Diplomacy & Crisis News

UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet on Monday deplored “multiple and severe reports of alleged gross violations of human rights, humanitarian and refugee law” committed by all parties to the conflict in Tigray. 

Secretary-General António Guterres described Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan, as “a champion for women and girls”, announcing on Monday her appointment to lead the UN’s gender equality and empowerment entity, UN Women. 

Contre l'ordre actuel, deux types de combats se côtoient, parfois rivalisent. La propagande par le fait recherche une prise de conscience morale et politique, mais peine à maintenir l'élan initial. Moins en vogue, l'organisation privilégie un travail de longue haleine, plus collectif, moins (...) / États-Unis, Communication, Histoire, Internet, Mouvement de contestation, Mutation, Politique, Stratégie, Syndicalisme, Technologies de l'information, Technologie, Associations, Extrême gauche - 2016/06

Pictured– Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the Taliban’s new Prime Minister

 

In early September, the Taliban began to fill cabinet positions for the new, “provisional government” that will attempt to stabilize Afghanistan following America’s military occupation and disorderly withdrawal from the nation. While it is true that the makeup of this cabinet is expected to evolve over time, the initial round of appointments includes some very unsavory individuals. 

The government will be led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was a prominent political official while the Taliban governed Afghanistan from 1996-2001- given his close ties to the prior Taliban government, he is viewed as a sign of continuity with the pre-2001 Taliban by many in the international community. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the new acting interior minister, is the head of a militant group associated with the Taliban known as the Haqqani and is considered a wanted terrorist by the FBI.

These are not the early returns that most of us were hoping for, and the results fall well short of international expectations. Both the American State Department and the European Union have expressed dissatisfaction with the absence of women and non-Taliban members from governing positions, and the lack of ethnic diversity of a government that will oversee a very diverse nation. Afghan women have taken to the street to protest their lack of representation in government, and were allegedly beaten as a result.

These sorts of actions will not bring the Taliban closer to earning recognition from the United States or its global partners, nor will it ingratiate the Taliban with other global powers like China and Russia. The American State Department has said that the United States is in “no rush” to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and it seems that the international community generally holds to that line.

At this time it is important to step back, and ask ourselves the following question- as the Taliban is not, at this moment, working to earn legitimacy from the international community, then strategically, what is the Taliban hoping to achieve during its first few days in power?

From my perspective, there are two possible scenarios. 

First, there is the possibility that the Taliban is truly irredeemable, and that this new era of Taliban rule in Afghanistan will be just as brutal as the first. This perspective allows for an easy explanation of events so far – the Taliban has not disavowed its violent associations or appointed women to governing positions “yet” because it never had the intention of doing so. From this point of view, America was foolish to negotiate with the Taliban at all, and if the Taliban cannot be trusted under any condition, a military withdrawal from Afghanistan might prove to be a mistake. 

The second possibility is that the Taliban is delaying pursuing legitimacy with the international community in favor of shoring up its domestic flank. From this perspective, the Taliban is caught fighting to earn legitimacy on two opposite fronts: first at home, and second in the international community. Taking this perspective forces a somewhat more nuanced explanation of the Taliban’s early antagonism – the Taliban cannot offer the United States an ideal cabinet, nor can they appear to have their ideology tainted by their newfound relationship with the United States because doing so would leave them vulnerable to militants and terrorist groups that are even more extreme than the Taliban. Terrorist groups and militant organizations often compete with each other in order to earn legitimacy and support from individual fighters, which explains the turbulence that we have been seeing over the last few days. From this point of view, the Taliban’s initial signaling is not a threat to American interests, but an inevitable part of the process through which the Taliban can address its most pressing security needs before (potentially) working to compromise with the international community. Like it or not, a stable, internally secure Afghanistan will, likely, only come about if the Taliban is able to earn legitimacy both domestically and internationally. Without that stability, the prospects for sustained protection of human rights in Afghanistan are fleeting.

Now, here comes the tricky part. Rand conducted a study reviewing how terrorist conflicts end, and unless the United States is willing to return to war in Afghanistan, history suggests that the most likely path forward for the Taliban is political integration. In fact, the most common way that terrorist groups have been dissolved since 1968 is through integration with the political process. With any luck, the Taliban will drop its military ambitions and adopt a fully political approach – albeit one that would not mirror those that exist in the United States and Europe. More likely than not, full political integration of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then of Afghanistan in the international community, entails the United States and its partners around the world gradually working toward recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban government. 

Of course, this is not to say that the United States should be in a rush to legitimize the Taliban, but diplomatic recognition should be dangled as a carrot for (relatively) good behavior. Consequently, there is a UN resolution pressing the Taliban to allow for free movement of people out of Afghanistan, and the State Department’s desire to see women serving in Afghanistan’s government is echoed by other members of the international community. These sorts of measures are effective only to the extent that the United States is willing to use its diplomatic tools. Not only is maintaining cordial relations important to the long term prospect of peace, but productive interactions with the Taliban are important in order for the United States to continue to extract the Americans and friendly Afghans who remain in Afghanistan.

Ultimately, a full scale refusal to recognize the Taliban government over the long term equates to trying to walk through a porcelain shop with narrow shelves with one hand tied behind your back. Should the Taliban compromise on the issues most important the the United States and the international community (namely- the proper treatment of women and girls, the free movement of people into and out of Afghanistan, and the humane treatment of foreign aid workers), we would be foolish to turn away the Taliban’s attempt at compromise. Allowing for the best, while preparing for the worst, means that formal diplomatic recognition needs to be put on the table as a bargaining chip that the Taliban can earn through good behavior.

Sometimes there are no easy answers to complicated problems – an outright refusal to recognize the Taliban under any circumstances puts an unnecessary chill on relations and paves the way back to a military conflict in Afghanistan. 

