Diplomacy & Crisis News

As coronavirus vaccines provide a glimmer of optimism around the world, a high-level UN official said on Monday that it was “painful to witness” the dashed hopes of most people in the Global South who have little chance of receiving an inoculation anytime soon. 

The world is far from achieving agreed goals to reduce global warming in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the UN Secretary-General warned on Monday in his ongoing bid to secure greater commitment to averting climate catastrophe. 

United Nations independent human rights experts on Monday voiced grave concerns over increasingly severe use of lèse-majesté laws in Thailand, warning that a rise in their usage is further restricting civic space and the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms in the country. 

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’hiver 2020-2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 4/2020). Jean-Christophe Defraigne propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Paul Blustein, Schism: China, America, and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System (The Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2019, 360 pages).

Paul Blustein, ancien journaliste au Washington Post et au Wall Street Journal, publie un livre qui constitue une synthèse assez complète des relations commerciales sino-américaines et de l’évolution des négociations commerciales multilatérales depuis l’ouverture de la Chine et son accession à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC). Le lecteur trouvera dans cet ouvrage bon nombre de citations intéressantes et d’études de cas de litiges commerciaux. Il y suivra les péripéties de la politique commerciale américaine vis-à-vis de la Chine, mais aussi celles du système multilatéral.

Son analyse de la position des gouvernements successifs des États-Unis, de l’industrie et de l’opinion publique américaines face à la montée commerciale chinoise est assez convaincante et complète. Elle met en évidence la vision optimiste de nombreux officiels américains, quant aux effets de l’entrée de la Chine à l’OMC et de sa libéralisation commerciale sur le système sociopolitique chinois, et sur la pénétration du marché chinois par les firmes américaines, mue en position de plus en plus défensive à partir de la fin des années 2000. Paul Blustein montre comment les autorités américaines se rendent compte que le gouvernement chinois ne poursuit pas un programme de libéralisation visant à adopter le modèle de capitalisme prôné par Washington, mais développe des politiques industrielles et commerciales de type mercantiliste.

Schism est pourtant moins convaincant sur l’analyse de la stratégie chinoise et des causes structurelles de l’affrontement commercial sino-américain. L’opacité du système politique chinois ne permet pas à Blustein d’analyser les motivations de ses dirigeants avec autant de finesse que celles de leurs homologues américains, mais il accorde une importance arbitraire à la personnalité de ces dirigeants chinois dans l’évolution des orientations économiques et géopolitiques du pays, en exagérant parfois les différences entre Zhu Rongji, Hu Jintao et Xi Jinping.

Trop porté sur les péripéties des négociations commerciales, leurs acteurs et les litiges commerciaux au sein de l’OMC, l’ouvrage néglige les contraintes économiques d’une Chine encore en voie de rattrapage, et les effets globaux de l’industrialisation des grandes économies émergentes depuis les années 1990 sur les rapports de force au sein de la gouvernance globale, de l’OMC au Fonds monétaire international (FMI). Les inévitables conséquences géopolitiques de l’exceptionnelle croissance économique de la Chine ces quatre dernières décennies sont abordées de manière trop superficielle. L’ouvrage pêche aussi par une approche partisane en faveur du libéralisme économique multilatéral. Blustein refuse de considérer qu’un État développementaliste puisse efficacement adopter des politiques industrielles et commerciales permettant un rattrapage industriel, technologique et militaire. En écartant d’emblée les arguments interventionnistes d’un Friedrich List ou d’un Paul Krugman, et en ne présentant pas les modèles des politiques industrielles japonaises ou coréennes dont s’inspirent en partie les dirigeants du Parti communiste chinois, il s’interdit d’analyser les éléments de continuité de la politique commerciale chinoise depuis quatre décennies, et sa confrontation inévitable avec les économies les plus avancées – les États-Unis en tête, mais aussi l’Union européenne et le Japon.

Jean-Christophe Defraigne

>> S’abonner à Politique étrangère <<

The United Nations stands ready, if necessary, to contribute to ongoing rescue and assistance efforts, following a glacier burst and subsequent flash flooding in northern India, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday.

Au cours des deux dernières décennies, les liaisons commerciales et énergétiques se sont rapidement développées entre les pays d'Asie et avec les républiques d'Asie centrale. Si les deux tiers des échanges extérieurs se font par mer, tout un faisceau de pipelines relie les gisements russes, ouzbeks, (...) / Asie, Commerce international, Libéralisme, Mer, Intégration régionale, Énergie, Accord international - Asie

A joint United Nations-Government of Ethiopia mission to Mekelle in the country’s Tigray region, on Saturday, underscored the need for strong partnership to rapidly scale up a Government-led collective response to meet immediate humanitarian needs in the region. 

Les derniers hôpitaux psychiatriques judiciaires italiens ont été fermés fin mars 2015. Cette mesure, saluée par les militants de l'abolition de l'enfermement, parachève un long combat contre les préjugés ayant trait à la dangerosité des malades mentaux. A Trieste, des pionniers expérimentent avec succès (...) / Italie, Histoire, Idées, Prison, Santé, Société, Médecine - 2015/01

Robert Farley

Security, Middle East

There are several weapons that could be used to bolster deterrence.

Key point: Israel has a good triad and a robust deterrence. However, here is how it might build upon its mighty military.

With only a few notable exceptions, Israel can buy whatever it wants from the United States, generally on very generous terms associated with U.S. aid packages.

This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Notwithstanding the availability of weapons, however, Israel must still make careful decisions regarding how to spend money. Consequently, Israel can’t have quite everything that it would like, despite the continued good relationship with the United States and its arms industry. Here are a few US military systems that the Israelis could use:

Littoral Combat Ship: 

For a long time, the sea arm of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has examined the potential for warships somewhat larger than the corvettes that have historically dominated the force. As Israel’s maritime security interests increased (the necessity of maintaining the Gaza blockade, and of patrolling offshore energy deposits), this need has become more acute.

(This first appeared in 2016.)

Over the last decade, the IDF extensively studied the possibility of acquiring heavily modified versions of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship design. These would have had significantly different features, mainly making them less modular and more self-sufficient than their American cousins. On paper, the plan made a lot of sense; a high-speed, networked platform would fit in very well with the IDF’s operational concept. However, the necessary modifications drove up the cost of the warship, pricing it out of Israel’s range. Future changes in the market (or in Israel’s perception of need) might well shift the equation, however.

F-22 Raptor: 

The Obey amendment, which prohibits the export of the F-22 Raptor, was developed with Israel firmly in mind. Concerned about Israel’s transfer of high-technology equipment to Russia or China, the United States decided that domestic considerations meant it could not bar Israel from acquiring the Raptor without a blanket ban.

And so this has meant that only the USAF flies the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Historically, Israel has preferred fighter-bombers that can conduct both air superiority and strike missions, and the Raptor doesn’t yet have much in the way of a strike profile. However, the IDF purchased the F-15 when it was still primarily an air-superiority platform, then made the necessary modifications on its own to transform the fighter into a devastating bomber. The F-22, which otherwise serves Israel’s air superiority needs nicely, might have gone through a similar process.

