Diplomacy & Crisis News

Caleb Larson

T-72 Tank,

The T-72 sits staunchly within the Soviet design camp: it is very light in comparison to American and NATO Main Battle Tanks at a slight 41 tons

Here's What You Need to Remember: Although likely undergunned but more modern alternatives, the T-72 series has nonetheless enjoyed an extensive afterlife, especially in Africa and the Middle east, where lower-intensity conflicts continue to smolder. For customers who can’t afford an M1 Abrams or other western Main Battle Tanks — the T-72 is the way to go.

The T-72 is one of the most-built tanks in the post- Second World War world, a testament to their effectiveness and affordability. Quite a few companies — mostly former Soviet, Eastern European countries offer an extensive range of upgrade kits that will continue to prolong the T-72 series’ life for many years to come

Interim Solution

The T-72 series was designed to address shortcoming inherent to its predecessor — the T-64’s design — namely a very compact, but unreliable and underpowered engine. To address this deficiency, T-64s were outfitted with more powerful and more conventional diesel engines. While this helped alleviate the power issue, it became apparent after some time that a complete redesign would be in order, as the newly installed engine put undue stress on the tank’s hull.

Small but Mighty

The T-72 sits staunchly within the Soviet design camp: it is very light in comparison to American and NATO Main Battle Tanks at a slight 41 tons. This light weight, combined with its very wide tank treads, allow for very low ground pressure, facilitating good traction in boggy spring and winter conditions endemic to Russia during the spring as snow and and ice melt. Its cross-country performance is thus excellent.

Like many Soviet designs, early-model T-72s are rather underpowered, equipped with a decidedly feeble 780 horsepower engine. Later engine upgrades would improve output to about 1,130 horsepower, at which point the T-72 finds its stride, especially in off-road conditions.

Part of the T-72’s lightweight is achieved via it’s small stature and cramped interior, also in keeping with Soviet armor doctrine, which favors a squat, low-profile stature. It’s crew of just three benefit from an autoloader that further helps reduce its silhouette by keeping the crew number low.

Unfortunately, the T-72s had one major drawback — ammunition was not stored separately from the crew in a blow-out ammunition compartment. This drawback became apparent in Iraq, where a number of T-72s suffered catastrophic internal explosions.

Various Upgrades

Like many Soviet tanks, the T-72 has a nearly unending number of variations, tailored to specific customer needs. Many thousands of later model T-72s with extensively upgraded explosive reactive armor (ERA) are still held in reserve with the Russian Federation, and both Ukrainian and Russian companies offer upgrade kits to improve survivability for foreign customers.

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq slightly modified a series of T-72 and called them the Lion of Babylon — thought they were anything but lions. Their only strength were in the front. Essentially, Iraq engineers welded a layer of steel to the frontal glacis, with a small gap in-between the original hull and the new layer, in an effort to dispel the explosion from a hit outward around the hull.

Heavily modified Polish T-72s are still in service as Main Battle Tanks, called PT-91 Twardy, and feature domestically developed engines, comms, and fire control systems that have been successfully exported as upgrade kits abroad to countries that also field T-72 versions.

Although likely undergunned but more modern alternatives, the T-72 series has nonetheless enjoyed an extensive afterlife, especially in Africa and the Middle east, where lower-intensity conflicts continue to smolder. For customers who can’t afford an M1 Abrams or other western Main Battle Tanks — the T-72 is the way to go.

Caleb Larson is a Defense Writer with 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. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Caleb Larson

Russian Air Force, Europe

Some of these warplanes are upgraded Soviet-era aircraft, but some of them are very modern and have even yet to go into serial production.

Key point: Moscow has taken pains to modernize and maintain its aging aircraft. But Russia is also investing in the future, including drones and stealth.

Most military equipment in Russian arsenals today is legacy Soviet hardware. Russian bombers are no exception. Although some airframes in Russian inventories are quite old, they remain potent thanks to airframe, electronics and radar upgrades, along with improvements in standoff missiles and precision-guided munitions.  Here are Russia’s most dangerous bombers.

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

Tu-95 “Bear”

In 1950, Andrei Tupolev was tasked with designing the Soviet Union’s new long-range heavy bomber, the Tu-95. It was to be able to carry a 24,200-pound payload with a range of nearly 5,000 miles—and thus threaten important targets in the United States.

Tupolev needed to balance speed and performance with range. Jet engines at the time would given a long-range strategic bomber the needed speed, but guzzled fuel, limiting range. Although Tupolev was already a highly successful designer, he tasked a group of German and Austrian aircraft engineers that had been captured after World War II with the design. They designed the most powerful turboprop engine ever made, the venerable KN-12.

Using two sets of contra-rotating propellers, the KN-12 is still used on the Tu-95 today. Although the engines are extremely powerful, the are also incredibly loud. Still, when mission requirements are massive payload rather than stealthiness, the Bear can do the job.

Repeated upgrades have greatly extended the airframe’s service life, and increasingly sophisticated stand-off cruise missiles have kept the Tu-95 potent. It is planned to operate until the 2040s.

Tu-22M “Backfire”

Sometimes called “Backfire” by NATO, the Tu-22M variant was developed to address design deficiencies inherent in the Tu-22 parent design. The Tu-22M uses a variable-sweep wing design that provided a balance between favorable landing and take-off handling, with good cruising and high-speed flight.

The Tu-22M carries a respectable bomb load, and can fly at a maximum speed of Mach 1.88. Interestingly, it has a twin-barreled 23mm cannon in the tail that is remotely controlled.

The introduction of the Tu-22M in the early 1970s was an odd time for supersonic bombers, as the superiority of ICBMs was widely recognized. Despite the Tu-22M’s technical obsolescence, continuous upgrades to radar and electronics, combined with improved air-to-surface missiles have kept the Tu-22M platform relevant.

Tu-160 “Blackjack”

The Tu-160 is truly a beast of an aircraft with several firsts and world records to its name. Visually similar to the Tu-22M or the American Rockwell B-1 Lancer, the Tu-160 was the last strategic bomber designed by the Soviet Union.

Also known as the “Blackjack” it is the heaviest bomber in service in any country, and tops out at Mach 2.05. In contrast to the B-1 Lancer, the Blackjack is more of a stand-off weapons platform rather than a traditional bomber, although its tow large weapons bays allow it to carry a payload of 88,000 pounds and allows the delivery of conventional, precision, and nuclear munitions. The Blackjack is the only Soviet bomber designed without any defensive weapons.

Again, upgrades to radar and targeting, along with the restart of airframe production in 2019 is keeping the Blackjack airborne, probably for many more years to come.

Tupolev PAK DA

Although still under development, the PAK DA will undoubtedly be Russia’s deadliest bomber. Once fielded, the PAK DA will eventually replace both the Tu-160 supersonic bomber and the earlier Tu-95.

PAK DA is essentially a next-gen long-range stealth bomber, similar to the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber. Like the B-2, the PAK DA will probably have a flying wing design, although this is only known from promotional material. No known prototypes currently exist. This would be the first truly Russian bomber— not simply a legacy Soviet design, or improvements upon them.

The first PAK DA prototype flight was delayed from 2019 to sometime in the 2021–2023 timeframe. As already pointed out, upgraded variants of the Tu-160 are currently conducting flight trials, so it will likely be some time before we have any photos or more concrete info on Russia’s first true stealth bomber.

Future Flight

If Russian military history can teach us anything, the Tu-22M, -95 and -160 will probably be maintained and upgraded for many years to come. When and if the PAK DA becomes operational, it would put an important arrow in Russia’s quiver—a theoretically very capable stealth bomber. Still, if that can be managed affordably remains to be seen. The relatively low price of oil has severely constrained Russian military spending, and designing a brand-new stealth platform is no easy thing.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

World War I History, Europe

There were several options for victory or at least a favorable stalemate that Berling could have pursued.

Key point: Berlin blundered majorly with the Von Schlieffen plan, which brought Britain into the war. To make matters worse, unrestricted warfare eventually brought in America.

There has been some discussion on the things Imperial Germany could have done to reach a different outcome including using its High Seas Fleet more effectively and not conducting unrestricted submarine warfare.

However, the real mistake lies in German strategy in 1914, which was formulated even before the war began. Unlike a generation later when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi high command actively sought to create a two-front war, Imperial Germany knew that a war with either Russia or France meant a war with both.

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

Thus was born the Schlieffen Plan, created by General Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. It called for a bold and swift invasion of France through neutral Belgium, which would capture Paris and knock France out of the war before Russia could mobilize and be a threat in the east.

It sounded good, but as history showed it didn't work. The British Expeditionary Force arrived in France sooner than the Germans expected and in a series of collective actions known as the Battle of the Frontiers in August 1914, the German lines were disrupted enough that Paris wasn't captured. Instead, the armies of Europe were forced to dig in, resulting in four years of hellish trench warfare.

With more than one hundred years of hindsight, we can see that the plan was doomed before it was launched, and it was one that presented more risk than reward. It is also something that should have been seen by German military planners. Nearly a decade had passed from when Schlieffen devised the plan and when it was put into action.

