Diplomacy & Crisis News

While the Biden administration’s views on energy policy are arguably of rapidly diminishing importance, the study on U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) released by the Department of Energy (DOE) on December 17 will define the Democrats’ views on the subject during the coming Trump administration. However, it is neither good policy nor good politics. While it did not conclude that the moratorium on new project approvals should be permanent, it warned against a policy of “unfettered” LNG exports on the grounds that it would increase emissions of greenhouse gases and drive up costs for American consumers. It places the outgoing administration squarely in the corner of the shrill “keep it in the ground” progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

By taking this tack, the Biden administration stuck to the strategy they had pursued when Biden was running for renomination. This aimed to prevent a primary challenge from the Left by pausing new approvals of LNG export projects. However, after handing the nomination over to Kamala Harris and seeing her lose to Donald Trump, they should have been freed of such constraints. There is still no indication in polling data that climate change is even a top issue for American voters, who are much more concerned about jobs and the economy. Opposition to all fossil fuels projects, however, is an important litmus test for a small but influential group of progressive activists.

Manmade climate change is real, obviously, and it is rational to support policies for the reduction of greenhouse gases. The question is whether limiting the production and export of natural gas from the United States really serves that goal. The DOE study made a very dubious set of assumptions to support the view that there was a substantial tradeoff between U.S. LNG exports and renewable energy—U.S. LNG would reduce zero-carbon energy development, and a lack of U.S. LNG would increase in it. That assumes that other exports would not become available—very dubious in a world with many stranded gas deposits—and that the LNG is being immediately used for power generation. A lot of gas in power generation is used as “firming capacity” for renewables, a backup for periods of low generation, making renewable use possible without sacrificing grid reliability. It also ignores the fact that, in many cases, LNG offsets coal use, allowing coal plants to be retired. It ignores the fact that in the largest LNG growth market, China, much of the incremental LNG is used for industrial purposes like petrochemical feedstock rather than to generate electricity.

The study also tunes out the geopolitical benefits the United States derives from LNG. When Russia invaded Ukraine, having a flexible supply of American LNG available offset some of Russia’s piped gas, which needed to be embargoed for sanctions purposes. It rightly points out that European gas demand is projected to flatten out in the long term, but that could be impacted now by the recent indications that the grid is becoming less reliable as intermittent renewables approach half of European power generation. With China—a U.S. adversary—the largest growth market, the study implies that we would be fueling the economic rise of a rival. Yet, that ignores the availability of other supplies and the power that the United States gains over China by having them dependent on energy and petrochemical feedstocks, which must come by sea, with the United States still the dominant naval power outside China’s immediate vicinity. Expanding LNG also strengthens the U.S. balance of payments overall and would help to reduce the trade deficit with China.

The study highlights how the Biden administration reverted to using the role of Secretary of Energy as a placement for someone of senior stature who needs a job rather than choosing someone who has a background in energy, big science, or nuclear technology. The Obama administration chose much more qualified secretaries. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz articulated a much more nuanced and intelligent view of the role of natural gas in the transition to a low-carbon economy, both in and out of government. 

The bottom line is that withholding U.S. LNG would force out other sources of supply and, in some cases, lead to more coal consumption. It makes sense to try to reduce demand for fossil fuels, but limiting U.S. exports is not going to force other countries to adopt the policy changes, which would make the straight tradeoff between LNG and renewables work in the manner that the study suggests it would. Trump’s chest-thumping about “energy dominance” is an exaggeration. Still, Democrats would do better, both politically and in terms of rational policymaking, to quit listening to the tiny sliver of American public opinion that insists on “keeping it in the ground.”

Greg Priddy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and does consulting work related to political risk for the energy sector and financial clients. Previously, he was director of global oil at Eurasia Group and worked at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Image: Andrew Leyden / Shutterstock.com. 

A jihadist rebel group wants to build and govern a stable country that is at peace with its neighbors and recognized by the international community. As much as that may seem an impossible contradiction destined to end in failure and violence, there are reasons to believe that a positive outcome might be achievable. 

