Diplomacy & Crisis News

Caleb Larson

Security, Europe

Thanks to the Spear 3 missile.

The United Kingdom’s F-35s will be equipped with a small but powerful new surface-to-ground missile in the near future: the Spear 3 missile, manufactured by MBDA, a European arms manufacturer, stands for Selective Precision Effects At Range and hints at the missile’s unique capabilities.

In an announcement posted to the MDBA website, the company elaborated on the details of the £550 million ($747 million) deal with the UK Ministry of Defense, stating “SPEAR will be the main medium-to-long-range strike weapon of the UK F-35 combat aircraft, enabling them to defeat challenging targets such as mobile long-range air defence systems at over-the-horizon ranges in all weathers and in highly contested environments.”

Here’s what makes the missile so deadly.

Spear 3

The missile itself is a stand-off weapon that is relatively small, about two meters, or six feet in length, and lightly tipping the scales at around one hundred kilos, or about twenty-two pounds. MBDA advertises the missile as efficient and cost-effective, and thanks to the missile's small payload size and relatively low explosive power, MBDA claims that collateral damage is significantly minimized.

Thanks to the Spear’s pop-out wings, the stand-off missile has a range of about 140 kilometers, or 87 miles. Given the missile’s diminutive size, it can be carried on pylons in packs of up to three, affording a higher total number of munitions per pylon.

As of now, the Spear is compatible only with the F-35B, the short take-off and vertical-landing variant of the F-35 stealth fighter family, though that is likely to change in the future. In addition to eight internally-carried Spear missiles, the F-35 could carry at least six more missiles externally on underwing pylons, though at the cost of significantly degraded stealth capabilities. MBDA artwork also shows Eurofighter Typhoons outfitted with a whopping sixteen Spear missiles in addition to external fuel tanks and additional air-to-air missiles.

Artwork released by the company shows multiple Spear missiles being released simultaneously, a nod to the interconnected and networked nature of the missile. The Spear will use both a GPS as well as an inertial navigation system and a multimode seeker to lock onto targets.

Spear Sharpening

Though the Spear missile is not yet ready for service, the seven-year deal struck with the Ministry of Defense covers additional weapon testing and integration onto British aircraft that, if adhered to, will see the first missiles built sometime in 2023. In the meantime, the Ministry of Defense is quietly sharpening its spears.

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

Sebastien Roblin

Technology, Europe

Speed has often held a mixed appeal in submarine warfare.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Re-designated K-222 in 1975, the speedy submarine served the Soviet Northern fleet for fourteen more years, soldiering through a reactor accident in 1980 caused by a wrench dropped into machinery during refueling of the reactor core. The titanium boat was finally decommissioned in December 1984 and left on a pier in Severodvinsk.

Speed has often held a mixed appeal in submarine warfare. After all, even very quiet submarines become noisy when they're tearing through the ocean at their maximum speed of 20 to 30 knots. As typically the goal in submarine warfare is to detect an unaware adversary and launch torpedoes without being detected in return, many submarines cruise at little more than a brisk jog to minimize noise.

However, speed also enables more aggressive maneuvers against alert enemies and incoming torpedoes, and the ability to close with or disengage from adversaries as the situation dictates. And sometimes speed is desirable simply to get a submarine where it needs to be to engage a fast-moving enemy.

Such was the thinking behind the Soviet’s Project 661 submarine Anchar that was conceived in 1959: a speedy submarine that could race forth to intercept American carrier task forces cruising at 33 knots, blast them with long-range cruise missiles fired from underwater, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

Project 661, known as the Papa-class by NATO, was developed roughly in parallel with another high speed-design, the Project 705 torpedo attack submarine, which would result in the iconic Alfa-class submarine. Though the two boats diverged in many respects, they had in common hulls made of strong but lightweight titanium alloy instead of steel to save weight, and thereby increase speed.

While U.S. engineers incorporated titanium components into aircraft like the ultra-fast SR-71 Blackbird, doing so on something the scale of a submarine hull was considered unfeasible because the element could only be welded in a de-oxygenated environment. That didn’t stop Soviet engineers, who had workers in pressurized suits weld 60-millimeter thick titanium plates of the Project 661’s pressure hull in the argon gas-flooded Building No. 42 in Severodvinsk.

The cost of this scheme was a (then) considerable 2 billion rubles, leading to titanium submarine being dubbed the “Golden Fish.” Many of the titanium plates subsequently cracked due to manufacturing flaws—particularly in the ballast tanks—requiring lengthy and expensive re-manufacturing of components.

Unlike the relatively small and sleek Alfa and its tiny crew of fifteen to thirty-two, the Project 661 was a large but conventional-looking double-hulled design that displaced a sizeable 7,000 tons submerged, measured 107 meters long and had a complement of eighty-two officers and seamen. Its speed advantage came from the fact that it incorporated two powerful VM-5m pressurized water reactors, each generating 177 megawatts to turn two side-by-side propeller shafts.

The K-222 had four torpedo tubes with just twelve torpedoes for self-defense. Its principal armament was meant to be ten seven-meter-long P-70 Amethyst cruise missiles (NATO codename SS-N-7 Starbright) mounted in flooded, slanted tubes along each side of its bow. These were the first cruise missiles designed for under-water launch (SLCMs) ever deployed.

Project 661’s tactical concept was simple: it would race at maximum speed towards the reported location of carrier task forces. Once it had located prey using its powerful MGK3 Rubin sonar array, the sonar would transmit targeting data to Anchar’s torpedo and missile systems.

The missile submarine would rise to within 30 meters of the surface to launch all its 3.85-ton missiles in two five-shot volleys timed three minutes apart from a distance as great as forty miles away. The Amethyst missiles would pop up to the surface powered by their first-stage rockets, whereupon they would extend wings and a second solid-fuel rocket would hurl them up into the sky. 

Upon attaining an altitude of 200 feet, a third rocket then propelled the P-70s at just under the speed of sound towards the designated target area using inertial guidance systems. In the terminal phase, the missiles switched on active L-Band radars to home in on the largest nearby target. As the missile plunged towards their target, the Project 661 sub would hightail its way back to base for reloading.

The numerous new technologies involved in the Anchar resulted in false starts to the project in 1962 and 1963. Finally, a Project 661 submarine K-162 was laid down in 1965 and launched four years later in 1969. In initial sea trials using 80 percent reactor power, she attained an impressive 42 knots, exceeding the 38 knots stipulated in design documents. By contrast, the American Permit­-class submarines of the era had a maximum speed of 28 knots. But access-hatch fairings, emergency signal buoys and water intakes were torn away during the speed run.

On December 30, Captain Golubkov Filipovich took K-162 on a test run seeking to push the titanium sub to its limits. After overriding engine safety controls, the missile submarine attained a world record of 44.7 knots (51 miles per hour) using 97 percent of reactor power while swimming 100 meters under the surface.

This speed was repeated on a second test on March 30, 1971 using 100 percent power, though the crew had to abort the third leg of the run as the turbines began to fall out of control. That fall the submarine practiced stalking an American carrier task force across the Atlantic, surfacing just once during its eighty-day deployment.

The Project 661’s impressive speed, however, came with major shortcomings—maximum speed resulted in intolerable noise levels of 100 decibels for the crew. In Cold War Submarines, author Norman Polmar shares an account by a Soviet crew member:

“…when 35 knots was exceeded, it was like the noise of a jet aircraft. In the control room was heard not simply the roar of an aircraft, but the thunder of the engine room of a diesel locomotive.”

Obviously, this would have been extremely acoustically conspicuous to adversaries. Furthermore, the submarine was prone to damaging itself when charging ahead at full speed.

This considerable expense involved in the Golden Fish’s construction meant no other boats were built in her class. However, the Papa-class did serve to pioneer technology used in later titanium-hulled submarines, leading to premium hunter-killer designs such as the Alfa and Sierra-class submarines and the deep-diving experimental Mike-class.   

Re-designated K-222 in 1975, the speedy submarine served the Soviet Northern fleet for fourteen more years, soldiering through a reactor accident in 1980 caused by a wrench dropped into machinery during refueling of the reactor core. The titanium boat was finally decommissioned in December 1984 and left on a pier in Severodvinsk. She remained inactive for twenty-four more years before she finally was scrapped in 2015.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and The Daily Beast. In 2009 he co-founded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. This article first appeared two years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Eurasia

The age of the carrier could be ending.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Today’s supercarriers will likely serve on for decades. However, the new threats arrayed against them, combined with the limited range of the current generation of carrier-based aircraft, suggest they may prove too vulnerable to operate within striking distance of near-peer opponents.

On May 31, 2017, the U.S. Navy accepted into service USS Gerald Ford, the first of up to four new fleet carriers. The massive 1,100-foot-long vessel will eventually embark around sixty aircraft, including twenty-four F-35 Lightning stealth fighters and another twenty to twenty-four FA-18 Super Hornets. It features a faster elevator for loading munitions, and new electromagnetic launch catapults (EMALS) and arresting hooks to increase the tempo of flight operations while reducing maintenance costs. All of these new perks come at roughly a $13 billion price tag—more than twice the cost of the preceding USS George H. W. Bush.

The United States’ nuclear-powered fleet carriers are currently without rival in the world, and their onboard Carrier Air Wings can unleash tremendous sustained firepower. They serve as potent symbols of American military power, and floating air bases for campaigns in Libya, Iraq and the Balkans.

But how would the supercarriers fare when taking on something tougher than a third-world despot? Advances in missile and submarine technology put in question whether such large and expensive ships are survivable when operating within striking distance of an enemy coastline.

That striking distance is dictated by the roughly seven-hundred-mile combat radius of the carrier’s F-35C stealth fighters, with a shorter range for the Super Hornets. Inflight refueling may extend that distance a bit, though one should bear in mind that a carrier air wing has only a modest ability to refuel itself with its Super Hornet tankers without resorting to larger land-based tanker support. However, sailing a carrier strike group close enough for its fighters to attack coastal targets also places the carrier well within harm’s way of a variety of nasty new weapons.

Long Littoral Reach

One of the newer threats comes from ground-based ballistic missiles—normally a weapon we think of as exclusively used for striking land targets. However, the new Chinese DF-21D Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) possess a high degree of accuracy and the capability to adjust course midflight. Both traits enable the rocket to hit a moving target like an aircraft carrier.

The DF-21D “East Wind” IRBM has a range of nine hundred miles, and can adjust its flight path using targeting data fed to it by other platforms, including a series of Yaogan satellites put into space over the last several years. The U.S. Naval Institute claimed the massive kinetic energy of a descending DF-21D, combined with the explosive payload, could potentially destroy a carrier in one hit.

It’s important to note that the East Wind is a mobile weapons system, and could thus prove difficult to preemptively strike. On the other hand, while dozens of the missiles have been deployed to PLA units, it doesn’t appear that the weapon has ever been tested against a moving naval target.

Until recently IRBMs were nearly impossible to shoot down. Today, U.S. cruisers and destroyers carry SM-3 air-defense missiles, which supposedly might be able to swat down an incoming IRBM—although it’s not expected to be easy. There also a number of potential methods for messing up an IRBM’s guidance systems.

Stealthy Submarines—or Subs with Big Missiles

Torpedo-launching submarines sank several aircraft carriers during World War II—though both land- and carrier-based aircraft played a major role in countering the submarine threat. At the time, submarines were especially vulnerable to patrol planes because they had to surface a couple of times a day to keep their batteries charged. Even when lurking underwater, they relied on noisy air-breathing diesel engines that made them easier to pick up on sonar.

During the 1950s and ’60s, new nuclear-powered submarines increased the underwater endurance of subs from hours or a few days at best to months at a time. Nuclear propulsion also enabled them to become far faster and quieter than diesel submarines. Other innovations, such as anechoic tiles and teardrop-shaped hulls reinforced the sonar stealth trend. The quieting technology had reached such a peak by the end of the Cold War that nuclear submarines obliviously collided with each other in 1992, 1993 and as recently as 2009, due to their inability to detect each other.

Of course, carriers are always escorted by destroyers or frigates specialized in antisubmarine warfare. Furthermore, long-distance maritime patrol planes and shipboard helicopters also assist in sweeping the seas for enemy subs. However, while Russian submarines were initially much noisier than their Western counterparts during most of that period, later Cold War designs, such as the nuclear-powered Akula class, were nearly peers to their Western counterparts in quietness.

Recommended: Forget the F-35: The Tempest Could Be the Future

Recommended: Why No Commander Wants to Take On a Spike Missile

Recommended: What Will the Sixth-Generation Jet Fighter Look Like?

Nuclear submarines, however, cost well over $2 billion apiece in modern times, so noisier diesel submarines remain more common across the world. However, in the 1990s Sweden deployed the first submarine to use Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), the Gotland. A variety of AIP technologies allow for a new generation of very quiet and very cheap ship-hunting submarines that cost as little as roughly one-sixth the price of a nuclear submarine, and can operate up to two to four weeks underwater, albeit at fairly slow speeds.

China now possesses fifteen Type 41 submarines, employing the same Stirling AIP system as the Gotland, with another fifteen planned, while dozens of German-made Type 212, 214 and 218 AIP submarines are entering service across Europe and Asia. In fact, the Pacific in particular has become the site of a veritable submarine arms race.

Both nuclear and AIP submarines, including the Gotland, have repeatedly succeeded in sinking aircraft carriers during NATO naval exercises. This is even more alarming considering how cheap the latter type of submarines are to build. In addition to being quiet, AIP submarines possess the range and endurance to hunt for carriers across regional waters, even if most aren’t suitable for deep-ocean operations. Another limitation is that they are significantly slower than the carriers they are hunting, especially while attempting to maximize battery life, forcing them to rely more on ambush tactics.

Still, creeping up to within torpedo range of a carrier strike group is a risky business. Some submarines are designed to hunt their targets from afar. The Russian Oscar-class cruise missile submarine, for example, is not especially stealthy, but it does not have to get close to a carrier group’s surface escorts, thanks to the four-hundred-mile range of its P-700 Granit missiles, which it can launch while underwater. The ten-meter-long missiles travel at supersonic speeds, and are designed to network together to overwhelm defensive countermeasures.

Cruise Missile Defense

This brings us into the realm of missile defense, a long-established threat that carrier strike groups have evolved to counter. While carriers carry short-range antiaircraft missiles and Phalanx CIWS guns for self-defense, their escorting Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke–class destroyers are armed with a diverse array of medium- and long-range air antiaircraft missiles, designed to thin out incoming missile barrages from hundreds of miles away. These defenses are backed up by networked radars and coordinated by the sophisticated Aegis defense system.

The challenge facing carrier strike groups today is that new antiship missiles are becoming faster, longer-range and more widespread, and can be deployed from platforms including long-distance patrol planes and bombers, small and stealthy fast-attack boats, and even shipping containers concealed in a harbor.

The greater range means new missiles can be more safely lobbed at the carrier without necessarily entering within range for easy retaliation. The greater speed means they are harder to shoot down. And the ability to deploy them from a variety of platforms means the missile-launching units might prove difficult to detect and comprehensively eradicate preemptively.

Take, for example, the Russian Kalibr cruise missile, the “Sizzler” antiship variant of which can strike naval targets up to four hundred miles away. The missile skims just above the sea, making it difficult to detect at a distance, before leaping up to three times the speed of sound on the terminal approach—offering a challenging target for missile-defense systems. The Kalibr can be fired not only from underwater by submarines, but also by relatively small and cheap corvettes.

The heavier but shorter-range BrahMos missile entering use on sea, land and air platforms in the Indian military approaches the target at Mach 2.8, and is designed to perform an L-shaped evasive maneuver to fool a ship’s missile defenses. And China, needless to say, has developed its own range of similar antiship missiles, including both clones of Russian weapons as well as truly indigenous designs.

Even more troubling for a carrier’s air defenses are a new generation of hypersonic missiles—weapons exceeding five times the speed of sound. On June 3, Russia claimed to have successfully tested the hypersonic Zircon missile, with a reported speed of 4,600 miles per hour.

If a carrier tasks forces defense’s function properly—not something to take for granted when both the attacking and defensive systems have scant operational records—then they should be able to handle a few incoming missiles. However, an attacker would seek to “saturate” the defender’s defenses by launching large volleys of the missiles all at once, and it may only take a few getting through to wreak considerable havoc.

This, however, brings us to the major critique common to all these carrier-killing tactics: they often require a high degree of coordination, operational planning and networking.

Breaking the Kill Chain

Set aside the air-defense missiles for a moment—a carrier’s first defense is that its thousand-foot-long flight deck is still nothing more than a tiny pinprick measured against the millions of square miles that make up the ocean. A tiny moving pinprick. Not just locating but also tracking a carrier across all that space relies on having a maritime observation apparatus coordinating long-distance patrol planes, submarines, over-the-horizon radars and satellites—many of which are vulnerable in turn to a carrier strike group’s aircraft and missiles.

Once that apparatus identifies a carrier’s position, the targeting data needs to make it back in a timely fashion to air, land or naval units to put them in position for an attack. This sort of “cueing” is also very important in submarine operations. In many cases, a separate platform will have to network targeting data on the carrier, as the launch platforms may be too far away to acquire them on their own radars. Of course, that targeting data may also be disrupted by electronic warfare and defensive countermeasures. Just as likely, the observers may lose track of the carrier task force’s position before elements can get into place to make the strike.

