Robert Farley
Chinese Military, Asia
China would fight another war on the Korean Peninsula if it had to.Here's What You Need to Remember: In almost every conceivable scenario, Beijing would work hard to try to restrain Pyongyang from using its nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals.
Three years ago I outlined what the contours of a war between China and the United States might look like. Although disagreements between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan and the South China Sea have hardly subsided, it increasingly appears that affairs on the Korean Peninsula would provide the spark for conflict. If the tense situation in Korea led to war between the United States and China, how would the conflict start? Who would have the advantage? And how would it end?
How it Would Start
War between North Korea, or the DPRK, and America is more likely to ignite a war between China and the U.S. than vice versa, although it’s not incomprehensible that Pyongyang might take advantage of U.S. distraction with China to make a move against South Korea. But if we assume the former, it would change the military situation at the beginning of the U.S.-China conflict. Whereas in most scenarios a war happens according to Beijing’s timetable, and consequently to Beijing’s advantage, if North Korea triggers a conflict China may be forced into a fight that it does not want and is not fully prepared for. At the very least, it would allow U.S. forces to fully mobilize in expectation of fighting against China. Even if the Chinese were allowed to launch the first blow, U.S. forces would be on high alert, tracking Chinese moves and capable of responding immediately. The experience of November 1950, in which China was allowed to launch a surprise attack, would surely be at the top of the minds of U.S. commanders.
China could decide to intervene in a new Korean War under two circumstances; first, if it believed that the U.S.-ROK coalition was on the verge of destroying the DPRK (as was the case in 1950), and second, if it believed that the DPRK was winning and that Chinese intervention could preempt U.S. escalation. If the former case, China’s war objectives would be to prevent the destruction of the DPRK, and to prevent the DPRK from unleashing its nuclear arsenal. In the latter, the objective would be the opposite; to secure North Korean gains (whether these amounted to the entire Korean Peninsula or not), and to eliminate any temptation on the U.S. part to escalate to nuclear weapons. In either case, U.S. and ROK planners would pay careful attention to Chinese maneuvers, and both countries would have fully mobilized for war.
The Allies
Neither China nor North Korea have a lot of friends around the world. Still, both would likely enjoy benevolent neutrality from Russia, which would help significantly in keeping the militaries of both supplied with fuel, spare parts and ammunition.
The rest of the world would likely support the United States and the ROK to various degrees, less if the U.S .started the war, more if the DPRK started it. China would undoubtedly worry about its southwestern flank, but India is unlikely to intervene in any conflict that does not directly involve its interests. America’s European and Pacific allies would offer rhetorical and potentially some minor military support.
Japan’s participation would be the biggest question mark. Tokyo regards both North Korea and the growth of Chinese military power as key national security threats. Japan might well come under attack from North Korea during intra-Korean hostilities. At the very least, Japan would offer basing and support to the United States and (more quietly) to the ROK. But if Tokyo perceived that a Chinese-North Korean axis might win (as apart from merely preserving a rump DPRK), then Tokyo might well intervene on the U.S. side in a meaningful way. The combination of Tokyo’s military, financial, and economic might could significantly affect the course of the conflict.
The Course of Combat
On balance, South Korea is considerably more powerful than North Korea. While North Korea’s forces can cause enormous damage to South Korea in a conventional conflict, they cannot hope to destroy the Republic of Korea, or ROK, on their own. Attacks in depth against North Korean communications and logistics would make it difficult for the North Korean Army, or KPA, to maneuver. And in the early days of the conflict, South Korean and American airpower would utterly control the sky.
Chinese intervention could change this equation. War between the Koreas would create a problem for the U.S. by introducing the necessity to supply and maintain large scale land forces on the Korean Peninsula. Unleashed against South Korea, Chinese ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles could wreak havoc on U.S. and ROK military installations. Missiles would destroy Coalition aircraft on the ground, and reduce airfield readiness. Attacks on staging and logistics areas would give U.S. and ROK forces a taste of the same problems they had dished out to the North Koreans. US naval forces and installations would also come under attack.
In the first Korean War, the United States restrained itself from attacking China directly. In a new Korean War, the Americans would not exercise such forbearance. Chinese military installations associated with strikes against Korea would come under attack from U.S. air, missile, and naval assets. The PLAN, whether it took to sea or remained in port, would find itself a juicy target, although the U.S. Navy might limit its attacks geographically. Chinese air bases within China, and the aircraft based on them, would also suffer from U.S. attacks.
How it Would End
In almost every conceivable scenario, Beijing would work hard to try to restrain Pyongyang from using its nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals. Indeed, the United States might well declare from an early point that it viewed any use of nuclear weapons by the Beijing-Pyongyang axis as implicating both partners, and thus requiring retaliation against both.
If Beijing and Washington could avoid nuclear combat, the end of the war would turn on the survival of the DPRK. North Korea cannot indefinitely stand against the combined might of the U.S. and the ROK, much less the addition of Japan to the Coalition. If Chinese intervention can either disrupt the U.S.-ROK war machine through brute force (the destruction of sufficient military assets to make it impossible to continue), or coerce the U.S. to give up through the imposition of high costs, the DPRK could survive and remain in control of some portion of the Korean Peninsula (whether large or small would depend on the timing and extent of Chinese intervention). If the Chinese can’t accomplish this, then the DPRK will cease to exist, and the ROK will extend to the Chinese border.
In the first scenario, the world looks much like it does today, only with substantial destruction across Northeast Asia, and profound disruption to global economic and financial systems. The second scenario sees the same kind of disruption and destruction, but China is the clear loser, with potentially dire implications for the power and legitimacy of the Communist Party of China.
Parting Thoughts
It is unlikely that the Chinese could win the war for North Korea, but they might well be able to prevent the DPRK from losing. But there is little question that China does not want to yoke its growing military machine to the whims of Pyongyang. Even if China could win such a war, the devastation to its trade and financial relationships would vastly exceed the value of preserving the DPRK. This is a war that China wants to avoid, and would only join in desperation.
Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to the National Interest, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissemination and the Diplomat.
This first appeared in 2017 and is being reposted due to reader interest.
Image: Reuters
Kris Osborn
U.S. Navy, United States
Adding large numbers of new next-generation destroyers will substantially change the Navy’s ability to conduct major maritime warfare operations by enabling surface forces to detect enemy attacks at much farther distances.
Here's What You Need to Know: Within just the next fifteen years, the Navy plans to add as many as thirty DDG 51 Destroyers, including twenty-two new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers.
The Navy accepted delivery of the guided missile destroyer, the future USS Daniel Inouye, from shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, March 8. As the Navy adds another new Destroyer to its growing fleet of attack warships, many wonder if the service’s 500-ship ambitions remain afloat given the new budget environment led by a new Joe Biden administration.
The Navy’s ambitious fleet-size expansion plan, still believed to be largely intact as seeking a 500-ship “aim point,” relies upon a massive increase in heavily armed destroyers able to launch long-range attacks, fire interceptor missiles, defend carrier strike groups and engage in massive open blue water warfare.
Within just the next fifteen years, the Navy plans to add as many as thirty DDG 51 Destroyers, including twenty-two new, high-tech DDG 51 Flight III warships and eight state-of-the-art DDG 51 Flight IIA destroyers, according to the service’s most recent thirty-year shipbuilding plan.
“DDG 118 is a Flight IIA destroyer equipped with Aegis Baseline 9, which provides improved Integrated Air and Missile Defense capabilities, increased computing power, and radar upgrades that improve detection range and reaction time against modern air warfare and Ballistic Missile Defense threats,” a Navy report states.
Prioritizing such a large number of these warships offers an interesting analytical window into Navy thinking about the next five decades of ocean war. The plan signifies a broad service alignment with its Distributed Maritime Operations strategy which, among other things, seeks to massively increase lethality and sensor networking across vast swaths of ocean in real time.
Adding large numbers of new next-generation destroyers will substantially change the Navy’s ability to conduct major maritime warfare operations by enabling surface forces to detect enemy attacks at much farther distances. Moreover, these warships will be able to launch long-range strikes with greater precision and destructive force and disperse otherwise overly congested offensive forces across much wider maritime areas.
In addition to adding thirty new destroyers, the Navy’ also seeks fifteen Littoral Combat Ships, eighteen of the new frigates and as many as thirty-two new attack submarines in the next fifteen years. While many new ships are now under construction, the current number of Navy ships is roughly in the high 280s, a number the Navy hopes to grow to 355 by 2034.