It has been two weeks since the hasty fall of the Assad regime, and the situation in Syria is surprisingly stable. This is despite the takeover of the capital by jihadist rebels, who are led by a commander once associated with both Al Qaeda and ISIS. In the south, Israeli forces occupy a buffer zone and conduct hundreds of targeted airstrikes on former government military assets. In the north and northeast, the prospect of a Turkish invasion looms over the Kurds. 

Outside observers have sought to explain the calm in Damascus by noting how Syrians are exhausted after almost fourteen years of civil war, pointing to lessons learned from other civil conflicts in other Arab countries. More importantly, however, the situation is relatively contained because of the desire of one man, Ahmed al-Sharaa (a.k.a. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), to show the world that he and his followers are capable of governing in peace and deserving of international recognition. 

Journalists, academics, and other pundits have been trying to predict the future by looking back on how al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) handled governance in Idlib province during the civil war. Analysts search for signs that would indicate how they will tackle their new assignment at the national level. The results are a set of contradictions and mixed messages.

On the one hand, last year, HTS tried to pass a Public Morality Law that would have banned alcohol and deployed a morality police force on daily patrols. On the other hand, HTS walked back the proposals when they caused friction among religious scholars, other armed factions, the public, and international aid groups. This led al-Sharaa to say that the government should not impose Islam but rather encourage people to seek religion out of their own volition.

Al-Sharaa has been praised for helping to attract foreign investment and maintaining functioning electricity and medical services while at the same time being criticized for ruling like an autocrat in the face of popular protests. Consequently, experts remain confounded as to what version of HTS is the one currently ruling the fifth-largest Arab country by population, with more than 20 million citizens precariously positioned between Israel, Lebanon, Turkiye, and Iraq.

These attempts to read something into the past few years entirely miss the opportunity of the present moment. Current circumstances shape Ahmed al-Sharaa’s objectives. He is focused on gaining the recognition of the Syrian people and the international community for his movement, and in doing so, he is putting himself in a tight position that will make it difficult for him to walk back. He has renounced ambitions for transnational jihad, encouraged engagement with the West and an eventual diplomatic solution with Israel, and declared the need for the protection of all religious minorities. He has also promised to demobilize all militias and abolish conscription in favor of a volunteer army so that all arms are in the hands of the state, and even suggested that he may disband HTS in favor of reconstituting state institutions that reflect the diversity of the country. He continues saying all of the right things for both local and Western audiences despite sporadic off-message comments coming from some members of his group on key issues, such as roles for women and Shari‘a law. 

This is remarkable for a man who has effectively become the most successful jihadist in the post-9/11 era. HTS is on the verge of achieving something that no other jihadist group could have dreamed of—the control of a sovereign state that is capable of attaining international recognition. Neither the Taliban nor even ISIS could claim such a thing. Even many people in Syria who value liberal rights and freedoms might support a government comprised of moderate Islamists from HTS. We cannot underestimate the way that half a century of economic struggles, international isolation, and regime brutality have impacted the public’s hopes and expectations. The average Syrian only knows a binary world of state and mosque, not civil society, due to the severe restrictions imposed by emergency law, which has been in effect since the early 1970s. 

Ahmed al-Sharaa’s move toward the center puts him in a delicate balance with Syrians on all sides, and his transitional government will inevitably face criticism and protests from one constituency or another. Average Syrians want their interests represented. Damascus witnessed its first major protest last Thursday over comments by an HTS spokesperson about women’s roles in society. Al-Sharaa’s ability to maintain a balance, for now, may only be possible because the fighters who drove the Assad family away after decades of brutal repression believe they are witnessing a historical moment that will define the country for generations. 

Those fighters may have many different motivations. One motivation among them is the narrative in which their efforts in Idlib to create a functional government and a stable society within a broadly Islamic framework have served as a model for Syrians everywhere looking for an alternative to Assad. They may be willing to share power with other local and expatriate factions, but they will also expect their own abilities and contributions to be honored and respected. 

The international community, especially the United States and Israel, are understandably much more cautious about the claim that al-Sharaa and HTS have abandoned jihadism. For the United States, Al-Sharaa is personally responsible for American and coalition casualties in Iraq and known for his collaboration with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For Israel, HTS resembles Hamas, an undeniable example of the perils of trusting enemies when they make bold and ultimately baseless statements about fundamental change. Examples of just such a tectonic shift in Islamist ideology are incredibly rare in the region, with Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr more an imperfect exception than the rule. 