These considerations lead National Interest contributor Rob Farley to argue that China and Russia lack adequate the maritime intelligence assets and operational experience to mount a well-coordinated maritime search-and-destroy campaign against a carrier task force, even if they possess armaments that could theoretically prove effective against one.

The Operational Track Record—Such As It Is

It’s important to stress that nobody really knows how effective both the offensive and defensive naval technologies will prove against each other, as there have fortunately been no large-scale naval wars since World War II.

However, the smaller-scale naval conflicts that have occurred in the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and the South Atlantic all suggest long-range antiship missiles pose a substantial threat.

Consider the two British ships sunk by air-launched Exocet missiles in the Falkland War, with a third damaged by a ground-launched weapon. The first attack was not detected until seconds before the moment of impact. Argentina’s possession of just a few of the missiles nearly led London to dispatch a suicidal commando raid on Argentine soil to negate the threat.

During the same conflict, an Argentine diesel-electric submarine twice managed to launch torpedo attacks on British vessels without being detected—though, fortunately for the Royal Navy, the torpedoes all malfunctioned! Meanwhile, Argentina’s own carrier did not participate in the conflict due to the threat posed by British submarines, one of which had sunk cruiser General Belgrano.

On the other hand, antiship missiles liberally employed during the Iran-Iraq War generally failed to sink large tanker vessels—which may imply that supercarriers will also prove similarly resilient.

Obviously, these decades-old incidents should not be over-extrapolated into applying to current technology—but their lessons shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

One should also recall how many navies continued to invest in battleships in between the world wars, skeptical that then-new aircraft carriers could seriously challenge them. Surely, early carrier-based aircraft must not have seemed nearly as dependable as the sixteen-inch guns on a battleship turret. But those primitive warplanes and the operational doctrine for their use matured to the point where their ability to search for and destroy targets across hundreds of miles rendered the battleship obsolete.

Actual combat in World War II proved revelatory. In the December 7 raid on Pearl Harbor, Japanese warplanes sank three U.S. battleships and severely damaged several more. Shortly afterward, land-based bombers sank the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse in a few of frenetic hours of action. To cap it off, the subsequent decisive naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway were fought entirely by carrier air strikes and submarine attacks. It took these brutal encounters with reality to finally sweep away many navies’ long-held devotion to a weapon system that no longer provided results commensurate with the expense of building them.

Today’s supercarriers will likely serve on for decades. However, the new threats arrayed against them, combined with the limited range of the current generation of carrier-based aircraft, suggest they may prove too vulnerable to operate within striking distance of near-peer opponents.

It would make sense to plan future naval strategy around these new adversary capabilities, rather than simply doubling down on the supercarrier model because it has worked so far in permissive environments. Solutions that have been suggested to meet the new challenges posed by operating in littoral waters include using long-range carrier-based drones that will allow carriers to operate further afield from dangerous coastlines, relying on stealthy submarines to deliver cruise-missile attacks and distributing firepower across a larger fleet of individually less expensive ships. Above all, planners should seriously consider whether supercarriers loaded with relatively short-range warplanes remain a survivable and cost-efficient linchpin of U.S. naval strategy.

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 August 2017 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Americas

Speed is not cheap, especially when the plane is the fastest in the world.

Key Point: The SR-71 served well but has yet to be replaced. Rumor has it that newer version is in the works.

The sleek and sinister SR-71 Blackbird looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie, though in fact the jet black spy plane proved far more successful at outrunning enemy missiles than any of the spaceships depicted in Star Wars. Though retired in the 1990s in favor of spy satellites and recon drones, it doesn’t look like any modern designs are likely to challenge the Blackbird’s record as the fastest manned aircraft ever.

Stealthy Speedster:

As Cold War tensions heightened during the 1950s, the CIA began flying the U-2 spy plane to keep tabs on the Soviet Union’s fast expanding nuclear weapons capabilities. Ungainly and relatively slow-moving, the U-2 relied upon its ability to fly at extremely high altitudes to avoid enemy fighters and early surface-to-air missiles.

The intelligence provided by U-2s in 1962 uncovered the Soviet nuclear missiles deployed to Cuba, leading to the dramatic events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the U-2s also provoked diplomatic incidents because they simply couldn’t fly high enough to avoid Russian missiles SA-2 surface-to-air missiles. A U-2 was shot down in 1960, and its pilot, Gary Powers, captured, triggering an embarrassing diplomatic row.  Another U-2 was shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, killing the pilot and escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington at a critical moment. Five Taiwanese U-2s were shot down over China.

American engineers realized altitude was no longer an adequate defense and in 1957 began working on a plane for the CIA that they hoped Soviet radars would be unable to detect, and that could outrun any missiles fired at it. The Lockheed Skunkworks factory ultimately developed the A-12, codenamed “Archangel.” The prototype was first tested in Area 51 in 1962, and in the end fifteen A-12s were produced.

CIA A-12s flew a total of 29 spy missions over North Korea and Vietnam through 1968 in Operation Black Shield, losing six aircraft to accidents. Intelligence gathered by A-12 helped the CIA to map out North Vietnamese air defenses and located the U.S.S. Pueblo after it was hijacked by North Korea.

The Air Force developed prototypes of an interceptor version, the YF-12, and later considered a high speed bomber, the B-71 (coming numerically after the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber that never entered production). There was even a bizarre M-21 drone carrier that launched a D-21 spy drone off its back. However, none of these spinoffs entered service, and the A-12 was retired in favor of an Air Force operated variant, the SR-71.

The A-12 mounted a single high-resolution camera that recorded a broad swath of terrain directly underneath the aircraft. The Air Force wanted a longer-range version of the A-12 with better sensors that didn’t need to fly directly over hostile territory, particularly as an agreement reached with the Soviet Union that banned territorial overflight. This led to the two-seat SR-71A—the “SR” standing for Strategic Reconnaissance.

The SR-71 was actually slightly less stealthy and high-flying than the A-12, but had different intelligence-gathering technology. It mounted a side-looking airborne radar that mapped the ground below it, and also used two cameras that took images to either side, though at lower-resolution than the A-12’s larger camera. The Reconnaissance Systems Officer in the back seat operated the radar and assisted with navigation. Additionally, the Blackbird had an Electro-Magnetic Reconnaissance system that could detect and record signals traffic.

A total of 32 SR-71s were produced, including two SR-71B trainers and a single SR-71C prototype nicknamed “the Bastard” because of its unstable handling.

The Blackbird could sustain speeds above Mach 3, with a so far unbroken manned-flight record of Mach 3.3 or 3.5.  (The 3.3 record is confirmed, while Mach 3.5 is claimed by pilot Brian Shul to have been achieved while outrunning a missile over Libya in 1986.) That speed is actually even more impressive than it seems, because while later Soviet MiG-25 and MiG-31 fighters could attain Mach 3, they could only do so for brief periods on afterburners, the aerial equivalent of an energy-burning sprint. The SR-71 could sustain Mach 3 flight  for 90 minutes, at which points it required in-flight refueling. A Blackbird once set the record for flying from New York to London in 1 hour and 54 minutes.

In effect, by the time it took a SAM system could lock onto an SR-71 traveling at Mach 3 and launch a missile, the Blackbird was already moving beyond the effective range of the missile.

But Lockheed wasn’t just counting on speed to evade enemy missiles. The Blackbird was the first operational airplane intentionally designed with a reduced radar cross-section to minimize the chance of detection. The Blackbird’s chines—the knife-like tapered edges of the fuselage—were even coated with early radar-absorbent iron-ferrite paint to help lower radar detection ranges.  The chines were also found to provide additional lift and greater aerodynamic stability.

However, the Blackbird wasn’t a stealth plane by modern standards—it had a cross section of 10 square meters—which Soviet radar technology soon proved capable of detecting anyway. Adding to the problem was the enormous heat-exhaust plumes the SR-71’s engines generated, which disrupted the air particles behind it in a manner visible to radar.

Fortunately, the Blackbird also mounted a radar jammer and other electronic countermeasures for confusing enemy missiles. To cap it all off, it was capable of sustained flight at 85,000 feet—another unbroken record—and employed an astro-inertial navigation system that used the stars overhead to calculate the plane’s position.

The Blackbird’s design reflected the fact that it was pushing the limits. The crew wore pressure suits like those used on space missions to withstand the high altitudes they were flying at, and were treated to a medical exam and a high-protein steak and egg meals before each mission.  The SR-71’s J58 engines could only start through use of two vehicle-mounted V8 starter engines, and the triethylborane used in the fuel would belch green flames during ignition. The J58s would switch to a partial ramjet mode at high speeds, such that the SR-71 actually became more fuel efficient when it went faster.

However, when moving at high speeds for long periods of time, the friction generated by the air caused the exterior of the Blackbird to heat up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit or higher—and so the Blackbird was designed top to bottom to shed enormous heat without melting. The SR-71 was made 85% out of of titanium, a heat-resistant metal so hard it broke ordinary drill bits after making just 17 rivet holes, necessitating the development of specialized new tools. The windshields were made of pure quartz, and heavy duty air conditioning system dumped heat out of the cockpit.  After landing, both flight and ground crew had to wait a good while for a Blackbird to cool down before they could even touch it.

The Blackbird consumed special JP-8 high-density jet fuel that had such a high combustion temperature, legend had it you could safely put out a match in it. The fuel was circulated through hundreds of small tubes in the fuselage to double as a heat sink. Blackbirds in photographs often appear a bit ‘shiny’ or wet in photos. That’s actually fuel leaking out of the tanks. Because metal expands at high temperatures, the metal plating of the Blackbird was designed purposefully loose to accommodate the expanding metal, leading to an intentionally leaky fuel tank. Once the SR-71 started flying at high speeds, the metal would heat up and expand several inches, sealing the fuel tank with the aid of a heat-released sealant. The Blackbird’s metal skin was also corrugated in parts to allow for metal expansion.

The Blackbird required multiple aerial refuelings for its missions. These were delivered by specialized KC-135Q tankers, which used a stabilized boom to refuel planes traveling at unusually high speeds, while the Blackbird’s special fuel was stored a separate tank.

An Impressive Record:

The first operational SR-71 unit was activated in 1968, based at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The locals nicknamed the recon birds Habu—“pit vipers”—a nickname which stuck amongst Blackbird pilots. 

They went onto fly numerous reconnaissance missions over Vietnam. And while the plane performed well, it seems those who would want to take the plane down as the ultimate trophy were catching up.

American pilots soon discovered that the Blackbird’s reduced radar cross-section wasn’t an effective defense by itself–Russian-made radars were powerful enough to track the Habu and launch missiles. However, they learned that the SR-71’s  speed did work as a defense.

Around 800 missiles were fired at Blackbirds over Vietnam alone—but not a single one was lost to enemy fire, though one CIA A-12 did take a piece of shrapnel from an SA-2 missile that exploded 100 meters away.

Blackbirds went onto fly over 3,551 reconnaissance missions over the next 30 years, flying over the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia.  Eleven SR-71s were lost in accidents—though all but one pilot survived.  Not one was lost to hostile fire.

Blackbird pilot Colonel James Shelton Jr. recounted how his plane flew an epic 11.5 hour mission to photograph Israeli army positions near the end of the Yom Kippur War. Along the way, he overflew Egyptian airspace and was tracked by multiple radar sites and interceptors—but none of them could keep up. The photos he took later established that Israeli troops were further in Egyptian territory than they had admitted, leading the U.S. to successfully pressure Israel into withdrawing its forces.

Blackbirds also flew recon missions off the Russian coast—though not over Russia itself—evading all of the Mach 3 MiG-25 fighters sent after them. Soviet defector Victor Belenko wrote in his biography MiG Pilot, “They taunted and toyed with the MiG-25s sent up to intercept them, scooting up to altitudes the Soviet planes could not reach, and circling leisurely above them or dashing off at speeds the Russians could not match.”

Yet the Blackbird had shortcomings. It was expensive to operate, costing more than $100,000 per hour flown according to one estimate. Furthermore, an SR-71 required an average of a week of maintenance between each mission because the high-speed flights often caused bits and pieces of the airplane to loosen or come off. The Air Force was also worried that new Soviet SA-5 surface-to-air missiles had the speed and range to hit it.

Most importantly, spy satellites and drones could handle the strategic missions that the SR-71 was supposed to perform. And the Blackbird, which relied on 1960s technology, had no datalink to transmit its intelligence data back to base, so it was not considered ideal for providing data in a time-sensitive manner.

The End of an Era:

The SR-71 was first retired in 1989, before three airframes were brought back into service in 1994. However, the operating costs of the small fleet were extremely high. Despite attempts by politicians like Senator John Glenn to save the program, the Air Force wanted to redirect funding to other projects, and the SR-71 was finally withdrawn from service in 1998. NASA’s two Blackbirds were retired the following year.

For years, there were rumors of an even faster spy plane, the Aurora, but its existence seems unlikely at this point. Rather, the Pentagon relies on drones and satellites if it needs to cast an eye on a well-defended location. Why risk lives and diplomatic incidents using manned aircraft? The still-classified RQ-180 Global Hawk stealth drone currently in development is believed to be the effective successor of the Blackbird.

What about gathering intel over places where there is no threat from surface-to-air missiles?  Then the Air Force can call upon the venerable 1950’s era U-2—which in heavily upgraded form, is now flying photo reconnaissance missions over Iraq, having outlasted its successor by two decades and counting.

Nonetheless, it looks like the Blackbird will remain the queen of speed for some time to come.

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 piece was originally featured in October 2016 and is being republished due to reader's interest.

Image: SR-71.

Russell A. Berman

Diplomacy, Europe

President-elect Joe Biden and members of his foreign policy team have signaled their own European aspirations, with greater attention likely to be devoted to western European allies, France and Germany, as well as the EU itself.

The trans-Atlantic partnership is indispensable to American security and prosperity. In the context of great power competition, where democratic values face constant challenges from China and Russia, the deep ties between North America and the countries of Europe have grown especially vital. It is important for American leadership to cultivate these connections.

The Trump administration has had a European agenda, marked by visits by top American officials to the countries on the eastern flank of the European Union, from the Baltics to Bulgaria, the Balkans, and Greece. President-elect Joe Biden and members of his foreign policy team have signaled their own European aspirations, with greater attention likely to be devoted to western European allies, France and Germany, as well as the EU itself. Rather than emphasizing the differences between these approaches, it is more appropriate to see the continuity in Washington's ongoing efforts to maintain robust ties to a continent of multiple countries with diverse interests and perspectives.

The Biden team has made it clear that it intends to strengthen trans-Atlantic relations by acceding to two salient foreign policy agenda items of the Europeans: returning to the Iran Deal, the JCPOA, and rejoining the Paris Climate Accords. Despite the substantive discussions around each of these two agreements—whether the JCPOA can effectively block Iran's path to nuclear weapons and whether the Paris Accord does not unfairly advantage China, the worst Carbon offender—each also represents a prospective concession by the incoming Biden administration to European expectations. They can serve as vehicles to reground traditional trans-Atlantic collaboration. Some may doubt the wisdom of these plans, but no one, at this point, should be surprised if the Biden State Department moves willy nilly to restore the status quo ante by re-embracing both Obama-era arrangements. Europe will be happy.

We should however not forget that rebuilding trans-Atlantic relations is also a European goal. A reinvigorated Atlanticism could therefore also benefit from steps by the Europeans and not only depend on one-sided concessions by Washington. Indeed, a smart European strategy at this point would include extending olive branches to the United States in order to facilitate the potential rapprochement. There are some real points of dispute that have been dividing the Atlantic partnership, but a willing Europe could fix them easily. Meanwhile, smart American diplomacy should encourage such reciprocity, especially in two areas where European flexibility would earn bipartisan applause in Washington.

Stopping the Nord Stream 2 (NS2). Blocking the pipeline has been a consistent goal of both the Obama and Trump administrations. The pending sanctions against completing NS2 have wide bipartisan support in Congress. Nord Stream has also faced extensive opposition in Europe, especially in Poland and the Baltics, but in France as well. It has really only been championed in Germany, but even there, in the wake of the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, influential figures have challenged NS2, both because it poses a threat to European energy security and because it signals inappropriate support for Vladimir Putin's dictatorship. Chancellor Angela Merkel came close to pulling the plug on the pipeline construction, but she ultimately punted, saying the decision should be European, not just German. It is time to take her by her word and urge the European Commission to suspend NS2. Europe could give no clearer signal to the Biden administration that it values the trans-Atlantic partnership. Our diplomats should encourage their European colleagues to move expeditiously on this. It would be a sign of good faith in the Atlantic Alliance.

