Diplomacy & Crisis News

Robert Farley

Security, Asia

The demands of positioning either side for victory will continue to tax diplomatic, military, and technological resources for the foreseeable future.

Here's What You Need To Remember: A war would be catastrophic for both sides. Both sides have arsenals of incredibly deadly weapons. Perhaps just as important, both sides have extremely productive economies and longstanding trade links to one another - links that would be severed in an instant.

How does the unthinkable happen? As we wind our way to the 100th anniversary of the events that culminated in World War I, the question of unexpected wars looms large. What series of events could lead to war in East Asia, and how would that war play out?

The United States and China are inextricably locked in the Pacific Rim’s system of international trade. Some argue that this makes war impossible, but then while some believed World War I inevitable, but others similarly thought it impossible.

In this article I concentrate less on the operational and tactical details of a US-China war, and more on the strategic objectives of the major combatants before, during, and after the conflict. A war between the United States and China would transform some aspects of the geopolitics of East Asia, but would also leave many crucial factors unchanged. Tragically, a conflict between China and the US might be remembered only as “The First Sino-American War.”

How the War Would Start

Fifteen years ago, the only answers to “How would a war between the People’s Republic of China and the United States start?” involved disputes over Taiwan or North Korea. A Taiwanese declaration of independence, a North Korean attack on South Korea, or some similar triggering event would force the PRC and the US reluctantly into war.

This has changed. The expansion of Chinese interests and capabilities means that we can envision several different scenarios in which direct military conflict between China and the United States might begin. These still include a Taiwan scenario and North Korea scenario, but now also involve disputes in the East and South China Seas, as well as potential conflict with India along the Tibetan border.

The underlying factors are the growth of Chinese power, Chinese dissatisfaction with the US-led regional security system, and US alliance commitments to a variety of regional states. As long as these factors hold, the possibility for war will endure.

Whatever the trigger, the war does not begin with a US pre-emptive attack against Chinese fleet, air, and land-based installations. Although the US military would prefer to engage and destroy Chinese anti-access assets before they can target US planes, bases, and ships, it is extremely difficult to envisage a scenario in which the United States decides to pay the political costs associated with climbing the ladder of escalation.

Instead, the United States needs to prepare to absorb the first blow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) have to wait for Chinese missiles to rain down upon them, but the United States will almost certainly require some clear, public signal of Chinese intent to escalate to high-intensity, conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Chinese forces.

If the history of World War I gives any indication, the PLA will not allow the United States to fully mobilize in order to either launch a first strike, or properly prepare to receive a first blow. At the same time, a “bolt from the blue” strike is unlikely. Instead, a brewing crisis will steadily escalate over a few incidents, finally triggering a set of steps on the part of the US military that indicate to Beijing that Washington is genuinely prepared for war. These steps will include surging carrier groups, shifting deployment to Asia from Europe and the Middle East, and moving fighter squadrons towards the Pacific. At this moment, China will need to decide whether to push forward or back down.

On the economic side, Beijing and Washington will both press for sanctions (the US effort will likely involve a multilateral effort), and will freeze each others assets, as well as those of any co-belligerents. This will begin the economic pain for capital and consumers across the Pacific Rim, and the rest of the world. The threat of high intensity combat will also disrupt global shipping patterns, causing potentially severe bottlenecks in industrial production.

How do the Allies Respond

Whether US allies support American efforts against China depends on how the war begins. If war breaks out over a collapse of the DPRK, the United States can likely count on the support of South Korea and Japan. Any war stemming from disputes in the East China Sea will necessarily involve Japan. If events in the South China Sea lead to war, the US can probably rely on some of the ASEAN states, as well as possibly Japan. Australia may also support the US over a wide range of potential circumstances.

China faces a less complicated situation with respect to allies. Beijing could probably expect benevolent neutrality, including shipments of arms and spares, from Russia, but little more. The primary challenge for Chinese diplomats would be establishing and maintaining the neutrality of potential US allies. This would involve an exceedingly complex dance, including reassurances about Chinese long-term intentions, as well as displays of confidence about the prospects of Chinese victory (which would carry the implicit threat of retribution for support of the United States).

North Korea presents an even more difficult problem. Any intervention on the part of the DPRK runs the risk of triggering Japanese and South Korean counter-intervention, and that math doesn’t work out for China. Unless Beijing is certain that Seoul and Tokyo will both throw in for the United States (a doubtful prospect given their hostility to one another), it may spend more time restraining Pyongyang than pushing it into the conflict.

War Aims

The US will pursue the following war aims:

1. Defeat the affirmative expeditionary purpose of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

2. Destroy the offensive capability of the PLAN and People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).

3. Potentially destabilize the control of the CCP government over mainland China.

Except in the case of a war that breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the first task involves either defeating a Chinese attempt to land forces, or preventing the reinforcement and resupply of those troops before forcing their surrender. The second task will require a wide range of attacks against deployed Chinese air and naval units, as well as ships and aircraft held in reserve. We can expect, for example, that the USN and USAF will target Chinese airbases, naval bases, and potentially missile bases in an effort to maximize damage to the PLAN and PLAAF. The third task probably depends on the successful execution of the first two. The defeat of Chinese expeditionary forces, and the destruction of a large percentage of the PLAN and the PLAAF, may cause domestic turmoil in the medium to long term. US military planners would be well-advised to concentrate the strategic campaign on the first two objectives and hope that success has a political effect, rather than roll the dice on a broader “strategic” campaign against CCP political targets. The latter would waste resources, run the risk of escalation, and have unpredictable effects on the Chinese political system.

The PLA will pursue these ends:

1. Achieve the affirmative expeditionary purpose.

2. Destroy as much of the expeditionary capability of the USAF and USN as possible.

3. Hurt America badly enough that future US governments will not contemplate intervention.

4. Disrupt the US-led alliance system in East Asia.

The first task requires the deployment of PLAN surface forces, possibly in combination with PLAAF airborne forces, to seize an objective. The second involves the use of submarines, aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles to destroy US and allied installations and warships across East Asia.

The third and fourth tasks rest upon the second. The PLA will attempt to inflict sufficient casualties on US forces that future US decision-makers will hesitate to use force against the PRC. Similarly, the survival of the US-led alliance system requires that the United States successfully defeat Chinese aggression; if it cannot, the alliance system could deteriorate and collapse.

The United States hasn’t lost a fighter in action since the 1999 Kosovo War, and hasn’t lost a major warship since World War II. The sinking of a warship would likely also result in the greatest loss of life of any single action for the US military in action since the Vietnam War. However, both US and Chinese strategists may overestimate US casualty aversion. The loss of a major warship and its crew might serve to solidify US commitment (at least in the short term) rather than undermine it.

The “Hold Your Breath” Moments

The biggest moment will come when the PLA makes an overt attack against a US aircraft carrier. This represents the most significant possible escalation against the United States short of a nuclear attack. If China decides to attack a US carrier, the war no longer involves posturing and message sending, but rather a full-scale commitment of capabilities designed to defeat and destroy enemy military forces.

The means for this attack matters. An attack launched from a ship or a submarine makes any PLAN military vessel fair game for the United States, but doesn’t necessarily incur US attacks against PLAAF airbases, Second Artillery missile installations, or even naval installations.

The most dangerous form of attack would involve a ballistic missile volley against a carrier. This is true not simply because these missiles are difficult to intercept, but also because such missiles could carry nuclear warheads. The prospect of a nuclear state using a conventional ballistic missile against another nuclear state, especially one with a presumptive nuclear advantage, is laden with complexity.

The next “hold your breath” moment will come when the first US missiles strike Chinese targets. Given the overwhelming nuclear advantage that the United States holds over China, the first wave of US attacks will prove deeply stressful to the PRCs military and civilian leadership. This is particularly the case if the Chinese believe that they can win at the conventional level of escalation; they will worry that the United States will bump to nuclear in order to retain its advantage.

We can expect that China will deploy its submarines in advance of the onset of hostilities. The surface fleet is a different story, however. In any high intensity combat scenario, the U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. Air Force will see Chinese warships as legitimate targets for destruction, and will attack with air and subsurface assets. Indeed, even hiding in port probably won’t prevent attacks on the PLAN’s largest ships, including the carrier Liaoning and the big new amphibious transport docks.

China will only sortie the PLAN under two circumstances; if it feels it has sufficient force protection to allow a task force to operate relatively unmolested, or if China’s position has become desperate. In either situation, US submarines will pose the most immediate threat to the surface forces.