 

–

Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

 

Rares sont les régions du monde à compter autant de bases militaires étrangères — en l'occurrence américaines et françaises — que le Golfe. Cette soldatesque a pour mission de défendre les intérêts de l'Occident dans une zone stratégique. La péninsule arabique recèle en effet les deux tiers des réserves (...) / États-Unis (affaires extérieures), France, Golfe, Iran, Proche-Orient, Monde arabe, Armée, Conflit, Défense, Pétrole - Golfe

Sur le front intérieur, la « guerre au terrorisme » conduit à une accumulation sans limites de « données » de tous types sur les personnes. Dans un jeu de surenchère technologique, l'échec de chaque technologie justifie le déploiement d'un arsenal toujours plus complexe… et toujours aussi peu « efficace (...) / Armement, Droit, Police, Technologie, Terrorisme, Télésurveillance - 2005/08

Ever since the African Union (AU) granted Israel an ‘observer status’, the organization has found itself entangled in a pitiful  web of political maneuvering and controversy. Only two months earlier, this same organization has joined rest of the world in condemning Israel for violating the international law with its reckless bombardment of Gaza, targeting civilians, and violent attacks inside the Al-Aqsa holy mosque.  

This latest decision is perhaps the worst and most dangerous in the organization’s history since it puts its political and ethical values into question. 

In July 2016, then Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited four influential African countries—Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia—to showcase or dangle a security and trade carrot and take his country’s relentless lobbying effort to gain AU oberver status since it lost such status with the Organization of African Unity in 2002.

As a country with the longest bilateral relationship with Israel and the one that was in desperate need to get air defense missiles to protect the GERD from potential attacks, Ethiopia was set to lead that quartet. And the quartet finally delivered and secured—at least for now—a priceless moral disinformation that Israel was hustling for a long time:

‘If the African Union does not consider the Jewish state a colonialist apartheid regime, who else might have the moral right to do so?’  

Headlines Matter

As international media interest in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, the espionage gate turned the spotlight back on it.   

The AU decision came at a time when Israel’s rogue attitude and relentless engagement on criminalities that endanger all others except Israel are at the center stage of international political and security debate.

Though the Israeli intelligence has a dreadful record of violating international law in terms of espionage, abducting people from foreign countries, and carrying out assassinations, the following revelation confirms that it has been franchising and enabling ruthless dictators and other rogue actors to commit same crimes with ease:  

According to an investigation conducted by an international consortium of media and human rights groups, Pegasus is a “Military-grade spyware…for tracking terrorists and criminals”.  So far, those governments that the Israeli firm supplied used the software “in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” Moreover, a leaked list containing more than 50,000 phone numbers that Pegasus owners have sought or spied on includes heads of states such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Pegasus is a malicious spook-ware used by the Israeli intelligence to silence critics and to corrupt or blackmail world leaders and other influencers. Furthermore, Israel sold that dangerous software to many tyrants around the world such as Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed to hack cellphones of human rights activists, opposition leaders, journalists and others.

Collusion To Sustain Apartheid  

Wittingly or unwittingly, enticed with trade and technology or blackmailed through dirty intelligence gathered by Israel’s spook-ware , the African Union took an action that is tantamount to being in collusion with Israel to bulwark that apartheid regime against a groundswell of international calls for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions).

The founders of Ben & Jerry are Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. They are “proud Jews” who were ultimately fed up with Israel’s ever-expanding land theft in the occupied territories, the apartheid system, and the systematic ethnic-cleansing against the Palestinian people. They also reject the notion that scrutinizing or condemning Israel’s oppressive policies is anti-Semitic.

Though they avoided openly supporting the international BDS movement, the values they expressed in their New York Times OpEd clearly endorses it. “We believe business is among the most powerful entities in society. We believe that companies have a responsibility to use their power and influence to advance the wider common good,” they opined. This is likely to encourage other international corporations to follow their conscience or try to get on “the right side of history”.

Israel is well aware of the detrimental effect that the international BDS movement had on South Africa’s apartheid system and that is why its leadership went berserk in seeking vengeance against Ben & Jerry. 

No Moral Equivalence

Though some media groups portrayed this issue as an attempt to balance the scale since Palestine was granted such status in 2013, the truth of the matter is this: Inclusion of Palestine as an observer was more of a symbolic expression of solidarity with their cause against a colonial power that was bent on committing systematic ethnic-cleansing against the indigenous people of the land. 

Contrary to the decision to include Palestine, inclusion of Israel was done without any consultations with all member states or any opportunities to debate. And as Algeria’s Foreign Minister said “this decision has neither the vocation nor the capacity to legitimize the practices and behaviors of the said new observer which are totally incompatible with the values, principles, and objectives enshrined in the ‘Constitutive Act of the African Union.”

Inclusion of Israel would not only give it a freehand on spying and browbeating African leaders, torpedo any symbolic or substantive support to the Palestinian liberation cause; it will poison the continental spirit of unity and anti-colonialism.

Mutiny of Conscience

 In a strongly worded protest letter, the South African government described this divisive decision as an “unjust and unwarranted” that was taken “unilaterally without consultations with (AU) members”. The timing of the decision was even more offensive, or as underlined in the statement “…more shocking (as it came) in a year in which the oppressed people of Palestine were hounded by destructive bombardments and continued illegal settlements of the land”.

Lead by Algeria, 14 AU member states that include some with significant political clout such as South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, and Tunisia have formed what could be called ‘coalition of the unwilling’ to pressure the AU to revoke Israel’s status. The AU must take heed or risk abolishing its continental unity when it was needed the most. Sadly, the list only included two Arab member states out of ten. Prominently missing in action were countries that historically opposed Israel’s role such as Egypt, Somalia, and Libya. This may indicate that Israel would soon get a full membership of the Arab League.

Shortly after the list became public, a second-tier group that includes countries such as Egypt, Libya, and Djibouti has issued a joint statement questioning the decision based on technicality- the AU Chairman made a unilateral decision. Still shamefully missing are countries such as mine- Somalia. Here is the painful irony: there was a time when the Somali passport had a prominent warning against traveling to the two apartheid regimes (South Africa and Israel).      

