Diplomacy & Crisis News

Caleb Larson

Nuclear Energy, Air Force, World

Aircraft powered by nuclear reactors could, in theory, remain in the sky for weeks or possibly months without needing to refuel.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Jet engines are part of what did in the nuclear-powered bombers. Early but mature jet fighter designs left drawing boards and entered serial production at roughly the same time as the bomber prototypes. They were much faster than turboprop bombers, and if they crashed or were shot down, there would be no risk of nuclear contamination.

The 1950s and 1960s were the United States’ and Soviet Union’s nuclear heyday. Unlocking the power of the atom was supposed to usher in a new era in human achievement. In many ways, it did—harnessing nuclear power offered nearly unlimited energy to countries in the exclusive nuclear club.

But could the nuclear age transform aviation as well? The United States and USSR certainly thought so. Meet the Tu-95LAL and the Convair NB-36H— both of which carried onboard nuclear reactors.

Unlimited Range, Limited Exposure

In the early days of the Cold War before ICBMs and nuclear-powered submarines, American and Soviet nuclear preparedness was extremely high. Both countries had nuclear-armed bombers in the sky around the clock, waiting to deliver their payloads on Moscow and Washington. Keeping bombers constantly in-air required lots of support infrastructure and forward planning—and lots of refueling, which limited bomber’s range and endurance.

Aircraft powered by nuclear reactors could, in theory, remain in the sky for weeks or possibly months without needing to refuel. Their only limitations would be food, water, and pilot endurance. The idea was seemingly straightforward: use existing aircraft designs and modify them to be powered not by conventional means, but by nuclear power.

American and Soviet engineers faced several complex design problems. First, how exactly would nuclear propulsion work? Surprisingly similar to any other kind of aircraft. Of crucial importance would be the massive amount of thermal energy a nuclear reactor creates.

First, a simplified explanation of jet engines: during normal flight, air enters a jet engine, where it is compressed, injected with fuel, and ignited. This creates a controlled explosion that is forced rearward, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward.

A nuclear-powered airplane would operate in much the same way—air is taken in and compressed, and pushed out the back of the engine, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward. However, after entering the engine, compressed air would act as a reactor coolant, flowing around either the reactor itself, or a heating element from the reactor. This super-hot and compressed air would then squirt out the back of the engine, creating thrust and pushing the aircraft forward. Importantly, air would not flow through the reactor core itself, as this would contaminate the exhaust with radiation that would be ejected into the air.

The Workhorses

The United States and USSR both needed huge aircraft that could transport prodigious payloads, capable of housing heavy reactors within their bomb bays.

In 1961, Soviet aircraft designers decided on their platform of choice, a modified Tupolev Tu-95. The Tu-95’s first flight was ten years previous, in 1951. The strategic nuclear bomber is enormous and continues to fly today, roughly analogous to the United States’ venerable B-52 strategic bomber.

The Tu-95 has extreme endurance and can carry a large bomb load, perfect for hauling a nuclear reactor. It has several design features not often seen on other aircraft. Not only is it propeller-driven, but the four engines each have a set of contra-rotating propellers.

In the United States, nuclear-powered aviation testing began earlier in 1955. Their test platform was a modified Convair B-36. The B-36 was truly a beast—the B-36 had the longest wingspan of any operational military aircraft ever built.

The B-36 sported a whopping six engines, arranged in a pusher configuration with the propellers located behind the wings. The hollow wing roots were over seven feet thick to provide additional space for fuel for transcontinental flight. Some of the later B-36D models were even fitted with two sets of side-by-side jet engines for short bursts of higher performance, which brought the engine count to ten.

No Risk, No Fun

Design challenges were prodigious, but not insurmountable. The biggest design consideration was Acute Radiation Syndrome—radiation poisoning that the crew would need protection from.

The Americans installed a four-ton lead disk in the middle of the B-36 fuselage to reduce the crew’s radiation exposure. The 5-man flight crew were stationed in the plane’s cockpit, which was encased in lead. The cockpit windows were switched out for foot-thick lead glass as an extra precaution. The modified Tu-95 also had similar shielding installed.

During their lifespans, both the American and Soviet experiments left the drawing board, but were rather unimpressive in the air. Besides the success of flying with a nuclear reactor onboard, the biggest concern was for the safety of the pilots and crew. Therefore most flights were thankfully reactor-off journeys.