Long Range Strike Bomber: 

Setting aside the periodic nonsense about Israel acquiring American B-52s, the long-term stand-off with Iran has demonstrated that Israel really could use a plausible long-range strike option. While Israeli F-15s and F-16s can, with refueling, reach targets in Iran, the immense distance would put them at a disadvantage as they tried to penetrate defended airspace. In this context, the Air Force’s B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber might seem attractive.

Of course, Israel hasn’t operated a strategic bomber since it retired a few B-17 Flying Fortresses in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the perceived need for an option that could penetrate Iranian air defenses and deliver heavy payloads might make the IDF reconsider its commitment to fighter-bombers. Whether the United States would ever consider exporting the bomber (which will likely fall under a variety of legal restriction associated with nuclear-delivery systems) is a different question entirely.

Massive Ordnance Penetrator: 

And what good are planes if they don’t have bombs to drop? Rumors of Israeli interest in the thirty-thousand-pound precision-guided bomb began to emerge at the beginning of this decade, fueling ideas in Congress about transferring the munition and an aircraft capable of delivering it. The MOP interests Israel because of its “bunker busting” capacity, which would give Israel the ability to hit deeply buried weapons facilities in Iran and elsewhere.

The United States has thus far declined to send the bomb to the Israelis, in no small part because the IDF still lacks a plausible delivery system. The Obama administration also worried about giving Israel the tools it needed to strike Iran would upset the regional balance. But geostrategic changes (or domestic political shifts in the US) might alter that calculation.

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Ballistic Missile Submarine: 

Israel’s submarine force teeters on the very edge of presenting a plausible deterrent. The IDF submarine arm has done excellent work with its group of transferred Dolphin-class subs. However, diesel-electric submarines carrying long-range cruise missiles simply cannot match the performance, endurance, or security of nuclear boats.

This is not to say that Israel needs, or could use, something analogous to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. However, a more modest boat with a smaller number of missiles of limited range could indeed prove very useful to Israel’s efforts to create a robust second-strike capability. A flotilla of four such boats would provide a nearly invulnerable retaliatory capacity.

Israel has most of what it needs from the United States; in several areas, the technical capabilities of the IDF exceed those of the U.S. military. But in some areas the Israelis could take more advantage of U.S. technology, especially if strategic necessity and financial reality came together in more productive ways. Given the dynamism of Israel’s economy, the IDF may have the chance to avail itself of some of these opportunities in the near future.

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 earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security, Europe

The escalating deployments point to growing readiness for war on both sides.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Russian planes flew over the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula before turning south into the so-called Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a maritime chokepoint in the North Atlantic.

Russian submarines are deploying farther, in greater numbers, than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The undersea surge has prompted NATO to initiate a surge of its own, launching large numbers of maritime patrol planes to find, track and practice sinking the Russian boats.

But there’s evidence Russia is doing the same thing, sending its own patrol planes farther south than they normally fly.

The escalating deployments point to growing readiness for war on both sides.

British and Norwegian Typhoon and F-16 fighter jets scrambled two times in late February 2020 to intercept pairs of Tu-142 patrol planes belonging to Russia’s Northern Fleet after the Tu-142s flew farther south than normal and approaches Norwegian air space.

“These Russian aircraft operate relatively routinely over the seas north of Norway,” Maj. Brynjar Stordal, a spokesperson for the Norwegian armed forces, told The Barents Observer. “It is not common that they fly as far south as they did this week.”

The Russian planes flew over the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula before turning south into the so-called Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a maritime chokepoint in the North Atlantic.

“Breaking through the GIUK gap in a potential conflict would be important for the Russian navy when establishing the ‘bastion defense’ concept, protecting the ballistic missile submarines patrolling in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean,” The Barents Observer explained.

The Tu-142 flights coincided with the beginning of a major NATO exercise in Norway. Exercise Cold Response involved 15,000 alliance troops from nine countries.

“We have experienced in the past that allied exercise activities in out neighborhoods has led to some increased activity from Russian surveillance capacities like this,” Stordal said.

NATO isn’t alone in staging large-scale war games. The Russian navy in mid-October 2019 sortied eight subs in the country’s biggest undersea exercise since the Cold War.

The eight submarines, including six nuclear-powered ships, sailed from their bases in northern Russia into the cold waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas. At the same time, an additional two boats -- the nuclear-powered Sierra-class attack submarines Pskov and Nizhny Novgorod -- sailed into roughly the same waters for tests and training.

The 10 vessels represent around 20 percent of the Russian submarine force. For comparison, the U.S. Pacific Fleet with its roughly 30 subs as recently as 2013 reliably could deploy eight boats on short notice.

More than a dozen NATO patrol planes flew back-to-back missions in order to find and track Moscow’s submarines. Amatuer plane-spotters using commercial software kept tabs on the planes’ transponders.

It’s unclear how many NATO submarines also joined the hunt for the Russian boats.

Between Oct. 25 and Nov. 7, 2019, the NATO planes flew more than 40 missions. Six Norwegian air force P-3s, four U.S. Navy P-8s and a Canadian air force CP-140 flew from Andoya in Norway. At least one additional P-8 flew from Keflavik in Iceland. A French navy Atlantic 2 patroller staged from Prestwick airport in Scotland.

Russian submarines also have extended their patrols across the Atlantic to the U.S. East Coast. In response, the U.S. fleet in March 2020 is doing something it hasn’t done in decades. Practicing to protect convoys.

“The Navy is exercising a contested cross-Atlantic convoy operation for the first time since the end of the Cold War, using a carrier strike group to pave the way for sealift ships with a cruiser escort to bring the Army ground equipment for the Defender-20 exercise,” USNI News reported.

The nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Eisenhower is leading the current convoy exercise. “The Ike, along with an unidentified submarine sweeping the depths of the ocean for unexpected Russian guests, is participating in an exercise that will throw simulated attacks at the convoy to stress test how prepared the Navy is to punch its way across the Atlantic,” Breaking Defense explained.

But NATO isn’t the only one preparing for undersea warfare, as the spike in Russian aerial patrols indicate.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared last year.

Venkatesh Shankar

economy, The Americas

Today, Amazon is the third-most valuable U.S. company – behind Apple and Microsoft – with a market capitalization of around US$1.7 trillion, greater than the gross domestic product of all but a dozen or so countries. Here’s how Bezos reshaped retailing.

Amazon announced Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO almost 27 years after he founded the company to sell books to customers over dial-up modems.

Amazon wasn’t the first bookstore to sell online, but it wanted to be “Earth’s biggest.” When it first launched, a bell would ring in the company’s Seattle headquarters every time an order was placed. Within weeks, the bell was ringing so frequently employees had to turn it off.

But Bezos – who will remain at the company – set his sights on making it an “everything store.” After achieving dominance in retail, the company would go on to become a sprawling and powerful global conglomerate in numerous lines of business.

Today, Amazon is the third-most valuable U.S. company – behind Apple and Microsoft – with a market capitalization of around US$1.7 trillion, greater than the gross domestic product of all but a dozen or so countries.

Here’s how Bezos reshaped retailing.