Granting the last apartheid regime in the world the privilege of an observer at the African Union is a betrayal to the anti-colonialism and anti-racism principles that the organization was founded on, and indeed an insult to the legacy of Africa’s most principled son- Nelson Mandela whose pro Palestine stance was unwavering under all pressures.

 

 

Si le gouvernement consacre des centaines de milliards de dollars à la guerre, il ne trouve pas d'argent pour venir en aide aux anciens combattants américains du Vietnam. / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Irak, Armée, Conflit, Guérilla, Santé - (...) / États-Unis, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Irak, Armée, Conflit, Guérilla, Santé - 2004/04

L'Amérique, c'est le monde. En deux propositions d'un enchaînement logique audacieux, le président George W. Bush a en effet expliqué : « Maintenant que la guerre nous a été déclarée, nous conduirons le monde à la victoire. » Le 11 septembre 2001, en tout cas, les Etats-Unis ont essuyé des pertes (...) / États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Information, Médias, Presse, Terrorisme - 2001/10

With Andrian Prokip 

First published in:

Since 1991, energy delivery and gas supplies have been an important factor in post-Soviet Ukraine’s relations with both Russia and the European Union (EU). Russia was and still is partially dependent on the Ukrainian gas transportation system (GTS) and has not been able to take full control of its energy relations with the EU. Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, geopolitical considerations rather than economic needs have motivated Moscow to build new pipelines specifically designed to bypass Ukraine, and thereby to get a freer hand in its dealings with its westernizing “brother nation.”

The completion of the first Nord Stream pipeline from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany in late 2012 lowered the role of the Ukrainian GTS for Russian energy exports to the EU. It provided a necessary pre-condition for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and covert intervention in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The forthcoming possible launch of the Nord Stream II pipeline would erase any remaining Russian dependency on Ukraine as a transit country and could be a prelude to new military escalation between Moscow and Kyiv.

For many years, the Ukrainian transit corridor was crucial to Europe’s gas supply. The routes that pass through Ukraine to Russia and the EU have always been more than sufficient to deliver as much gas volume as has been necessary for Europe. The EU’s and Russia’s reliance on the Ukrainian GTS has provoked international geoeconomic interest in Ukraine since its emergence as an independent state in 1991.

Today, the eventual completion of the Nord Stream 2 via the Baltic Sea looks increasingly likely. If this pipeline were to start operating, the Ukrainian GTS would become largely unnecessary. A loss of most or even all Russian-EU transit could call the future of the entire Ukrainian gas infrastructure into question.  Without the income from levies on the transit of Russian and Central Asian gas flowing through Ukraine to the EU, Ukraine may find that its gas transportation system is no longer economical.

If the Ukrainian GTS went out of business, this would have far-reaching implications for the EU’s energy supply, Ukraine’s relations with Russia, and larger European security issues. Many in Ukraine fear that the elimination of Russia and the EU’s dependence on Ukrainian gas transit will allow the Kremlin to provoke further instability in Ukraine.  The Kremlin would feel more comfortable to intensifying its hybrid war with Ukraine once Russia is no longer dependent on Ukrainian gas transportation. This could escalate into a full-scale as well as open (and not merely covert, proxy, and paramilitary) interstate war against its Slavic neighbor.

At the same time, it is increasingly obvious that the role of Russian and Central Asian pipeline gas in the EU’s energy market will gradually decline. Alternative energy sources are becoming more widely used. Remaining gas demand will increasingly be met via diversified supply mechanisms, including Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) tankers. These factors will decrease the EU’s dependency on both the gas supply from Russia  and the Ukrainian GTS. Recently, the adoption of the European Green Deal and a resulting acceleration of decarbonization have made this outcome more likely

However, Europe’s decarbonization plans may also be opening a new window of opportunity for Ukraine. In the best case scenario, an increasing demand for a variety of low carbon gases–such as biogas, biomethane, and hydrogen–could result in more energy collaboration between the EU and Ukraine. New joint projects for the generation and transportation of low carbon gas could become part and parcel of Ukraine’s future integration into European energy markets.

Ukraine has the potential to produce per year 7.5 to 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of biogas and biomethane, which is approximately 25 to 30 percent of its own yearly natural gas consumption. As the production costs of such gas are relatively high, demand for this energy source may currently be low in Ukraine. Yet, it could be attractive for European customers today. The prices of these energy sources may be more acceptable in, and the nature of these gases will be more relevant, to the EU than they are currently for Ukrainian customers. Technically, these types of gas can be delivered through existing pipelines without much modernization, following a few legislative amendments that are expected to pass soon.

While exporting biogas is a short-term option, a promising long-term prospect is the generation and export of Ukrainian hydrogen. The European Hydrogen Strategy, as part of last year’s European Green Deal, stipulates that “the Eastern Neighborhood, in particular Ukraine, and the Southern Neighborhood countries should be priority partners.” The Strategy calls for the installation, within the EU by 2030, of 40 gigawatts (GW) of electrolyzers – specialized installations generating hydrogen – that, in their turn, need to use renewable or other low-carbon energy for their operation. (Such provisions are necessary to guarantee that, in the end, the exploitation of new energy sources is indeed contributing to environmental protection.) More electrolyzers producing another 40 GW are envisaged for the EU’s neighbor countries from which the EU could then import this green energy. It is planned that electrolyzers producing 10 GW out of the planned new 40 GW capacity will be located in Ukraine.

Despite the positive outlook for the development of Ukrainian hydrogen production for Europe, this plan is facing some challenges in Ukraine. First, the Ukrainian natural gas pipelines are so far not suitable to transport hydrogen. They would need modernization to be used for such a novel export function.

Some Ukrainian gas transportation companies are, in cooperation with various technical universities and other academic institutions, already investigating the possibility of transmitting hydrogen through the existing distribution grids. These Ukrainian investigations may be also of interest to other countries with similar gas transportation systems, especially those in post-communist Eastern Europe. However, significant investment in new hydrogen production and transit infrastructure will be needed soon in order to create and take advantage of  a modernized energy transportation network.