For what they were, both programs enjoyed a certain degree of success. Both had installed a functional nuclear reactor into a large bomber, and conducted test flights. The parent platforms were also rather successful. The Tupolev Tu-95 remains in service with Russia to this day. The American B-36 had a shorter run and was replaced by the iconic B-52, also still in service.

Modernity Knocking

Jet engines are part of what did in the nuclear-powered bombers. Early but mature jet fighter designs left drawing boards and entered serial production at roughly the same time as the bomber prototypes. They were much faster than turboprop bombers, and if they crashed or were shot down, there would be no risk of nuclear contamination.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles were also played an outsized role. Why build and maintain a massive aircraft, train pilots, and then risk both to deliver payload when a missile would do the same job faster with no risk to life?

Nuclear-powered submarines that could carry ICBMs also doomed the continued development of nuclear-powered aircraft. They were thought to be safer too, although there have been notable accidents.

Still, the test programs were not totally unproductive. Some of the nuclear data that the B-36 program gathered was used in developing the reactors that power NASA’s deep-space satellites.

Nuclear 2.0

In April, an accident in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region released a detectable level of airborne nuclear material.

Several Russian nuclear monitoring stations that report to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s network then went silent and stopped transmitting nuclear detection data. Speculation says that Russia is experimenting again with nuclear propulsion, this time for cruise missiles.

Is nuclear propulsion making a comeback? Hopefully not. 

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 is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Americas

Since World War II, exceptional carrier-based fighters have repeatedly more than held their own against land-based adversaries.

Here’s What You Need To Remember: Designing an airplane that can fly at high speeds lugging heavy weapons loads, and yet still take off and land on a short flight deck a few hundred meters long has always posed a formidable engineering challenge. Sea-based fighters typically feature folding wings for easier stowage, ruggedized landing gear and arrester equipment, and greater robustness to endure the wear and tear from sea-based operations. These all literally weigh against the exquisite engineering exhibited by land-based fighters.

Yet since World War II, exceptional carrier-based fighters have repeatedly more than held their own against land-based adversaries.

To qualify for this list, the carrier-based-fighter in question must not only have been effective but also had a significant operational impact. This excludes excellent carrier-based jets such as the Super Hornet or Rafale-M which haven’t seen intensive combat employment.

The airplane must also be a ‘fighter’ designed for air-to-air capability airplanes. This leaves out excellent aircraft like the SBD Dauntless dive bomber, A-1 Skyraider and A-4 Skyhawk which were attack planes foremost, even though they had their occasional air-to-air successes.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

The A6M Zero was an elegant fighter designed for the Imperial Japanese Navy by engineer Jiro Horikoshi. Weighing less than 4,000 pounds. The Zero’s 840-horsepower radial engine allowed it to traverse a remarkable 1,600 miles on internal fuel, outclimb and outrun many contemporary land-based fighters with a top speed of 346 miles per hour, and still turn on a dime.

When Japan unleashed its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and territories across Asia and the Western Pacific, Zeroes flown by veteran Japanese pilots proved a terror of Allied fighters like the Hawker Hurricane and F4F Wildcat which the Zero outclassed in both speed and maneuverability. Allied pilots spent the first year of the Pacific War developing tactics to cope with the Zero’s capabilities.

However, unlike other successful carrier-based fighters, the Zero failed to evolve at the same pace as its adversaries. Its remarkable performance had been achieved by cutting away almost all armor protection—a design compromise that became increasingly fatal as faster, better-armored Allied fighters entered service with heavier armaments.

Vought F4U Corsair

In 1943, the Grumman F6F Hellcat brought an end to the Zero’s dominance, shooting down hundreds of Japanese aircraft in air battles such as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

However, the Hellcat itself was outlived by the even higher-performing F4U Corsair. The Corsair is notable for its unique gull-winged design, but difficulties landing the “Hogs” caused the Navy to delay its introduction into service—so the Marines snatched them up instead. The Corsair quickly proved so successful that both the U.S. and Royal Navies adopted it into service.

The Corsair’s powerful Double Wasp engine made it fast and deadly, scoring an 11:1 kill ratio versus Japanese fighter pilots, who nicknamed it the “Whistling Death.” It played a vital role in intercepting Kamikaze attacks and providing ground support for Marines in Iwo Jima and Okinawa using napalm canisters and high-velocity rockets.