Al-Sharaa needs significant economic and technical support from the international community to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, economy, and institutions. The level of that support will depend on the Trump administration’s willingness to engage with the new government in Damascus, which means that al-Sharaa must reassure Washington about his intentions, especially those toward Israel. Netanyahu has been clear that he seeks to reduce the long-term threat from a resurgent Syrian military directed against Israel, with no intention of escalating into a broader conflict with the transitional government. He has even said that he supports exploring relations with the new Syrian Government. If al-Sharaa wants to put relations with Israel on a new footing, he will have to find a way to communicate with the Israelis without alienating the Syrian public during this limited window of goodwill that the transitional government currently enjoys. In this effort, he will benefit from a surprising amount of interest among many Syrian youth for a more positive relationship with Israel. 

The challenge for the next Trump administration is learning to decipher Ahmed al-Sharaa’s intentions and motivations. He may be offering a palatable alternative to more hardcore jihadist leaders in the region, but that does not mean that his followers will not seek other ways to subtly Islamicize society and export their Islamist ideology in the region. Obama and Biden engaged in a lot of virtue-signaling on Syria about the respect for international law and establishing a transitional process. Yet, they never set clear expectations and held the Assad regime to those commitments. President Trump must take a more realistic approach and hold the new government accountable to its pledges in exchange for any potential support or recognition while recognizing that the Syrian people are ultimately the best fail-safe against radicalization.

Hazem Alghabra, born in Damascus, Syria, is the founder and president of Frontiers Consultants, a Washington, DC-based consultancy firm that provides public relations and crisis management solutions with a focus on the Middle East and the United States. Alghabra previously held multiple positions with the U.S. Department of State, including Senior Advisor for Public Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Alghabra is a frequent commentator on a wide range of television stations, including i24, ILTV, Alarabyia, Sky News, and BBC.

Joshua Yaphe is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the National Interest. He previously served as Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Visiting Faculty at the National Intelligence University (NIU), and scholar-in-residence at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. He has a Ph.D. from American University and is the author of Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Friends and Enemies: Borders, Tribes and a History Shared (University of Liverpool Press, 2022). 

The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.

Image: Abidin Yagmur / Shutterstock.com. 

Christmas came early for the crew of the United States Navy's USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72). "California dreams coming true," the official Facebook account for CVN-72 announced as the warship arrived home on Friday.

The fifth Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier is now back at her home port of Naval Air Station North Island following a five-month deployment that included operations in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibly.

Unexpected Deployment to the Middle East

The USS Abraham Lincoln was originally deployed last summer to the Indo-Pacific region but was ordered to the Red Sea in August to relieve USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), as part of the service's ongoing carrier rotation in the Middle East.

There has been a continuous U.S. Navy CSG presence in the Middle East since October 2023 following the Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel as well as missile attacks from the Houthis. USS Abraham Lincoln remained in the region until last month when she was ordered back to the Indo-Pacific.

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-76) transited the Suez Canal earlier this month and is now operating in the region.

First Combat For the F-35C During the Deployment

While operating as part of CENTCOM's 5th Fleet, USS Abraham Lincoln conducted air strikes on the Iran-back Houthi militants in Yemen. That included the first-ever combat sortie of a Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II, the carrier-based variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. In November, F-35C aircraft, assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA-314) "conducted multiple strikes on Houthi weapons storage facilities within Houthi-controlled territories in Yemen," U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. Fifth Fleet, explained.

According to CUSNC, the Miramar, California-based VMFA 314—"Black Knights"—of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing had operated the Boeing F/A Hornet until 2020, when it became the "first fleet squadron in both the Navy and Marine Corps to operate the 5th Generation fighter aircraft."

In addition, the U.S. Navy announced that E/A-18G Growlers, the electronic warfare (EW) variant of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, from Electronic Attack Squadron 133 (VAQ-133), were "deployed with the next generation jammer," marking the first use of the advanced jammer "both deployed and in combat, marking a generational leap in electronic warfare capability."

Home For the Holidays

For many U.S. sailors around the world this year, they will be home for Christmas only in their dreams. Yet, for the personnel of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ABECSG), their holiday dreams have come true.

And it was one the crew truly earned.