Notably, Great Britain moved closer to France and Russia—and it should have been obvious to anyone in Berlin that the British would come into the war to defend Belgian neutrality. The Schlieffen plan never really addressed that fact, but when Germany crossed the Belgian frontier the British declared war.

Even if somehow the British stayed out of the war the plan called for Germany to defeat France in six weeks! That assumed that the French capital could be captured, but clearly Schlieffen and the rest of the Imperial German high command failed to remember that the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War lasted from September 19 to January 28. Why would it be expected that France wouldn't or couldn't hold out at least as long again?

Thus the better course of action for a victory should have been a swift move to the east, while defending the western frontier. Great Britain likely wouldn't have come into the war on the side of Germany and its Central Power allies, but historians have generally agreed that the doves in the cabinet—who did support war when Belgium's neutrality was violated—would have likely pushed for neutrality.

It is possible that the British Expeditionary Force could have been sent to Belgium as a de facto peacekeeping force to ensure neither side violated that neutrality.

France certainly would not, and really could not, have violated Belgian neutrality to invade Germany with British forces there, and likely wouldn't have invaded further than Alsace-Lorraine—the territories lost in the Franco-Prussian War.

Russia had mobilized far faster than Germany and Austria-Hungary expected, but bungled things in battle in the early stages of the war and saw an army destroyed at Tannenberg in Prussia. With the full might of the Germans and Austrians in the east the Czar may have been forced to the peace table by winter.

With its main ally out of the war, France may have settled for peace, potentially gaining back part of Alsace or Lorraine while giving colonial concessions to Germany. It is likely possible that David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, or Sir Edward Gray, the foreign secretary, could have been the peacemakers—potential Nobel Prize Winners for their efforts in the Treaty of London.

It could have potentially been a short war that spared millions of lives, and even stopped the rise of communism—although it is just as possible the Romanov monarchy in Russia may have collapsed anyway. Of course, it wouldn't have resolved all the underlying issues of the day and may have only pushed a truly "Great War" down the road a bit.

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

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

F-4, World

Not bad for a jet designed in the 1950s.

Here's What You Need to Know: Though the F-4 was eventually replaced by more capable F-15s and F-16s, both frames drew on lessons learned from the F-4s service history.

The F-4 Phantom was a beast of a jet. Despite early losses in Vietnam, the Phantom set sixteen world records and is still in service nearly sixty years after its first flight. 

Beast

In an interview with an aviation website, Col. (Ret.) Charles B. DeBellvue, a former F-4 pilot, reminisced about his days flying the F-4 Phantom. “The F-4 was the last plane that looked like it was made to kill somebody. It was a beast. It could go through a flock of birds and kick out barbecue from the back.” 

In the days before onboard computers and fly-by-wire flight controls, the pilot—and the pilot alone—was responsible for flying the airplane. “You didn’t get into the F-4, you put it on, it became you,” DeBellevue explained. It was a manual airplane, not like an F-16 or F-15, they were aerodynamic and designed well.” 

The F-4 was a large, muscular twin-engine jet designed as an fighter-bomber and interceptor that was intended to rule the skies over Vietnam. When it debuted, in 1961, it was perhaps the most capable airframe for its role in the world. 

The F-4 platform also set sixteen time-to-climb, altitude, and speed records. In 1959, the F-4 flew above 98,000 feet, and in 1961, the F-4 was the fasted jet in the world—2,581 kilometers per hour, or 1,604 miles per hour. 

Vietnam

The airframe surrounded two engines that gave the F-4 a massive amount thrust. During engagements in Vietnam, American pilots were able to engage and disengage from engagements virtually at will—a tops speed over twice the speed of sound. 

However, Vietnam revealed some glaring deficiencies with the F-4 design that needed to be rectified. The Air Force assumed that by relying on sheer speed, acceleration, and a high weapons load, the F-4 would destroy North Vietnamese MiGs. 

Engineers estimated that dogfights at supersonic speeds would happen so fast, cannons would not be useful, so early-production airframes didn’t come equipped with any onboard guns. 

At low speeds however, the F-4 was not very maneuverable, and was outfought by agile, tight-turning MiG-17s and MiG-19s. So F-4s were then equipped with an onboard 20 millimeter cannon after suffering an outsize number of losses against groups of MiGs using hit-and-run tactics. 

Still Flying

The F-4 platform is still in service today with a few countries—nearly sixty years after introduction. 

In 1971, Japan bought licenses for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build F-4s domestically. The first F-4 that Japan assembled, in 1971, carries out monthly flights for a surprising mission. 

The F-4, #301, is equipped with a dust collection pod (“sniffer”) that samples the air in order to detect radioactive particles. In addition to monitoring North Korean nuclear tests, the sniffer monitors other environmental pollution. 

Iran also flies American-built F-4s. In 2014, at least one F-4 was filmed on a bombing run in Iraq, though Iran has denied any involvement. As I wrote previously, F-4s in Iraq could be evidence of a non-interference agreement between the United States and Iran. 

Into the Sunset

Though the F-4 was eventually replaced by more capable F-15s and F-16s, these frames drew on lessons learned from the F-4s service history. Phantoms held their own up until Operation Desert Storm, where specially modified “Wild Weasel” F-4s were used in suppressing Iraqi air defenses. Not bad for a jet designed in the 1950s.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Caleb Larson

Artillery, Middle East

The DPRK has been an important supplier of artillery to Iran.

Here's What You Need to Know: North Korean guns fired in the Iran-Iraq War.

Heavy Guns

The M1978 is a North Korean-designed long-range heavy artillery gun, and is North Korea’s longest-range artillery piece. The M1978 was first spotted by the United States in 1978, hence the year in place of a proper name designation. 

The M1978 is likely based on either Soviet naval guns or Japanese costal artillery that may have been left on the Korean peninsula after World War II. The M1978 can fire a 170 millimeter high-explosive round over 40 kilometers, and a rocket-assisted projectile can reach out to 60 kilometers, making the M1978 one of the longest-range artillery pieces of its time. From the Demilitarized Zone, the M1978 could strike Seoul using rocket-assisted shells.

Unlike most artillery pieces, the M1978 is too large and unwieldy to be towed by truck. The long gun was therefore mated to either a Soviet T-54 derived hull, or a Chinese Type 59, which is functionally and visually very similar. Two large leg shovel-type supports are attached to the rear of the tank to support the gun when firing. A large travel lock is attached to the hull’s front glacis, and folds down during firing.

The tank hull does not have a turret and suffers from limited crew protection. However, one of the features unique to the hull is that it can create a smokescreen by dumping diesel fuel into the exhaust, causing it to combust and turn into smoke.

Reports differ on the crew size needed to operate the M1978, though the tank chassis itself is certainly too small to carry all crew members, who would have to follow in another vehicle. Crew size is estimated to be 6-8, and the estimated rate of fire is 1 to 2 rounds every 5 minutes.

Iran-Iraq War

North Korea supplied the M1978 system to Iran in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, and possibly supplied ammunition for the gun to Iran as well. Though the guns would now be around 35 years old, Iran has a long tradition of keeping old military equipment alive, squeezing serviceability from both tanks and airframes long past their normal service lives. The M1978 is probably not an exception, and has reportedly been seen in Iranian military parades.

Some M1978s were apparently captured by Iraq at some point during the Iran-Iraq War. In 2008, U.S. Marines recovered and destroyed an M1987 variant in Ramadi, Iraq that fired 180 millimeter ammunition, rather than the standard 170 millimeter shell it had been designed for, indicating Iran or North Korea modified the guns for larger caliber ammunition.

Postscript

The M1978 was updated slightly in 1989. The updated piece, the M1989, was able to carry more ammunition. Other modifications to the gun or hull remain unknown.

The North Korean-Iranian brainchild is uniquely positioned to fire on the South Korean capital, Seoul—which is a mere 35 miles, or about 55 kilometers away. Although the M1978 was indeed a formidable piece of artillery when it was introduced, its efficacy on today’s battlefields in Iranian service would be questionable. It might be time for this artillery piece to retire.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Peter Suciu

Area 51, Aircraft,

Developed by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the 1990s it was soon dubbed "The Bird of Prey," named for its resemblance to the Klingon spacecraft from the science fiction series Star Trek, as well as the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The lasting legacy of the Bird of Prey was its ability to demonstrate advances in stealth concepts, notably the "gapless" control surfaces that were developed to blend smoothly into the wings to reduce radar visibility, while the engine intake was completely shielded from the front. Yet, despite its advancements, the National Museum of the United States Air Force noted that it still utilized some "off the shelf" technology to reduce costs while also speeding the production.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force outside of Dayton, Ohio is home to more than 360 aircraft and missiles. Its collection includes such truly notable airplanes as the B-29 "Bockscar" that dropped the "Fat Man" atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the B-17 "Memphis Belle" and the Boeing VC-137C SAM 26000 that had the callsign Air Force One when it was used by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

In the Cold War gallery of the museum, near a Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor is a truly special aircraft – the one-of-a-kind Boeing YF-118G, a black project aircraft that was developed to demonstrate stealth technology. Developed by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the 1990s it was soon dubbed "The Bird of Prey," named for its resemblance to the Klingon spacecraft from the science fiction series Star Trek, as well as the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

The secret project ran from 1992 to 1999 and the single-seat aircraft was a demonstrator used to test "low observable" stealth techniques as well as new methods of aircraft design and construction. The aircraft, which was tested at the top-secret "Area 51," first flew in 1996 and made a total of 38 flights, where it was used to determine ways to make aircraft less observable not only to radar but also to the eye.