Redefining retail

Amazon – named after the world’s largest river – continually took shopping convenience to newer levels.

Before Amazon’s founding on July 5, 1994, shoppers had to travel to stores to discover and buy things. Shopping used to be hard work – wandering down multiple aisles in search of a desired item, dealing with crying and nagging kids, and waiting in long checkout lines. Today, stores try to reach out to shoppers anywhere, anytime and through multiple channels and devices.

After first experiencing two-day free shipping from Amazon’s Prime membership program, shoppers started expecting no less from every online retailer. An estimated 142 million shoppers in the U.S. have Amazon Prime.

The company made shopping more convenient through features like one-click ordering; personalized recommendations; package pickup at Amazon hubs and lockers; ordering products with the single touch of a Dash button; and in-home delivery with Amazon Key.

Shoppers can also search for and order items through a simple voice command to an Echo or by clicking an Instagram or Pinterest image. Amazon even has a cashier-less “Go” store in Seattle.

Amazon has also been a factor in the rising closures of brick-and-mortar stores that can’t keep pace with the changes in retail. Even before the pandemic, stores were closing at a phenomenal rate, with analysts predicting a coming “retail apocalypse.” Amazon benefited enormously last year as much of the U.S. went into lockdown and more consumers preferred ordering goods online rather than risking their health by going to physical stores.

Amazon’s share price has almost doubled since the lockdown began in March 2020, even as over 11,000 retail stores closed their doors.

A major employer

Amazon’s impact extends to other industries, including smart consumer devices like Alexa, cloud services like Amazon Web Services and technology products like drones.

Such is Amazon’s impact that industry players and observers use the term “Amazoned” to describe their business model and operations being disrupted by Amazon.

Today, Amazon is the second-largest U.S.-based publicly listed employer and the fifth biggest in the world. It employs 1.2 million people, having hired 427,000 during the pandemic. No wonder Amazon created such a buzz in 2018 when it held a competition to select a location for its second headquarters. It eventually picked Arlington, Virginia.

Amazon’s work culture is intense. It has a reputation as a cutthroat environment with a high employee burnout rate. It is automating as many jobs as possible, mostly in warehousing.

At the same time, after criticism from policymakers, Amazon stepped up in 2018 and raised the minimum wage for its U.S. employees to $15 per hour.

Faced with growing criticisms about the mounting impact of Amazon’s boxes and other packaging material on the environment, Amazon has also pledged to disclose more information about its environmental impact.

The next generation

What’s in store for Amazon as Bezos steps down from his CEO role later this year?

Bezos, who will stay on as Amazon’s executive chairman, has previously said his focus is on preventing Amazon from dying. As he noted at a 2018 all-hands meeting, “Amazon is not too big to fail.”

As a professor of marketing who has conducted research on online retailing and analyzed hundreds of cases, I believe that Amazon’s future – and humanity’s – is inextricably linked to the rise of artificial intelligence. Starting with Alexa, the company’s virtual assistant, Amazon is betting on AI.

In fact, Amazon is testing anticipatory shipping, a practice in which it anticipates what shoppers need and mails the items before shoppers order them. Shoppers can keep the items they like and return those they don’t want at no charge. It is also betting on cashier-free stores and AI-powered home robots.

Amazon’s future success will depend on how the incoming CEO – current head of cloud computing Andy Jassy – navigates these new technologies while pushing the company into more industries, such as health care and financial services.

His challenge is to keep Bezos’ legacy and Amazon’s disruptive culture alive.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 3, 2019.

Venkatesh Shankar, Coleman Chair Professor of Marketing and Director of Research, Texas A&M University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

History, Asia

Japanese-American interpreters serving in the U.S. Army provided valuable service to the Allies in the Pacific.

Here's What You Need to Know: During the war and for many years thereafter, the American public knew little about the service provided by the MIS linguists to the Allied forces.

American soldiers of Japanese ancestry made remarkable contributions to the Allied victory during World War II. The best known of their exploits was the outstanding fighting record compiled by the 100th Infantry Battalion and later the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during the European campaigns. The soldiers of the 442nd received more decorations than those of any unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.

Less well known were the World War II contributions made by Nisei (American-born children of Japanese immigrants) troops on the other side of the globe in the Pacific and the China-Burma-India Theaters. The U.S. Army kept their service classified as secret until 1973 when the Freedom of Information Act finally provided the vehicle for the public release of this fascinating story. What were the reasons for this delay? Certainly, the story of the hazardous and valuable contributions of this group of soldiers merited the attention of the American public much sooner than 28 years from the war’s end to the ultimate release of the information.

During the course of the war, some 6,000 AJAs (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) provided valuable language and information skills for Allied military and naval personnel throughout the Asian and Pacific areas. Their efforts proved to be doubly dangerous since, because of their racial identity, they could be mistaken for enemy soldiers by their own forces. In many cases, the linguists had to be provided with heavily armed bodyguards to keep them out of harm’s way. On several occasions, Nisei soldiers were taken captive by their own comrades in arms who were unaware of the role played by the AJAs in defeating the enemy. It is believed also that in more than one situation the Japanese Americans involved in frontline action were killed accidentally by friendly fire because of mistaken identity.

The MISLS

Prior to the commencement of World War II itself, the U.S. War Department recognized the need for developing a facility capable of translating the Japanese language—to monitor broadcasts, translate documents, and to communicate, if necessary, with the Japanese. One of the world’s most difficult tongues to master, Japanese was known and understood by few Americans. However, there were 200,000 American-born Japanese and their parents living in the United States. Unless born in the United States, Asians, by law, were excluded from citizenship, so most of the Issei, the foreign-born parents of the Nisei, could not change their legal status.

It was from the pool of Nisei that the War Department planned to recruit Japanese language experts. It ordered the testing of the nearly 4,000 AJAs serving in the Army at that time to determine their competency in Japanese. As it turned out, few of the young soldiers could read, write, or speak that language with any fluency. Most had made, to a greater or lesser degree, the transition to “the American way of life.” English had now become their principal language. The U.S. Army, depending on two Caucasian officers who knew Japanese, Lt. Col. John Weckerling and Captain Kai Rasmussen, established what came to be called the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at Crissey Field, on San Francisco’s Presidio Army base.

Weckerling and Rasmussen, in turn, began to recruit Nisei instructors to lead the classes. John Aiso, of Burbank, California, and a Harvard Law School graduate, became the school’s chief instructor. He was followed by Akira Oshida, Arthur Kaneko, and Shigeya Kihara, who managed to locate the necessary written materials for class use. In the short span of six weeks, the team assembled a staff, an initial class of students, and the buildings and supplies needed to begin the project.

The first class of 60 students at the Presidio commenced its studies on November 1, 1941. Fifty-eight members of the initial group were Japanese Americans. Two Caucasians with previous language training completed the first cadre. Five weeks later, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations on Oahu. Military authorities seemed confused as to the future of the new language school. The Army pulled both Weckerling and Rasmussen from the project and assigned them to other jobs. Fortunately, some Army officers realized the importance of the work that had begun and ordered Rasmussen back to the Presidio. The Danish-born immigrant with a native ability for learning foreign tongues remained head of the language training program thereafter.