"Our incredibly successful deployment of firsts includes the first combat employment of the F-35C Lightning II platform, the first employment of the ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer, the first Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to re-fuel at sea with a commercial oiler, the first Multi-Large Deck Event with the Italian Navy's Cavour CSG in the Indo-Pacific, the first west coast CSG to conduct combat strikes to degrade Iranian-backed Houthi rebel combat capabilities, and the first carrier to pull into Malaysia in over 12 years to strengthen critical regional partnerships," said commander, Carrier Strike Group 3, Rear Adm. Adan Cruz. "All of this was made possible through the incredible hard work and dedication of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group Sailors and Marines, who are reuniting with their loved ones in time for the holidays."

CVN-72 is the second U.S. Navy vessel named after the 16th president—after the Cold War-era George Washington-class ballistic missile submarine. She was commissioned in November 1989, and over the past three decades and a half decades in service, USS Abraham Lincoln has carried out multiple humanitarian missions in the Persian Gulf and Pacific region and has taken part in multiple combat operations.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

Image Credit: Greg Meland / Shutterstock.com

From the Vault

Could China Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier in a War?

USS Parche: The Navy Submarine That Could Self-Destruct

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The United States cannot deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan nor win a long war without Indonesia. In conjunction with Australia, Indonesia could ensure a virtually impassable maritime blockade of Chinese commerce, enforced with only land-based aircraft and light patrol ships and backed up by the U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ships. Its collaboration would also be crucial for the protection of all convoys proceeding to friendly Asian littoral states routed through the Timor and Arafura Seas. 

Even on its own, democratic Indonesia, with a population of 280 million, a robust GDP of $1.3 trillion, an active military of over 400,000, and a historical suspicion of China, is a natural obstacle to Beijing’s aspirations in Southeast Asia. In January of 2018, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis described Indonesia as a “maritime fulcrum” in East Asia. In November of 2024, President-elect Donald Trump had a very positive conversation with Indonesia’s new President, Prabowo Subianto, who had received his staff officer training in the United States in the 1980s.   

U.S. aircraft carriers are the cornerstone of the blue water navy and guarantors of trans-oceanic commerce. Diverting these capital platforms to enforce a close blockade of the Chinese littoral in the event of a multi-year war over Taiwan is risking the United States’ preeminent great power status. A network of usable airbases already being constructed in the Philippines, such as at San Vincente Naval Airfield, are less than 600 kilometers from the Taiwan Strait and are a far more cost-effective staging area from which to interdict a Chinese amphibious crossing with combat aircraft and drones. At these distances, U.S. Air Force aircraft will be able to operate with maximum bomb load-outs and without the need for refueling. They will also benefit from the radar masking of their approach by Taiwan’s central mountainous ridgeline. 

China’s principal anti-carrier systems are its estimated thirty 1,800 km range DF-21D missiles and approximately 140 4,000 kilometer range DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles, plus an H-6 bomber carried DF-21 variant in development, with a reaction time of less than twenty-five minutes. China’s Type 055 Renhai destroyer can also deliver the 1,000-kilometer range YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile. A 2,000-kilometer range system will cover Luzon, the Strait of Malacca, and all of the Bay of Bengal, problematizing the use of U.S. carriers there to enforce a blockade, and a 4,000-kilometer range system will encompass Guam, all of Indonesia, and the Central Indian Ocean. 

On September 25, 2024, China launched an 11,500-kilometer-range DF-31AG ICBM into the Pacific for the first time since 1980. This may have been a test of China’s space-based surveillance system to track surface ships. The low probability of a successful strike on a U.S. aircraft carrier increases substantially over the course of an entire blockade campaign, as weather, accidents, miscommunications, chance satellite observation, submarine interceptions, and electronic detection turn a possibility into a high aggregate cost probability of a disabling and subsequent sinking.

While unlikely to be decisive, like any form of sanctioning or interruption of trade, a complete naval blockade of China will contribute significantly to war termination by disrupting China’s export trade, which has grown from $2.2 trillion in 2013 to $3.3 trillion in 2023. Most of China’s imports of $2.16 trillion, 80 percent of its oil, and 90 percent of its overall trade are moved by ships. China is aware of its vulnerability to a blockade and has taken measures to achieve energy and food self-sufficiency. Beijing plans to double its fleet of nuclear reactors to 150 by 2035. 