The program also validated new ways to design and build aircraft using large single-piece composite structures, as well as "virtual reality" computerized design and assembly and disposable tooling. It was powered by a single Pratt & Whitney JT15D-5C turbofan that provided 3,190 pounds of thrust and had a maximum speed of 300 miles per hour, and a ceiling of 20,000 feet.

The aircraft made its final flight in 1999 and it was declassified three years later when its design techniques had become standard practice. Boeing has used those techniques in the development of X-32 Joint Strike Fighter demonstrators and later in its X-45A Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle prototype.

The lasting legacy of the Bird of Prey was its ability to demonstrate advances in stealth concepts, notably the "gapless" control surfaces that were developed to blend smoothly into the wings to reduce radar visibility, while the engine intake was completely shielded from the front. Yet, despite its advancements, the National Museum of the United States Air Force noted that it still utilized some "off the shelf" technology to reduce costs while also speeding the production. This included a control system that is all-manual with no computer assists, while its landing gear was adapted from Beech King Air and Queen Air aircraft.

Boeing donated the sole YF-118G Bird of Prey to the museum in 2002 and it has been on display since 2003 – where despite its stealthy technology is ready to be seen and photographed by visitors!

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 originally appeared in May 2020 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Caleb Larson

French Navy,

World War I and the inter-war period was an era of great innovation. Here's how France tried to invent a new kind of vessel (but it went very wrong).

Here's What You Need to Remember: After the war, a French report attributed the Surcouf’s loss to friendly fire, though this has not been independently confirmed. One book written on the subject hypothesized that the Surcouf was hit by American bombers that didn’t recognize that large hull, mistaking the submarine for a Japanese or German Sub.

After the end of hostilities during World War One, the victorious allies signed the Washington Naval treaty in an attempt to prevent an arms race in naval construction. Strict limits were placed on the number of so-called capital ships that signatories could build — battleships, cruisers, battlecruisers, and aircraft carriers.

Their tonnage, or size, and gun size, or caliber were also limited by the treaty. Britain had suffered heavy losses from submarine attacks during the war and argued strongly for an outright submarine ban, but to no avail. France quietly laid down what was at the time the largest submarine in the world.

Design: 

The Surcouf was laid down by the French in 1927 and was the first of a planned class of cruiser submarines that would patrol above water. The Surcouf’s mission was to maintain contact with French overseas colonies, particularly in North Africa, hunt down enemy surface ships, and destroy enemy convoys.

The Surcouf was equipped with deck guns and torpedo tubes. Four torpedo tubes were in the bow, and two external launchers were installed on the Surcouf’s superstructure. The deck guns were the Surcouf’s primary armament.

On top of the Surcouf’s hull, a watertight turret was installed that housed two huge guns, 8 inches in diameter that fired while the Surcouf was surfaced. Once surfacing began, the guns could be fired in less than three minutes. These massive guns were originally intended to arm Washington Treaty-compliant French heavy cruisers. Each gun used two 52-pound bags of smokeless powder to fire a 271-pound high explosive or 295-pound armor-piercing shell nearly twenty miles, though the Surcouf’s turrets could not increase their elevation high enough to match heavy cruiser distances.

The Surcouf also carried a floatplane in an onboard hangar that was used for observation and directing the deck gun’s fire. Anti-aircraft guns were also mounted on the Surcouf’s deck. A motorboat could be launched from the Surcouf that could carry up to 40 people in a locked compartment — either passengers, or prisoners picked up after the Surcouf sank a surface ship.

Her range was very high for an interwar submarine. Enough diesel fuel was carried to give the Surcouf an 11,500-mile range when surfaced, allowing the large sub to easily cross the Atlantic to the United States and Canada without needing to refuel or refit.

Following the fall of France, the Surcouf was manned by Free French forces and was sent to the Pacific theatre, to help liberate or support the ration operations of French possessions in the Pacific.

Fate

The Surcouf disappeared in February 1942, near Panama. An American freighter reported with colliding something that was partially submerged, presumably the Surcouf, though the freighter did not stop despite hearing voices calling for help in the water.

After the war, a French report attributed the Surcouf’s loss to friendly fire, though this has not been independently confirmed. One book written on the subject hypothesized that the Surcouf was hit by American bombers that didn’t recognize that large hull, mistaking the submarine for a Japanese or German Sub.

What actually happened to the Surcouf remains a mystery.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This first appeared in 2020 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

More From The National Interest: 

Russia Has Missing Nuclear Weapons Sitting on the Ocean Floor 

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Peter Suciu

History, Asia

In truth, it was little more than a Chinese-produced version of the Soviet T-54A, which had been developed after World War II to replace the venerable T-34.

Here's What You Need to Remember: When the People's Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949, the Gongchen Tank served as the lead armored vehicle in the military parade in Tiananmen Square. It remained in service under the new Communist Red China, until it was officially retired in 1959. Number 102 has been in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution ever since.

Before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, which merged into the Second World War when Japan attacked American and British forces in late 1941, the National Revolutionary Army of China under Chiang Kai-shek was armed with mostly aging European armor. This included the truly antiquated Renault FT tanks, which were “upgraded” to some extent with 37mm guns.

Fearing the Japanese more than the Chinese at the time, Soviet Russia also supplied the Nationalist Chinese with some 82 T-26 tanks, while tank crews were even trained under the supervision of Soviet specialists. The Soviet Red Army was already in the process of upgrading its armored forces and supplied the same T-26 tanks to the Republican forces in Spain as well.

Later during World War II the American's also supplied a few M3 Stuarts and M4 Shermans, and those tanks were put to good use stopping Japanese attacks.

The First Domestic Chinese Tank 

After the defeat of the Nationalist forces during the Chinese Civil War, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China began to develop its own tank force. But it took until 1959 for the Chinese to develop the Type 59 main battle tank (MBT), and in truth it was little more than a Chinese-produced version of the Soviet T-54A, which had been developed after World War II to replace the venerable T-34.

The T-54A was supplied to China under the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty after the Korean War. The Chinese military leadership negotiated with the Soviets to acquire the blueprints and assembly know-how to domestically produce their own version. The Type 59 subsequently became the backbone of the Chinese Army, and it was the longest PLA tank production to date, spanning all the way until 1985 when nearly 10,000 were produced in a number of variations. Moreover, it also served as the basis for several other MBTs including the light Type 62, the Type 69, and the Type 97.

However, the Type 59 was not the first domestically-built (or at least modified) tank used by the PLA.

In 1945, the Japanese surrendered large numbers of the Type 97 Chi-Ha ShinHoTo, but most were handed over to the Kuomintang (KMT) or Nationalist forces. However, the Chinese PLA also captured a pair of the tanks at the Imperial Japanese Arsenal in Shenyang, and these were given the designations 101 and 102.

The PLA troops also forced a group of captured Japanese personnel to help repair/refurbish the tanks. Before the work was completed, the Japanese engineers successfully sabotaged 101, leaving the Communists forces with just the one functional but nearly complete tank.

The Number 102 Tank

That particular tank has become the stuff of legend. It was used by the Northeast Special Tank Brigade with thirty soldiers. The tank was used to smash through a wall to help the PLA unit successfully escape from Shenyang as the KMT retook the city.

The number 102 tank then took part in various actions and according to PLA propaganda it was used to kill upwards of 3,000 KMT soldiers. It was later used in the October 1948 action at the Battle of Jinzhou along with other Type 97 tanks, and somehow it survived largely undamaged. Dubbed the “Gongchen” or “Heroic” tank, it took part in the Liaoshen and Tianjin Campaigns and drove within the walls of Peiping in February 1949.

When the People's Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949, the Gongchen Tank served as the lead armored vehicle in the military parade in Tiananmen Square. It remained in service under the new Communist Red China, until it was officially retired in 1959. Number 102 has been in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution ever since.

There were other Type 97 Chi-Ha tanks that were produced in China during World War II and later used by the KMT, but it is the Gongchen Tank that remains the most remembered tank today in the People's Republic of China.

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: Wikipedia.

Lora Ries, Zack Smith

Law and Order,

In Portland, where Antifa has rioted almost nightly for nearly a year, the mob set fire to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building Sunday night with agents inside. Why has this lawlessness been permitted to continue for nearly a year?

Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. Last summer, many of us watched in horror as rioting and looting took place in cities across the country. We saw police in Seattle abandon one of their precincts to a mob. We saw looters shoot dead a retired police officer trying to protect his friend’s store. And we saw nightly attacks on federal buildings in Portland, Ore.—among other disturbing scenes.

And, sadly, we saw similar scenes playing themselves out again just recently, with the violence seeming to occur so frequently that it’s difficult to keep up.