The curriculum was designed to improve the students’ ability to communicate verbally, to read and understand Japanese military terminology and documentation, to translate intercepted radio messages, to read maps, and to understand the basics of cryptography. Later in the war, the school’s graduates proved effective in what came to be called “cave flushing,” the persuading of Japanese soldiers and civilians hiding in caves in combat areas to surrender rather than resist or commit suicide.

Recruiting Nisei in a Time of War

After the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, requiring all Japanese Americans, whether foreign born or American citizens, to vacate the coastal areas of the western states and enter some 10 relocation facilities, dubbed by some critics of the program as concentration camps. In accordance with this policy, the Army established a new facility for the language school at Camp Savage, Minnesota. Rasmussen began a desperate campaign to find Nisei with sufficient knowledge of the Japanese language to undergo the planned intensive training. Soon the demands for the expansion of the program resulted in its being moved to more adequate headquarters at nearby Fort Snelling, a permanent Army installation.

Rasmussen shouldered the task of selling recruits on the importance of the mission. His candidates often had whole families confined to the relocation facilities, living under extremely trying conditions. Nevertheless, he managed to acquire recruits for a variety of reasons. Some candidates felt that participating in the program would demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. Others felt that the language program would at least get them out of the relocation camps and could possibly open up other opportunities. By the fall of 1944, almost 1,800 students had completed extensive training in a variety of courses that would prove useful to the American military.

As the graduates streamed out of the Minnesota facility, they received assignments throughout the Pacific, from the Aleutian Islands campaign in the far north to General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, which became the center for the ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Service). At its peak the facility had over 3,000 AJAs serving at that location. The other two major centers for the assignment of the Nisei language specialists were JICPOA (Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area) in Hawaii and SATIC (Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center) in New Delhi, India. From these key facilities the AJAs were sent to various subordinate units and on special missions.

The need for language school graduates far exceeded the supply, and Rasmussen became increasingly desperate to find candidates. He turned to the Japanese Hawaiians, for this group contained a far larger number of Kibei, American citizens who had been sent by their families to study in Japan, than the AJAs living on the mainland. The Kibei could be expected to quickly learn the curriculum developed at the Minnesota facility. The Hawaiians proved to be a hard sell. Many of them preferred to serve with the 100th Infantry Battalion, consisting of Nisei from their home territory.

Facing Discrimination within the Armed Forces

General MacArthur, commander of U.S. forces in the South Pacific, had a great deal of respect for and confidence in the language specialists. He counted on them heavily to interpret all Japanese military documents that fell into Army hands. The translation of these often critical documents aided in the planning of future campaigns.

Ultimately, the AJAs would serve in every major area in the Pacific and the China-Burma-India Theaters throughout the war and act as language experts for Australian, British, Indian, and Chinese troops, as well as for their fellow Americans. The Commonwealth troops and the Chinese had no Japanese language specialists of their own.

The Military Information Specialists, MISers as they came to be called, all served in the Army. The Navy, clinging to archaic patterns of racial discrimination, refused to allow Nisei to enlist in its branch of the service. The same practice existed for the Marines as well. As a result, those two branches later came to depend on borrowed MISers from the Army on a temporary basis whenever the need arose. More than 100 were assigned to the Marines during land campaigns under such an arrangement. Yet. the role that the MISers played in the battles never appeared in Marine dispatches.

Linguists as Interrogators

Initial attempts to draw information from Japanese prisoners of war proved difficult. Capturing them alive was a major problem itself, for the Japanese soldier had been programmed to fight to the death. The Army managed to take only 28 prisoners, about 1 percent of the defenders, when the Japanese were driven from the Aleutian island of Attu. The ferocious fighting that took place on Iwo Jima resulted in only 38 prisoners. Having once secured a prisoner, however, the interrogators quickly learned that he would respond to kind and courteous treatment. Often the simple act of offering a cigarette, some medicine, a glass of water, or a small bandage for a wound would establish a mood of cooperation during the captor’s search for critical military information.

As the war progressed, the language specialists became increasingly effective in the art of persuading Japanese soldiers both to surrender and to divulge vital military information. The Japanese Army had apparently never taught its soldiers how to conduct themselves as prisoners of war since their military ideology stressed either victory or death in battle.

Nisei as a Tactical Asset

Nisei translators accompanied the Army throughout the campaign in the South Pacific. They served at Guadalcanal, the Solomons, the Carolines, New Guinea, and the Philippines, as well as in smaller and more limited engagements. MISers also accompanied the fabled Merrill’s Marauders during their raids behind Japanese lines in Burma. They performed the same service for the British Chindit guerrillas as well. A specially trained group of Nisei language experts joined OSS (Office of Strategic Services) commandos who worked with the Kachins, native Burmese fighters from the country’s northern hills. These guerrillas aided the Allies in their mission to open the Burma Road to resupply China with critical war materiél.

On the Front Lines in Okinawa

Possibly the most outstanding performance by the Nisei in the Pacific Theater took place during the struggle for Okinawa. This central island of the Ryukyus, some 350 miles south of the Japanese Home Island of Kyushu, represented the key to the southern defenses of the Japanese empire. To the advancing Allied forces its capture would provide an ideal staging area for the invasion of Japan itself. The fight for the island would prove to be the greatest battle of the Pacific War.

The Japanese 32nd Army defended Okinawa. Its commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, led a force of some 75,000 Japanese soldiers plus an additional 25,000 or so Okinawans organized into a Boetai or Home Guard. These defenders were situated in an extensive system of fortified caves and underground tunnels, awaiting the arrival of the invading American Tenth Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. The total American force—ships, men, and equipment— numbered over 500,000 men, of which 180,000 assault troops (five Army and three Marine divisions) would actually go ashore.

The MISers’ contribution to the invading army’s ultimate success in capturing Okinawa was substantial. A copy of the Japanese Army’s final defense plan was captured early in the fighting. Also discovered was a contour map of the island, which was found on the body of an enemy artillery observation officer. The translation and reproduction of these critical documents by the language specialists proved to be of immense value to the American forces.

Okinawa presented a unique challenge to the language specialists. The island’s native inhabitants spoke a local dialect unfamiliar to the ears of most of the MISers unless their parents were originally from the island. The 450,000 Okinawans had also been warned by Japanese Army personnel that they would be raped, tortured, and killed by the invaders. In many cases, the civilians followed the Japanese as they began their retreat in the face of the powerful offensive launched against them by the Americans. Many chose to hide in caves and the tunnels. The job of the MISers consisted of trying to talk both the Japanese soldiers and the Okinawan civilians into surrendering.

Most Japanese soldiers chose to commit suicide rather than surrender, and they had urged the island’s civilians to do likewise. During fighting on the island of Saipan in the Marianas, many of the island’s civilians had committed suicide by hurling themselves off 800-foot cliffs into the sea. More than 50,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died as the U.S. Army seized control of Saipan.

For the Okinawa campaign, the Army followed the suggestion of a MISer whose parents were Okinawan and set up a special unit proficient in that dialect. As the invasion progressed, the group worked to get the island’s civilians away from the fighting. They also quickly identified any Japanese Army personnel who sought to escape capture by trying to blend in with the Okinawan civilians.