Pushing Back on China. The Trump administration transformed the U.S. view of China, but the criticism of China has become bipartisan, regarding unfair trade practices, the treatment of minorities, and the rollback of democracy in Hong Kong. President-elect Biden has signaled his intention to continue a tough line toward Beijing, hopefully in collaboration with European allies. Yet in late December, on the eve of the Biden presidency, the European Commission approved an investment agreement with China. On this agreement too, the devil is in the detail, and serious doubts have been raised as to whether it would ever be able to deliver on the rosy terms that it promises. The agreement must still be ratified by the European Parliament, and its passage is by no means assured, especially in light of China's continued mass arrests of democracy activists. At this point, EU approval of the agreement would signal a callous disregard for the human rights abuses as well as for China's breaking its treaty obligations regarding Hong Kong. Biden’s diplomats have an opportunity to convince the European Commission to suspend the investment agreement unilaterally, while working together with Brussels to persuade China to desist in Hong Kong, to end the persecution of the Uighurs, and to initiate domestic reforms. In addition, Washington could use the authority of the Global Magnitsky Act in concert with the EU that has just adopted parallel legislation to sanction Chinese officials involved in human rights violations. That would be a new “Atlantic Alliance,” worthy of the name.

Of course there are other long-standing issues that irritate trans-Atlantic ties, including the reluctance of many NATO members to share the cost of the defense burden equitably as well as the endemic trade imbalances. These matters certainly need addressing, but given their complexity, rapid progress is unlikely. In contrast, the Biden team could encourage Europe's leadership to move quickly to freeze Nord Stream 2 and to suspend the investment deal with China. If the new administration embraces the Europeans' goals by returning to the JCPOA and the Paris Accords, its success will be measured in terms of its ability to achieve reciprocity, by influencing European allies to meet American goals toward Russia and China. Trans-Atlanticism has to work in both directions for it to remain politically sustainable.

Russell A. Berman is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University. He served on the Commission on Unalienable Rights. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

The Allied victory over Nazi Germany was won on the back of well over tens of thousands of medium tanks churned out by Allied factories over the course of the war.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The key conclusion is that the Allied tanks were engineered for mass production and to handle routine battlefield tasks well, rather than being over-engineered to survive the heaviest guns or penetrate the thickest armor. Upgrades introduced in 1944 gradually helped address undeniable shortcomings in armor penetration when facing the smaller force of German heavy tanks.

The Allied victory over Nazi Germany was won on the back of well over tens of thousands of medium tanks churned out by Allied factories over the course of the war. These war-winning weapons stemmed Nazi attacks from the gates of Moscow to Tunisia and the Battle of the Bulge, and swarmed in their thousands to surround and eliminate the Wehrmacht’s ground forces in campaign such Stalingrad, Operation Cobra and the Bagration offensive.

These victories were won despite the well-known fact that by 1943 the Allied tanks were outclassed by heavier German Panther and Tiger tanks that at times dealt them lopsided losses.

The Allied medium tanks, in fact, shared very similar armaments, degrees of armor protection and mobility. Their key trait was that they boasted just enough firepower and armor to get the jobs done, and could be mass produced to an unprecedented scale. This allowed the United States and Soviet Union to fully leverage their larger industrial base to overwhelm the Third Reich’s creaky industrial base, which relied on over-engineered designs built by slave-labor.

This article will compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the legendary Sherman and T-34—as well as the British Cromwell, a similar-performing medium tank introduced in 1944.

Crew Accommodations

The Cromwell and Sherman both had five-man crews: a tank commander, a gunner, a driver, a loader and a radio operator. Furthermore, each tank was equipped with its own radio receiver, allowing tank units to split apart to perform individual maneuvers and separate missions.

Early-war T-34s, by contrast, had a crew of four: a tank commander who doubled as a loader, a gunner, a driver and a machine-gunner/radio operator. This meant the tank commander had to do double-duty—or triple duty if he was also a unit commander.

Moreover, often only officer’s tanks were equipped with radios earlier in the war, which meant instructions had to be passed on orally or by signal flags from platoon commanders to their subordinates.

As a result, Soviet tank platoons typically maneuvered closely together, and could not react to changing orders as quickly. The T-34 also had notoriously uncomfortable ergonomics and a cramped turret.

Armor

The Sherman and Cromwell tanks were protected by up to three inches of armor, with lower degrees of protection on the sides and rear. The lighter 1941-model T-34 had only 45 to 60 millimeters of armor, but this was heavily sloped up to 60 degrees, resulting in comparable effectiveness.

This degree of protection largely protected the vehicles from frontal hits by early-war German 37-millimeter and 50-millimeter guns, and low-velocity 75-millimeter howitzers. The T-34 particularly made a big splash when it began seeing action in 1941, posing significant problems to the otherwise devastating initial German assault on the Soviet Union.

However, starting in 1942, the T-34 and Sherman could be reliably penetrated by long-barreled 75-millimeter guns entering German service. Ironically, the even heavier guns used by the Tiger and Panther tanks were tremendous overkill against the Allied medium tank’s armor.

A well-designed tank can sometimes survive penetrating hits. The Sherman, however, developed a reputation for having its ammunition “brew up” in flames after impact. This led to later “W” or “Wet-Storage” models of the Sherman which stored ammunition in water-insulated compartments, significantly reducing the frequency of combustion.

The T-34 crews had a different problem: the tank’s heat-treated steel was prone to spalling into deadly fragments from non-penetrating hits.

Armament and Upgrades

The Sherman, T-34 and Cromwell all employed remarkably similar medium-caliber guns. The Sherman, and most models of the Cromwell, used a 38-caliber 75-millimeter gun, while starting in 1941, the T-34 used a 41-caliber 76-millimeter gun. These were effective even against entrenched infantry and even could shoot shotgun-like cannister anti-personnel rounds.

The guns’ armor-piercing rounds could reliably penetrate German Panzer III and IV medium tanks and their turretless assault gun derivatives, but were infamously ineffective against the thick frontal armor of the Tiger and Panther. In one engagement, three Tigers rolled head-long through a battalion of Cromwells, destroying two-dozen before they were knocked out.

Early-model Cromwell I tanks had used high-velocity 57-millimeter 6-pounder guns with superior armor-penetration. However, these lacked effective anti-personnel munitions, so the 75-millimeter gun models were adopted instead. The Soviets also experimentally deployed several hundred T-34 “tank hunters” with 57-millimeter weapons.

In 1944, up-gunned variants of the Sherman and T-34 were introduced to deal with the Tiger and Panther problem. The T-34/85 boasted a heavier 85-millimeter gun which also had a deadlier anti-personnel blast effect. This was combined with a fifth crew member and a more heavily armored turret.

The M4A3E8 “Easy 8” Sherman mounted a 76-millimeter gun with modestly improved penetration using regular armor-piercing shells and had very high penetration using a limited supply of tungsten high-velocity shells. However, the 76-millimeter gun had significantly weaker anti-personnel effects.

Arguably the best up-gunned World War II Sherman was the British Sherman Firefly, which carried a powerful 3-inch 17-pounder gun. However, the British attempt to upgrade the Cromwell with a 17-pounder resulted in the poorly armored and ill-balanced Challenger tank. After serving in the Battle of Normandy, the Challenger was hastily withdrawn from service.

All three tanks mounted additional machine guns in the hull and turret for anti-personnel use and ranging against armored targets. The Sherman alone additionally mounted a heavy .50-caliber machine gun on the turret for air defense.

Mobility and Reliability

The Sherman and T-34 could attain 28 and 32 miles per hour respectively, a very decent pace for tanks of the era. The Cromwell’s most distinguishing quality was its higher speed of 40 miles per hour, which allowed it even to “leap” over significant gaps.

The T-34’s Christie suspension was particularly noted for its ability to traverse heavy snow and mud, common impediments on the Eastern Front. However, the Sherman’s relatively narrow-set tracks sometimes struggled to negotiate rough terrain compared to the wider-set tracks of the T-34, Cromwell and German tanks.

On the other hand, the Sherman developed a reputation for excellent reliability, while the sometimes crudely-manufactured T-34 could experience frequent breakdowns.

Economy

Russia produced a staggering 84,000 T-34 tanks during World War II. Such was the pace of production, that tanks in Stalingrad were even rolled directly off the factory line straight into battle. The city of Chelyabinsk was dubbed “Tankograd” due to the over 60,000 workers gathered to assemble tanks there. Massive economies of scale caused the production price to fall from 269,000 rubles to just 135,000, and man-hours to descend from 9,000 hours to eventually just 3,200 hours per tank.

The United States’ mighty industrial machine built up 49,000 M4 tanks and shipped most of these 33 to 40-ton tanks across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with thousands entering British, French, Chinese and Soviet service. The Shermans were built comparatively expensively at around 48,000 man-hours and $55,000 each—or $800,000 in contemporary dollars.

The United Kingdom with its much more limited resources built only 6,000 Cromwells, which served primarily in armored reconnaissance regiments and the famous 7th Armored Division.

Meanwhile, the scary German Tigers required 300,000 man-hours—and for every Tiger that rampaged amongst the Allied medium tanks, many more were lost due to fuel shortages and mechanical breakdowns. The arguably better Panther still clocked in at 55,000 hours.

The key conclusion is that the Allied tanks were engineered for mass production and to handle routine battlefield tasks well, rather than being over-engineered to survive the heaviest guns or penetrate the thickest armor. Upgrades introduced in 1944 gradually helped address undeniable shortcomings in armor penetration when facing the smaller force of German heavy tanks.

Sure, the Sherman or T-34 weren’t favored to win in a head-on one-on-one confrontation versus heavier Nazi foes. But the countries building them planned their military-industrial base to win the war.

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 two years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Andrew A. Michta

Politics, Europe

The lack of consensus across the West about the threat that China poses to the international order is likely to remain the most intractable problem for NATO and transatlantic relations going forward.

We are a year into the worst crisis to hit the globe since the Great Depression. Borrowing has skyrocketed, sending budget deficits and national debts to unheard-of levels, while repeated lockdowns and mounting public health concerns have fueled social unrest, strained political institutions, and left a trail of failed businesses in their wake. The “2020 Great Suppression” of the global economy is unprecedented. We simply have no idea at this point of the extent of the damage to our economic and social fabric that will likely continue to manifest itself long after this pandemic has run its course. And yet, quite remarkably, one rarely hears government officials, think-tankers and the media mention the name of the state that brought this devastation to us all.

In part, Western restraint in criticizing Beijing can be explained by our unprecedented and continued economic dependence on China for key manufactured goods and supplies that the offshoring of manufacturing has wrought onto the most advanced Western economies. The pandemic has exposed the extent to which the radical centralization of key supply chains owing to Chinese mercantilism (and Western greed) has made China the sole provider of key medicines, Personal Protective Equipment and other equipment needed to manage the global health emergency. The Western reticence to criticize China is also due in part to the extent to which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been able to influence and shape the direction of our internal policy debate, not just in the United States but also in Europe and elsewhere, with Beijing leveraging its access to every layer of Western societies. The PRC has been able to exploit the fissures in our domestic politics, benefitting from the hardening ideological divisions that have fractured the national consensus across the West such that we are incapable of facing up squarely to the existential threat that China poses to the United States and democracies worldwide. Lastly, the sheer scale of Western investment in China by an ever-larger number of U.S. and European transnational companies has made the task of confronting Beijing over the pandemic that much more difficult, for the near-term economic pain of decoupling from Chinese supply chains would be sharp and felt in short order.

And yet, the fundamental reason why democracies have thus far failed to confront China over its responsibility for the pandemic is the very scope of the challenge that it poses to the West, and the lack of consensus, especially between the United States and its European allies, about the nature of the threat. The United States sees China as both a military and economic problem set. Irrespective of how the U.S. strategy towards the PRC evolves in the next U.S. administration, the reality of the existential threat that China poses to U.S. vital interests, especially in the Indo-Pacific but also in other theaters, including at home, is not going away, notwithstanding occasional voices in Washington calling for a “détente” in U.S.-China relations. The scope of the challenge is directly tied to the size of the Chinese economy (still nominally smaller than the U.S. economy, but in PPP terms already several trillion dollars bigger than ours); this economic strength is now being translated by Beijing into usable military capabilities.

China’s growing military power and its geostrategic assertiveness in Asia, Africa, and increasingly in the Mediterranean and in Europe are now in full view.  The PLAN’s massive shipbuilding program, in particular, is a source of growing concern for the U.S.—in terms of the sheer number of ships the Chinese navy is already larger than the U.S. Navy, even if those combatants lag behind the capabilities of the U.S. fleet. The Chinese technology gap with the U.S. military is also narrowing. Decades of offshoring our industry and, more significantly, allowing China free access to our society at every level, including U.S. corporations and universities and research labs, have allowed the PRC to build a modern R&D base that may help it innovate and leapfrog the United States in key areas of emerging technologies going forward. The narrowing of the qualitative gap between U.S. and Chinese weapons systems is a direct result of decades of allowing globalist ideology to overshadow our national interest and strategic considerations after the Cold War when history was believed to have “ended.”

While America sees China increasingly as a cross-domain threat, Europe still considers it to be predominantly an economic problem set, and in many respects also as an economic opportunity. Access to the Asian market is considered vital to European manufacturing and exports without which the European social market model and political consensus resting on it would be difficult to sustain. Hence, the Europeans are eager to avoid being pulled into the hard security military dimension of the accelerating U.S.-China confrontation. So, while the European Union has awakened to Chinese predatory mercantilism and the attendant theft of intellectual property, it remains intent—at least for the time being—to maintain as much as possible the commercial status quo. The scope of European investment in China and the critical importance of the Chinese market (the PRC is Germany’s largest source of imports) give Beijing considerable influence on the continent. Much like in the United States, European corporate interests continue to lobby for the status quo to continue.

The challenge that China poses for the United States and the democratic world, in general, is orders of magnitude greater than the threat posed to NATO by the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. China’s rise is occurring at a time when the United States is coming off two decades of continuous wars in secondary theaters, which not only consumed trillions of dollars but also restructured its military away from large scale combat operations against another great power. During the Cold War the United States faced only one near-peer military competitor: the Soviet Union—Maoist China was a regional player at best. The Nixon-Kissinger gambit that pulled it closer to the United States in effect lowered the cost of containment and contributed to America’s victory in the Cold War. In contrast, today we are confronted by two near-peer competitors in the military arena, for Russia is aligned with China in its opposition to the United States. Moscow remains determined to revise the post-Cold War settlement while Beijing wants to completely replace it with one built around its own power and geostrategic priorities.

The lack of consensus across the West about the threat that China poses to the international order is likely to remain the most intractable problem for NATO and transatlantic relations going forward, presenting a fundamental obstacle to building a workable joint strategy to outcompete China and preserve our dominant position. So long as such a consensus is missing, Beijing will be able to leverage the policy differences and divergent economic priorities of the United States and Europe to its benefit.

Andrew A. Michta is the dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. Views expressed here are his own.

Image: Reuters.

Nicolai Petro

Security, Eurasia

America is trapped. It cannot abandon its current policy toward Ukraine without appearing to offer Russia an undeserved victory, yet it also cannot continue its current policy because it enhances internal divisions that stoke popular frustration and anger toward America.

For the first time since the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and the banning of his once-dominant Party of Regions, multiple surveys show that its successor, the pro-Russian “Opposition Platform-For Life,” has become the most popular political party in Ukraine, overtaking both president Volodymyr Zelensky’s “Servant of the People,” and former president Petro Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity.”

While such precipitous reversals of fortune are hardly unusual in Ukrainian politics—few presidents have managed to retain positive ratings after their first year—Zelensky’s decline is extraordinary because his party also has an unprecedented absolute majority in the country’s unicameral legislature.

Put simply, in contrast to all his predecessors, Zelensky had all the instruments of power aligned in his favor, including the support of the West which, under the watchful eye of the G7 Ambassadors’ Support Group for Ukraine, offered advice to his inexperienced team on whom it should hire and what policies it should implement. At long last, it seemed, all the stars were aligned for the implementation of a rapid-fire pro-West strategy, which the Zelensky’s supporters even referred to as “the turbo-regime.” What could possibly go wrong?   

Quite a lot, as it turns out. The combination of rare political ineptitude and perceived subservience to Western interests has resulted in a political meltdown not seen in Ukraine since the Orange Revolution of 2004. At that time, president Victor Yushchenko, another darling of the West, also entered office on a wave of popular enthusiasm, only to leave four years later with a popularity rating of less than 6 percent. 

Having stumbled into politics after a long career in the entertainment industry, Zelensky’s political inexperience was expected, and therefore largely forgiven by the electorate during his first half-year in office. Disgusted with professional politicians, Ukrainians were willing to gamble on a bumbling but likable “everyman” of the sort that Zelensky had played in his comedy series “Servant of the People,” later the namesake of his party. 

But rather than learn from his initial mistakes, Zelensky decided to double down on them. He rotated cabinet ministers like they were out of style and continued the same divisive cultural policies that had led to popular disenchantment with his predecessor. The latest example is the new fines, to begin January 16, 2021, for initiating a conversation with a customer in any language but Ukrainian in any commercial or public capacity (religious services being the only exception). The parties may switch to another language afterward if both sides consent. This curious imposition is bound to cause further strife in a country where roughly a third of the population prefers to speak Russian and a majority of the population considers government restrictions on their choice of language to be a human-rights violation. 