Interestingly, while 355 ships by 2034 may still appear to be the objective, one thought to consider is that during President Biden’s previous time in the Barack Obama administration, there was a decided interest among the political leadership to operate a smaller number of actual ship platforms while making a special effort to ensure technological overmatch and tactical advantages. The concept during the Obama years was to embark upon a massive Pacific pivot with a technologically superior, yet numerically smaller Naval force. This plan was further enabled by new long-range precision weapons and more robust ship-to-ship networking systems connecting otherwise separated points of attack. Effective networking, high fidelity sensors, manned-drone-boat teaming and precision weaponry, however, are all expected to figure prominently as the service surges forward into an entirely new threat environment.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
This article first appeared in March 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.
Image: Reuters.
Charlie Gao
Artillery, Europe
And why did Sweden desire such a system to begin with?Here's What You Need to Know: Peace-loving Sweden is also an arms exporter.
During the twentieth century, Sweden developed many weapons at the top of their class despite not being a superpower. From the Swedish K SMG to the AT4, Swedish weapons have won American orders and proven themselves to be excellent in the field. However, one of the most interesting and innovative Swedish designs never was exported. The Bandkanon 1 self propelled howitzer was a Swedish design with only twenty-six vehicles built. It still holds the records for being the fastest firing artillery system of its caliber. It possessed the ability to empty its entire magazine of fifteen shells within forty-five seconds, a world record. While the Bandkanons were never exported and were phased out of service in 2003, the legacy of their magazine-style loading system lives on in Sweden’s new Archer artillery system. But how can the Bandkanon fire so fast? Why did Sweden desire such a system, to begin with?
To answer those questions, we must look at the circumstances that brought about the development of the Bandkanon. In the late 1940s, Sweden had a desperate need to modernize its artillery, as most of it was turn-of-the-century vintage. For most of the requirements, foreign-designed artillery fulfilled the requirements and was purchased. In contrast, the requirements for a heavy self-propelled artillery piece was set extremely high. This is where the extremely high rate of fire requirement came around, as the HQ wanted a rate of fire of fifteen rounds per minute for the self-propelled artillery piece. The reasons for this are not exactly clear, but some speculation exists. The Swedish military didn’t field multiple rocket launchers (MLRs) (such as the BM-21 Grad or M270 MLRs) during the Cold War at all, so the use of conventional artillery that has similar capability to MRLs would allow the Swedish artillery to fulfill two roles with one platform, making it more economical. The Bandkanon was also designed with a fast automated loading system that allowed it to prepare for a second fire mission much faster than MRLs. In addition to this, Swedish studies also came to the same conclusion as Soviet ones after WWII: that a fast rate of fire is desirable as artillery inflicts the most casualties at the beginning of the barrage when soldiers have not yet hunkered down in bunkers or fortified positions.
To fulfill these requirements, the Bandkanon required a design radically different from existing self-propelled artillery. Most self-propelled artillery at the time was laid out similar to tanks, with the gun breech being enclosed in a manned turret. The Bandkanon did away with that, with the gun being counterbalanced by a massive ammunition compartment on the rear of the turret, with no manual loader. The loading of the gun was done automatically via a rammer that stripped rounds from the magazine in the ammo compartment. This arrangement of all fourteen rounds pointed in the direction of the barrel gave the Bandkanon its incredible rate of fire. By the time the first round impacted the target at the maximum range of twenty-five kilometers, all other thirteen rounds would be in the air. Reloading the Bandkanon was also incredibly fast, thanks to the built in crane on the rear of the artillery piece. This crane would simply pick up an entire fresh set of fourteen rounds and place it in the ammo compartment. Manuals suggest that this was almost fully automatic, requiring pressing only three buttons once everything was positioned properly. The entire process of reloading only took two minutes.
While this incredible rate of fire was definitely an advantage, to achieve it the Bandkanon made significant compromises. The whole vehicle was incredibly heavy for its time, weighing in in excess of fifty tons. Combined with relatively weak engines, this meant that the Bandkanon could not move rapidly off road or on road. Unlike traditional manually loaded howitzers, the amount of charge could not be altered for the Bandkanon due to the unitary nature of its ammunition. This limited its flexibility in employment, especially on closer targets.
Despite these advantages, the Swedish army only procured twenty-six Bandkanons in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the modern FH77 field howitzer became the primary artillery system of the Swedish military. While it too had the capability to rapidly fire, it was not as fast nor as protected as the Bandkanon with its novel ammunition layout.
Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.
This article first appeared in 2018.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Abdul Rahman Rahmani
Afghanistan, South Asia
The lives of more than 6,300 Afghan women who served in the Afghan military are at risk.On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan once again. In the previous twenty years, the United States and NATO countries promoted women’s rights, equality, and justice in Afghanistan. As part of those efforts, they provided opportunities for women to voluntarily serve in the Afghan military. This service has traditionally been subject to male domination in Afghanistan. Despite cultural difficulties, the United States and its allies trained a cadre of Afghan women in the military to do jobs that typically hadn’t been open to them. They served in U.S.-backed combat units, handled the cases of Taliban prisoners, and a small number of them even flew helicopters and military planes. Before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, over 6,300 women served in the Afghan army, police, and air force.
These women did not just serve in the military and fight the Taliban, they also promoted democracy, equality, and justice as part of the transformation of Afghanistan. The international community, especially the United States, purposefully encouraged and supported women in the military as part of the broader transformation to a more democratic, just, and equal Afghanistan. Because these programs directly and symbolically put these women at war with the Taliban and what it stood for, the United States has incurred a moral obligation not to abandon them in the face of the Taliban resurgence. These women would likely face Taliban retribution and possibly death. The most straightforward way for the United States to meet its moral obligation is to grant those women U.S. visas and support their safe evacuation from Afghanistan.
From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until they were removed during the United States’ invasion. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan according to their extremist interpretation of Islamic Sharia Law, which, among other restrictions, banned girls from school and prevented women from serving in the government or military. The Taliban’s leadership would not allow women to serve in their regime because they “publicly humiliated and beat women if they didn’t comply [with their will]” during their rule. The best solution to potential Taliban brutality against those women is to get them out of Afghanistan.
The United States must evacuate these women because their lives are in great danger. Afghan women who served in the military fought the Taliban in both the land and the air domains. The majority of the 6,300 women in the Afghan National Army fought on the ground, but around 146 women served in the Afghan air force, flying combat and logistics aircraft. Several also served in the police, interrogating Taliban fighters at the Bagram military base and other prisons around Afghanistan. Some of the Taliban fighters interrogated by women police were freed from Afghan prisons under the peace agreement signed by the Taliban and the United States in in February 2020 in Doha. Those released Taliban prisoners actively participated in the recent fight against the Afghan government. Therefore, the work that these women did as army ground forces, as pilots, and as police interrogators put them at risk of being identified and executed by the Taliban.
Moreover, these women risked their lives to protect the United States, its allies, and the Afghan government’s interests in promoting values such as democracy, equality, and justice as part of Afghanistan’s transformation toward a democratic country. They were perfect examples of those values. For example, my work at the Office of National Security Council in the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan required me to read, analyze, and report on all of the U.S. reports on Afghanistan to the national security advisor and the president of Afghanistan. During my two-and-a-half-year tenure, I never saw a single report in which these women were not mentioned as a sign of progress in promoting democracy, justice, and equality. Moreover, many intellectuals, journalists, think tank experts, and other people involved in women’s rights in Afghanistan have claimed that the participation of Afghan women in the military was a positive sign in promoting these important values.
The values that the Afghan military women fought for are contrary to the Taliban way of life and its extremely conservative interpretation of Sharia Law, the Taliban’s code of conduct. Those values are also against those held by the people who supported the Taliban for twenty years and contributed to overthrowing the Afghan government. These women have no room to live in societies under the Taliban’s control. If they somehow survive the Taliban’s brutality, they will be subjected to forced marriages—despite the recently decreed ban—rapes, and their families will face social isolation and extreme poverty.
How could the United States help these women safely evacuate Afghanistan? To safely evacuate them from Afghanistan, the United States must negotiate with Pakistan for leverage over the Taliban to allow these women a safe passage. From an ethical perspective, the United States must not speak to the Taliban leaders who are still on the UN sanctions list. The United States should talk to Pakistani authorities and ask for their assistance. According to Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on South Asia, “the Taliban are desperate to be recognized by the US and its allies in the international arena.” They will be willing to do anything in exchange for international recognition. The United States and the international community are observing the Taliban’s behavior, particularly their conduct with Afghan women. As part of the deal, the United States can convince the Pakistani government that if the Taliban allow these women a safe passage, as they did for Westerners, it might help their quest for recognition in the international community.
