Diplomacy & Crisis News

Ethen Kim Lieser

Public Health, Americas

Thankfully none of the side effects last long or are especially bad.

Coronavirus vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna are considered to be very safe, with only 10 percent to 15 percent of volunteers during the trials reporting side effects that were “significantly noticeable,” according to Operation Warp Speed chief science advisor Dr. Moncef Slaoui.

He added that the side effects have the potential to last up to a day and a half and most had only reported redness and pain at the injection site, as well as fever, chills, muscle aches, and headaches.

“The longer, more important kind of adverse events such as some autoimmune disease or others have not been reported in a different way between the placebo group and the vaccine group in these two trials, which is very reassuring,” Slaoui said Tuesday during a video conversation with the Washington Post.

“I always make sure we say that (while) we know the short term and I’m going to call it midterm effects of the vaccine is now well understood, the very long-term safety is not yet understood by definition.”

Despite the lack of data regarding long-term side effects, he contended that it is important to get the vaccine doses deployed nationwide as soon as possible.

“It will be very important for the most susceptible parts of our population get these vaccines,” Slaoui said. “And we will be looking at the safety of these vaccines in real life through very elaborate … processes and report on it on an ongoing basis.”

The vaccine expert’s comments come as states are busy preparing to distribute the vaccine in as few as two weeks. Moderna and Pfizer both requested emergency use authorization for their respective vaccines last month.

The reviews by the Food and Drug Administration are expected to take several weeks—although the agency has scheduled a meeting for December 10 to discuss Pfizer’s request specifically.

On Tuesday, health-care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities were tabbed by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—an outside group of medical experts that advise the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—as the first groups that would have access to a coronavirus vaccine. Children and young adults are expected to get the vaccine last.

When an FDA-approved vaccine is eventually rolled out, another challenge likely awaits. A recent Gallup poll has revealed that only 58 percent of surveyed adults said that they would roll up their sleeves for a shot once a vaccine is approved. Similar results were seen in a Pew Research Center survey in September when nearly half of U.S. adults (49 percent) said they definitely or probably would not get a coronavirus vaccine at this time.

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.

Michael Peck

Security, Asia

The best answer is to look at what happened to Germany.

Here's What You Need to Know: Germany was not alone in its development of combat jets in World War II.

It is a fallacy that Germany was the only nation to develop combat jets in World War II. In truth, while Germany had the most advanced technology, all of the major powers had jet aircraft projects during World War II, including the United States, Britain, Russia, Italy and Japan.

The most well-known Japanese jet—and the only one that saw combat—was the Okha, a rocket-propelled and human-piloted kamikaze. But another Japanese jet actually flew before the war ended, and would have seen combat had it continued: the Nakajima Kikka.

Japanese scientists had actually studied jet engines as far back as the 1930s, despite little government support, and even a turbojet prototype by 1943. Tokyo also knew of German research due to Japanese observers who witnessed early tests of the legendary German Me-262 jet fighter in 1942, But it wasn't until the summer of 1944, when U.S. B-29 bombers began to pound Japan, that the Japanese Navy asked for the Kokoku Heiki No. 2, or Kikka ("orange blossom").

That the Kikka resembled an Me-262 is no coincidence—nor was it a matter of simple imitation. Japan's jet program was heavily derived from German research, but the aid was hardly straightforward. In July 1944, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering ordered that Japan be provided with blueprints for the Me-262, the Junkers Jumo 004 and BMW 003 turbojet engines, and even an actual Me-262 aircraft.

Yet the Japanese submarine carrying the plans from Germany to Japan was sunk by U.S. forces, though not before a Japanese envoy got off at Singapore with just a single cutaway drawing of the BMW 003 (arguably just as important as the blueprints for the Me-262, given that early jets were only as good as their unreliable engines). That was enough for Japanese engineers to build the Ne-20 turbojet, an engine that was superior to the homegrown Ne-12 that was originally supposed to power the Kikka.

There were two striking aspects to the Kikka. The most obvious is that it looks like a smaller version of the Me-262, though the similarities were mostly skin-deep. Unlike the German jet, the Kikka had straight instead of swept-back wings, which hampered its performance. The other striking aspect was that it was originally designed as a kamikaze. "In keeping with the shimpu [kamikaze] mission of the aircraft, the initial design had no landing gear and was to be launched from catapult ramps, boosted with RATO [rocket-assisted take off] units," writes aviation historian Edwin Dyer. "The calculated range was a mere 204km (127 miles) due to the designated engine, the Ne 12, which burned fuel at a rapid rate. At sea level the estimated speed was 639km/h (397mph). A single bomb fixed to the aircraft was the only armament. Another feature was the inclusion of folding wings to allow the aircraft to be hidden in caves and tunnels and protected from bombing attacks."

By March 1945, the Kikka's mission changed to a tactical bomber, and an interceptor armed with 30mm cannon. Its engine changed from the Ne-12 turbojet to the Ne-20 (though shortages of key metals reduced the Ne-20's efficiency). But design was one thing: building jets in 1945 while Japanese aircraft and engine factories were being pounded by U.S. bombers was another. Nonetheless, on August 7, 1945—the day after Hiroshima became the first atomic victim—test pilot Lt. Cdr. Susumu Takaoka made the first (nonkamikaze) flight of a Japanese jet. However, a second flight on August 11, two days after Nagasaki, resulted in a crash landing that damaged the Kikka prototype beyond repair.

Not that it mattered. While plans called for producing almost 500 Kikkas by the end of 1945, those plans were dashed by Japan's surrender on August 15. Just one aircraft had been completed by war's end.

How did the Kikka compare to the Me-262s that worried the Allied air forces in 1944–45? The Me-262A1A had a top speed of 540 miles per hour, which left in the dust American pilots flying P-51D Mustangs (maximum speed 437 miles per hour). Plans for the interceptor version of the Kikka called for a maximum speed of 443 miles per hour. In other words, its maximum speed was about the same as a Mustang, and the early jets of World War II were neither known for maneuverability or engine reliability.

The most intriguing question, of course, is whether Japanese jets could have changed the outcome of the Pacific War had they been fielded in time. The best answer is to look at what happened to Germany, which actually produced 1,400 Me-262s, some of which saw combat between November 1944 and May 1945. Though quite disturbing to the Allies, the jets didn't save the Third Reich. There were too many Allied aircraft, the Anglo-American air forces mounted standing patrols over airfields to catch the Me-262 during their vulnerable take-off and landing runs, and Nazi Germany was being overrun Allied tanks.

With an even worse fuel and raw-materials situation than Germany, Japan probably would have fared no better. The Kikka would have been overwhelmed by the massive U.S. land-based and carrier-based formations that roamed over Japan in the last days of the war. If it had been fielded earlier, perhaps it could have made some difference over battlefields such as the 1944 U.S. invasion of the Philippines. Yet even there, the Kikka's short range would have rendered it unsuitable for the long-distance flying that characterized the Pacific War. The Kikka might have been relegated to a defensive role over the home islands, intercepting daytime B-29 raids—except the Americans eventually switched the B-29s from day raids to night, when the radar-less Kikka could not fly.

Like its big brother the Me-262, the Kikka was too little, too late.

Suggested Reading: Japanese Secret Projects 1: Experimental Aircraft of the IJA & IJN 1939-1945, by Edwin Dyer.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Stephen Silver

Technology, Americas

At the time of its launch, Walmart+ established a minimum of $35 on online orders from Walmart.com. Now, the company has announced that starting this Friday, the minimum will be lifted.

Earlier this year, Walmart announced the launch of Walmart+, a membership program that the retail giant is using to compete with Amazon Prime. The program offers such features as unlimited free delivery, fuel discounts, and Scan & Go app, and more. The membership costs $98 per year.

At the time of its launch, Walmart+ established a minimum of $35 on online orders from Walmart.com. Now, the company has announced that starting this Friday, the minimum will be lifted. However, deliveries from Walmart stores, of groceries and other items, will retain the $35 minimum. 

“It feels like a life hack is needed now more than ever and Walmart+ is here to help,” Janey Whiteside, chief customer officer of Walmart, said in a statement.

“No other membership allows customers across the country to get everything from gingerbread cookies and eggnog to holiday decorations and toys delivered for free as soon as the same day. Walmart+ is designed to make life easier—giving customers an option to not have to sacrifice on cost or convenience.”

The company also announced that Sam’s Club fuel stations will now be eligible for the program’s fuel savings. 

“Customers have been clear—they want this benefit. Being able to toss an item into your cart, regardless the total, and checkout right away lets them knock little things off their to do list in no time,”  Whiteside said in the press release.

Walmart had been rumored for much of the year to be launching a Prime competitor, and reportedly planned to launch it the spring before delaying their plans due to the pandemic.

Walmart+ costs less than Amazon Prime per year, although the prices offered per month are closer together. Per CNBC, Walmart has not released any figures about how many customers have signed up for the Walmart+ service. Amazon, meanwhile, has over 126 million Prime subscribers in the United States. 

Even before the launch of Walmart+, Walmart reportedly put pressure on top TV manufacturer Vizio to remove the Amazon Prime Video button from the remotes on its TVs. There have been rumors that Walmart, like Amazon, may eventually launch a content component along with Walmart+, although there has been no announcement of that yet.

In early October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart was in talks with Comcast to launch TV sets that would run Comcast’s software, with a third party manufacturing the sets themselves but basing their interface on Comcast’s X1 interface or something like that. Comcast was reported a couple of months earlier to be in talks with TV manufacturers about putting their software on televisions. There has not as of yet been anything official announced about either set of negotiations. 

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

Image: Reuters

 

 

TNI Staff

Security,

A full-scale military campaign against Iran would require the United States to destroy the Iranian air force. The best of Iran’s decrepit fighter aircraft fleet is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

Here's What You Need to Know: The F-14A was amongst the most capable fighters developed by the United States during the late 1960s.

With the United States withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran, a war with Tehran seems to be a distinct possibility.  In the event of a military conflict between Washington and Tehran, there is also the ever growing possibility that the White House might seek regime change in Iran.

A full-scale military campaign against Iran would require the United States to destroy the Iranian air force—which to this day flies American-built warplanes. The best of Iran’s decrepit fighter aircraft fleet is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. The Imperial Iranian Air Force purchased 80 of the powerful fourth generation fighters before the 1979 Islamic revolution, but deliveries were halted at 79 aircraft. Additionally, Iran had purchased 714 Hughes (now Raytheon) AIM-54A Phoenix long-range semi-active/active radar guided air-to-air missiles, which have a range of roughly 100 nautical miles.

When the F-14A was developed, it was amongst the most capable fighters developed by the United States during the late 1960s. The jet entered service with the U.S. Navy in 1974 equipped with the AWG-9 long-range pulse Doppler radar, which had a range of over 115 nautical miles and was the first American radar set to incorporate a track while scan mode to allow for a multiple shot capability. Coupled with the AIM-54, the AWG-9 could target six enemy bombers simultaneously. On paper, the Tomcat provided the fleet with a potent capability—though the reality did not quite meet the Navy’s public relations hype.

