Diplomacy & Crisis News

Michael Rubin

Security, Europe

Simply put, too often, the United States plays checkers while other countries play chess. It is time for Washington, Paris, and others in the international community to think several steps ahead and anticipate the next war in the Caucasus if only to prevent it. Diplomats may value quiet, but they should be wary when past precedent and current evidence suggests quiet is not the foundation for peace, but rather the calm before an even greater storm.

The guns are silent, Russian peacekeepers both separate Armenians and Azeris and guard ancient Armenian monasteries to prevent their destruction by Azerbaijani soldiers and Syrian mercenaries. The joint Turkey-Russia truce monitoring center will soon begin operations in Azerbaijani-controlled portions of Nagorno-Karabakh. American and French diplomats assigned to the Minsk Group, meanwhile, seek to return to a diplomatic process shredded when Azerbaijani forces backed by Turkey launched a surprise attack on Artsakh, as Armenians called the self-declared independent entity in Nagorno-Karabakh.

It might seem the war is over but Western diplomats should be wary: The modalities surrounding the Lachin corridor—the land route connecting Armenia to Armenian-held portions of Nagorno-Karabakh through Azerbaijani-controlled territory—are not been fully resolved, and the route remains dangerous for civilians who are subject to sniper fire and kidnapping, Russian peacekeepers notwithstanding.

Lachin might be an irritant, but it is not the major problem. The November 10 ceasefire was a barebones document, written in a hurry. The clause which may sow the seeds for a new war is the last: “The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the safety of transport links between western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic with a view to organizing the unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles and cargo in both directions.”

There are two problems: First is the use of the plural “links” to connect the two portions of Azerbaijan separated by Armenia. That suggests more than one road or railroad and the further bifurcation of Armenian territory. That might be a diplomatic spoiler to any hope that peace will quickly follow the ceasefire, but it is unlikely alone to be a casus belli.

Rather, the second problem will be the Turkish truck traffic which will use the new route both to consolidate Turkish influence in Azerbaijan and extend Turkey’s economic and cultural ties to Central Asia. Should the traffic flow normally, there will be no issue. But should a sniper, for example, kill a Turkish truck driver, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will both blame Armenia and demand a buffer zone to ensure safe passage along the routes. Such a scenario is not far-fetched: Whether with regard to the “Reichstag Fire” coup or false flag terrorism, too often elements within Turkey seek to spark a crisis which Turkey then seeks to use to its advantage.

That Erdoğan has previously converted demands for “counter-terrorism” buffer zones into territorial gain will only encourage him to try the same tactic again. Turkish forces remain entrenched in northeastern Syria, where they issue Turkish identity cards, impose Turkish education, and build Turkish post offices.

And just as ethnic chauvinism toward Kurds appears to have motivated Erdoğan’s moves into northern Syria, so too does Erdoğan’s disdain for both Armenians and Christianity color his moves now. Indeed, it was no coincidence that when Erdoğan picked the date for Turkey and Azerbaijan to launch their assault on Nagorno-Karabakh, he chose the closest Sunday to the 100th anniversary of the 1920 Turkish invasion of Armenia.

No Armenian government, neither that of incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan nor any opposition figure, will be able to accede to a Turkish ultimatum to cede control over wide swaths of Armenian territory. Any buffer zone demand will, in effect, partition Armenia. The Armenian military, however, will be unable to match Turkey in either equipment or manpower. The only wildcard in such a scenario is Russia but the events of the past month suggest Erdoğan’s overconfidence trumps his fear of Russian deterrence.

Simply put, too often, the United States plays checkers while other countries play chess. It is time for Washington, Paris, and others in the international community to think several steps ahead and anticipate the next war in the Caucasus, if only to prevent it. Diplomats may value quiet, but they should be wary when past precedent and current evidence suggests quiet is not the foundation for peace, but rather the calm before an even greater storm.

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

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security,

It couldn’t figure out how to sink one of its own.

Here's What You Need to Remember: To even try to sink an American flattop, you first must hit it. That's not easy, either. No carrier sails without an air wing with as many as 50 fighter aircraft plus several escorting destroyers, cruisers and submarines. A virtual wall of defensive weaponry surrounds the flattop out to a distance of several hundred miles.

A Chinese admiral and pundit told a trade-show audience that Beijing could resolve China's territorial disputes by sinking two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and killing thousands of American sailors.

Rear Adm. Lou Yuan's threat isn't an empty one. The Chinese military has deployed an array of weaponry that it acquired specifically to target American flattops.

But a U.S. Navy test in 2005 proved that even if you hit them, carriers are really hard to sink.

Lou made his provocative comment on Dec. 20, 2018 at the Military Industry List summit, according to media reports.

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” declared Lou, an anti-American author, social commentator and military theorist at the PLA Academy of Military Science.

Sinking just one carrier could kill 5,000 Americans, Lou pointed out. Sink two, and you double the toll. "We’ll see how frightened America is" after losing 10,000 sailors, Lou crowed.

Leaving aside the likelihood of a full-scale war breaking out between the world's two leading military powers and economies, sinking a carrier is easier said than done. History underscores the difficulty of the undertaking.

In 1964 Viet Cong saboteurs managed to damage and briefly sink the former U.S. Navy escort carrier Card while the vessel, then operating as an aircraft ferry for U.S. Military Sealift Command, moored in Saigon.

But the last time anyone permanently sank a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in combat was during World War II. Twelve American carriers sank during the war, usually following intensive air attacks. The last to sink, USS Bismarck Sea, fell victim to Japanese kamikazes in February 1945.

In subsequent decades, American flattops suffered serious accidents including collisions and fires, but none sank. It's very difficult to sink a buoyant, thousand-feet-long ship that's mostly made of steel.

The U.S. Navy knows this from experience. In 2005, the Navy itself targeted the decommissioned carrier America in order to determine just how much punishment the vessel could withstand before slipping beneath the waves.

"The ship was pummeled by explosions both above and below the waterline," The War Zone reporter Tyler Rogoway explained in 2018. "After nearly four weeks of these activities, the carrier was scuttled. On May 14, 2005, the vessel's stern disappeared below the waterline and the ship began its voyage to the seafloor."

"America stood up to four weeks of abuse and only succumbed to the sea after demolition teams scuttled the ship on purpose once and for all, it's clear that America was built to sustain heavy damage in combat and still stay afloat."

Consider also the carrier-shaped pontoon ship that Iran built as a scale target for a 2015 war game. While small and flimsy compared to a real flattop, the pontoon vessel itself endured an intensive assault. "Iran struck the faux carrier with a barrage of anti-ship missiles, then swarmed it with small boats and then landed commandos on it," Rogoway reported.

Still, the fake flattop apparently remained afloat.

To even try to sink an American flattop, you first must hit it. That's not easy, either. No carrier sails without an air wing with as many as 50 fighter aircraft plus several escorting destroyers, cruisers and submarines. A virtual wall of defensive weaponry surrounds the flattop out to a distance of several hundred miles.

Still, China or another country could attempt to target the carriers with submarines, cruise missiles and ballistic rockets. 

"They will employ multiple systems in order to confuse and overwhelm U.S. defenses," naval historian Robert Farley wrote in 2017. "They will rely on the threat of attack to keep U.S. carrier battle groups as far as possible from the main theaters of operation."

"But the observation that the enemy has a missile or torpedo that can kill a carrier only begins a conversation about carrier vulnerability," Farley continued. "Shooting anything at an aircraft carrier is a costly, difficult operation."

The carrier's attackers could face withering counterfire from the vessel's defenders. "Beyond the monetary cost, launching an open attack against an American carrier strike group, with its own cruisers, destroyers and submarines, is almost certainly a suicide mission."

And if the United States' reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks is any indication, Washington surely would deploy all its remaining military might, including its surviving eight or nine carriers, against country behind the sinking.

"So there are two questions that remain for anyone who thinks they even have a shot at taking down one of these enormous steel behemoths," Farley explained. "Can you do it? And even if you can, is it worth it?"

David Axe serves as the new Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. (This first appeared last year.)

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

Security,

The Cold War revisited.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Both the Soviets and the Americans had options in Asia. The strategic environment was far more fluid than in Europe, allowing a variety of different choices to disrupt and destabilize the opponent. This made the course of war far less predictable. At its (nonnuclear) worst, war could have raged across Asia on multiple fronts, from Korea to Japan to the Sino-Soviet border.