Under most war scenarios, China needs to fight for some affirmative purpose, not simply the destruction of US or Japanese military forces. This means that the PLAN must invade, capture, supply, and defend some geographical point, most likely either Taiwan or an outpost in the East or South China Sea. The PLA will need to establish the conditions under which the PLAN can conduct surface support missions.

Who Will Win?

The most difficult question to judge is “who will win?” because that question involves assessing a wide variety of unknowns. We don’t know how well Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles will function, or how destructive US cyber-attacks against the PLAN will prove, or how dangerous the F-22 Raptor will be to conventional Chinese fighters, or how effectively the different elements of the PLAN will cooperate in actual combat. Finally, we don’t know when the war will start; both the PLA and the US military will look much different in 2020 than they do in 2014.

However, in general terms the battle will turn on these questions:

1. Electronic Warfare:

How severely will the United States disrupt Chinese communications, electronic, and surveillance capabilities? Attacking US forces will depend on communication between seers and shooters. To the extent that the US can disrupt this communication, it can defang the PLA. Conversely, Chinese cyber-warfare against the United States could raise the domestic stakes for American policymakers.

2. Missiles vs. Missile Defenses:

How well will the USN and USAF be able to defeat Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles? The PLAN, PLAAF, and Second Artillery have a bewildering array of missile options for attacking deployed and deploying US forces in depth. The American capacity to survive the onslaught depends in part on the effectiveness of defenses against cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as the ability to strike and destroy launchers within and around China.

3. Joint Operations:

How well will the disparate elements of the PLA operate together in context of high intensity, disruptive military operations? Unlike the US military, the PLA has little relevant combat experience from the last three decades. On the flipside, how well will US “Air-Sea Battle” work prepare the USN and the USAF for working together?

4. Quality vs. Quantity:

Chinese forces are highly likely to achieve local numerical superiority in some types of assets, primarily aircraft and submarines. The (narrowing) gap between US and Chinese technology and training will determine how well American forces can survive and prevail in such situations.

How the War Would End

This war doesn’t end with a surrender signed on a battleship. Instead, it ends with one participant beaten, embittered, and likely preparing for the next round.

The best case scenario for an American victory would be a result akin to the collapse of the Imperial German government at the end of World War I, or the collapse of Leopoldo Galtieri’s military government after the Falklands conflict. Humiliating defeat in war, including the destruction of a significant portion of the PLAN and the PLAAF, as well as severe economic distress, could undermine the grip of the CCP on Chinese governance. This is an extremely iffy prospect, however, and the United States shouldn’t count on victory leading to a new revolution.

What if China wins? China can claim victory by either forcing the United States into an accommodation to US goals, or by removing the alliance framework that motivates and legitimates US action. The United States cannot continue the war if South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines no longer have an interest in fighting. Either of these require doing significant damage to US military forces and, potentially, to the US economy.

The impact of a defeat on US domestic politics would be tough to predict. The United States has “lost” wars in the past, but these defeats have generally involved negotiated settlements of areas not particularly critical to US global interests. It’s not clear how the US people would interpret a major military defeat at the hands of a peer competitor, especially a peer competitor that continues to grow in military and economic power. The President and political party that led the US into war would likely suffer dramatically at the polls, at least after the immediate shock of defeat wore off.

The biggest diplomatic and political challenge that both countries face will probably be finding a way for the other side to give up while maintaining its “honor.” No one benefits if this war becomes a struggle for regime survival, or for national prestige.

How the Peace Begins

The prospect for US conflict with China in the Asia-Pacific depends on a basic appreciation of the changing balance of economic and military power. World War I could not change the fact that Germany would remain the largest and most powerful state in Central Europe. Similarly, war is unlikely to change the long-term trajectory of Chinese growth and assertiveness.

A key to peace involves the re-establishment of productive economic relations between China, the United States, and the rest of the Pacific Rim. Regardless of how the war plays out, it will almost certainly disrupt patterns of trade and investment around the world. If either side decides to attack (or, more likely, inter) commercial shipping, the impact could devastate firms and countries that have no direct stake in the war. However, the governments of both the US and China will face strong pressures to facilitate the resumption of full trade relations, at least in consumer goods.

China will not find it difficult to reconstruct war losses. Even if the United States effectively annihilates the PLAN and the PLAAF, we can expect that the Chinese shipbuilding and aviation industries will replace most losses within the decade, probably with substantial assistance from Russia. Indeed, significant Chinese war losses could reinvigorate both the Russian shipbuilding and aviation industries. Moreover, the war will, by necessity, “modernize” the PLA and PLAAF by destroying legacy capability. A new fleet of ships and planes will replace the legacy force.

War losses to trained personnel will hurt, but the experience gained in combat will produce a new, highly trained and effective corps of personnel. This will lead to better, more realistic training for the next generations of PLA soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Win or lose, the Chinese military will likely be more lethal a decade after the war.

The United States may have a harder time replacing losses, and not only because US warships and aircraft cost more than their Chinese counterparts. The production lines for the F-15 and F-16 are near the end, and the US no longer produces F-22. Moreover, US shipbuilding has declined to the point that replacing significant war losses could take a very long time. This might prove particularly problematic if the war demonstrated severe problems with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Given US intention to arm the USAF, USN, and USMC with F-35 variants over the next decade, proof of inadequacy would wreck force planning for the foreseeable future.

The United States will have to face the “was it worth it?” question. In victory or defeat, the US will suffer substantial military and economic damage. Even if the US wins, it will not “solve” the problem of China; even in the unlikely event that the CCP collapses, a successor regime will still dispute China’s littoral.

Potentially, victory could cement the US-led alliance system, making the containment of China considerably less expensive. Assuming that the war began with an assertive Chinese move in the East or South China Sea, the United States could plausibly paint China as the aggressor, and establish itself as the focal point for balancing behavior in the region. Chinese aggression might also spur regional allies (especially Japan) to increase their defense expenditures.

A war could invigorate US government and society around the long-term project of containing China. The US could respond by redoubling its efforts to outpace the Chinese military, although this would provoke an arms race that could prove devastating to both sides. However, given the lack of ideological or territorial threats to the United States, this might be a tough sell.

Finally, the United States could respond by effectively removing itself from the East Asian political scene, at least in a military sense. This option would be hard for many in the US to swallow, given that generations of American foreign policy-makers have harbored hegemonic ambitions.

Conclusion

The window for war between the United States and China will, in all likelihood, last for a long time. Preventing war will require tremendous skill and acumen from diplomats and policymakers. Similarly, the demands of positioning either side for victory will continue to tax diplomatic, military, and technological resources for the foreseeable future. At the moment, however, we shouldn’t forget that China and the United States constitute the heart of one of the most productive economic regions the world has ever seen. That’s something to protect, and to build on.

Robert Farley is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter: @drfarls. This article first appeared in 2014. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons. 

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

The USS Midway arrived too late for World War II, and was commissioned on September 10, 1945 – but she would play a major role during the changing geopolitical climate of the Cold War.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Midway arrived too late for the Second World War, but led America's navy for the next five decades - launching fighter jets in Vietnam and serving in the 1991 Gulf War.

Conceived as a beefier "battle carrier," the Midway­-class aircraft carrier featured an armored flight deck was more resilient and better able to recover from dive-bombing and kamikaze attacks – and to ensure that it could still carry enough planes to do the job the ship was longer than three football fields.

Six of the nearly 1,000 foot long behemoths were planned, and three were built. And from her launching on March 20, 1945 USS Midway (CV-41), which was named after the decisive World War II carrier battle fought just three years earlier, was the largest warship on the planet.

The USS Midway arrived too late for World War II, and was commissioned on September 10, 1945 – but she would play a major role during the changing geopolitical climate of the Cold War. For 47 years, as the longest-serving aircraft carrier in the 20th century, she was a pioneer as well; the first American carrier to operate in sub-Arctic midwinder, which required the development of new flight deck procedures, and became the only ship to launch a captured German V-2 rocket and then sent a patrol plane aloft to demonstrate that atomic bombs could be delivered from a carrier.

Midway's sister ship USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42), the first carrier to be named for a former U.S. President, became the first carrier to have a planned jet-powered landing on her deck. She also demonstrated carrier long-range attack capabilities when a P2V-3C Neptune took off and flew over Charleston, South Carolina to the Bahamas to the Panama Canal and then finally to San Francisco – a total of 5,060 miles and the longest flight ever made from a carrier deck.