Iran has upgraded its Tomcats with new avionics and potentially new weapons, but only a handful of Tehran’s F-14s are in flyable condition—perhaps as few as 20 aircraft. However, other than perhaps 20 Russian-made Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrums, the venerable Tomcat is the Islamic Iranian Air Force’s most capable fighter. In the event of a war, the F-14 would be Iran’s first line of defense against an American onslaught.

The stealthy Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor air superiority fighter would almost certainly lead an American attack. Compared to the antiquated F-14, the Raptor is a technological marvel and is equipped with some of the most sophisticated sensors ever developed for a military aircraft.

The F-22 combines extreme stealth and sustained supersonic speed—it can cruise at just above Mach 1.8 without afterburners—with integrated avionics and extreme agility. The Raptor’s Northrop Grumman AN/APG-77 (V)1 active electronically scanned array radar and ALR-94 passive electronic support measures suite would spot an F-14 from many tens of nautical miles away before the Tomcat had any idea that an F-22 was in the vicinity.

The Raptor, having detected a flight of Iranian F-14s and given the go-ahead to engage, would likely turn toward the enemy and launch its Raytheon AIM-120D AMRAAM missile—which reported has a range of 96 nautical miles when launched from a conventional fighter—from high supersonic speeds exceeding Mach 1.5 and at altitudes well above 50,000ft. It would be all over for the Iranian F-14s before anyone in the enemy formation would have any idea they were under attack.

Even if the Raptors had run out of AMRAAMs and were forced to engage within visual range, the F-22s can use their stealth to close in unobserved to less than 1000ft to either kill the F-14s with Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinders or 20mm Vulcan cannon fire. Indeed, F-22 pilots flying during exercises such as Red Flag or Northern Edge will often sneak into guns range to make unobserved kills from very close distances by taking advantage of the Raptor’s stealth. More often than not, the Raptor’s quarry is caught completely unaware.

However, if by some bizarre circumstance the F-22 is embroiled in a dogfight with the F-14, the chances are the Raptor will kill the Tomcat unless the American pilot suffers from extremely bad luck or makes a serious error. The Raptor holds all of the cards in terms of instantaneous and sustained turn rates—which in the F-22’s case is greater than 30 degrees per second—and energy addition. The Raptor’s incredible specific excess power and sheer maneuverability combined with its new AIM-9X missiles makes it so that the odds are grotesquely stacked in the F-22 pilot’s favor. 

Of course, that’s just in the case that Iran’s leaders are foolish enough to take the United States head on. It would be much smarter for Iran to use asymmetric means to take on the United States instead of challenging America in the air.

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

The exact nature of the Baton Rouge’s espionage activities has never been clarified.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Russian submarine would also have had little chance of detecting the quieter Los Angeles–class submarine. More powerful fixed antisubmarine sensors might only have been effective at ranges of three to five kilometers in such conditions, too short to reach the Baton Rouge’s position. Submarines can also deploy towed sonar arrays behind them to increase their sonar coverage, but these are difficult to control in shallow waters and were therefore not in use during the incident.

It’s tempting to think of sonar as a sort of radar that works underwater. However, water is a far less compliant medium than air even for the most modern sensors, and wind conditions, temperature variations and sounds rebounding off the ocean floor can all dramatically degrade its performance. When attempting to detect the extremely quiet submarines currently in use, just a few adverse factors can turn a very difficult task into an impossible one.

Recommended: Stealth vs. North Korea’s Air Defenses: Who Wins?

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Recommended: 5 Places World War III Could Start in 2018

Therefore, a submarine spying close to an adversary’s home port might not be able to spot another submarine heading towards it until after the collision—which can be worse than embarrassing for everyone involved.

On February 11, 1992, the USS Baton Rouge, a nuclear-powered Los Angeles–class attack submarine, was lurking twenty meters deep in the shallow waters off of Kildin Island, fourteen miles away from the Russian port of Murmansk. The Soviet Union had dissolved just two months earlier—but the Navy still wanted to closely monitor what had become of Russia’s powerful navy.

The exact nature of the Baton Rouge’s espionage activities has never been clarified. It could have involved recording the sounds produced by Russian submarines for later identification, or depositing and recovering intelligence-gathering devices.

At 8:16, something massive struck the 110-meter long Baton Rouge from below, scratching the nuclear-powered submarine’s hull and causing tears in its port ballast tank. Fortunately, the American submarine’s hull was not further compromised.

It turned out a Russian Sierra-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, the B-276 Kostroma, had attempted to surface underneath the American submarine. Swimming at around eight miles per hour, the Russian boat’s conning tower had impacted the belly of the American ship. The titanium-hulled Kostroma’s sail was partially crushed from impacting the Baton Rouge’s belly, and pieces of the American submarine’s anti-sonar tiles were later found embedded in its surface.

Both submarines were designed to launch cruise missiles from their torpedo tubes, some of which could theoretically be armed with nuclear warheads. However, Russia and the United States had recently agreed to withdraw such warheads under the START I treaty, and it was likely that the Baton Rouge at least no longer carried them. Still, a worse collision could have breached the reactors on either vessel, irradiating the submarines and the surrounding waters.

Fortunately, this did not occur. The Baton Rouge circled around and contacted the other submarine to make sure it wasn’t in need of assistance, and then both vessels returned to port for repairs.

The accident caused one of the United States’ first diplomatic incidents with the newborn Russian government, with Secretary of State James Baker having to meet in person with Yeltsin and assure him that the United States would scale back its spying in Russian waters, a message belied the following year by another submarine collision off the Kola peninsula.

The incident also highlighted differences on the definition of “international waters.” The United States follows the standard of measuring them twelve miles away from the nearest landmass. The Baton Rouge was in compliance with this principle. Moscow, however, defined them as extending twelve miles from a line formed by the two sides of a gulf, by which standard it considered the Baton Rouge in violation of its territorial waters.

The second in the prolific Los Angeles class, the Baton Rouge was only seventeen years old. However, the cost of repairing the 110-meter-long vessel, combined with the already scheduled expenses of nuclear refueling, was judged excessive and the boat was decommissioned in January 1995.

The Kostroma, however, was repaired and put back to sea by 1997, and remains active to this day. Russian sailors have painted a kill marking on its conning tower to commemorate the “defeat” of the Baton Rouge.

Stealth in Shallow Water

How did this accident even happen? Some articles in the press characterized the subs as having been involved in a cat-and-mouse game that had gone too far. Indeed, such games were common between the attack submarines of rival nations, and had resulted in collisions in the past.

However, that account remains unlikely because a submarine can only play a cat-and-mouse game if it is able to detect the other ship. And in the shallow waters off of Kildin Island, it is unlikely either vessel could.

This is because in shallow water, breaking waves create at least ten times the background interference for sonar operators, making it extremely hard to discern a submarine’s quiet propeller screw. Furthermore, even signals that are detected will have reflected off the ocean floor and the surf so that it would become difficult to isolate them against the background interference.

Analyst Eugene Miasnikov calculated in 1993 that the detection range using passive sonar of a slow-moving Sierra-class submarine in such a noisy environment would likely have been between one hundred and two hundred meters, or fewer if it was a windy day. And detection range might have fallen to zero if the Russian sub approached from a sixty-degree arc behind the Baton Rouge, which is not covered by the submarine’s fixed sonar array.

The Russian submarine would also have had little chance of detecting the quieter Los Angeles–class submarine. More powerful fixed antisubmarine sensors might only have been effective at ranges of three to five kilometers in such conditions, too short to reach the Baton Rouge’s position. Submarines can also deploy towed sonar arrays behind them to increase their sonar coverage, but these are difficult to control in shallow waters and were therefore not in use during the incident.

A submarine or surface ship could also use active sonar to emit sound waves that would reflect off another submarine’s hull. In shallow water, this might have increased detection ranges to a few kilometers. However, doing so would also reveal the platform using the active sonar.

The Baton Rouge surely did not use active sonar so as to remain undetected. Nor did it detect active sonar from the Kostroma. Thus, neither vessel was using active sonar, and their passive sonars were likely not strong enough to detect the other in the noisy shallows.

This explains why submarines measuring longer than a football field in length can run into each other, oblivious to the other’s presence until the crunch of impact. As evidenced by the alarming collision in 2009 between the nuclear missile–armed French Triomphant and the British Vanguard, the risks of underwater collisions between nuclear submarines remain quite real today.

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 first appeared in 2016. 

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

The F-117 shootdown was an embarrassing incident that the U.S. Air Force would rather like to forget.

Here's What You Need to Know: Stealth aircraft are not truly ‘invisible’ to detection.

At 8 p.m. on March 27, 1999, a bizarre-looking black painted airplane cut through the night sky over Serbia. This particular F-117 Nighthawk—a subsonic attack plane that was the world’s first operational stealth aircraft—flew by the call sign of Vega-31 and was named “Something Wicked.” Moments earlier, it had released its two Paveway laser-guided bombs on targets near the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade. Its pilot, Lt. Col. Dale Zelko, was a veteran with experience in the 1991 Gulf War.

A dozen Nighthawks had deployed to Aviano, Italy on February 21 to participate in Operation Allied Force—a NATO bombing campaign intended to pressure Belgrade into withdrawing its troops from the province of Kosovo after President Slobodan Milosevic initiated a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign seeking to expel the Kosovar Albanian population.

The Yugoslav National Army (JNA) possessed a mix S-75 and S-125 surface-to-air missile systems dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recent 2K12 Kub mobile SAMs and MiG-29 Fulcrum twin-engine fighters. Together these posed a moderate threat to NATO warplanes, forcing them to fly at higher altitudes and be escorted by radar-jamming planes like the EA-6B Prowler.

However, that evening the Prowlers were grounded by bad weather. Something Wicked and her three flight mates were dispatched anyway because their faceted surfaces drastically reduced the range at which they could be detected by radar and shot at.

Suddenly, Zelko spotted two bright dots blasting upwards through the clouds below, closing on him at three-and-a-half times the speed of sound. These were radar-guided V-601M missiles, fired from the quadruple launch rails of an S-125M Neva surface-to-air missile system. Boosted by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket motors, one of the six-meter long missiles zipped so close that it shook Vega 31 planes with its passage. The other detonated its 154-pound proximity-fused warhead, catching Zelko’s jet in the blast that sprayed 4,500 metal fragments in the air.

Something Wicked lost control and plunged towards the ground inverted. The resulting g-force was so powerful Zelko only barely managed to grasp the ejection ring and escape the doomed Nighthawk.

How had a dated Serbian missile system shot down a sophisticated (though no longer state-of-the-art) stealth fighter?

Zelko’s adversary that evening was Serbian Col. Zoltán Dani, commander of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade. Dani was by all accounts a highly motivated commander who studied earlier Western air-defense suppression tactics. He redeployed his Neva batteries frequently, in contrast to the static posture adopted by ill-fated Iraqi and Syrian missile defenses in the Middle East. He permitted his crews to activating their active targeting radars for no longer than twenty seconds, after which they were required to redeploy, even if they had not opened fire.

The S-125M wasn’t normally considered a ‘mobile’ SAM system, but Zoltan had his unit drilled to redeploy the weapons in just 90 minutes (the standard time required is 150 minutes), a procedure facilitated by halving the number of launchers in his battery. While his batteries shuttled from one site to another, Dani also setup dummy SAM sites and decoy targeting radars taken from old MiG fighters to divert NATO anti-radiation missiles.