Moreover, the general organization of Ukraine’s entire gas system needs to be rethought and redesigned. The current volumes of gas consumption and transit are much lower than the previously installed capacities allow – a misbalance that raises the generic fix-costs and final price of the transportation and distribution services. For instance, overall gas transit in Ukraine amounted to 141 bcm during the year 1998, but was at only 55.8 bcm by 2020, meaning that much of the GTS remains unused. Based on existing contracts, the amount of gas transit may decrease further to 40 bcm annually by 2024. There is a similarly radical change in Ukraine’s own gas consumption. While Ukraine’s gas consumption had been 118 bcm during its first year of independence of 1991, this number declined to 50.4 bcm in 2013, and went further down to 31 bcm in 2020. However, it’s important to note that the latter number does not include gas consumption in the non-government-controlled parts of the Donets Basin and in occupied Crimea.

A second major challenge for Kyiv will be determining how to raise enough domestic and foreign investments to take full advantage of Ukraine’s high green gas generation and transportation potential. Above all, funding is needed to redesign and reconstruct the existing natural gas grids and prepare for the transmission of hydrogen. The  production of hydrogen  requires the construction of new facilities to produce it, preferably by using renewable energy sources to run the electrolyzing process.

A third challenge of Ukraine’s entry into EU’s emerging green gas market will be Kyiv’s energy relations and competition with Moscow. Presumably, the Kremlin will not wait for the EU’s demand for fossil fuels to decrease and for income from current Russian energy exports to the EU to shrink. Russia will also try to become a green gas and hydrogen exporter to the EU. There is a risk that Russia will draw on its experience conducting trade and (mis)information wars to limit Ukraine’s ability to supply hydrogen to Europe through defamation, subversion and intervention. This threat will become especially pertinent if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is indeed launched, and the EU becomes entirely independent from the Ukrainian GTS. Russia cannot be expected to engage in fair competition with Ukraine and could even employ para- or regular military means – as it, in some ways, partly already does – to improve its position in the European energy market.

Still, trying to meet these three challenges could contribute to Ukraine’s energy transition and its emergence as a new green economy. Independent from geopolitical developments, the prevailing ecological, industrial, and technological trends are already dictating such a transformation. In particular, Ukraine’s energy transition could help to compensate for the already predictable losses that Ukraine will incur from the decreasing importance of traditional natural gas transit. Helping Ukraine to adapt its GTS and production facilities to the demands of the European Green Deal is an opportunity for the EU to support Ukraine in the face of the Nord Stream 2. Kyiv will need outside support to redesign its gas transportation and distribution systems and to modernize existing gas production facilities and build new ones. Finally, Ukraine will need new transit and export agreements on supplying green gas to the EU, and possibly to other countries in non-EU Europe, North America, or elsewhere.

Strategic investment into Ukraine’s energy industry, including its low-carbon gas generation and transportation system would not only have narrowly geoeconomic, but also wider geopolitical implications. Assistance to Ukraine would help Kyiv contain the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to unleash further socioeconomic instability in Ukraine. Moreover, Washington and London would be supporting the sovereignty and independence of a country that once possessed the world’s third largest arsenal of atomic weapons. Thereby, the two Western signatory states of the famous 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States and United Kingdom, would indirectly strengthen the world-wide nuclear non-proliferation regime.

A similar story goes for two other countries that, in the 1990s, had inherited as well as given up Soviet atomic weapons, and also received Budapest Memoranda. Belarus and Kazakhstan too have been subject to Russian – so far only verbal – irredentist claims. Support for Belarus and Kazakhstan’s sovereignties would, like in the case of strengthening Ukraine’s resilience, be beneficial to the functioning of the worldwide non-proliferation regime. Such an approach further applies to two additional official nuclear-weapons states, France and China, that also provided Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan with their own governmental security assurances in December 1994. Any support that Paris and Beijing provide to former nuclear-weapons states that gave up all of their atomic war heads voluntarily would be a sign of support for the geopolitical logic behind the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, one of humanity’s most important agreements.

However, the main issue is here the future relationship between the EU and Kyiv. By supporting Ukraine’s energy transition, Brussels could strengthen a country in which an entire revolution, the Euromaidan uprising of 2013-2014, was conducted under European flags. While the three-month Euromaidan protests were not exclusively about Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation, they began in November 2013 to secure Kyiv’s signing of an Association Agreement with the EU. Ukraine’s Western integration, in turn, was the pretext of Russia’s military aggression in Southern and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The Kremlin has since been conducting its hybrid war against Ukraine as a form of punishment for Kyiv’s decision to adopt EU norms and values.

Finally, Germany could support Ukraine’s energy system to partially atone itself for the damage that it has done to the geopolitics of Eastern Europe with its two Nord Stream pipeline projects. Arguably, the full opening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in October 2012 was a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, one-and-a-half years later. Until 2012, Ukraine had, through its control over a large part of Gazprom’s pipeline connections to the EU, considerable economic leverage vis-à-vis Russia which will be further reduced should Nord Stream 2 also go online. The United States, United Kingdom and Germany would do themselves and the world a service by taking advantage of Ukraine’s considerable potential to become a major low-carbon gas supplier for Europe and beyond.

Andrian Prokip is an Energy Analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Senior Associate at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.