Along with the third sister ship USS Coral Sea (CV-43), USS Midway and USS Roosevelt were modernized for jet aircraft in time for the Vietnam War. USS Midway pilots shot down the first and last MiG fighters of the Vietnam War, and the ship led the evacuation of Saigon in 1975 rescuing more than 3,000 refugees in two days.

"They were the perfect ships for what the U.S. Navy needed," said Mike Fabey, America's Naval reporter for Jane's. "We needed a much larger carrier to maintain our global navy."

The arrival of these large carriers came at a time when the United States was becoming a global superpower, and these ships played a key role.

"You could say America was getting the keys to controlling world events," Fabey told The National Interest. "Ships like Midway were what were needed to keep the peace and maintain order, especially in the Western Pacific. You needed a different kind of ship."

Today the supercarrier isn't really such a novel concept, but in the early Cold War, this wasn't so readily apparent.

"The Midway shows something about the concept of the carrier at large," explained Fabey. "It is a floating city/airfield/naval base. The ships were designed for a particular war, but were able to morph to stay on patrol longer."

Then there is the fact that this class of warships was able to hold such a significant number of aircraft – upwards of 130 in the immediate post-World War II era, and still nearly 70 more modern aircraft.

"This is very important because it is very much the aircraft and the carrier," added Fabey. "Without the aircraft you really just have a super ugly cruise ship."

On April 11, 1992, after 47 years, the first of the class and the last to remain in service was finally decommissioned. Midway didn't arrive in time for World War II, but along with her two sister ships played a crucial role in the Cold War – remaining in service through the 1991 Gulf War. Today she is preserved as a museum ship in San Diego.

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 earlier this year and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

Their guns are not to be trifled with.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While the H&K UMP has begun to replace the MP5, the latter remains that gold standard around the world even fifty years after it was introduced.

Despite making some of the most iconic firearms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—including the MG08 machine gun, the Kar-98K, MP-40 and StG44—the German arms industry isn’t actually all that old. Among the largest, Rheinmetall was only founded in 1889 while Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken (German Weapons and Munitions public limited company) was only founded in 1896. Even Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik, which eventually became Königliche Waffen Schmieden and later Mauser, only dated back to 1812.

Yet all those firms seem practically ancient compared to Heckler & Koch GmbH, which only came into existence in 1949. Commonly known today simply as H&K, this company was founded in the ashes of World War II and could be considered a major part of the Wirtschaftswunder or “economic miracle” that saw the rapid reconstruction and development of the economy of West Germany. 

When it was formed in 1949, given the restrictions placed on Germany at the time, it didn’t actually produce firearms but instead manufactured machine tools, bicycles and sewing machines. 

All that changed during the Cold War.

In 1956, the firm responded to the West German government’s calls for a new firearm for the Bundeswehr (German Federal Army) and this resulted in H&K’s first weapon, the G3 battle rifle, which was based on the Spanish CETME rifle. That contract allowed the firm to transform into one of the most successful military small arms suppliers in the world.

At the time, the Belgian FN FAL dominated that class of weapon and was used throughout the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Perhaps as a matter of nationalism in West Germany, the G3 won out—despite being notorious for having a violent action and requiring considerable force to charge the rifle when compared to the FAL or American M14. The G3 offered modularity that enabled operators to mix and match accessories years before this was commonplace, but more importantly, it was accurate and reliable. 

The next “big break” for the company came in 1969 when H&K introduced the MP5 submachine gun—a firearm that truly evokes the company motto: “Keine Kompromisse!” (No Compromises!).

As The National Interest previously reported, “The gold standard for decades in submachine guns, the Heckler and Koch MP-5 is still found worldwide in use by a variety of police and military units. The MP-5 is actually a scaled-down H&K G3 battle rifle, chambered for nine-millimeter Parabellum. The MP-5 follows the G-3’s general shape and conventional configuration, right down to the adjustable sights.”

The weapon is everything a Special Forces operator or SWAT team would want—it comes in at just 27-inches and has an 8.9-inch barrel. The MP-5 achieved notoriety and the best possible PR money couldn’t buy when it was used by the British Army’s Special Air Service (SAS) during Operation Nimrod to free hostages being held in the Iranian embassy in London. The MP5 was chosen over the British-made Sterling L2A3 because the H&K weapon fired from a closed-bolt, which made the firearm more accurate—something deemed essential for hostage rescue situations.

While the H&K UMP has begun to replace the MP5, the latter remains that gold standard around the world even fifty years after it was introduced.

In June 2020, soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division became the first combat soldiers to receive the new M110A1 Squad Designated Marksman Rifle (SDMR), which is based on the H&K G28/HK417 sniper rifle. The semi-automatic 7.62x51mm weapon was fielded to soldiers in the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

More recently, H&K had been awarded a $44.6 million contract in 2016 to develop a special version with a baffle-less OSS suppressor. It has a 16-inch long barrel and weighs 8.7 pounds with an empty magazine—meeting the U.S. Army’s Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS) program size and weight requirements. It is just the latest firearm to live up to the No Compromises motto.

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: Reuters

Peter Suciu

Security,

The Smith & Wesson M76 might be the only actual commercial submachine gun actually marketed to civilians

Here's What You Need to Remember:

Today, even among shooters, the name Smith & Wesson likely conjures images of handguns–notably the infamous .44 Magnum. Yet, the company actually produced a submachine gun for use in clandestine operations in Southeast Asia for the U.S. Navy.

Meet the Smith & Wesson M76 submachine gun. 

The origin of the need for this largely forgotten weapon goes back to the early stages of the Vietnam War when the U.S. Navy’s elite SEALs employed a variety of small arms in their operations in the region. Teams utilized suppressed pistols, shotguns and even experimental weapons such as the modular designed Stoner 63. One weapon that was especially well-liked was the Swedish-designed Carl Gustav m/45 submachine, which had been developed during the Second World War.

Sweden may have remained neutral, but as Nazi Germany occupied Norway to its west and Finland was aligned with the Germans in the east, the nation began to develop new small arms in case it was dragged into the conflict. While the m/45 wasn’t actually produced until the war was nearly over, it proved to be a reliable weapon. 

It had more than a passing resemblance to the German-designed MP40 and fired the same widely available 9x19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge from a thirty-six-round detachable box magazine. Sweden continued to maintain its neutrality even as the lines were drawn in the Cold War and sought to export its new submachine gun. Some 300,000 of the m/45 SMGs were produced from 1945 to 1964, while the weapon was even produced under license in Egypt as the Port Said/Akaba. 

Whether the SEALs used actual Swedish or Egyptian made versions isn’t completely clear, but it is likely that it was, in fact, the Swedish versions of the weapon that was employed in the clandestine missions. As noted, Sweden had been widely exporting guns, and the U.S. military seemed to be a happy customer. 

Then that sticky neutrality point crept up, and suddenly in 1966 Sweden halted all exports of small arms to the United States in protest to the Vietnam War. Without a supply of the reliable 9mm SMGs, the U.S. Navy turned to Smith & Wesson–but why that firm was selected is a point that remains largely unclear.

However, by 1967 the American gun manufacturer won a contract and began to produce a version of the gun as the Smith & Wesson M76. Yet by that time, the war changed and the U.S. Navy decided it did not actually require the submachine after all. Only a limited batch was produced. Ultimately, S&W marketed the weapon to law enforcement and a few were even sold to civilians. Despite being fully-automatic weapons, at the time civilians could still purchase machine guns but had to undergo a National Firearms Act (NFA) background check. 

As a result of the timing, the Smith & Wesson M76 might thus be the only actual commercial submachine gun actually marketed to civilians other than perhaps the Thompson dating back to the 1920s and early 1930s. The catch, of course, was that the buyer had to pass that complex background check and pay for the $200 transfer tax. Even at the time, nearly all other NFA weapons were likely war trophies or surplus weapons. Although it doesn’t seem like many were sold to civilians, more than a dozen years later, another firm stepped in.

Beginning in 1983, MK Arms actually produced a copy of the M76 in selective fire and semi-automatic, but the company went out of business after the passage of the Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986, which banned civilians from buying or owning “newly made machine guns.” 

As for the actual M76, it probably didn’t see much–if any action–in Southeast Asia. Moreover, while it might not have been carried by Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” in the movies like the S&W .44 Magnum, the 9mm S&W M76 submachine gun was used by Charlton Heston in the 1971 zombie-esque film The Omega Man. Perhaps in the end, if Heston had been able to make a quotable quip about the M76 it might have been as famous as the most powerful handgun on earth! 

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: Reuters

Thailand’s decision to charge protestors with treason is deeply troubling, the UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR, said on Friday following the arrest of at least 35 activists, including a teenager, in recent weeks. 