Nearly every analyst during the Cold War agreed that, if Moscow and Washington could keep the nukes from flying, the Central Front in Europe would prove decisive in war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The NATO alliance protected the Western European allies of the United States from Soviet aggression, while the Warsaw Pact provided the USSR with its own buffer against Germany.

But when the Cold War really went hot, the fighting took place in Asia. In Korea and Vietnam, the Soviet Union waged proxy struggles against the United States, and both sides used every tool available to control the destiny of China. However, while few believed that the Pacific theater would determine the victor of World War III, both the United States and Soviet Union needed to prepare for the eventuality of war there.

Scholars have devoted far less attention to the planning of World War III in East Asia than to the European theater. The two classic novels of the Third World War (Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising and John Hackett’s The Third World War) rarely touched on developments in Asia. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Naval War College traced the potential course of war in East Asia as part of a series of global war games. These games lend a great deal of insight into the key actors in the conflict, and how the decisive battles of a Second Pacific War might have played out.

The Players:

China

How would China have reacted to the onset of a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact? Beijing certainly regarded the survival of NATO as critical to its security from the 1970s on. The existence of NATO prevented the USSR from concentrating the bulk of the Red Army and of Soviet strategic aviation against China; a Soviet victory in the West would have put China in great peril. By the 1980s, China stood at a massive technological disadvantage against the USSR. Moreover, Beijing worried (perhaps rightly) that even if the USSR held its nuclear fire against NATO, it would view a strategic exchange with China as less risky. Thus, there was no guarantee that China would open a second front against the USSR.

Japan

Japan combined extraordinary economic strength with significant military power and a crucial geographic position. A Japan committed to the United States could effectively prevent the sortie of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, while enabling attacks against the Soviet Far East. A neutral Japan limited these options, but still provided the NATO alliance with a strong economic foundation in case of a protracted war. Washington had the advantage; it only depended on how and how much.

Korea

Would North Korea have joined a general Soviet war against NATO by invading South Korea? Such a move would have put extraordinary pressure on U.S. forces, although by the 1980s South Korea could probably survive with only measured U.S. assistance. However, Pyongyang answered to two masters; it required the support of both Beijing and Moscow. Given the unlikelihood that China would support a Soviet war against NATO, the prospect of Beijing’s acquiescence in a second Korean War would have been extremely sketchy.

Southeast Asia

The Soviets had an ally in Hanoi, but no means to support that ally against either China or the United States. Moreover, the Vietnamese had little to gain from joining a conflict; they were substantially controlled by Laos and Cambodia, and could do little more than harass shipping lanes in the South China Sea. However, given the bloody nose that Vietnam had inflicted on both countries in 1975 and 1980, neither Washington nor Beijing would have had much interest in reopening the conflict, especially with far more pressing issues at hand. That said, Vietnam could still make some mischief with U.S. allies in the region, and the PRC still had scores to settle.

The Chess Pieces:

Soviet Pacific Fleet

The Soviets took the Pacific seriously. By the 1980s, the fleet included two Kiev class aircraft carriers, and one Kirov class battlecruiser. In peacetime, the ships of the fleet sailed widely, regularly visiting Southeast Asia and even the Indian Ocean. Wartime, however, would have tightly constrained their operations. The Sea of Okhotsk served as a bastion for the SSBNs of the fleet, and naturally as a target for U.S. attack. Soviet objectives would have included the neutralization or defeat of Japan, the defense of the Russian Far East and potentially the penetration of the Pacific in order to attack maritime supply networks and distract U.S. attention from Europe.

U.S. Pacific Fleet

The United States Pacific Fleet commanded the balance of power in the region. With several carrier battlegroups supported by a variety of amphibious assault ships, battleships, nuclear attack submarines and a large array of land-based aircraft, the U.S. Navy could have undertaken both offensive and defensive operations to control the pace and course of the war. Moreover, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense force and the Royal Australian Navy could have both offered extensive support to the Americans. The central objectives for Allied naval forces would first have been to detect and defeat any Soviet efforts to penetrate attack submarines into the Pacific or Southeast Asian shipping lanes. Second, the U.S. Navy had taken upon itself a mission of attacking the periphery of the USSR directly, in order to distract the Red Army from the Central Front in Europe. At a minimum, this would have involved missile and airstrikes against Soviet installations throughout the Far East. At a maximum, it could have involved amphibious assaults against lightly defended Soviet targets.

The War Games

The Naval War College examined the potential for World War III in Asia as part of its global war game exercises in the 1970s and 1980s. Played annually between 1979 and 1988, each of the games explored alternative strategic and technological aspects of a confrontation between the superpowers. Although generally focused on Europe, the games always included an East Asian component. While the early wargames saw some variance (informed to some degree by the Sino-Vietnamese War), they held to a basic pattern; the Soviets hunkered down, while U.S. and allied naval forces chipped away at the bastions and tried to distract the Russians from Europe.

The 1984 wargame played out much differently. Instead of sitting on its hands, the Soviets opened the war with a massive air and missile assault against Japan. This assault destroyed most Japanese air assets on the ground, along with those of the US. special operators delivered by submarine and by clandestine civilian ship-launched unconventional attacks against U.S. bases across the Pacific, including Guam and Pearl Harbor.

The Soviets unleashed Pyongyang early in the conflict, redirecting U.S. attention towards the Korean Peninsula. Washington had effective answers; it quickly undertook offensive anti-submarine operations in the Sea of Japan, decimating Soviet SSN and SSBN forces. Soviet surface ships also came under attack. Nevertheless, in a daring move the Soviets launched a successful amphibious assault against Hokkaido. Although the operation suffered heavy losses, it succeeded in establishing a beachhead in Japan (though this was later withdrawn under fire).

The United States took a more aggressive stance in the 1988 wargame. Instead of waiting for a Soviet attack, Washington immediately began air and unconventional offensives against installations in the Soviet Far East, designed to decimate Soviet air defenses and threaten the survival of military-industrial installations. For their part, the Soviets hoped that a reticent military stance and a diplomatic offensive could keep Japan out of the war. This gambit succeeded to a point, as the Japanese suspended active military cooperation with the United States. American pressure eventually forced Tokyo to yield, and the Soviet opened offensive operations against the archipelago. By this time, however, the U.S. Navy had devastated Soviet naval forces, confining the Pacific fleet to its bastion in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Late in the war, the Soviets gave Pyongyang the green light to invade South Korea. However, this operation backfired, as the North Koreans failed to make substantial progress against combined U.S. and South Korean forces. Moreover, the Soviet move confirmed the U.S.-Japanese alliance, and helped drive Beijing into a much more hostile disposition towards the Soviets.

Both the Soviets and the Americans had options in Asia. The strategic environment was far more fluid than in Europe, allowing a variety of different choices to disrupt and destabilize the opponent. This made the course of war far less predictable. At its (nonnuclear) worst, war could have raged across Asia on multiple fronts, from Korea to Japan to the Sino-Soviet border. At its best, the combatants might have observed an uneasy quiet, at least until it became necessary to outflank a stalemate in the West. But as was the case in Europe, everyone concerned is fortunate that tensions never led to open combat.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. (This first appeared several years ago.)

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

The ultimate Cold War nightmare scenario.

Here's What You Need to Know: The projections are devastating.

It is no exaggeration to say that for those who grew up during the Cold War, all-out nuclear war was “the ultimate nightmare.” The prospect of an ordinary day interrupted by air-raid sirens, klaxons and the searing heat of a thermonuclear explosion was a very real, albeit remote, possibility. Television shows such as The Day After and Threads realistically portrayed both a nuclear attack and the gradual disintegration of society in the aftermath. In an all-out nuclear attack, most of the industrialized world would have been bombed back to the Stone Age, with hundreds of millions killed outright and perhaps as many as a billion or more dying of radiation, disease and famine in the postwar period.

During much of the Cold War, the United States’ nuclear warfighting plan was known as the SIOP, or the Single Integrated Operating Plan. The first SIOP, introduced in 1962, was known as SIOP-62, and its effects on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and China were documented in a briefing paper created for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and brought to light in 2011 by the National Security Archive. The paper presupposed a new Berlin crisis, similar to the one that took place in 1961, but escalating to full-scale war in western Europe.