Remarkably, the Corsair’s career was only getting started. By the 1950s, Corsairs were back in action over Korea and French-occupied Vietnam, principally used in ground attack roles. However, radar-equipped Corsair night fighters shot down North Korean night intruders. Corsair pilot Guy Bordelon was only the Navy ace of the Korean War, and one Corsair even shot down a MiG-15 jet.

The Corsair’s combat career concluded violently in July 1969, when El Salvador invaded Honduras over a lost soccer game. Both sides operated Corsairs, and a Honduran F4U pilot shot down two Salvadoran Corsairs and a P-51 before the four-day war’s conclusion.

Grumman F9F Panther

The Panther was the first jet successfully integrated into U.S. Navy carrier air wings for long-term service. The slick jet, painted an inky navy blue and packing four twenty-millimeter cannons and flew on hundreds of raids during the Korean War, a dangerous role immortalized in the film The Bridges at Toko-Ri. It quite likely scored the first jet-on-jet aerial kill in history by downing a MiG-15 on November 9, 1950.

Though both powered by similar turbojets based on the Rolls Royce Nene, the straight-wing F9F could only attain 620 miles per hour, compared to the 670 mph of the swept-wing MiG-15. However, that didn’t prevent a lone F9F pilot from downing four Soviet MiG-15s in a whirling air battle over the Sea of Japan in 1952. Like the best naval fighters, the F9F also evolved gracefully over time, developing into a higher-performing swept-wing model called the “Cougar.”

The Harrier (In its Many Incarnations)

There have been many variants of the Harrier built by the various manufacturers, but their basic appeal was always the same: their vector-thrust turbofans allowed them to take off and land vertically like a helicopter from the deck of a small amphibious carrier or a remote forward bases lacking traditional runways.

This capability came at a price, however. Despite boasting air-to-air capability, Harriers were firmly subsonic jets that would be at a grave disadvantage dueling contemporary supersonic fighter jets. Furthermore, the trickiness of its VTOL engines has caused Harriers to suffer extremely high accident rates.

Yet the Harrier makes the list because its capabilities decisively affected the outcome of the Falkland Island War. In addition to twenty-eight carrier-based BAe Sea Harriers, the U.K. hastily converted container ships to carry fourteen land-based Royal Air Force Hawker Harriers. Together these escorted Royal Navy ships and pounded Argentine ground targets.

Argentina flung scores of strike jets at the British fleet, which lay at the extreme of their operational range. Though they might have been equally matched versus the Harrier, the Argentine pilots followed orders to only press the attack on British ships—arguably a mistake. Harrier managed to shoot down roughly twenty Argentine fighters using all-aspect AIM-L Sidewinder missiles. The Argentine pilots endured heavy losses to still sink several ships. But without the deterrence provided by the Harriers, the damage would likely have been far greater.

McDonnell Douglas manufactured AV-8 Harriers also performed well in combat over Afghanistan and Iraq and remains in service with the U.S. Marines and the navies of Spain and Italy. They will be replaced by F-35B jump jets, which despite significant teething and cost issues, promise a tremendous improvement thanks to supersonic flight capability, stealth characteristics, and advanced avionics.

McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom

The F-4 Phantom was a beastly warplane powered by two huge J79 turbojets that could propel it past twice the speed of sound. A rare example of a design successfully used by all three branches of the U.S. military, the two-seat Phantom could detect adversaries and engage them with long-range missiles using its nose-mounted radar, and also carry a heavier bombload than a World War II B-17 bomber.

The Phantom often gets a bad rap for difficulties it faced combatting MiGs over Vietnam related to its lower maneuverability and the ineffectiveness of its early air-to-air missiles. The Navy responded to these problems by instituting the “Top Gun” school which schooled aviators in air combat maneuver theory. Navy Phantom pilots claimed forty MiGs shot down for only seven Phantoms lost in air-to-air combat. Later F-4J and F-4S models operated by the Navy incorporated wing-slats which greatly improved maneuverability and landing performance, though at a slight cost of speed.

Despite its flaws, the Phantom proved you could combine speed, heavy payload, advanced sensors, and (eventually) decent agility in one large airplane, a principle which informs modern fourth-generation jets such as the currently-serving FA-18E/F Super Hornet.

