Diplomacy & Crisis News

As relations worsen on other fronts, the Kerry-Xie relationship could make a difference on climate change.

The country’s swift fall shows that managing a pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint.

Impossible, ou presque, de vivre aux Etats-Unis sans contracter un emprunt. Dans certains quartiers défavorisés, où les banques refusent d'ouvrir des agences, les habitants doivent avoir recours aux échoppes de « prêteurs rapaces ». / États-Unis, Banque, Dette, Finance, Inégalités, Pauvreté, (...) / États-Unis, Banque, Dette, Finance, Inégalités, Pauvreté, Spéculation, Banlieue - 2015/09

Women need to be “front and centre” of the pandemic recovery as a matter of economics, efficiency, effectiveness and social resilience, the UN chief told the women’s commission on Tuesday. 

As hunger levels continue to deepen in South Sudan due to a combination of violence, climate change and COVID-19, the 2021 South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan was launched on Tuesday aiming to reach 6.6 million people – including 350,000 refugees - with life-saving assistance and protection.

Rarement partis de l'argent et presse se sont trouvés en aussi étroite symbiose qu'à Athènes. La « relance démocratique » annoncée par Syriza pourra-t-elle libérer l'information ? / Europe, Grèce, Audiovisuel, Communication, Économie, Finance, Information, Médias, Parti politique, Politique, Presse, (...) / Europe, Grèce, Audiovisuel, Communication, Économie, Finance, Information, Médias, Parti politique, Politique, Presse, Service public, Télécommunications, Extrême gauche, Privatisation, Crise économique, Crise financière - 2015/03

But if democracies are to stand up to Chinese coercion, they will have to join forces.

The United States and Pakistan must work together to secure the country’s future.

Although the moves are seen as precautionary, they could cause lasting damage to the global vaccine rollout.

Tehran is directly responsible for the violence carried out by its proxies and must be held accountable.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, highlighted the risks of separating newborns from mothers, with new research showing that up to 125,000 lives could be saved by keeping them together to ensure skin-to-skin contact. 

Accédez à l’article de Marc Julienne et Sophie Hanck ici.

Retrouvez le sommaire du numéro 1/2021 de Politique étrangère ici.

This week, Syria marks a grim anniversary: 10 years since the start of the country’s grinding conflict. Today, one decade into the catastrophe, about half the country’s population has been uprooted, with some 12 million people internally displaced or living as refugees.  

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday it is “deeply disturbed” that the crackdown on peaceful protesters in Myanmar “continues to intensify”, with a soaring death toll on the streets, increasingly aggressive use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests, and reports of torture in custody. 

Social media has too often been used with “relative impunity” to spread hate, prejudice and violence against minorities, an independent UN human right expert said on Monday, calling for an international treaty to address the growing scourge.

Health officials from the UN and the European Union will meet this week on the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after several more countries suspended its use, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. 

Sebastien Roblin

North Korea, Asia

The regime likely wanted the MD 500s so it could use them to infiltrate across the demilitarized zone with South Korean markings.

Here's What You Need to Know: Pyongyang kept its substantial MD 500 fleet under wraps for decades.

On July 27, 2013, as a column of armored personnel carriers and tanks rumbled before the stand of Kim Jong-un to commemorate the end of a bloody war with the United States sixty years earlier, four small American-made MD 500E helicopters buzzed low overhead. You can see it occur at 3:13 in the this video. If you look closely, you can see they have been wired with antitank missiles on racks slung on the sides.

In fact, this was the first confirmation that Pyongyang has maintained the fleet of 87 U.S.-built helicopters it smuggled into the country more than a quarter century ago.

The MD 500 is a civilian version of the distinctive Army OH-6 Cayuse light observation helicopter, which entered U.S. military service back in the 1960s. The no-frills design has been nicknamed the “Flying Egg” due to its compact, ovoid fuselage. It was widely employed to evacuate casualties, escort friendly transport helicopters, scout for enemy forces up close, and provide light fire support to troops on the ground with miniguns and rocket pods. Exceptionally cheap—selling for $20,000 each in 1962!—they were agile and small enough to land in places other helicopters couldn’t.