The continuation of such divisive policies has alienated the very constituency that brought Zelensky and his party to power, namely the largely Russian-speaking southern and eastern Ukraine. They voted for Zelensky because he promised to end Poroshenko’s efforts to impose the distinct language, culture, and history of Galician Western Ukraine on the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, the rising influence of Western advisors in Ukrainian politics has become more of an embarrassment than a benefit for the Ukrainian government. At the end of 2020, the Ukrainian news site Vesti rated the G7 Ambassadors as the second most influential force in Ukrainian politics, even ahead of president Zelensky.

While such “external administration” has been hinted at for years, the increasing number of incidents in which the G7 Ambassadors have intervened to alter policy and governmental appointments has made the loss of Ukrainian sovereignty to the West the hot political topic in Ukraine for 2021.

While Westerners are mainly familiar with how, as vice president, Joe Biden pressured president Poroshenko into firing Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, more recent examples include: preventing the removal of the head of the National Corruption Bureau after the Ukrainian Constitutional Court declared his appointment unconstitutional; discouraging  Ukraine from buying Russia’s Covid vaccine; rescinding the Ukrainian government’s October 2020 agreement on cybersecurity and telecommunications with China and replacing Huawei’s equipment with analogues made by Cisco; pressuring Ukraine not to sell its renowned engine manufacturer Motor Sich to Chinese investors; and even putting pressure on churches in other countries to disavow the country’s traditional Orthodox Church, in favor of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine that president Poroshenko set up to help his presidential campaign.  

Such obvious Ukrainian subservience to the West has begun to provoke dissent even at the highest levels of government (after the president’s deputy chief of staff, Oleh Tatarov, went public with his criticism of “external administration” he suddenly found himself indicted and suspended from office), which only further erodes the president’s ratings. Zelensky’s strategy for ending this political death spiral seems to be to wait for Biden to become president so that, as his foreign minister puts it, America and Ukraine can start to “rock n’roll” together.  

This shows a very naïve understanding of American foreign policy. While bipartisan congressional support for almost anything anti-Russian can be taken for granted, this is a far cry from the U.S. Congress actually promoting the interests of Ukraine. In America’s current wound-licking mood the new Biden administration can ill afford to substantially increase foreign aid to any country, or even to push Ukraine ahead of other allies in the distribution of the coronavirus vaccines. Additionally, given his own family’s well-publicized involvement in the region, Biden can’t afford to be seen to be overly chummy with the political leadership of Ukraine, lest Republicans and media critics pounce on this as proof that they were right all along in accusing Biden of nefarious dealings there.  

Coming up with an effective policy in Ukraine will therefore be a challenge for the incoming administration, which is why, at first, it is likely to follow the approach that Biden himself laid out in his address to the Ukrainian parliament on Dec. 9, 2015. 

In this speech, after telling Ukraine’s parliamentarians that “I never tell another man or another nation or another woman what’s in their interest,” Biden told them they should: put aside their “parochial differences,” grant amnesty and “devolved administration” to Donbas, amend their constitution to include judicial reform and decentralization (citing American federalism as an example), overhaul the judiciary and the Office of the General Prosecutor, and enact budgets that are “consistent with your IMF commitments.”  

These are all excellent common-sense initiatives, which the current Ukrainian government cannot possibly implement.  

For starters, the very mention of constitutional reforms that hint at federalism is taboo in Ukrainian politics. As for the Minsk Peace Accords, several Ukrainian officials and senior negotiators, both past and present, have admitted candidly that they never intended to fulfill them as written.

Meanwhile, Zelensky and his advisors have hinted at the existence of an undisclosed Plan B which, judging from the statements of other former officials, seems to involve some sort of blitzkrieg by the Ukrainian army against Donbass. Finally, what Biden in his speech called “the pervasive poison of cronyism, corruption, and kleptocracy,” has since grown to levels that can compare with the massive amounts of money that the government spends to combat it. 

It is time to acknowledge that U.S. policy in the region has failed. First, because it is premised on the assumption that there is a “united Ukraine” when in fact, as Evgeny Lapin of Ukraine’s Civil Society Institute found while conducting roundtables around the country, the historical memories of Eastern and Western Ukrainians continue to be diametrically opposed. As a result, he says, as soon as one part of Ukrainian society agrees on certain themes that unite it, it immediately finds itself in confrontation with another part. Even New Year’s celebrations are divided by region and political preference, although three-quarters say that they still celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7.  

Western analysts downplay these differences, which has led to the second reason for U.S> policy failure—the assumption that war with Russia would smooth over all internal disagreements. It has indeed shifted opinions, as shown by the decline in the number of Ukrainians who harbor positive feelings for Russia from over 80 percent to just over 40 percent today but not to the degree of undoing centuries of historical, religious, and cultural ties with Russia.  

The latest evidence for this comes from Google and YouTube. Year-end tallies for searches on these two platforms show that Ukrainians still conduct searches overwhelmingly in Russian, and for cultural content from Russia. Moreover, this trend got stronger in 2020. The authors of one report conclude that “Google’s indicators also refute Zelensky’s recent statement that ‘after the annexation of Crimea and the aggression in Donbass, we have only one thing left in common—the state border.’ As it turns out, despite constant blockage [by the Ukrainian government], in the internet there are no such borders.” It is doubtful whether any policy that simply turns a blind eye to these persistent internal divisions can ever be successful because it will be deemed hopelessly one-sided.

It is also worth asking whether such a policy is morally justifiable, given that it has resulted in the gutting of Ukrainian industry, and the country’s descent into the ranks of Europe’s poorest nations. This decline has been accompanied by a devastating loss of population and an annual exodus, before the current pandemic, of nine million Ukrainians seeking seasonal work abroad. As Ukrainian political analyst Ruslan Bortnik points out, more than half of Ukraine’s 2021 budget is slated to pay off external creditors, while the percentage going to social services has fallen by half in the past six years. 

It is these harsh realities that have led to the resurgence of pro-Russian parties in Ukraine, despite all the support that the West has given to those in Ukraine who oppose better ties with Russia.   

Now, as a result, the West is trapped. It cannot abandon its current policy toward Ukraine without appearing to offer Russia an undeserved victory, yet it also cannot continue its current policy because it enhances internal divisions that stoke popular frustration and anger toward the West, the ultimate beneficiary of which would again be Russia. This conundrum is further exacerbated by the fact that reabsorbing the rebel-held portions of Donbass back into Ukraine would further shift political sympathies in the country toward improving relations with Russia, all more so if Crimea were to return to Ukraine. 

In this convoluted situation, it may make sense for America to step back and avoid the temptation to take sides in political, cultural, and religious debates for temporary foreign policy advantage. This was the approach that George Kennan advised taking toward Russia after its liberation from communism. “Let them work out their internal problems in their own manner,” Kennan wrote, for “the ways by which people advance towards dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. There is nothing less understandable to foreigners, nothing in which foreign influence can do less good.”

The advocates of Western interventions in Ukrainian affairs will probably object that this leaves the playing field entirely to Russia. I would hope that Ukraine is more than just a playing field for foreign interests and suggest that it is high time to trust in the good sense of all Ukrainians, including those who see their Russian cultural heritage as fully compatible with a Ukrainian civic identity. Treating the latter as potential traitors, a “Fifth Column,” as many Ukrainian and Western officials are, sadly, still wont to do, can only undermine their sense of attachment to Ukraine, to the point that no amount of Western support will suffice to restore it.  

Nicolai N. Petro is a professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine from 2013–14, and is the editor of Ukraine in Crisis (Routledge, 2017). 

Image: Reuters

Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Politics, Americas

January 7, 2021, may prove to be a day of infamy like December 7, 1941, but it could also go down in history as a turning point in which Trumpism peaked and some politicians began to take responsibility for the consequences of their rhetoric.

The Trump years have not been kind to American soft power—our ability to affect others through attraction rather than coercion or payment. Polls already showed a decline in our attractiveness in other countries after 2017, and this was compounded last year by Trump’s incompetence in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now we start the new year with the shock of a mob invading the Capitol. While Senator Josh Hawley waved them on with a clenched fist, another Republican Senator Ben Sasse spoke critically that today “the world’s greatest symbol of self-government—was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard—tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution.” Our allies and other countries were shocked. Can our soft power recover from these blows?

We have done so before. Our country has serious problems, but it also has a capacity for resilience and reform that has rescued us in the past. In the 1960s, our cities were burning over racial protests, and we were mired in Vietnam War protests. Bombs exploded in universities and government buildings. The National Guard killed students at Kent State. We witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the flames were fanned by demagogues like George Wallace. Yet within a decade, a series of reforms passed Congress, and the honesty of Gerald Ford, the human rights policies of Jimmy Carter, and the optimism of Ronald Reagan helped restore our attractiveness.

Moreover, even when crowds marched through the world’s streets protesting American policies in Vietnam, the protesters sang Martin Luther King’s “We Shall overcome” more than the communist “Internationale.” An anthem from the civil rights protest movement illustrated that America’s power to attract rested not on our government’s policy but in large part on our civil society and our capacity to be self-critical and reform. One might consider that a “meta soft power.”

A country’s soft power comes primarily from three sources: its culture (when it is attractive to others), its political values such as democracy and human rights (when it lives up to them), and its policies (when they are seen as legitimate.) How a government behaves at home (for example, protecting a free press and the right to protest), in international institutions (consulting others and multilateralism), and in foreign policy (promoting development and human rights) can attract others by example. Wednesday’s example was awful, but we may recover from it.

For one thing, unlike hard-power assets (such as armed forces), many soft-power resources are separate from the government and attract others to our country despite politics. Hollywood movies that showcase independent women or protesting minorities can attract others. So too does our diverse and free press, as well as the charitable work of U.S. foundations and the freedom of inquiry at American universities. Firms, universities, foundations, churches, and protest movements develop soft power of their own which may reinforce others’ views of our country. Our peaceful protests can actually generate soft power. Of course, the mob in the Capitol was far from peaceful and provided a disturbing illustration of the way that Trump has exacerbated political polarization. But it was not a coup. On the contrary, the center held, the institutions worked, and the certification of Joe Biden’s election went ahead.

We have had an increase in political polarization over the past two decades, and Trump exploited and exacerbated nativist populism as a political weapon to take control of the Republican Party. Too many senators and Congress members were cowed by threats of a primary challenge by members of Trump’s base. Some still are. But in our federal system, it was local officials—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—who did an honest job of carrying out an election under pandemic conditions. Our democratic political culture produced many local heroes such as secretaries and state legislators who stood up to Trump’s efforts to intimidate them into changing votes.

For those who mourn American democracy prematurely, it is important to remember that the 2020 election saw an unprecedented turnout of voters who were able to unseat a demagogue. And it was sustained in more than sixty court cases overseen by an independent judiciary including some of Trump’s appointees. And yesterday the outcome was finally reaffirmed by the Congress including the Republican vice president and Senate minority leader.

This does not mean that all is well with American democracy. Trump has eroded a number of democratic norms that must be restored. Polarization persists and a significant portion of Trump’s base believes his lies about the election rather than the evidence of the courts. Eight senators and more than one hundred representatives were profiles in cowardice or political opportunism. Social media business models remain based on algorithms that profit from extremism, and the companies are only slowly beginning to respond to their manipulation by conspiracy theorists.

January 6, 2021, may prove to be a day of infamy like December 7, 1941, but it could also go down in history as a turning point in which Trumpism peaked and some politicians began to take responsibility for the consequences of their rhetoric. So far, Joe Biden has been a calming voice. While it is too soon to be sure, if he can tame the pandemic, revive the economy, and provide a political center that eases the polarization, we may be witnessing the end rather than the beginning of a dangerous political period. If so, American resilience will once again lead to a recovery of our soft power.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is a former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author most recently of Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump.

Image: Reuters.

Sebastien Roblin

History, Europe

As Churchill promised, the never surrendered.

Key point: The Nazis rained down a lot of damage on Britain. However, the will of the British people to survive and win never broke.

On June 13, 1944—a week after the D-Day landing in Normandy—residents of the East London working-class district of Bethnal Green heard an unusual buzzing drone. 

Over the last four years, German bombers had intermittently rained death on the metropolis. But now Allied fighters reigned so supreme that Luftwaffe bombers were barely present over Normandy, let alone London. 

Nonetheless, a small dark object was seen flitting across the sky at 2,000 feet before it plunged into a railway bridge on Grove Road. Its one-ton warhead ruptured the surrounding buildings, killing six Londoners, wounding 30 and leaving 200 homeless. 

In fact, this was the only missile of 10 launched that day that drew blood. But thousands more “buzz bombs” would come droning down from the sky in the following months, as you can see in this wartime recording. 

Vengeance Weapons 

This first-ever operational land-attack cruise missiles was designated the Fiesler Fi 103 Kirschkern (“Cherry Stone”), or FZG-76. But they were better known as V-1s—as in “V” for Vengeance, in retaliation for Allied bombing of German cities. 

Earlier in November 1939, German scientist Fritz Gosslau began working on a remote-controlled flying bomb. Indeed, the first cruise missiles were anti-ship weapons remotely piloted into enemy warships by an observer in a nearby aircraft. 

But Gosslau was eventually advised that remote control was impractical for delivering long-range strikes. Instead, he devised a pendulum-based gyrocompass that kept a V-1 on straight line course towards a designated target. Its autopilot transmitted course-corrections with blasts of compressed air. 

The final design resembled a large steel bomb with stubby plywood wings and tail stabilizers for lift. It was propelled by an Argus jet engine mounted on the rudder that pulsed 3,000 times per minute, producing the missile’s infamous drone. 

The buzz bomb had range of 160 miles and flew at 340-400 miles per hour, allowing it to fly from a launch site in Calais to London in just 15 minutes. 

V-1s were launched from 36-meter-long platforms oriented towards the target. Air hoses heated up the pulse-jet before the robot bombs were catapulted into the sky using pressurized gasses. As the V-1 cruised at2,000 to 3,000 feet in a straight line, a tiny propeller turning in its nose counted an odometer backwards down a preset distance. Upon hitting zero, the V-1 nosed sharply down into whatever lay beneath it—often falling eerily silent in the second before impact 

Redundant electrical and mechanical fuses ensured the weapon’s 2,200-pound Amatol warhead detonated immediately on impact, maximizing casualties. A third fuse was triggered if a dud V-1 was tampered with. 

Testing began at Peenemunde in September 1942 as engineers ironed out kinks in its guidance system. Allied intelligence got wind the Nazis had something unpleasant in store and plastered the coastal facility with 600 heavy bombers in August 1943. 

Delayed for six weeks but not deterred, the Nazis moved production to the underground Mittelwerke manufacturing complex, which was staffed by 60,000 concentration camp slave laborers—one-third of whom would perish from mistreatment. The factory began churning out V-1s like hotcakes at a cost of only 5,000 Reichsmarks ($27,000 in 2019 dollars) apiece. 

Meanwhile, depots and launch facilities were constructed on the French coast faster than the Allies could locate and bomb them. 

The V-1 was accompanied by V-3 super cannon—disabled by bombing before it could begin attacking London—and the V-2, the first ballistic missile. The V-2 was also quite deadly and was essentially unstoppable once launched. But each V-2 cost ten to twenty times as much to manufacture as a V-1. 

Cruise Missile Defense, World War II-Style 

Despite German intransigence in the face of devastating Allied strategic bombing, Hitler believed that sustained terror bombing would cow the ‘soft’ citizens of a democracy into demanding their leaders sue for peace. 

The robot bomb Blitzkrieg did have political effects, causing massive military and economic resources to be diverted to combating the V-weapon menace. But ultimately, they only heightened political pressure to accelerate the conquest of Nazi Germany. 

The UK developed an elaborate multi-layered defense system in Operation Diver to thin-out the incoming V-1s. Radar-directed air defense patrols formed the forward-layer, but due to the V-1’s high sustained speed, only the swiftest aircraft could reliably pull off an intercept. 

Thus the RAF dedicated six squadrons of swift Tempest fighters (maximum speed 435 miles per hour) and three squadrons of late-model Spitfire MK. XIVs to hunt buzz bombs. These were joined by Polish and RAF Mustang Mark IIIs and ultra-fast American P-47M Thunderbolts. 

At night, Royal Navy Fairey Fireflys and speedy, twin-engine Mosquito night fighters used onboard radar to home in on the missiles before aiming at the hot glow of their engine exhaust. 

The U.K. even rushed into service its first operational jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, to chase V-1s. 

However, the buzz bomb’s metal skin proved resistant to rifle-caliber bullets, and a pilot who succeeded in detonating a V-1’s warhead risked being caught in the blast! Allied pilots sometimes resorted to tipping V-1s off course with their wingtips—as photographed here. 

In all Allied pilots shot down 1,951 V-1s. 

The U.K. also deployed 1,600 flak guns—rapid-firing 40-millimeter “pom pom” cannons and heavy 3.7” pieces—to blast V-1s from the sky. Initially, flak only batted down one out of every six incoming V-1s—and that after expending an average of 2,500 shells. 

But by August 1944, new gun-laying fire control radars and proximity-fused shells led batteries to bag 60-80% of inbound V-1s, with only 100 shells expended per V-1 kill. 

Over 2,000 barrage balloons tethered with thick wire cables sliced the wings off another 231 buzz bombs. 

Spanish double-agent Juan Pujol furthermore fed Germans intelligence false information about V-1 accuracy, forestalling any refinement in aiming. 