Peter Suciu

Security,

The B-29 bomber has remained so controversial that there were protests when it was put on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Bockscar is largely forgotten even though it carried the second atomic bomb—Fat Man—which was dropped on Nagasaki days after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

The Enola Gay is remembered today as being the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan nearly seventy-five years ago, and its infamous flight has been the subject of much debate. The aircraft’s mission has been chronicled in movies, TV shows and even a 1980s anti-war song by the British New Wave group Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark—although the song was as much about UK’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s decision to allow nuclear missiles to be stationed in Great Britain.

In fact, the B-29 bomber has remained so controversial that there were protests when it was put on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Then there is Bockscar, another B-29 that hasn't shared in such controversy—at least not to the level of its sister aircraft. In fact, Bockscar is largely forgotten even though it carried the second atomic bomb—Fat Man—which was dropped on Nagasaki days after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Bockscar was actually one of fifteen specially modified “Silverplate” B-29s that were assigned to the 509th Composite Group. While most B-29s were armed with eight .50 caliber machine guns in remote-controlled turrets along with two additional .50 caliber machine guns and one twenty-millimeter cannon in the tail, these modified aircraft had retailed the tail guns and even had their armor removed to save weight to be able to carry the extremely dangerous atomic bombs at extreme flight distances.

What is also notable about the two aircraft is that their respective pilots who regularly flew the aircraft named the planes. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay, had named his aircraft for his mother “Enola Gay Tibbets” (1893–1983) who herself was named after the heroine of the novel Enola; or, Her Fatal Mistake. In the case of Bockscar—not to be confused with the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar—the moniker was a play on Captain Frederick Bock's last name, who had previously participated in air raids on Japan that were launched from parts of China controlled by the Allies.

Yet it wasn’t Bock who piloted the aircraft he had named on August 9, 1945. 

That is because Maj. Charles W. Sweeney had used Bockscar for more than ten training and practice missions even though he and his usual crew had piloted another aircraft named The Great Artiste. When Sweeney and his crew were chosen to deliver the Fat Man while Bock and his crew were chosen to provide observation support the decision was made to swap the crews rather than to move the complex instrumentation equipment.

So what is largely forgotten is that while Bock didn't pilot Bockscar he was in fact present in the other B-29, The Great Artiste, which was used for scientific measures and photography of the effects caused by the release of Fat Man.

Today the Enola Gay remains in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC while Bockscar is in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

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: Reuters

The Communist Party is putting ideological battles first.

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

The weapon could be carried on the B-52 and B-1B bombers or even perhaps the F-15 fighter.

Russia has been ramping up its tests of its Tsirkon hypersonic missile, a weapon that the United States military currently has no countermeasure against. If defense isn’t an option, then perhaps it is time to go on offensive and that is exactly what the United States Air Force plans to do—and last week announced that it will conduct a flight test of its own air-launched hypersonic missile before the end of the year.

Planned for production next year, the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) would be the first hypersonic missile developed by and employed with the U.S. military. Such capabilities could provide the United States with a stand-off strike opposition to address increased threats from China and Russia.

Will Roper, the Air Force’s top weapons and research official, said during the inaugural Doolittle Leadership Center Forum on Dec. 14 that the test will occur this month, but he added that while the development of a hypersonic weapon is a notable achievement, it is not a full solution to the challenges the U.S. military is facing.

The AGM-183A ARRW completed a captive-carry test earlier this year, and the first planned booster test flight is expected to occur in the coming weeks, while production would begin next year, Air Force Magazine reported.

While such weapons could provide increased capabilities as a stand-off strike platform, Roper added that hypersonic missiles may not be as crucial to addressing the threats from China and Russia.

“As we field the first hypersonic weapon, and I’m excited we’re doing that, it doesn’t undercut this investment our adversaries have, nor take away the principle of safety that I would expect they hold,” Roper said. “The U.S. has exceptional capabilities, especially in stealth aircraft that can penetrate and put weapons where they wish. So do our adversaries believe we don’t have the ability to target them? I would hope not. Hypersonic weapons just then become another way to do it.”

The ARRW is an air-launched boost-glide hypersonic weapon, which allows it to be initially accelerated using a rocket before gliding unpowered to the target at speeds greater than the speed of sound. Along with such speeds, the missiles also have the ability to maneuver with computerized precision, which could make it difficult to counter. Additionally, a hypersonic missile’s speed and force is so significant that it can inflict damage by sheer
“kinetic” impact without even needing explosives.

The Air Force has been conducting ARRWs tests with Cold War-era B-52H Stratofortress bombers. Over the summer, this included a “captive carry” test, which demonstrated the transmission of telemetry and GPS data from the weapon, called the AGM-183A IMV-2 (Instrumented Measurement Vehicle), to ground control stations, solidifying an essential part of the weapons overall launch, guidance and flight trajectory systems.

The Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) is also equipping the B-1B to carry hypersonic weapons. This month, a B-1B Lancer was used to launch an inert Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) from an external pylon underneath the aircraft’s fuselage, following a previous test, during which a B-1B carried an inert JASSM under an external pylon for the first time. The goal of these tests is to determine how the Cold War era B-1B bombers can be best employed to carry hypersonic weapons externally.

Earlier this year Roper also suggested the ARRW could even be carried on the F-15 fighter. While not quite hypersonic, the Air Force is certainly picking up speed on the development and deployment of the ARRW.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Security,

Even those who know guns probably don't know this. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: This brand got its start at the same time as Beatlemania. 

Thanks in no small part to movies such as Die Hard II even people who don't know firearms know Glock, the Austrian firm best known for its polymer-framed pistols. What most don't know is that the company was only founded in 1963, yet today produces more than two dozen models of handguns in three sizes and seven different cartridges in three calibers.  

That’s not bad for a brand that got its start at the same time as Beatlemania. 

And even those who do know firearms, still likely don't know all that much about Glock, which isn’t actually the manufacturer but rather the product that is made by the Austrian firm Glock Ges.m.b.H. The company may be known for its firearms, but it also produces field knives, entrenching tools and apparel.

Long before its founder Gaston Glock ever decided to produce the Glock 17, the company's first handgun, he started by making household products including curtain rods and later knives. While prolific firearms designer John Browning received his first patent for a firearm in his 1920s, Gaston Glock was fifty-two years old before he developed a firearm. 

In the 1970s Gaston Glock developed grenade castings and machine-gun belt links, and as an expert in polymers he began to use the materials to make knife handles and sheaths. Then in the early 1980s, he decided to see how polymers could be used in the production of a handgun. The result was the semi-automatic Glock series pistol, and it featured a polymer frame—which soon led to concerns about the “plastic gun” that some believed (even before Die Hard II) could get past airport X-ray machines.

However, the Glock 17 passed the strict NATO durability test and was selected by the Norwegian Army as its standard sidearm. That put the company and its unique handgun on the road to become the preferred international law enforcement sidearm. While the U.S. military adopted the Beretta M9 to replace the aging Colt M1911 .45 pistol, various Glocks have been the preferred weapon for Special Forces including the U.S. Navy SEALs.  

Moreover, the USMC followed by adopting the Glock 19M as the “M007 Concealed Carry Weapon” in 2016 for those Marines who had a need for a compact pistol—such as criminal investigation units and the crews of the HMX-1 helicopter squadron. 

Today, if there is a complaint about Glock it is that the handgun models can be downright confusing—instead of being named for the year or caliber, the company names the product for the next patent number. Hence the first Glock handgun was dubbed the Glock 17 not because it held seventeen rounds in the magazine, but rather because it was named after number patented by Gaston Glock during the development of the pistol. While that might seem reasonable for the day, especially for an inventor who also created field knives and a folding shovel, it has created confusion for gun owners today especially considering that the company has produced dozens of models.

The other big complaint is that some models aren't available in the U.S. for commercial sale. This has included the Glock 18, a full-sized nine-millimeter "automatic pistol" that can be fired like a submachine gun with a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute. Yet, other handguns such as the Glock 25 and Glock 28, which each fail to meet the ATF's criteria for importation.

However, even if a select few Glocks can’t be imported, the company has shooters covered by offering its polymer-framed handguns in numerous calibers and sizes. It’s a good thing old Gaston didn’t decide to stick with curtain rods.

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: Wikimedia

UN independent human rights experts, on Thursday, called for an impartial and independent investigation into the killing of a 15-year-old child by Israeli security forces at a West Bank protest this month. 

Peter Suciu

Public Health, Americas

The Combat Cloth Face Covering is ready for action, even if it took this long to make.