Andreas Umland is Research Fellow at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv.

https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraines-low-carbon-gas-potential-and-the-eu/

 

 

 

Hernando de Soto est un homme très courtisé en cette période électorale au Pérou. Économiste primé à de multiples reprises, il fut un proche conseiller du président-dictateur Alberto Fujimori dans les années 1990. Son cheval de bataille ? La relation entre propriété privée et investissements dans les (...) / Amérique latine, Pérou, Agriculture, Droit, Écologie, Économie, Élections, État, Idées, Amérindiens, Droits des minorités, Mouvement de contestation, Pauvreté, Personnalités, Politique, Violence, Environnement, Privatisation, Néolibéralisme, Pollution, Réforme agraire, Corruption - 2016/06

Les récentes mutineries militaires en Argentine ont permis de manifester combien est puissant et massif le soutien des citoyens aux autorités élues. Elles ont aussi montré la grande fragilité des démocraties en Amérique latine. Dans la plupart des pays qui viennent à peine de retrouver le pluralisme (...) / Amérique latine - 1987/05

Kris Osborn

military, Americas

EPFs enable combat operations and potential war operations in ways that might not otherwise be possible.

The Navy’s fleet of Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) vessels is continuing to take on a growing number of humanitarian and medical support missions, given the speed, versatility and cargo-carrying capacity of the ships.

However, alongside the expanding mission scope and growing combatant commander requests for the fleet, the ships bring some perhaps lesser recognized advantages to maritime warfare.

While perhaps operating with less firepower than many other deeper draft, heavily armed warships, EPFs enable combat operations and potential war operations in ways that might not otherwise be possible.

“Each vessel includes a flight deck to support day and night aircraft launch and recovery operations,” according to a press statement by Naval Sea Systems Command that was issued on Sept. 3, 2020.

This means that armed warships can patrol the area and quickly transport combat vehicles, equipment and troops to land sites along the coast. EPFs can support amphibious operations, a tactical circumstance that introduces new dimensions to deterrence should Russia or China be contemplating offensive actions. 

The Navy has received twelve EPFs from Austal USA, a Gulf Coast shipbuilder that is already working on the thirteenth ship. All EPFs are operated by Military Sealift Command. Interestingly, the thirteenth ship will set a new precedent for future ships in its class by being able to launch, land and operate V-22 Ospreys. Its ability to conduct high-speed maneuvers coupled with heavy equipment transport technology creates combat-tactic advantages. Also, its range of twelve hundred miles can enable crucial transport without having to operate large, deep-draft or big-deck ships in high-risk areas. 

Additionally, the speed of the vessels can help support the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations concept, which is a strategy aimed at leveraging long-range sensors, networking, and new weapons applications to optimize combat effectiveness. This strategy can be achieved by operating with less congested—and therefore potentially more vulnerable—aggregated forces on the ocean. For example, once a beachhead is secured through an amphibious attack, arriving forces will be in great need of reinforcements to expand and build upon mission objectives. These ships also help sea-basing objectives by enabling transport from the ocean, thereby removing the need for land deployments in high-risk, difficult-to-reach areas. Larger, deeper-draft ships will be able to operate at much safer distances, while EPFs approach enemy areas as smaller, faster and potentially less vulnerable targets. 

The ability to operate at sea gives attacking forces better protection and increased airpower support. Big-deck amphibious ships or even aircraft carriers could be well-positioned to better support advancing attack forces moving on land. This is mainly possible if deck-launched air-attack platforms, such as F-35 fighter jets, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft or F/A-18 supersonic jets have targeting and logistics support from the shore. 

Special operations forces also need to move quickly in smaller groups. Equally important, they may need supplies, weapons, equipment and possibly fast-moving tactical vehicles. Thus, there are mission objectives that small groups of special operations forces may not be able to accomplish with an eleven-meter Rigid Inflatable Boat which naturally cannot transport equipment. For example, a V-22 Osprey launched from an amphibious ship or offshore sea base may wish to conduct Mounted Vertical Maneuver operations wherein Marines drop in behind enemy lines to gather intelligence, support friendly troops or launch targeted, covert attacks. These types of missions would benefit from a fast transport vehicle like the EPF.

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: Flickr / Official U.S. Navy Page

Caleb Larson

Guns, Americas

The iconic M1911 design is still manufactured by Colt 100 years later.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Despite no longer enjoying the widespread success that it once did as the United States’ standard-issue service pistol, the iconic M1911 design is still manufactured by Colt, as well as by a number of other firearm manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere abroad—not too bad for a pistol originally designed at the beginning of the last century.

John Browning, arguably one of the United States’ most iconic and talented weapon designers, designed what would become one of the most widely-produced, copied, and recognizable pistols in history, now known today as the M1911.

Post-World War II

Though the M1911 made its combat debut during World War I, the design really came into its own during World War II. During that conflict, the design’s worth was solidified—millions of M1911s were produced for not only the United States but for other allied countries as well.

Post-war, the United States relied on the M1911 design during the Korean war and during Vietnam, though by the 1980s, the design was beginning to show its age. A replacement was found in Beretta’s M9 pistol, chambered in the smaller 9x19-millimeter Parabellum.

A Marine Corps & SOCOM Favorite

Despite the widespread adoption of Beretta’s small, higher-capacity pistol, the M1911 remained a mainstay in the Marine Corps among certain specialized groups like some reconnaissance units as well as among some MEU(SOC) personnel.

And, despite the wide-spread adoption of tens of thousands of Beretta M9 pistols, the United States Special Operations Command felt the need for a pistol that retained the stopping power of the large .45 ACP cartridge, while updating the M1911 platform.

To that end, USSOCOM initiated the Offensive Handgun Weapon System competition in order to find a suitable, .45 ACP replacement service pistol. Though Colt had high hopes for their own M1911-replacement, the Colt Colt OHWS, the design was ultimately unsuccessful. The German Heckler & Koch ultimately won the competition with their MK23 Mod 0 pistol. The MK23 Mod 0 was intended to be an offensive weapon, rather than as a back-up, secondary weapon like the M9 and remains in service with some Special Operations Command soldiers.

Farewell

Despite the retention of updated and modified M1911, the Colt M45A1, by the Marine Corps, the M1911 and derivative designs are on the out, with the United States military shifting from lower capacity, harder-hitting ammunition, to increased capacity designs with less stopping power. Most recently, the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps adapted the M17 and M18 service pistols, chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum as their standard-issue service pistols.