In Portland, where Antifa has rioted almost nightly for nearly a year, the mob set fire to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building Sunday night with agents inside. Why has this lawlessness been permitted to continue for nearly a year?

It’s largely a rhetorical question because the answers are obvious. These Antifa-inspired mobs have been permitted to repeatedly attack federal buildings, destroy local businesses, and assault law enforcement officers for the past year because politicians sympathize with Antifa and support their cause.

And so many members of the mob have not been prosecuted “in the interest of justice.” Instead, they’ve been released to continue rioting night after night. What other result could there be? This permissiveness begets more lawlessness as the violence spreads and escalates.

The same day the Portland ICE building burned, rioting and looting broke out in Brooklyn Center, Minn., after a police officer fatally shot Daunte Wright. Police pulled over Wright for driving with expired tags and found during the course of the stop that he had an outstanding warrant because, as the AP reported, he had failed to appear in court after he had “fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June.”

Because of the outstanding warrant, officers began to place him under arrest, at which point he resisted arrest and attempted to flee. In a tragic turn of events, it appears that an officer who meant to tase him instead drew her firearm and fatally shot him. She has since resigned and been criminally charged.

But apparently that’s not enough. Even though President Biden said there is no justification for looting or violence, groups bent on violence didn’t listen because they announced more protests and riots in a dozen other cities and delivered more violence.

In Minnesota, tension was already building only miles away, where the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd continues. Minneapolis was preparing for riots no matter the outcome of the Chauvin trial. Now more riots seem a foregone conclusion.

Rioting and looting have become regular responses to police incidents or, in the case of Portland, for no apparent reason at all. That cannot become the “new normal.”

If President Biden is sincere about wanting to end the destructive violence, he will need to do much more than give simple lip service to it.

He and Vice President Harris need to give clear, public, and frequent direction to state and local leaders, prosecutors, Members of Congress, and the media that all violence – no matter who commits it – is condemned. And they need to emphasize that for those convicted and found guilty of a crime, severe consequences under the law will be imposed. Otherwise, nothing will change.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officers continue to do their tough, dangerous jobs even as criminals and rioters continue to target them for injury or death.

Two weeks ago, a Nation of Islam follower rammed his car into a U.S. Capitol barrier and used a knife to kill one Capitol police officer and injure another. The pictures of Officer Billy Evans’s widow and children attending his service in the Capitol Rotunda should remind us all of the difficulties and dangers law enforcement officers—and their families—must confront on a daily basis.

Need more proof? Newly released dashcam footage showed a New Mexico police officer being shot and then summarily executed by a violent criminal during a traffic stop.

Some of the policies being pushed right now, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, give rise to concerns of people in cities across the country experiencing the “Ferguson Effect” on steroids. Understandably, police are retiring and resigning in large numbers. This is aggravated by continuous calls to defund the police and knee-jerk reactions to blame police officers whenever a police-civilian interaction goes awry without first getting the facts about what actually happened. And surely, statements by some on the left, such as those by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, painting police officers as racist doesn’t help matters.

The left’s treatment of these continued riots and attacks stand in stark contrast to their treatment of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. To be clear, those who broke the law in that attack should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted—just as those who are now breaking the law should be held accountable and prosecuted.

Law and order benefits all parts of society. The security that stems from law and order is the foundation for economic opportunity. If President Biden and Vice President Harris truly want peaceful and thriving communities, they need to stand up to the leftist mob, return to supporting law enforcement, publicly condemn all violence, and encourage prosecutors to punish such violence no matter who the perpetrator happens to be.

The continuation of the left’s selective outrage, punishment, and division based on race and political agenda will only further divide this country. If they really want unity for this nation, it’s beyond time to walk the talk.

Lora Ries is Director of the Center for Technology Policy and Senior Research Fellow for Homeland Security at The Heritage Foundation. Zack Smith is a Legal Fellow in Heritage’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

Peter Suciu

Russian Army, Europe

Here is how Moscow hoped to wage and win World War III in Europe if things between the Warsaw Pact and NATO ever went south.

Key point: Political leaders and military commanders always prepare for the worst. Here is how the Soviets thought they would have to fight if they had a chance of winning.

There have been numerous discussions regarding how NATO could have defeated the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies in a World War III that fortunately never occurred. As the National Interest has previously noted, crucial to NATO's strategic mission was to prevent the destruction of the alliance by military force. That required four wartime goals of gaining and maintaining air superiority, keeping sea lines of communication open to North America, maintaining the territorial integrity of West Germany and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons.

The failure of any of those four goals meant the war likely couldn't be won.

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

According to a secret plan, the use of nuclear weapons was apparently a key consideration to crush NATO in seven days and ensure a Soviet/Warsaw Pact victory. The possible scenario was part of a top-secret military simulation exercise that was developed in 1979 to determine how much from NATO could be gained in a short space of time.

Nuclear bombing along with a rapid invasion were determined to be crucial to any such attack.

While never put into actual practice, the files were only released by the Polish government following the former Soviet bloc country's national election in 2005. The Daily Express newspaper reported this was done in order to "draw a line under the country's Communist past" and to "educate the Polish public about the old regime."

The plan was known as the "Seven Days to the River Rhine," and was formulated even as U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev were discussing détente. The plan's map highlighted how much of Europe could have been laid to waste, as the then German capital of Bonn, as well as Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich, and Hamburg would have also been targeted. In addition, Brussels, the political headquarters of NATO, as well as cities in Denmark, the Netherlands, and northern Italy would have also been in the Soviet's crosshairs; while it was expected that NATO might have responded by destroying Prague and Warsaw.

Notable in the plan is that France would have been spared such an attack as it was not a member of NATO's integrated structure. The UK too wouldn't have faced nuclear annihilation. With Austria and Yugoslavia remaining neutral, it would have created what the plan describes as an "invasion funnel" where the bulk of any frontline ground combat would have been in Germany. The goal of the plan was always to reach the Rhine in the shortest amount of time possible—making a NATO victory almost impossible.

To ensure that France wouldn't respond, a second wave called for a push to the Spanish border in another seven days—a truly ambitious plan if there ever was one.

Not all of the Warsaw Pact nations were on board with the seemingly-overreaching attack plan however. Czechoslovakia's military suggested it was far too optimistic. While the goal of the simulation was to avoid total nuclear annihilation and to be in the stronger position when peace was agreed upon, it failed to take into account a tactical nuclear response from France or other factors that could have slowed down even a determined Soviet juggernaut.

Such an ambitious plan to strike into Germany and rush to the Rhine was part of the plot of the James Bond film Octopussy, but in the film even other leaders in the Kremlin described it as "madness." Fortunately for the world as a whole no one ever had the chance to give this plan an actual go.

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

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

Image: Reuters.

Richard Douglas

Guns, Europe

A target shooting gun loaded with features that won’t need much maintenance and offers quality for the price you pay.

The XLR5 is a 12-gauge semi-auto shotgun, created by Italian manufacturer Fabarm. There are nine different AR/FR models available, with the FR model retailing for a few hundred less than the AR model. Here, we’ll be focusing mainly on the Fabarm XLR5 AR.

This shotgun is one of the first high-adjustable comb and high-adjustable rib models available. The rib adjusts up to 90/10 and down to 50/50 to allow you to shoot with your head completely upright. It features a very high-quality Turkish walnut stock, and includes stock shims to adjust the fit as you please.

You can choose from a black anodized or titanium silver frame finish, and all models feature a TRIBORE HP barrel. It’s over-bored in front of the chamber, which extends for several inches. As you move further and further down the barrel and towards the muzzle, the bore tapers down. At the front, it measures .739,” and at the end (behind where the screw chokes begin), it measures .725.”

The XLR5 also features a stainless steel, Pulse Piston gas operation, exceptionally well-made for a gun of this configuration. It shoulders well and provides a surprisingly good balance for such a large shotgun, with the point of balance right at the front of the receiver. It also includes an extended bolt release and oversized bolt-closure button for easy operation. The adjustable rib and fast-handling ability let you acquire and hit targets quickly. It comes with a green fiber-optic rear sight, and the receiver is dovetailed to attach Weaver scope mounts. This way, you can choose a scope or sight that matches your exact needs, reticle type, and all! 

It cycles nearly all rounds perfectly, and can hold three shots in the magazine and one in the chamber. It’s not high-capacity like the UTS-15, but for its intended purpose as a target-shooting gun, four shots should be enough. One unique feature is that it won’t fire unless the shell in the magazine is fully inserted. This is good for safety, but might cause you to lose a few points in a target competition. Another feature that users may have trouble with is the grip-to-trigger distance. Although the trigger is adjustable back and forth, people with smaller hands may find it too long, even in the most rearward position.

The XLR5 includes interchangeable rubber recoil pads that let you adjust the standard 14.75” length of pull. It also features an integrated recoil reducer to further mitigate felt recoil. With a 30” barrel, the gun weighs around 8 lbs 9 oz, and the heavier weight also helps to manage recoil.