Even as the vaccine for the coronavirus is now rolling out across the United States, it could be months before every American can be vaccinated. As a result, mask mandates are likely to remain in place across many parts of the country well into the spring and possibly even the summer.

Seeing that face masks will be required for the foreseeable future—not to mention that masks could be required for a future pandemic—the U.S. Army has responded with an official Army-designed, -tested, and -refined face mask. It even has an official military designation: Combat Cloth Face Covering (CCFC), and it will be provided to new U.S. Army soldiers during the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 (FY21). The mask was one of the updates provided by the Army Uniform Board (AUB) during its 152nd meeting on Nov. 18.

Fighting the Pandemic

Throughout the current novel coronavirus pandemic the Army has provided disposable as well as reusable, solid color masks to soldiers, and also permitted the use of neck gaiters and other cloth items, including bandanas and scarves, as face coverings.

This past summer, the AUB recommended and the U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville approved the issue of CCFCs to soldiers at Initial Entry Training (IET) as part of their clothing bag. It was announced at the 152nd AUB that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) would begin to issue two CCFCs to each new soldier during the Q2 FY21.

Additionally, CCFCs will be available for purchase at the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) uniform stores later in FY21.

The Army noted that the CCFC was designed, developed and produced along an expedited timeline. Whereas it can normally take 18 to 24 months for the DLA to make an item available for order once the technical description, design and components are approved and slated—the CCFC, from inception to issuance, is slated to take less than a year.

The current U.S. Army guidelines for face coverings stated, “SOLDIERS ARE AUTHORIZED TO WEAR THE NECK GAITER AND OTHER CLOTH ITEMS, SUCH AS BANDANAS AND SCARVES, AS FACE MASKS. TO PROTECT THE FACIAL AREA, THE CLOTH ITEM MUST COVER THE MOUTH AND NOSE AND EXTEND TO THE CHIN OR BELOW AS WELL AS TO THE SIDES OF THE FACE. THE ITEM MUST ALSO BE SECURED OR FASTENED TO THE FACE IN A MANNER THAT ALLOWS THE SOLDIER TO BREATHE WHILE ALSO PREVENTING DISEASE EXPOSURE OR CONTAMINATION.”

The guidelines also stated that the soldiers may not wear masks that have “PRINTED WORDING, PROFANITY, RACIST, DEMEANING OR DEROGATORY LOGOS, SCRIPT OR IMAGERY.” Moreover, soldiers are not allowed to cut up clothing materials such as the Army Combat Uniforms to use for face masks as those materials may have been treated with chemicals. Any fabrics used for face coverings are required to be subdued and conform to the uniform.

Leaders were asked to use their “best judgment” regarding the color cloth and design of face masks, while soldiers were instructed to replace items that became soiled, damaged or difficult to breathe through.

Other AUB Updates

Beyond the face masks, the AUB also received updates on the implementation status of four other uniform changes from the 151st AUB, which took place in June 2020.

These include an Improved Hot Weather Combat Uniform-Female (IHWCU-F), which is expected to be added to the clothing bag in Q4 FY21 and available for purchase in Q2 FY22; a Hot Weather Combat Boot-Improved (HW ACB-I), expected to transition to DLA Troop Support for new contracting action in Q2 of FY21 and available for purchase by FY24; Black Athletic Socks, estimated to be available in the clothing bag in Q2 of FY22; and the Army Physical Fitness Uniform-Maternity (APFU-M).

Prototypes of the APFU-M are in development and the Army is working with the United States Air Force and United States Marine Corps on their respective past maternity uniform efforts in order to expedite pattern development. Form, fit, and function evaluations are expected to occur in Q3 of FY21. Additionally, the AUB discussed additional clothing articles, including items for new and expecting mothers. More information will be provided about these discussions in 2021 after Senior Leader decisions are made the Army noted.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Reuters.

Attacks by armed groups in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces have displaced more than 530,000 people, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday. 

Graham Allison

Security, Asia

Unless China can be persuaded to constrain itself and indeed cooperate with the United States, it will be impossible to avoid catastrophic war or preserve a climate in which both can breathe.

THE RISE of China presents the most complex international challenge any American president has ever faced. China is at one and the same time the fiercest rival the United States has ever seen, and also a nation with which the United States will have to find ways to co-exist—since the only alternative is to co-destruct. If Xi Jinping’s Party-led autocracy realizes its dream, Beijing will displace Washington from many of the positions of leadership it has become accustomed to during the American Century. Unless China can be persuaded to constrain itself and indeed cooperate with the United States, it will be impossible to avoid catastrophic war or preserve a climate in which both can breathe.

To meet this challenge, President-elect Joe Biden and his team will have to craft a strategy that passes what F. Scott Fitzgerald defined as the test of a first-class mind. In Fitzgerald’s words, it is “to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time and still function.” Fortunately, in sharp contrast with his predecessor, Biden comes to this test well prepared. Seasoned by decades of experience as vice president, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a legislator during the Cold War, he has wrestled with the hardest choices and developed considered views about how the world works.

On the one hand, unless it crashes or cracks up, Xi’s China will be “the biggest player in the history of the world,” as Lee Kuan Yew once put it. With four times as many people as the United States, if the Chinese were only one-half as productive as Americans, China would have a GDP twice our size. That would allow it to invest twice as much in defense as we do. Since the beginning of this century, China has risen to become the largest economy in the world (according to the metric the CIA judges the best yardstick for comparing national economies). Today, it is also the manufacturing workshop of the world, the No. 1 trading partner of most major economies, and since the financial crisis of 2008, the primary engine of global economic growth. At the end of 2020, only one major economy will be larger than it was at the beginning of the year. And that is not the United States of America.

To create a correlation of forces that can shape China’s behavior, the United States will have to attract other nations with heft to sit on our side of the seesaw of power. Despite President Donald Trump’s disdain for allies, his vice president and secretary of state-recognized this imperative. But their hope to take a page from America’s successful strategy in the Cold War by persuading other nations to “decouple” from China behind a new economic iron curtain misunderstood the underlying realities. As a politician, Biden knows that the mandate of other countries’ leaders to govern depends on their ability to deliver increasing standards of living for their people. Any attempts to force them to choose between their military relationship with the United States that makes them secure, and their economic relationship with China that is essential for their prosperity, are thus a fool’s errand. Enlisting allied and aligned powers in a much more complex web will be vastly more difficult than it was when confronting the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Biden knows full well that the United States and China share a small globe on which each faces existential challenges it cannot defeat by itself. Technology and nature have condemned these two great powers to find ways to live together in order to avoid dying together. As a veteran Cold Warrior, Biden understands in a way most of today’s generation do not that we continue to live in a MAD world. He recalls how difficult it was for American policymakers to get their minds around the concept of nuclear MAD—mutually assured destruction—and to accept its strategic implications for sane statecraft. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy and his successors learned the lesson Ronald Reagan summarized succinctly in his favorite bumper sticker: a nuclear war cannot be won and must therefore never be fought. Realizing what that meant in practice for the U.S. rivalry with the Evil Empire was a huge struggle—one in which Biden spent countless hours helping Senate colleagues appreciate.

Today, in addition to nuclear MAD, President-elect Biden knows that we also face Climate MAD. Sharing a small globe on which we breathe the same air, either one of the top two emitters of greenhouse gases can disrupt the climate so severely that neither can live in it. Recognizing that reality, Biden worked with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to hammer out a climate accord with China that made possible the international Paris Agreement that began to bend these curves. While Trump withdrew from this agreement, Biden will rejoin it on Day 1 and seek to work with China to stretch to more ambitious targets.

In sum, the challenge posed by China is daunting. But brute facts are impossible to ignore. Having overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become the forty-sixth president of the United States, Biden will be ruthlessly realistic about the magnitude of this challenge, and unflinching in his determination to do what has to be done.

Graham T. Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the former director of Harvard’s Belfer Center and the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Image: Flickr / Office of the U.S. Navy

Peter Suciu

History,

They live by the motto, “better to die than be a coward.”

They’ve been described as the world’s most savage soldier, yet the average Nepalese volunteer stands at just five-foot, three-inches tall. Looks are truly deceiving because the men who make the cut to fill the ranks of the world's most famous mercenary units are ones few would want to face in a fight.

These are the Gurkhas and they live by the motto, “better to die than be a coward.”

If that doesn’t say enough about the determination of these men, then their history might. The Gurkhas, whose name originates from the Nepalese hill town of Gorkha, were actually an enemy of the British East India Company as it expanded in the Indian subcontinent in the early nineteenth century. The two sides fought so fiercely against one another during the Gurkha War of 1814–16 that a mutual respect was earned. 