And what of the awesome F-14 Tomcat, you ask?

The Grumman F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame was indeed a superb air superiority fighter. However, the Tomcat’s saw most of its action as a land-based fighter in the service of the Iranian Air Force.

Sébastien Roblin holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article was first published in 2019.

Image: Reuters

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Europe

A lone soldier armed with a Panzerfaust could — depending on the angle and shot placement — penetrate an Allied tank, ignite its fuel or ammunition and kill everyone inside.

Here’s What You Need to Remember: To Allied tank crews during World War II, the Panzerfaust was one of the German army’s deadliest weapons behind the static 88-millimeter cannon, the rocket-propelled Panzerschreck and — most of all — other tanks.

The shoulder-launched Panzerfaust, or “tank fist,” propelled a shaped charge warhead around 45–60 meters per second over a distance of 60-100 meters — depending on the Panzerfaust 60 and 100 variants. But it was always a short-range weapon, requiring German troops to sneak up close to their targets before depressing the firing mechanism.

Due to the Panzerfaust’s inherent range limitations, German anti-tank teams were most effective in dense or obscured environments such as cities and woodlands. A lone soldier armed with a Panzerfaust could — depending on the angle and shot placement — penetrate an Allied tank, ignite its fuel or ammunition and kill everyone inside.

Crew members would only have a second or two to jump from their tank, surely suffering horrific burns regardless of whether or not they survived. If unable to escape, the flames would leave little more than ashes and bones.

British Army tank commander Stuart Hills experienced the Panzerfaust’s power during the initial battles in northern Belgium that preceded Operation Market Garden. One encounter made for a harrowing passage in his 2002 memoir By Tank Into Normandy.

Hills’ Sherman tank and three others with the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry pushed into the Belgian city of Gheel on Sept. 9, 1944. Initially, the operation took the bloodiest toll on the tanks’ supporting infantry.

An understrength rifle advancing with the Rangers met MG-42 machine gun fire in the fields outside Gheel. Hills witnessed an officer being “virtually cut in half as he received a belt of bullets all to himself,” Hills wrote.

Witnessing the officer’s death made Hills relieved to be a tanker. The Shermans’ concentrated fire soon silenced the MG-42s, and the advance into the town center proceeded without incident.

The defending Germans had largely abandoned the city, and the British tankers encountered Gheel’s townspeople celebrating their liberation by hanging Belgian flags from their homes.

However, word came within hours that a German counter-attack had cut off the tanks’ route into town and left them surrounded. The civilians removed their flags, which added to the tankers’ nervousness.

As night fell, the British tanks huddled in defensive positions around the town square, their crews watching down the connecting streets. German probing attacks made little progress, and the Shermans knocked out a tracked Jagdpanther tank destroyer at near point-blank range.

Then the sun rose — and a Sherman tank next to Hill’s vehicle burst into flames.

Panzerfaust.

The driver was killed. The tank’s commander, Capt. Jimmy McWilliam, jumped out but was terribly burnt. The general rule when it came to direct hits was that “it was largely a matter of luck whether you emerged alive,” Hills wrote.

My mind was full of horrors. I had seen at the closest possible range what had happened to Jimmy and now it was very likely that the same thing was going to happen to me. Here I was sitting in my Sherman with all its firepower, but I could not identify any target or even guess in what direction I should be looking.

Sure enough, about two minutes later, there was a terrific sheet of flame and shower of sparks as we were hit. We fired the Browning machine-gun in what we thought was the direction of the shot and backed furiously if rather clumsily into the main square, thankful to be able to move at all.

A piece of shrapnel had grazed my forehead and taken my beret with it, but that was the extent of the damage to any of us.

My driver, Bob Ingall, said that he had seen a Germany infantryman a second before he fired his Panzerfaust at us and had felt the blast on his legs. I did not have the chance right then to look at the damage, but I later found that half a track plate had been shot away on our starboard side and that a hole had been punched right through the entire sprocket assembly into the differential.

If we had had a co-driver that day, he would almost certainly have been killed or at least lost his legs.

The surviving tanks of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry withdrew from Gheel. The Allies wouldn’t recapture the city after another six days of heavy fighting.