However, they were also highly exposed to enemy fire: 842 of the initial 1,400 OH-6As were lost in action in Vietnam. Evolved MH-6 and AH-6 “Little Bird” special operations and mini gunship variants continue to see action with the U.S. military today in Africa and the Middle East.

Back in the 1980s, McDonnell Douglas received an order for 102 helicopters from the Delta-Avia Fluggerate, an export firm registered in West Germany under businessman Kurt Behrens. Between 1983 and 1985, the U.S. company Associated Industries transferred eighty-six MD 500D and -E helicopters and one Hughes 300 (an even smaller two-man type) via six shipments for export by Delta Avia to Japan, Nigeria, Portugal and Spain.

However, in February 1985, the U.S. Commerce Department revealed it had discovered some hair-raising anomalies in the company’s operations—and some fraudulent claims about the shipments’ destination. For example, fifteen helicopters unloaded at Rotterdam, ostensibly for special fitting, were then transported overland to the Soviet freighter Prorokov. The Prorokov then unloaded the helicopters in North Korea. Similarly, a freighter docked in Japan transferred two helicopters to a North Korean freighter in Hong Kong, with similar results. Furthermore, it turned out the Semler brothers running Associated Industries were secretly majority owners of Delta Avia.

Though eighty-seven helicopters had already been delivered, the remaining fifteen MD 500s were seized and the Semlers were tried in 1987 for violating a law forbidding export of nearly anything to North Korea. It was alleged that Fluggeratte was simply a front company to ship the aircraft to North Korea, and that it had been promised a profit of $10 million for completing the deal. It was also revealed that a London insurer was in the know, and that payments had been laundered through Swiss bank accounts.

McDonnell Douglas had been duped into shipping nearly a hundred scout helicopters to a country that still considered itself at war with the United States. However, the Semler brothers were let off with light sentences in exchange for guilty pleas, claiming they had been misled by Behrens as to the destination of the helicopters. They paid fines far below the value of the money they had received for shipping the helicopters. Behrens rather dubiously claimed the MD 500s did not fall under the export ban because they were not military types.

Later it was revealed that the CIA had been aware of the smuggling operation. It had been administered by a North Korean attaché in Berlin, and facilitated by a Soviet front trucking company in West Germany. However, the intelligence agency declined to inform civil authorities, because it didn’t want to reveal it had bugged the embassy.

Still, why would North Korea even want MD 500s? The civilian models certainly didn’t possess any advanced technology or specialized military gear that the North Korea or the Soviet Union would have been dying to get a hold of.

However, many countries would acquire both military and civilian MD 500s legitimately, due to their very low cost, and adapt them into military roles with gun pods and rockets. And it so happens that one of those countries was South Korea: Korean Air had delivered more than 270 MD 500s under a license for the Republic of Korea Army and Air Force.

Thus, it seems that North Korea likely acquired the MD 500s so it could use them to infiltrate across the demilitarized zone with South Korean markings, conducting surprise raids and inserting spies and saboteurs. North Korea maintains more than two hundred thousand commandos in its Special Operations Forces, more than any other country in the world. In the event of a conflict with its southern neighbor, Pyongyang would deploy thousands of operatives behind South Korean lines via tunnels, submarines, stealthy motor boats and helicopters to disrupt communication and supply lines and spread panic. Indeed, upon learning of the MD 500 caper, South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan angrily upbraided Washington for inadvertently making infiltration easier.

Pyongyang kept its substantial MD 500 fleet under wraps for decades, though a North Korean colonel admitted to the purchase in a 1996 interview with Der Spiegel. Keeping the aircraft functioning and supplied with spare parts would have posed quite a challenge. After the unveiling in 2013, a quartet of the American-built helicopters was again on display at the 2016 Wonsan air show, one of the choppers performing stunts for the audience.