Last but not least, one-quarter of Allied strategic bombing raids were targeted at V-weapon sites—a campaign that cost the Allies 154 bombers and 700 aircrew by one count. 

Despite all these measurers, out of 9,251 V-1s Hitler launched at London, roughly one-quarter (2,500) struck the city, killing 6,100 Londoners, and injuring nearly 18,000. As up to 100 missiles rained on London daily, 1.5 million civilians abandoned the city for the countryside. 

Target: Antwerp 

In September 1944, Allied troops overran the French launch sites in range of London. Instead, between October 13 and March 30, 1945, over 4,000 V-1s were launched from sites in Holland targeting Brussels and Antwerp—the latter the only undestroyed deep-water port available to efficiently supply Allied troops in Western Europe. 

After the initial shock, American, British and Polish troops implemented an air defense system called Antwerp-X (see video here) composed of fixed radars and mobile 90-millimeter and 3.7” flak batteries. This time, the combination of radar and proximity-fused stopped all but 5% of V-1s from hitting their target. 

Hitler’s grudge against London wasn’t yet settled. Back in July, the Luftwaffe had experimentally launched 50 V-1ss from modified He 111H-22 bombers of III Group/Kampfgeschwader. Now that land attacks were impossible, He 111s flying over the North Sea deployed 865 more V-1s against London instead. 

However, the Heinkels were vulnerable to interception by Allied fighters. The RAF even deployed radar-equipped Wellington bombers to serve as early airborne early-warning aircraft to assist interception of V-1 toting Heinkels. Worse, air-launched V-1s sometimes fatally exploded during launch. Thus, air-launched V-1 attacks were discontinued after January 14, 1945. 

Though German researchers studied mounting V-1s on boats and jet bombers, they ultimately simply devised a 250-mile-range variant called the F-1. 274 were launched at London in March 1945, but only 13 made it to their targets, with the last attack on English soil landing on March 29. 

The Economies of Cruise Missile Warfare 

By the war’s end, Nazi Germany had manufactured a staggering 30,000 V-1s—a volume of cruise missile production unmatched to this day. 

American General Clayton Bissell noted that the V-1s had inflicted considerable damage at much lower expense in lives and equipment compared to the costly strategic bombing raids undertaken by American and British heavy bombers. 

But his calculus ignored the effect that strategic raids sometimes severely damaged military and industrial targets, something the V-1 could not do at all reliably: its primitive guidance meant that it landed randomly within seven to seventeen miles of its target—a plot point in the novel Gravity’s Rainbow. That meant V-1s were only useful for terror attacks on civilians. 

The V-1 nonetheless pioneered the land-attack cruise missile. Within weeks of the first attacks, the U.S. used salvaged components to develop the reverse-engineered Republic JB-2 Loon missile. 

The U.S. military planned to deploy 75,000 JB-2s against German and Japanese cities, but the war ended before they could be used. However, the Loon and its naval KGW-1 variant were adapted for launch from B-17 heavy bombers, PBY flying boats, surface warships and eventually submarines. 

Today, land-attack cruise missiles play a prominent role in modern military operations by Israel, the United States and increasingly Russia, used to deliver deadly long-range strikes without risking personnel to defensive fire. 

The V-1’s successors fly many times further, skim closer to the ground to evade detection, and can perform maneuvers to circumnavigate air defenses. They benefit from satellite navigation, image-matching computers and infrared-seekers allowing them to land within a few meters of a designated target. 

As the United States and Russia recently withdrew from the INF treaty, which banned deployment of cheaper, long-range land-based cruise missiles, modern descendents of the V-1 may make a comeback seventy-five years after their reign of terror began. 

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 earlier and is being posted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Middle East

Originally, Israel’s nuclear forces relied on air-dropped nuclear bombs and Jericho ballistic missiles.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Farley is probably correct in arguing that the Israel’s nuclear-tipped SLCMs are less practical than Tel Aviv’s other nuclear-delivery platforms. For that matter, Israel doesn’t currently face any adversaries with nuclear capabilities to deter against.

Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.

Unofficially, Tel Aviv wants everyone to know it has them, and doesn’t hesitate to make thinly-veiled references to its willingness to use them if confronted by an existential threat. Estimates on the size of Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile range from 80 to 300 nuclear weapons, the latter number exceeding China’s arsenal.

Originally, Israel’s nuclear forces relied on air-dropped nuclear bombs and Jericho ballistic missiles. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a squadron of eight Israeli F-4 Phantom jets loaded with nuclear bombs was placed on alert by Prime Minister Golda Meir, ready to unleash nuclear bombs on Cairo and Damascus should the Arab armies break through.

Though Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, Tel Aviv is preoccupied by the fear that an adversary might one day attempt a first strike to destroy its nuclear missiles and strike planes on the ground before they can retaliate. Currently, the only hostile states likely to acquire such a capability are Iran or Syria.

To forestall such a strategy, Israeli has aggressively targeted missile and nuclear technology programs in Iraq, Syria and Iran with air raids, sabotage and assassination campaigns. However, it also has developed a second-strike capability—that is, a survivable weapon which promises certain nuclear retaliation no matter how effective an enemy’s first strike.

Most nuclear powers operate nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines which can spend months quietly submerged deep underwater and at any moment unleash ocean-spanning ballistic missiles to rain apocalyptic destruction on an adversary’s major centers. Because there’s little chance of finding all of these subs before they fire, they serve as one hell of a disincentive to even think about a first strike.

But nuclear-powered submarines and SLBMs are prohibitively expensive for a country with the population of New Jersey—so Israeli found a more affordable alternative.

Berlin’s Unconventional Apology

During the 1991 Gulf War, it emerged that German scientists and firms had played a role in dispersing ballistic missile and chemical weapons technology to various Arab governments—technology which aided Saddam Hussein in bombarding Israel with Scud missiles. This in fact was long-running sore point: in the early 1960s, Israeli agents even carried out assassination attempts, kidnappings and bombings targeting German weapons scientists working on behalf of Arab governments.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl hatched a plan to simultaneously compensate Israel for the damages, while generating business for German shipbuilders suffering a downturn due to post-Cold War defense cuts. Starting in the 1970s, German shipbuilder HDW began churning Type 209 diesel electric submarines for export, with nearly 60 still operational around the globe. One Type 209, the San Luis, managed to ambush Royal Navy vessels twice during the Falkland War, though it failed to sink any ship due to the defective torpedoes.

Recommended: Imagine a U.S. Air Force That Never Built the B-52 Bomber

Recommended: Russia's Next Big Military Sale - To Mexico?

Recommended: Would China Really Invade Taiwan?

Kohl offered to fully-subsidize the construction of two enlarged Type 209s, designated the Dolphin-class, as well as cover 50 percent of the cost of a third boat in 1994. The Dolphins displaced 1,900-tons while submerged, measured 57-meters long and are manned by a crew of 35—though they can accommodate up to ten special forces personnel. These entered service 1999–2000 as the INS Dolphin, Leviathan and Tekumah (“Revival”).

Each Dolphin came equipped with six regular tubes for firing 533-millimeter DM2A4 heavyweight fiber-optic guided torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles—as well as four 650-millimeter mega-sized tubes, which are rare in modern submarines. These tubes can be used to deploy naval commandos for reconnaissance and sabotage missions, which have played a major role in Israeli submarine operations.

However, the plus-size torpedo tubes have a useful additional function: they can accommodate especially large submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCM)—missiles large enough to carry a nuclear warhead. While a ballistic missile arcs into space traveling at many times the speed of sound, cruise missiles fly much slower and skim low over the earth’s surface.

In the 1990s the United States declined to provide Israel with submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles due to the rules of the Missile Technology Control Regime prohibiting transfer of cruise missile with a range exceeding 300 miles.

Instead, Tel Aviv went ahead and developed their own. In 2000, U.S. Navy radars detected test launches of Israeli SLCMs in the Indian Ocean that struck a target 930 miles away. The weapon is generally believed to be the Popeye Turbo—an adaptation of a subsonic air-launched cruise missile that can allegedly carry a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead. However, the SLCM’s characteristics are veiled in secrecy and some sources suggest a different missile type entirely is used. An Israeli Dolphin submarine may have struck the Syrian port of Latakia with a conventional cruise missile in 2013 due to reports of a shipment of Russian P-800 anti-ship missiles.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu then purchased three more German submarines, arousing considerable controversy as many felt additional boats were unnecessary. In 2012, Der Spiegel published an expose detailing how German engineers were well-aware of the Dolphin 2’s intended role as nuclear-weapon delivery system, arousing some controversy with the public, as Chancellor Merkel supposedly agreed to the sale in exchange for unrealized promises from Netanyahu to adopt a more conciliatory policy towards the Palestinians. Israel has nonetheless received two of the Dolphin 2s, the Rahav (‘Neptune’) and Tanin (‘Crocodile’) with the Dakar expected in 2018 or 2019.

The 2,400 ton Dolphin 2 model is based on the state-of-the-art Type 212 submarine, which features Air-Independent Propulsion technology and swim faster at twenty-five knots. While diesel submarines rely on noisy air-consuming diesel generators which require the submarine to regularly surface or snorkel, AIP-powered submarines can swim underwater very quietly at low speeds for weeks at a time.

This not only means they are stealthier sea-control platforms, but makes them more viable for lengthy nuclear deterrence patrols. Currently, the Chinese AIP-powered Type 32 Qing-class is the only AIP-powered submarine in service armed with ballistic missiles.

However, as fellow TNI writer Robert Farley points out, there are geographic obstacles that diminish the practicality of Israel’s sea-based nuclear deterrence. For now, there is only one intended target: Iran, a country which lies hundreds of miles away from Israel. While Tehran lies barely within the supposed 930-mile range of an Israeli submarine deployed from their base in Haifa into the Mediterranean Sea, the missiles would have to spend over an hour overflying Syria and Iraq, posing navigational and survivability challenges.

A closer avenue for attack would lie in the Persian Gulf, but this would involve transiting the submarines through the Suez Canal (controlled by Egypt), around Africa (impractically far for the Dolphin-class), or stationing some at the naval base at Eilat, which faces the Gulf of Aqaba on the southern tip of Israel and is surrounded by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In short, deploying Israeli submarines to Iran’s southern flank would require some degree of cooperation and logistical support from other Middle Eastern states that might not be forthcoming in a crisis scenario.

Farley is probably correct in arguing that the Israel’s nuclear-tipped SLCMs are less practical than Tel Aviv’s other nuclear-delivery platforms. For that matter, Israel doesn’t currently face any adversaries with nuclear capabilities to deter against. However, like the idea of second-strike capability in general, the threat of sea-launched nukes may be more intended political weapon than one strictly intended for its military effectiveness.

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 2018.

Image: Reuters. 

Sebastien Roblin

Technology, Middle East

Helicopters are immensely useful for quickly inserting troops into hard-to-reach areas.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Helicopters are immensely useful for quickly inserting troops into hard-to-reach areas, but special operations impose challenging demands on them: the need to fly further, avoid detection and interception, insert and extract troops into tricky landing zones, and provide fire support while they’re at it.

According to various accounts, in the early hours of October 27, 2019, eight black MH-47 and MH-60 helicopters raced low over Syria’s Idlib province, carrying around seventy operators of the elite special operations troops of the 75th Ranger Regiment and Delta Force counter-terrorism unit. 

While F-15E Strike Eagle jets covered the skies overhead, the chopper were carefully refueled midflight by two MC-130J Commando II tanker-transports. Then they swooped down on a compound near the Barisha, Idlib province about four miles from the Turkish border.

A half-dozen fighters outside opened fire on the aircraft. A specially modified Blackhawk helicopter zeroed in on the trench they were hiding in using an infrared camera, and cut them down them in a burst of 30-millimeter automatic cannon fire before proceeding to knock out a parked minivan.

Assault choppers then deposited the operators, who after calling for those inside to surrender, used explosives to breach a point of entry inside and killed four women and a man who offered resistance. They rescued eleven children and captured two ISIS associates.

A military dog then led the operators on the trail of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Upon being cornered at the end of the tunnel, he detonated a suicide vest, tragically also killing two children he had taken with him.

Following a 15-minute DNA test of Baghdadi’s remains, the operators scoured the compound for intelligence. Two hours later, they reassembled onboard the jet-black helicopters and evacuated the scene as Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs reduced the compound to rubble.

Like the 2011 raid that killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the recent hit on the ISIS leader showcased the stealthy, long-range MH-60 and MH-47 helicopters modified to support dangerous commando raids—all uniquely flown by Army’s legendary 160th ‘Night Stalkers’ Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

Blackhawk and Chinook

Helicopters are immensely useful for quickly inserting troops into hard-to-reach areas, but special operations impose challenging demands on them: the need to fly further, avoid detection and interception, insert and extract troops into tricky landing zones, and provide fire support while they’re at it.

After a helicopter collision brought a disastrous end to a 1980 hostage rescue mission over Iran, the Army decided it needed an elite helicopter unit specially trained for special operations. Thus the Army formed the 160th, soon furnished with first-generation MH-60A Blackhawks and MH-47D assault helicopters.

The MH-60 was based on the Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk, a rangy twin-engine assault/utility helicopter introduced in the 1980s as a faster, heavier-lifting and higher-flying successor to the single-turboshaft UH-1 Huey of Vietnam War fame. 

The MH-47 was derived from the Boeing CH-47 Chinook, a huge tandem-rotor heavy-lift helicopter that had been serving the U.S. Army since 1962. The beastly chopper was valued for its ability to carry over thirty troops, or heavy underslung cargoes such as Humvees, howitzers and patrol boats.

By the late 1980s, the second-generation MH-60K/L and MH-47E introduced new sensors and more powerful engines. The current generation MH-47G and MH-60M included additional systems that have proven so useful they’ve been integrated into standard models. The MH-47G “Golf” model’s improved T55-GA-714A turboshafts, for example, allow it to climb to higher altitudes in hotter weather—dramatically expanding where it can fly to in places like Afghanistan.

Both helicopters are crewed by a pilot, co-pilot, and two or three door gunners/crew chiefs. They also share Common Avionic Architecture System instrumentation, including color multi-function displays which can display maps, flight data, external video feeds, and even cue hovering and landing maneuvers.

Mobility and Flexibility

Getting from point A to point B by itself can be difficult, as most modern transport helicopters can fly only a few hundred miles—too short for a deep raid. Thus, the MH-60M and MH-47G have expanded internal tanks extending their range to over 500 and 850 miles respectively.

They also carry long aerial refueling boom which allows them to gulp down more fuel from Marine KC-130 or Air Force MC-130 tanker transports.

Both can even serve as ‘Fat Cows’ or ‘Fat Hawks’ pumped full of aviation fuel to refuel other landed helicopters from a forward location.

The helicopters are also equipped to perform resupply, search-and-rescue and medical-evacuation missions. As each carries six or seven specialized radios, including satellite-communication and jam-resistant types, they can also double as command-and-control hubs.

Penetrating Enemy Airspace

But how are helicopters to penetrate hostile airspace without being detected and destroyed? Helicopters fly a lot slower and lower than airplanes: the MH-47 and MH-60 typically cruise at 120 to 140 miles per hour, and no higher than 20,000 feet. This leaves them vulnerable to rapid-firing cannons and heavy machineguns and man-portable surface-to-air missiles. 

The best defense is to remain undetected. Both the MH-47 and MH-60 use noise-reduction systems to quiet the din produced by their rotors.

Furthermore, they’re modified to fly extremely close to the surface—preferably at night or in other low-observability conditions. That minimizes the range at which they’re detected, because ground-based radars have difficulty peering over mountains and buildings to spot low-flying choppers.

The Blackhawks used in the Bin Laden raid were apparently an exotic stealth variant incorporating radar-absorbent materials, sculpted surfaces and shrouded engines to evade Pakistani radars.

Of course, skimming the surface under low visibility conditions is really dangerous, so pilots use SilentKnight multi-mode radars in terrain-following/terrain-avoidance mode to avoid collision, as well as ZSQ-2 infrared/electro-optical sensors mounted in a chin-bubble to see through night, rain and fog. For a good measure, cockpit instruments are designed for compatibility with night-vision goggles.

 But sometimes stealth fails, and it becomes necessary to evade enemy fire. 

Both choppers carry AVR-2 systems designed to alert the crew if they’re being painted by a laser targeter, and Common Missile Warning Sensor to alert them of incoming projectiles.

Against radar-guided threats they additionally employ ALQ-211 Suite of Integrated Radio Frequency Countermeasures (SIRFC), which includes a radar-warning receiver, a radar-jammer and a special decoy launcher.

And to foil heat-seeking missiles, the Blackhawk has an ALQ-144 “disco-ball” jammer which pulses infrared energy to confuse heat-seeking missiles. The MH-47, meanwhile, has a suppressor to minimize the hot exhaust from its turboshafts.

As a last-ditch defense, the helicopters can also spew chaff and flare decoys, including special XM-216 ‘Dark Flares’ that lure away infrared-guided missiles while remaining invisible to the human eye.

Inserting the Operators

Upon arriving at the drop zone, the choppers must get their operators on the ground as quickly as possible—quite likely while under fire. Worse, they may need to insert and extract troops from confined landing zones that can’t accommodate the weight of a helicopter.