Although the war scenario was fictional, the post-attack estimates were very real. According to the paper, the outlook for Communist bloc countries subjected to the full weight of American atomic firepower was grim. The paper divided attack scenarios into two categories: one in which the U.S. nuclear Alert Force, a percentage of overall nuclear forces kept on constant alert, struck the Soviet Union and its allies; and a second scenario where the full weight of the nuclear force, known as the Full Force, was used.

Under SIOP, “about 1,000” installations that were related to “nuclear delivery capability” would be struck. The scenario, which assumed advance warning of a Soviet attack and an American preemptive strike, would see the Alert Force attacking 75 percent of these targets. The attack would be a largely “counterforce” strike, in which U.S. nuclear forces attacked Soviet, Warsaw Pact and Chinese command-and-control and nuclear forces. The report states that 83 to 88 percent of all targets would be destroyed with 70 percent assurance.

In an Alert Force attack, 199 Soviet cities with populations of fifty thousand or greater would be struck. This would turn 56 percent of the urban population and 37 percent of the total population into casualties, most of whom would eventually die due to a post-attack breakdown of society. In China, forty-nine cities would be struck, turning 41 percent of the urban population into casualties and 10 percent of the overall population. In eastern Europe, only purely military targets would be struck, with a projected 1,378,000 killed by American nuclear attacks.

An all-out Full Force attack would be much worse. A Full Force attack would devastate 295 cities, leaving only five cities with populations of fifty thousand or more unscathed. 72 percent of the urban population and 54 percent of the overall population would become casualties—as the National Security Archive points out, that amounts to 108 million likely killed out of a total population of 217 million. In China, seventy-eight cities would be struck, affecting 53 percent of the urban population and 16 percent of the overall population. Casualties in eastern Europe would more than double, to 4,004,000.

Overall, an all-out U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, China and satellite countries in 1962 would have killed 335 million people within the first seventy-two hours.

The SIOP-62 report does not attempt to estimate U.S. casualties in a nuclear war. However, a 1978 report prepared for the Pentagon’s Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), “The Effects of Nuclear War,” spelled out in grim detail what would happen if the Soviet Union unleashed its arsenal on the United States.

The OTA report states that, in the event of a Soviet attack against U.S. nuclear forces, other military targets, economic targets and population targets, an attack could be estimated to kill between sixty and eighty-eight million Americans. With enough warning, major cities and industrial areas could be evacuated, but that would only lower the number of dead to between fifty-one and forty-seven million. Attacks on U.S. allies, including the NATO nations, Japan and South Korea, would undoubtedly occur but are not modelled in the study.

Another report, “Casualties Due to the Blast, Heat, and Radioactive Fallout from Various Hypothetical Nuclear Attacks on the United States,” postulated a Soviet attack against “1,215 U.S. strategic-nuclear targets. The attack involves almost 3,000 warheads with a total yield of about 1,340 megatons.” Because the attacks are carried out against hardened facilities, particularly MX and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic-missile silos, the attacks are envisioned using SS-18 “Satan” ICBMs, each carrying ten 550-to-750-kiloton warheads. Attacks against U.S. bomber and refueling forces are carried out by ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from off the coastline.

The result of even this modest attack, which largely spares U.S. cities to attack nuclear forces in the Midwest, is thirteen to thirty-four million deaths and twenty-five to sixty-four million total casualties. Still, bombarded by 1,215 nukes, the United States would lose far fewer people than Strategic Air Command estimated the Soviet Union would lose in 1962.

The discrepancy is probably because of the larger yields of U.S. nuclear weapons in the 1960s versus Soviet nukes in the 1980s, but also because at the time of the SAC report, Soviet nuclear forces were primarily bomber-based. The Soviet Union had between 300 and 320 nuclear weapons in 1962, all but forty of which were bomber-based. Bomber bases may have been closer to major population areas. A major draw of U.S. nuclear weapons to Soviet cities would have also been the presence of local airports, which would have functioned as dispersal airfields for nuclear-armed bombers. On the other hand, the Soviet attack would largely hit ICBM fields and bomber bases in low-population-density regions of the Midwest, plus a handful of submarine bases on both coasts.

As devastating as these projections are, all readily admit they don’t tell the entire story. While these three studies model the immediate effects of a nuclear attack, long-term problems might kill more people than the attack itself. The destruction of cities would deny the millions of injured, even those who might otherwise easily survive, even basic health care. What remains of government—in any country—would be hard pressed to maintain order in the face of dwindling food and energy supplies, a contaminated landscape, the spread of disease and masses of refugees. Over a twelve-month period, depending on the severity of the attack, total deaths attributable to the attacks could double.

While the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union has ended, the United States now faces the prospect of a similar war with Russia or China. The effects of a nuclear war in the twenty-first century would be no less severe. The steps to avoiding nuclear war, however, are the same as they were during the Cold War: arms control, confidence-building measures undertaken by both sides and a de-escalation of tensions.

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

This article first appeared in 2017.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

The USS Halibut was a one-of-a-kind submarine.

Here's What You Need to Know: Halibut was the perfect ship for the task.

One of the most unusual submarines of the Cold War was named after one of the most unusual fish in the sea. Halibut are flatfish, bottom-dwelling predators that, unlike conventional fish, lie sideways with two eyes on the same side of the head and ambush passing prey.

Like the halibut flatfish, USS Halibut was an unusual-looking submarine, and also spent a considerable amount of time on the ocean floor. Halibut was a “spy sub,” and conducted some of the most classified missions of the entire Cold War.

USS Halibut was built as one of the first of the U.S. Navy’s long-range missile ships. The submarine was the first built from the ground up to carry the Regulus II missile, a large, turbojet-powered cruise missile. The missile was designed to be launched from the deck of a submarine, with a ramp leading down into the bow of the ship, where a total of five missiles were stored. This resulted in an unusual appearance, likened to a “snake digesting a big meal.” Halibut also had six 533-millimeter torpedo tubes, but as a missile sub, would only use torpedoes in self-defense.

Halibut was a one-of-a-kind submarine. At 350 feet long, with a beam of twenty-nine feet, she was dimensionally identical to the Sailfish-class radar picket submarines, but her missile storage spaces and launch equipment ballooned her submerged displacement to five thousand tons. Her S3W reactor gave her an underwater speed of more than twenty knots and unlimited range—a useful trait, considering the Regulus II had a range of only one thousand miles.

Regulus II was quickly superseded by the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile, whose solid rocket fueled engine made for a more compact missile with a much longer range. The combination of the Polaris and the new George Washington–class fleet ballistic missile submarines conspired to put Halibut out of a job—Regulus II was canceled just seventeen days before the sub’s commissioning.

Halibut operated for four years as a Regulus submarine. In 1965 the Navy, recognizing that a submarine with a large, built-in internal bay could be useful, put Halibut into dry dock at Pearl Harbor for a major $70 million ($205 million in today’s dollars) overhaul. She received a photographic darkroom, hatches for divers to enter and exit the sub while submerged, and thrusters to help her maintain a stationary position.

Perhaps most importantly, Halibut was rebuilt with spaces to operate two remotely operated vehicles nicknamed “Fish.” Twelve feet long and equipped with cameras, strobe lights and sonar, the “fish” could search for objects at depths of up to twenty-five thousand feet. The ROVs could be launched and retrieved from the former missile storage bay, now nicknamed “the Bat Cave.” A twenty-four-bit mainframe computer, highly sophisticated for the time, analyzed sensor data from the Fish.

Post overhaul, Halibut was redesignated from nuclear guided-missile submarine to nuclear attack submarine, and assigned to the Deep Submergence Group, a group tasked with deep-sea search-and-recovery missions. In mid-July 1968, Halibut was sent on Velvet Fist, a top-secret mission meant to locate the wreck of the Soviet submarine K-129. K-129 was a Golf II–class ballistic missile submarine that had sunk that March, an estimated 1,600 nautical miles off the coast of Hawaii.

K-129 had sunk along with its three R-21 intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The R-21 was a single-stage missile with a range of 890 nautical miles and an eight-hundred-kiloton nuclear warhead. The loss of the submarine presented the U.S. government with the unique opportunity to recover the missiles and their warheads for study.