The MD 500s seen over Pyongyang were modified to carry four Susong-Po antitank missiles. These are locally produced derivatives of the Russian Malyutka-P (NATO codename AT-3 Sagger-C), an older missile semiautomatically guided by the firer via a control wire. An earlier version of the AT-3 made a name for itself blowing up Israeli Patton tanks during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. This suggests North Korea envisions an attack role for the handy little choppers.

South Korea, for its part, may have its own plans for its large MD 500 fleet, which includes fifty antitank types armed with TOW missiles. Korean Air is proposing to transform these Little Birds into drone helicopters! This could be a handy way to employ the copters in a battle zone where their survivability rate might not be very high.

Pyongyang is not the only nation to attempt such shenanigans using shell companies. Iran famously acquired parts from the United States for its F-14 Tomcat fighters for decades. In 1992, shell companies established by the United Kingdom managed to purchase several T-80 tanks from Russia at a generous $5 million a piece, supposedly for service in Morocco. Instead, they were thoroughly taken apart and evaluated by the British, and then sent to the United States. More recently in 2015, U.S. citizen Alexander Brazhnikov was arrested after using shell companies in Ireland, Latvia, Panama and five other nations to smuggle $65 million in restricted electronics to the Russian defense ministry, nuclear-weapons program and intelligence services.

Still, none of these episodes quite match North Korea’s rare feat in shipping over eighty-seven factory-fresh helicopters from the United States.

Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.

This article first appeared in 2013.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Mark Episkopos

NATO vs. Russia,

But if the Baltics have really been so vulnerable for so many years, why is it that the Russians have yet to attack?

Is NATO able to fend off a large-scale Russian invasion of the Baltic states? No, according to most experts.

A 2016 RAND Corporation report, “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank,” conducted a series of wargames simulating a Russian assault on the Baltic states. The report reached an “unambiguous” conclusion: Russia’s Western Military District (WMD) can steamroll NATO’s most vulnerable members at a moment’s notice, reaching the outskirts of Tallinn or Riga-- the capitals of Estonia and Latvia, respectively-- in sixty hours or less.

The report, authored by David Shlapak and Michael Johnson, attributed NATO’s crushing defeat to what is an entirely lopsided correlation of forces. The WMD (and to a lesser extent, Kaliningrad) units that would take part in the invasion not only vastly outnumber their NATO counterparts, but are qualitatively superior in most respects. The WMD has received a slew of modern hardware over the past decade, inducing the S-400 missile system, the new T-72B3M main battle tank (MBT), and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV’s).

The report argues that NATO’s light and under-equipped Baltic assets are little match for Russia’s motorized heavy divisions. The tactical disparity is so great, posit the authors, that NATO infantry wouldn’t even be able to retreat successfully from the Russian onslaught and would instead find themselves “destroyed in place.” Even when accounting for the effective use of NATO air power that could inflict noticeable losses on advancing Russian forces, NATO simply lacks the conventional means to resist a full-scale Russian invasion of the Baltic states.

The report further argues that this “Fait Accompli” presents western leaders and NATO high command with three unpalatable options:

1) a bloody and likely abortive counteroffensive to retake the Baltics;

2) to threaten nuclear retaliation, with all of the escalatory risks that entail;

3) or to “concede at least temporary defeat,” thrusting the future of the alliance into question.

The report ends with a proposed course of action by which NATO can avoid the Fait Accompli altogether: a military buildup of about “about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades—adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities.” These forces are still not enough to defeat the Russian incursion outright but will deny Moscow a quick victory and impose severe losses on the invading army. The ensuing battle of attrition will favor the wealthier and more materially powerful west, establishing what the authors see as a sufficient deterrent against Russian aggression.