Thanks to the decoys and constant movement, Zoltan’s unit didn’t lose a single SAM battery despite the twenty-three HARM missiles shot at him by NATO war planes.

Dani had noticed that his battery’s P-18 “Spoon Rest-D” long-range surveillance radar was able to provide a rough track of Nighthawks within a 15-mile range when tuned down to the lowest possible bandwidth—so low, in fact, that NATO radar-warning receivers were not calibrated to detect it. (Dani initially claimed he had modified the P-18’s hardware to achieve this, but later admitted this was a hoax.)

However, low-bandwidth radars are imprecise and cannot provide a ‘weapons-grade’ lock. However, that the NATO mission planners had complacently scheduled the stealth bombers on predictable, routine flight patterns. Worse, the Serbs had managed to break into NATO communications and could overhear conversations between U.S. fighters and the airborne radar planes directing them, allowing Dani to piece together a accurate picture of those routines.

The missile commander decided to set an ambush for the stealth jets, deploying S-125M batteries with a good firing angle on the NATO jets as they flew back to Italy. The thing is, stealth jets can be detected by high-band targeting radars at short distances. However, that still requires sweeping the sky for targets, and in the process illuminating themselves to enemy radars. That not only gave adversaries a chance to direct stealth aircraft away from the threat, but invited a potential strike by a HARM anti-radiation missile.

Therefore, Dani kept the battery’s targeting radar inactive, but cued them towards the approximate position of the stealth aircraft reported by the P-18 radar. Obligingly, the battery’s P-18 radar detected Something Wicked and three other F-117s—but when the high-band targeting radar activated for a twenty second ‘burst,’ it couldn’t acquire a target.

Dani claims that he had been alerted by spies in Italy that the Prowlers were grounded for that day, so he was willing to take greater risks and reactivated the targeting radar a second time rather than immediately relocating—still without result.

Finally, on the third try an S-125M battery locked onto Something Wicked when it was just eight miles away. Dani claims the window of opportunity came when the F-117 opened its bomb-bay doors to release weapons, causing its radar cross-section to briefly bloom.

After bailing out, Zelko concealed himself an irrigation ditch and only narrowly escaped capture by Serbian search parties that combed within a hundred meters of his position. The following evening, he was whisked to safety by an Air Force combat search and rescue team deployed from an MH-60G Pave Hawk special operations helicopter.

Dani’s unit later claimed the only other Yugoslav aircraft kill of the war, shooting down a U.S. F-16 on May 2. Another F-117 was damaged by a missile on April 30 but managed to return to base.

Something Wicked impacted Yugoslav soil upside down near the village of Budanovci. Parts of the wreckage can be seen today at the Serbian Museum of Aviation in Belgrade. Components were also flown to Russia and China and studied to inform their own stealth aircraft programs. Dani kept the plane’s titanium engine outlet as a memento.

The F-117 shootdown was an embarrassing, though fortunately non-fatal, episode for the U.S. Air Force. It has been endlessly cited since as ‘proof’ that supposedly radar-invisible stealth planes could ‘easily’ be shot down by even dated Soviet-era SAM systems.

The truth is more complicated. Zoltan’s ploy of using low-bandwidth radars to track stealth aircraft from afar indeed remains a cornerstone of counter-stealth tactics today. (Another is using infrared sensors, though these remain limited to around thirty to sixty miles in range.)

However, getting a platform with a high-bandwidth radar or heat-seeking weapons close enough to actually shoot at a stealth plane remains a major challenge. Afterall, the stealth jet could detect and simply avoid or shoot at an approaching threat. Dany benefited from having good intelligence of the F-117’s flight path that allowed him to position a missile battery very close to Vega-31’s avenue of approach.

Furthermore, the Nighthawk was a 1970s-era design with a larger radar cross-section than the F-22 and F-35. These modern stealth jets furthermore come equipped with their own onboard radars and carry a greater diversity of weapons, making them more dealing with surface- and air-based threats.

The takeaway, ultimately, is that stealth aircraft are not truly ‘invisible’ to detection, and that sufficiently cunning adversary may find ways to ambush or corner them. However, while Col. Dani’s leadership did exemplify many best practices of air defense warfare, his ambush of Vega-31 does not offer a ‘cookie-cutter’ solution to combating stealth aircraft, particularly as both low-observable airplanes and the SAM systems and fighters hunting them improve in capability.

Zelko and Dani would later meet under friendlier circumstances in 2011. The Serbian missile commander had resumed his profession as a baker in his hometown of Skorenovac. The former adversaries recorded a documentary about their meeting and subsequent friendship. For all the considerable ingenuity it invests in high-tech warfare, humankind fortunately also has a remarkable capacity for reconciliation under the most unlikely circumstance.

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

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Flickr / U.S. Depertment of Defense

Michael Rubin

Security, Middle East

The late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden famously said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” By that standard, locals no longer consider Hezbollah a thoroughbred racehorse, but rather a lame pony.

NABATIEH, LEBANON—Hezbollah flags fly from lampposts and billboards feature the faces of Hezbollah members killed in action in this southern Lebanese town which, by some estimates, is now Lebanon’s fifth-largest. Bearded men belonging to the group drive around the streets in new BMWs whose lack of license plates reaffirms their position above Lebanese law. 

Nabatieh is Hezbollah’s heartland, less than fifteen miles from Lebanon’s border with Israel. When Israel occupied a southern Lebanon buffer zone, Nabatieh was just outside and so a frontline post for Hezbollah. During the Operation Grapes of Wrath (or the “April War” as Hezbollah calls it), Israel bombed sites in the city. Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2000 bolstered Hezbollah by transforming it into the first Arab force to defeat the Jewish state in war. Hezbollah—and Nabatieh—both suffered during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War but the end to hostilities and Hezbollah’s subsequent rearmament against allowed the Iranian-backed militia to depict itself as strong.

Sitting at a tea house on the outskirts of town, locals—including veterans of the fight against Israel—now tell a different story. There are three types of Hezbollah members now, they say. The first are the true ideologues, the second initially embraced Hezbollah’s mission but are now embarrassed by its actions and antics, and the third just signed up for the money.  

All have trouble reconciling the group’s rhetoric with reality. While once Hezbollah slogans written on banners and plastered on billboards promised security and prosperity, today locals have neither. Hezbollah members may still receive salaries far above the local rate, but Iran’s financial troubles and subsequent diminishment of its subsidies to Hezbollah lead the group to half their payments leading to grumbling from within and ridicule from without.

The true ideologues, meanwhile, who once painted themselves as the vanguard of a new order must now explain how they and Iran remain impotent in the face of the U.S. assassination of Iranian Quds Force chief Qassim Suleimani on January 3, 2020, and, more recently, the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program, who was assassinated on November 27. Iran, many locals and Western journalists are attributing the assassination to Israel. Iranian leaders and Hezbollah swore they would revenge both attacks but they have been unable to do anything but have like-minded proxies fire a few missiles at U.S. forces and facilities in Iraq, most of which missed or did little damage.

Locals also point to the four thousand Hezbollah members dead in Syria and question not only why an organization that depicted itself as a Lebanese nationalist not only allowed its members to serve as mercenaries for Iran and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria but also why they fared so poorly as they did so. Some ridiculed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as a fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle since he must be hiding out in the sewers of Beirut’s southern suburbs in fear that if he emerges in person, he will quickly join Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh. 

Importantly, citizens in Nabatieh and other towns controlled by Hezbollah or its rival-turned-ally Amal are no longer limiting their criticisms to whispered conversations. Protests erupted last October against the political elite in Lebanon, and young Lebanese—men and women—from Nabatieh joined them. Women took off their scarves and men removed their face masks. Simply put, as Hezbollah becomes a shell of its former self, locals are losing their fear. There is a certain irony that in Washington, DC, Democrats loudly and Republicans a bit more softly suggest that the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran to be a failure, but in the heart of Hezbollah country, residents tell a different story. Hezbollah is cash-poor, resented, and has lost its luster.

The late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden famously said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” By that standard, locals no longer consider Hezbollah a thoroughbred racehorse, but rather a lame pony. The question moving forward is whether the Biden administration, in its animosity to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by pumping resources into the Islamic Republic of Iran, a gravy train which will benefit not ordinary Iranians or the citizens of southern Lebanese towns like Nabatieh, but rather groups like Hezbollah who locals say are a shadow of their former selves. 

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent author for TNI. 

Ethen Kim Lieser

Technology, Americas

The best-selling items included Amazon’s new Echo Dot, one of several products made by the company and discounted during the holiday season, former President Barack Obama’s latest book, A Promised Land, the Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer Hot Air Brush, and the Lite-Brite Ultimate Classic.

As the months-long coronavirus pandemic has forced more people than ever to do their shopping online, Amazon has indeed become the destination of choice.

Driven largely by online sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the e-commerce giant has announced that this year's holiday shopping season was the biggest in the company’s history.

Amazon did not provide specific financial figures on how much was spent during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The retailer, though, did note that independent businesses selling on the platform surpassed $4.8 billion in worldwide sales between the two large-scale shopping events—a surge of 60 percent from last year. It added that more than seventy thousand small and medium-sized businesses were able to enjoy sales of more than $100,000 in this holiday season.

“In a holiday season unlike any other, it’s clear that customers still want great deals on gifts for their loved ones or a little something extra for themselves, and we’re glad to help deliver smiles throughout the season,” Jeff Wilke, the chief executive officer of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, said in a blog post.

“Thank you to our customers, employees, and selling partners around the world for making this our biggest holiday season to date, and for everything you’re doing to support our communities and each other now and throughout the year.”

The best-selling items included Amazon’s new Echo Dot, one of several products made by the company and discounted during the holiday season, former President Barack Obama’s latest book, A Promised Land, the Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer Hot Air Brush, and the Lite-Brite Ultimate Classic.

With the pandemic on the minds of most people across the country, Black Friday foot traffic in stores cratered 52.1 percent compared to last year, according to Sensormatic Solutions. However, with a record number of consumers pivoting to shopping on computers and smartphones instead, online spending surged nearly 22 percent to hit $9 billion, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

Consumers spent $6.3 million per minute shopping online on Black Friday—or $27.50 on average per person. About $3.6 billion was spent via smartphones, a 25.3 percent increase compared to last year, reaching 40 percent of all online spending.

As for Cyber Monday, consumers opened their wallets to the tune of $10.8 billion, setting a record for the largest internet shopping day ever in the United States. Spending climbed 15.1 percent compared to the year prior, according to Adobe, which cut its online sales forecast for the entire holiday season to $184 billion—still a hefty 30 percent increase from last year. The original forecast called for sales of $189 billion.

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

Daniel R. DePetris

Politics, Asia

Beijing has many reasons to keep Pyongyang afloat.

In what will very likely be the last major speech on North Korea before the Trump administration leaves office, deputy U.S. envoy Alex Wong delivered remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies on November 30. The topic: the current state of the U.S.-North Korea dialogue. The prognosis was grim; the Kim dynasty, Wong said, has demonstrated no interest whatsoever in implementing the Singapore joint statement President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed in June 2018.