Halibut was the perfect ship for the task. Once on station, it deployed the Fish ROVs and began an acoustic search of the ocean floor. After a painstaking search and more than twenty thousand photos, Halibut’s crew discovered the ill-fated Soviet sub’s wreckage. As a result Halibut and her crew were awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, for “several missions of significant scientific value to the Government of the United States.” Halibut’s contribution to efforts to recover K-129 would remain secret for decades.

In 1970, Halibut was again modified to accommodate the Navy’s deep water saturation divers. The following year, it went to sea again to participate in Ivy Bells, a secret operation to install taps on the underwater communications cables connecting the Soviet ballistic missile submarine base at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula with Moscow’s Pacific Fleet headquarters at Vladivostok.

The taps, installed by divers and their ROVs, allowed Washington to listen in on message traffic to Soviet nuclear forces. Conducted at the bottom of the frigid Sea of Okhotsk, the Ivy Bells missions were conducted at the highest level of secrecy, as the Soviets would have quickly abandoned the use of underwater cables had they known they were compromised.

Halibut was decommissioned on November 1, 1975, after 1,232 dives and more than sixteen years of service. The ship had earned two Presidential Unit citations (the second in 1972 for Ivy Bells missions) and a Navy Unit Citation. The role of submarines in espionage, however, continued: she was succeeded in the role of special missions submarine by USS Parche. Today, USS Jimmy Carter—a sub with a particularly low profile—is believed to have taken on the task. The role of submarines in intelligence gathering continues.

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

This article first appeared in 2016.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Kevin Knodell

History, Asia

How did German soldiers find themselves in a war in Asia in the 1930s?

Here's What You Need to Know: The strange tale of the Germans in China’s wars demonstrates how quickly loyalty and national interest can shift—and alliances with them.

Most people who stayed awake for at least half of their high school history class knows that the Axis Powers in World War II consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. But few know that German tactics and weapons—not to mention some actual Germans—helped the Chinese Nationalists stall Imperial Japan’s conquest of China.

For about a decade, German soldiers advised Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek in his campaigns against Chinese Communists … and also against Germany’s future allies, the Japanese.

It’s one of history’s most unexpected—and frankly unknown—wartime partnerships. It all began in the aftermath of the Chinese revolution of 1911, as warlords carved up the country and battled each other for power.

European and American arms dealers, unable to find customers in the war-weary countries of the West in the years after World War I, found enthusiastic buyers in the Chinese. The warlords imported firearms and heavy weaponry and, in some cases, manufactured their own copies.

One of the most powerful, the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin had his own private air force of almost 100 of the latest aircraft, including light bombers. He also maintained close ties with Japan, in particular courting investment from the Japanese South Manchuria Railroad Company.

Some warlords hired foreign military instructors, many of them World War I veterans. The advisers made their way to China in both official and unofficial capacities. The influx of foreign soldiers would soon include Germans.

Rise of the Nationalists: 

The greatest threat to the warlords were not each other, but revolutionaries under the banner of the Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the Kuomintang. Led by Sun Yat-Sen, a republican and educated medical doctor, the Kuomintang sought to unify China and transform it into a modern state.

The Kuomintang, aligned with the Chinese Communist Party and backed by Soviet advisers under the command of Vasily Blyukher, launched the Northern Expedition to defeat the warlords.

Under the military leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek, the Nationalist army scored victory after victory against the warlords. With the death of Sun Yat-Sen of liver failure, Chiang began to consolidate control of the movement. That put him at odds with the Communists, several of whom were themselves plotting to take control of the revolution.

When the army reached Shanghai in 1927, Chiang enlisted local crime syndicates, notably the powerful Green Gang, to crack down on labor unions and violently purge Communists from the ranks. He then expelled Blyukher and the other Soviet advisers, unceremoniously sending them back to Moscow.

The last major warlord was Marshal Zhang Zuolin. Failing to protect Japanese investments, Zhang had fallen out of favor with his backers in Tokyo.

On June 4, 1928, while traveling an SMR rail line, a bomb detonated underneath Zhang’s armored train, killing him. Most believe the Japanese Kwantung Army planted the explosive device.

Zhang was succeeded by his son Zhang Xueling, the Young Marshal. The Young Marshal, whom the Japanese expected to be a spineless puppet they could easily control, surprised everyone by quickly aligning himself with the Nationalists. The warlord era was fast ending.

But Chang realized he had a problem. Severing ties with the Soviets had left him without any significant foreign backer. There were still a few warlord holdouts—who often did have foreign backing—plus a growing Communist insurrection. Japan also loomed just across the China Seas.

On the advice of a German-educated friend, Chiang looked to Berlin to fill the void the Soviets had left. Germany was an attractive partner to Chiang. Berlin had lost all of its holdings in China after World War I and would be less likely to interfere in China’s politics than comparable Western powers.

And the forced downsizing of Germany’s once-mighty army also resulted in a wealth of highly experienced but unemployed German soldiers who’d be eager for work in China.

Here Come the Germans!: 

Chiang sent an invitation to Gen. Erich Ludendorff to bring military and civil experts to China. Ludendorff declined the invitation, fearing his high profile would attract unwanted attention. Still, he saw potential in the offer, and recommended retired Col. Max Bauer—a logistics specialist with war experience—to lead a proposed German Advisory Group.

After a quick tour of China, Bauer returned to Berlin and handpicked a team of 25 advisers. Immediately upon arriving in November 1928, the advisers set to work training young Chinese officers.

Despite most of the advisers being retired—and technically civilians—in the employ of the Chinese government, the activities of German military men abroad was a touchy subject due to post-war limitations on what Germany could legally do.

As a result, Bauer gave strict orders to the group to avoid diplomats and journalists. Despite this, American military observers in 1929 reported seeing Chinese troops undergoing close-order drill under German supervision.

Bauer worked to standardize the acquisition of equipment and weapons, urging Chiang to cut out expensive middlemen and buy directly from manufacturers.

Unsurprisingly, many of these manufacturers were German, resulting in increased business for German companies. But the retail boom was cut short by Bauer’s unexpected death in May 1929.

Bauer was succeeded by Col. Hermann Kriebel, a Nazi fanatic. He had been a member of the paramilitary Freikorps and had a long record of putschist activity with Hitler in Bavaria. One rumor has it that as a member of the German 1919 Armistice delegation, his parting words were, “See you again in 20 years.”

Kriebel was arrogant, contemptuous of the Chinese and clashed with Bauer’s selected officers. His attitude almost doomed the mission, and Chiang demanded he be replaced.

Kriebel was succeeded by Gen. Georg Wetzell. He helped plan anti-Communist operations and advised Gen. Ling during the 1932 Shanghai War against the Japanese. He also convinced Chiang to set up an artillery school. Chinese artillery would play a huge role years later against Japanese invaders.

Gen. Hans von Seeckt, an influential German army staff officer and Wetzell’s successor, built Chinese capacity further. Seeckt, vividly recalling the bloody cost of static trench warfare, believed in a war of movement.

He used his connections with German industrialists to bring in a huge influx of modern German equipment, ranging from helmets to artillery. One journalist suggested that as much as 60 percent of Chinese war material at this time was imported from Germany.

The last and arguably best chief adviser was Gen. Alexander von Falkenhausen. He had been military attaché in Tokyo from 1910 to 1914 and traveled to China to observe the revolution in 1911. During World War I, he served in France, East Prussia and Turkey and as a commander was credited with two victories over the British in East Jordan in 1918.

As a world traveler and professional soldier who’d worked in a variety of cultures, Falkenhausen was immune to the extremism that drove many of his predecessors. He also had little love for the Nazis, having lost his brother to a violent internal struggle in the party that solidified Hitler’s control.

As a result, he was better able to develop close personal and professional ties with the Chinese.

Chinese in Germany: 

With Germans increasingly entrenched in China, some of their Chinese counterparts found themselves in Germany. Chinese businessmen, government officials and students hoped to learn from Germany’s rapid rebound from an economically crippled failed state into a world power. German industry was of particular interest.

The Nazis were split on their opinion of the Chinese. Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering in particular were in bitter disagreement. Goebbels was decidedly pro-China and favored continuing German business interests—he also viewed Chiang as a burgeoning fascist.

Goering, however, saw the Japanese as the stronger and most worthy power in Asia—especially considering their disdain for the Soviets—and pushed for the Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan.

One of the most notable Chinese in Germany at the time was Chiang Kai-Shek’s adopted son Chiang Wei-Kuo. He went to study military tactics with the German army, training in military schools and taking part in military operations.