Some of the Okinawan language specialists became “cave flushers.” One heroic member of this group entered a cave and convinced its inhabitants, 350 Japanese officers and men, to surrender. Another MISer entered a total of 12 different caves and persuaded the holdouts in 11 of them to surrender.

Without question, the work of these Nisei translators saved thousands of lives, among both the Okinawan civilian population and the Japanese military. By the time the Americans secured the island, some 10,000 soldiers had given up in the only meaningful mass capitulation by the Japanese military of the entire Pacific War. About 300,000 civilians, approximately two-thirds of the island’s population, also survived the holocaust. While it was true that many Japanese soldiers and some Okinawan civilians still chose to commit suicide rather than surrender to the American forces, there is no doubt that the toll would have been much higher were it not for MISer efforts.

A Postwar Role

The work of the Nisei translators was not concluded at war’s end. They traveled throughout the Pacific, participating in the surrender of Japanese troops on small islands and in major cities. They moved quickly to POW camps as well to ensure the safety of Allied troops in Japanese hands. They also acted as interpreters during the war crimes trials of Japanese soldiers that followed in the Philippines and Japan. Their postwar contributions proved equally as important as their wartime efforts.

The Army sought to hold on to as many AJAs with Japanese language skills as possible following the war because the United States needed their skills during the occupation of Japan. Many Nisei chose to make a career in the Army, receiving advancement in the officer structure as time passed, before eventually retiring.

Legacy of the MISers

The MIS linguists earned three Distinguished Service Crosses, five Legion of Merit medals, and five Silver Stars. They also received numerous Bronze Stars, Soldier’s Medals, and Purple Hearts. In total, 39 MIS personnel gave their lives in the service of their country.

During the war and for many years thereafter, the American public knew little about the service provided by the MIS linguists to the Allied forces. During the war, many MISers had relatives still in Japan, some even in the Japanese Army. The U.S. Army sought to protect the identity of the translators, so as not to bring harm to these family members. There has also been a natural reticence on the part of the Nisei themselves to discuss their accomplishments while in the service. However, General George Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, estimated that the work of the MISers shortened the war in the Pacific by two years.

The MISLS was moved to Monterey, California, after the war, and the language center has grown significantly since it began in 1941. It has remained the major U.S. facility for the instruction of foreign languages for military purposes. More than 100,000 students have passed through the school to date. It currently offers instruction in 50 different languages and has a library of 20,000 volumes on site. In January 2000, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service finally received a Presidential Unit Citation from the secretary of the Army.

Dr. Carl H. Marcoux is a World War II veteran of the U.S. Merchant Marine and a Korean War veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He resides in Newport Beach, California.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Flickr

Peter Suciu

Security, Middle East

The Iranian government has been seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction technology and ballistic missile systems.

Here's What You Need To Remember: “Iran, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Syria, made efforts to procure goods and know-how for the further development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,” wrote the intelligence officials.

Multiple sources reported earlier this week that a German state intelligence agency has confirmed that the Iranian government was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technology and ballistic missile systems. Saarland’s Department for the Protection of the Constitution said the Islamic Republic was one of three foreign countries that sought to advance its WMD program on German soil.

“Iran, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Syria, made efforts to procure goods and know-how for the further development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,” wrote the intelligence officials for the Saarland reported The Jerusalem Post.

“Delivery system” would refer to the capability to launch missiles. Israel, the United States and many Persian Gulf nations all believe Iran has continued to seek to develop nuclear weapons and could obtain such technology by the end of this year.

Germany, along with France and Great Britain, has supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal. 

German Reports 

Multiple German intelligence reports have also confirmed that Tehran sought to purchase components used in the development of nuclear and missile weapons in 2019.  

Saarland's Department for the Protection of the Constitution is just one of the domestic intelligence services. Each of the sixteen German federal states has its own intelligence agencies, and each issues an annual report that documents threats to the state's democratic system. 

A report from the Baden-Wurttemberg state intelligence agency also reported that “countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are making efforts to optimize corresponding technology,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday.

An additional report from Baden-Wurttemberg on the proliferation of atomic, biological and chemical weapons also revealed how those countries listed above have continued illegal procurement efforts in Germany to perfect the range, deployability and even the impact of the respective weapons.

Saarland’s intelligence service also noted the apparent illicit nuclear weapons of Pakistan in Germany and abroad and reported, “Pakistan also operates an extensive nuclear and carrier technology program and continues to endeavor to expand and modernize, in order to retain a serious deterrent potential against the ‘Arch enemy’ India.”

Many experts believe Pakistan's nuclear stockpile has been steadily growing, and the German report only confirms such concerns.

Russian Style Tactics 

The Saarland agency also reported that Iran—along with China—is replicating Russia's tactics to target dissidents and opponents within Germany.

“The intelligence staff there (Iran), supposedly working as diplomats or journalists, conduct open or covert information gathering themselves or provide support in intelligence operations that are carried out directly by the headquarters of the intelligence services in their home countries. In addition, intelligence services also carry out operations without their legal residences being involved. The focus of their respective procurement activities is based on current political requirements or economic priorities.”

The Jerusalem Post also reported that Tehran has used German territory for surveillance and assassination operations targeting Iranian dissidents, pro-Israel advocates and Israeli and Jewish institutions. The Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence and Security has been known for its secrecy and efficiency, and now it appears that it has taken root—deep roots at that—within Germany. 

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

David Axe

Security, Europe

The U.S. military is spending more and more on electronic-warfare systems, all in a desperate bid to keep pace with China and Russia’s own investments in jammers.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Instead of trying to out-radiate Russian ground forces, the Pentagon could invest in aerial and naval jammers that could overpower the Kremlin’s air and sea units, resulting in an asymmetric advantage for the United States.

The U.S. military is spending more and more on electronic-warfare systems, all in a desperate bid to keep pace with China and Russia’s own investments in jammers.

But the roughly $10 billion that the Pentagon plans to spend on electronic warfare every year over the next five years isn’t helping as much as it should, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments explained in a November 2019 report.

“The growth in [Defense Department] E.W. spending ... is not guided by a coherent vision of how U.S. forces would operate and fight in the [electromagnetic spectrum, or EMS] and is unlikely to yield significant improvements against China and Russia, the U.S. military’s most challenging competitors,” CSBA experts Bryan Clark, Whitney McNamara and Timothy Walton explained.

The Pentagon in 2017 published a new strategy for E.W. investment, which covers a wide range of programs for scrambling enemy sensors and communications. But “new networked, cognitive and agile E.W. technologies called for in the 2017 E.W. strategy have been slow to transition into operational systems, and [research-and-development] spending to field those capabilities is projected to decrease for several years after [fiscal year] 2020,” the experts wrote.

Procurement funding for E.W. gear is set to grow, but even that spending won’t make much of a difference, Clark, McNamara and Walton warned. “Although E.W. procurement is projected to rise through 2024, it is concentrated in a few platform-centric programs such as the ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer and SLQ-32 Shipboard E.W. Improvement Program. These systems update existing programs but do not fundamentally change the way U.S. forces operate in the EMS and represent a traditional move-countermove approach to military capability development.”

