long [14.7-inch] DU penetrator, the two types of new ammunition have an approximately 79 to 84 percent longer projectile, which should lead to a significant increase in penetration power,” Below the Ring estimated.

The problem is that older Russian tank ammunition has difficult piercing advanced tank armor such as that found on the U.S. M-1 Abrams or Israeli Merkava. “The 3BM-42 Mango relies on an outdated pentrator design, using two relatively short tungsten rods inside a steel body,” according to Below the Ring. “...Steel penetrates armor less efficiently than a high-density heavy metal alloy.”

Thus, the appeal of DU shells as tank killers (you can find a concise scientific explanation of depleted uranium ammunition here). There are 120-millimeter DU shells for the M-1 Abrams and 30-millimeter shell for the A-10 Warthog. Ironically, the Abrams tank uses depleted uranium in its armor plating to stop anti-tank shells.

The U.S. military says depleted uranium ammunition is safe, for the most part. “When fired, or after ‘cooking off’ in fires or explosions, the exposed depleted uranium rod poses an extremely low radiological threat as long as it remains outside the body,” says a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. “Taken into the body via metal fragments or dust-like particles, depleted uranium may pose a long-term health hazard to personnel if the amount is large. However, the amount which remains in the body depends on a number of factors, including the amount inhaled or ingested, the particle size and the ability of the particles to dissolve in body fluids.”

However, even the Veterans Administration acknowledges that depleted uranium poses health risks to soldiers, such as those who fought in Operation Desert Storm, where DU rounds were used to destroy Iraqi tanks. There are also complaints that depleted uranium contaminates the environment, such as in Iraq. The Pentagon promised that it wouldn’t use DU ammunition in Syria, though it later admitted that it fired thousands of rounds in 2015.

There are several international organizations campaigning to ban depleted uranium shells. Whether the Russian government will heed them is another matter.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters.

Michael Peck

Security, Asia

The decision to drop the A-bomb may or may not have been the best decision.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Perhaps a greater man than Truman would have balked at unleashing the monstrous genie of atomic warfare. Yet after six years of the most terrible war in history, greatness was in short supply across the globe, replaced by a desire just to get the slaughter and misery over with and bring the boys home.

One of the most controversial decisions in history was President Harry Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Some argue that Truman was haunted by estimates that Operation Downfall -- the proposed invasion of Japan in 1945 -- would cost a million American casualties. Others say that Japan was starving and exhausted, the casualty estimates were exaggerated, and that Truman had ulterior motives for dropping the Bomb, namely intimidating the Soviet Union with a display of America's technological might.

Like any counterfactual, there can never be any definitive proof of the outcome of a hypothetical invasion of Japan. But we can make a few reasonable assumptions.

First, we can take a good guess what an amphibious assault on Japan in November or December 1945 would have been like. Fresh in American minds would have been Operation Iceberg, the April 1945 assault on the island of Okinawa, 400 miles from the Japanese mainland and politically a part of Japan proper. Rather than suicidal banzai charges in the face of American firepower, the Japanese changed tactics: they retreated to fortified lines and caves in the Okinawan interior, where they fought  for three months and almost to the last man. Meanwhile, wave after wave of kamikaze aircraft dove on U.S. and British Commonwealth ships (even the super-battleship Yamato made a suicide sortie). The result was more than 50,000 U.S. casualties, a quarter-million Japanese military and civilian dead, and more than 400 Allied ships sunk or damaged.

Operation Downfall would have made Okinawa look like a picnic. "The often-repeated common wisdom holds that there were only 5,500, or at most 7,000, aircraft available and that all of Japan’s best pilots had been killed in earlier battles, writes historian D.M Giangreco "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945-47.

"What the U.S. occupation forces found after the war, however, was that the number of aircraft exceeded 12,700, and thanks to the wholesale conversion of training units into kamikaze formations, there were some 18,600 pilots available. Most were admittedly poor flyers, but due to the massive influx of instructors into combat units, more than 4,200 were rated high enough for either twilight or night missions."

Today's U.S. Navy fears attacks by swarms of Iranian or North Korean small boats, but the Japanese would have unleashed a horde of suicide craft. There were squadrons of training aircraft whose wooden frames were almost invisible to radar, a thousand suicide speedboats, and carefully stockpiled gasoline to power them. The Japanese army was filled with poorly trained conscripts, but they would have been fighting on home ground, in rough and fortified terrain, and backed by a ragtag but indoctrinated civilian militia that would have battled American tanks with farm tools.

As it had against a Mongol amphibious invasion in the 13th Century, the weather gods would have favored Japan. A devastating typhoon in October 1945 would have delayed Allied invasion preparations, while bad weather in the winter and spring of 1946 would have hampered operations and logistics.

Of course, the Allies (Britain and Australia would have contributed warships and aircraft) would have enjoyed air and naval supremacy to isolate and pound Japanese troops, supply lines and whatever factories hadn't been destroyed by U.S. B-29 bombers. They would have had numerous tanks and artillery pieces, and ample ammunition to use all this firepower. But then again, the Allies enjoyed these advantages at the Battle of the Bulge and in Korea, and still suffered heavy losses.

So would Operation Downfall have cost a million American casualties, plus a horrific number of Japanese military and civilian dead? That toll was not guaranteed, but it appears quite possible.

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The problem for Harry Truman and his generals was never going to be outright defeat of an invasion, but rather how long and costly the victory. The U.S. had suffered less during the war than other combatants (the advantage of fighting on someone else's soil). Yet by 1945, America was tired of the casualty lists, the rationing, the relentless wartime factory shifts. With the prospect of another year or two of war, there would have been pressure to use the handful of new atomic bombs -- out of frustration as much as military necessity -- and even to use poison gas to subdue the Japanese.