He even commanded troops during the annexation of the Austria.

As Falkenhausen took over the group in 1936, tensions between Japan and China were escalating. Around the same time, The Young Marshal Zhang Xueling, tasked by Chiang to eradicate the communists, was fed up with battling fellow Chinese while the Japanese only grew stronger.

Zhang conspired with Communist leader Zhou Enlai and proceeded to kidnap Chiang and force him into a truce with the Communists. Upon his release, he promptly had Zhang imprisoned. Falkenhausen set to work advising Chiang on how best to resist Japanese aggression. One of the great ironies of this episode is that Falkenhausen and Chiang’s interactions were always in Japanese, their only common language.

Japan Invades: 

The July 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident marked the beginning of Japan’s full-scale invasion of China. The poorly-trained Chinese troops in the north were quickly routed. When the fighting broke out in Shanghai, Tokyo expected a quick victory.

However, among the Chinese troops dispatched to Shanghai was the German trained — and equipped — 88th Division. Against all expectations, the division’s infantry inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese in vicious urban combat. The Japanese responded by shelling and bombing the Chinese troops—and by sending in tanks.

During this time, German advisers including Falkenhausen were often near or in the fight in Shanghai, despite Berlin’s preference that they not get directly involved.

“We all agreed,” Falkenhausen wrote, “that as private citizens in Chinese employment there could be no question of leaving our Chinese friends to their fate. Therefore I assigned German advisers wherever they were needed and that was often in the front lines.”

Despite being present for some heavy combat, no Germans advisers are known to have died.

The Chinese held out until November, but eventually retreated in the face of Japanese armor, air and naval attacks. Tokyo was badly bruised by the Chinese defensive and livid at being defied by an “inferior” race.

Particularly embarrassing was the showdown at Sihang Warehouse, in which a lone battalion from the 88th Division held out against Japanese attacks in full view of the international district.

But now the Japanese were ready to strike at the Chinese capital of Nanjing. En route they took out their frustration on Chinese civilians, killing and looting wantonly. Even Kriebel, who had been so contemptuous of the Chinese before and was back in China as the German consul general in Shanghai, expressed his disgust at the atrocities.

But the march on Nanjing was just a preview of how ugly things were to become.

Fall of Nanjing: 

Chiang called a meeting of his generals with Falkenhausen to plan their next move. Generals Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi—the latter a favorite of Falkenhausen—advocated withdrawing forces from Nanjing to regroup.

Next, the generals proposed declaring Nanjing to be an undefended city so that the Japanese wouldn’t have any excuse to slaughter civilians.

Falkenhausen backed Li and Bai. The only dissenter was Gen. Tang Shengzhi, who demanded a last stand against Japan in the capital. Chiang, wanting to preserve his prestige and at least make an effort to defend Nanjing, deferred to Tang.

John Rabe, a German businessman and prominent Nazi living in Nanjing, was aghast “[Nanjing] cannot be effectively defended,” he wrote. “Sitting in this crook in the Yangtze is like sitting in a mousetrap.”

“I continue to hope that Hitler will help us,” Rabe continued. “A man of firm will and steady eye — the same as you and I — has deep sympathy not only for the distress of his own people, but for the anguish of the Chinese, as well.”

Rabe speculated that if Hitler were to demand a stop to the Japanese advance, it would halt immediately.

The consequences of this last stand were disastrous. The Chinese defenders were obliterated. Many of the remnants of the elite 88th Division were destroyed in the fighting, though some were able to rejoin the army in the west or blend into guerrilla bands in the countryside.

However, the worst consequence was one of history’s bloodiest massacres, today known as the Rape of Nanjing. Japanese troops entered the city in December 1937 and indulged in an orgy of rape of pillage that lasted until late January.

Although exact numbers are disputed, most historians agree that thousands of women and girls were raped by Japanese troops—and somewhere between 180,000 and 300,000 civilians died.

Rabe, along with other Western residents of the city, labored hard to aid the refugees and was instrumental in setting up the International Safety Zone. He was known for wearing his Swastika armband as he escorted Chinese nationals around, standing up to Japanese soldiers and officials.

Despite the initial hesitance of other American and European expats to work with an avowed Nazi, Rabe earned the respect of both westerners and the residents of Nanjing.

Unfortunately for Rabe’s faith in Hitler and in Germany’s commitment to China, the defeat at Nanjing led Hitler to believe that China was a lost cause. It was the beginning of the end for Sino-German ties. To Hitler, the Japanese had proven to be a superior race to the Chinese.

But one more battle was to take place before Germany quit China for good.

In the Battle of Taierzhuang in early 1938, Chinese troops under Generals Li and Bai engaged Japanese troops in the small town of Shantung. The Chinese troops, led by German-trained battalion commanders, maneuvered at night to avoid Japan’s superior air assets and used German-built howitzers to smash Japanese entrenchments.

German Legacy:

The Chinese prevailed at Taierzhuang. After the battle, the Japanese demanded that the Germans withdraw the advisory group. Hitler complied without reservation. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop told Falkenhausen to withdraw, which he did only under extreme pressure.

Falkenhausen and his staff reluctantly returned to Germany. Unlike former Italian advisers who profited by selling detailed aerial surveys of China to Japan, many of the Germans refused to divulge Chinese secrets to Japan, even under pressure from the Nazis. Chiang Wei-Kuo, by that time commanding a panzer on the border with Poland, was recalled back to China.

Westerners were horrified by the devastation in China. Urban warfare up to this point had been a fairly rare occurrence in modern warfare. Certainly the scale of death and destruction, particularly among non-combatants, seemed new. In a few years, such bloodshed would all too common all over the world.

After the German Blitzkrieg tore through Western Europe beginning in late 1939, Falkenhausen was appointed to serve as the German military governor of Belgium—a position in which he took neither joy nor pride. Among his tasks were the suppression of Belgian resistance and the rounding up of Jews and other undesirables.

Throughout much of his tenure in Belgium, Falkenhausen was secretly in touch with anti-Nazi conspirators and those helping to rescue Jews.

The rescuers included Qian Xiuling, a Chinese woman who had married a Belgian man she’d met while studying chemistry at the Catholic University of Louvain. Qian’s cousin was an officer in the Chinese army and had been trained by Falkenhausen. He told her through correspondence that if she needed anything, she should go to Falkenhausen.

The general helped Qian save the lives of many Jews and dissidents. After an attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944, Falkenhausen was imprisoned and spent the remainder of the war in concentration camps, at one point being interned in Dachau.

He was eventually liberated, but then subsequently arrested by U.S. troops. He was sent back to Belgium to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Qian and others he had aided came to his defense, but he was nevertheless sentenced to 12 years hard labor.

He was pardoned after only three years and moved back to Germany. Chiang, having heard of his fate, began sending money and gifts to his old comrade. But Faulkenhausen was so embittered by his experiences that he lived out the rest of his life a jaded, reclusive old man. He died in 1966 at the age of 88.

In 2001, when a journalist asked an aging Qian how she saw Falkenhausen, she replied simply, “A man with morals.”

Rabe fared little better after the war. Living in Germany again by then he was arrested first by the Soviets and then by the British. Although never directly implicated in any crimes, his history as a high profile party member meant he had to be declared “de-Nazified.”

Unable to find work, he sold off his collection of Eastern art to buy food and quickly became destitute. According to some accounts, he received aid from prominent citizens of Nanjing who had heard of his plight. This help ceased after the Communists took Nanjing from the nationalists.

Rabe died of a stroke in 1950. His headstone has since been moved to Nanjing and his house made into a museum.

The strange tale of the Germans in China’s wars demonstrates how quickly loyalty and national interest can shift—and alliances with them. It also reveals that personal ties formed in the crucible of combat can transcend these shifts and last a lifetime.

Unfortunately for men like Falkenhausen, the saga also shows how steep the price of integrity can be.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

TNI Staff

Security, World

Buying a fighter is less about aircraft performance or even military requirements than pure simple geopolitics. Buying a jet means you as a military are tying yourself into a strategic alliance with another country and its hardware.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The F-35 will continue to dominate the skies - but the F-15, particularly with its impressive upgrades pack, isn't going anywhere.

Editor's Note: This article was first published several years ago. In the time since, the United Arab Emirates has requested to purchase F-35 fighters, though the contract has not yet been approved.