By cultivating trade and connecting infrastructure to Russia through its overland route, Moscow will be able to provide oil, gas, grain, and key military technologies, even if Washington has the political will to bar the Bering Strait passage to Moscow’s tanker fleet. Beijing has passed legislation requiring local authorities to take responsibility for food reserves, as well as other measures promoting greater domestic productivity. China projects a further 16 to 30 percent increase in caloric demand by 2050 from the growth of its middle class. Of China’s $235 billion in food imports, its three principal suppliers of its largest commodity, soybeans, are Brazil, the United States, and Argentina.

The closure of Indonesia’s Strait of Malacca, through which passes $3.5 trillion in trade aboard 80,000 ships annually, like the 1967 closure of the Suez Canal, would impose an extra monthly re-routing of shipping cost of $2.8 billion, not including the increased cost of insurance. One-third of the world’s shipping, including 23.7 million barrels of oil per day and a substantial portion of the trade of the littoral Asian democracies, transit through the adjacent South China Sea. Needless to say, a war over Taiwan will severely disrupt global supply chains.

Indonesia’s four main straits are easily interdicted by boarding teams carrying patrol ships and helicopters and mobile land-based anti-ship missile platforms. The Strait of Malacca is only 2.7 kilometers wide at its narrowest choke point. The other three principal straits, from west to east, are the ten kilometers wide Sunda, the twenty kilometers wide Lombok, both of which were blocked by Indonesia in 1988, and the ninety kilometers wide Makassar. Other straits further east are the ninety-kilometer-wide Lifamatola, the thirty-five-kilometer-wide Wetar, the thirty-kilometer-wide Ombai, and the 20-kilometer-wide Dampier. 

According to the 2024 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance, excluding frigates and coast guard equivalents (Bakamla and KPLP), Indonesia’s available strait policing forces consist of eight Exocet and sixteen torpedo-armed corvettes, fifteen missile-armed patrol craft (out of 159 patrol vessels), eight mine countermeasure ships, drone-ships, eleven Panther and eight AH-64 Apache helicopters, and about thirty maritime patrol aircraft. Given the narrowness of most of the straits, even an instrument as extreme as the use of nuclear weapons could not undo a land-based Indonesian blockade. 

Beijing’s option of directly seizing the Strait of Malacca would be possible but complex. Unlike Japan’s sweep through Southeast Asia in 1941, the major powers, including the United States, have been careful not to become irretrievably committed to conflicts elsewhere in Ukraine and the Middle East. China has six Marine Brigades, a Naval Special Forces Brigade, and six Army Marine brigades, totaling some 40,000 troops. This presumes China would then train new substitute army formations for an amphibious assault on Taiwan. 

Because China’s supply line through the South China Sea would be so precariously exposed to aerial interdiction, even supposing a neutral Vietnam, it would be necessary to seize the airfields of Western Taiwan, Luzon, Palawan, Natuna Island, and several hundred kilometers of Sumatra’s east coast. China would only need to land at Lingayen Gulf and defeat the Philippines’ under-armored 5th and 7th Divisions to neutralize the airbases in northern Luzon and push to Manila. 

Any prospect of securing the 800-kilometer Malacca Strait would require a diplomatic victory to obtain Malaysia and Singapore as bandwagoning allies of a Chinese attack against U.S. interests. A PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) landing would still confront three Indonesian maneuver brigades and four brigade equivalents of battalions, backed up by two Kostrad strategic reserve divisions in Java. 

The United States, Australia, and Japan have anticipated this possibility and have since conducted joint exercises with Indonesia on Sumatra. In November 2023, the United States and Indonesia announced a Joint Comprehensive Strategic Partnership aimed at improving maritime cooperation and as a lead-in to the signing of a future Defense Cooperation Arrangement. Accordingly, Jakarta is in negotiations for the purchase of 24 F-15EXs and additional F-16s. 

At the same time, Jakarta’s relations with Beijing have worsened since China extended its territorial claims to the Exclusive Economic Zone of Indonesia’s Natuna Island. To comply with U.S. investment tax incentives, Indonesia has further imposed high tariffs on a number of Chinese imports and decreased Chinese shareholding in Indonesian nickel-mining concerns (the world’s largest reserves) related to electric vehicles. 