According to the terms of a peace treaty between Nepal and Great Britain, the Gurkhas were allowed to join the ranks of the East Company’s army—essentially as mercenaries. During the Victorian Era, the Nepalese warriors were considered a “martial race” and were noted for their masculine qualities and general toughness.

For more than two hundred years they’ve been recruited exclusively from Nepal with the majority coming from the hill villages. In total, more than two hundred thousand Gurkhas have fought alongside the British military in every corner of the world.

They took part in wars in the Indian frontiers, in colonial wars in Africa, in both World Wars and even the 1982 Falklands War. To date, more than forty-six thousand Gurkhas have died fighting for the British Crown.

British Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once said, “if a man says he is not afraid to die, he is either lying or a Gurkha!”

A total of twenty-six Victorian Crosses—the highest British military honor—have been awarded to Gurkhas. Until 1947 most served in the Indian Army under British officers—but following the end of British rule four Gurkha regiments were transferred to the British Army and became the Gurkha Brigade.

Their Infamous Weapon

Even those who haven’t heard of the Gurkha soldiers or their exploits in combat may know their even more infamous fighting knife—the curved eighteen-inch bladed knife known as a kukri. 

The modern kukri is based on the traditional weapon carried for centuries by the warriors of Nepal, but only in modern times have members of the Brigade of Gurkhas received combat training with the knife.  

A very common myth is that if the weapon is drawn in battle the blade has to “taste blood”—either of the enemy or its owner—before it could be re-sheathed. While not true, stories of the blade being used in close combat have only contributed to the misconceptions.

For much of its history, the weapon was just as often used for foraging and cooking by its owners, but the mystique around it has spawned countless “knockoffs.” 

Fewer in the Ranks 

As the British Army has scaled back in recent years so too have the number of Gurkhas in the ranks—numbers were cut from thirteen thousand in 1995 to just three thousand today. 

Yet many continue to try for those few coveted openings.  

In 2019 the Gurkha Company of the British Army agreed to a significant increase in the number of recruits that could be selected and instead of the initial 320—which had the biggest intake in thirty-three years—more than 400 joined the ranks of the famous unit. In total, 580 of more than 10,000 applicants were invited to return for the final assessment.  

The selection process is far from an easy one. Tests include a three-mile uphill race while carrying in excess of sand and rocks strapped to the applicants back; doing seventy-five bench jumps in one minute and seventy sit-ups in two minutes.  

Until quite recently, those who made the cut and were willing to die for “Queen and Country” weren’t actually allowed to live in the UK following their retirement from the service. That was because Nepal isn’t a member of the Commonwealth, so even as those men served in the British Army they were not technically British subjects. Some UK officials even went so far as to claim that allowing all thirty-six hundred living former Gurkhas into the UK could even create massive pressure for immigration and social services. 

However, in 2009 it was announced that Gurkha veterans who retired before 1997 and served at least four years would be allowed to settle in the UK. Yet, another controversy that involved pensions hasn't been resolved and even now-former Gurkha soldiers receive only a fraction of what British soldiers are paid after retirement.  

Many Gurkhas veterans who returned to Nepal were also left homeless after the early 2016 earthquake that struck their homeland and hit the hill villages quite hard. 

Today, even with the hardships many young Nepalese men from the foothills will still do everything they can to join the elite military unit. 

While the British Army remains the largest “employer” of the Gurkhas today, other nations including Singapore, Malaysia and India have all employed them in their respective armies and police forces. It is easy to see how these fierce warriors from the foothills of the Himalayas have become the world's most famous mercenaries.  

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: UK Army

Peter Suciu

History, Europe

These five machine guns that deserve their moment to shine.

Here's What You Need to Remember: These guns were some of the best Europe had to offer.

World War I was truly the conflict in which the machine gun came into its own. It offered a devastating rate of fire that was able to mow down any troops that tried in vain to cross no man's land in one of the countless futile attacks. Heavy water-cooled machine guns were employed at the beginning of the war, and that lead to the development of more “mobile” weapons including automatic rifles such as the French Chauchat and American Browning Automatic Rifle. 

Germany also produced more machine guns than any other combatant power, yet still relied on captured and foreign-produced machine guns due to the demand for weapons at the front lines. While the war made such weapons as the Lewis Gun and Maxim almost famous, there were still weapons that have been largely overshadowed and almost forgotten.

Here are five machine guns that deserve their moment in the spotlight. 

The Austrian Schwarzlose M. 7/12

Developed by Prussian firearms designer Andreas Schwarlose at the turn of the century, the water-cooled, belt-fed Schwarzlose M. 7 resembled the German Mashinengewehr 08 (MG08), but it actually featured a far simpler design that relied on a delayed blowback action, which was unusual in early machine gun designs. However, the design also resulted in a far less expensive machine gun, which was one of the reasons cash-strapped Austria-Hungary adopted it as its standard machine gun. 

It had a slower rate of fire than the MG08 or British Vickers when it was introduced, but the cyclic rate of about four hundred rounds per minute was increased by the utilization of a far stronger mainspring. The Schwarzlose, which was chambered for the standard eight-millimeter cartridge employed by the Austro-Hungarian Army, proved to be a reliable machine gun when used primarily as an infantry weapon. It remained the standard heavy machine gun for the Austrian Empire throughout the war. 

After the war surplus weapons were used by the Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Romanian and even Swedish Armies. During World War II, some of the weapons were used by second-line units of the German Army while its Romanian Allies used a version that converted the weapon to 7.62x54mmR, which required the lengthening of the water jacket. Those guns were used with border guards and as anti-aircraft weapons and reportedly proved ineffective in that capacity.  

The British Hotchkiss Portative

After centuries of rivalry, Great Britain and France became close allies during World War I, but even then it was almost unheard of for either nation to use small arms from the other. There was one notable exception—the British adopted a special version of the French Hotchkiss M1909 Benét–Mercié light machine gun, which was developed and built initially by Hotchkiss et Cie. As the Hotchkiss factory in Saint-Denis near Paris was close to the front and there were fears that it could be captured by the Germans, production of the M1909 moved to Lyon while in 1915 the British government invited Hotchkiss to set up a factory in Coventry. 

Thus a French-designed machine gun was produced in the UK as the Hotchkiss Portative. As it was lighter and more compact than the heavy water-cooled Vickers machine gun, the British military found the Portative more suitable for cavalry and mounted infantry units and the weapon was widely used in campaigns in Gallipoli and Palestine. It was carried by such noted units as the Australian Light Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the British Army’s Camel Corps.

One factor that aided in the portability was the weapon's ability to be fed either from cloth belts like other machine guns or from brass stripper clips that held 30 rounds—the latter option allowing a soldier to move forward without having to carry an ammunition box. 

As it was actually introduced before the mass adoption of the Lewis Gun or the French Chauchat, the Hotchkiss Portative was among the first truly portable light machine guns to see combat in the Great War.  

The Italian Fiat-Revelli Modello 1914

Much like the Austrian-produced Schwarzlose the Italian Fiat-Revelli Modelo 1914 was a machine gun that was visually similar to the Maxim in appearance but had internal workings that were quite different. It was unique for a water-cooled machine gun in that it offered selective-fire for both single-shot “semi-automatic” or fully automatic fire. It featured a recoil-delayed blowback mechanism and fired from a closed bolt. 

With a rate of fire of around 500 rounds per minute, its cyclic rate was slower than the Maxim/Vickers guns but on par with the original version of the Schwarzlose—which seems fitting as these were used on opposing sides of the lines. It was chambered for the 6.5x52 millimeter Carcano round, which helped with ordnance supply issues but gun experts have noted it was underpowered compared to the other heavy machine guns of the era. Instead of being fed from a belt, the Fiat-Revelli Modelo 1914utilized a 50-round or 100-round strip-feed box magazine.

The Italian machine gun saw use in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, while the Italian supplied it to the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. It was used in a limited capacity by the Royal Italian Army during World War II.

Italian Beretta M1918

Along with the German MP-18, the Beretta M1918 has the distinction of being among the first submachine guns—and technically the Italian weapon predates the German effort. However, it grew out of the M1915 Villar-Perosa machine gun, which had been developed as an aircraft machine gun—albeit one that fired a 9-millimeter pistol round rather than the full rifle ammunition standard in other aircraft weapons of the era.