When the Boeing F-15A first flew in July 1972, the Eagle was the ultimate air superiority fighter. Fast, high-flying, agile and built around a massive APG-63 pulse-doppler radar, the Soviet Union had nothing that could match it. Overtime, McDonnell Douglas—the F-15’s original manufacturer before its merger with Boeing—adapted the airframe into a potent multirole fighter that eventually became the F-15E Strike Eagle. While both the air superiority oriented F-15C and the strike-oriented F-15E will remain in service with the U.S. Air Force for decades to come, by far the most advanced current version of the Eagle has been ordered by Saudi Arabia. But will that be enough compete with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter?

Saudi Arabia has ordered some 84 new-build F-15SAs and 70 upgrade kits to retrofit their existing Strike Eagles to the new standard. When the massive $29.5 billion contract was signed December 2011, it was the largest foreign military sale in the history of the United States. In the ensuing years, Boeing has developed and tested the upgraded jets, which are powered by General Electric F110 engines rather than Pratt & Whitney F100s. The company is finally starting to get ready to deliver the aircraft. The first of the new jets rolled out of the Boeing plant in Saint Louis, Mo., earlier this earlier in April.

Perhaps the single most significant upgrade found in the F-15SA package is a fly-by-wire flight control system—previous versions of the Eagle used a hybrid computer augmented stability system. The addition of the fly-by-wire system allowed Boeing to reactivate the F-15’s two dormant outboard wing hardpoints that had always been present, but never used. The problem previously had been stability differences induced by carrying weapons on stations one and nine.

Additionally, the F-15SA is equipped with the advanced APG-63 v.3 active electronically scanned array (AESA)—though, potentially, future customers might order the more capable APG-82 that is being retrofitted to U.S. Air Force’s own Strike Eagles. The F-15SA is also equipped with BAE’s advanced Digital Electronic Warfare System (DEWS), which has digital radio-frequency memory jamming capability.

The new digital system looks across an entire frequency band continuously rather than scanning through a frequency band—which means that even low probability of intercept (LPI) signals might be detected (radars on stealth fighters like the F-22 and F-35 use LPI techniques to try mask their emissions for electronic support measures suites). Further, its interferometric antennas can generate far more accurate bearing measurements than the current system.

The DEWS’ performance is probably comparable to the F-22’s or F-35’s electronic support measures suites since it is based on those systems. It’s head and shoulders better than anything currently fielded by the U.S. Air Force’s own Strike Eagles. U.S. Air Force jets won’t have anything comparable until the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) is fielded.

The F-15SA is also equipped with Lockheed Martin’s AN/AAS-42 infrared search and track system. And all of that information from the radar, infrared search and track and the electronic warfare system are fused together—similar to the F-22 and F-35—into a coherent picture. That picture is displayed on large-format color displays that are similar to those found on the F-35—in both the front and rear cockpits. Both aviators are equipped with the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System. Taken together, the F-15SA is an extremely formidable multirole fighter—possibly the single best fourth generation fighter the United States has ever produced.

But is that enough to compete with the F-35 on the open market place? Longer-term, it looks like the F-35 will be the dominant player on with fighter market—at least in parts of the world aligned with the West. Stealth is a major selling point with the inevitable proliferation of advanced Russian and Chinese-built surface-to-air missile systems. Further, the F-35 has the backing of the United States government—which is a huge trump card for the program. In the short-term, Boeing may have opportunities to sell the F-15 to wealthy customers who need a very capable long-range jet and who can afford the Eagle’s hefty price tag. Those customers are likely to be in the Middle East or Asia—nations that are not likely to be cleared to receive the F-35 in the near term.

But one also has to remember that buying a fighter is less about aircraft performance or even military requirements than pure simple geopolitics. Buying a jet means you as a military are tying yourself into a strategic alliance with another country and its hardware. For many nations, making sure they are able to tie seamlessly into the Pentagon’s forces is of paramount importance. So even if you buy American, unless it’s a variant operated by the U.S. military, you might end up with an expensive boutique fleet with a lot of expensive maintenance bills.

Image: Reuters.

Charlie Gao

Security, Russia

While the Su-57 is fast, it does represent a step backward in speed compared to the MiG-31.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The MiG-31 is the standard long-range interceptor of the Russian Air Force.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’ s Air Defense Forces (VPVO) needed a series of heavy interceptors to patrol its massive borders. Most regular “light” fighters like the early MiGs were not up to the task, as they lacked the range and speed to intercept to rapidly climb and intercept supersonic American bombers, who were expected to zoom over the Arctic to drop bombs on the Soviet Union.

As a result, a specialized class of aircraft was created for this purpose. The first was the Tupolev Tu-28 and Tu-128. These aircraft would lay the template for later interceptors: they were large for good endurance, fast, and were armed solely with missiles.

This design was obsolete from the time it entered service in the 1960s, as the B-58 Hustler that was in service at the time could outpace it. However, the MiG-25 “Foxbat” was also in development at the time. This aircraft would go on to become the definitive interceptor of the VPVO.

Blisteringly fast and armed with the massive R-40 air-to-air missiles, the Foxbat stood ready to defend the Soviet Union’s borders against all threats. Its airframe also saw adaptation into more tactical roles, photo reconnaissance and strike versions of the MiG-25 were created for the Soviet Air Force (VVS).

In the 1980s, the MiG-25 was followed up by the MiG-31, which added in a second weapons systems officer on all models and increased the flight performance, radar and weapons of the craft. Early versions also featured a cannon, but this was quickly deleted once it was determined that such extras were not necessary on a pure interceptor.

Nowadays the MiG-31 is the standard long range interceptor of the Russian Air Force (the VPVO was merged with the VVS in the 1990s) and is expected to serve into the 2030s. A “mid-life upgrade” of the MiG-31 is currently being procured: the MiG-31BSM. This modification integrates many new strike weapons onto the MiG-31 and modernizes most systems. The MiG-31 was also chosen as the primary carrier aircraft for the Kinzhal hypersonic missile.

But in August 2018, Russian outlets announced that experimental design work was beginning on a next generation pure interceptor that is meant to replace the MiG-31. Following the naming convention of Russia’s other next generation aircraft projects (PAK (XX)), the new interceptor project is called PAK DP, or Prospective Aviation Complex Long-range Interceptor.

The continuation of a line of dedicated interceptors is interesting because the existing PAK-FA/Su-57 fighter in many ways could fulfill the same role as the MiG-31. It has a highly advanced radar, it can supercruise (maintain Mach 1+ flight without the use of afterburners), and it could be armed with long range air-to-air missiles.

While the range is less than a MiG-31, air-to-air refueling can make up the gap. But since the capabilities as they stand are so similar, why the need for a separate airframe? Sukhoi fighters have also served in the interceptor role before, the Su-27P variant of the Flanker was meant explicitly for the VPVO. There are a couple reasons why the Russian government still considers the PAK DP to be necessary.

The first is that the PAK DP might build off the multirole nature of the earlier MiG-31 and MiG-25 conversions. An aircraft close to the original conception of the F-111 could be in the cards for Russia in the PAK DP: something that can carry a ton of long-range missiles and also perform strike with a wide range of munitions (including hypersonic ones)while moving very fast.

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Another possible reason is that Russia wishes to keep the heritage of MiG alive within United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). Since Sukhoi has done the majority of the design work and has had its name attached to the PAK FA (in the Su-57 designation), MiG needs a next generation project of their own to work on. The MiG-35, while advanced, is still not of the PAK family of next-generation craft and MiG not have an aircraft to work on in the future.

The last reason is that the VVS might want to future proof their interceptor force against future developments in UAV technology. While the PAK FA is fast, it does represent a step backward in speed compared to the MiG-31. While the SR-71 Blackbird is retired, UAVs incorporating some of its technology may come online in the future. Russia might need a plane that can really push the limits of speed to intercept them and keep its airspace safe.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues. This first appeared in August 2018.

Image: Wikipedia.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 4/2020) va paraître (J-5) ! Il consacre un dossier spécial au Brexit dont l’échéance finale approche, et un Contrechamps à la Méditerranée, avec un focus notamment sur la Turquie.  Et comme à chaque nouveau numéro, de nombreux autres articles viennent éclairer l’actualité : les effets du COVID-19 en Afrique et en Amérique latine, les agricultures africaines, les enjeux de la Conférence d’examen du TNP, la politique russe de l’Inde…

Envie d’en savoir plus ? Cliquez sans plus attendre sur cette vidéo !