Indonesia, after General Suharto’s 1965 counter-coup against the Communist-influenced Sukarno regime, was a key Cold War ally, securing East Timor from Soviet domination, which had befallen other newly independent Portuguese colonies. Indonesia also plays a useful counter-balancing role against the influence of China, primarily because of its size, in Malaysia and Singapore. Current Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has criticized Western hostility to the rise of China, tilting Kuala Lumpur towards Beijing as it seeks its economic investment. 

In a 2022 poll, 39 percent percent of Malaysians viewed China favorably. Singapore, whose 75 percent Chinese population is deeply sympathetic with China, was 67 percent favorable towards Beijing in a 2022 Pew Research Center poll. Although Singapore has shared a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States since 2015, providing basing for U.S. LCSs and P-8s, its principal strategy of hedging makes it liable to shift its support to Beijing if the United States appears weak.

Washington’s influence is, however, limited by Jakarta’s policy of non-alignment. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have all resisted U.S. efforts to subject the Strait of Malacca to international administration. China remains the largest trading partner with all of ASEAN as well as Indonesia and is a major contributor to a $132 billion industrial project and hydropower plant in Kalimantan. Indonesia is also torn between coordinating its response to China with India and privileging its historical alliance with Pakistan, an ally of Beijing.

Furthermore, most Indonesians and the Jakarta government see U.S. support for Israeli military action in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran through the prism of anti-colonialism and Islamic solidarity. Southeast Asia is about 40 percent Muslim. In Indonesia, 87 percent of the population practices Islam. Malaysia is 61 percent Muslim. In all of the first and second Trump administrations and the Biden administration, Washington’s diplomatic priority was to secure the normalization of relations between Israel and Indonesia as an extension of the Abraham Accords. There is little prospect of success at the moment, given Indonesian sympathy for the Palestinians. 

The best substitute for an extraordinarily inexpensive and low-risk blockade conducted from the shores of Indonesia would be for the U.S. Navy to retreat its cordon to the west of the Strait of Malacca and leverage access to bases near the Indian coast. In so doing, it would sacrifice the easy reach of coastal Indonesian airbases to interfere with the inshore shipping of the Gulf of Siam and South China Sea. Furthermore, Indian and U.S. ships operating anywhere in the Bay of Bengal and even the central Indian Ocean would be vulnerable to strikes by China’s DF-21/26 anti-ship ballistic missiles, guided by PLAN submarines operating out of Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, or possibly even South Africa. 

In the event that China secured the Malacca Strait with the help of Malaysia or obtained a land bridge from Thailand through the Kra Isthmus, shipping could still be interfered with from India’s bases on the Nicobar and Andaman Islands. If China’s naval expansion permitted it to deploy a permanent flotilla of two aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean by 2035–2040, it would still be hard-pressed to shepherd convoys against the littoral threat from Indian ships, aircraft, or submarines. 

Similar attempts to establish a permanent station, as the PLAN has practiced in the South Atlantic for the last decade, are unsustainable in wartime without being replenished in a well-protected allied safe harbor. In the further absence of support from Delhi in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Navy could operate further west from Oman’s Masirah Island near the Straits of Hormuz, Socotra Island at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, or from the Diego Garcia anchorage in the Chagos Archipelago.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University and the author of Militarization and War (2007) and Strategic Nuclear Sharing (2014). He has published extensively on Pakistan security issues and arms control and completed research contracts at the Office of Treaty Verification at the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and the then Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO). He has also conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Egypt and is a consultant. He is a former Operations Officer of the 3rd Field Engineer Regiment from the latter end of the Cold War to shortly after 9/11. He tweets at @Ju_Sp_Churchill.

Image: Muratart / Shutterstock.com. 

Antiaircraft guns (also known as “flak guns”) have been the been the bane of combat aviators’ existence since the advent of air combat itself during World War I.

For example, during World War II, the German FLAK 36 88mm multi-purpose gun made life a living hell for Allied bomber crews in the skies over Western Europe, such as the U.S. Army Air Force's 8th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses participating in “Black Thursday,”  the October 14, 1943, bombing raid against the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt. (Incidentally, “FLAK” was a shortened form of Flugabwehrkanone, meaning “aircraft defense cannon”, and this was how the word entered the military lexicon in the first place.)