The speech, however, was just as much about China as it was about North Korea—or more to the point, China’s refusal to abide by the numerous U.N. Security Council sanctions it voted for over the last fourteen years. Wong was emphatic that the Chinese are not only turning their eyes from illicit North Korean coal exports in their territorial waters, but are actually deliberately hampering the U.N. sanctions regime. “I’ve spoken with enough Chinese diplomats to understand clearly what course of action the Chinese government is advocating,” Wong told the think-tank. “They are seeking to undo the UN sanctions regime they themselves voted for in 2006, in 2009, in 2013, in 2016, and in 2017.”

Beijing choosing to relax their sanctions enforcement, of course, is not unprecedented. Indeed, it would be more extraordinary if Chinese custom officials searched every box coming to and from North Korea or the Chinese navy intercepted every cargo ship carrying North Korean coal or seafood. What was interesting, however, was that Wong had concrete numbers to share. “On 46 separate occasions going back to 2019,” the deputy envoy said, “U.S. vessels provided information to nearby Chinese Navy or Coast Guard vessels that ships involved in DPRK fuel smuggling were fleeing into Chinese coastal waters. The Chinese authorities did nothing to stop these vessels in response. Not once.” The Chinese Communist Party, it appears, has made a concerted decision that it will let its North Korean neighbor export and import whatever it needs to survive at a time when the Kim dynasty is undergoing the triple-whammy of coronavirus-related restrictions, weather events, and U.S.-led sanctions. 

We can speculate as to why China is doing this. The most obvious reason cited is that the Chinese crave stability along their border and recognize that some level of trade with the North is required in order to stem an extreme humanitarian crisis. But one can’t help but notice that China’s lax sanctions enforcement is also occurring during a period when Beijing’s relationship with the United States is getting worse for the wear. It is highly likely China is using North Korea as a card in its wider competition with Washington.

Why is this relevant? Because President-elect Joe Biden’s entire North Korea strategy is predicated on the notion that his administration will be able to pressure or encourage the Chinese to crank up the economic pressure on the North and thereby force Kim into a new nuclear negotiation. Biden has made this link on numerous occasions throughout the presidential campaign, including during a Democratic presidential debate back in January. “I met with Xi Jinping more than anyone else,” Biden said at the time. “I would be putting pressure on China to put pressure on Korea, to cease and desist from their nuclear power...their efforts to deal with nuclear weapons.” The then-presidential candidate offered up a similar answer during his last presidential debate with Trump, recalling a time when as vice president he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would have to “step up and help” on the North Korea issue if he didn’t like what Washington was doing in the region.

Collaborating with China to tighten the economic screws on Pyongyang has been a bipartisan strategy that multiple U.S. administrations have tapped into since at least George W. Bush. Given North Korea’s dependence on China for approximately 90% of its total trade, it only makes sense for U.S. policymakers to probe whether their Chinese counterparts are willing to assist. Yet the Chinese have never believed bankrupting the Kim dynasty is a particularly effective way of increasing the odds of getting a denuclearization agreement or promoting peace and stability in their region. China can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea—what it can’t live with is millions of desperate, hungry North Koreans streaming across the border. 

Convincing China to cooperate on North Korea is tough on a good day. But it’s likely to be downright impossible when Washington and Beijing are on the opposite side of so many issues, from trade and technology to the South China Sea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Joe Biden’s North Korea policy is in effect anchored by a mirage—that a willing Xi Jinping will be a key partner in Washington’s maximum pressure campaign against the North. 

To be fair, Biden has yet to roll out an official North Korea policy. All we have at the moment are his words on the campaign trail. The Biden administration will do what other U.S. administrations have done since time immortal: launch a months-long inter-agency review in order to determine what U.S. objectives on the Korean Peninsula are, what combination of tools are appropriate to realizing those objectives, and how the administration will go about negotiating with the Kim dynasty. Back in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-un will be watching, waiting, and wondering whether the new U.S. commander in chief will offer up a different strategy from what previous presidents have settled on over the last thirty years.

Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist at Newsweek and a contributor to the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Jason Bartlett

Security, Asia

How legit was the alleged $3.2 million fuel and weapons deal?

The Mole: Undercover in North Korea is a ten-year sting operation documenting an alleged $3.2 million fuel products and arms deal in 2018 with constituents from North Korea, Jordan, and Uganda. Aired on the BCC and Nordic television in early October, this documentary immediately received a mixture of praise and speculation. While the credibility of the documentary itself is highly contested, the plausibility of North Korea evading U.S. and United Nations sanctions by selling weapons and narcotics through a third-party to non-sanction-abiding nations is unquestionable. 

For years, North Korea has sought overseas assistance to facilitate weapons and drug trade under the radar of U.S. and UN economic sanctions through ally countries and foreign nationals. Examples include a fifty-ton shipment of North Korean industrial-scale chemical weapons to Syria in 2016, a multinational attempt to bring 100kg of North Korean methamphetamine into the United States through British, Chinese, and Filipino dealers in 2013, an attempt to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Azerbaijan through a British arms dealer in 2012, a 20kg shipment of North Korean methamphetamine in Thailand in 2012, a secret North Korea-designed nuclear reactor built in the Syrian Desert in 2007, and $100 million building projects in Namibia starting in 2002. The alleged illicit arms deal featured in this documentary accurately depicts North Korea’s ability to exploit global corruption and third-party criminals to its benefit under strict economic sanctions. 

In The Mole, sleeper agent Ulrich Larsen gained access to several alleged North Korean government officials through befriending Alejandro Cao de Benós, the founder of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), a pro-North Korea international organization stationed in Spain. The proposed arms deal involved a $3.2 million contract, exchanging oil and petroleum with ballistic missiles and “pharmaceuticals/medicines” heavily implied to be methamphetamine. Signed in Pyongyang, the contract bore the signature of Kim Ryong Chol, the president of the Korea Narae Trading Corporation. The UN Panel of Experts August 2020 report described Kim as heavily involved in overseas North Korean proliferation finance efforts. The contract stipulated that “Narae will build the equipment factory in a third country to manufacture “military equipment and medicines” and “provide the technical staff to operate the factory.” This is a clear violation of global sanctions on North Korea as the purchase and distribution of weapons is outlawed through various UN resolutions and U.S. Executive Orders. 

The alleged triangular trade deal was planned in typical North Korean sanction-busting fashion. First, the third-party, who was one of the undercover agents unbeknownst to North Korea, will purchase the oil and petroleum on behalf of North Korea from a Jordanian businessman, Hisham El Dasouki of the Aktham Trading Establishment. Second, Hisham will illegally export the fuel products through his contacts in Russia, Dubai, and Jordan to North Korea via maritime trade obfuscation practices. In his own words: “Each time I export to [North] Korea, when I come back, I change the name of the ship….when you import or export, don’t sail your ship directly. There must be a point to stop and change documents, and then go.” After North Korea receives the fuel products, the third-party will then travel to Pyongyang under the guise of delivering humanitarian aid and load all the “contracted items” onto an aircraft before flying to the secret location in the third country. 

The North Korean officials chose Africa as the ideal location for a secret weapons factory but opted against Namibia due to UN pressure levied on the country for past sanctions violations related to illicit North Korean activity. If true, this represents both a victory and defeat for UN sanctions. According to this documentary, although North Korea no longer considers Namibia an ideal hotspot for sanctions noncompliance, it simply chose a less legally abiding nation in the same region, Uganda. Unless all UN Member States comply with UN sanctions, there will always be vulnerabilities for North Korea to exploit. 

The third-party then traveled to Uganda on behalf of North Korea to strike a deal with local officials and real estate brokers to purchase a secluded Ugandan island for $5 million USD. During the meeting, a Ugandan real estate broker informed the moles that he falsely told the island residents that they will build a hospital to control social unrest while constructing the facility. This is another indication of how widespread corruption and weak legal framework contribute to North Korea’s ability to evade even the strictest of economic sanctions. 

The documentary concludes with the mole, Ulrich Larsen, and the filmmaker, Mads Brügger, video calling their initial contact in the KFA from Denmark to inform him of their plan to expose North Korea’s global illicit activity. Their contact then immediately ends the call. Both Larsen and Brügger are currently in correspondence with the United Nations to discuss their alleged findings. Regardless of its disputed credibility, this documentary accurately represented the elaborate and innovative methods North Korea uses to evade U.S. and UN sanctions abroad. No other documentary has captured the international breadth of North Korea’s illicit arms and drug trade. When imposing economic sanctions against North Korea, U.S. policymakers should consider the plausibility of enforcing these measures abroad in regions where corruption and weak legal framework give room for continued illicit activity. 

Jason Bartlett is a Research Assistant for the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He previously worked at CSIS Korea Chair and the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. He tweets at @jasonabartlett. 

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Technology, Americas

The dispute between Dish and Nexstar affects even more stations, 164 around the country, and if the parties don’t reach an agreement by the Wednesday deadline, it will go down as the largest blackout of its kind in history. 

Heading into this week, both of the major satellite TV services, DirecTV and Dish Network, were facing deadlines for carriage agreements with owners of TV stations that could result in subscribers losing large numbers of channels.

Now, the DirecTV dispute with one of the companies, Tegna, has resulted in those channels disappearing, from both that satellite service and its sister service AT&T U-Verse. The sides failed to reach an agreement prior to the deadline Tuesday night. 

The blackout affects sixty-four stations in fifty-one markets, which are affiliates for all different networks, including NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and The CW, depending on the market.

“Unfortunately, DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse have not reached an agreement with TEGNA to keep our stations on the air,” Tegna’s Twitter account tweeted late Tuesday. “As we continue negotiating in good faith, you can watch your TEGNA station on other local providers or streaming services. And we’re always free over-the-air.” 

AT&T, the owner of DirecTV, responded in that tweet’s replies. 

“We can assure you we have every intention of getting TEGNA’s stations back as soon as possible, but the law grants TEGNA exclusive control over which homes can have their channels,” the account said. "We share your frustration and appreciate your patience.”

Also in the replies, one man complained that the blackout may cause him to miss Alex Trebek’s final shows as the host of “Jeopardy!,” which were recorded prior to the beloved host’s death last month. 

“In the midst of an ongoing pandemic, Tegna is demanding the largest rate increase we have ever seen and intentionally blacking out its most loyal viewers,” AT&T said in a separate statement to several media outlets.

“We challenge Tegna to return its local stations immediately while we finalize a new agreement and pledge to pay Tegna retroactively whatever higher rates to which we eventually agree. We share our customers’ frustration, appreciate their patience and intend to do all we can to resolve this matter soon.”

According to its brands page, Tegna owns such stations as WUSA in Washington, DC, WATL in Atlanta, KUSA and KTVD in Denver, Colorado, KSDK in St. Louis, Missouri, WCNC in Charlotte, South Carolina, KARE in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, KPNX in Phoenix, WWL in New Orleans, Louisianna, KHOU in Houston, Texas, KING and KONG in Seattle, Washington, and WFAA in Dallas, Texas. The company also owns the True Crime Network. 

DirecTV also faces the loss of its NFL Sunday Ticket package, although it maintains exclusivity through the end of the 2022 NFL season. 