In the box, you’ll get five EXIS HP competition choke tubes and a sturdy plastic case along with your XLR 5. The AR model MSRP’s for between $3,110 and $3,725, while the FR model runs around $2,475. Similar to the Benelli Raffaello, you’ll have to pay a premium price for a premium product that holds its value in the long run. You could always build something on your own for less, but it’s nice to have a professionally assembled, high-quality shotgun right out of the box. Plus, you might be able to find a model for cheaper at certain retailers!

The XLR 5 is a target shooting gun loaded with features that won’t need much maintenance and offers quality for the price you pay. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the XLR5 became as popular as the Remington 870 in the future! It’s well-made, well-balanced, and I expect it to hold up well over time.

Richard Douglas writes on firearms, defense, and security issues. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field, and a columnist at The National Interest, 1945, Daily Caller, and other publications.

Image: Wikipedia.

Ethen Kim Lieser

‘Plus-Up’ Stimulus Payment, Americas

People who are still struggling amid the ongoing pandemic should know that there could be more financial help on the way.

The Internal Revenue Service has confirmed that nearly two million more coronavirus stimulus checks have been disbursed to cash-strapped taxpayers under the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, according to the service’s latest update this week.

To date—including this current fifth batch of payments of 1.2 million direct deposit payments and nearly eight hundred thousand paper checks—roughly one hundred fifty-nine million checks worth a total of $376 billion have been sent out to Americans. 

This now represents 84 percent of the $450 billion total earmarked for stimulus funds, the agency noted. 

People who are still struggling amid the ongoing pandemic should know that there could be more financial help on the way. This particular batch included more than seven hundred thousand “plus-up” or supplemental payments for those folks who only received partial $1,400 checks on an earlier date. 

“This batch includes the first of ongoing supplemental payments for people who earlier in March received payments based on their 2019 tax returns but are eligible for a new or larger payment based on their recently processed 2020 tax returns,” the IRS said in a statement. 

“These ‘plus-up’ payments could include a situation where a person’s income dropped in 2020 compared to 2019, or a person had a new child or dependent on their 2020 tax return, and other situations.” 

Payments were also issued to people who recently filed tax returns in order to qualify for the stimulus money, due to the fact that the IRS did not have their necessary information on record. 

The agency has estimated that it will ultimately send out more than $1.2 billion in “plus-up” payments, many of which should already have landed in bank accounts on April 14. These checks will continue to go out on a weekly basis going forward, as the IRS continues to process tax returns from 2020 and 2019. 

The latest batch also heavily targeted Veterans Affairs beneficiaries who receive Compensation and Pension (C&P) benefit payments but have yet to file their 2019 or 2020 taxes or did not use the IRS “Non-Filer” tool to set up direct payments. More than three hundred twenty thousand checks were sent out to individuals who fit into this category. 

“The IRS continues to review data received from Veterans Affairs (VA), which covers veterans and their beneficiaries who receive Compensation and Pension (C&P) benefit payments who don’t normally file a tax return,” the IRS stated.

In addition, those who didn’t receive either of the first two stimulus payments can still try to claim the money that they’re entitled to. For this tax season, a Recovery Rebate Credit has been added to all returns, so that people in this situation can eventually receive the overdue payments. 

The IRS website states that “if you didn’t get any payments or got less than the full amounts, you may qualify for the Recovery Rebate Credit and must file a 2020 tax return to claim the credit even if you don’t normally file.” 

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

Image: Reuters

Caleb Larson

Missiles, Middle East

Tehran has built the region's largest missile force.

Here's What You Need to Know: Iran’s missile collection is quite remarkable and draws on lessons gained during the Iran-Iraq war.

Missiles are an essential tool of the Iranian regime. They are used for power projection, particularly towards Iran’s neighbors, or for anti-access/area-denial closer to home, in particular over the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Tehran’s missile collection is among the most diverse in the Middle East because Iran relies on modifications to Soviet/Russian and Chinese designs—although there are some domestic improvements thrown into the mix. Iran has thousands of short and medium-range missiles, and could very likely hit targets as far away as eastern Africa, Eastern and Southern Europe, Russia, India, and western China. Here are some of their most potent designs. 

Fateh-110

The Fateh-110 development program started in the mid-1990s. Testing continued through the late 1990s and early 2000s, with serial production commencing around 2003. It has a range of about 210 kilometers (about 130 miles), with a suspected 500 kilogram (approximately 1,100 pounds) warhead. It is road-mobile when installed on mobile launchers, which were likely modified from other launch platforms to handle the Fateh-110. 

Iran claims it has the ability to mass produce the Fateh-110. It has also been rumored that Hezbollah was supplied with some number of Fathe-110s from Iran, though this is difficult to confirm, as Israel destroyed a large inventory of Hezbollah munitions in strikes during 2007. 

Shahab-1

Closer to home, the Shahab-1 is essentially a variant of the Russian SS-1 Scud missile, which is itself similar to the Nazi-developed V-2 Rocket that terrorized Britain during the Second World War. Like the SS-1 Scud, it is liquid-fueled, and has a range of about 330 kilometers, or just over 200 miles. 

The Iranian Shahab-1 originated during the 1980s conflict with Iraq. Iran needed something with greater reach than provided by available artillery and wasn’t willing to risk its fleet of aircraft. (Many of Iran’s airframes were—and still are—vintage American planes, so servicing them with spare parts is problematic.)

Iran turned to Libya and Syria for missiles, launchers, and transporters. After the war with Iraq, Iran wanted a domestic production capability and turned to North Korea for expertise. Today, Iran possesses a variety of Shahab-1 variants with differing ranges, payloads, and accuracies. 

Sejjil

The Sejjil series of missiles are among Iran’s most capable — they have a range of 2,000 kilometers (around 1,250 miles) and a warhead in the 500-1,000 kilogram range (about 1,100 to 2,200 pounds).

The Sejjil is speculated to be a domestic Iranian design, in contrast to most of Iran’s missile arsenal, which is wholly or partially based on other countries’ designs. 

One of the advantages of the Sejjil missile is its fuel type—solid-propellant instead of liquid. This is advantageous due to solid fuel rockets greater robustness and speed of deployment. In contrast to liquid-fueled missiles that require a greater deal of preparations and specific launch conditions. (For instance, historically liquid fuel has to be kept quite cool, resulting in a large energy requirement.) If paired with a mobile launcher, the Sejjil would be a large, powerful, and rapidly-deployable threat. 

Armed to the Teeth

Iran’s missile collection is quite remarkable and draws on lessons gained during the Iran-Iraq war. During that conflict, Tehran learned that it’s cheaper and easier to have a strong defense (many varied missiles) than a strong offense, such as airplanes that are expensive, require lots of maintenance, and could result in pilot deaths. 

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.

This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: Reuters

Kyle Mizokami

Soviet Navy, Europe

Due to history, costs, and geography, Moscow was, and remains, redominantly a land power not a naval power.

Key point: Soviet naval planners dreamed of a mighty fleet of super aircraft carriers. However, high costs, technological hurdles, and a lack of political will meant such a fleet was never constructed.

The Soviet Union was one of the largest, most industrial proficient countries the world has ever seen. Yet for all of its engineering talent and manufacturing capacity, during the seventy-four years the USSR existed it never fielded a true real aircraft carrier. The country had several plans to build them, however, and and was working on a true carrier, the Ulyanovsk, at the end of the Cold War.

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

After the Communists’ victory in 1917, science and engineering were pushed to the forefront in an attempt to modernize Russia and the other Soviet republics. The military was no exception, and poured resources into then-advanced technologies such as tanks, airborne forces, and ground and aerial rockets. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was linked to several carrier projects, including the first effort, Izmail.

In 1927, the Soviet leadership approved plans to build a carrier by converting the unfinished Imperial Russian Navy battlecruiser Izmail, under construction since 1913, to a full-length aircraft carrier. Completed as a battlecruiser, Izmail was to displace thirty-five thousand tons, making it similar in displacement to (and of the same decade as) the U.S. Navy’s Lexington-class interwar carriers that carried up to seventy-eight aircraft.

Unfortunately for the new Soviet Navy, Izmail’s conversion was never completed and the ship was eventually scrapped. While the idea of a Soviet carrier did have its supporters, others, including the brilliant young Marshal Tukhachevsky, pointed out that as large as it was, the Soviet Union could not afford to build both an army and a navy to match its most powerful neighbors. Tukhachevsky had a point, and the Navy took a backseat to Red Army (and Air Force) ambitions. This was a strategic dilemma that the Soviets had inherited from the tsars and that persisted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989—one that still affects the Russian government today.

The Soviet Union under Stalin came to measure economic and agricultural output in five-year plans, and in 1938, as part of the third five-year plan, laid the groundwork for a pair of aircraft carriers. The so-called “Project 71” class would be based on the Chapaev-class cruisers, displacing thirteen thousand tons and with a 630-foot flight deck. The carriers would each carry fifteen fighters and thirty torpedo bombers, with one allocated to the Baltic Fleet and one allocated to the Pacific Fleet. The carriers were approved in 1939 but never completed, their construction interrupted by World War II. A second project for a heavier twenty-two-thousand-ton carrier was proposed but never even began construction.