However, the promise must be condition-based: if the Taliban do not change their code of conduct in accordance with the international community’s demands, the international community must retain the ability to sanction their regime. Given that Pakistan is under intense pressure from the United States and the international community for supporting the Taliban, it will likely help the United States negotiate a deal. While the Taliban is a pariah in the international arena, there is a strong possibility that they will allow those women a safe passage from Afghanistan.
The United States and its allies must act quickly to save these women’s lives or else they will be abandoned to suffer the Taliban’s brutality and eventually die in poverty. Allowing this to happen to Afghan military women will make future gender promotion in Afghanistan impossible. Some experts may argue that the Taliban will allow women to serve their regime to leverage and influence the international community. In pure Islamic governance, governance that the Taliban have fought for, it is against Sharia law to have women serve in the military. Prime examples of this fact are found in Saudi Arabia and Iran, where women cannot fully participate in the military. Furthermore, most Afghans who supported the Taliban view women’s service in the military, an environment of mixed genders, contrary to their values and way of life. Given the limited foreign aid the Taliban will receive from foreign countries compared to previous governments, and given the growing workforce in Afghanistan, it seems impossible for these women to find proper jobs and sustain themselves and their families in a male-dominated country.
The lives of more than 6,300 Afghan women who served in the Afghan military are at risk. They will potentially face the wrath of the Taliban, which could include brutality and killing. The Afghan military women put their lives in harm’s way fighting the Taliban and sacrificed to promote democracy, equality, and justice. They are now facing a great struggle for their lives under the Taliban’s brutality in Afghanistan. Therefore, the international community, particularly the United States, has a moral obligation to grant them visas and support their safe evacuation from Afghanistan.
Abdul Rahman Rahmani is a former colonel, Afghan pilot, and head of Presidential Information Coordination Center at the Office of National Security Council in Afghanistan. He is currently studying at National Defense University in Washington DC.
Image: Reuters.
Aaron Crimmins
Ransomware, United States
The nature of cyber threats is to evolve constantly. To effectively combat them, we must as well.In the first year of his presidency, Joe Biden has made strong efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to get tough on national cybersecurity. This pledge came both as a natural accompaniment to his campaign agenda of renewing American infrastructure as well as a way to differentiate himself from the former administration. To those in the cybersecurity field, President-Elect Biden’s messaging on cybersecurity was encouragingly robust following his election. Looking back on almost a year of the Biden administration, those encouraging pre-inauguration overtures have begun to bear real fruit. Importantly, the president has pushed for an effective means to improve the nation’s cyber fortitude to combat one of today’s most onerous and widespread cyber threats: ransomware.
The Biden administration hit the ground running and quickly began working to combat ransomware. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a call for action to tackle ransomware more effectively in February, setting off a cascading series of initiatives in the following months. In March, DHS launched a series of sixty-day sprints to streamline and standardize the federal response to ransomware and cyber criminality. The U.S. Secret Service held a virtual cyber incident response simulation with state and local governments, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the Treasury Department, engaged the cyber insurance industry on the future of their collaborative response to the ransomware threat. The U.S. Coast Guard trained to synchronize its own incident response plans with that of individual states, and many Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) symposia were held on cybercrime and ransomware.
In collaboration with European partners, the Treasury Department has sought to streamline information sharing dedicated to disrupting and deterring ransomware ecosystems that are often used to launder and hide illicitly obtained funds. The Treasury Department has also targeted the safe harbors ransomware criminals and syndicates rely on. Ransomware payments, denominated in cryptocurrencies, topped $400 million globally in 2020, to say nothing of the downstream economic losses from downtime, data-loss, and rebuilding efforts. The Treasury’s offensive includes more aggressively monitoring cryptocurrency exchanges such as the Russian SUEX-OTC, a broker said to have facilitated transactions for at least eight ransomware variants. The Treasury sanctioned SUEX-OTC in September in an international effort to go after the financial enablers of ransomware gangs, according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.
The cryptocurrency-tracking firm Chainalysis said in a blog post that SUEX is among the most active of a small group of illicit services that handle most money laundering for cybercriminals.
Chainalysis said SUEX has been laundering money from another shady cryptocurrency exchange, BTC-e, which U.S. authorities had previously shut down. BTC-e's operator was extradited to France and sentenced to five years in prison in December for financial crimes. This was the first time such actions were taken against a cryptocurrency exchange. With expanding international campaigns targeting cybercrime, it is not likely to be the last time.
In October, the Biden administration again stepped up its international efforts to fight ransomware. The White House led an international counter-ransomware event with over thirty partners meant to accelerate cooperation in addressing ransomware’s impact on the financial and critical infrastructure sectors. Specific efforts included campaigns to encourage network resilience, including voluntary cyber performance goals, classified briefings for critical infrastructure executives, and collaboration on international industrial control systems cybersecurity. Industrial control systems, being the breed of computerized infrastructure that controls power grids, manufacturing plants, and nuclear centrifuges, play an enormous role in both civilian and military cybersecurity. A well-timed ransomware attack on such systems could bring industrial states to their knees in moments.
An October 13 fact sheet produced by the White House put it bluntly:
Responsible states do not permit criminals to operate with impunity from within their borders. We are working with international partners to disrupt ransomware networks and improve partner capacity for detecting and responding to such activity within their own borders, including imposing consequences and holding accountable those states that allow criminals to operate from within their jurisdictions.
This strong statement, in the context of renewed international collaboration in cyberspace between the United States and its partners, was likely meant to serve as a warning to Russia and other adversarial cyber actors that there will be material consequences for facilitating international cybercrime syndicates, including those focused on perpetrating ransomware attacks on the West.
Following these efforts, in April the White House launched a follow-on industrial control system cybersecurity initiative linking the federal government and the private critical infrastructure community. This initiative has led to over 150 privately owned electricity utilities initiating plans to upgrade cybersecurity technologies. Additionally, this effort is being expanded into the natural gas and water utility sectors.
In early November, the Department of Justice issued a statement regarding an indictment against Russian and Ukrainian nationals on ransomware-related charges. Yaroslav Vasinskyi and Yevgeniy Polyanin were both indicted for perpetrating a series of ransomware attacks using the REvil software against a Miami-based IT management company, Kaseya, and JBS Foods, a global agriculture and meat processing company. The indictment, arrest, and extradition of these criminals were made possible in large part due to international collaboration and intelligence sharing with European partners. When Vasinskyi attempted to cross into Poland from Ukraine, he was arrested. Polish authorities are currently holding Vasinskyi pending extradition to the United States. Attorney General Merrick Garland also announced that the Justice Department had seized $6.1 million of ransom payments that the REvil group had obtained through its exploits.
Biden’s headlining legislative achievement thus far has been the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The landmark bipartisan law devotes about $2 billion to cybersecurity infrastructure. Half of this grant is to go to state and local level government entities in order to improve and harden their cyberinfrastructure and capabilities. This alone is poised to make dramatic improvements in how the ransomware threat is addressed. Any security system, cyber or otherwise, is only as strong as its weakest link. This billion-dollar grant is aimed at forging stronger links at all levels of government, especially the thus-far overlooked state and local offices. Ransomware attacks are often tailored to hit an organization at a choke point so as to inflict maximum damage and increase the likelihood that the organization will pay the ransom. This provision of the IIJA may become a direly needed deterrent in the federal government’s ransomware prevention strategy.
Biden’s IIJA also devotes $100 million over four years to a DHS rainy day fund to be used when the agency declares a “significant incident.” A ransomware attack on a critical government infrastructure node would certainly qualify, giving the government a new and versatile tool in combating the threat. This would allow the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to allocate aid to the public and private sectors and facilitate collaboration between them. Biden’s White House likely learned this bridge would be critical to the cybersecurity challenge after the 2014 Sony Hack, which occurred while Biden was vice president. At the time, then-President Barack Obama publicly gave little aid to the private company, citing a reluctance to use government power to come to the aid of private firms. This public-private collaboration funding comes on the heels of CISA’s August formation of The Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC). The JCDC is the first and only federal cyber entity that proactively scopes out the threat environment through partnership with the private sector and federal cyber capabilities.