The dispute between Dish and Nexstar affects even more stations, 164 around the country, and if the parties don’t reach an agreement by the Wednesday deadline, it will go down as the largest blackout of its kind in history. 

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

Image: Reuters

Caleb Larson

Security, Asia

It’s the latest in a recent flurry of construction aimed at bolstering the United States’ Pacific presence.

A local Mariana Islands newspaper recently quoted the Governor of the Northern Mariana Islands regarding an Air Force divert airport planned for Tinian, a part of the Northern Mariana island chain, saying, “it’s happening.”

Previously, the Department of Defense had signed a $21.9 million, forty-year lease with the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands government. The 2019 construction deal’s goal was airport infrastructure modernization, including running a fuel pipeline from the seaport to the airport, and expanding Tinian’s airstrip to allow for more and heavier aircraft to land with the intention of facilitating smoother aerial tanker refueling.

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

The CNMI, more commonly known as the Mariana Islands, form the westernmost point of United States territory. As such, the group of islands jut outward into the Pacific nearly 4,000 miles west of Hawaii.

Currently, the United States has a large military presence on Guam, (geographically part of the Mariana Islands, but administratively separate), including a brand-new Marine Corps base named Camp Blaz. Blaz is the first new USMC base in nearly seventy-five years, and a place that 5,000 Marines will eventually call home.

Andersen Air Force base, also located on Guam, is one of the most important air bases in the western Pacific, and is also the only base west of Hawaii that is capable of servicing the United States’ strategic bomber platforms: the B-1 Lancer, B-2, and B-52. Naval Base Guam is the naval component of the Joint Region Marianas, the region’s management authority.

Tinian

Located about 120 miles northeast of Guam, Tinian is well-positioned as a divert airfield. In that secondary capacity, Tinian’s expanded facilities could be used in the event that support infrastructure on Guam is not available, due to a natural disaster—or war.

A 2016 article published by Stars and Stripes, an American military newspaper, quoted the then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who stated that “The divert initiative in CNMI will create the only divert airfield in the Western Pacific and provide the U.S. Air Force the capability to conduct either temporary or sustained refueling operations from an additional location in the region… It will also give us another location to use when supporting contingency or natural disaster responses in the region.”

Postscript

Exactly when the expanded Tinian airstrip and infrastructure will be finished is unclear, though one thing is sure: the United States is rapidly expanding its Pacific presence at a time when tensions with China are rising. And in the event of a conflict, Guam and Tinian could likely form the tip of the American military spear.

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.

Image: Reuters.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Health, Americas

Nearly a third of Americans will likely be infected with the virus by the end of 2020. 

The nation’s top infectious disease expert is anticipating a “surge upon a surge” of coronavirus cases just weeks away from Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

“If you look across the United States, we are really in a public health crisis right now,” White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during a livestream session on Tuesday.  

“Now that we’re in the mid- to late fall, merging on into the winter, we’ve seen, because a variety of circumstances, a surge that has really surpassed the others.”

Despite stern calls from health officials to stay home over the holiday, more than 9.4 million people were screened in the Thanksgiving travel period, which started on the Friday before the holiday, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration. On Sunday alone, when many Americans were returning home from their Thanksgiving travels, the TSA revealed that it screened 1.17 million people.

Since the pandemic ground air travel to a halt in mid-March, checkpoints have screened more than one million passengers in only five days. Four of those days came over the Thanksgiving holiday period.

Given the high number of people who traveled and shared meals in close proximity with family and friends, the United States will likely see a “surge upon a surge” in new cases, Fauci said.

“One of the things that you should keep your eye on is that as we get two to three weeks beyond the Thanksgiving holiday, that it is likely . . . you’re going to start seeing the curve that had gone to flatten out go back up again, unless people really have done a considerable degree of mitigating,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added.

More troubling is the fact that cases were already rising before the Thanksgiving holiday and that trend has only continued. 

New daily cases in the country recently reached a grim single-day record of 200,000, and the rolling seven-day average of new cases is now more than 160,000. Florida on Tuesday became the third state to surpass one million confirmed cases, joining Texas and California.

On Monday, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned that nearly a third of Americans will likely be infected with the virus by the end of 2020.  

In all, there are roughly 13.8 million confirmed coronavirus infections in the United States, along with 271,000 related deaths. The virus is now killing, on average, more than 1,400 people each day in the country, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.  

“This is something that is quite problematic, and to say it’s challenging is to really say the least,” Fauci said.   

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

Kris Osborn

Security, Asia

In fact, Beijing might not even be able to land troops.

China is again threatening Taiwan with amphibious attack through a series of live-fire maritime warfare operations. Those military exercises utilized Type 022 stealth missile boats, Type 071 amphibious dock landing ships and landing craft. All of those units operated in tandem to demonstrate assault landing operational exercises. 

The exercise, which took place Nov. 18, “could be simulating a mission to land on a large island or a large group of islands and reefs,” a story in the Chinese government-backed Global Times reports. 

All of this raises a pressing and interesting question in light of recent Chinese comments about forcible reunification with Taiwan: just how quickly could an attacking Chinese Navy amphibious assault force take over Taiwan? It is certainly a question now commanding a large amount of attention among Taiwanese and U.S. military planners, who might be looking at a number of key dynamics impacting this equation.

First, any kind of Chinese movement toward Taiwan with amphibious attack assets would seen and closely monitored by Taiwanese, U.S. and other allied surveillance assets in the area. This surveillance would give commanders and those wishing to defend Taiwan an opportunity to plan and respond. Would China be able to make any kind of a successful initial entry or incursion before the U.S. Navy would have an opportunity to react with sufficient defensive power? 

To this question I would likely say no, for several reasons. Long range sensors, satellites and surveillance assets are not only regularly operating in the region in large numbers, but they are reaching new levels of technological sophistication when it comes to image fidelity, targeting and, most of all, newer kinds of hardened networking. This circumstance, which would draw upon Low Earth Orbit satellites, high altitude surveillance planes, ground based radar and sensor nodes from surface ships and aircraft, would likely make it next to impossible for any kind of closely approaching Chinese force to attack uncontested. Why? The answer is one word: weapons. 

Ship or submarine launched Tomahawk missiles can now pinpoint moving targets at sea from ranges as far as 900 miles, land-fired rockets could easily reach well into the 140-mile gap separating mainland China from Taiwan, and given Taiwan’s proximity, U.S. fighter jets from Guam or other allied territories in the region would be well within any kind of striking range. Fighter jets, anti-ship missiles and even land-fired artillery could travel far enough and long enough to disrupt, and even possibly destroy, key elements of an attacking Chinese amphibious force. China could not assume air superiority, nor can surface ships move fast enough to outpace fighter jets racing faster than the speed of sound to attack approaching amphibious forces. 

In the event that a Chinese amphibious force got close to shore, it would likely confront additional impediments, such as new Taiwanese submarines and Abrams tanks. The concept would be to stall, disrupt and destroy enough of any attacking amphibious force to in effect buy time until larger numbers of allied defenders can arrive. 

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.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Public Health, Asia

Famine, mismanagement, a crack down on smuggling, and international sanctions are all taking their toll.

Conditions have gotten so bad in parts of North Korea, due to rising prices and government crackdowns on coronavirus, that a homeless family of four reportedly froze to death in front of Musan Station in N. Hamgyong Province.

That’s according to a report published this week by Daily NK, which also stated that “an unprecedented atmosphere of unease has reportedly taken hold in the region.” These include massive inflation, coinciding with the North Korea campaign’s “80-Day Battle” propaganda campaign.

The story, which cited a source in the providence, stated that conditions have deteriorated in the province, due to tightened control due to the pandemic, as well as “pestering by the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Social Security,” which have prevented the type of smuggling that often makes economic activity and survival in the region possible.

In addition, those with foreign currency are hoarding it, leading to much less cash circulating in the local economy.

North Korea, per an AP story in mid-November, has been waging a labor campaign described as “The 80-Day Battle” since October, ahead of the ruling party congress that’s set for January. The campaign entails increased work in all areas of the country, in order to fill higher-than-usual quotas.

But indications are that the campaign has backfired, at least in North Hamgyong Providence.

“With the situation being what it is, people are spending less and tightening their belts, despite going hungry,” Daily NK’s source said. “There are even wretched scenes of entire families starving to death in the streets, as poor residents have no choice but to sit around hungry.”

This was what led to the death of the family of four at Musan Station, which reportedly happened on November 24. Upon learning of the deaths, per the report, a patrol team arrived and took the bodies to an undisclosed location. The report also said that the cries of children have become ever-present around that station.

North Hamgyong Province is North Korea’s northernmost province, bordered by China in the North and West and the Sea of Japan to the East.

Another report earlier this week stated that North Korea’s First Corps is expected to be far below its usual capacity when training begins this month. Due to large incidences of “malnutrition, desertions, and quarantines related to COVID-19,” some units are expected to only operate at around 60 percent capacity for the months-long training exercises. Those numbers have been compared to those during the 1990s famine known as “The Arduous March.” The regime has also been taking steps to catch and punish deserters.

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

Image: Reuters.

Rachel Bucchino

Politics, Americas

“It’s been an amazing four years,” Trump said to roaring supporters at an indoor holiday event. “We’re trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years.” Will he run? 

President Donald Trump added to the ballooned predictions of a 2024 presidential bid during his remarks at a White House holiday party on Tuesday night.

“It’s been an amazing four years,” Trump said to roaring supporters at an indoor holiday event. “We’re trying to do another four years. Otherwise, I’ll see you in four years.”

The video, which was streamed live on Pam Pollard’s Facebook page revealed a large number of people without masks, crowded together in support of the president—amid the seething coronavirus pandemic that’s infecting the country at unseen rates. Pollard is a member of the Oklahoma Republican Party.

The event was one of more than two dozen holiday parties expected to take place at the White House in upcoming weeks, even as the threat of the virus drowns major cities across the country.

“Trump appeals to a large segment of the Republican base. He has energized voters, both in the Republican party and outside of the Republican party. And, he has a strong media presence,” Stephen Ansolabehere, author and professor of government at Harvard University, said. “He will face opposition within the Republican party. Other Republican politicians will begin to position themselves for the 2024 nomination quite soon.”

The video is the most recent public tease at Trump’s 2024 White House bid, as reports first flourished in November about his potential candidacy. Sources close to the president told Axios last month that Trump was considering pulling a President Grover Cleveland by running non-consecutive terms, in the event that President-elect Joe Biden is certified the winner of the 2020 race and the president is nixed from the White House.

Cleveland was the only president in history to successfully leave his presidency and return to serve in a second term four years later after another president held office.

Ansolabehere also pointed to former President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 presidential election, where he unsuccessfully ran as a third-party candidate under the Bull Moose Party in a three-way race to the presidency, a party that opposed typical conservatism and called for social legislation and active federal oversight of the economy.

“Roosevelt's Bull Moose party suggests an intriguing possibility for Trump in 2024—a third party crafted around Trump's particular political brand and appeal,” he added.

Trump might decide to form his own third party based on “Trumpism” ideals in 2024, similar to what Roosevelt did in the 1912 election.