In the mid-1940s, with the Soviet Union locked in a mortal struggle with Nazi Germany, yet another carrier concept was proposed. “Project 72” was described as similar to the previous carrier project but, at thirty thousand tons, more than twice as large. Another, similar design was Project Kostromitinov, which weighed in at forty thousand tons and would have been equipped with sixty-six fighters, forty torpedo bombers and, unusually, sixteen 152-millimeter guns. This suggests that the carrier might have been used to support amphibious landings in Scandinavia or the Baltics had it ever been built. While the Soviet Union was always a land power for which land warfare should take precedent over sea warfare, the wartime situation in 1943 made it crystal clear that resources could not be taken away from the Red Army to build an aircraft carrier of questionable usefulness.

In the aftermath of the war, with the Red Army the dominant land power in Eurasia, the Soviet Navy again pushed for more carriers. The naval staff wanted a force of fifteen carriers, nine large and six small, split between the Pacific and Northern fleets, with six of the large carriers allocated to the Pacific and the rest allocated to the Northern fleet. Stalin, however, did not want aircraft carriers, preferring to put his faith in battleships and cruisers. Soviet industry gave Stalin cover, explaining they did not yet have the capacity to build new kinds of ships.

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Stalin was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev in 1953, but despite Khrushchev’s new ideas in the age of missile warfare the best the Soviet Navy could get out of him was a single light carrier. The carrier, Project 85, would displace just twenty-eight thousand tons and carry forty navalized MiG-19 fighters. This project, too, was canceled even before construction began.

In 1962, the USSR began construction of two aircraft carriers at the Nikolayev shipyards in the Ukraine. The two carriers, Moskva and Leningrad, were compromise ships, with the front half looking like a conventional guided-missile cruiser and the rear half consisting of a flight deck, a hangar and an elevator that transported aircraft between the two. The Moskva class was likely designed to hunt American  and British Polaris missile submarines operating near Soviet waters.

Each Moskva ship carried up to a dozen antisubmarine warfare helicopters, but otherwise lacked offensive armament.

The Moskva class was followed up in the 1970s and 1980s with the Kiev class, which had a similar mission, but the United States was on the verge of fielding the even longer-range Trident missile. This meant that the Soviet Navy would have to operate even farther from its home waters and potentially face off with U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. As a result, the Kievs had an offensive armament in the form of SS-N-12 “Sandbox” antiship missiles, each of which could carry a 350-kiloton nuclear warhead. Four Kievs were built, with a fifth authorized but never completed.

The mid-1980s were a period of major expansion for the Soviet Navy, including aircraft carriers. The USSR began construction on two carriers in the fifty-thousand-ton class and one nuclear-powered supercarrier, Ulyanovsk, that was nearly on par with American Nimitz-class carriers. Of the three super vessels, only one was completed before the end of the Cold War. The completed carrier was inherited by the Russian Navy, with which it still serves today as the Admiral Kuznetsov. The incomplete carrier was purchased by Chinese interests, which forwarded it on to the People’s Liberation Army Navy, where it was refitted and commissioned as the carrier Liaoning in 2012. Ulyanovsk was scrapped by Ukraine, which had inherited the unfinished hull after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

As a land power, the Soviet Union could never allocate enough of the country’s resources to build a real fleet of aircraft carriers. There was always some other perfectly reasonable—and eminently practical—way to spend the country’s rubles, whether it was on the Army, or the Air Force, and later on nuclear weapons. Even today, the Russian Navy’s nonstrategic forces face stiff competition from land and air forces, and the future of Russian naval aviation is again cloudy at best.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami. This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

F-15 Fighter, Americas

But the Bad News Is Here: The pace of upgrades has slowed significantly in recent years, with the service ordering a 47 percent cut to the number of F-15C fighter aircraft eligible for modernization.

Almost fifty years since its introduction, the F-15 platform has set yet another record.

An F-15C Eagle executed the longest known air-to-air missile shot in March 2021, according to a press statement issued earlier this week by the 53rd Wing of the U.S. Air Force (USAF). “An F-15C Eagle fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM at a BQM-167 subscale drone, resulting in a “kill” of the aerial target from the furthest distance ever recorded,” the statement read. 

“This test effort supported requests from the CAF for ‘long range kill chain’ capabilities,” said Maj. Aaron Osborne, 28th TES. “Key partnerships within the 53rd Wing enabled the expansion of capabilities on a currently fielded weapons system, resulting in warfighters gaining enhanced weapons employment envelopes.” The statement added that the test in question was conducted “at a relatively low cost, showcasing innovation and directly supporting the 2018 [National Defense Strategy’s] calls for increased lethality and affordability.”

The press release does not specify what the new record is. The F-15 platform previously broke as many as eight world-time-to-climb records. The fighter is likewise among the world’s most successful air-to-air combat platforms, achieving an impressive 104 recorded kills while reportedly never having been shot down over the course of air-to-air combat. 

The F-15C is an improved variant of the iconic McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, introduced in 1979; by 1985, around 480 F-15C units were built. The F-15C upgrade package initially added expanded internal fuel, an improved central computer, and more robust weapons compatibility. The F-15C supports air-to-air missiles from the AIM-7, AIM-9 Sidewinder, and AIM-120 AMRAAM series spread across nine hardpoints with a total payload capacity of up to 7,300 kilograms. As with its F-14 Tomcat counterpart, The F-15C also carries the M61 Vulcan 20-millimeter Gatling gun.

Although the F-22 Raptor is considered by many to be the best air superiority technology available, there simply aren’t enough F-22 jets to fulfill USAF’s robust rotation commitments across Pacific, European, and Middle-Eastern theaters. This is why USAF’s fleet of around two hundred F-15C/D’s remains a core component of American air superiority capabilities—these fighters continue to be upgraded in order to maintain their battlefield relevance to the present day. Later F-15C models came with an improved engine and, more recently, the AN/APG-63(V)3 AESA radar. It was likewise reported that a certain number of F-15C jets are being fitted with infrared search and track systems. 

Still, USAF is aware that the aging F-15 Eagle platform is getting increasingly more cost-ineffective to maintain and operate. The pace of upgrades has slowed significantly in recent years, with the service ordering a 47 percent cut to the number of F-15C fighter aircraft eligible for modernization.

The Air Force is reviewing plans to retire the F-15C/D fleet around the mid-2020s, though a final decision has yet to be made. The proposal’s supporters argue that the F-16 Fighting Falcon can reproduce much of the capabilities of an F-15C jet at a lower cost. 

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

Image: Reuters

Ted Galen Carpenter

North Korea,

Kim’s language conveys a tacit admission that North Korea’s chronic policy of self-isolation has not served the country, or the regime, particularly well. Minimizing interaction with the outside world did not even shield North Korea from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kim Jong-Un’s downbeat and surprisingly candid comments on April 9 caught many U.S. and international observers by surprise. North Korea’s leader called on officials to brace for a prolonged campaign (an “arduous march”) to tackle the country’s worsening economic problems, comparing the current crisis to the 1990s famine that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. He placed much of the blame on the effects of U.S.-led sanctions, but he also conceded that the coronavirus pandemic had taken a major toll.

Kim’s admission creates an occasion for the Biden administration to make a fundamental choice about the direction of its policy toward North Korea. Advocates of a hardline policy could see Kim’s comments as an opening to increase U.S. pressure on the regime, concluding that it is now exceptionally vulnerable. Such a strategy would include adopting even more robust sanctions and being even less willing than previous administration to show any flexibility on Washington’s long-standing demand that Pyongyang agrees to a complete, verifiable, and irreversible end to its nuclear weapons program. Although that approach might seem tempting, given the new signs of North Korean weakness and vulnerability, it would be a serious, potentially tragic, mistake.

Indeed, the Biden foreign policy team should adopt the opposite approach. Kim’s language conveys a tacit admission that North Korea’s chronic policy of self-isolation has not served the country, or the regime, particularly well. Minimizing interaction with the outside world did not even shield North Korea from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.

That realization may well make Kim more receptive to productive negotiations on an array of issues. The Biden administration should seize that opportunity by making timely concessions and seeking to achieve some attainable goals. The demand for complete denuclearization, though, is not on the list of such goals; it remains, as it always has, a poison pill that terminates any prospects for constructive diplomacy.

A key timely concession would be the easing of economic sanctions. In addition to being one creative component of a wiser foreign policy, such a move would constitute basic humanitarianism—especially if North Korea is facing a crisis comparable to the horrible famine of the 1990s. That concession also would facilitate negotiations on other important issues.

Beyond easing sanctions, the Biden administration should propose a major breakthrough on the normalization of bilateral relations. One step would be to finalize a treaty to replace the 1953 armistice and formally end the state of war on the Korean Peninsula.  Another would be to establish formal diplomatic relations, open embassies in Pyongyang and Washington, and appoint ambassadors to those new posts.  As an additional confidence-building measure, the administration should propose an indefinite freeze on U.S.-South Korean military exercises and a large reduction in the number of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea in exchange for a freeze on the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests and a pullback of North Korean troops and weaponry from the Demilitarized Zone.