The Villar-Perosa was also unique in that it was a portable double-barreled weapon and consisted of two independent receivers and firing mechanisms that were attached together. It also had a high rate of fire that exceeded 1,500 rounds per minute but the 9-millimeter ammunition provides insufficient against enemy aircraft—not to mention that its range was limited—so the weapon was redeveloped for use as a ground-based submachine gun.

In its new capacity, the Beretta M1918 entered service in the spring of 1918, and some sources suggest it saw service a few weeks before the Germans deployed the MP-18 in battle. The two weapons have similarities in that each was mounted to a rifle stock and clearly inspired the next generation of submachine guns. 

However, the Beretta weapon was unique in that it featured a folding bayonet—and thus truly was the first SMG to utilize a bayonet—while it featured a top-loading stick magazine rather than the side-fed magazine of the MP-18. The Italian weapon saw limited use at the end of the World War I and even some use during World War II. 

The Danish Madsen Machine Gun: 

Denmark remained neutral in World War I, yet its Madsen light machine gun was employed by both the Allies and Central Powers. The weapon first entered service in 1902 and predated the Hotchkiss Portative and Chauchat and was arguably the very first portable machine gun produced. Its first use in battle was during the Mexican Revolution, while it also saw use with the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. 

During World War I, it was used by the German Army, which had it chambered in the 7.92-millimeter caliber. It was used with infantry units, mountain troops and then at the end of the war with storm troopers.  

It was also the first machine gun to feature a top-mounted magazine, in its case offset to the left side of the receiver to allow the sights to remain on the centerline. It featured a unique fully automatic falling block action with a mixed recoil-operated locking system, which resulted in a relatively slow rate of fire of just 450 rounds per minute. While sophisticated, its unique operating cycle proved to be a reliable system that could stand up to the harsh conditions of trench warfare. 

The Madsen proved to be a reliable weapon and was produced in dozens of calibers and configurations—so much so that it has been used in literally dozens of conflicts over the past one hundred years, and a few of the weapons even remain in use with the Brazilian Military Police.   

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: Wikimedia Commons

Peter Suciu

History, Europe

Great Britain "won" the naval arms race, but at a terrible cost. It changed the balance of power in Europe as the Anglo-German naval race heightened tensions between the two great powers.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Dreadnought means "fear nothing," and the name was very appropriate. The ship was lightyears ahead of anything that rival navies could throw at it - though rival navies quickly began to catch up.

Prior to the First World War, Great Britain was the dominant naval power in the world. As an island nation with a vast colonial empire, it had to be, and since the Napoleonic Wars, the British feared not only invasion but being cut off from that empire. Moreover, while fielding the only truly "professional army" in Europe, the British Army was far smaller in terms of the men it could mobilize compared to its longstanding rivals France and Russia.

The Royal Navy sought to counterbalance the traditional military strengths of those nations with a "two power" standard at sea, whereby it had to feature enough powerful warships to stand up to what any allied coalition could throw at it.

It wasn't simply enough to have the largest fleet; the Royal Navy needed the finest and most powerful warships. That fact became apparent in 1858 when France—a long rival of Great Britain—constructed La Gloire, the first large warship that combined an armored hull, steam propulsion and explosive shell-firing guns. The Royal Navy began a vigorous campaign to build modern ships and more of them.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy maintained a numerical advantage with some of the most powerful warships in the world.

Then in 1906, the HMS Dreadnought was launched. It featured an innovative battleship design, and by the time the First World War broke out in 1914, all major navies measured their strength by the number of Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers in their respective fleets.

When John "Jackie" Fisher became First Sea Lord in 1905 he retired many of the Royal Navy's older ships, as his vision centered on the battlecruiser—a ship that had the armament to destroy a foe and the speed to escape if necessary. The Admiralty saw the potential in such ships, but also called for a new class of battleship and that was the Dreadnought, which means "fear nothing." This new warship would actually be the sixth to carry the moniker, but it truly changed everything.

This new warship combined the "all-big-gun" armament, which included ten 12-inch guns, but was also quite speedy thanks to the new steam turbine engines. In addition to being well-armed, HMS Dreadnought featured redistributed armor to protect its guns, engines and magazines, while an innovative bulkhead structure in the interior made flood control easier, which increased her survivability.

The ship was so revolutionary that its name came to describe an entire class of battleships of the era—with the major all-big-gun warships built before her now described as "Pre-Dreadnought." The British may have had the most powerful warship in the world, but only briefly.

The arrival of this new ship inspired a naval arms race—and while at her commissioning the Royal Navy possessed a lead of twenty-five first-class battleships over the fleets of foreign navy, with HMS Dreadnought the Royal Navy possessed just a lead of only one ship in the newest class. Instead of providing a technological advantage, it essentially leveled the playing field.

While the Royal Navy had a head start, navies around the world built more powerful warships and soon even Dreadnought was eclipsed by so-called "Super-Dreadnoughts." By 1910, even Brazil had more powerful ships in its navy than HMS Dreadnought.  

By the time war came in 1914, Great Britain "won" the naval arms race, but at a terrible cost. It changed the balance of power in Europe as the Anglo-German naval race heightened tensions between the two great powers. While Germany never really closed the gap and had just seventeen Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers to the Royal Navy's twenty-nine, the two navies only met in one major, yet far from decisive engagement at the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916.

After the war naval treaties limited the number of battleships navies could possess. Yet, the "all-big-gun" ships remained the Queen of the Seas through World War II, by which time the battleship was overshadowed by the aircraft carrier and Great Britain had lost its place as the world's dominant naval power.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and website. 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 in early 2020.

Image: Wikipedia.

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Caleb Larson

Security, Americas

The U.S. Air Force’s legendary U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane made history as the first military plane to fly using an AI program to control key sensors and systems.

In a tweet, Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force’s Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and so-called acquisition Tsar announced the mating of an AI pilot program with the U-2 Dragon Lady airframe, saying:

“NEW. For the first time, @usairforce put #AI safely in charge of a U.S. military system. Call sign “Artuμ,” we modified world-leading μZero gaming algorithms to operate the U-2’s radar. This first AI copilot even served as mission commander on its seminal training flight!”

The AI program, playfully called ARTUµ after the iconic droid helper R2-D2 from the Star Wars series, helped pilot a reconnaissance flight near Beale Air Force Base. During the flight, ARTUµ looked for ground-based missile launchers that could have posed a threat to the airframe, while the pilot kept an eye out for incoming enemy aircraft. Both the ARTUµ and the human pilot shared the U-2’s onboard radar, though ultimately ARTUµ decided to dedicate radar to missile detection.

Roper went on to explain what the melding of man and machine means for the future of flying, referencing sci-fi pop culture, saying, “Like any pilot, Artuμ (even the real R2-D2) has strengths and weaknesses. Understanding them to prep both humans and AI for a new era of algorithmic warfare is our next imperative step. We either become sci-fi or become history.”

An Important First

The flight marked the first publicly-known time that an artificially-intelligent program was involved with the flying of a military plane. Though not directly in control of the plane, the AI program controlled the airframe’s navigation as well as radar control sensors.

Prior to the flight, which took place in California, the program had successfully completed over one million training flights and is based on a gaming algorithm known as µZero, which has been previously used to best human opponents in popular and complex games like chess or Go, a strategy game popular in Asia.

In an interview, the pilot, identified only as callsign Vudu said that the program’s “role was very narrow … but, for the tasks the AI was presented with, it performed well,” though the human pilot remained “very much the pilot in command.”

Postscript

Roper explained what the implications of this flight are for the future of AI flight and the United States military, saying that ARTUµ “was the mission commander, the final decision authority on the human-machine team. And given the high stakes of global AI, surpassing science fiction must become our military norm.” Stay tuned for more on ARTUµ, and for more on the future of artificially intelligent military flights.

Caleb Larson is a defense writer for the National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Technology, Americas

With a deal at last in hand, Roku users everywhere will not have to worry about missing out on watching Wonder Woman 1984.

Last week, nearly seven months after its launch, HBO Max finally landed on the Roku platform. Roku reached an agreement with AT&T and division WarnerMedia to finally close the biggest hole in the streaming service’s distribution, just in time for the debut next week of the blockbuster movie “Wonder Woman 1984.”

What took so long, and how did the sides finally come to an agreement? The Wall Street Journal reported this week on the protracted negotiations.

Roku, per the Journal report, “had tough financial terms WarnerMedia wouldn’t meet.” The battle ultimately hinged on “the question of how to divvy up the spoils of video streaming.” Both sides, though, were incentivized to reach a deal prior to the arrival of “Wonder Woman,” which will be followed in 2021 with the arrival of the entire planned Warner Brothers movie slate on HBO Max.