As a result, the MH-60M and MH-47G are equipped with Fast Rope Insertion or Extraction System (FRIES)—in which a thick wool rope is used to swiftly winch operators down to (or backup from) the drop zone.

To insert/extra even faster there’s also SPIES, in which a team of up to eight soldiers in harnesses clip themselves onto a single rope and get plucked away together, as you can see in this remarkable video.

If there are casualties or civilians in need of evacuation, the choppers also have electrically powered hoists to reel them up.

Stealthy Fire Support

Since special operators can’t cart tanks and artillery with them on lightning raids, they instead rely on helicopters to provide fire support.

MH-60s and MH-47s are armed with two M134 six-barrel miniguns mounted on each side door which can hose out up to a ridiculous 6,000 7.62-millimeter rounds per minute. An MH-47 can also mount two additional M240 medium-machineguns on each side of the cargo bay ramp.

However, bullets won’t cut it against entrenched enemies and armored vehicles. For that purpose, there’s a gunship model of the MH-60 called the Direction Action Penetrator.

 Instead of carrying troops, the MH-60 DAP lugs similar weapons to those found on the deadly AH-64 Apache gunships on stub-wings called the Light Armament Support System, including up to two M230 30-millimeter cannons, as well as optional miniguns or .50-caliber Gatling guns.

The MH-60DAP can blast light vehicles and personnel targets with rocket pods stuffed with nineteen 2.75” rocket, or fire laser-guided Hellfire anti-tank missiles from quad racks to destroy hard targets like bunkers and tanks. They can even engage aerial threats with AIM-92 Stinger short-range air-to-air missiles.

The 160th regiments fields 71 MH-47Gs and 72 MH-60Ms and MH-60 DAPs, with additional MH-47Gs on order. Demand for the unit’s shadowy helicopters is only growing as Pentagon increasingly relies on special operations forces to spearhead anti-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations across the globe.

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 2019.

Image: Wikipedia.

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

The Suwalki Gap earlier figured in World War I and the Napoleonic Wars.

Here's What You Need to Remember: A few reinforced battalions, no matter how capable, cannot hope to stop an invasion that could involve dozens of battalion tactical groups. Russia’s Western Military District, for example, has over 300,000 personnel, and the RAND wargame assumed Russia would deploy 450 tanks.

Since 2014, NATO strategists have focused much of their attention on a forty-mile-wide stretch of border between Poland and Lithuania called the Suwalki Gap (pronounced ‘Soo-vow-kee’). The gap’s two highways are the only land corridor by which NATO troops could reinforce its Baltic member states in event of a conflict with Russia.

The Suwalki Gap earlier figured in World War I and the Napoleonic Wars. Today, it remains relevant due to political geography, as you can see in this map.

To the west of the Gap is the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which hosts over 15,000 Russian troops and bristles with heavy artillery and long-range ballistic and anti-aircraft missiles.

To the east of the gap is the authoritarian state of Belarus, which is nominally allied with Russia despite increasing tensions between its long-term dictator Alexander Lukashenko and Moscow. Russian forces are already deployed in Belarus and have been accorded passage from there to Kaliningrad. However, Belarus’s cooperation with Russia in a conflict with NATO is not guaranteed.

Thus the “gap” is a natural chokepoint Russia could potentially assail from multiple directions to pinch off columns of NATO troops attempting to reinforce the Baltics.

Baltic Dilemma

The Soviet Union seized the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania early in World War II, deposing their governments and deporting over 130,000 “politically unreliable” citizens including the presidents of Estonia and Latvia, both of whom died in Siberian prison camps.

The Baltics won back their independence in September 1991, and today fall under the mutual defensive umbrella of NATO. However, the alliance continues to adhere to the non-binding NATO-Russia Founding act of 1997 in which NATO promised to forego permanently deploying sizeable international forces in Eastern Europe.

Since 2008, however, Russia has increased pressure on the Baltics. Moscow has alleged anti-Russian discrimination of ethnically Russian minorities in all three countries, rhetoric it employed to justify military invasions of territory in Eastern Ukraine and Georgia.

Moscow’s agents have launched massive cyber-attacks on Baltic governments, fomented riots in Baltic countries, kidnapped an Estonian intelligence operative on Estonian soil, and have been expelled for spying on military positions. Russia’s Western Military District has repeatedly performed large-scale exercises simulating an invasion of the Baltics and strikes on neighboring Poland—exercises which could be used to mask the presence of an actual attack.

A Russian invasion of the Baltics remains unlikely—but Moscow’s actions seem intended to convey one could happen.

The Baltic states collectively have a population of only 6.6 million and could not stop a Russian invasion by themselves. None operate tanks or jet fighters; instead, their light infantry armies are stocking up on Javelin anti-tank missiles in the hopes they could delay invaders for a few days.

A Russian invasion would depend on rapidly seizing the Baltics in less than a hundred hours, presenting a fait-accompli before NATO can effectively respond. In 2016, wargames by the RAND think tank found that Russian forces could seize the capitals of Estonia and Latvia in between thirty-six to sixty hours—though the study may have been based on debatable assumptions.

Meanwhile, Russia’s cyber propaganda and disinformation campaigns would seek to turn international opinion against NATO “starting” a war against Russia’s “humanitarian intervention.” Moscow would essentially be gambling that Western European countries would be unwilling to risk nuclear war to liberate already-conquered Baltic states.

NATO’s Trip Wire: “Enhanced Forward Presence”

In 2016, NATO began temporarily rotating four multinational mechanized battalions of 4,500 personnel to the Baltics and Poland.

Here’s a rundown of the larger units of the ‘Enhanced Forward Presence’ as of April 2019:

In Tapa, Estonia, there is a British mechanized infantry battalion equipped with Warrior infantry fighting vehicles and Challenger 2 main battle tanks, reinforced by Belgian and Danish mechanized companies.

At Adazi, Latvia, a Canadian mechanized battalion is supported by a company each of Polish PT-91 tanks and Italian, Slovakian and Spanish mechanized infantry.

Further south, Lithuania’s Iron Wolf mechanized brigade is reinforced by a German battalion with Marder IFVs, Leopard 2A6 tanks and PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers. This unit is additionally reinforced by Czech, Dutch and Norwegian mechanized infantry companies.

At Orszyz, near the Suwalki gap, Washington has committed a battalion-sized squadron of the Tennessee National Guard’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, equipped with M1 Abrams tanks and M3 Bradley scout vehicles. The 278th is partnered with Poland’s 15th Mechanized Brigade (Soviet-style T-72M1 tanks and BWP-1 fighting vehicles), as well as a British light reconnaissance company, and a battery each of Croatian Vulkan self-propelled rocket artillery and Romanian air-defense missiles.

Albania, Iceland, Luxembourg and Montenegro are providing additional smaller contingents.

(Note: A company typically counts one hundred to two hundred personnel, and ten to twenty armored vehicles. A battalion is composed off at least three frontline companies plus additional support units.)

A few reinforced battalions, no matter how capable, cannot hope to stop an invasion that could involve dozens of battalion tactical groups. Russia’s Western Military District, for example, has over 300,000 personnel, and the RAND wargame assumed Russia would deploy 450 tanks.

Instead, the battalions function as “tripwires” by putting NATO skin in the game. If Russia wants to invade the Baltics, it theoretically would have to fight and kill NATO soldiers deployed there, not merely overrun small Baltic militaries. Doing so would make a vigorous NATO counter-attack more likely.

Given the small number of troops, however, Russian forces could attempt to bypass the “tripwires” and focus on securing the surrounding countryside.

Conventional Deterrence in the Baltics

The trip-wire concept only works if NATO can promptly counterattack with its 40,000-strong response force. That means traversing the Suwalki gap, as Baltic airspace and maritime lines of communication would be heavily interdicted by Russian missiles.

Not only could Russian ground forces advance from Kaliningrad and possibly Belarus to interdict the gap, but they could use long-range artillery and Iskander ballistic missiles to hammer NATO bases and reinforcement columns, potentially inflicting heavy casualties and imposing critical delays. Using long-range weapons would allow Moscow to deny its forces are invading another country, while raising the political risks of Western counterstrikes. Russia used cross-border artillery strikes to deadly effect in Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Of course, Russia would only attempt an intervention in the Baltics if it perceived a lack of credible capability and resolve in NATO. Thus, a 2018 report by the Center for European Policy Analysis argues that the best method to defend the Baltics is to make NATO’s deterrent presence more credible.

The report’s author, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, argues that more static defense-in-depth strategy is ill-suited to a conflict where NATO forces may start out distant from the action.

Instead, NATO’s tripwire forces need to become more mobile so that invading forces can’t simply avoid them. For example, a short-range air defense battalion of Avenger Humvees carrying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles would be useful “mobile tripwire.” Meanwhile, additional long-range artillery units could rapidly provide counter-battery fire to Russian batteries.

Hodges also suggests numerous measures designed to grease the wheels of NATO’s response, such as funding regional infrastructure, procuring more heavy transporters, establishing a divisional headquarters, and smoothing out bottlenecks and cross-border red tape in chains of command.

Such relatively cost-efficient reforms could ensure that NATO forces can move quickly and powerfully enough that a Russian “stab-n-grab” operation like the seizure of Crimea that relies on speed, deception and political chaos is less likely to pay off. The optimistic implication is that improving defenses of the Suwalki gap and the Baltic could make an unlikely but potentially devastating Russia-NATO war even less likely to happen at all.

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 two years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

“The French submarine had took a massive chunk out of the front of HMS Vanguard and grazed down the side of the boat.”

Here's What You Need to Remember: The solution to avoiding further collisions would be to coordinate sub patrols between nations to avoid operating in the same place at the same time—but that runs counter to the paranoid logic underlying ballistic missile patrols. After all, even information shared between allies could theoretically be obtained by a hostile nation to help track down the missile submarines and take destroy them.

Late at night on February 3, 2009 the crew of the French nuclear submarine Triomphant, experienced something of a shock. The 138-meter-long submarine, the lead boat of four serving today as a key part of France’s nuclear strike force, was returning to port submerged under the heavy seas of the East Atlantic when something impacted violently upon its bow and sail.

On February 6 the French Ministry of Defense reported that the submarine had suffered a collision with an “an immersed object (probably a container).” The same day the Triomphant returned to its base in Ile Longue, Brest escorted by a frigate.

Curiously, the HMS Vanguard, a British Royal Navy nuclear submarine also experienced a collision that evening. The first of her class, the Vanguard measures 150 meters long and displaces 16,900 tons when submerged.

At some point, the two navies compared notes. On February 16 they announced the two submarines “briefly came into contact at a very low speed while submerged.” Fortunately, no crew members were harmed in the accident, though repairs were estimated to cost a minimum of 50 million pounds.

When the Vanguard returned to its base in Faslane, Scotland, it was visibly badly mangled around its missile compartment and starboard side.

“The French submarine had took a massive chunk out of the front of HMS Vanguard and grazed down the side of the boat,” later claimed William McNeilly, a whistleblower who served in the U.K.’s nuclear submarine program. “The High Pressured Air (HPA) bottle groups were hanging off and banging against the pressure hull. They had to return to base port slowly, because if one of HPA bottle groups exploded it would've created a chain reaction and sent the submarine plummeting to the bottom.”

On the French side of things, official statements indicated the damage to the Triomphant was confined to its Thales active sonar dome on the tip of the starboard bow. However, a regional newspaper later reported that its conning tower and the starboard sail plane attached to it were both deformed, implying multiple impacts.

Of course, particularly alarming was that both ships were designed to carry nuclear missiles: sixteen M45 ballistic missiles on the Triomphant and the same number of Trident II missiles onboard the Vanguard, each carrying 4 and 6 nuclear warheads respectively. Losing such apocalyptic firepower on the ocean floor would have been a catastrophe. However, nuclear warheads are not susceptible to “going off” as a result of a collision.

The same cannot be said of the nuclear reactors powering the two ships. A sufficiently serious collision could have breached the containment of the reactors, irradiating the crew and the surrounding expanse of oceanic waters. Fortunately, the British defense ministry assured “there was no compromise to nuclear safety.”

So, who was at fault for this potentially catastrophic brushing of cold, watery steel? In a way, what’s most alarming may be that the crew did not make any mistakes and that the error may truly lie with secretive ballistic missile submarine strategy that may be difficult to change.

While an attack submarine is always on the lookout for other ships and submarines and often seeks to shadow those of foreign nations a ballistic missile submarine just wants to be left alone and undetected under the ocean. Such submarines serve as a stealthy guarantor that any deadly attack on its home country could be reciprocated with a nuclear strike from a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) launched from underwater. While a hypothetical aggressor might hope to take out a nation’s ground and air-based nuclear forces with a preemptive strike, submarines concealed deep underwater across the globe would be impossible to reliably track down and destroy—at least not all of them, and only as long as they don’t broadcast their presence.

However, one might think that two submarines passing close enough to scratch each other’s backs should be able to detect each other’s presence. However, modern subs have become very quiet, benefitting from tear-drop shaped hulls, superior propellers, and sound-absorbing anechoic tiles, among other technologies. As French defense minister Hervé Morin humble-bragged, “We face an extremely simple technological problem, which is that these submarines are not detectable.”

A submerged submarine can use either active or passive sonar to detect other subs. Passive sonar basically entails using audiophones to listen to the surrounding water, but that might not be adequate to detect a slow-moving modern submarine. A submarine could employ its active sonar to create sound waves which reflect off of other undersea objects, improving its detection power. However doing so would also broadcast the submarine’s position to anyone else who is listening. Because a missile sub’s chief priority is to avoid detection, both the Triomphant and Vanguard were relying purely on passive sonar—and neither submarine detected the other with it.

Submarine collisions are hardly unknown. Usually these involved one submarine shadowing another just a bit too closely, such as happened in the collision of the Russian K-407 and the USS Grayling in 1993. This has led to speculation that the Triomphant was chasing after the Vanguard. However, these kind of cat and mouse games are the province of attack submarines, not missile submarines.

It may seem vastly improbable that two submarines bumped into each other randomly across the vast volume of the ocean. However, the explanation may be that submariners are inclined to operate in certain common undersea regions—increasing the still remote chance of collision significantly. “Both navies want quiet areas, deep areas, roughly the same distance from their home ports,” nuclear engineer John Strong remarked in an interview with the BBC. “So you find these station grounds have got quite a few submarines, not only French and Royal Navy but also from Russia and the United States.”

The solution to avoiding further collisions would be to coordinate sub patrols between nations to avoid operating in the same place at the same time—but that runs counter to the paranoid logic underlying ballistic missile patrols. After all, even information shared between allies could theoretically be obtained by a hostile nation to help track down the missile submarines and take destroy them. While France was singled out for criticism for not sharing its patrol routes with NATO, in reality even the water space management information shared between the United Kingdom and United States did not include ballistic missile submarines according to the New York Times.

The Triomphant-Vanguard collision suggests that what seemed extraordinarily unlikely event—a collision between nuclear submarines in the middle of the ocean doing their best to remain discrete—may not be so in fact. Sharing more data between allies to mitigate the risks of future collisions would likely enhance, not weaken, the security of both those submarines and the nations they defend.

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 two years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Second dissent cable directed at Pompeo also rebukes the secretary of state for not forcefully condemning the president.

Sebastien Roblin

History, Americas

There were lots of accidents and deaths along the way.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The succession of devastating accidents in the 1960s cost hundreds of lives. However, they did have one positive aftereffect: they confronted the navy with major deficiencies with its safety culture, and forced it to implement serious reforms to training and upgrades to its equipment, including the installation of flight deck “wash down” systems and employing more stable munitions.

A series of collisions involving U.S. Navy destroyers in 2016 and 2017—including two incidents that left sixteen sailors dead—have raised questions as to why the maritime fighting branch appears to be suffering the same accident again and again.

However, it can take time for organizations to learn from mistakes and implement solutions to deal with them. This fact was illustrated when it took no less than three catastrophic fires on U.S. aircraft carriers between 1966 and 1969 that killed more than 200 sailors before major reforms decisively improved safety onboard the giant flat tops. This final article in a three-part series looks at the last incident which occurred on the USS Enterprise.

All three of the disasters were triggered in part by rocket munitions. In 1966, a magnesium flare tossed into an ammunition locker caused rockets to detonate aboard the USS Oriskany, killing forty-four. Then in 1967, a Zuni rocket mounted on a fighter onboard the USS Forrestal accidentally launched due to a power surge, blasting into the side of an A-4 attack jet. This began a chain-reaction of detonating bombs and jet fuel that threatened to consume the conventionally-powered supercarrier.

However, these last two incidents occurred while the crew were undergoing the stress of launching dozens of jet aircraft a day into combat over Vietnam. Such was not the case for the USS Enterprise as she cruised seventy miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on in January 1969. The 1,100-foot long Enterprise was the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Escorted by the destroyer USS Rodgers and the missile cruiser USS Bainbridge, the supercarrier was undergoing flight drills in preparation for another deployment to Vietnam.