Five years later, the correlation of forces on NATO’s eastern flank has not drastically shifted. The Baltic states have gradually ramped up their defense spending and receive a steady stream of US military aid, but these modest measures are being offset by Russia’s continued military buildup on its western outskirts and in its Central European enclave of Kaliningrad. A 2021 paper, published by the Swedish Research Agency, largely replicated the 2016 RAND report’s conclusion that Russia’s military can overwhelm the Baltic region in a matter of days.

But if the Baltics have really been so vulnerable for so many years, why is it that the Russians have yet to attack?

Experts have noted that the likelihood of such an invasion remains exceedingly low under present circumstances, in large part because capability does not imply intent. It is indisputably true that Russia can annex the Baltic states with negligible short-term costs, but the avalanche of medium to long-term military, economic, and political consequences-- up to and including an escalatory spiral that could trigger WWIII-- far outstrips any of the dubious, ill-defined benefits that could possibly come from such an endeavor.

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

David Axe

Artillery, Asia

Much of Pyongyang’s artillery is in range of the Seoul Greater Metropolitan Area, which begins just 25 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone.

Here's What You Need to Know: A North Korean artillery barrage could inflict as many as 250,000 casualties in Seoul alone.

Pyongyang back on May 9, 2019 launched a second “projectile,” South Korean officials said.

The May tests of at least one apparently nuclear-capable short-range missile startled foreign observers and threatened to elevate tensions between the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan on one side and, on the other side, North Korea and its main patron China.

But a less dramatic test of North Korea’s heavy artillery that occured at the same time as the May 4 rocket launch arguably is more important.

“On May 4, under the watchful eye of Kim Jong Un, North Korea launched a series of projectiles featuring two types of large-caliber, multiple launch rocket systems and a new short-range ballistic missile,” Michael Elleman wrote for 38 North, a North Korea-focused think tank associated with the Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center.

“A few days later, North Korea released photographs of tested projectiles, which provides a basis for preliminary evaluations,” Elleman continued. “The 240-millimeter and 300-millimeter diameter MLRS systems are not new to North Korea, nor do they alter the country’s battlefield capabilities.”

It’s true that Pyongyang long has operated large-caliber artillery systems. But Elleman is wrong to downplay the significance of the May 2019 artillery test. That’s because North Korea’s roughly 13,000 artillery pieces arguably pose a greater immediate threat than do Pyongyang’s nukes to South Koreans and Americans living in South Korea.

In firing the artillery at the same time as it launched a ballistic missile, North Korea reminded the world of its enormous conventional firepower. North Korea previously tested, in November 2018, upgrades to its non-nuclear artillery.

Much of Pyongyang’s artillery is in range of the Seoul Greater Metropolitan Area, which begins just 25 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. Some 10 million people live in the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area and another 15 million reside just outside of the metropolitan area. South Korea has prepared underground shelters for Seoul’s entire population.

“Though the expanding range of North Korea’s ballistic missiles is concerning, a serious, credible threat to 25 million [Republic of Korea] citizens and approximately 150,000 U.S. citizens living in the [Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area] is also posed from its long-range artillery.” U.S. Army general Vincent Brooks, head of U.S. Forces Korea, told a U.S. Senate committee in March 2018.

“North Korea has deployed at least three artillery systems capable of ranging targets in the [Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area] with virtually no warning,” Brooks warned. The 170-millimeter Koksan gun is the most numerous. It can fire a distance of 37 miles. North Korea also deploys truck-mounted launchers that can fire a volley of as many as 22 240-millimeter rocket out to a range of 37 miles.

The 300-millimeter KN-09 rocket artillery is the newest system. “The rocket was first tested in 2013, with subsequent tests performed in 2014 and 2016,” Elleman explained.

It has a reported range of [118 to 124 miles] and carries a light, conventional warhead. It is powered by a standard composite-type solid fuel. Photographs show that the rocket is steered during flight by four small canard fins mounted at the rocket’s front end, near the warhead section, which provides for precision strikes if the guidance unit includes a satellite navigation receiver to update the inertial navigation components.”