The president has attempted to reverse the 2020 election results through a legal cascade, claiming the race was filled with massive accounts of voter fraud and therefore a stolen election. But as the president and his legal team has been faced with several defeats in the courtroom, GOP party members are disfavoring future efforts of trying to overturn the results.

Rachel Bucchino is a reporter at the National Interest. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and The Hill. 

Image: Reuters

Alors que les relations entre la Turquie et la Russie demeurent marquées par l'ambiguïté et par une rivalité constante, celles qui lient Ankara et Minsk sont au beau fixe. La proximité entre MM. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan et Alexandre Loukachenko explique ce rapprochement qui permet au second d'écarter un (...) / Russie, Biélorussie, Turquie, Relations bilatérales, Armement, Autoritarisme, Diplomatie, Islam - 2020/12

James Holmes

Military History,

Not every military strategist withstands the test of time, but these guys do. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: These men were products of the times they lived in, but their words remain relevant today.

Ranking military strategists against one another is a slippery chore. Apart from the obvious differences among strategists—the historical epochs when they lived, the state of martial technology in their lifetimes, warmaking methods then in vogue—there's a more basic difference. Some strategists are mainly practitioners; others are mainly theorists.

So how do you judge, say, a field soldier like General Ulysses S. Grant—a victor whose bulldog approach to battlefield combat is Carl von Clausewitz's "principle of continuity” made manifest—against a Clausewitz, an indifferent soldier whose accomplishments as a man of letters shape strategic thought and actions to this day? Hard to say.

Oddly, many of the greats seem to be indifferent practitioners who started scribbling down their insights after being defeated, cashiered or both. Maybe failure clears the mind. It hardly renders their ideas moot. Indeed, you ultimately have to favor such teachers over doers. They mine the historical record—the record of the deeds of great captains—for insight into the arcane art of strategy. Napoleon and Frederick the Great are fixtures in Clausewitz's On War. Lord Horatio Nelson is the face of Alfred Thayer Mahan's sea-power theories. Thucydides has Pericles, Alcibiades, Brasidas, Lysander and many others. Practitioners supply the data for teachers to analyze and pass on.

You need both doers and thinkers to perpetuate strategic thought—but ultimately, the thinker with a feel for battlefield realities trumps the practitioner with little flair for analyzing his experiences, drawing out the takeaways and recording the results. Hence, wordsmiths, not commanders, dominate my list of “History's Five Greatest Military Strategists.” A ranking of self-made strategists might encompass warrior-statesmen from Julius Caesar to Nathanael Greene to Abraham Lincoln. With that disclaimer, onward!

Homer:

You've got to respect an author whose identity is lost in antiquity, yet whose writings still compel. As Lawrence Freedman notes, the chronicler of the Trojan War was among the first to explore two dominant themes in martial thought: biê, meaning brute force applied in frontal engagements, and mêtis, meaning craft, guile and subterfuge. It's commonplace to depict biê as the dominant strain in the Western way of war. And indeed, over the centuries, countless Western warriors and theorists have voiced discomfort with seemingly less-than-honorable methods.

Yet Homer reminds posterity that Europe has its own tradition of indirection and cleverness. This isn't just the province of Sun Tzu and his inscrutable Asian followers. Freedman sees Achilles as the face of biê, the Iliad as the chronicle of the direct approach. Trickster Odysseus is the face of mêtis, the Odyssey as Homer's brief for indirection. When you tote things up, the poet seems to conclude that both strands of thought are indispensable—but that biê harnessed by commanders with a gift for mêtis is best. Odysseus makes out better than Achilles. This is a discourse worth revisiting millennia hence.

Thucydides:

We return to the Aegean world for history's fourth-best military thinker. Many might give Thucydides pride of place on this list, and I might agree were this a list of grand strategists. But a treatise about boats and spears doesn't quite make the grade for a ranking of purely military strategy. Nor does the Athenian chronicler spell out his ideas with the clarity of a Wylie, Corbett or Clausewitz. Still, it's all there in Thucydides' History: the land power fighting the sea power, the importance of finance in warmaking, the imperative to build friendly and break enemy alliances, the calculus for opening secondary theaters or operations and much, much more besides. A work for all time.

J. C. Wylie:

Yet another dead white male! And yet I'm cheating here ... or, more charitably, deploying some mêtis of my own. Admiral Wylie acts as a proxy for non-Western strategists like Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong, who prize circumspection, as well as for Englishman B. H. Liddell Hart, the twentieth century's prophet of the indirect approach. Wylie is a kind of meta-strategist, using others' ideas to devise a unified field theory of strategy. He divides warfare into land, maritime, air and Mao schools of thought before concluding that Liddell Hart's big idea—indirection—is the one idea that spans them all. Wylie's compact volume is a tour de force. You might expect me, a maritime strategist, to reach for Mahan first when confronting difficult questions. Nope. Give me Wylie, who served on the Naval War College faculty in the 1950s, over Mahan, an NWC veteran from the 1880s and 1890s, any day.

Julian S. Corbett:

Clausewitz ventures onto the briny main in Corbett's writings. The English theorist wrote for global sea powers—the Royal Navy then, the U.S. Navy now—but any naval power, strong or weak, could press his ideas into service. He proclaims that the Mahanian idea—that the decisive fleet engagement is the route to victory at sea—is correct nine times out of ten. He then spends most of his book analyzing the remaining tenth. The upshot: sea powers can wage limited wars to shape events on land, and even the strong will find themselves weaker at certain times and places. To figure out how the weak can make themselves strong—and emerge triumphant from conflicts occupying that middle ground between peace and all-out war—ask Sir Julian.

Carl von Clausewitz:

The grand master. Best known for appraising the relationship between politics and war, civil and military affairs, Clausewitz sees strategy as military strategy. It's about using battles and engagements to advance the purpose of the war. Think about the general surveying a Napoleonic battlefield—his vision clouded by fog and the smoke of cannon, overseeing a military machine encumbered by friction and dark passions—and you get the idea. There is a reason courses in military strategy, whether Western or Eastern, start with Clausewitz. And there's a reason Asian theorists like Mao incorporate the Prussian into their meditations on politics and war. That's because he articulates a universal logic and grammar of armed conflict. Doing so merits numero uno on my list.

Now, many of you will protest who made my list, who got left off and who was placed where in the pecking order. Good! Get out there, immerse yourself in works on strategic theory, and draw up your own catalogue of go-to scribes. The destination of your intellectual journey matters. But the journey is where you find enlightenment.

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific. The views voiced here are his alone. This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

The forest was crawling with enemy soldiers. Third Platoon had to fight its way into its own company kitchen area.

The sound of German artillery shells shrieking overhead from across the Siegfried Line was not the wakeup call Technical Sergeant Robert Walter of 3rd Platoon, L Company, 3rd Battalion, 393rd Infantry Regiment expected to receive on the morning of December 16, 1944. 

He had experienced enemy shelling before. Since mid-November, when the 99th Infantry Division assumed responsibility for the sector of the Ardennes Forest previously manned by the 9th Infantry Division, Sergeant Walter and his fellow 99ers had been the recipients of regular artillery barrages that were carried out with predictable German efficiency. Every day at the same time, the periscopes on the bunkers across the Siegfried Line rose out of their ports. A short time later, a half dozen rounds would come crashing down on the American lines. After that, the guns fell silent for the rest of the day.

“That Ends Our Daily Ration!”

The men of the Checkerboard Division had started calling this their “daily allowance” and even found some comfort in the routine. Sergeant Walter and his foxhole mates figured the present bombardment was just more of the same and that, for whatever reason, the Germans were getting things done a little early that morning—0530 to be exact.

Soon, though, it became apparent that something was very different about this day’s enemy fire mission. Rather than a leisurely six rounds for the entire attack, that number of shells now rained down in a matter of seconds. Bright flashes lit up the darkness, the ground shook, and the noise was incredible.

Also, instead of dying out after a few minutes the barrage continued for what seemed like forever—and only grew in intensity. “That ends our daily ration!” one of the men with Walter quipped over the din as they huddled in their foxhole. To the  22-year-old technical sergeant, however, something big was obviously going on.

What puzzled Walter was that none of the shells seemed to be aimed at the thin line of infantrymen stretched along the International Highway, a north-south road essentially marking the border between Belgium and Germany. Instead, the target appeared to be farther west. He concluded that the enemy gunners were trying to knock out the 99th Division’s artillery battalions located a mile or so northeast of the twin villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath, Belgium.

At approximately 0730, the shelling lifted. Third Platoon and the rest of L Company stayed low in their foxholes, however. The sound of artillery was now replaced by rifle and machine-gun fire coming from seemingly everywhere around them. The rate of fire was especially heavy to the south, in the vicinity of L Company’s brother companies I and K.

The Wahlerscheid Offensive

This baffled Sergeant Walter. He could understand it if all of the noise was coming from the north, in the direction of Monschau. For the past three days a regimental combat team consisting of two battalions from the 99th’s 395th Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion from his own 393rd had been supporting the 2nd Infantry Division’s efforts to seize the Wahlerscheid road junction inside the German border. The Wahlerscheid offensive was critical in the Allies’ larger effort to capture the Roer River dams, which were key to their advance across the Roer Plain. The Germans knew this, too, and had waged a ferocious defense to ensure the Wahlerscheid crossroad stayed in their hands.

To support the Wahlerscheid drive, the remainder of the 393rd and the 394th Infantry Regiment to its south (the third infantry regiment of the 99th Division) had staged limited objective demonstration attacks all along their front lines. Their goal was to occupy as many enemy troops as possible to discourage German commanders from relocating these resources to the battle up north. The action had been brisk at times but nothing like what Walter was now hearing to his right. A significant action was underway.

Robert Walter: Platoon Leader and Sergeant

As he continued listening to the unseen battle raging nearby, Sergeant Walter again focused on his unique, and not entirely welcome, position within 3rd Platoon. Like every platoon in the 99th, the 3rd had been led by an officer, a second lieutenant, when the division entered the line. Soon after arriving in the Ardennes, however, the lieutenant made a clumsy jump out of the bed of a truck and fractured an ankle so badly that he had to be removed from combat. Due to the manpower shortage at that point in the war, no replacement was immediately named. So, for the time being, Sergeant Walter had become 3rd Platoon’s leader as well as its sergeant.

Until now, the young NCO had not found his dual role too overwhelming. But as the small arms exchange to the south continued growing in volume, the weight of his responsibilities began to press on him. He wished his company commander, Captain Paul Fogelman, would radio to let him know what was happening. The captain’s call finally came, but it was not at all what Walter had expected.

“Bob,” Fogelman’s voice crackled over the speaker, “I received a report that some Germans have infiltrated our kitchen area. Take your platoon back and clear them out.”

That was it? Along with the orders, Walter had hoped for an update regarding all that gunfire. But the captain did not act like he knew any more about the situation. “Yes, sir,” Walter replied. He was now more concerned than ever.

Clearing the Kitchen Area

Rousting his men from their foxholes, Walter briefed them on the mission and told them to take along only what they needed for the assignment, which in this case consisted mainly of rifles, ammunition, and grenades. The intent was to get the job done and get back to their foxholes as soon as possible, so everything not absolutely necessary was to be left behind. Within minutes, the platoon was headed west toward the company kitchen area located roughly three city blocks from the front line.