At 6:45 AM on January 14 the carrier began launching a mix of F-4J Phantom fighters, A-6 and A-7 attack planes, and E-2 and KA-3 support aircraft. By 8:15 AM there were a total of fifteen aircraft prepping for launch on the flight deck. These included Phantom fighter 405 which was loaded with six 500-pound Mark 82 bombs and two LAU-10 rocket-launching pods, each containing four unguided five-inch Zuni rockets. As usual, an MD-3A huffer—a tractor-mobile heating unit used to warm up jet-engines—was positioned on the starboard side of the fighter, ready to prepare for it takeoff.

However, several crewmen noticed that the exhaust from the huffer was gusting onto one of the Phantom’s rocket pods only two feet away. At that distance, the heat would have amounted to more than 320 degrees while Fahrenheit the huffer was idling. The crew were not trained to know the cook-off temperature of the weapons they were handling, but several mentioned their concern to a nearby ordnance chief and other personnel. However, they were either preoccupied with fusing bombs in time for launch, or he couldn’t hear what was being said over the noise of nearby jet engines. Despite four different surviving crewmen admitting afterwards that they were aware of the unsafe positioning of the huffer, nobody acted on the situation in time.

The Zuni rocket employed a Composition B warhead, composed of 60 percent RDX and 40 percent TNT mixed with wax that was prone to cooking off when exposed to roughly 350 degrees of heat. M65 bombs made of Composition B had inflicted the lion’s share of the damage in the Forrestal fire, and the navy was then in the process of converting to more stable Composition H6 munitions.

At 8:18 the exhaust heat triggered the fifteen-pound warhead of one of the Zuni rockets. The resulting blast ruptured the Phantom’s fuel tank, which poured burning JP-5 jet fuel onto the deck, catching three more Phantoms on fire. Amongst the first victims of the conflagration were two operators of the huffer unit and the F-4 pilot.

A horrible chain reaction unfolded, similar to that which had occurred on the USS Forrestal. The heat from the burning fuel caused three more Zuni rockets to explode after two minutes, blasting a hole into the aircraft hangar below—allowing burning jet fuel to pour in.

The devastation had only just begun. The growing blaze then caused a 500 pound bomb mounted on the Phantom to detonate, gouging an eight-foot diameter hole into the deck, setting off secondary fires three decks below.

In his definitive book on the incident, Enterprise crewman Michael Carlin recalled the moment:

Everyone was stunned by the explosion and the shrapnel that hit all about the island…. Both twin agent units [full of flame-retardant foam] were knocked out. Hoses flopped about wildly, geysering spumes of foam and salt water. Men were on fire, the wounded moved feebly, the dead were still.

As ordnance detonations rippled across the ship, a rack of three Mark 82 bombs detonated all at once, blowing out a giant eighteen by twenty-two foot hole in the deck and causing a large KA-3 tanker to ignite with thousands of gallons of fuel onboard, sending a massive fireball scything into damage control crews.

More than eighteen explosions would tear open the Enterprise’s deck in eight places. Fortunately, her crew reacted efficiently to combat the blaze. Her skipper, Captain Kent Lee, turned the ship portside into the wind to blow away smoke, while sailors rushed forwards to combat the fire despite the detonating munitions, managing to roll the remaining bombs off the deck into the ocean before they could catch fire. The destroyer Rodgers put herself at risk by slewing in closely beside the Enterprise in order to spray her down with fire hoses. The efforts paid off—despite suffering a total of eighteen ordnance detonations, the crew brought the fire under control after forty minutes, and extinguished it entirely by noon.

The raging blaze had injured 314 crewmen and killed twenty-eight. Fortunately, this was significantly lower number of fatalities than had occurred on the Oriskany and Forrestal. Indeed, Captain Lee attributed the lower death toll to firefighting lessons learned from the earlier catastrophes.

Twisted and scarred by the blaze, with fifteen of her jets reduced to smoldering wrecks, the Enterprise limped back into Pearl Harbor, where she underwent fifty-one days of repairs costing $126 million ($866 million in 2017 dollars). The venerable carrier went on to serve forty-three more years before being retired in 2012. As for Captain Kent Lee, he would play an important role in the development of the FA-18 Hornet fighter jet. He passed away this August of 2017.

The painfully won experience from the Enterprise fire inspired a final round of introspection from the navy, which you can read in the mandatory JAG investigation here. Prior to the fire, sailors were already aware of the danger posed by the huffer heating units to aircraft weapons, due to earlier, nonlethal incidents. The crew of the USS Constellation had even devised longer huffer hoses for safer use. However, this awareness did not lead to navy-wide policies which could have prevented the accident, and the ordnance crew on the Enterprise’s deck failed to react promptly to a deadly threat to their safety despite spotting it in advance.

The succession of devastating accidents in the 1960s cost hundreds of lives. However, they did have one positive aftereffect: they confronted the navy with major deficiencies with its safety culture, and forced it to implement serious reforms to training and upgrades to its equipment, including the installation of flight deck “wash down” systems and employing more stable munitions. While carrier operations remain an inherently dangerous business, there have so far not been any catastrophic accidents on the scale of those that occurred in the 1960s. Tragically, those lessons were paid for in blood before their importance was fully realized.

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 piece first appeared in September 2017. It is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Americas

During World War II, submarine and aircraft-dropped torpedoes sank hundreds of merchant ships and warships.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Theoretically, the best platform for hunting down a submarine is another submarine. Indeed, carrier task forces often are accompanied by a submarine which quietly prowls the nearby seas for hostile counterparts.

In 2019, an annual report released by the Department of Testing & Evaluation revealed that a potentially revolutionary new torpedo-defense system installed on five American aircraft carriers had proven unsatisfactory and would be withdrawn from service.

The system combined a towed Torpedo Warning System sensor array designed to detect incoming torpedoes with a quick-acting launcher called the Anti-Torpedo Device System (ATTDS) that could spit out a miniature 220-pound Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo (CAT) measuring only 171 millimeters in diameter. The CAT torpedo was designed to home in on the incoming torpedo and blast it short of its target.

Starting in 2013, the Navy installed the system on five Nimitz-class super-carriers—the George H. W. Bush, Harry Truman, Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt. You can see a photo of one being fired from its six-cell launcher here.

But in September 2018 the Navy concluded testing and began removing the systems from the ships. Reportedly, they had failed to demonstrate enough improvement to be operationally viable. The Pentagon had by then invested $760 million in the torpedo-defense program of which ATTDS was a part, though other components of the program may still prove successful.

Details on the ATTD’s deficiencies are vague. While it demonstrated “some capability” at intercepting torpedoes, but its reliability was “uncertain,” and its lethality “untested.” The Navy also failed to test it versus simulated foreign torpedoes, relying on U.S.-built torpedoes instead.

Particularly, earlier DOT&E reports indicated the TWS had a major false positive problem—implying it confused friendly ships and systems with possible torpedo threats. Because such short-range close-in defense weapons depend on super-fast automated systems to respond to incoming threats, the inability of that system to distinguish genuine threats from nearby ships could have posed a major problem and potentially a friendly-fire risk.

The Torpedo Threat

During World War II, submarine and aircraft-dropped torpedoes sank hundreds of merchant ships and warships. Unlike the numerous aerial bombs or cannon shells required to sink large warships, just one or two torpedo hits could and sometimes did suffice to sink huge aircraft carriers and battleships.

The downsides to torpedoes are that they were malfunction-prone and tricky to deliver on target, as warships could undertake evasive maneuvers to avoid them. Thus submarines (which could attack with surprise) and aircraft or fast motorboats (which were too fast to avoid) proved the most effective torpedo-delivery platforms.

Submarines and torpedoes have only become considerably stealthier, faster and deadlier since World War II—but have been rarely used in combat. A notable exception is the Falkland Island War, in which the British submarine Conqueror torpedoed the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, in one stroke inflicting over half of the war’s Argentinian fatalities. Meanwhile, the Argentine submarine San Luis twice launched torpedo attacks on British ships which went undetected; torpedo malfunctions saved the British vessels.

However, anti-ship missiles inflicted considerable damage in Falkland Island conflict, Iran-Iraq clashes in the Persian Gulf, and the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. As a result, navies have developed sophisticated multi-layered missile-defense systems for their carriers, cruisers and destroyers: powerful radars to detect incoming threats, long-range missiles to shoot at them from far away, radar jamming and decoys to misdirect them, and short-range missiles and rapid-firing auto-cannons called Close-In Weapon Systems (CIWS) that automatically attempt to blast incoming warheads on their terminal approach.

Submarines and torpedoes, of course, are harder to track at a distance, and existing defensive systems against them are not quite as dense. Helicopters with dipping sonars and land-based patrol planes drop sonar buoys to patrol a wide perimeter searching for submarines which they can then engage with air-dropped homing torpedoes. Sub-hunting frigates and destroyers form a closed perimeter around the carriers and cruisers they are escorting. Carriers also deploy acoustic decoys like the towed SLQ-25 Nixie designed to attract torpedoes to them.

Despite these precautions, diesel and nuclear-powered submarines have repeatedly succeeded in evading detection and “sinking” U.S. carriers during naval exercises. The new generation of Air-Independent Propulsion and/or Lithium-Ion Battery powered submarines are relatively cheap yet remain very quiet and have weeks of underwater endurance. Furthermore, they are just as capable of launching advanced new torpedoes as the U.S. Navy’s pricier nuclear-powered submarines.

Particularly, new wake-homing torpedoes such as the Russian Type 53 and Chinese Yu-9 are designed to track a large vessel's wake rather than its acoustic signature, rendering towed decoy and other countermeasures ineffective.

Given the apparent difficulty of ensuring that submarines never enter torpedo-attack range, it made sense for the Navy to pursue a short-range “hard-kill” defense system designed to blast approaching torpedoes out of the water.

Hard-kill active-protection systems are currently being installed on U.S. armored vehicles, and in the early 2020s the Air Force plans to test laser-based and possibly kinetic hard kill systems to protect aircraft.

Unfortunately, the ATTDS program’s failure indicates that reliable hard-kill protection against torpedoes for surface warships has yet to be realized. However, the problems with the system’s sensors do not strictly implicate its ATT anti-torpedo torpedoes. Reportedly, an ATT on the George H.W. Bush successfully intercepted seven incoming torpedoes in 2013.

The ATT is, in fact, a spinoff of a program to develop cost-efficient high-speed miniature torpedoes called the Common Very Light Weight Torpedo. The Navy’s 2020 budget documents now suggest that the anti-torpedo torpedo may instead show up on U.S. submarines as an “Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Compact Rapid Attack Weapon” system for potential integration into the AN/BYG-1 weapons loading systems used by U.S. submarines, as first reported in detail by The Drive.

Theoretically, the best platform for hunting down a submarine is another submarine. Indeed, carrier task forces often are accompanied by a submarine which quietly prowls the nearby seas for hostile counterparts.

This admittedly remains untested in real-world combat, as World War II submarines—with the notable exception of the sinking of U-864 by the HMS Venturer—lacked the capability to engage each other underwater, and no confirmed submarine clashes have occurred since. However, multiple underwater collisions indicate that submarines are quite capable of stalking their less discrete underwater adversaries.

If a viable submarine CAT can be developed, submarine commanders will get an additional weapon in their toolkit. That would be useful when confronting not only enemy submarines but also small underwater drones or surface warships that don’t merit the deployment of an expensive heavyweight 533-millimeter torpedo. Theoretically, up to four mini-torpedoes could be stored in the space of a single heavyweight torpedo, but devising a system to launch the small weapons remains a technical challenge.

Of course, just like the carrier-based ATTDS, the CRAW anti-torpedo torpedo would also require testing to see if they work as well in practice as they do in theory. Nonetheless, the concept of adding an additional close-range layer of protection to submarines has merit given the increasing capability of modern torpedoes, and the sobering reality that a submarine would be lucky to survive even a single torpedo hit.

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 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr.

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Asia

If the H-20 does have the range and passable stealth characteristics attributed to it, it could alter the strategic calculus between the United States and China.

Here's What You Need to Remember: An H-20 seeking to slip through the gauntlet of long-range search radars scattered across the Pacific to launch CJ-10K cruise missiles with a range of over nine hundred miles would not require the same degree of stealth as an F-35 intended to penetrate more densely defended airspace and launch small diameter bombs with a range of 70 miles.

In October 2018, Chinese media announced that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) would publicly unveil its new H-20 stealth bomber during a parade celebrating the air arm’s seventieth anniversary in 2019.

Prior news of the H-20’s development had been teased using techniques pioneered by viral marketing campaigns for Hollywood movies. For example, the Xi’an Aviation Industrial Corporation released a promotional video in May 2018 pointedly imitating Northrop Grumman’s own Superbowl ad for the B-21 stealth bomber, portraying a shrouded flying wing bomber in its final seconds. Later, the silhouette of a possible new bomber appeared at a PLAAF gala. This comes only two years after PLAAF Gen. Ma Xiaotian formally revealed the Hong-20’s existence.

If the H-20 does have the range and passable stealth characteristics attributed to it, it could alter the strategic calculus between the United States and China by exposing U.S. bases and fleets across the Pacific to surprise air attacks.

Only three countries have both the imperative and the resources to develop huge strategic bombers that can strike targets across the globe: the United States, Russia and China. Strategic bombers make sense for China because Beijing perceives dominance of the western half of the Pacific Ocean as essential for its security due to its history of maritime invasion, and the challenge posed by the United States in particular. The two superpowers are separated by five to six thousand miles of ocean—and the United States has spent the last century developing a network of island territories such as Guam, foreign military bases in East Asia and super-carriers with which it can project air and sea power across that span.

Xi’an Aviation, the H-20’s manufacturer, also builds China’s H-6 strategic jet bombers, a knockoff the 1950s-era Soviet Tu-16 Badger which has recently been upgraded with modern avionics, aerial refueling capability and cruise missiles in the later H-6K and H-6J models. Beijing could easily have produced a successor in a similar vein, basically a giant four-engine airliner-sized cargo plane loaded with fuel and long-range missiles that’s never intended to get close enough for adversaries to shoot back.

Alternately, analyst Andreas Rupprecht reported that China considered developing a late-Cold War style supersonic bomber akin to the U.S. B-1 or Russian Tu-160 called the JH-XX. This would have lugged huge bombloads at high speed and low altitude, while exhibiting partial stealth characteristics for a marginal improvement in survivability. However, such an approach was already considered excessively vulnerable to modern fighters and air defense by the late twentieth century. A Chinese magazine cover sported a concept image of the JH-XX in 2013, but the project appears to have been set aside for now.

Instead, in the PLAAF elected to pursue a more ambitious approach: a slower but far stealthier flying wing like the U.S. B-2 and forthcoming B-21 Raider. A particular advantage of large flying wings is they are less susceptible to detection by low-bandwidth radar, such as those on the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye radar planes, which are effective at detecting the approach of smaller stealth fighters.

While China’s development of stealth aircraft technology in the J-20 and J-31 stealth fighter was an obvious prerequisite for the H-20 project, so apparently was Xi’an’s development of the hulking Y-20 ‘Chubby Girl’ cargo plane, which established the company’s capability to build large, long-range aircraft using modern computer-aided design and manufacturing techniques—precision technology essential for mass producing the exterior surfaces of stealth aircraft.

According to a study by Rick Joe at The Diplomat, Chinese publications began speculating about the H-20 in the early 2010s. Postulated characteristics include four non-afterburning WS-10A Taihang turbofans sunk into the top of the wing surface with S-shaped saw-toothed inlets for stealth. It’s worth noting that the WS-10 has been plagued by major problems, but that hasn’t stopped China from manufacturing fighters using WS-10s, with predictably troubled results.

The new strategic bomber is expected to have a maximum un-refueled combat radius exceeding 5,000 miles and payload between the H-6’s ten tons and the B-2’s twenty-three tons. This is because the H-20 is reportedly designed to strike targets beyond the “second island ring” (which includes U.S. bases in Japan, Guam, the Philippines, etc.) from bases on mainland China. The third island chain extends to Hawaii and coastal Australia.

In a U.S.-China conflict, the best method for neutralizing U.S. air power would be to destroy it on the ground (or carrier deck), especially in the opening hours of a war. While ballistic missiles and H-6 bombers can already contribute to this with long-range missiles, these are susceptible to detection and interception given adequate forewarning. A stealth bomber could approach much closer to carrier task forces and air bases before releasing its weapons, giving defenses too little time to react. An initial strike might in fact focus on air defense radars, “opening the breach” for a follow up wave of less stealthy attacks.

The H-20 will also likely be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, finally giving China a full triad of nuclear-capable submarines, ballistic missiles and bombers. Though the H-6 was China’s original nuclear bomber, these are no longer configured for nuclear strike, though that could change if air-launched nuclear-tipped cruise or ballistic missile are devised. Beijing is nervous that the United States’ limited ballistic missile defense capabilities might eventually become adequate for countering China’s small ICBM and SLBM arsenal. The addition of a stealth bomber would contribute to China’s nuclear deterrence by adding a new, difficult-to-stop vector of nuclear attack that the U.S. defenses aren’t designed to protect against.

Some Chinese publications also argue that the H-20 will do double-duty as a networked reconnaissance and command & control platform similar to U.S. F-35 stealth fighters. This would make sense, as China has developed a diverse arsenal of long-range air-, ground- and sea-launched missiles, but doesn’t necessarily have a robust reconnaissance network to form a kill-chain cueing these missiles to distant targets. Theoretically, an H-20 could rove ahead, spying the position of opposing sea-based assets using a low-probability-of-intercept AESA radar, and fuse that information to a firing platform hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The H-20 could also be used for electronic warfare or to deploy specialized directed energy.