Postscript

And, despite no longer enjoying the widespread success that it once did as the United States’ standard-issue service pistol, the iconic M1911 design is still manufactured by Colt, as well as by a number of other firearm manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere abroad—not too bad for a pistol originally designed at the beginning of the last century.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and Defense Writer with The National Interest. He lives in Berlin and covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Mark Episkopos

Nuclear Weapons, North Korea

The international sanctions regime has proven largely toothless, if not counterproductive, as a means of starving DPRK’s military-industrial complex.

Here's What You Need To Remember: According to a 2019 UN report, North Korea has developed a sophisticated criminal network to continue selling arms through a diverse cast of proxies, front companies, and foreign middlemen.

North Korea (DPRK) is sometimes described as an ‘autarky,’ or economically self-reliant state, but this label belies some of the core workings of the North Korean economy: among them, a vast, illicit arms trade that continues to thrive in spite of the international sanctions regime arrayed against Pyongyang.

In the early 1980s, Premier Kim Il-Sung’s DPRK found a lucrative niche as a small arms exporter to dozens of warring and unstable third world nations; these included Libya, Yemen, Uganda, Madagascar, Iraq, Syria, Iran. The crown jewel of North Korea’s arms export ambitions became Zimbabwe, newly independent from British colonial rule; a warm personal relationship between Il-Sung and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe made Zimbabwe one of DPRK’s most loyal customers over the 1980’s, importing a wide array of heavy military hardware including T-14 tanks, armored vehicles, missile defense systems, and artillery installations. According to a 1991 Defense Intelligence Agency report, arms sales grossed for a considerable $4 billion from 1981 to 1989 and comprised over one-third of DPRK’s total export volume in 1982.

In the following decade, DPRK branched out into the missile and nuclear technology business. It is difficult to ascertain the full scale of North Korea’s 1990’s export activities, but defectors and declassified intelligence reports name Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, and Vietnam as among the dozens of prospective clients expressing interest in North Korean missiles or missile technology well into the early 2000’s.

The growing cascade of UN and EU-imposed sanctions in the wake of Pyongyang’s 2003 withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has certainly cut into North Korea’s arms export bottom line, but Pyongyang has proven remarkably adept at discovering new ways to skirt the sanctions regime. Though legally binding, none of the nine U.N Security Council Resolutions that make up the bulk of North Korea’s sanctions burden are self-enforcing. It falls on every individual member state to take adequate action against financial dealings with Pyongyang—a mandate that is being met with mixed success across the third and developing world.

According to a 2019 UN report, North Korea has developed a sophisticated criminal network to continue selling arms through a diverse cast of proxies, front companies, and foreign middlemen. In recent years, North Korea became a leading arms supplier to the Houthi movement in Yemen, as well as militant groups in Uganda and Sudan, mainly by funneling its merchandise through a Syrian company registered to arms trafficker Hussein al-Ali. Pyongyang has likewise succeeded in cultivating valuable ties at the highest echelons of the Libyan Defense Ministry, resulting in an arms contract that O Chol Su, the Deputy Minister of DPRK’s Ministry of Military Equipment, described as necessary “for the required defence systems and ammunition needed to maintain stability of Libya.”

North Korea also heads a robust maritime smuggling ring. In what the UN described as the "largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” customs officials found a cache with 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades aboard a North Korean vessel en route to Egypt. As it later turned out, the client was none other than the Egyptian Armed Forces themselves; Egypt’s military ordered the North Korean munitions through a complex web of Egyptian business proxies.

North Korea’s continued success in growing and expanding its illicit arms trade is perhaps the starkest illustration of a trend that has long drawn the alarm of Korea experts: the international sanctions regime has proven largely toothless, if not counterproductive, as a means of starving DPRK’s military-industrial complex.

Mark Episkopos is a frequent contributor to The National Interest and served as a research assistant at the Center for the National Interest. Mark is also a PhD student in History at American University.

This piece first appeared last year and is being reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Russian Navy, Russia

Plagued by an increasingly complex and costly set of problems, Russia’s only aircraft carrier is hanging on by a thread.

Here's What You Need To Remember: So vast is the extent of the work that needs to be done on Admiral Kuznetsov that it may prove more cost-effective in the long run to simply procure a new carrier, or—as an increasing number of Russian defense experts are already doing—to ask whether or not the Russian Navy really needs an aircraft carrier in the first place.

Plagued by an increasingly complex and costly set of problems, Russia’s only aircraft carrier is hanging on by a thread.

Classified by the Soviets as a “heavy aviation cruiser,” Admiral Kuznetsov was conceived in the 1980s with a fundamentally different mission from its U.S. counterparts. Kuznetsov was intended as a hybrid mix between a heavy missile cruiser and a dedicated carrier, housing some fixed-wing aircraft whilst acting as a powerful combat platform against American carrier battle groups with its salvo-launched P-700 Granit anti-ship cruise missiles.

Kuznetsov was introduced in 1991 but did not become fully operational until the mid-1990s. Despite suffering several problems involving arguable degrees of human error, the carrier served largely uneventfully through the mid-2010s. It was not until Russia’s 2016 Syrian campaign that the Western world was offered its first glimpse into Kuznetsov’s numerous problems, with the carrier crashing two fighters within less than three weeks of one another.

Russia’s Defense Ministry signed a refit and modernization contract for Kuznetsov in late 2017, but those plans were cut short in the following year when a seventy-ton crane smashed through the ship’s hull and caused its PD-50 drydock to sink. It was estimated that the damage to the ship’s hull would cost as much as one billion dollars to repair, and that’s not considering the price tag of the deep refit and modernization for which Admiral Kuznetsov is long overdue. Then there is the PD-50 itself, which reportedly sustained catastrophic damage during the incident. There were several options available to the military following the drydock disaster, none of them cheap or fast. Moscow initially announced its intent to recover the PD-50 regardless of the colossal costs involved, but those efforts are reportedly being hampered by local corruption and gross industrial mismanagement. 