It might as well have been three miles. In the dense woods, the men could not see more than a few feet ahead of them. Not wanting to get separated and not sure what they were walking into, they proceeded with caution.

Before the platoon got halfway to its destination, Sergeant Walter’s worst fears were realized. Germans, a lot of them, began appearing all around the unit. This was much more than a few infiltrators. The forest was crawling with enemy soldiers. Third Platoon had to fight its way into its own company kitchen area.

Once there, the men began cleanup operations while Sergeant Walter radioed back to the front lines. “Hey, something’s really gone wrong!” he yelled into the handset. “There are more Germans back here than there are in front of us!” To Walter everything seemed to have gotten turned around and they were now fighting the war in reverse.

Despite the topsy turvy situation, 3rd Platoon’s order stood: clear the kitchen area. Surprisingly, the Germans there seemed more interested in continuing west than in trading bullets with Walter and his men. As the platoon moved in, these invaders moved out. Soon, the little patch of ground was back in friendly hands with the exception of one small building that no one had yet checked out.

Three Drunk Germans

By now, the sounds of battle from the surrounding woods had grown noticeably fiercer—and closer! Third Platoon went to ground, the men crouching or lying behind anything that offered even a measure of protection. Sergeant Walter desperately wanted to withdraw the platoon back to the company position, but he still was not sure about the status of that lone building. Under the circumstances, strolling up to the door and peeking inside did not seem particularly wise. The sergeant called to one of his men near the structure to throw a grenade at it, figuring the explosion would persuade anyone inside to come out.

The soldier’s toss missed the mark, and so did those of other platoon members who took a crack at the building. None could hit it. Since he had played a lot of softball as a kid, Walter finally decided he might have better luck. Rising to his feet behind a tree, he pulled the pin on a grenade, released the handle, counted to two, then stepped out and let fly.

Walter’s grenade did not hit its target either. But instead of falling short, it sailed over the roof of the building, exploding as it passed above the ridge. Shrapnel slapped down on the shingles; the noise inside must have been deafening. Despite being a serious overthrow, Walter’s effort had produced exactly the effect he had wanted.

At the same time, not 30 feet from where the sergeant made his throw, a flag rose from a foxhole that the L Company kitchen crew had dug sometime in the past. But its current occupants were not members of the 99th Division. Rather, they turned out to be three German soldiers with a machine gun who had decided to take cover there when 3rd Platoon showed up. Walter was stunned. He had no idea why they had not shot him down when he stepped out from behind the tree.

Third Platoon quickly moved to take the Germans prisoner. As these men were searched, Walter noticed something strange about them. They acted drunk. A couple of platoon members checked their canteens, and sure enough they contained alcohol.

“So that’s how they got them up for this fight,” Walter thought. “Sent them in drunk. Filled their canteens with liquor and then said, ‘Take off, boys.’”

“You Seem Kind of Lucky”

In the brief moments it took to disarm the Germans, the noise from the woods had turned into the zip and thwack of bullets cutting the foliage and striking objects all around, forcing the men of 3rd Platoon to take cover again. The battle was definitely headed their way. Everyone hugged the ground tightly.

During the firestorm, Private Snow managed to crawl up to Sergeant Walter, who was sheltering behind a tree. “Sergeant, do you mind if I stay near you?” he asked. “You seem kind of lucky.”

Lucky? Snow must have figured that since Walter had survived standing up to throw that grenade he had a streak of good fortune going. The sergeant and the private had trained together for two years, and Walter knew Snow to be a good soldier—quiet but competent. Snow was a Californian, and that had always struck Walter as funny—Snow from California. Right now, though, he could tell the private was scared to death. In the midst of the confusion, he felt compassion for the guy.

“Help yourself,” he replied.

Relieved, Snow moved close to Sergeant Walter, and the two men lay side by side as the gunfire intensified. A short time later, Walter said something to Snow, but the private did not respond. Glancing over at him, the sergeant was horrified by what he saw. Sometime in the last few minutes, a bullet had caught Snow between the eyes and he was dead. Walter never even felt him twitch.

No Sign of I Company

German infantrymen started pouring through the area. From the woods behind the Americans came the growling sound of enemy tanks—something 3rd Platoon was not at all equipped to handle. There was no time to contact the captain. Sergeant Walter knew he had to get his men out of the way. Otherwise, they would be prisoners or worse. But returning to L Company was out of the question. Motioning for the others to follow, he headed south toward I Company. They had no choice but to leave Private Snow’s body behind.

This move did little to improve the platoon’s circumstances, however. No matter how fast they traveled, they could not find the enemy’s flank but seemed permanently stuck in the middle of the German advance. Machine guns chattered and grenades exploded. Rifle fire filled the air. Guessing, dodging, hoping, and praying, 3rd Platoon kept pushing south, looking for any spot that could provide a defensive advantage.

The force of the attack carried the platoon completely through the I Company sector. As they passed through, the men were shocked not to find a single I Company soldier anywhere. By this time, I Company and the rest of L Company had pulled back to form a perimeter defense around the 3rd Battalion command post northeast of the twin villages, but no one in 3rd Platoon knew this at the time.

Worse yet, groups of enemy soldiers traveling west began cutting across the platoon’s route, separating some of its members from the rest of the unit. Sergeant Walter now found his already small command getting smaller by the minute.

Bad News from K Company

Third Platoon was finally able to stop its flight in the K Company sector, south of I Company, and what its men found there left them numb. As soon as the German artillery barrage lifted that morning, two battalions of Volksgrenadiers from the I SS Panzer Corps had slammed into K Company, wiping out two of its three platoons. A few survivors of this onslaught were still in the area, and they told Walter and his men that maybe 17 soldiers were left from both platoons. The rest had either been killed or captured.

More bad news followed. The traumatized K Company men reported that a couple of their buddies taken prisoner during the assault were wearing German belt buckles when captured. This infuriated their captors, who assumed these GIs had removed the buckles from the bodies of dead German soldiers they had killed, so they “re-removed” these souvenirs by slitting the Americans open with their bayonets.

The report sent a panic through 3rd Platoon, and each man did a quick inventory to ensure he did not possess anything that had once belonged to a German. Days earlier while on a patrol, some platoon members had come across a hollow tree stuffed with German money. Clueless as to why the stash was there, they decided some extra funds would come in handy once the 99th crossed into Germany and had stuffed their pockets full. Now, they pulled these bills and coins back out and threw them as far away as possible.

While this was occurring, Sergeant Walter remembered his own German item, an eye-catching little pin he had picked up in Krinkelt shortly before the 99th entered the line. The townspeople told him this decoration was given to any Belgian woman who became pregnant by an SS trooper as a reward for her contribution to the master race. Walter thought the pin was beautiful and carried it with him so he would not lose track of it. Taking it out of his pocket, he admired its beauty one last time and then tossed it into the underbrush.

Lying Low

Again, the roar of tank engines was heard, this time coming from the direction of the unpaved road from Hollerath, Germany, a southwestern route that intersected the International Highway and served as the dividing line between I and K Companies. Investigating this latest threat, Walter and his men could hardly believe their eyes. Scores of panzers accompanied by infantry were rolling down this muddy trail and headed west. The Americans had thought the road was impassable and probably mined as well. Now, the Germans were using it as a thoroughfare for their armor.

With no opportunity for other action, the soldiers of 3rd Platoon dove for cover wherever they could find it, hiding behind trees and bushes or burrowing into the snow. Walter found a spot in a clump of shrubbery so close to the road that if he had had a rod no longer than a fishing pole he could have tapped each tank as it drove by. It was the end of the line for Walter and his men. All they could do now was stay hidden and wait for the invaders to pass.

That did not happen soon. Hour after hour, the German tank and infantry procession continued. Eventually, the squeak of tank treads became so unnerving that one 3rd Platoon rifleman took a shot at a panzer. All this did was invite the next tank in line to fire a round in the direction of the shot. No one was wounded by the blast—the tank could not get its barrel down low enough.

Walter crawled around to all the men. “It’s no use firing at them,” he whispered. “We’re not going to stop them with rifles, so just lay low.” To the sergeant, he and his soldiers resembled ostriches helplessly sticking their heads in the sand. “What the hell am I going to do now?” he asked himself as he settled back into his hiding place.

“If Anyone Wants to Surrender, There Will be No Repercussions”

Late in the day, gaps started appearing in the enemy column, so Sergeant Walter decided to cross the Hollerath road with the prisoners his platoon had captured earlier and hike north in search of L Company. Despite the dense forest and the growing darkness, somehow he finally managed to find the company headquarters. Releasing his prisoners to headquarters personnel, he reported to his company commander.

Captain Fogelman had no new information he could share with his NCO platoon leader. The extent of the German offensive was still unclear; under these circumstances it was best for 3rd Platoon to remain where it was rather than risk trying to rejoin the company. Then the captain said something that sent a chill through Walter.

“If anyone wants to surrender, there will be no repercussions.”

The statement caught the sergeant by surprise but needed no further explanation. Captain Fogelman was acknowledging that 3rd Platoon’s situation was grim. If any platoon member decided to save himself rather than continue holding out, he would not face official punishment. It was a sobering consideration.

Unsettled, Sergeant Walter wrestled with himself all during his return to the platoon. He didn’t want to surrender and was sure his men didn’t either. So what should he tell them? It was a difficult call, but by the time he sneaked back across the Hollerath road, he had made up his mind. The company was not ready for 3rd Platoon to come in yet. They were to remain in place until a way out could be found. As he repeated this message to each group of men, he omitted what the captain had said about surrender and hoped he was doing the right thing.

Meanwhile, the enemy kept coming.

Word of the Malmédy Massacre

Sunday, December 17, brought more uncertainty to Sergeant Walter and his “lost” platoon. There seemed to be no end to the Germans’ advance down the Hollerath road. How did they ever manage to get such a large force that far forward without being noticed? And with the odds against it, how would 3rd Platoon survive? Increasingly, it looked like a hopeless situation.

As if the platoon’s predicament was not bad enough, late in the day word arrived that some Nazi outfit had gunned down a large group of American prisoners west of 3rd Platoon near a place called Malmédy. Walter and his men were aghast.

When this news broke, Sergeant Walter felt vindicated for not sharing what Captain Fogelman had said about surrender. On the other hand, every hour that passed put 3rd Platoon farther and farther behind enemy lines. The longer this battle continued, the harder it would be for soldiers on either side to abide by any form of recognized rules. By now, he was convinced the Germans knew where his platoon was hiding. If one of the passing units decided to take them prisoner, would they end up like those poor GIs near Malmédy? The Army never used the word retreat but referred to such actions as a “strategic withdrawal.” As he watched the enemy race by, Walter hoped somebody somewhere was working on a strategic withdrawal plan and would get it to them soon.

At roughly 2300 that night, during a lull in the traffic on the Hollerath road, 3rd Platoon was startled to hear the sound of a vehicle coming up the road from the west. The vehicle turned out to be an American medical jeep that had been sent forward to evacuate the wounded. The fact that this driver got through was miraculous to Sergeant Walter; Germans were thick on all sides. Apparently, they had seen the jeep’s Red Cross symbol and respected it—a heartening sign after the Malmédy news.