How power will—and won't—reshape Chinese ambitions.

One of the most famous censored pieces of literature in the post Second World War era is Dr. Zhivago, a work by author Boris Pasternak about the life of a family during the Russian Revolution in the early part of the 1900s. Smuggled out of the USSR and taken to Italy for publishing, the story is critical of the early Soviet era, and resulted in it being banned during the Soviet era at the same time as earning international acclaim. The story focuses to some degree on the rapid collectivization of Russian society at the time of the Revolution from the perspective of a Doctor in Moscow. When his home is filled with other citizens and their family receive veiled threats by newly minted government Commissars, they make they journey to their Dacha, or second home in the far east of Russia. Dealing with the onset of Communism in a more contested part of the country, the Doctor and his family fight to survive in the reality of the new regime.

Much of the criticism from inside of the Soviet Union, one registered only by the government and hidden from the citizens of the Soviet state, was that Dr.Zhivago shows the Soviet system in a negative light. The reality was that tyranny was a large part of life in Russia at the time and still existed at the time the book was published. A true account of what life may have been like in the process of collectivization of the nation had to be censored, as the truth, that of a loss of rights and often life would undermine their political power.

There are many lessons to be learned from the Doctor and author Pasternak as well, mostly aimed at how free societies should repel any movements towards a Soviet style system, and how that style of top down government control can easily turn into a tyranny. These lessons are as relevant today as ever, and while no system is perfect nor can claim that justice is always paramount in the application of the law, the ability to fight and seek justice without the threats of violence or being ostracized from society needs to be preserved in order to have a free society with free citizens. The alternative, according to Pasternak, is always bad for individual citizens. When power is held by a few, it will never be equally distributed in a system that allows a concentration of that power. In Pasternak’s experience, Absolute Power certainly Corrupts, and the best of us are not able to protect ourselves, our family or even our lives.

If you live in a place where a large entity or corporation has disproportional power, you must take steps to create equality of justice. If your government wants to take more control of you without precedent or for the valid public good, you must take steps to ensure your voices are being heard. If you take the time to vote, but your government does things to limit your voice or your elected representative’s vote in your legislature, parliament, congress or local council, you must acknowledge it and demand your democracy remains sacrosanct. If your news and media is censored to protect any government and similar actions as those above, then they are not media, they are an arm of a system to protect those from being accountable to equality and justice. Tyranny always produces a strong response in the long term, as those without a democracy, justice or freedom have nothing to lose. Those who have freedoms but claim they have nothing to lose are often those who are seeking power, not equality nor justice, and not for the individuals of their community.

/ France, Parti politique, Communisme, Politique, Marxisme - Politique / France, Parti politique, Communisme, Politique, Marxisme - Politique

The intelligence committees should do their jobs.

/ Russie, Turquie, Géopolitique, Relations bilatérales, Histoire, Relations internationales, Diplomatie, Frontières - Europe / Russie, Turquie, Géopolitique, Relations bilatérales, Histoire, Relations internationales, Diplomatie, Frontières - Europe

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’automne de Politique étrangère (n° 3/2020). Michaël Ayari propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Aaron Y. Zelin, Your Sons at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad (Columbia University Press, 2020, 400 pages).

Cet ouvrage est indispensable pour quiconque s’intéresse à l’étude du djihadisme et cherche à comprendre pourquoi autant de Tunisiens, pourtant réputés pacifiques et vivant en démocratie depuis 2011, ont, entre 2012 et 2019, grossi les rangs des groupes islamistes armés, notamment en Irak et en Syrie.

Aaron Y. Zelin livre ici une somme considérable d’informations difficilement accessibles. Outre son examen quasi exhaustif de la littérature en langue anglaise et arabe sur la question, l’auteur a archivé près de 18 000 documents informatiques sur l’organisation salafiste-djihadiste tunisienne, Ansar al Charia Tunisie (AST) : communiqués, enregistrements audio et vidéos, essais, analyses, photos sur les réseaux sociaux. Il a également effectué plusieurs séjours de terrain en Tunisie au cours desquels il a rencontré des militants d’AST ainsi que des combattants étrangers tunisiens de retour de Syrie.

En dépit de sa richesse, l’ouvrage souffre d’un certain nombre de défauts qui peuvent rendre sa lecture laborieuse. L’introduction, assez théorique, tente d’insérer de manière artificielle la recherche dans un champ académique (la sociologie des mouvements sociaux). L’auteur y déploie quelques concepts, qu’il perd par la suite. La tendance est à noyer le lecteur sous un flot d’informations précises mais souvent peu utiles, tirées de fiches élaborées par des juges d’instruction et des spécialistes du renseignement. Le livre pèche ainsi par un mélange des genres, entre travail académique (l’ouvrage est tiré d’une thèse de doctorat) et expertise antiterroriste.

En outre, l’auteur a tendance à omettre systématiquement les travaux francophones sur la Tunisie et à se positionner en surplomb par rapport à son objet d’étude. Peu de place est laissée à l’accidentel dans l’itinéraire des djihadistes tunisiens et la constitution de leurs réseaux. Tout semble faire écho à une logique inéluctable, et le contresens anachronique n’est pas loin, notamment lorsque l’auteur surestime le rôle international de certaines figures djihadistes tunisiennes des années 1980-2000, simplement parce que ces dernières sont influentes dans l’AST et l’État islamique dans la seconde moitié des années 2010.

Enfin, l’auteur recourt à des sources disparates, à la fiabilité variable. Il tend à baser des points essentiels de son argumentaire sur des sources discutables (comme des informations fuitées de l’État islamique, ou des communiqués du ministère de l’Intérieur tunisien), ce qu’il fait oublier par ailleurs en s’attardant sur des détails tirés de sources de première main de qualité, lesquelles n’apportent que peu à la réflexion, mais montrent qu’il connaît le sujet mieux que quiconque…

La prétention historiographique est ainsi quelque peu excessive, d’autant plus que nombre d’éléments sur le sujet sont loin d’être déclassifiés. Il est difficile de décrire avec autant d’assurance le djihadisme des années 1980 et des années 2010, ce que l’auteur fait pourtant, comme si son travail de recherche avait pour ambition de clôturer définitivement la question des Tunisiens et du djihad.

En dépit de ces faiblesses, cet ouvrage vaut le détour : près d’une décennie de recherches extrêmement chronophages est ici généreusement livrée, au spécialiste comme au non spécialiste. La lecture de ce livre dense et passionnant devrait susciter quelques vocations « djihadologistes ».

Michaël Ayari

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À quoi pourrait ressembler la politique étrangère de Joe Biden ?5 novembre 2020, 21:01 CET •Mis à jour le 8 novembre 2020, 08:39 CET
ARTICLE PATU DANS The ConversationAuteurs

1. Frédéric Charillon

   professeur de science politique, Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA)

2. Patrick Chevallereau

   Consultant international sur les questions de défense et de sécurité. Chargé de cours à l'Université Clermont Auvergne, Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA)

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Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

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À quoi ressemblera la politique étrangère d’une Amérique post-trumpienne, avec Joseph Biden et Kamala Harris à sa tête ? Assistera-t-on à la fermeture d’une parenthèse baroque et tumultueuse, pour retrouver la « vie internationale d’avant » ? Verra-t-on se bâtir un nouveau socle pour une nouvelle diplomatie américaine ?

L’après-Trump, du point de vue de l’action extérieure américaine, pose d’abord beaucoup de questions. En la matière, le 46e président devra tenir compte d’une nouvelle donne, inédite aussi bien du point de vue intérieur américain que du point de vue international.

Si Joseph Biden, contrairement à son prédécesseur, est un connaisseur des questions mondiales, sa tâche ne sera pas aisée pour autant.