The problem, the experts explained, is that the Pentagon takes a reactionary approach to planning its E.W. investments. “It tends to result in a ‘laundry list’ of recommended solutions to symmetrically solve each identified gap instead of identifying ways the U.S. military could gain a more enduring advantage against adversaries by changing its own strategy and operational concepts.”

This approach cedes the capability development initiative to the adversary, and DoD may require a decade or more to fill the identified gaps, during which time adversaries may adopt new concepts and capabilities. Given the shortfalls identified by previous studies of DoD EW and [electromagnetic spectrum operations] capabilities, a gap-based assessment would also likely recommend increased investment in E.W. and EMSO capabilities relative to today. ...

E.W. spending increased until FY 2020 and is expected to be flat or lower during the next several years. It is unlikely this trajectory will change in the near-to-mid-term as defense budgets come under pressure by higher mandatory spending on federal debt service and social programs, combined with the growing cost to operate and maintain U.S. forces.

The Pentagon could tailor its E.W. spending to take advantage of the main weaknesses of its top rivals. Take Russia, for example. “The Russian military seeks to create a comprehensive electronic-warfare [system of systems] ... designed to comprehensively defeat the U.S. military’s [command-and-control] networks,” the CSBA experts explained.

“To that end, Russian ground forces are receiving new E.W. equipment down to the company level that has performed effectively against U.S. and allied forces in Syria,” That means that, in a ground war, the Kremlin’s forces would be well-equipped to jam U.S. and allied communications and sensors.

But Russian air and naval forces aren’t so well-prepared for electromagnetic warfare. “The Russian military’s efforts to improve E.W. and EMS operations among its naval and air forces have made less progress and may hinder its ability to achieve the level of comprehensive EMS superiority Russian military leaders desire,” according to the CSBA report.

“Despite the rapid improvements in E.W. units seen among ground forces, only a portion of Russia’s shrinking military benefits from new systems and operational experience because many units, ships and aircraft do not rotate to the front line for modernization and operations.”

Instead of trying to out-radiate Russian ground forces, the Pentagon could invest in aerial and naval jammers that could overpower the Kremlin’s air and sea units, resulting in an asymmetric advantage for the United States. New air and sea jammer could undermine Russian approaches to deep battle and reconnaissance-strike,” Clark, McNamara and Walton proposed.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

History,

At the start of World War II, the French mobilized what was then the largest and reputed to be the strongest army in the world.

Here's What You Need to Remember: After its African colonies were granted independence in the 1960s, France froze military pensions and cited the cheaper living costs in Africa. In the years after the Second World War, the African soldiers were never represented in the memorials or celebrations that marked the victory in Europe or the end of the war.

At the start of World War II, the French mobilized what was then the largest and reputed to be the strongest army in the world. However, the 5 million men proved unable to stop the German blitzkrieg 80 years ago. When the Battle of France ended on June 25, 1940, France was defeated, but a handful of its forces continued to fight under the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle.

Among the men who joined the cause to liberate France from the Nazis were the men of the Army of Africa, which was made up of troops from France's African colonials. Their story has largely been forgotten.

Even before the Second World War France had recruited some five regiments of Tirailleurs Sénégalais from the North African and West African colonies, and these included not only men from Senegal but also from the Arab and Berber populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Some 40,000 of the men were deployed on the Western Front prior to the German invasion.

Many of those men defended France in the early days of the war and some 25,000 were killed during the blitzkrieg while as many as 3,000 may have been killed after they surrendered. Thousands of others reportedly were abused, deprived of food, drink, and even shelter.

The unofficial surrogate Army of Africa actually dated back decades prior to the Second World War, and after the fall of France in 1940 the Vichy government used those troops in Africa and the Middle East to maintain control. This included French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, where the Allies mounted an offensive in June-July 1941. While it involved an odd mix of Australian, British and Indian troops, it was also noted as a campaign where Frenchmen fought Frenchmen as the forces of Vichy France and Free France engaged in battle for the first and only time of the war.

Included among the forces on both sides were Senegalese troops.

It was just the beginning of the fight for those men. As the war continued with the liberation of North Africa and Corsica, and the invasion of Sicily and Italy; the French African troops were there. Notably in the summer of 1944 the Army of Africa played a role in the invasion of the south of France. While they were a major part of the Free French forces, for nearly all of the soldiers few had ever actually set foot on French soil before taking part in the liberation. Some 40,000 of the African soldiers were killed in those campaigns.

Instead of being welcomed as heroes, De Gaulle downplayed their role and he ordered a "whitening" of troops – replacing some 20,000 Africans with white French soldiers. The Tirailleurs Senegalais troops were then segregated in French demobilizing centers waiting to go home.

On November 30, 1944, some of the men mutinied, demanding equal pay and the same treatment as their French counterparts. French soldiers then fired on them and as many as 400 of the African soldiers were killed.

Their mass grave has never been found.

After its African colonies were granted independence in the 1960s, France froze military pensions and cited the cheaper living costs in Africa. In the years after the Second World War, the African soldiers were never represented in the memorials or celebrations that marked the victory in Europe or the end of the war.

Only in 2017 did then-President Francois Hollande honor surviving African veterans at a ceremony in the Elysée Palace in Paris, finally acknowledging, "France is proud to welcome you, just as you were proud to carry its flag, the flag of freedom."

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.

Stephen Silver

Coronavirus, Americas

It’s taken nearly a year, but it appears things have improved when it comes to getting answers, at least from Alexa. Or perhaps, there are just more places to get tested.

Last March, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, the website Venturebeat wrote a story about how such digital assistants as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant could better talk about the pandemic.

The author of that asked Alexa where they could get tested for the virus. Alexa responded with a set of local business listings, while Google’s counterpart simply said “sorry, I’m not sure how to help.”

It’s taken nearly a year, but it appears things have improved when it comes to getting answers, at least from Alexa. Or perhaps, there are just more places to get tested.

CNBC reported Friday that Amazon recently added a feature to Alexa that provides more reliable answers when it comes to finding a testing location. It works on both phones with Alexa apps and on Echo speakers, while providing data drawn from GISCorps, as well as from Yelp.

When I asked my Echo the question of “Where can I get tested for Covid-19?,” it listed a diagnostics lab, and a pair of pharmacies within a few miles of my house, while also saying that I could ask for the addresses for the first one.

The mobile app version brought up eight results.

Apple’s Siri, however, appears to be less accurate. When I asked it the same question, the top result was an “investigations and armed security” firm, located 114 miles away from me, although the next four results were indeed nearby urgent care centers, and one hospital that performs lab testing.

When I asked Alexa where I could get vaccinated near me, the answer wasn’t nearly as specific.

“Following CDC recommendations, vaccines are being allocated first to health care personnel and long-term care facility residents. For information on local vaccination sites, visit vaccines.gov.”

Ever since the start of the pandemic, sluggishness in the progress of testing has been a major problem in the fight against the coronavirus.