By itself, this sequence of events is more than enough to qualify the Admiral Kuznetsov as one of the world’s unluckiest carriers. But then, things took a truly vaudevillian turn: Kuznetsov caught fire. In December 2019, a fire broke out aboard the ship after a power cable reportedly exploded during routine welding work. Fourteen personnel suffered injuries, and two more died, from the fire and smoke inhalation. Though estimates vary, most sources agree that the fire caused upwards of one billion dollars’ worth of damage. The 2019 fire amplified the worries of some over the mounting costs and questionable benefits of repairing, maintaining, and refitting the carrier. So vast is the extent of the work that needs to be done on Admiral Kuznetsov that it may prove more cost-effective in the long run to simply procure a new carrier, or—as an increasing number of Russian defense experts are already doing—to ask whether or not the Russian Navy really needs an aircraft carrier in the first place.

One might assume that the combined weight of these mishaps would place Admiral Kuznetsov a hair’s breadth away from the scrap heap, but the Kremlin apparently has other plans.  Russian officials insist that Kuznetsov will re-enter service by the first half of 2023, replete with electronics, structural, and landing control upgrades, as well as a revamped weapons suite. Russia’s military and civilian leadership appear to have decided that Admiral Kuznetsov is, in a sense, too big to fail, and is willing to make massive investments in order to ensure the ship’s survival into the coming decades.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

This article is being reprinted due to readers' interest.

Image: Reuters

Caleb Larson

Submarines, Asia

Enemies beware.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The ability to launch nuclear warheads from sea in addition to positions on land would do much to preserve North Korea’s nuclear deterrence in case of a regional conflict with the United States or South Korea, despite the North’s significantly less-capable missile threat.

Also sometimes called the Sinpo-class, after the North Korean shipyard where the class was built, the Gorae-class is the Hermit Kingdom‘s first indigenously built ballistic missile submarine. The Gorae-class is currently considered by some naval experts as a test and research platform rather than a fully-fledged class.

A crew of about 70 or 80 sailors likely man the submarine’s stations. The class uses diesel-electric propulsion, and in addition to its solitary ballistic missile, it probably sports either two or four torpedo missile tubes for defense against other submarines or surface ships. Though North Korea no doubt would like to eventually christen more of the submarines, the class is likely represented by just one or two hulls.

Similar to the scrap Golf and Hotel-class hulls North Korea received in the 1990s, the Gorae-class launches its single missile from the submarine’s sail. After launch, the missile silo space would likely be flooded with seawater ballast to maintain the submarine’s sailing characteristics after ejecting the missile.

Pukguksong-3 Ballistic Missile

The little class of submarine carries just a single launch tube. Likewise, not terribly much is known about the missile it launches. The missile in question is thought by some to be the Pukguksong-3 ballistic missile. Using solid fuel propellant, the Pukguksong-3 has an estimated 1,900 kilometer, or about 1,200 mile range and was likely first tested sometime in 2019.

Though modest, the range is more than sufficient to put the entire Korean Peninsula and Japan in the Pukguksong-3’s crosshairs. More remote American installations like Guam are beyond the reach of the Pukguksong-3, though the island could be threatened if the Gorae-class positioned itself a few day’s journey west. The American West Coast is considered safe from both the Gorae-class submarine and the Pukguksong-3 missile. However, though difficult, Hawaii could possibly be threatened after a long journey and a lot of luck on the part of North Korean sailors. 

Postscript

Nuclear ballistic missile submarines are one of the world’s most exclusive clubs to be a part of. The few countries in the club—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia, and India—have nuclear capabilities that are orders of magnitude greater than that of North Korea.

That being said, the ability to launch nuclear warheads from sea in addition to positions on land would do much to preserve North Korea’s nuclear deterrence in case of a regional conflict with the United States or South Korea, despite the North’s significantly less-capable missile threat. Enemies beware.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and Defense Writer with The National Interest. He lives in Berlin and covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Russian Military, Africa

As of 2020, Rosoboronexport—Russia’s state arms export agency—accounts for a whopping 49 percent of Africa’s arms imports

Here's What You Need to Remember: Although military helicopters, strike fighter aircraft, tanks, and various types of anti-tank missiles continue to comprise the vast chunk of Russia’s arms exports to Africa, the Kremlin has been looking to diversify its portfolio into amphibious warfare systems.

Russia’s defense industry is preparing to unveil the new Strela amphibious armored vehicle at ShieldAfrica 2021 exposition, the latest in its ongoing attempts to expand its presence in the lucrative and rapidly growing African arms market.

“Live samples of VPK-Ural armored vehicle, Tigr special armored vehicle in the ‘Raid’ variant, and Strela amphibious vehicle have already been dispatched [for the expo]," announced Russian defense manufacturer Military Industrial Company (MIC). ShieldAfrica 2021 will be held from June 8–10 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, with the organizers reporting as many as 145 exhibitors and 74 official delegations.

First displayed at the Army 2020 exhibition near Moscow, the amphibious Strela is part of a family of six multi-purpose, maneuverable, light armored vehicles. The Strela amphibious variant boasts a payload capacity of 800 kilograms, top speed of 120 kilometers per hour, maximum swimming speed of 7 kilometers per hour, and range of up to 1000 kilometers. Strela models offer partial parts interchangeability with the other vehicles in MIC’s catalog, such as the VPK-Ural. The MIC—Russia’s largest manufacturer of wheeled armored vehicles—maintains that Strela is not only cheap to produce by virtue of its modularity, but has no equal among Russia’s current roster of amphibious vehicles. The Strela family’s utility extends to ease of maintenance. “Due to wide use of parts from commercial cars, the Strela vehicles could be services and repaired at the vast car service station network,” noted an MIC executive. With its cost-efficiency, modularity, and simplified repair process, MIC intends for the Strela amphibious vehicle to make a splash in African arms import markets. The Strela vehicle can reportedly be transported by certain military helicopter models, including the prolific Soviet and now Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter that continues to be widely used across Africa.