Another $500 million is reserved for the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency for two programs, one for rural and municipal utilities security and another for power grid security improvements.
The Biden administration’s overall strategy against ransomware and international hackers relies on international collaboration with partners and allies. European and Israeli counterparts have already begun to play important roles in data sharing and criminal apprehension methods. The Biden administration is overseeing and guiding an expedited development of agreements concerning how the rules-based-order coalition will define acceptable practices in the financial and cybersecurity sectors. The next steps, should American leadership persist, must not be to assume progress made will keep the coalition ahead of its adversaries. The coalition must continue to apply pressure and challenge itself to maintain a constant, if not accelerating, pace of progression. Agreements should continue to be made, evolve, and become more strongly codified. Additional measures will need to be taken domestically as well. DHS representatives, speaking on November 17 to Congress’ Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, & Innovation and the Subcommittee on Intelligence & Counterterrorism said: “Additional legislative steps and new authorities are necessary to understanding the full scope of the ransomware problem [...] Together we must stand united to support the adoption of, and adhere to, international cyber norms and condemn countries who violate these norms or harbor cyber criminals, or support their criminal activities.” The nature of cyber threats is to evolve constantly. To effectively combat them, we must as well.
Aaron Crimmins is a cyber strategy and governance consultant and writer based in San Diego, California. He tweets @00crims.
Image: Reuters.
Rainer Zitelmann
Germany, Europe
Will the coalition of such unequal partners—SPD and Greens, on the one hand, FDP on the other—survive for four years?On Wednesday, December 8, the German Bundestag elected Social Democrat Olaf Scholz as Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor. He received 395 votes out of a total of 707 and heads the new coalition government of three parties: The Social Democrats (SPD), the environmental party The Greens, and the pro-market FDP.
Three Partners Who Don’t Really Fit
The three coalition partners do not actually fit together. The two left-wing parties, the SPD and the Greens, would have preferred to govern together with Germany’s third leftist party, Die Linke (the former communist party that used to govern the GDR). This was not possible because the three parties did not win enough votes to secure a combined majority in the German parliament. The FDP would have preferred to govern with the centrist CDU/CSU. However, the CDU/CSU posted the worst result in its history and is currently leaderless.
Germany’s new coalition government is comprised of three very unequal partners. The SPD and the Greens campaigned for massive tax increases for the rich, while the FDP called for tax cuts for all. The result: nothing will change. The SPD and the Greens blocked tax cuts, the FDP blocked tax increases.
In many other areas, too, the parties’ completely different policy agendas ended up neutralizing each other. Take tenancy law, for example: The SPD and the Greens wanted to massively curtail landlords’ rights and ban rent increases. The FDP would have liked to liberalize tenancy law. The result: German rental law will remain unchanged—with just a little bit of tinkering around the edges. The free-market FDP on the one hand and the two left-wing parties on the other have effectively canceled each other out. The FDP has managed to impede many socialist-leaning policies, and for that the free-market-oriented voters will be grateful. Moreover, the FDP has pushed through its picks for two key ministries: The Ministry of Finance will be headed by the FDP’s Chairman Christian Lindner, while the Ministry of Justice goes to Marco Buschmann, who is widely regarded as an outstanding lawyer. This is reassuring for the German business community, which supported the FDP, while the staffing of other ministries is a cause for concern:
A New Direction for Germany?
The ministries of economics and foreign affairs will be headed by the Green Party’s dual chairpersons. Annalena Baerbock is set to take on the role of foreign minister, an appointment that could cause irritation in many countries. She can hardly deal with her opposite numbers in other countries as an equal. During the election campaign, it emerged that she had garnished her curriculum vitae, which included a number of falsehoods. In addition, she published a book during the election campaign that turned out to contain large sections of plagiarized text—she eventually had to withdraw the entire book, and it will no longer be printed. This had severely damaged Baerbock’s credibility and ended up costing her party a substantial number of votes.
The Greens are committed to a “hypermoral” foreign policy, which is likely to lead to problems with China and Russia, in particular. With regard to Russia, however, the SPD, which has spoken in favor of a Russia-friendly policy, will probably prevail. The situation is different with regard to China. The Greens don’t care about Germany’s economic interests. This could lead to a new approach toward China and a departure from the policies pursued by Merkel, who recognized the importance of healthy relations with China. Even before Baerbock’s appointment as foreign minister, she called for a ban on imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang and refused to rule out a boycott of the Winter Olympics in China, which angered the Chinese.
The Greens have no concept of realpolitik; they want to gear German foreign policy to morality and ideology. One of their key demands is that Germany should have a “feminist foreign policy.” The three parties’ coalition agreement explicitly specifies a ‘feminist foreign policy,’ whatever that is supposed to mean.
One can only hope that Chancellor Scholz will succeed in limiting the potential damage that Foreign Minister Baerbock could do and will set the main outlines of foreign policy himself.
What About NATO's “2 Percent Target?”
And what about Germany’s NATO commitment to spend two percent of GDP on defense? The SPD and the Greens oppose this target, while the FDP supports it. The parties have agreed the following compromise: “We want Germany to invest 3 percent of its GDP in long-term, integrated and comprehensive international action, thus strengthening its diplomacy and development policy and fulfilling its commitments to NATO,” reads the coalition agreement on page 144 under the heading “Multilateralism.” Sure, 3 percent sounds more than 2 percent, but the 3 percent includes all sorts of other spending, such as development aid.
Continuing the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy”
Robert Habeck, co-leader of the Green Party alongside Baerbock, will lead the Ministry of Economics with responsibility for climate policy. Habeck is a philosopher and the author of numerous children’s books but has proven in several interviews that he doesn’t know the first thing about economics. The Greens want to subordinate all economic policy to the fight against climate change. This year, the last three German nuclear power plants will be taken offline and, over the next few years, they will be followed by all coal-fired power plants—without any other energy sources lined up to replace them! Even today, as a result of this policy, Germany has the highest electricity prices in the G20. The paradoxical result of this policy is that Germany will probably need to import even more nuclear power from France and other countries because the country can no longer supply itself with energy. The Wall Street Journal branded this the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy”—and the Greens want to head down this wrong path even faster.
How Stable Is This Coalition?
Will the coalition of such unequal partners—SPD and Greens, on the one hand, FDP on the other—survive for four years? One point of conflict could be migration policy. Like Merkel, the SPD and the Greens want to base German migration policy primarily on moral principles. Merkel opened Germany’s borders in 2015—and was supported by the SPD and the Greens.
The FDP also wants immigration but wants to restrict migrants’ access to Germany’s welfare system and wants to prioritize migrants who will benefit Germany economically, in particular skilled workers. As all polls show, FDP voters oppose an open-borders policy. If the FDP surrenders to the demands of the Greens and the SPD on immigration, it could lose alienate large sections of voting base—again. At the same time, the SPD and the Greens are under pressure from their own representatives in the German parliament, the Bundestag, many of whom are very, very far to the left of the political spectrum. The SPD’s new secretary-general, Kevin Kühnert, is a hardline socialist who gained notoriety for proposing the expropriation of companies such as BMW and for saying that only the state should be allowed to rent apartments. Kühnert is known for preferring to work with Die Linke and rejecting everything the FDP stands for politically. Even though Scholz says he hopes to govern with the FDP beyond its initial four-year term, his party and the Greens think differently: In four years, they would prefer to form a coalition with the Die Linke, as they already have at a regional level in many federal states.
Rainer Zitelmann is a German historian and sociologist and the author of twenty-five books, including The Power of Capitalism.
Image: Reuters.
Kris Osborn
Mi-28, Russia
The use of drones for manned-unmanned networking could reduce sensor-to-shooter time and make the Mi-28 even more dangerous.
Here's What You Need To Remember: The Russian paper also makes vague references to the Mi-28's communications systems and “network-centric” capabilities and its ability to enable aircraft to “interact in a group.”
A Russian newspaper claims the country’s new combat helicopter gunship contains breakthrough technology to the point wherein its weapons, drone connectivity, communications networking, sensors and long-range targeting enable it to attack successfully from “outside of the enemy’s effective air defenses.”
Called the Russian “Night Hunter,” the new Mi-28NM is built with modernized engines, a new fuselage and an auxiliary power plant able to support next-generation onboard networking and electronic warfare systems.
“The Mi-28NM’s onboard armament allows it to detect and destroy enemy targets round the clock and in any weather conditions while operating outside of the enemy’s effective air defenses,” Vitaly Shcherbina, the Chief Designer of the Combat Helicopters Program at Rostec, reportedly told TASS.