Hills recalled having nightmares of his experiences decades later that would leave him feeling “despair and terror.” But he kept those thoughts from overwhelming him due to his considerable courage and support from fellow soldiers.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Eolas Magazine

With a new president-elect in the White House, it is now time for America to move forward with bipartisan efforts to resuscitate its global leadership. However, this return to normalcy depends on the liberal epicenter’s techno-industrial quest for energy infrastructure modernization and innovation (especially in adaptive energy management systems). Confronted with the inevitable 21st-century thrust toward de-carbonization, decentralization, and digitalization (3D), low carbon energy transition, clean, and energy-efficient adaptation to a low carbon economy has become more normalized and embraced worldwide, including by most of our allies. Thus, it is strategically necessary for America to evolve and adopt a new approach for the new global thrust. Besides joining our allies in committing to the Paris Agreement’s target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we should further orchestrate a global climate alliance that establishes norms and standards for clean and resilient “energy freedom.” Such norms and standards would allow the world’s vulnerable populations to sustainably and democratically choose their preferred modes of production, consumption, prosumption, and governance for adaptive energy management, empowering them to cope with Orwellian energy exploiters’ technocratic energy acquisition and monopoly. However, the sufficiency of America’s global climate leadership critically depends on boosting domestic investments both in the clean technology and cyber-secure adaptive energy management system that is ultimately compatible with the “clean” network’s certification standards for quality 5G/6G network suppliers.

Domestic Need for Secure and Resilient Energy Infrastructure

From bridges to airports, the outdated status of America’s D+ infrastructural networks is slowing down the country’s economic productivity. Four in ten bridges in the country are almost half a century old, and 9.1% of these bridges, which account for the daily average of 188 million trips, are structurally deficient. A total of 90,580 of the country’s dams have an average age of 56, of which 2,170 are classified as High Hazard Potential Dams. The economic cost incurred from deteriorating infrastructure is enormous. Delays resulting from road traffic congestion alone costs over $120 billion annually, while delayed and canceled trips due to poor airport conditions similarly incur another $35 billion per year. Experts expect that, until 2025, the almost failing status of the country’s infrastructural networks will shrink the GDP by $3.9 trilion, take away 2.5 million American jobs, and reduce business sales by $7 trillion.

The bad news is equivalently echoed in many government and industrial reports on the status of energy infrastructure. Most national electric transmissions and distribution lines were built in the 50s and 60s with a life expectancy of 50 years, and the 640,000 miles of high-voltage power transmission lines that stretch across the country have already reached the full capacity. The dilapidated, choke-full state of the country’s energy infrastructure has ten-folded the chance of power outages from the mid-80s to 2012 while doubling its exposure to climate-related risks in the 2000s. In 2015, power outages had numbered as many as 3,571 with an average lasting time of 49 minutes. Such an exponential increase in the outrage rate cost American businesses approximately $150 billion per year in 2018 and has chronically left millions of east-coast residents in hours and even weeks of darkness during the hurricane season. Apart from the economic cost, the modernization and innovation of the energy infrastructure are further needed for security reasons. Eighteen million American’s residing in rural areas still have limited access to broadband internet, thus bringing into question America’s capability to deter future cyberattacks that could paralyze part of America’s critical energy infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the enhancement of the average Americans technological literacy would improve the country’s cybersecurity readiness. To circumvent the deficiencies mentioned above of the energy infrastructure, America needs a smart plan for modernizing and innovating its energy infrastructure. America has already developed 3.3 million clean energy jobs, which is three times more than fossil fuel jobs. Specifically, 2.3 million of these jobs are related to the promotion of energy efficiency. Wind and solar energy now account for 20% of electricity generation in ten states, and clean-vehicle jobs now represent 13% of all jobs in the motor vehicle industry; yet, more investments in smart/microgrids are critical since these grids are the fundamental catalyst stimulating the momentum in the transition to low-carbon energy.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy website, what makes a standard electric grid a “smart grid” is “the digital technology that allows for two-way communication between the utility and its customers, and the sensing along the transmission lines.” More specifically, the essential component of such technology is 5G/6G Internet of Things (IoT)-integrated sensor technologies and data analytics that allows energy-efficient, climate-risk-free, and cyber-attacks-proof energy consumption and production between diverse energy producers and technologically equipped consumers. The reliable future supply of these technologies depends not only on procuring “clean” networked vendors (especially in the semiconductor industry) and hosting their manufacturing facilities on American soil. Regarding policy, the recent amendment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Creating Helpful Incentives for Producing Semiconductors in America Act (CHIPS Act) introduced tax credits and grants as policy instruments to facilitate the latter aim; however, striking a balance between the national interest and strategic technological cooperation with allies is still an unresolved issue .