In addition, another point of contention in the negotiations was The Roku Channel, Roku’s in-house channel which has expanded throughout the year. Roku has leaned on media companies to provide programming for the channel, but WarnerMedia had resisted, while Roku, in turn, had asked for part of the ad space in a future ad-supported version of HBO Max. The exact shape of the final agreement is unclear, although a source told the newspaper that it did not entail Warner agreeing to supply content to the Roku Channel.

A similar Roku Channel disagreement was at the heart of Roku’s dispute earlier this year with NBC Universal, over the Peacock app. Those two sides reached agreement in September. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia agreed to a deal in November with its other remaining holdout, Amazon, to make HBO Max available on that streaming platform. HBO Max also arrived on Comcast set-top boxes shortly before the announcement of the Roku deal.

The WSJ report, citing Parks Associates, said that Roku now has forty-six million active accounts, and 38 percent of the hardware market in the United States. The Journal also said that Roku makes most of its profit these days not from the sale of physical devices, but rather from selling ads in streaming apps.

The deal that was reached between the parties led Roku’s stock to soar on Thursday. The stock reached as high as $349 a share on the news of the HBO deal, continuing a massive run ever since October. Roku was trading at $138.19 a share on January 1. One analyst, following the news, raised its price target for Roku to a Street-high $410.

Meanwhiile, Roku is in yet another standoff, with the cable company Charter Communications, and the dispute led the company to pull the Spectrum TV app from its channel store for new downloads, although the app still works for existing customers.

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.

Mark Episkopos

Security, Europe

These boats could lurk beneath the Arctic circle, only to surface when they recieved thier doomsday orders.

The largest and one of the most prolific submarines ever made, the Typhoon-class served for decades as a leading Soviet ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).

Conceived in the late Cold War, Project 941 Akula (North Atlantic Treaty Organization reporting name Typhoon) was meant to compete with the prodigious submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) payload capabilities of the rival U.S. Ohio-class. The Akula class in question is not to be confused with Project 971 Shchuka-B, a line of attack submarines also with the NATO reporting name Akula that is sometimes also referred to as the Akula-class.

Typhoon was to be larger than the Ohio-class, in order to account for its much heftier R-39 Rif missiles. But why were the Typhoon’s missiles so big in the first place? As previously noted by The National Interest, the answer surprisingly stems from differences in the ways that the U.S. and Russian plastics industries developed.

At a submerged displacement of around 48,000 tons, the Typhoon class remains the largest submarine in the world—for a sense of scale, consider that the largest U.S. submarine, the Ohio-class, comes in at just over 18,000 tons. With five internal pressure hulls of premium titanium construction, the Typhoon isn’t just big but also highly resilient. Some of the submarine’s other design features are considerably less practical. In what one can only imagine was a boost for crew morale, the Typhoon’s immense size enabled the addition of a swimming pool, sauna, and even a bird aviary.

As with any strategic submarine, the Typhoon’s core feature is its nuclear-capable arsenal. The Typhoon boasted as many as twenty R-39 Rif SLBM’s, each capable of delivering ten 100-kiloton nuclear warheads. The operational doctrine for Typhoon submarines was fairly straightforward: they would linger beneath the arctic ice cap, where they are much harder to detect and track, before surfacing to launch a devastating nuclear strike on U.S. or Western European infrastructure. But this plan proved difficult, not to mention highly expensive, to fully realize. For one, the submarine had to be of a strong enough construction to readily surface through ice—that’s where the titanium hulls came in. Special design accommodations also had to be made in order to support the massive, ninety-ton R-39 missiles and insulate them from shock.

Typhoon’s unique design had its drawbacks. Precise monetary values are difficult to come by, not to mention somewhat meaningless in the context of the Soviet military-industrial sector, but there is little question that Typhoon’s cost per model was astronomical. The process of extracting and handling titanium is extraordinarily costly, let alone all of Typhoon’s other complex design considerations.

The lead Typhoon submarine, Dmitri Donskoy, was commissioned and transferred to the Northern Fleet in 1981. The Typhoon series was to consist of seven models, six of which were completed over the course of the 1980’s; the last Typhoon entry was scrapped prior to completion. In the decades following the Soviet collapse, all except one—the Dmitri Donskoy, which serves as a testbed for the new Bulava submarine-launched nuclear missiles—were scrapped or decommissioned. Rumors have long swirled of a potential refit that could see several Typhoons turned into cruise missile carriers, but it seems increasingly unlikely with each passing year that the aging Typhoon class will get a new lease on life.

The Borei line of SSBN’s is set to replace both the Typhoon and Delta classes over the coming decade as the new sea leg of Russia’s nuclear triad.

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

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Security, Americas

While Austin’s appointment is not necessarily consequential for Biden’s China policy, it sends a clear signal within the broader context of the President-elect’s assembled foreign policy team.

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to lead the Defense Department. What can Austin’s nomination tell us about the direction of U.S. military doctrine under a Biden administration?

Austin has served in a series of distinguished positions over the course of a forty-one-year military career that ended with his retirement in 2016. As the assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry Division during the early stages of the Iraq War, Austin is widely credited with the Army’s successes in Baghdad. Austin’s service record during the invasion of Iraq propelled him to the Army’s higher echelons; following a flurry of promotions in subsequent years, Austin went on to become the commanding general of all U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. From there, Austin became vice chief of staff to the Army in 2012 and, eventually, commander of U.S. Central Command in 2013.  

Austin enjoys a near-unanimous rapport with the military. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, described him as a “soldier’s soldier.” “He is popular among many troops that served under his command over the past couple decades, as I can attest from a number of conversations over the years,” O’Hanlon said. Despite being frequently described by Washington insiders as a “team player,” Austin has intermittently broken ranks with Washington military policy orthodoxy—particularly over his skepticism of Middle-Eastern military entanglements. Austin reportedly expressed concerns over the strategic direction of the Obama administration’s efforts to combat the spread of the Islamic State, arguing that the thrust of the military effort should be in Iraq even as the Obama administration increasingly invested itself into regime change in Syria. Austin later testified that the U.S. policy of training “moderate Syrian fighters” as a local wedge against the Islamic State had borne little fruit. In that same testimony, Austin took a forceful stance against the then-popular, bipartisan push for a no-fly zone in Syria: “I would not recommend a buffer zone at this point in time,” stated Austin upon being repeatedly questioned on this point by the late Senator John McCain.

Opposition to Austin’s nomination runs across two broad themes. The first is the argument, fielded by a wide substratum of American political discourse, that the appointment of a retired general undermines the principle of civilian control over the military. There are those who say that Austin’s recent military service is inherently disqualifying. Federal law prohibits military officers from serving as the defense secretary within seven years of their retirement, which means that Austin can only accept the nomination with a waiver provided by congressional vote. There have only been two such cases in the postwar period—one for Army Gen. George Marshall, and the other for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis. It remains to be seen how the 151 House Democrats who voted against Mattis’s waiver will navigate Austin’s upcoming confirmation process.  

The second objection reflects the concern that Austin’s range of policy experience is too regionally-restrictive. ”Biden is rightfully focused on [Austin’s] strength in logistics that pertains to combating the pandemic,” Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project for The Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Japan Times. “But experience in counterinsurgency efforts in the Middle East is not what we need to deal with threats in the Indo-Pacific.” Austin’s proponents in Washington have pushed back against the suggestion that ongoing U.S. military operations in Asia could be hamstrung by Austin’s nomination: “I can assure you that neither free navigation in the South China Sea nor the security of the Third Island Chain will be imperiled merely because a former Army general is defense secretary,” Earl Matthews wrote in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. “The idea that the defense secretary must be an expert on China, or an Asia policy wonk is without merit . . . he or she must be a generalist with a broad strategic vision ready to meet any global challenge,” added Matthews, who served as principal deputy general counsel of the U.S. Army and as deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, in addition to being a senior director for defense policy and strategy on the National Security Council. 

While Austin’s appointment is not necessarily consequential for Biden’s China policy, it sends a clear signal within the broader context of the President-elect’s assembled foreign policy team.  It is not in the defense secretary’s purview to formulate U.S. grand strategy against peer competitors, but Biden’s decision to nominate Austin—especially over Obama-era Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, a long-speculated potential nominee with an established record of taking a hard line on China—poses yet another affirmation that the coming Biden administration is unlikely to pursue measures that might intensify U.S.-China military competition in the Asia-Pacific region.  

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

Image: Reuters