“You’re paying billions of dollars in this very inequitable way to get the most worthless test results of any country in the world,” Bill Gates said in August on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday. “No other country has this testing insanity… “It’s mind-blowing that you can’t get the government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is.”

Amazon, on the other hand, the maker of Alexa, has posted blockbuster financial results throughout the pandemic. For the fourth quarter of 2020, Amazon posted revenue of $125.56 billion, for its first-ever quarter of over a billion dollars. CEO Jeff Bezos also announced that he is stepping down later this year.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security,

“Hypersonics have been hyped up to be unprecedented, game-changing weapons.” But that may not be the case.

Here's What You Need to Remember: It just might be possible to intercept a hypersonic weapon during its final, “terminal” moments of flight. That’s because a hypersonic missile is slower during its terminal phase than an ICBM is.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff seems a little confused about hypersonic weapons and what the United States can do to defend against them.

U.S. Army general Mark Milley’s confusion was apparent in his March 4, 2020 testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Milley overhyped the capabilities of China and Russia’s Mach-five missiles, potentially stirring uncertainty into ongoing negotiations over the Pentagon’s budget for 2021.

"There is no defense against hypersonic,” Milley said. “You're not going to defend against it. Those things are going so fast you're not going to get it.”

It’s true that hypersonic weapons such as China’s DF-17 and Russia’s Avangard essentially are impossible to intercept during the middle of their flight, the so-called “midcourse” phase.

The U.S. Navy deploys SM-3 interceptors that can destroy, during their midcourse flight, slower medium-range ballistic missiles, such as the type to which Iran might fit a nuclear warhead.

But the SM-3 probably wouldn’t work against hypersonic weapons, Kingston Reif, a missile expert at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., told The National Interest.

“Our current midcourse missile defenses aren't capable of defending or postured to defend against hypersonic glide vehicles,” Reif said, “largely because gliders fly at a lower altitude and in a different atmosphere than traditional ballistic missiles.”

“The less predictable trajectory and potential maneuverability of gliders would also pose challenges to these defenses,” Reif added. “Existing terrestrial and space-based radars and sensors would also be challenged to track lower-altitude, maneuverable gliders.”

In that way, hypersonic missiles are similar to heavy, long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. ICBMs fly too high and too fast for reliable midcourse interception, although the Pentagon has claimed some success in limited tests of just such an intercept.

But it just might be possible to intercept a hypersonic weapon during its final, “terminal” moments of flight. That’s because a hypersonic missile is slower during its terminal phase than an ICBM is.

“Terminal, narrower-area defenses designed to intercept re-entry vehicles as they are bearing down on their target would in theory be more feasible, since at that stage a glider would be traveling slower than a ballistic [re-entry vehicle],” Reif explained.

Indeed, the Pentagon despite Milley’s alarmism is making big investments in terminal defenses against hypersonic missiles.

Congress in 2020 gave the Missile Defense Agency $400 million for the work. For 2021 the MDA wants another $200 million for the effort. The agency in February 2020 asked industry to begin submitting designs.

The investment in new defenses is why Milley’s fatalism is so “puzzling,” to borrow Reif’s characterization. The military acquisitions community knows it’s not impossible to develop defenses against hypersonic threats.

Milley’s comments could point to a wider misunderstanding of Mach-five missiles. “Hypersonics have been hyped up to be unprecedented, game-changing weapons,” Reif said.

But some skepticism probably is in order, David Larter advised in a November 2019 column in Defense News. “The catch is that none of this stuff works yet,” Larter wrote about new hypersonic weapons. “I want to emphasize that all of what we’re talking about here are prototypes.”

Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., likewise is skeptical of what Larter described as “the hypersonics craze.”

“These boost-glide prompt-strike weapons are really designed to have a strategic effect,” Clark explained.

“There are a small number of weapons, they are really expensive, so you are not going to hit a bunch of targets with them. So even one weapon that’s a hypersonic weapon could still get shot down. You may not be able to generate a bunch of effects with them because they cost so much that you aren’t going to do the thing where you overwhelm the air-defenses and come in from multiple angles with hypersonics because you don’t have enough of them.”

Hypersonic weapons steadily are getting better and more numerous and, in the future, could pose a serious threat to U.S. forces. But it’s not impossible to defend against them.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security, Asia

Three years ago Taiwan stocked up on air-defense missiles that, in a land-based role, probably wouldn’t make a dent in Chinese invasion forces during a major war. But the missiles could prove more useful at sea.

Three years ago Taiwan stocked up on air-defense missiles that, in a land-based role, probably wouldn’t make a dent in Chinese invasion forces during a major war. But the missiles could prove more useful at sea.

The U.S. Defense Department announced on Dec. 9, 2016, that the U.S. Army had awarded an Alabama-based company $23 million to build components for the Taiwanese military’s Chaparral air-defense missile systems.

The contract award was routine. What was news to many observers is that Taiwan still operates Chaparrals. The 1960s-vintage missiles probably can’t do much to stop Chinese aircraft in the event China invades the island country.

The U.S. Army launched the development of the MIM-72 Chaparral air-defense system in 1965 after a more ambitious surface-to-air missile launcher, the MIM-46 Mauler, proved to be impractical.

The Chaparral was an expedient. It borrowed the U.S. Navy’s AIM-9D Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missile and mounted it in a quad-pack atop a modified M-113 armored vehicle.

Technically, the launcher is an M-48. The missile is an MIM-72. But in practice, most people use “Chaparral” and “MIM-72” interchangeably to mean the overall air-defense system.

Paired with M-163 Vulcan vehicles armed with 20-millimeter rotary cannons — plus, in some cases, MPQ-49 radars — the Chaparrals were supposed to protect Army troops along the forward edge of the battlefield, where Soviet attack helicopters and low-flying close-air-support jets were a big danger.

But the Chaparral suffered serious limitations. The Sidewinder missile had a range of only five miles under the best of circumstances. And while later versions of the missile could track a target from all angles, it always worked best while chasing an enemy aircraft from behind. That gave the missile’s seeker head the clearest view of the hottest parts of the target—its engine exhaust.

An attack helicopter popping up from behind some trees could strike quickly then pop back down, masking it from view before a Chaparral crew could slew its launcher and fire.

The U.S. Army bought more than 600 Chaparral systems and fielded them between 1969 and 1998, when various versions of the Stinger missile finally replaced them. Today the Pentagon is working on mobile lasers to replace the Stingers.

But Taiwan, a country of 23 million people with a military budget of just $10 billion, is stuck with the Chaparrals it bought starting in the early 1980s. Taipei acquired as many as 90 launchers plus hundreds of missiles — and also bought a naval version of the Chaparral for its small fleet of frigates.

Taiwan’s Chaparrals are part of an air-defense system that also includes around 300 fighter jets plus Stingers, long-range Hawk and Patriot missile batteries and the indigenous Sky Bow missile — all cued by a network of powerful radars.

But this air-defense system might not be sufficient to stop a Chinese invasion. Taiwan lies just 100 miles from mainland China, which officially considers Taiwan to be an illegal, breakaway province — and has threatened to invade in the event that Taipei formally declares its independence.