In addition to the sine qua non of securing reliable technology, smart grids that maximize “energy freedom” must also be politically manageable or decentralized enough to facilitate both urban and rural communities’ resilient adaption to a low-carbon energy transition. On the one hand, such a process of decentralization should recognize local communities’ energy freedom and environmental rights, ultimately widening their range of choice for energy governance and minimizing the socioeconomic impacts of the transition. On the other hand, the process should be accompanied by politically neutral economic policies that make the market competitive. In this regard, instead of using regulations to discourage energy producers and utility providers who are increasingly betting on clean energy technologies, a politically neutral carbon pricing policy should be used to incentivize energy producers and utility providers to actively engage in the energy transition. The Baker-Schultz Dividend Plan sheds light on the politically neutral path of carbon pricing by pricing a CO2 emissions allowance at $40 per ton, which, in return, pays off a monthly dividend of $2,000 to every four American family members.

 America’s ‘Smart’ Global Climate Leadership Matters

The Foreign Affairs Op-ed by Baker et al.(2020) succinctly persuades critics opposing America’s active climate leadership that such pressing leadership matters for the country’s national interest. The interdependence between climate action and the economy is so deeply embedded in today’s international political economy that it shapes the geostrategic balance of power. For example, water resource scarcity in the Middle East often escalates regional conflicts, and the discovery of new trade routes and new access routes to natural resources in the melting Arctic Ocean strengthens some great powers’ geopolitical leverage. Therefore, the interdependence is a rather telling caveat that America would be worse off by remaining isolated and letting its competitors dominate clean technologies and industries. Besides, the conditions of both fossil fuel and renewable energy markets are ripe for America to adapt to a low-carbon economy. The shale gas revolution has significantly reduced the country’s economic vulnerability to fossil fuel prices, while the costs of solar and wind technologies have dropped by 90% and 70%, respectively. Hence, America has an overall carbon advantage to gain from leading a global climate alliance that could raise stricter environmental and labor standards to penalize the competing great powers’ carbon-intensive manufacturing activities and reduce their neighboring associated economies’ energy and economic dependency. Unfortunately, as Baker et al. highlighted, America lacks a coherent climate foreign policy.

In the absence of a coherent climate foreign policy, the Democrats’ Green New Deal and Green Marshall Plan are garnering attention from the public. The Green New Deal’s idea of creating manufacturing jobs for the American middle class through large-scale clean infrastructural projects is no doubt, timely and strategic. Likewise, the Green Marshall Plan’s objective of restoring America’s liberal solidarity with allies through choosing positive-sum-creating-butter over guns captures the zeitgeist of 21st global peacemaking. However, as much as a low-carbon energy transition is inevitable, achieving a swift bipartisan compromise on a coherent climate foreign policy is also unavoidable. Perhaps, finding and protecting the shared values between America’s concept of “energy freedom” and that of our allies and the rest of the world can sustain a bipartisan climate foreign policy. Although its concept is partially applied to policymaking and policy production (e.g., lifting the net metering cap in the case of South Carolina’s enactment of the Energy Freedom Act in 2016), a “clean” networked climate alliance for “energy freedom” can help build international consensuses over local sustainably and democratically resilient governance codes on energy modernization and innovation. In doing so, however, America needs to work closely with European and Indo-Pacific allies with leading clean technologies in setting international standards for emerging energy governance challenges, especially in the interoperability of smart grid technologies that specify the competencies of trustful vendors and blockchain-based energy governance.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps 2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2021). Nele Wissmann, chercheuse associée au Comité d’études des relations franco-allemandes de l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Bénédicte Laumond, Policy Responses to the Radical Right in France and Germany: Public Actors, Policy Frames, and Decision-Making (Routledge, 2020, 256 pages).

Basé sur une thèse de 2017, cet ouvrage a encore gagné en actualité avec le meurtre de Walter Lübcke, président du district de Kassel le 15 juin 2019, l’attaque antisémite contre une synagogue à Halle le 9 octobre 2019, ainsi que l’assassinat de neuf personnes dans deux bars à chicha à Hanau le 20 février 2020. L’analyse de l’extrémisme et du terrorisme de droite sort d’une niche scientifique pour s’exposer aux projecteurs médiatique et politique.