Shcherbina also explained that the layout of the chopper’s fuselage has been newly configured to integrate new targeting sights. The report also makes unspecified statements about the aircraft’s defensive aids suite, claiming it can defeat an enemy's “ground and airborne air defense systems.” It does not seem at all clear what this might mean, as it seems extremely unlikely that even an extremely advanced helicopter with a new generation of sensors and countermeasures would be able to all air defenses, given that helicopters fly at lower altitudes and have structural limitations regarding how stealthy they can be.
Also, perhaps of greatest significance, the Russian paper also makes vague references to the helicopter’s communications systems and “network-centric” capabilities and its ability to enable aircraft to “interact in a group.”
While the report offers little to no actual technologies or weapons applications in a discernable or clear way, it does make reference to the often emphasized sphere of networking concepts. “Network-centric methods of weapons’ control on the battlefield,” the article claims, can reduce latency, expedite targeting and “get information on the enemy and friendly forces in a secure jam-resistant mode.”
There are several interesting aspects to this, including the use of drones for manned-unmanned networking and, in a fashion quite similar to U.S. conceptual thinking about networks, massively reduce sensor-to-shooter time. This reference to networking and group or “meshed” information sharing across multiple combat “nodes” in real time closely mirrors cutting edge U.S. thinking on modern war, a circumstance which leads one to wonder if Russian innovators are truly gaining breakthrough traction with new, secure networking technologies or simply copying the current U.S. strategy.
The answer to this may reside amid a series of unknowns, such as the actual specifics of the new weapons, countermeasures and networked sensors incorporated into the new Russian helicopter. Perhaps Russia is emulating or seeking to replicate U.S. strategic and tactical thinking. But is the technology truly there to bring it to operational effect ahead of the United States?
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
This article is being reprinted due to reader interest.
Image: Wikipedia.
Robert Farley
Chinese Military, Asia
Watch out Taiwan.Here's What You Need to Remember: Today, China has developed the means to neutralize many, if not most, of Taiwan’s defensive advantages.
Over the past decade, virtually every aspect of China’s military arsenal has grown more lethal. This improvement has necessarily affected the military balance with Taiwan. With tensions between China and the United States growing, Taiwan’s position has become even more precarious. President Xi Jinping has recently signaled a more hardline attitude on reunification with Taiwan, suggesting that it’s past time to re-evaluate the military balance between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China.
Here are five of the most menacing systems that China could use in the event of war with Taiwan.
Su-35
The recently acquired Su-35 is the premier air superiority aircraft in the PLAAF’s arsenal. China has acquired two dozen of the multi-role fighters in the last two years, which offer the PLAAF a mature platform for undertaking long-range air operations against Taiwan, or any other foe. In addition to its formidable air-to-air profile, the Su-35 also has sophisticated strike capabilities, and an effective range that would allow it to threaten targets across the theater.
The PLAAF has many other aircraft that can perform strike and air superiority missions over Taiwan, and eventually, the J-20 may supersede the Su-35 as the most important formidable aircraft in China’s arsenal. For now, however, the Su-35 presents a major problem for Taiwan’s air force to solve.
S-400
In 2018 China began to accept delivery of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system. One of the most lethal SAM systems in the world, the S-400 has a maximum range of up to 400km, which extends over Taiwan. As some analysts have noted, this does not represent a “shut down” capability with respect to Taiwan’s use of the air, as the effectiveness of the S-400 at long range is limited. However, it does deeply complicate Taiwan military use of the air, and has the potential to completely disrupt any commercial use of Taiwanese airspace. It also helps provide a degree of overlapping air cover with PLAN assets attempting to interdict air and sea transit from Taiwan. This could prevent the transit of military equipment and other critical supplies to the island in times of war. The defeat of the S-400 might well require large-scale strikes onto the mainland, which the Taiwanese military would struggle to undertake, especially if subjected to heavy missile and airstrikes.
Ballistic Missiles
China’s vast arsenal of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, employed with precision, can inflict catastrophic damage on Taiwan’s military infrastructure. This includes especially Taiwan’s airbases and ports, which would likely come under immediate attack from Chinese missiles. The most lethal missile in China’s arsenal, from the point of view of Taiwan, is a problem the DF-16, which has a range of 1,000km and can deliver a 1500kg warhead with a circular error probability of 10 meters. The DF-16 also has terminal maneuver capabilities, making it difficult for ABM systems to intercept.
Taiwan has indigenous and foreign anti-ballistic missile systems, but how they will hold up against repeated salvos is an unanswerable question. Taiwan’s air defense network will also have to manage cruise missile and manned aircraft sorties. Taiwan can further harden airbases and can disperse infrastructure, but Beijing probably has enough missiles to make this only a short-term answer.
Type 075 LHD
The Type 075 offers the PLAN its first large flat deck amphibious warship. Big amphibs, pioneered by the United States during the Cold War, enables sophisticated amphibious assaults against defended targets under medium threat conditions. At 40,000 tons, the Type 075 will be similar in size to the largest American amphibs, but will not share the air defense and strike mission that those ships have undertaken (China does not yet possess a VSTOL jet fighter).
Although the first ship has yet to see service, reports suggest that China is building three Type 075s. The exact configuration of the class remains uncertain, but analysis suggests the ability to carry more than two dozen attack and transport helicopters. The U.S. Wasp class, of similar dimensions, can carry upwards of 1,600 troops and a variety of landing craft. This is sufficient to employ a form of vertical envelopment (aerial assault designed to compromise a defensive position) against Taiwanese defenders. These helicopters also mean that it can defend itself from submarine threats. In the future, China might try to acquire more lethal, long-range aircraft to populate the decks of these ships.
Type 071 LPD
In the mid-2000s, the PLAN decided to radically increase its amphibious assault capabilities through the purchase of a class of amphibious transport docks. Of roughly the same size as the San Antonio class LPDs of the U.S. Navy, the Type 071 can carry eight hundred troops, four helicopters, and a variety of small amphibious assault vehicles. Although the ships have only minimal defensive capability (plus a 76mm gun that could conceivably be used in an emergency gunnery support context), they can make 25 knots, and offer the PLAN a capability that it has never enjoyed throughout its 70-year history. In combination with the Type 075 LHDs, and with the offensive capabilities needed to suppress Taiwanese defenses, the Type 071s pose a formidable threat to Taiwan’s beachheads. As of January 2019, the PLAN possesses six LPDs, with another two on the way.
Parting Shot:
For a very long time, Taiwan could leverage technological superiority to enhance its primary defense over China; the vast distance between Formosa and the mainland. Today, China has developed the means to neutralize many, if not most, of Taiwan’s defensive advantages. It is also in the process of developing a naval expeditionary force that can deliver a substantial number of troops and vehicles to Taiwan’s shores. Unless something about the equation changes, China’s military advantage over the RoC will only grow.
Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed here are his personal views and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, the Army War College, or any other department or agency of the U.S. government. This article first appeared last year.
Image: Reuters.
Kris Osborn
U.S. Army,
While Army weapons developers are exploring and preparing for the full range of combat contingencies, the service clearly seems to see multi-domain advantages in both Europe and the Pacific.As the Army prepares to “field” prototype robotic combat vehicles to operational units next year, it is no surprise that service officials say the fast-evolving program is intended to support deterrence and combat operations in Europe and the Pacific.
At some point next year, the Army will send prototypes of its Robotic Combat Vehicle-Medium (RCV-M) to operational units for soldier-centric “touchpoint” assessments, war preparation drills, and evaluations in combat scenarios. The Army’s RCV-M is a roughly fifteen-ton tracked, armored vehicle armed with cannons, anti-tank weapons, and advanced sensors to test enemy defenses, move to contact, attack mechanized formations and engage in “multi-domain” networked warfare.
“Continuing to modernize the Army will enable American land power dominance to meet the demands of strategic competition and great power conflict presented by threats in the Indo-Pacific and European theaters,” Lt. Col. Brandon Kelley, Modernization Team Lead for Army Public Affairs, told the National Interest.
Closing to contact with an enemy across the European continent would benefit greatly from forward-operating armed robotic platforms. Naturally, given the carefully upheld doctrine that humans must be “in the loop” regarding and possible use of lethal force, the robots would not fire upon enemy targets autonomously but when directed by humans performing command and control. The impact of these robotic vehicles will be optimized by the Army’s manned-unmanned teaming technologies which enable manned platforms to operate at safer standoff ranges while forward-operating robotic weapons and sensors attack at the edge of combat.