The KN-09 is fielded on a six-wheeled truck equipped with two launch pods, each having four launch tubes. Its primary mission is to strike rear echelon targets, some [31 to 62 miles] behind the primary line of battle.

"Even without using nuclear weapons, North Korea has the capacity to unleash a devastating level of violence against a significant portion of the ROK population through some mix of conventional artillery and possibly chemical munitions," according to a January 2019 report from RAND, a California think tank with close ties to the U.S. military.

A North Korean artillery barrage could inflict as many as 250,000 casualties in Seoul alone, RAND reported, citing a U.S. Defense Department estimate.

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.

This article first appeared in 2019.

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

Delta Force,

"My hands were tingling from the rucksack straps cutting into my shoulders, pinching the nerves and arteries, and restricting the blood flow to my arms.”

The Delta Force, officially known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), is a U.S. special-missions unit that is primarily focused on counter-terrorism engagements.

Considered a tier-one counter-terrorist unit, it is specifically directed to kill or capture high-value units or dismantle terrorist cells. However, the Delta Force remains extremely flexible in its overall missions—having previously taken part in hostage rescues and covert missions working directly with the Central Intelligence Agency and even offering protective services for high-ranking officials.

Currently, the Delta Force receives its recruits from all across the Army, including many candidates from the Ranger Regiments and Special Forces Groups. To initially qualify, recruits must be enlisted in the Army, be male, have at least four years in service and two and a half years of service left on enlistment, and is within the rank of E4-E8. Keep in mind that there are no civilian-to-Delta enlistment programs available.

To get started, one must attend infantry One Station Unit Training (OSUT), which combines Army Basic Training and Infantry AIT (Advanced Individual Training) in one fourteen-week course. This will give you the fundamental skills to make a successful transition from a civilian into a soldier. If you pass that, then you will attend Airborne Training at Fort Benning. Special Forces troopers who eventually want to join Delta Force must qualify for and complete this particular training.

Next up is the Special Operations Preparation Course (SOPC), which can take four weeks and typically leads up to the Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) program. The SFAS must be passed before being admitted to Special Forces training.

If the boxes are all checked by now, then you will aim to pass the individual skills phase of training. During this period, soldiers are trained on specialized skills necessary to be successful in any Special Forces engagement. The training period is forty days long and covers land navigation, cross-country map exercise, and small unit tactics.

Taking up another sixty-five days is the Military Operational Specialty (MOS) training phase, which culminates with a mission planning cycle that will put your leadership skills to the test. Your experience, training, and specialty as a soldier will largely dictate what responsibilities you’ll have during MOS.

For the thirty-eight-day Collective Training Phase, soldiers are trained in Special Operations (SO) classes, Direct Action (DA) Isolation, Air Operations, Unconventional Warfare classes, and receive isolation training. This is considered one of the most mentally and physically challenging training one will have to go through in the U.S. military.

To offer some sense of what an individual must overcome to be admitted into the Delta Force, here’s what author Eric Haney had to say about one particular long-distance hike in his book Inside Delta Force.

“I had covered just slightly over thirty miles by now, but still had more than twenty to go. It was getting more and more difficult to do speed computations in my head. My hands were tingling from the rucksack straps cutting into my shoulders, pinching the nerves and arteries, and restricting the blood flow to my arms.”

He continued: “I was bent forward against the weight of the rucksack. It felt like I was dragging a train behind me, and my feet hurt all the way up to my knees. I don’t mean they were just sore, I mean they felt like I had been strapped to the rack and someone had beaten the balls of my feet with a bat. I tried to calculate the foot-pounds of energy my feet had absorbed so far today, but I had to give up the effort. I only knew that the accumulated tonnage of all those thousands of steps was immense. And it was only going to get worse.”

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.