Such an agenda would not have the resonance of the dramatic demand for North Korea’s total denuclearization, but it would have the virtue of being feasible. Even achieving a portion of those pragmatic goals would significantly reduce the dangerous, heavily armed stand-off on the Peninsula. Kim’s speech tests whether the Biden foreign policy team is perceptive enough to see an opportunity for conciliation and diplomatic progress or instead embraces a myopic strategy of trying to increase pressure on a beleaguered regime.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, is the author of 12 books and more than 900 articles on international affairs.  His books include (with Doug Bandow) The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (Palgrave Macmillan)

Todd Bensman

Immigration, Latin Americas

By eliminating the complementary Trump-era turn-back policies and rewarding legal permission to stay to most family units and unaccompanied teenagers, Biden is only incentivizing further illegal immigration.

With virtual diplomacy and in-person delegations, the Biden administration has announced a deal in which Mexico will bolster its troop deployments on its southern border to ease the mounting mass-migration crisis on the U.S. southern border. The deal’s central component is for Mexico to beef up a Donald Trump-era deployment to 10,000 at some fifty road checkpoints while Guatemala deploys 1,500 at twelve checkpoints.

But recent interviews with immigrants who reached Mexico’s northern border with Texas revealed a variety of methods they have used to handily beat that deployment, especially since Joe Biden did away with Trump-era policies that crucially buttressed the deployment. Following are some of the methods that immigrants here in Acuna and the neighboring Mexican city of Piedras Negras said they used to get around the Mexican troops.

Mexican Policies Canceling Each Other Out; the Mexican “Humanitarian Visa” End-Run

When Honduran citizen Danny Zavala Flores first entered Mexico from Guatemala, he made his way directly to the Tapachula office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) and applied for a “humanitarian visa.” The visa authorized him to live and work in Mexico. But Flores knew the visa bestowed a more important gift.

“I just showed it to the soldiers whenever they confronted me, and they just let me go through,” he told me just one hour after U.S. Border Patrol caught and returned him across the Rio Grande under the emergency pandemic expulsion policy known colloquially as “Title 42.” (The Biden administration currently releases the majority of family units that illegally cross, but returns single men and women that Border Patrol apprehends).

The Mexican government apparently routinely issues such visas as well as other travel permission slips that allow foreign nationals, who would otherwise be returned from the roadblocks, to simply flash-pass through.

It’s unclear how many are issued. But other immigrants in Mexico told me they too used the visas to get past them. Haitian citizen Eddyson Mettelis, in Acuna, said a humanitarian visa enabled him to travel to Tijuana, Mexico. He waited there until Biden won and ended Trump policies that would have returned him to Mexico or even Haiti had he been caught.

The Mexican government is issuing other kinds of permission slips besides the humanitarian ones. The Mexican immigration service, INM, on March 10 deemed Dennys Alberto Torrez Gomez a “refugee” in the southern state of Tabasco on the Guatemala border and gave him a permission slip to travel to Piedras Negras on the Texas border. I interviewed him shortly after Border Patrol returned him to Mexico under Title 42.

Gomez said he’ll keep trying, though, knowing his paper will keep the Mexicans off his back until he can get past the Border Patrol on the other side.

The Bribery End-Run

Four immigrants told me they acquiesced to Mexican troop demands for bribes to let them continue north. It usually happened on commercial buses at checkpoints.

Cuban citizen Moefil Poges Silva had just arrived in Acuna from Tapachula, hundreds of miles to the south. He said that once he, his wife, and two children traveled with other Cubans on commercial buses. On three different occasions, national guard soldiers boarded and demanded 1,000 pesos (about $50) per person to continue.

“The soldiers have a communication network going,” alerting one another who was coming on which buses, Silva explained. “They come straight on the bus and say, ‘if you want to advance, you have to pay.’”

Others described the same extortions as they hitched rides in cars and trucks, although some reported a 250-peso price tag.

Whatever the going price, Olbi Orian Dormorel of Honduras said that whenever immigrants came anywhere near the soldiers there were “some who would want to take your money” while others merely neglected their duty. Dormorel described these latter soldiers as “more compassionate. They would give you some snacks and water ... and let you go forward.”

End-Run on the Trains

Five immigrants in Piedras Negras and Acuna said they avoided the national guard by hopping on top of trains that took them into central Mexico.

Juan Farmin of Honduras said he and some other immigrants knew from social media about the national guard problem but also that they could hop freight trains in the small city of Palenque. The soldiers never bothered them.

Ronnie Lopez of Honduras rode the rails past the troops from the Veracruz city of Coatzacoalcos to Tierra Blanca, noting that he chose this method because everyone knows “the military doesn’t stop the trains” and also to avoid paying the bribes on the buses.

Another Honduran immigrant spoke of boarding a train in the southern state of Veracruz, which took them much farther, to Puebla State in central Mexico, well past the “danger” of Mexican troops. From there, they caught commercial buses without any hassle.

End-Run by Foot

Several immigrants avoided paying bribes and riding train rooftops and instead hiked around the checkpoints. They’d collect intelligence from local villagers as to where exactly they were first, then veer off the road, around, and back to the road.

Then they’d simply hike away from the road, work their way past the position by a few hundred yards through trees or brush, and come back to the road beyond the soldiers’ view. Hugo Orlando Castillo of Guatemala said that on nine different occasions he and his group made their way to within eyesight of the roadblock, hike off the road and wait for night.

 ”We would sneak up to them and then we went around them,” he said. “Any time we’d see a checkpoint, we’d bypass it.”

No smuggler or guide was necessary, although one immigrant said he did hire a local guide to get around the soldiers.

A Flying End-Run

At a popular illegal immigrant landing spot on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, just across from Acuna in the Texas town of Del Rio, a recovered and abandoned airline ticket revealed yet another effective evasion method. It was an AeroMexico ticket showing a flight from the Colombian city of Medellin to Mexico City, well beyond the roadblocks.

While it is difficult to know how often immigrants fly over the military operations, the ticket reveals that they can and that others probably have, too.

The fact that I found this round-trip ticket stub on March 24, the day of the return flight, shows the ticketholders were in Texas that morning stripping off wet clothes instead of on their way back to Medellin.

Useless without the Trump Policies

When Trump was in office, the Mexican troop deployment he demanded also suffered from corruption and ineptitudes. But it was fairly effective anyway because it worked in conjunction with Trump’s push-back policies at the American border. The “Remain in Mexico” Migrant Protection Protocols and assertive ICE repatriations of deportable illegal immigrants by air back to home countries made immigrants feel less inclined to defeat the military roadblocks.

But President Biden eliminated the complementary Trump turn-back policies and began rewarding legal permission to stay to most family units and unaccompanied teenagers, incentivizing them to breach the Mexican cordon. These moves have left the already problematic Mexican military deployment to stand alone against a powerful rising wave of people enthused, determined, and ultimately rewarded for doing so.

Short of reinstitution of deterrence-based policies by the United States, the Mexican operation of which the Biden administration is so proud almost certainly will do nothing new to staunch the inexorable tide of humanity.

Todd Bensman is Senior National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Image: Reuters.

Temitope Oriola

Race, Americas

After George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minn., protestors all over the United States demonstrated against police brutality. Could the protests develop into something more?

Here's What You Need to Remember: To predict that an armed insurgency may happen in the U.S. is not the same as wishing for it to happen: It is not inevitable, and it can and should be avoided.

The killings of African Americans at the hands of police officers has continued unabated in the United States. In the past year, the deaths of Breonna Taylor in her bed and George Floyd by public asphyxiation are two of the most egregious.

As the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck was being tried for the killing in court, another officer shot and killed Daunte Wright.

Scholarly research has begun to document the traumatic consequences of police killings on African Americans. One study finds the effects on Black males meet the “criteria for trauma exposure,” based on the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used for psychiatric diagnoses.

Besides police use of force in North America, one of the trajectories of my research focuses on armed insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa. I am beginning to observe in the U.S. some of the social conditions necessary for the maturation and rise of an armed insurgency. The U.S. is at risk of armed insurgencies within the next five years if the current wave of killings of unarmed Black people continues.

Conditions for insurgency

To begin, the armed insurgencies would not have a defined organizational structure. They may look like Mexico’s Zapatista movement or the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta in Nigeria.

Entities operating independently will spring up, but over time, a loose coalition may form to take credit for actions of organizationally disparate groups for maximum effect. There will likely be no single leader to neutralize at the onset. Like U.S. global counter-terrorism efforts, neutralizing leaders will only worsen matters.

Using research and contextual experience from the developing world to make predictions about the U.S. in this regard is apt. There are many interrelated conditions for the rise of an armed insurgency. None of them in and of itself can lead to an armed insurgency, but requires a host of variables within social and political processes.

Transgenerational oppression of an identifiable group is one of the pre-conditions for an armed insurgency, but this is hardly news. What the U.S. has managed to institute on a national and comprehensive scale is what sociologist Jock Young calls “cultural inclusion and structural exclusion.”

A strong sense of injustice, along with significant moments, events and episodes — like the killings of Taylor and Floyd — are also important.

Historically, police officers are not held to account for the extra-judicial killings of Black people.