Les questions

La première interrogation qui vient à l’esprit a trait à l’importance des dégâts causés par un Donald Trump qui a fait évoluer les fondamentaux en quatre ans. Ces dégâts sont-ils réparables ? Suffisamment pour permettre à Biden de se replacer dans la ligne de la « retenue » propre aux années Obama ? L’ancien président (2009-2017) avait amorcé un retrait de la scène mondiale, avec un moindre recours à l’intervention militaire, des discours d’apaisement (à West Point en mai 2014), le choix de ne pas frapper le régime syrien en août 2013, ou des concepts novateurs, comme le « leadership from behind » en Libye, en 2011. Il s’était efforcé de donner une cohérence à l’action extérieure américaine. Cohérence parfois jugée trop intellectuelle, et mal comprise de ses principaux alliés, mais cohérence quand même, surtout comparée à l’action erratique et impulsive de son successeur.

Autre question majeure : qui entourera Biden sur les dossiers internationaux ? Le long parcours politique du nouveau président lui confère une expérience rare. Il a notamment présidé la commission des Affaires étrangères du Sénat. On peut imaginer auprès de lui le retour de noms connus : Antony Blinken, Susan Rice, Michelle Flournoy – peut-être comme secrétaire à la défense –, Samantha Power, Elisabeth Sherwood-Randall mais aussi William et Nicholas Burns… Autant de penseurs chevronnés de l’action extérieure démocrate. Les sénateurs auront également leur importance : Bob Menendez – la vieille garde –, mais aussi Chris Murphy ou Chris Coons (issu de la « Delaware connection » et qui pourrait devenir secrétaire d’État). Il ne faut pas exclure non plus l’inclusion d’une partie du cercle de l’ancien sénateur républicain John McCain, disparu en 2018 : les équipes ont travaillé ensemble, une estime mutuelle bipartisane existe. Julie Smith et Jeff Prescott, anciens Deputy National Security Advisors de Biden lorsqu’il était vice-président, pourraient revenir.

Y a-t-il des courants identifiables parmi eux ? Un débat existe entre « restaurationists » et « reformers » – partisans de restaurer la politique étrangère traditionnelle ou, à l’inverse, de prendre un nouveau départ –, notamment sur la question d’un découplage avec la Chine, sur l’alliance avec les démocraties et sur la promotion internationale des normes libérales. Un courant progressiste au parti démocrate, plus enclin à la rupture (notamment dans un sens plus environnementaliste, ou plus porté vers le Sud que vers les alliés traditionnels des États-Unis, comme la vieille Europe), et centré autour des personnes de Bernie Sanders et Elisabeth Warren, peut également se faire entendre. Enfin, l’ancien candidat aux primaires démocrates Pete Buttigieg est l’une des figures réformatrices montantes, qui avait surpris par son charisme lors des primaires : certaines rumeurs l’annoncent comme possible ambassadeur aux Nations unies.

Drnière interrogation, et pas des moindres : quelle sera l’influence de la vice-présidente Kamala Harris, membre de la commission du renseignement au Sénat ? Sur quels dossiers internationaux aura-t-elle la main ? Comment voit-elle l’Europe (elle qui vient de la côte ouest), le Moyen-Orient, le monde émergent (elle qui a des origines indiennes et caribéennes) ? L’âge de Joseph Biden (78 ans) donne naturellement à la vice-présidence une importance inédite : Kamala Harris pourrait être amenée à poursuivre l’action du président dès la fin du premier mandat, voire terminer celui-ci si le titulaire connaissait des problèmes de santé.

Le contexte : une Amérique abîmée, un monde transforméLire la suite dans The Conversation

By Pavlo Klimkin and Andreas Umland

Once the Kremlin is persuaded that Joe Biden will become the US’s next president, it may go for the jugular. Already today, not election manipulation, but triggering civil conflicts in the United States could be the main aim of Moscow’s mingling in American domestic affairs.

Over the last 15 years, the Kremlin has played with politicians and diplomats of, above all, Russia’s neighbors, but also with those of the West, a hare and hedgehog game, as known from a German fairy tale. In the Low Saxon fable’s well-known race, the hedgehog only runs a few steps, but at the end of the furrow he has placed his wife who looks very much like him. When the hare, certain of victory, storms in, the hedgehog’s wife rises and calls out to him “I’m already here!” The hare cannot understand the defeat, conducts 73 further runs, and, in the 74th race, dies of exhaustion. 

Ever since Russia’s anti-Western turn of 2005, governmental and non-governmental analysts across the globe have been busy discussing and predicting Moscow’s next offensive action. Yet, in most cases, when the world’s smart “hares” – politicians, experts, researchers, journalists et al. – arrived with more or less adequate reactions, the Russian “hedgehogs” had already long achieved their aims. Such was the case with Russia’s invasion of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, “little green men” on Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, hackers inside Germany’s Bundestag in 2015, bombers over Syria since 2015, cyber-warriors in the US elections of 2016, or “chemical” assassins at England’s Salisbury in 2018. 

Across the world, one can find hundreds of sensitive observers able to provide sharp comments on this or that vicious Russian action. For all the experience accumulated, such insights have, however, usually been provided only thereafter. So far, the Kremlin’s wheeler-dealers continue to surprise Western and non-Western policy makers and their think-tanks with novel forays, asymmetric attacks, unorthodox methods and shocking brutality. More often than not, Russian imaginativeness and ruthlessness become sufficiently appreciated only after a new “active measure,” hybrid operation or non-conformist intervention has been successfully completed.

Currently, many US observers – whether in national politics, public administration or social science – may be again preparing to fight the last war. Russian election interference and other influence operations are on everybody’s mind, across America. Yet, as Ukraine has bitterly learnt in 2014, the Kremlin only plays soft ball as long as it believes it has some chance to win. It remains relatively moderate as long as a possible loss will – from Moscow’s point of view – only be moderately unpleasant. Such was the case, during Russia’s interference into the 2016 presidential elections in the US.

The Ukrainian experience during the last six years suggests a far grimmer scenario. At some point during the Euromaidan Revolution, in either January or February 2014, Putin understood that he may be losing his grip on Ukraine. Moscow’s man in Kyiv, then still President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych (though very much assisted by Paul Manafort), may be kicked out by the Ukrainian people. As a result, Russia’s President drastically changed track already before the event. 

The Kremlin’s medal awarded to the anonymous Russian soldiers who took part in the annexation of Crimea lists the date of 20 February 2014, as the start of the operation to occupy a part of Ukraine. On that day, pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovych was still in power, and present in Kyiv. His flight from Ukraine’s capital one day later, and ousting, by the Ukrainian parliament, on 22 February 2014, had not yet been clearly predictable, on 20 February 2014. But the Kremlin had already switched from merely political warfare against Ukraine to preparing a real war – something then largely unimaginable for most observers. Something similar may be the case, in Moscow’s approach to the US today too. 

To be sure, Russian troops will hardly land on American shores. Yet, that may not be necessary. The possibility of violent civil conflict in the United States is today, in any way, being discussed by serious analysts, against the background of enormous political polarization and emotional spikes within American society. As in Putin’s favorite sports of Judo – in which he holds a Black Belt! – a brief moment of disbalance of the enemy can be used productively, and may be sufficient to cause his fall. The United States may not, by itself, become ripe for civil conflict. Yet, an opportunity to push it a bit further is unlikely to be simply missed by industrious hybrid warfare specialists in Moscow. And the game that the Russian “hedgehogs” will be playing may be a different one than in the past, and not yet be fully comprehensible to the US’s “hares.”

Hillary Clinton was in 2016 a presidential candidate very much undesired, by Moscow, as America’s new president. Yet today, a democratic president is, after Russia’s 2016 hacking of the Democratic Party’s servers and vicious campaign against Clinton, a truly threatening prospect for the Kremlin. Moreover, Joe Biden was, under President Obama, responsible for the US’s policy towards Ukraine, knows as well as likes the country well, and is thus especially undesirable for Moscow.

Last but not least, Moscow may have had more contacts with Trump and his entourage than the American public is currently aware of. The Kremlin would, in such a case, even more dislike a Biden presidency, and a possible disclosure of its additional earlier interventions, in the US. The stakes are thus higher, for the Kremlin, in 2020 than in 2016. If Trump has no plausible chance to be elected for a second term, mere election interference may not be the issue any more. Moscow may already now implement more sinister plans than trying to help Trump. If Putin thinks that he cannot prevent Biden, the Kremlin will not miss a chance to get altogether rid of the US, as a relevant international actor.

 

Pavlo Klimkin was, among others, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany in 2012-2014 as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in 2014-2019.

Andreas Umland is a researcher at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv and Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm.

https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/20/10/2020/preparing-mayhem

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