L’observation et l’évaluation françaises de la lutte allemande contre les menaces d’extrême droite sont souvent limitées par l’ignorance des possibles champs d’action allemands en la matière, ainsi que par la méconnaissance de la vision démocratique propre à l’Allemagne. Ainsi, la présente publication a une valeur ajoutée scientifique incontestable. L’extrémisme de droite étant également une menace en France et dans d’autres démocraties européennes, cette publication doit aussi être vue comme un cadre de référence pour les meilleures pratiques dans la lutte contre l’extrême droite. Le texte évalue notamment la manière dont les deux démocraties, France et Allemagne, abordent le paradoxe de la tolérance : comment des démocraties libérales peuvent-elles restreindre les droits qu’elles défendent – comme la liberté d’expression – pour réprimer les forces intolérantes qui menacent la démocratie ?

Un résultat de la recherche se distingue particulièrement. En Allemagne, les principes hérités de la démocratie militante de Loewenstein ont été inscrits dans la Loi fondamentale et, à partir de ces fondements juridiques, les acteurs politiques et étatiques ont élaboré une doctrine d’État qui empêche l’ordre démocratique de subir les menaces politiques extrémistes. La démocratie militante (wehrhafte Demokratie) est par conséquent une caractéristique clé de la politique allemande, qui s’exprime à travers des institutions comme l’Office fédéral pour la protection de la Constitution, et une politique anti-extrémiste bien établie. La construction d’une politique de répression du radicalisme politique, avec une distinction claire séparant l’extrémisme du reste du spectre politique – le premier étant une menace pour l’ordre constitutionnel et donc considéré comme anticonstitutionnel – a permis à l’Allemagne de s’adapter au paradoxe de la tolérance.

En France, le raisonnement des décideurs politiques est que le radicalisme de droite ne doit pas être abordé en termes politiques, sauf si les groupes sont violents ou expriment des opinions racistes. Il est ainsi plus difficile d’identifier un cadre juridique complet permettant de combattre le radicalisme politique. Malgré tout, le cadre juridique français offre aujourd’hui un ensemble hétérogène de mesures axées sur la répression de la violence et du racisme qui, dans la pratique, contribuent à une répression efficace du radicalisme de droite.

Cet ouvrage doit être recommandé à tous ceux qui souhaitent examiner de près les réponses politiques apportées en Allemagne et en France à la montée de l’extrémisme de droite. Il est également une référence précieuse pour qui veut comparer les cultures politiques de l’Allemagne et de la France, qui ne sont pas toujours comprises dans leurs subtilités par les différents acteurs politiques et médiatiques.

Nele Wissmann

>> S’abonner à Politique étrangère <<

Not long before President-elect Biden started naming his cabinet, two sets of recommendations to reform the Department of State were published, one from the Council on Foreign Relations, one from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School.  The Economist noted their rich menu of proposals.  Secretary of State – designate Blinken will do well to implement a number of them. 

He should also go further.  A question has been hanging over State for decades, namely: what precisely is the U.S. diplomat’s function?  Every U.S. Marines is told they are riflemen; what is every U.S. diplomat, particularly in the transformative 21stCentury?

A fundamental, elemental answer is that diplomats are authoritative representatives of their sovereign.  In much of history, the “sovereign” has been personal, a monarch.  For the U.S., while the President is Head of State, sovereignty transcends any person or office.  This is especially important to recall in a time of political polarization, when Americans could yet imagine a 2024 Presidential contest between Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

The Kennedy School’s recommendations do start by calling for a new mission for the Foreign Service, asking the new President to “restore the State Department’s lead role in executing the nation’s foreign policy.”  Rex Tillerson’s “listening survey” of 2017 also made identification of State’s mission its first recommendation.  The CFR report opens with issues, seeking a special envoy for climate change – i.e. John Kerry – and “elevating pandemic disease to a core U.S. national interest.” 

Both the CFR and JFK School pieces seek a reduction in political appointments.  The latter says 90 percent of Ambassadors and 75 percent of Assistant Secretaries should be career officers.  The issue of political appointees has long been a complaint of Foreign Service Officers.  Though the numbers (summarized in the Economist) show the Trump Administration accelerating the trend, it has been growing for decades.  And while there are horror stories that every FSO knows, many political appointees have been highly effective representatives, due to their stature – think Mike Mansfield or Jon Huntsman, as just two – or their close relationship with their President. 