Despite their surprise, Sergeant Walter, his best friend Staff Sergeant Walter Levdansky, and several other soldiers came out of hiding to assist the driver. After helping load three litter cases onto the jeep, they watched the driver speed off into the night headed west. “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” Sergeant Walter thought. The idea that the driver could make it back to the safety of the American lines was harder to fathom than the possibility of reaching 3rd Platoon in the first place.

Late on the morning of December 18, Sergeant Walter received word from Captain Fogelman that 3rd/393rd had been ordered to pull back to a new defensive position near a place called Elsenborn. Not certain what this meant for 3rd Platoon, Walter made another trip to L Company, seeking more information.

Two Disturbing Sets of Orders

“We think we’ve found a route back to our lines,” Fogelman said after Walter arrived. He explained that about 100 yards west was a little valley bordered on its far side by a hill. The valley ran north for some distance before turning west, and L Company was going to use this defilade to withdraw. But to mask this movement, one unit would have to create a diversion. Then he dropped a bombshell. That unit was 3rd Platoon. “I want you to keep your platoon where it is and give us covering fire while we pull out,” he added.

Taken aback, Sergeant Walter began to wonder what his commanding officer thought of him and his men. Did he consider them expendable? Who was going to cover their withdrawal? This “plan” sounded more like a suicide mission.

Captain Fogelman next briefed the sergeant on when and where 3rd Platoon was to reconnect with the company after the withdrawal, and then dismissed him to return to his men. As he was leaving headquarters, Walter overheard a directive that was even more disturbing than the orders he had just been given. An officer told several GIs to take the three prisoners he had brought in two days earlier into the woods and shoot them. Later, while Walter was still en route to his destination, gunshots sounded from the area where the officer had pointed.

“Okay, Let’s Go”

Back with 3rd Platoon, Sergeant Walter gathered his men and briefed them on their mission. Then he had them cross the Hollerath road in small groups. The platoon moved north to take up new positions nearer to L Company. At the time when the company’s pullback was to begin, 3rd Platoon cut loose with a brief but intense rifle volley in the direction of the advancing Germans.

This ignited a hailstorm of bullets and mortar rounds from the other side. But instead of being directed at 3rd Platoon, this barrage thundered down on the valley where L Company was trying to make its escape. How had they known, and how bad were things in that valley? Suddenly, the sergeant felt much better about the role his platoon had been given in this operation. Maybe the captain had done him and his men a favor after all.

Now, a game of chicken began as Sergeant Walter tried to determine whether the Germans that blasted L Company had left the area or were still out there waiting for 3rd Platoon to make its move. After an hour and a half, he called the men together.

“First of all, I’ve been told if you want to surrender, it’s no disgrace,” Walter said, finally sharing what Captain Fogelman had told him earlier. “We aren’t trained this way, but do you see that hill behind us? Personally, I’m going over it. If you want to follow me, you can. If you have a route you think is better, take it. The main thing is to get out of here and get back to our lines.”

To a man, the platoon voted to follow their sergeant.

Walter had one more precaution to take. Directing his men to redistribute ammunition so that each soldier had at least one full clip, he ordered the platoon to fire another volley at the Germans to see if they would answer in kind. After roughly 10 minutes, when there was no return fire, he gave the order: “Okay, let’s go.”

Fighting the Germans and the Elements

Although unconventional, Sergeant Walter’s plan worked to perfection. He and his men were cresting the hill before the Germans, who had been waiting for the platoon, realized what was happening and opened up with machine guns. Even then, they had been anticipating another move through the valley and had registered their weapons too low to have any effect. The bullets chewed harmlessly into the hillside while the platoon made good its break.

The greatest enemy facing 3rd Platoon now became the weather. The snow was already two feet deep and more was falling. It was miserably cold, and the wind was whipping the heavy curtain of flakes around so hard that visibility was practically zero. Unlike some other soldiers he had trained with back in the States, Sergeant Walter had made the most of his time in compass school. Now that skill became a lifesaver, keeping him and his men on course for their hookup with L Company rather than wandering aimlessly around the woods.

Third Platoon’s route took it through the sector previously occupied by the 99th Division’s artillery battalions. There the unit found big guns and towing vehicles, jeeps mostly, that had been abandoned in place because the withdrawing units did not have time to ready them for travel. Determined not to leave anything useful for the enemy, the men paused long enough to drop grenades into gun breeches and engine compartments. Then, realizing that the explosions might attract the attention of any German units nearby, they made a hasty exit.

A short distance away, though, the platoon stopped again when it ran across the artillery unit’s food dump; not food in packages—a literal garbage dump. Hunger overcame fear as men who had not eaten in three days scrounged through other men’s castoffs looking for something edible. Sergeant Walter managed to find a piece of bread that had not been totally demolished by the elements. His buddy Sergeant Levdansky was the big winner. He found a whole raw potato.

Rendevous with L Company

That evening as darkness settled in, the worn out men of 3rd Platoon finally reached their rendezvous point with L Company, a section of woods to the east of the twin villages. The place was fairly open with sparse underbrush but still offered good concealment for L Company and the assorted stragglers from other units who had assembled there. Relieved to be back among so many friendly faces, Sergeant Walter and his men relished the prospect of catching a little shut-eye before making the final push to their new defensive positions.

But sleep was in short supply that night. As always, the Germans seemed to know exactly where L Company was and threw a steady stream of phosphorous flares over its position, lighting up the area like it was daylight. Instead of getting some much needed rest, the men of 3rd Platoon, along with the others, were forced to stay awake, bracing for sniper fire and an artillery attack that never came.

The flares finally tapered off around midnight on December 19. Shortly afterward, L Company crept away under cover of darkness, trudging northwest for hours through the snow and ice to rejoin 3rd Battalion at a place that was not even on the map but would soon become renowned because of its stubborn defense by the American units dug in there. They stopped SS General Josef “Sepp” Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army dead in its tracks. That place was Elsenborn Ridge.

Technical Sergeant Robert Walter had no inkling that this destiny lay ahead as he stared wearily at the boomerang-shaped piece of high ground in the faint morning light. After three gut-wrenching days behind enemy lines, caught between indescribable firepower while enduring fear, cold, hunger, and the threat of capture or death at any moment, he had already gone through hell and survived. Elsenborn Ridge was not heaven by a long shot, but at least it offered his 3rd Platoon the chance to live and fight another day.

And for now, somehow, that seemed like more than enough.

Epilogue

Sergeant Walter survived the war and returned to his home in Fostoria, Ohio, where he served as a police officer for nearly a decade before entering private industry. Throughout his working career, he also gave freely of his time as a volunteer to many civic organizations in the Fostoria community. Sergeant Walter passed away April 19, 2014, at the age of 91.

Jay Marquart is a freelance writer from Bluffton, Ohio, whose writing has appeared in such publications as Horse & Rider, Military Medical/ CBRN Technology, and Vietnam.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Ari Heistein

Security, Middle East

While Israel is not a party to the war in Yemen, it does have interests in the arena.

The trajectory of the war in Yemen is now highly uncertain due to a number of factors which include the upcoming change in U.S. administrations as well as the failure of the Saudi efforts over the past year to maintain internal cohesion within its coalition and reach a negotiated settlement with Houthis. The present uncertainty provides an impetus for Jerusalem to recalibrate its approach to the Yemen conflict, and it should consider shifting its policy to one which more actively supports the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in South Yemen.

While Israel is not a party to the war in Yemen, it does have interests in the arena: preventing the Iran-backed Houthis from growing more powerful and acquiring advanced weapons from Tehran, extricating Saudi Arabia (Israel’s unofficial partner in the regional anti-Iran coalition) from the costly quagmire, and preventing the resurgence of jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. The current state of affairs, in which Saudi Arabia leads a coalition supporting the central Government of Yemen (GOY) headed by President Hadi, advances only one of Israel’s three interests in the theater.

Based on the events over the past five years, the second half of which has been a stalemate between Saudi-backed forces and the Houthis, Hadi’s government appears unable to eliminate or even diminish the Iranian proxy threat. If anything, recent years have seen the pace, accuracy, and sophistication of Houthi attacks increase considerably.

In addition, despite Saudi Arabia’s best efforts, it appears unable to extricate itself from the conflict that has already cost it dearly in blood, treasure, and international reputation. This is because if Riyadh withdraws before a political settlement has been reached—and any deal seems like a remote possibility at present—then the GOY could collapse under Houthi pressure and leave Saudi Arabia without any channel of influence in what is often described as its “backyard.”

The one Israeli interest that has been advanced in Yemen is the decimation of Sunni jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). However, this is hardly the handiwork of the Saudi-backed Hadi government. Rather, close cooperation between the United States, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and UAE-backed southern forces has led to the degradation of jihadists groups from their peak in 2015-2016 when AQAP took control of the Yemeni port city of Mukalla.

To ensure that its interests are protected in the face of potentially dramatic changes, particularly in Saudi policy, Israel should consider supporting Yemen’s STC in its ambitions to achieve independence for South Yemen. An independent South Yemen could safeguard Israel’s interests to a considerable degree: The STC and its UAE backers have already demonstrated willingness to take on jihadist forces, they are not dependent on Saudi support, and their rise could allow for Riyadh to end its costly involvement in Yemen. Geographically, they leave any future Iran-aligned Houthi state in north Yemen essentially encircled by hostile forces. The partition of Yemen would also deny the Houthis the fig leaf of legitimacy—a benign cover for malign activity—which would be granted to them in the event of a political settlement that maintained Yemen’s unity (a la Hezbollah).

However, it must also be acknowledged that Yemen’s STC will not resolve the Houthi threat. Given their southern separatist orientation, it is obvious why STC forces would be uninterested in conquering that very same northern Yemen territory from which they seek to secede. But in light of the fact that a unified and moderate Yemen is not a realistic possibility for the foreseeable future, partitioning the country may represent an optimal alternative between the extremes of unrealistic optimism regarding the prospects of the GOY and forsaking Yemen to the Houthis.

For Israel in particular, the rise of the STC could be a positive development given the organization’s apparent openness to Jews and the Jewish state. Two days after the UAE-Israel normalization agreement was announced, STC Vice President Hani Bin Brik declared his interest in visiting Tel Aviv, meeting with Jews from South Yemen, and then going together with them to Jerusalem to pray. Such public identification with Israel and Jews is quite rare in the Arab world and could mean that Israel has a potential ally conveniently located around Bab al-Mandeb—one of the most important maritime chokepoints in the world. In the Yemeni theater, all of the alternatives to the STC are far more hostile or at least standoffish in their approach to Israel.

At present, the STC is in control of Aden but it is not yet ready to govern the entirety of South Yemen because it lacks both the infrastructure to provide essential services and the adequate global support to delineate new international boundaries in rejection of those borders established when Yemen was unified in 1990. But it is worth remembering that there are no silver bullets or elegant solutions to this very messy conflict. Supporting the STC will not deliver a quick fix for Yemen because no such quick fix exists. Yet Israel might consider how it could support South Yemen’s aspirations as a means to ensure its interests in a strategic location at a time of great uncertainty.

Ari Heistein is a research fellow and chief of staff to the director at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel.

Image: Reuters.