Unmanned armed robotic vehicles could breach, test or attack the perimeter of an approaching enemy mechanized formation to send back reconnaissance footage, operate aerial drones over enemy territory, fire weapons against enemy tanks, and even control other air and ground drones.
One of the largest elements of this may fall into the area of the much-emphasized “multi-domain” concept, as the robots could greatly optimize their combat utility by sharing information in real-time with drones in the air. They could send ground-target specifics to armed aerial drones in position to strike or conversely receive target coordinates from an overhead drone in position to see advancing enemy troops.
As they are unmanned, the RCVs will not need a lot of heavy armor and can therefore be configured at a lighter weight to enable fast-moving, expeditionary operations able to carry a large payload of weapons, ammunition, and supplies to forward units under fire.
“The Army remains focused on building a multi-domain force by divesting legacy equipment that does not support future warfighting, to fund modernization of our land force capabilities,” Kelley said.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
Image: DVIDS
Ethen Kim Lieser
economy, Americas
Since most retirees won’t be able to get their hands on the maximum Social Security benefit, they will likely need to have other sources of income.When it comes time for retirees to start claiming Social Security benefits, a good rule of thumb often touted by financial planners and experts is to wait as long as possible.
And if a person looks at the numbers, it is easy to see why this particular advice is so rampant. For those seniors who need to start collecting Social Security benefits at age sixty-two—the earliest age to do so—know that the maximum amount will be $2,364 in 2022. However, if a person is able to wait until age seventy to file, he or she would be eligible for the absolute maximum amount, which currently comes in at $4,194.
“Workers planning for their retirement should be aware that retirement benefits depend on age at retirement,” according to the Social Security Administration’s website.
“If a worker begins receiving benefits before his/her normal (or full) retirement age, the worker will receive a reduced benefit,” according to the website. “A worker can choose to retire as early as age sixty-two, but doing so may result in a reduction of as much as 30 percent.”
$4,194 a Pipe Dream?
But should retirees really expect to bag that nearly $4,200 per month in Social Security benefits? According to The Motley Fool’s personal finance writer Christy Bieber “for most people, benefits will fall far short of the maximum because their wages over their career will fall far short of the maximum taxable wage.”
“See, Social Security benefits are determined based on a recipient’s average wages during their 35 highest earning years (after their wages during their career are adjusted for inflation),” she said in her analysis. “But only wages up to the wage base limit count in determining each person’s average wage.”
To qualify for that maximum amount, “you would need to earn at least the wage base limit each year. In 2022, the wage base limit is $147,000. That’s much more than most people earn,” Bieber added. “And you’d have to earn the inflation-adjusted equivalent of that amount for a full 35 years, which even fewer people do—even if some people hit the limit during a few years of their career.”
Tapping Into Other Sources
Since most retirees won’t be able to get their hands on the maximum Social Security benefit, they will likely need to have other sources of income.
“For most people, it’s important to replace at least 80 percent of pre-retirement income, while Social Security is designed to replace around 40 percent,” according to Bieber’s analysis. “If you assume you’ll need to replace about 40 percent of your salary upon retirement, you can work backwards from there to estimate how large your retirement nest egg must be.”
“If you anticipate withdrawing around 4 percent of your retirement savings in year one and then adjusting upwards by inflation, you’ll be able to determine your nest egg size by multiplying the amount of income your account must produce by twenty-five,” Bieber said in her analysis.
Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.
Image: Reuters
Kris Osborn
Zumwalt-class Destroyer, United States
The Zumwalt's mobility and low profile on radar could help it become the first platform to field the Navy's new hypersonic missile.
Here's What You Need to Know: The Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile is expected to deploy aboard the Zumwalts by 2025.
The Navy plans to arm its Zumwalt-class destroyers with a first-of-its-kind Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapon able to destroy high-value targets in very key spots around the world from tactically advantageous maritime attack locations.
Arming destroyers with hypersonics is a key part of the Pentagon’s plan to increase strike range, attack flexibility, and ability to strike at unprecedented speeds. A destroyer at sea armed with a long-range hypersonic weapon would be in a position to adjust its point of attack quite easily and reposition as needed. During a maritime warfare engagement, for example, a Zumwalt destroyer could theoretically adapt to new intelligence information and change attack locations or add new target information as required by the mission.
The Navy plans to arm the Zumwalt-class destroyers with the emerging CPS were explained in an interesting October 2021 Congressional Research Service Report on Hypersonic Weapons, which says the service expects to deploy the weapon by 2025. The Zumwalt-class destroyers are an interesting first choice to be the first place to integrate the CPS given that the ship is engineered with an entire suite of next-generation technologies intended to change the paradigm for maritime warfare.
One key advantage of the Zumwalt-class is its unprecedented degree of mobile, onboard electrical power. The ship’s electric drive is powered by an Integrated Power System and the platform operates with a 78 Megawatt on-board generator. The extra expeditionary power could help power up and even propel or launch hypersonic weapons from the deck of the ship. It is also likely that a variant of the CPS will be configured to fire from deck-mounted Vertical Launch Systems (VLS) which extend around the periphery of the ship. This is done by design to enable a ship to preserve its functional offensive firepower in the event that some parts of the ship are damaged in an attack. A concentrated block of condensed VLS next to another might enable an enemy to disable a ship’s firepower with a single strike on a small area of the ship deck.
The Zumwalt-class is also powered by an elaborate Total Ship Computing Environment consisting of millions of lines of code. The advantage is greater integration, information sharing, and mission coordination between otherwise segmented parts of the ship. Fire control computers, for example, can quickly link to pools of data accumulated by targeting sensors, radar, or other kinds of command and control systems.
Yet another reason why the Zumwalt-class may have been chosen to fire the CPS hypersonic weapon could be related to its stealth properties. A surface warship with a much smaller and therefore less distinguishable radar signature might be better-positioned to maneuver into new attack positions without being detected by an enemy. Attack location flexibility is a significant advantage for ocean warfare as enemies often immediately seek to counterattack to the point of incoming fire. A maritime platform, however, can fire and then maneuver immediately to prevent its attack location from immediately being vulnerable. A stealthy ship might help obscure a point of attack to an even greater degree, therefore increasing survivability.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
This article first appeared in November 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.
Image: U.S. Navy
Kris Osborn
U.S. Navy,
Any great power confrontation in the Pacific would rely heavily upon the U.S. Navy’s ability to project and sustain power from the sea. The ESB platform designs and technological configurations seem to have been evolved in part for this reason.The U.S. Navy is taking decided measures to improve the mission versatility and lethality of its Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ships, a move intended to greatly fortify the services Pacific posture and readiness for maritime warfare.
The Navy has started construction on its fifth ESB, the future USS Robert E. Simanek, a ship intended to support forward operating aviation, deliver special operations, and at-sea command and control. The ship class has been modified in recent years to support an expanding sphere of combat missions, including greater support and logistical help for forward-deployed forces on the edge of combat.
“ESBs are optimized to support the core capabilities of aviation facilities, berthing, special operations, equipment staging support, and command and control operations,” Tim Roberts, Strategic and Theater Sealift program manager, Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships, said in a Navy statement. The future USS Robert E. Simanek is being built by General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company.
The ESB class is being increasingly tailored for mobile “sea basing” for strategic reasons connected to the U.S. Navy’s growing Pacific emphasis. The sheer maritime expanse of the Pacific is filled with dangerous flashpoints such as the South China Sea, Senkaku Islands near Japan, and of course Taiwan. Any great power confrontation in the Pacific would rely heavily upon the U.S. Navy’s ability to project and sustain power from the sea. The ESB platform designs and technological configurations seem to have been evolved in part for this reason.
“In 2019, the Navy made the decision to commission all Expeditionary Sea Base ships to allow them to conduct a broader and more lethal mission set, compared to original plans for them to operate with a USNS designation,” the Navy statement explains.
The U.S. has forces in Japan and South Korea, but any kind of effective rapid-reaction force, supported by close-in command and control, would rely heavily upon maritime presence. An ESB, therefore, could function as a communications hub for maneuvering surface and air drones, surface ships, and sub-hunting helicopters. As platforms able to launch helicopters, ESBs could move into position to support amphibious forces both during attack and after landing by carrying supplies, surveilling the surface with sub-hunting sonobuoys, and even performing MEDEVAC missions as needed during an amphibious attack. Sailors, Marines, or soldiers injured in an amphibious assault may have few options when it comes to receiving care, as hospital ships may be ill-equipped to operate closer to shore. With substantial berthing capability, ESBs could launch helicopters to pick up injured servicemembers and then potentially stabilize or treat them aboard the ship.