Although military helicopters, strike fighter aircraft, tanks, and various types of anti-tank missiles continue to comprise the vast chunk of Russia’s arms exports to Africa, the Kremlin has been looking to diversify its portfolio into amphibious warfare systems. In 2020, Russia’s Kalashnikov Concern sold a number of BK-10 assault boats to a country in Sub-Saharan Africa. MIC is seeking to make up for lost ground following a drop in transactions amid the coronavirus pandemic. “Such aggressive policy on conquering the African market is caused by a significant decrease in business activity last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, so we are catching up,” MIC CEO Alexander Krasovitsky told reporters.

As of 2020, Rosoboronexport—Russia’s state arms export agency—accounts for a whopping 49 percent of Africa’s arms imports. Algeria and Egypt are historically Moscow’s two biggest clients, but Russian exporters have pushed in recent years to expand their presence in states including Nigeria, Tanzania, and Cameroon. Beyond direct import contracts, Moscow is exploring a local production and distribution arrangement with Angola. Russia has considerably widened its export lead over the next two biggest players in the African market, France and the United States, over the past two decades.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

History, Eurasia

Before Fedor Tokarev's iconic guns left the drawing board, he tried his hand at a submachine gun.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Ultimately, the Tokarev Model 1927 was rejected by Soviet leadership in favor of the PPD submachine gun design.

In an effort to wean the Soviet Union away from a reliance on foreign ammunition calibers and foster self-sufficiency in weapon design, Soviet leadership turned to one of the heavyweight weapon designers: Fedor Tokarev.

Some of Tokarev’s most important weapon designs came to fruition in the 1930s or early 1940s, including the iconic TT pistol and SVT-38 and SVT-40. But before those two influential designs left the drawing board, Tokarev tried his hand at a submachine gun.

Model 1927

Great effort was made to ensure that the Tokarev Model 1927 was simple and inexpensive to manufacture. The Model 1927 was chambered in the widely-available 7.62×38mmR cartridge, a unique and fairly stout pistol cartridge for its time that was originally designed for the Nagant M1895 revolver.

Both the M1895 and the Mosin-Nagant rifle have an identical bore diameter, a commonality that was of benefit to the USSR, as some machine tooling could be used to manufacture both the revolver and the rifle. Had the Model 1927 been accepted into service, the Soviet Union would have had a full-length rifle, submachine gun, and revolver that all featured the same .30 bore diameter, with ammunition commonality between the revolver and submachine gun.

One of the Model 1927’s most prominent features is its forward grip, which also partially houses the magazine for better control during automatic fire by preventing “muzzle rise.” Though rather small, the grip would likely have afforded the Model 1927 good controllability.

Another of the Model 1927’s more unique features was the submachine gun’s trigger group. Two triggers, one for fully automatic fire, and another for semi-automatic shooting were housed within a rather large trigger guard.

The Model 1927’s magazines held 21 rounds, making their capacity rather small. In another interesting design choice, a spare magazine could be stored within the gun’s buttstock, in reserve as a last magazine when necessary.

At least one variant of the Model 1927 exists. In addition to a single trigger, likely for semi-automatic fire only, the variant also has a longer barrel, and a modified rear sight assembly marked to 800 meters, though the 7.62×38mmR cartridge would have been unable to accurately hit even area targets at those ranges.

Postscript

Before submachine gun trials, the Soviet Army specified that all entrants should be chambered in the more modern 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge, necessitating changes to the Model 1927 design. Ultimately the design was rejected by Soviet leadership in favor of the PPD submachine gun design.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and Defense Writer with The National Interest. He lives in Berlin and covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Caleb Larson

Taiwanese Air Force, Asia

Getting anti-ship missiles in the air is a strong message to Beijing.

Here's What You Need to Remember: If a China-Taiwan conflict were to break out, Taiwan's Harpoon missiles could factor heavily in hampering the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

Living on China’s doorstep is an exercise in patience. As the country with the second-largest military budget in the world, China is well positioned to eventually invade Taiwan, which China sees as a rogue province rather than an independent country.

And Taiwan is in an unenviable position—the island of democracy in the South China Sea is a mere 100 or so miles—about 160 kilometers—from mainland China. The tiny republic has neither the military budget nor the manpower to guarantee a win in a potential fight against China. But, Taipei might just be able to make the cost of winning so great for Beijing, that a Chinese invasion never comes.

Taiwan Strait

Any attack by China on Taiwan is sure at some stage to include hundreds of ships sailing across the Taiwan Strait. This is where Taiwan could excel—repelling an amphibious Chinese invasion. Taiwan boasts a large assortment of missiles that have a modest 100-150 mile range and are intended to take out Chinese ships. 

Photos recently surfaced online that show Taiwanese F-16s equipped with the American-designed Harpoon anti-ship missile. The photos, published in the Taiwanese Liberty Times, showed that the Taiwanese planes were also armed with AIM-120 a beyond visual range air-to-air missile, as well as smaller Sidewinder missile. The display was considered by some as a pointed show of force for an island country that has typically tried to keep the waters between the two countries calm.

Territorial Dispute

A long-standing dispute between China and Taiwan over the Dongsha Islands may have prompted the recent Taiwanese Harpoon missile display. The islands, actually three small atolls, lie in the South China Sea and could become strategically important if they were to be fortified or militarized.

Earlier this year, reports surfaced that claimed PLA troops were preparing drills and military exercises that simulated the takeover of the Dongsha Islands. If China were to take over the islands, Beijing could better access the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. 

Postscript

If a China-Taiwan conflict were to break out, the island republic’s Harpoon missiles could factor heavily in hampering the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Getting the missile in the air is a strong message to Beijing—Taiwan may have a smaller military and by comparison a miniscule defense budget—but the island republic could nevertheless send Chinese ships to the bottom of the Taiwan Strait.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and Defense Writer with The National Interest. He lives in Berlin and covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society.

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.