One complaint career officers make is that the powers that be would never make a political appointee a brigade commander or ship’s captain.  The question, though, is what is the U.S. diplomat’s expertise, equivalent to the military expertise of rifleman, sonar operator, or fighter pilot?   Many FSOs cite the service’s presence in foreign countries and ongoing conduct of business with their governments.  But relations with governments have been conducted by military, commercial, and many other figures, and many of them, as well as academics and others, spend more continuous time in any given country than the diplomat progressing through her career.  Indeed, both the JFK and the CFR reports espouse recruitment of mid-career and experienced professionals from outside the Department.  In another vein, both call for extended professional education, focused on diplomatic history and practice.  But international relations Master’s degree holders abound in Washington, universities, and NGOs. 

The CFR effort contains elements of a functional definition, seeking to overcome a culture of risk aversion and building an “I have your back” ethos.  It calls for “de-layering” State and streamlining decision making, with less top-down instruction and more “nimble” diplomacy in the field.  The picture that starts to take shape will require much hard thinking and organizational innovation to fill out, but it points toward a unique, necessary, and rigorous expertise that would define the U.S. diplomat.

Ultimately, the diplomat officially represents the American nation.  A nimble and enabled diplomat still will need an innate capacity to carry and project, fundamentally and durably, what that means.  The calls for professional education should be filled out in a manner to instill this capacity.  Gestating diplomats must be deeply imbued with a stress-tested commitment to the American foundation and the people who make our national life on that base.  Their professional formation should, yes, include full familiarization with the history of foreign policy and diplomacy and current knowledge of everything from M-16s to MI-6 to M1B money supply.  But it must be rooted in rigorous ingestion of the tenets, nuances, and arguments around the Declaration of Independence, of U.S. history and development, and of American life in its many communities and institutions.  As a collegial body, they should all be pushed not only to study and observe, but to test themselves and each other in their comprehension and commitment, arguing with each other into the night about their understandings and obligations.  All should know that each has made a deep personal commitment to their American ethos.  With this formation and esprit, and an enabling institutional structure, the U.S. diplomat can be that nimble and empowered agent for the nation, across any administration, capable of addressing long standing issues and surprise controversies coherently, even when full instructions are unavailable.

Such a rigorous formation will help in another respect.  As the two reports note, diversity and inclusion are major issues for a U.S. Diplomatic Service (as the JFK effort would rename the Foreign Service).  A deeply rigorous, stress-testing formative process will, given America’s fundamental definition, select for a service demographically representative of the nation’s population.  It should allow for minimal use of arbitrary numerical targets and external identity markers. 

Not incidentally, when such diplomats serve in Washington and provide their counsel to the policy process, they become more than just “other countries’ voice,” though they will have special knowledge of foreign sensitivities.  As experienced carriers of America’s national identity, they can be stewards of what that means.  They will be experts in Americans’ common creed amid the functional agencies, clinical specialists in the nation’s roots through diverse administrations and shifting partisan landscapes.

Finally, both reports call for a new Foreign Service Act, the JFK report sooner, the CFR report as new practices take hold.  Either way, if a legislative proposal included a fundamental commitment to America’s eternal truths, for a functional and commonly shared goal of sound national representation — might it just transcend polarized partisanship, maybe even give a small spur to unity?

Foreign Affairs Book Event: Beyond the Sand and Sea: One Family’s Quest for a Country to Call Home

Après cinq ans de négociations, le partage de la flotte de la mer Noire ne cesse d'envenimer les relations bilatérales entre l'Ukraine et la Russie. / Russie, Ukraine - 1996/12 / Russie, Ukraine - 1996/12

Lors de l'adoption par l'ONU, le 10 décembre 1948, de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme, par quarante-huit Etats, huit s'abstenant, et deux étant absents, les pays de l'Europe de l'Est se sont abstenus. Ce fut le cas de l'URSS, qui disposait des voix de l'Ukraine et de la (...) / Europe de l'Est, Communisme, Démocratie, Droits humains, Éducation, Femmes, Judaïsme, Parti politique, Travail - 1968/04

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