The racialized trauma from police killings adds to the growing sense of alienation and frustration felt by African Americans, but police killings aren’t the only way they experience disproportionate death rates.

African Americans have the second highest per capita death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic: 179.8 deaths per 100,000 (second only to Indigenous Americans with 256.0 deaths per 100,000). They are also at a higher risk of death from cancer, for example. The pandemic has compounded these deaths, adding to the disproportionately high unemployment rate and the impact of layoffs during the pandemic.

Potential insurgents

There is another, related variable: The availability of people willing and able to participate in such insurgency. The U.S. has potential candidates in abundance. Criminal records — sometimes for relatively minor offences — that mar Black males for life, have taken care of this critical supply. One study estimates that while eight per cent of the U.S. general population has felony convictions, the figure is 33 per cent among African American males.

Some of these men may gradually be reaching the point where they believe they have nothing to lose. Some will join for revenge, others for the thrill of it and many for the dignity of the people they feel have been trampled on for too long. Although 93 per cent of protest against police brutality is peaceful and involves no major harm to people and property, there is no guarantee that future protests about new police killings will remain peaceful.

The legitimacy of grievances of Black Americans among their fellow citizens is also an important variable. Their grievances appear to have found strong resonance and increasing sympathy within the broader population. Many Latino, Native American and white people see the injustices against Black people and are appalled. Black Lives Matter protests are now major multicultural events, particularly among young adults.

A sense that there are no legitimate channels to address the grievances or that those channels have been exhausted is also crucial. This is evident in the failure to convict or even try police officers involved in several of the incidents. A grand jury could not indict the officer whose chokehold led to the death of Eric Garner, despite video evidence. Such cases have led to a troubling loss of trust in the criminal justice system.

Mode of operation

Any anti-police insurgency in the U.S. will likely start as an urban-based guerrilla-style movement. Attacks may be carried out on sites and symbols of law enforcement. Small arms and improvised explosive devices will likely be weapons of choice, which are relatively easy to acquire and build, respectively. The U.S. has the highest number of civilian firearms in the world with 120.5 guns per 100 persons or more than 393 million guns.

Critical infrastructure and government buildings may be targeted after business hours. The various groups will initially seek to avoid civilian casualties, and this may help to garner a level of support among the socially marginal from various backgrounds. The public would be concerned but relatively secure in understanding that only the police are being targeted. Escalation may ensue through copycat attacks.

The U.S. government will seem to have a handle on the insurgency at first but will gradually come to recognize that this is different. African American leaders will likely be helpless to stop the insurgency. Anyone who strongly denounces it in public may lose credibility among the people. Authenticity would mean developing a way to accommodate the insurgents in public rhetoric while condemning them in private.

Moving forward

I am often amazed that many people appear unaware that Nelson Mandela was co-founder of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the violent youth wing of the African National Congress, which carried out bombings in South Africa. The rationale provided in court by Mandela regarding his use of violence is instructive. Mandela told a South African court in 1963:

I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people…. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

To predict that an armed insurgency may happen in the U.S. is not the same as wishing for it to happen: It is not inevitable, and it can and should be avoided.

Police reform is a first step. A comprehensive criminal justice overhaul is overdue, including addressing the flaws inherent in trial by jury, which tends to produce mind-boggling results in cases involving police killings. Finally, the judgment in the trial of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd’s death will have an impact on the trajectory of any possible future events.

Temitope Oriola is an Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Alberta

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

Image: Reuters

 

Kris Osborn

6th Generation Stealth Fighter,

A massive and still largely unknown technology breakthrough may be upon us, by virtue of the apparent Air Force decision to not only fast-track a new 6th-Gen fighter platform but actually fly it. 

A massive and still largely unknown technology breakthrough may be upon us, by virtue of the apparent Air Force decision to not only fast-track a new 6th-Gen fighter platform but actually fly it. 

While of course technical details and specifics regarding the kinds of 6th-Gen platforms which have been in development are closely held or not public for security reasons, that fact that one is here now seems to suggest that sufficient technological breakthroughs have occurred to inspire a decision to actually “build and fly” a new stealth fighter jet platform. 

Developers have for many years now been immersed in technological exploration, prototyping, and conceptual work related to 6th-Gen fighter technology, looking at things like building stealthier airframes, applications of AI, miniaturized long-range sensors, targeting technology and drones operating with ever-increasing levels of autonomy.

Does the fact that a 6th Gen aircraft has already flown suggest that, perhaps, some of the most essential ingredients of long-term transformational technologies are, in effect, already here? 

For instance, some now-in-development next-gen stealth technologies, including new radar-evading configurations, coating materials, and advanced thermal-signature reduction have for many years been fast-approaching levels of combat readiness. Maybe some of these things are here now, given the pace of technological innovation?

New long-range, high-speed, course-correcting or even self-guiding weapons, combined with new stealth attributes or AI-enabled sensors could indeed help a U.S. 6th-Gen platform achieve overmatch for decades to come, Navy and Air Force developers have for quite some time been pushing the boundaries of the “art-of-the-possible” to the maximum extent, so perhaps certain major breakthrough have happened? Would not seem unlikely given the extent to which digital engineering, weapons guidance technology, autonomy, and AI-enabled integrated systems and networking have been progressing in recent years. 

The challenge of trying to discern the optimal time to actually build a new airframe is something that has been explored for many years, as evidenced by a Naval Postgraduate School essay from 2016 called “The 6th-Generation Quandry.” The essay poses the question as to whether it might be equally if not more effective to postpone formal 6th-generation development until truly breakthrough advances emerge, while pursuing advanced variants of current, yet upgradeable platforms in the interim.

Could this question having been anticipated years ago, have yielded answers to a degree such that the Air Force did indeed go ahead and fast-track a new platform? It does appear that way. 

The 2016 paper, from the Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program, cites a handful of “at-the-time” cutting edge developmental items showing significant long-term promise. The paper cites “new models of the F-35 optimized for air combat,” the emerging B-21, drone-launching C-130 “mother ships” and “weapons truck arsenal planes” are positioned to optimize current technological progress. However, none of these kinds of technology are disappearing by any estimation, given the long-term plans in place for promising F-35 modernization.

Given that so many key elements of modernization can be achieved through mission systems, avionics, AI-enabled targeting, and surveillance, and of course weapons guidance, Pentagon and Lockheed developers recognize that the F-35 can in future decades can achieve new breakthrough levels of performance with software upgrades and other kinds of technological adaptations. This may be why many envision integrated connectivity between the F-35 and 6th-Gen fighters as they potentially fly together into the 2080s. 

Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Caleb Larson

Lasers, Americas

The program may have ultimately failed, but laser research continues.

Here's What You Need to Know: The Air Force wanted lasers to shoot down ICBMs.

Missile defense is really hard. It has been compared to hitting a bullet with another bullet, and is inherently unreliable. According to Scientific American, the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense ”remains the sole system designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its 44 silo-based interceptors in Alaska and California are designed to be guided by space, ground and sea-based sensors to collide with an incoming warhead and destroy it with the force of impact.”

The GMD system has a poor track record. “Only about half of the 18 intercept tests since 1999 successfully destroyed their targets, and the test record has not improved with time: only two of the last five tests were successful—and GMD has still has not been tested under operationally realistic conditions.” Not exactly reassuring.

Space-based ICBM interceptors are another unviable alternative. Once placed in Low-Earth Orbit, space interceptors would be traveling so fast, they wouldn’t be in position for a long enough time to intercept an ICBM. In order to reliably target a missile, the space-based interceptor fleet would have to number in the thousands—making the system prohibitively expensive. But what about a laser, rather than a physical interceptor?

Laser Power

The U.S. Air Force decided to build on laser intercept research done in the 1980s and bought a retired Boeing 474, lopped of the nose cone, and added a ball turret—to shoot down missiles. 

The laser emitted from the ball turret was powered by a chemical oxygen iodine laser, or COIL. COIL is an almost-infrared laser that is produced by harnessing chemical reactions. The setup was huge—six COIL modules were needed to power the laser, and each module weighed over 6,000 pounds.

In actuality, the laser didn’t really shoot missiles down. The laser beam’s ball turret focused on a missile and heated the outside, compromising the missile body’s integrity. One scientist likened the laser to a magnifying glass, saying, “it’s like taking a magnifying glass and burning a hole through a piece of paper, but airborne lasers do it through metal.” In-flight stress and turbulence would cause the missile to break up and fail in flight before it could reach its target.

Though powerful, the system was more effective against smaller tactical ballistic missiles which are less robust than larger intercontinental ballistic missiles. Still, range was an issue. Depending on atmospheric conditions, missiles could only be targeted from about 180 to 370 miles away, limiting the platform’s effectiveness to in-theatre operations and limiting flexibility, dooming the project.

Canceled

In 2009, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had the following to say about the program, “The ABL program has significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable.” It was canceled shortly thereafter.

All is not lost for air-based laser weapons though. Laser research is once again being done to arm F-35s—and might arm them sooner than we think.

Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture.

This article first appeared in 2020.

Image: REUTERS/Larry Downing