Against Taiwan’s defenses, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army — the PLA — can quickly muster hundreds of modern fighters, attack planes, bombers and attack helicopters — not to mention a thousand short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that could pulverize Taiwan’s air bases and military installations, including fixed radar and surface-to-air missile sites, in the early hours of a war.

The Chaparrals couldn’t do much to stop this aerial assault. When the RAND Corporation, an influential American think tank, assessed Taiwan’s air-defense system in 2016, the analysts didn’t even mention the Chaparrals by name — and were dismissive of the systems’ ability to stop Chinese air raids in the aftermath of a ballistic-missile barrage.

“The completion of the attacks on the long-range SAMs would dramatically decrease the danger to any PLA aircraft operating over Taiwan, which could fly at a higher altitude than the remaining short-range SAMs and air-defense guns could reach,” RAND noted. “This would enable an efficient attack on Taiwan’s air bases following ballistic missile attacks to cut the runways and trap aircraft that are not already in the air.”

RAND advised Taiwan to spend less money on vulnerable — and outnumbered — fighter planes and instead invest in new air-defense platoons equipped with new, mobile radars and missiles that could hide in forests and among hills and emerge after the ballistic missiles stopped falling. The think tank assumed these platoons would not use the existing Chaparrals.

Perhaps the most interesting Taiwanese application of the Chaparral is at sea. In 2015 the Taiwanese navy took delivery of a new, 20,000-ton-displacement supply ship named Panshih. In contrast to most of the world’s naval supply ships, Panshih is heavily armed — with, among other weapons, Chaparral missiles.

That means the vessel, which has hangar space for three helicopters, could double as a kind of poor-man’s amphibious assault ship during a naval war in the hotly-contested, and dangerous, China Seas.

David Axe served as a defense editor for the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article was first published in 2019.

Image: Creative Commons/Flickr. 

Peter Suciu

History, World

With just eighty-four discrete components the Model 12 is easy to break down, clean and put back together quickly.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While many Cold War-era submachine guns have been taken out of production and even service, the Italian-made Beretta Model 12S—the most recent version of the weapon, which has added safety features—remains in production and use and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

As the world’s oldest firearms maker the Italian-based Beretta knows a thing or two about firearms. Since its founding in 1526, it has produced military weapons, and since the middle of the seventeenth century, its firearms have been used in every major European war. 

While some lists include its Model 1938 as being a lackluster submachine gun, one that was certainly overshadowed by the likes of the German MP40 and the American Thompson, the company produced one of the finest submachine guns of the Cold War era. 

This was the Model 12. 

Developed during the late 1950s by Italian arms engineer Domenico Salza, it was introduced in 1961 and became the standard submachine gun of the Italian Army. Chambered in the ubiquitous NATO 9x19-millimeter Parabellum cartridge the submachine gun was compact, reliable and accurate. It weighs just 7.5 pounds empty and with its stock folded is a more than manageable 16.5 inches, while with the stock extended is still just 25.4 inches. It was notable too for featuring a forward grip that made the weapon a bit more controllable than other submachine guns or even assault rifles of the era.

Its compact size is owed to the use of a telescopic bolt, which also reduces the upward movement of the muzzle when firing on full-auto. Unlike many of the other early postwar submachine guns, the Beretta Model 12 is available in selective fire as well and is quite accurate in its semiautomatic mode. 

The blowback-operated weapon has an effective range of 150 to 200 meters and a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. It is fed from a 20-, 32- and 40-round detachable box magazine. Also unlike many its contemporary submachine guns, this one features three safeties including a manual safety, which blocks the trigger; and automatic safety on the rear grip, which immobilizes the trigger and blocks the bolt into a closed position; and even a safety on the charging handle. The safety on the cocking handle blocks the bolt in case this is not fully retracted, thus preventing an accidental discharge. 

With just eighty-four discrete components the Model 12 is easy to break down, clean and put back together quickly.  

The Beretta Model 12 first saw action in the Vietnam War when it was used by members of the Viet Cong who were carrying the weapon. It has seen use in combat in the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War and most recently the Libyan Civil War. Stocks of the weapon were also reportedly used by the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Licensed copies of the Model 12 were made in Brazil by Taurus International, in Belgium by FN Herstal and in Indonesia by PT Pindad—and it is likely the Viet Cong-used weapons came from Indonesia. While many Cold War-era submachine guns have been taken out of production and even service, the Italian-made Beretta Model 12S—the most recent version of the weapon, which has added safety features—remains in production and use and shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

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 first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

They are more zombies, than renewable.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Army reportedly saves roughly 50 percent of what it could cost to replace targets over buying new ones and it saves time, too. The old boosters make a more affordable but also far more effective target that can be used in weapon testing.

There have been calls for increased efforts to “recycle” over the years, but this hasn’t always been possible when it comes to military hardware. However, the U.S. Army is now recycling and reutilizing demilitarized rocket motors and even repurposing the materials to make test missiles.

In May 2018 the Army opened the Anniston Munitions Center’s Launch Rocket System Recycle (MLRS) facility at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The facility enabled the Army to demilitarize the MLRS warheads, recycle the metal parts and reduce the aging munitions at a lower cost than previous options. 

The project was ten years in the making but came about via a partnership with Product Support Director for Demilitarization, The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command Missile Demilitarization Office, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research and Development and Engineering Center and several contracting firms. The facility was designed, built and tested to implement a safe capability for the closed system of demilitarization of M26 MLRS warheads and M77 sub-munitions.

Zombie Rockets 

The efforts have advanced, and this week Defense News reported that the Army’s efforts now include the creation of “zombies,” which are test missiles that save the Army from having to destroy old boosters and instead gives them new life. It might not be entirely green in terms of the materials being recycled, but instead these are being repurposed for use as targets for Patriot testing. 

In addition, the boosters have been used by the Missile Defense Agency and for foreign military sales test events. A zombie booster was the target used in a critical test that highlighted how the Patriot platform could be interoperable with the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) System. The Army acquired around two hundred THAAD rockets for its seven batteries and roughly forty launchers last year. 

The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) has seen production double to meet the needs for the U.S. Army and its allies and that means more testing will be required.  

This testing effort started several years ago when the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, as well as Patriot air and missile defense lower-tier product office, was running out of targets for tests and spending more money to buy the additional targets. 

The Army reportedly saves roughly 50 percent of what it could cost to replace targets over buying new ones and it saves time, too. The old boosters make a more affordable but also far more effective target that can be used in weapon testing. The Army has built seven targets to date, and Defense News indicated that these included three variants: Pathfinder Zombie; the Black Dagger Zombie that adds an additional booster—the Terrier MK70—for longer ranges; and Sabre, a shorter-range version. 

The targets will also be reported used in some of the upcoming tests to help Department of Defense (DoD) officials make decisions on the Lower-Tier Air-Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), the future radar for the U.S. Army’s Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense System to replace the Patriot. Unlike the more linear directional configuration of the existing Patriot air and missile defense system, the Raytheon-built LTAMDS is engineered with overlapping 120-degree arrays intended to seamlessly track approaching threats using a 360-degree protection envelope. 

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. 

Image: Flickr.