The crescendo of publicity surrounding the H-20 indicates the PLAAF believes the plane will soon be ready enough to show to the public—and international audiences. Once revealed, analysts will pour over the aircraft’s geometry to estimate just how the stealthy it really is, looking for radar-reflective Achilles’ heels such as exposed engine inlets and indiscrete tail stabilizers. However, external analysis cannot provide a full assessment, because the quality of the radar-absorbent materials applied to surfaces, and the finesse of the manufacturing (avoiding seams, protruding screws, etc.) has a major impact on radar cross-section.

It is worth bearing in mind, however, that an H-20 seeking to slip through the gauntlet of long-range search radars scattered across the Pacific to launch CJ-10K cruise missiles with a range of over nine hundred miles would not require the same degree of stealth as an F-35 intended to penetrate more densely defended airspace and launch small diameter bombs with a range of 70 miles.

Analysts forecast the H-20’s first flight in the early 2020s, with production possibly beginning around 2025. If the H-20 is judged to be of credible design, the Pentagon in turn will have to factor the strategic implications of China’s stealth capabilities, and will likely seek to field implement counter-stealth technologies which formerly have been mostly vaunted by Russia and China. The publicity which the often-secretive Chinese government is according the H-20 also indicates Beijing’s hope the bomber will serve as a strategic deterrent to foreign adversaries—even before its first flight.

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 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Sebastien Roblin

History, Asia

These warships defeated Imperial Japan and saved the day.

Key point: This class of aircraft carrier made a huge different in the outcome of the war. In fact, they would continue to serve even after World War II.

Perhaps no vessel embodies the U.S. Navy’s embrace of the aircraft carrier as the centerpiece of its strategy as the Essex-class carrier. Between 1943 and 1950, twenty-four of the thirty-thousand-ton carriers were built at shipyards in Newport News, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Norfolk and Braintree—some completed in as few as fourteen months. This makes the Essex the most extensively produced capital ship class in the twentieth century.

The Navy’s earlier carriers were limited in size due to the Washington Naval Treaty signed in 1922, with an exception granted for two battlecruisers converted into carriers with displacements of thirty thousand tons (in U.S. service, the Lexington-class).

Though lacking combat experience, the Navy tested its carriers extensively in wargames and gained a decent idea of their revolutionary. So did Japan, which withdrew from the Naval Treaty in 1934 to build up its forces up for planned future conquests.

Reciprocally freed from the treaty’s restriction, in 1940 the Navy set out to build a larger carriers than its latest Yorktown-class. Though the U.S. was over a year away from involvement in World War II, naval engineers grasped the qualities a fully-capable carrier needed: when it came to ‘flattops’, bigger was actually better.

The 30,000 ton Essex was finally commissioned on December 31, 1942, measuring 265 meters in length and displacing 31,300 tons with the hull reinforced by as much as four inches of Special Treatment Steel armor. Four twin and four-single five-inch gun turrets used two fire-control radars to blast aerial threats up to seven miles away using proximity-fused air-bursting shells. Additionally, sixty rapid-firing twenty-millimeter cannons and seventeen quad-barrel forty-millimeter Bofors guns provided close protection.

Additional air- and surface-search radars gave the carriers advance warning of approaching threats while helping manage friendly forces in the battlespace. A new side-mounted elevator gave the carriers better flexibility, particular in the event that the elevator was jammed by battle damage.

She and her sisterships officially had crew complements of 2,300 personnel, though often sailed with more than 3,000. Eight huge boilers generating temperatures of 850 degrees Fahrenheit turned four steam turbines for electrical power and propulsion, allowing the hulking carrier to achieve 33 knots under full power.

The Essex’s best defense and offense came from the new generation of aircraft she carried, all with ranges of a thousand miles or longer. Agile F6F Hellcat finally helped the Navy win air superiority over maneuverable, but fragile A6M Zero. Faster SB2C Helldiver bomber could heft up to two-thousand pounds of bombs internally, and another thousand underwing. And tubby three-man TBF Avengers could launch deadly torpedo attacks, and also proved effective as radar-equipped submarine hunters and airborne early warning plane. The air groups typically boasted two squadron each of Hellcats and Helldivers and a squadron of Avengers.

The Essex’s larger deck allowed two squadrons to be “spotted” for takeoff on the flight deck, while a third readied its engines on the open hangar deck below. As aircraft carried progressively heavier weapons loads, they began to make more extensive use of the Essex’s two to three steam catapults to achieve necessary takeoff speed. An enlarged store of 240,000 gallons of aviation fuel enabled extended flight operations.

Starting with the Ticonderoga laid down in 1943, new long-hull Essex carriers entered service with a flared ‘clipper bow meant to handle rough weather more smoothly. The long-hull ships boasted additional anti-aircraft guns and improved radars, and had their refueling and air vents reconfigured for improved survivability, and the ship’s Combat Information Center moved below deck. In fact, as Essex carriers received near continuous upgrades to their radars, guns and catapults, no two came to be exactly alike.

The Essex carriers were thrust into the cauldron of the Pacific War which had already consumed five of the eight fleet carriers the Navy began the conflict with. Many of the Essex class vessels were renamed after recently sunk carriers (Yorktown, Lexington, Wasp, Hornet, Independence) as well as other famous ships and historic battles.

Initially they primarily served as floating airstrips to pound fortified Japanese islands in the United States’ relentless island-hopping campaign. However, in June 1944 six Essex class-carrier engaged Japanese counterparts in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, sinking three Japanese carriers and shooting down around six hundred aircraft in the so-called “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” The U.S. Navy lost 123 combat aircraft and no ships.

Fourth months later, four Essex-class carriers covering the U.S. landing on the Philippines fought off three separate Japanese fleets in the epic Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. Aircraft from the Essex and Franklin (as well as from the Yorktown-class Enterprise) sank the Japanese battleship Musashi, the largest battleship ever built. Again, the Essex-class carriers survived Japanese counterattacks unscathed thanks to effective Combat Air Patrols.

However, in the final year of the war Japan launched increasing numbers of Kamikaze attacks that succeeded in penetrating the Essex’s formidable air defense screens. On May 11, 1945, while providing air support for the invasion of Okinawa, the Bunker Hill was simultaneously struck by two Zeroes also carrying bombs, the massive explosions killing 390 crew. She nonetheless managed to return to Pearl Harbor for repairs on her own power.

Another Essex-class carrier, the USS Intrepid, survived being hit by four Kamikaze attacks as detailed in this earlier article.

Earlier, on March 19, 1945, the Franklin was struck by two armor piercing bombs dropped by a lone D4Y “Judy” dive bomber, setting off an chain reaction of exploding bomb and fuel laden aircraft that killed over eight hundred crew. Remarkably, Franklin captain refused to abandon ship and managed to nurse her back to port, having suffered the heaviest casualties for any U.S. Navy ship not lost in action. You can see footage of the Franklin’s ordeal in this 1945 documentary.

Ultimately, not one Essex-class carrier was lost during World War II. The close of hostilities saw the cancelation of eight planned Essex carriers. But most of the remaining twenty-four would lead long and eventful service lives.

The Navy reconfigured its Essexes with angled flight decks (increasing their weight to forty-seven thousand tons) and mirror landing systems to help operate faster and heavier jet fighters like he F9F Panther and the FJ Fury, serving alongside trusted piston-engine fighters like the Corsair and the beastly A-1 Skyraider. Helicopters were also added for search-and-rescue duties.

Eleven of the Essex carriers saw action in the Korean War, hitting ground targets in North Korea. In one incident in 1952, a Panther launched from the Essex-class Oriskany shot down four Soviet jets in an aerial skirmish over the Sea of Japan.

A decade later the Essex’s continued to serve, now with Skyhawk attack jets, speedy F-8 Crusader fighters, which saw action in the Vietnam War, with A-1s from the Intrepid even improbably shooting down a MiG-17 jet fighter. The carriers were also extensively employed to recover NASA space capsules and astronauts. However, the Essexes were being replaced by new nuclear-powered carriers.

However, the Oriskany—the last Essex-class vessel launched in a heavily modified configuration—endured the class’s final ordeal when a mishandled flare tossed into an ammunition locker ignited a fire that vented poisonous fumes throughout the ship, killing forty-four.

While most of Essex-class vessels were decommissioned in the 1970s, the last still in service, the USS Lexington, remained active as a training ship until 1991. Four of the World War II fleet carriers still serve as museum ships in New York, South Carolina, Texas and California. The decades of operational service provided by the venerable carriers testified both to the robustness of their design, and their effectiveness as platforms of the U.S. naval power.

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 earlier and is being posted due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

China was proud to launch its first aircraft carrier.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Beijing did pay for the $20 million value of the carrier—but argued that it couldn’t cover other costs because he lacked receipts. Apparently, invoices—or fapiao in Mandarin—don’t come standard with bribes paid to Ukrainian businessmen. And, as one quickly learns in China, you always need the official fapiao.

China was proud to launch its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in 2012. This vessel was a refit of an incomplete Soviet Kuznetsov-class cruiser carrier. However, the story of how China got that ship in the first place may as well be a comedy—because the carrier was actually a rogue acquisition for the Chinese military against the wishes of the government in Beijing. And it was undertaken by a basketball player who claimed he wanted to build a floating casino.

The People's Liberation Army Navy first became interested in acquiring an aircraft carrier in 1970, when China was still on bad terms with both the Soviet Union and the United States. However few concrete steps were taken, because the cost and complexity of such an endeavor far exceeded the PLAN’s limited capabilities during the Cold War.

The Soviet Navy did deploy its first carriers in the 1970s: Kiev-class vessels that could launch Yak-38 Forger jump jets of limited effectiveness. By the 1980s, the Soviets began construction of two more promising Kuznetsov-class carriers. These had a “ski jump” ramp, allowing more conventional—and much higher-performing—Su-33 Flanker fighters to take off from it. Like the earlier Kiev class, the Kuznetsov was technically an “aircraft-carrying cruiser” due its powerful armament of twelve P-700 Granit antiship missile systems. This technicality was important, as “aircraft carriers” proper weighing more than fifteen thousand tons (which is to say, virtually all aircraft carriers today) were not legally permitted by the Montreux Convention to transit from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus Straits.

However, the fall of the Soviet Union left the second vessel in its class, the Varyag, only two-thirds complete in Ukraine, lacking its armament and electrical systems. Construction ceased in 1992, and the cash-strapped Ukrainian government did its best to pawn off the fifty-five thousand tons of inoperable metal rusting in its Mykolaiv shipyard. Russia, India and China all passed.

A two-part series in the South China Morning Post in 2015 revealed the machinations behind how the carrier ended up in Chinese service anyway, two decades later. It turns out the PLA Navy did want the Varyag—the team sent to inspect it recommended purchasing it! But the government in Beijing was worried that acquiring a carrier might increase tensions at a time when it was seeking to further open itself to Western investors.

Instead, in 1996 a group of PLA officers including intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde approached Xu Zengping, a former PLA basketball star who had become a successful businessman arranging international events. The cabal’s proposal: to have Xu purchase the carrier as a private citizen, ostensibly to serve as a casino so as to avoid undesirable scrutiny. Then the PLAN could collect it for its own use once the political winds were more favorable.

This cover story is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Remember those Kiev-class carriers mentioned earlier? Two of them are now moored in China, serving as amusement parks. The Minsk was actually purchased by a consortium of video-game arcade owners in Shenzhen for $4.4 million, and has since been moved to Nantong, north of Shanghai. And the original Kiev? Now a floating hotel in Tianjin. However, the more modern Kuznetsov-class Varyag was undoubtedly of much greater practical interest for the PLAN than either of those ships.

Xu was down with the scheme and borrowed the equivalent of $30 million in Hong Kong dollars from a friend to help fund the venture—the first expense of which was to create a $6 million shell company in Macau called Agência Turística e Diversões Chong Lot Limitada, in order to maintain the fiction. (Macau was still in its last years as a Portuguese colony at the time.)

Recommended: Why No Commander Wants to Take On a Spike Missile

Recommended: What Will the Sixth-Generation Jet Fighter Look Like?

Recommended: Imagine a U.S. Air Force That Never Built the B-52 Bomber

In January 1998, Xu arrived in Ukraine and met with the shipyard owners. After four days of negotiations, in which enormous bribes were offered and fifty bottles of 124-proof baijiu liquor were consumed, he reached an agreement to purchase the carrier for $20 million—well below the cost of a single jet fighter today. He wasn’t able to make the payment until a year later, with a $10 million extra late fee tacked on.

Some international observers smelled something fishy in the arrangement—Xu’s company did not actually have a gambling permit in Macau, nor a listed phone number or address. Ironically, however, a Jane’s analyst interviewed by the Washington Post at the time stated it was “farfetched” that the PLA Navy would try to operate the Varyag due to its decrepit and incomplete condition.

By June 2000, everything was ready to go. The carrier’s four engines were packed in grease seals (they had yet to be installed), several tons of blueprints were sent overland to China by truck, and a Dutch towing company was ready to tug the 306-meter-long vessel all the way back to China. What could go wrong?

Ever been stunned by the towing fee after your car breaks down far from home?  Imagine that, but around five hundred times worse. Why five hundred? Because that equals the roughly five hundred days the Liaoning was stuck being towed in circles off Istanbul, after the Turkish government denied it passage to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus Straits.

The Turkish maritime minister argued that should there be a mishap towing the 306-meter-long carrier—which could not maneuver or move on its own power—it might spin around and block the Bosporus straits to all shipping, or run into one of the bridges connecting the two halves of Istanbul. The straits are only seven hundred meters wide at their narrowest point and require at least six major course corrections to navigate. Hundreds of ships had suffered accidents there in the past. Curiously, the Chinese appear to have perceived the Turkish refusal to be in retaliation for China’s opposition to the NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia the previous year.

The Liaoning spent sixteen months racking up $8,500 a day in towing fees. Finally, Beijing had a change of heart on the matter, and stepped in on August 2001, promising major concessions on tourism to persuade the Turks to let the Varyag pass.

Finally on November 1, in an operation involving more than two dozens tug and emergency vessels, the Varyag was towed through the Bosporus without incident, and traversed the Dardanelles the next day. The hard part was over.

Except for the sea storm with sixty-mile-per-hour winds that struck the rudderless vessel off the island of Skyros two days later, causing it to snap its tow lines. It took two more days to recover the runaway carrier. Tragically, a Portuguese sailor fell to his death while helping reconnect it to its tugs.

Once under power, a normal vessel could have taken the shortcut through the Suez Canal and straight on back to China via the Indian Ocean. But the canal would not accept powerless vessels such as the Varyag, so it had to cruise all the way around Africa, Vasco de Gama–style, chugging along at a brisk jog of seven miles per hour.

In March 2002, the carrier finally arrived at the port of Dalian in Liaoning province, which would lend the carrier its name in Chinese service. Three years later, it was put into a dry dock to allow for an extensive refit process, including sandblasting away all the rust and restoring and installing the engines in 2011.

The PLAN intended to operate the vessel as a pure carrier, rather than as a cruiser-carrier hybrid, so the shipbuilders didn’t bother with the enormous antiship missile systems. They instead confined its armament to a trio of short-range HQ-10 air-defense missile launchers and a few close-defense guns. The vessel’s primary weapon, of course, would be its complement of twenty-four J-15 Flying Shark fighters. The Flying Sharks are domestic copies of the Russian Su-33 fighter, a prototype of which was also acquired from Ukraine in 2001. The Liaoning also flies six Z-12F antisubmarine helicopters, four airborne early-warning variants and two Z-9 rescue choppers.

The Liaoning was commissioned on September 25, 2012, and the first J-15 landed on it a month later. A home-built carrier based upon the Liaoning will soon put to sea this year; those blueprints must have proved useful.

The Liaoning is hardly equal to a U.S. supercarrier—in addition to its smaller air wing and lack of a nuclear power plant, its steam turbines are prone to breaking down and the ski-jump deck limits the fuel and weapons load its fighters can carry. However, it afforded China a leap forward in its naval construction program—which now includes five more carriers in the coming decade of increasing planned capability. According to Xu Zengping, a naval officer told him that the Varyag saved China fifteen years of research and development.

So was Xu richly rewarded for his initiative? He was rewarded with bills: $120 million in all in Xu’s estimation, forcing him to sell his decadent home in Hong Kong and spend all of the intervening years paying his lenders back. You see, General Ji was jailed in 2001 for his involvement in a massive smuggling ring in the city of Xiamen—so the cabal of officers that set Xu up for the task was no longer around to see that he was compensated.

Beijing did pay for the $20 million value of the carrier—but argued that it couldn’t cover other costs because he lacked receipts. Apparently, invoices—or fapiao in Mandarin—don’t come standard with bribes paid to Ukrainian businessmen. And, as one quickly learns in China, you always need the official fapiao.

So if there’s a moral to the story of the Varyag, it’s not to expect too much gratitude for your good deeds . . . and always keep the receipt.

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 two years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.