The evolution of ESB is consistent with the Marine Corps' broader strategic shift back to its maritime roots following fifteen years of predominantly land-based counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. With a “sea-basing” mission focus, ESBs could operate as a key “node” within a dispersed, expansive area of operations spread across hundreds of miles of ocean territory.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
Charlie Gao
Su-25, World
The comparison misses some of the nuances of how they are employed.Here's What You Need to Know: Russia's Su-25 continues to undergo modernization.
The Su-25 is one of the most visible signs of the Russian Air Force’s might. Since its debut during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, the Su-25 has seen service in every conflict involving Soviet or Russian forces, from Chechnya to Georgia to Syria.
Observers have often compared it to the A-10, but that comparison misses some of the nuances of how they are employed. Regardless, the Russian defense ministry plans to keep the Su-25 around in the foreseeable future. But how does it plan on accomplishing that goal?
The development of the Su-25 roughly mirrors that of the A-10. The Soviet Air Force saw the need for a survivable low-level attack aircraft to supplement its current attack fleet. Before the Su-25, Soviet attack aircraft relied on speed for survivability. Aircraft like the Su-17, Su-22, MiG-23BN, and MiG-27 all had only one engine and no armor (the latter being redesigns of the MiG-23 airframe for ground attack).
Combat experience in Afghanistan showed that such configurations were vulnerable to ground fire when conducting missions at low altitude. Armor and two engines needed to be added to improve survivability at the cost of speed.
Enter the Su-25, an aircraft built from the ground up to conduct ground attacks at low altitudes and speeds. It featured significant armor on the bottom and the front of the aircraft and had two heavy duty engines for increased survivability. The design featured straighter wings than those used on fast jets, allowing for better maneuverability and increased lift at the lower speeds the Su-25 was expected to operate at.
A laser designator/rangefinder similar those used on the MiG-27 was installed in the nose to allow for use of laser-guided missiles. However, the Soviets’ thirty millimeter rotary cannon the GSh-6-30 had problems on its mounting on the MiG-27, so Sukhoi opted to put the simpler, lower-rate-of-fire Gsh-2-30 on the Su-25 instead. Regardless, the primary weapons the Su-25 was expected to employ in support of ground forces were the rockets and bombs on its wings, not the cannon.
The main problem with the Su-25 is that while it had a decent complement of weapons for air-to-ground attack in the 1980s, it was being left behind in the dust by newer developments in weapons such as the Vikhr anti-tank missile. The ECM systems also were becoming antiquated.
As a result, attempts to modernize the Su-25 were made. The first was the Su-25T, a version that focused on improving the anti-tank capability of the Su-25. To accomplish this, the Su-25T mounted the Shkval and Mecury electro-optical systems that allowed the plane to detect and track targets from much longer ranges, providing functionality similar to that given by Western targeting pods. These systems were controlled through a monitor in the cockpit, mirroring the ground attack MFDs in the A-10C.
The Su-25T could also fit a much wider fit of weapons, including the Vikhr anti-tank missile that could be carried in two six-packs on each wing and the advanced R-73 anti-air missile. However, the Su-25T project was canceled after only a few examples were produced due to the great cost of electro-optical systems installed.
Thus the regular Su-25 would continue to serve in Chechnya and Georgia under the same configuration as in the 1980s. While there was the short-lived Su-25TM line that also featured advanced avionics, the primary upgrade “route” for the Su-25 would be found in the Su-25SM.
Su-25 Modernizations:
The Su-25SM was conceived as a way to modernize the Su-25 without being as complex as the earlier attempts. The key feature was the integration of an onboard radar and a vastly improved avionics fit. The onboard radar, while not nearly as powerful as those on dedicated fighters, allows the Su-25SM to shoot the R-77 and R-27 air-to-air missiles.
But the greatest improvement was the “Bars” navigation system that includes a digital moving map and a satellite navigation receiver. With these features, the Su-25SM is able to get to the target, get off the tarmac faster, and generally just perform better and more efficiently as the workload of the pilot is reduced.
Other upgrades included an anti-surge system for the engines, which expanded the envelope in which the pilot could safely employ various weapon systems without worrying about the gasses affecting the engine and a new radar warning station (L-150 Pastel).
As Su-25SMs are being produced, Russia is looking to the future with the Su-25SM3 upgrade. This can be seen as a further iteration on the same improvements featured on the Su-25SM. Survivability and anti-missile countermeasures are improved by the addition of UV missile launch detectors in the Vitebsk-25 SEAD/ECM set and an updated version of the L-150 Pastel. The targeting package in the nose is further improved in the SOLT-25 module which adds thermal imaging and improved zoom.
Also added is the new SVP-24 “Gefest” precision dumb-bombing system. The Gefest uses precise information about the flight characteristics and position of the aircraft to set a computer calculated release point (CCRP) for a bomb, which can allow it to deliver a bomb onto a specific grid with good accuracy. While Russian media has hyped this system up to allow for dumb bombs to “be as effective as” precision bombs, this is only really true on static targets and ignores the other benefits PGMs have in hitting moving targets.
With the Su-25SM3 upgrade, the Russian Air Force finally has a solid kit that could upgrade their fleet of vintage Su-25s to a modern standard. Compared to the A-10C, the Su-25SM3 is faster and has the advantage of having its targeting system being stuffed into the nose, as opposed to relying on an external pod. However this also means that the targeting system has a more limited range of motion as its looking out of a small window in the nose.
The level of integration of electro-optical PGMs is probably less mature as well as the A-10C has been using similar systems for almost twenty years now and was originally built to utilize the electro-optical Maverick missile. Conversely, the Su-25 always focused more on laser-guided munitions. EO munitions have the advantage of being fire and forget, once the electro-optical seeker is locked on the target, the missile will guide regardless of the motion of the plane. With a laser, the plane must guide the missile in with a laser designator and keep flying towards the target until it hits.
Overall, while the planes are broadly similar, one can see how the strengths of each plane diverge when looking into which subsystems are more developed. The A-10, which focuses on the gun and delivery of electro-optical PGMs, versus the Su-25, which focuses on accuracy of “dumb” bombs and rockets from the wings and laser-guided weaponry.
Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.
This article first appeared in 2018.
Image: REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
Trevor Filseth
economy, Americas
Musk primarily objects to a tax credit of $12,500 for any American who bought an electric vehicle that had been constructed by unionized workers and had its battery made in the United States.The $1.9 trillion “Build Back Better” legislation, which was narrowly passed by the House in November and now awaits the approval of the Senate, has been lauded as a major achievement by many progressive Democrats. Among its other useful provisions, the bill would establish a program of universal pre-kindergarten education, extend the monthly “Child Tax Credit” payments for an additional year, make a variety of investments in green energy, and make efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
The Biden administration has pushed for the bill’s passage by Christmas. Noticeably, it has been uniformly opposed by Republicans and has drawn criticism from conservative Democrats, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin of (D-W.Va.). Neither lawmaker has indicated how they will vote on the bill if it is brought before the Senate, although Manchin has expressed public reservations about its current spending level.
On Monday evening, the bill received another opponent: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who urged Senate Democrats to “can” the legislation at a meeting of the Wall Street Journal’s “CEO Council.”
“Honestly, I would just can this whole bill. Don’t pass it,” Musk said at the virtual meeting. “That’s my recommendation.”
The provision within the bill that Musk primarily objected to was a tax credit of $12,500 for any American who bought an electric vehicle that had been constructed by unionized workers and had its battery made in the United States. The construction of Tesla batteries took place in California until 2015 when it was moved to Nevada; however, the Tesla workforce is not unionized, meaning that new Tesla buyers would not qualify for the credit.
Musk decried the credit as a wasteful and inefficient government subsidy. “I am literally saying get rid of all subsidies,” he clarified.
Musk’s critics have noted that the bill, which increases taxes on the wealthiest Americans, could increase his tax liability by as much as $10 billion. “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money,” Musk complained on Twitter in October, “and then they come for you.”
Musk also noted that American billionaires’ wealth combined could not come close to fixing the federal deficit, and suggested that attempting to raise taxes on billionaires could stifle innovation. In his remarks to the CEO Council, he reiterated his view that the government’s role was to “get out of the way” of innovation in the private sector.