Perhaps a greater man than Truman would have balked at unleashing the monstrous genie of atomic warfare. Yet after six years of the most terrible war in history, greatness was in short supply across the globe, replaced by a desire just to get the slaughter and misery over with and bring the boys home.

The decision to drop the A-bomb may or may not have been the best decision. But it almost certainly was an inevitable one.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Wikipedia.

Robert Farley

Security,

The F-22 has enjoyed the unusual distinction of holding an almost universally acknowledged dominance in the core air superiority mission for over a decade, and yet has not participated in a consequential way in any military conflict.

Here's What You Need to Know: As the United States increasingly shifts its attention to peer competitor conflicts, voices emerge calling for a restart of the Raptor line.

The F-22 has been the world’s most formidable air superiority fighter since it first entered service in 2005. Although the Raptor has yet to kill a target in anger, aviation specialists almost unanimously agree that it can outclass any opponent, foreign or domestic. The only hard limitation on its ability to kill appears to be the number of missiles that it can carry.

But what if the F-22 had never been? Like all advanced technological systems, the Raptor has suffered from hiccups; in 2009 these hiccups were severe enough to excuse the ending of the production line. What if those hiccups had been more severe, or if the United States had decided earlier that the Raptor simply wasn’t in its strategic interest?

The Plane

The Air Force appreciated that the Soviet Union could catch up with the F-15 and F-16, the formidable air superiority pairing developed in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, it began to pursue the Advanced Tactical Fighter program, geared towards producing a revolutionary air superiority platform that would include stealth, as well as a wealth of blooming technological advances. Two teams made it to the prototype stage, producing the YF-22 and the YF-23. The YF-22 won the competition, and went into production and testing in 1997. The Raptor first entering service in late 2005, and immediately began dominating warfighting exercises.

The Problems

But the problems faced by the F-22 were immense. Any innovative new aircraft faces delays and cost overruns associated with managing new technologies. The F-22, however, ran into one of the most comprehensive military technological shifts since the dawn of the jet age; the digitization of warfare that ensued in the 1980s and the 1990s. This was over and above the “normal” problems associated with creating the world’s first supersonic stealth airframe.

The strategic situation complicated matters further. The end of the Cold War reduced the need for advanced air superiority aircraft, leading DoD to reduce the expected buy. The 750 became 648, which became 339, which became 277, which became 183. This represented a classic death spiral, in which development costs were divided between a smaller and smaller number of aircraft. This made the Raptor seem more expensive, even as the production process matured.

The U.S. response to September 11 further clouded the F-22’s prospects. Instead of facing off against peer competitors, the US military engaged itself in conflicts against significantly technologically inferior opponents, including insurgents who had no air forces to speak of. This made the spiraling expense of the F-22 unpalatable, even to many defense hawks, who could not identify any meaningful contribution that the Raptor could make to the current conflict. Moreover, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter seemed to offer a cheaper, more modern alternative. In 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates capped the overall production line at 187 (plus eight test aircraft) for all of these reasons.

The decision could have come sooner. The Joint Strike Fighter project began in 1992, and offered a more contemporary option for the US Department of Defense. The Wars of Yugoslav Disintegration demonstrated that the United States had presumptive air dominance over most foes, even without the F-22. And no peer competitor appeared, in the late 1990s, capable of challenging this dominance in the near term.

The Alternatives

The immediate, obvious alternative to the F-22 Raptor was its competitor aircraft, the Northrop YF-23. In some ways a more innovative design, the F-23 was faster and stealthier than the Raptor, and many have argued that the USAF made the wrong choice. At the time, though, the Air Force believed the F-23 was too risky, and that the Raptor represented the safe choice. The competition was not foreordained, however, and if the F-22 had not won then the F-23 probably would have; competitions of this sort very, very rarely result in the dismissal of both choices. Of course, the F-23 would have run into its own development problems along the way, just as the United States became embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, and might have been cancelled for the same reasons.

Alternatively, the Air Force could have simply waited for the F-35 to arrive. Although the F-35 was always understood to be a less formidable air superiority platform to the Raptor, it was also expected to be cheaper, in some sense was the aviation equivalent of a “digital native,” a person who grew up during the internet age and who incorporated the basic structures of the digital age into their day-to-day existence. Sensor fusion, networked communications, and a modular software build are intrinsic to the F-35 in a way that are not to the F-22, and it’s hardly impossible to imagine DoD simply giving up on the latter to await the former. Indeed, this was part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reasoning for capping the F-22 buy at 187 units.

Finally, the Air Force could have continued to pursue improvements to its legacy fleet. Boeing has demonstrated that the F-15 design still has some life in it, having proposed both a stealthy version and a “missile truck” version. The IDF Air Force has doubled down on the F-15, supplemented but not replaced by F-35s, and it is hard to argue that the Israelis don’t value air superiority. Similarly, even before Russia gave up on the Su-57, it invested heavily in improving legacy platforms, especially the Su-27 family of fighters.

Wrap

The most difficult question associated with the Raptor may be this: Would anyone ever really have missed the F-22 if it had not existed? In an important sense the answer is “no,” at least thus far. The F-22 has enjoyed the unusual distinction of holding an almost universally acknowledged dominance in the core air superiority mission for over a decade, and yet has not participated in a consequential way in any military conflict. It is the world’s best boxer, and yet can find no one to fight. This may change, of course; the international system is unpredictable, and the window of the Raptor’s dominance does not appear to be closing. And indeed, as the United States increasingly shifts its attention to peer competitor conflicts, voices emerge calling for a restart of the Raptor line. Though there is undoubtedly something sad about such a dominant aircraft never finding a way to make a contribution.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

This article appeared earlier last year.

Image: U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Brittany A. Chase