Musk is one of a handful of the world’s richest people, although his net worth fluctuates based on the value of Tesla stock, which makes up the vast majority of his wealth.
Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.
Image: Reuters
Charlie Gao
Missiles, Americas
And why was it phased out?Here's What You Need to Know: Though no longer displayed at trade shows, the weapon remains an interesting predecessor to modern micro munitions.
As Western militaries shift back into a conventional focus after spending more than a decade fighting insurgencies, they are bringing along some tech developed for counterinsurgency that has applications in a peer or near-peer conflict. One important innovation that is looking to change how air-to-ground support can occur is the development of a new class of “micro precision munitions”: guided rockets, bombs, and missiles that weigh around 20 kg or less. The GBU-44/B Viper Strike was one of the first of this new class of weapon. But does it have a future?
At the beginning of the Global War on Terror, the smallest precision munition available to aerial platforms was the AGM-114 Hellfire. As a result, the MQ-1 Predator with Hellfires became an ubiquitous light close air support (CAS) platform. But in this role the limitations of the Hellfire became clear. While it was light, the Hellfire was overkill for many point targets it was fired on. The High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) warhead also was found to have a lackluster anti-personnel effect due to being optimized for taking out Soviet tanks, rather than infantry formations. On the other hand, the Hellfire’s warhead was too powerful for other precision targets, especially in urban environments.
The need for a better UAV munition drove the development of the first micro munitions. One of the very early ones was the GBU-44/B Viper Strike, an adapted version of the Brilliant Anti-Tank submunition. The Brilliant Anti-Tank was originally meant to be carried by a missile and dropped over formations of Soviet armor to destroy them, while ignoring “lower” priority targets such as trucks. As such, it already had advanced sensors and guidance on board, making it easily adapted for the micro munition role.
To make a BAT submunition into a GBU-44/B Viper Strike, the original BAT seeker was removed and the Alternate Semi-Active Laser (ASAL) seeker was installed in its place, which made it fully laser-guided as opposed to the IR seeker on the BAT. GPS capability was also later added to the seeker, which allowed the GBU-44/B to be fired from increased standoff to glide to the target. The directional microphones on the BAT wingtips were also removed and replaced by simple rods. Finally, the “precursor” warhead of the BAT was removed, as the GBU-44/B was not designed to strike heavy armor.
The resulting weapon was half the weight of the Hellfire and could be used on the lighter RQ-5 Hunter UAVs. It also had a smaller blast radius, enabling safe use close to enemy troops. The GBU-44/B was actually the first weapon used from an Army UAV in combat.
But lethality was a problem for the GBU-44/B and led to its eventual withdrawal from usage. Probably due to the small warhead, USSOCOM phased out usage of the weapon due to “failure to achieve lethality performance”. Northrop Grumman sold the design to MBDA in 2012. The Army retired its fleet of Hunter UAVs in 2015.
MBDA still markets the GBU-44/B under the name “Viper-E”, but it’s weapon probably won’t generate any sales. The latest press releases about the weapon are over six years old, and it is no longer displayed at trade shows. But it remains an interesting predecessor to modern micro munitions, having proved that the concept has value and can be effective on the battlefield.
Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.
This article first appeared in March 2020.
Image: MBDA
Caleb Larson
Missile Defense, Americas
A new missile radar system will help mitigate the threat of hypersonic weapons against the American homeland.The Missile Defense Agency, responsible for the nation’s missile defense, has announced the completion of construction on the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR). Based in Alaska, the LRDR is a flexible multi-mission radar array that is among the most powerful in the United States.
“Once fully operational, LRDR will provide unparalleled ability to simultaneously search and track multiple small objects, including all classes of ballistic missiles, at very long ranges, under continuous operation,” the Missile Defense Agency explained in a press statement.
“Its discrimination capability will allow it to identify lethal objects, such as enemy warheads, and differentiate them from non-lethal decoys,” per the statement. “This will increase the defensive capacity of the homeland defense interceptor inventory by conserving the number of Ground-Based Interceptors required for threat engagement. Highly adaptable, LRDR will address hypersonic missiles in future configurations.”
Hypersonics
Several countries besides the United States have hypersonic weapons in development, notably Russia and China. And while the United States has robust missile detection and countermeasure infrastructure, the equipment is a relic of the Cold War and not optimized for hypersonic threats but rather for supersonic ballistic missiles.
“Today marks an extremely important milestone for U.S. homeland defense,” Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said.
“The Long-Range Discrimination Radar has finished construction, and we can now begin the testing phase that will lead to the full operational use of this vital system,” Hill said. “LRDR will allow Northern Command to better defend the United States from ballistic and hypersonic missile threats.”
Flexible Tracking
The LRDR is flexible and capable of more than just tracking hypersonic weapons. For example, the MDA specifies that the radar array can also be used to track satellites in orbit around the earth and is capable of “detecting, tracking, and identifying active or inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, and fragmentation debris.”
From the LRDR’s vantage point in Alaska, the radar can cover vast parts of the Pacific Ocean and, in theory, monitor launches from North Korea and potentially China.
Though installed, the new array is not yet operational, but first must undergo testing and further evaluation. Once the MDA completes testing in 2023, the organization will hand over operational control to the U.S. Space Force.
The Long-Range Discrimination Radar will not replace other missile tracking infrastructure already in place in the United States but will instead complement existing arrays. And while the ongoing pandemic slowed the array installation, the project is now full steam ahead—and upping the United States’ antimissile defenses in a big way.
Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and defense writer with the National Interest. A graduate of UCLA, he also holds a Master of Public Policy and lives in Berlin. He covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society for both print and radio. @calebmlarson
Image: Reuters
Kris Osborn
B-21 Raider, United States
Despite the fact that the B-2, B-52, and B-1 have been upgraded to remain viable in a new threat environment, the need for an entirely new platform cannot be understated.Here's What You Need to Remember: Senior U.S. Air Force leaders have for many years now expressed grave concern about a massive “bomber deficit” in the force. There simply have not been enough bombers, say Air Force leaders.
A new generation of stealth technology, unprecedented sensing and computing, long-range precision cruise missiles, air-dropped bombs and an ability to strike undetected against the most advanced air defenses in the world: These are all potential attributes of the now-on-the-way Air Force B-21 bomber.
The new platform, which will form the bulk of the U.S. Air Force’s future bomber force cannot come soon enough. Testing, assessments and preparations have for quite some time been underway at Edwards Air Force Base in California, in anticipation of some of the aircraft’s first test flights. At least two B-21s are reported to have been built or under construction.
The Air Force-Northrop Grumman program has gone better than expected, inspiring many service leaders and members of Congress to not only push for accelerated delivery and production of the new bomber but also to massively increase the planned number of bombers.
The need for the new bomber is quite pressing in many respects, the principal reasons being the advanced technological capacity of enemy air defenses and the age of the current bomber fleet. Not only that, senior U.S. Air Force leaders have for many years now expressed grave concern about a massive “bomber deficit” in the force, a circumstance that puts the United States at risk. There simply have not been enough bombers, say Air Force leaders.
Equally key variables include the age and size of the B-2 fleet. Many remember that plans for the B-2 bomber were abruptly truncated years ago, resulting in a small force size of twenty B-2s. Since emerging during the Cold War years, the B-2 is now thirty years old. While looking in retrospect at the exact reasons for the B-2 production stop may be difficult three decades later, it may have been due in large measure to decisionmakers operating with a short-term threat outlook. The belief that the collapse of the former Soviet Union greatly reduced the need for stealthy B-2 bombers contributed to the small fleet size. Years later, the opposite has become true given the resurgence of a Russian threat and emerging Chinese threat. It should be said that the B-2 bomber is now quite different than it was years ago, and is still being upgraded. The modern B-2 is not only getting new Defensive Management Sensors that enable it to find and therefore elude next-generation air defenses but is also receiving one thousand-fold improved computer processing and upgraded weapons.
Then there is the question of the B-52, yet another older airplane sustained into the modern era with a massive amount of unanticipated upgrades including an internal weapons bay, new communications system and a re-engining, not to mention an entirely new weapons arsenal.
What all of this amounts to is that, despite the fact that several legacy bombers have been upgraded to remain viable, relevant and lethal in a new threat environment, the need for an entirely new platform cannot be understated.
Kris Osborn is the defense editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
This article is being republished due to reader interest.
Image: Reuters.