Fast-forward to the Cold War, and you had Soviet designs such as the 23mm ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" and ZU-23, along with the 14.5mm ZPU-4 that made their presence felt during the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But of all the world’s great anti-aircraft guns, nothing can compare to two particular guns that were coincidentally made in Western European countries and whose names begin with “Sw,” namely Sweden’s 40mm Bofors and Switzerland’s 20mm Oerlikon guns.

40mm Bofors Initial History and Specifications

The inspiration for the 40mm Bofors gun traces back to the 1920s when the Swedish Navy expressed a desire for a more capable replacement for their Vickers Pom-Pom anti-aircraft guns. The Swedish Navy brass handed this request over to AB Bofors (founded in 1646 and headquartered in Karlskoga, Sweden; now part of British arms manufacturer BAE Systems) who entered into a contract in 1928 and had their product ready for the production range by 1933.

The gun operated on a gravity-assisted feeding mechanism that was manually loaded with 4-round clips. Specifications and vital status include:

-Crew: four

-Barrel Length: 7 feet 5 inches (2.25 meters)

-Gun Carriage Weight: 1,151 pounds (522 kilograms)

-Projectile Weight: 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms)

-Muzzle Velocity: 2,800-2,900 feet per second (850-880 meters per second)

-Maximum Range (theoretical): 23,600 feet (7,010 meters)

-Max Effective Range (practical): 12,500 feet (3,810 meters)

-Rate of Fire: 120 rounds per minute (cyclic/theoretical); 90 rpm (practical)

The gun ended up being used by the armed forces of a whopping eighty-four different countries at one time or another!

20mm Oerlikon Initial History and Specifications

The ordnance for this weapon actually dates back to 1918, when German arms engineer Reinhold Becker came up with a 20x80mm round that fired using primer ignition blowback in a very large machine gun to fire 300 rounds per minute. Fast-forward to 1934 and the Swiss-based company Oerlikon Contraves (Oerlikon for the eponymous town the factory called home and contra-aves being Latin for “against birds”; now known as Rheinmetall Air Defence AG) resurrected Becker’s design and upsized it to more effectively engage the modern monoplane fighters of the 1930s.

Production began in 1937. Specifications and vital status include:

-Crew: four

-Barrel Length: 55 inches (1,400 millimeters)

-Gun Carriage Weight: 150 pounds (68.04 kilograms)

-Projectile Weight: 4.3 ounces (123 grams)

-Muzzle Velocity: 2,700 feet per second (820 meters per second)

-Maximum Range (theoretical): 14,400 feet (4,389 meters)

-Max Effective Range (practical): 4.921 feet (1,500 meters,)

-Rate of Fire: 4,80 rpm (cyclic/theoretical); 320 rpm (practical)

The U.S. Navy adopted the gun in November 1940. Multiple countries obtained manufacturing rights, thus resulting in the weapon being utilized by both Allied and Axis forces during the war.

Operational History/Combat Performance

The Bofors and the Oerlikon proved to be a terrific tandem for nearly the entire gamut of Allied naval vessels during World War II, spanning the size spectrum of itty-bitty destroyer escorts (DEs) and slender submarines all the way up to the big boy battleships and aircraft carriers. For example, at the end of the scale, the U.S. Navy Gato-class subs had one Bofors and Oerlikon each to back up the 5-inch (127mm) main deck gun, and DEs like the valiant USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) wielded two twin-mount Bofors and ten single-mount Oerlikons. At the opposite end of the scale, the Essex-class “flattops” packed anywhere from thirty-two to seventy-two of the 40mm guns and fifty-five to seventy-six of the 20 “mike-mikes” … and then there were the Iowa-class battlewagons which absolutely bristled with no less than eighty of the 40mm guns and forty-nine of the 20s.

Of course, the Bofors wasn’t just mounted on warships, but on a variety of ground-based weapons platforms, both stationary gun mounts and mobile (tanks, trucks, etc.).

So, just how effective was the 40mm gun? According to Jesse Beckett in a January 24, 2022, article for War History Online titled “The Bofors 40MM Revolutionized Anti-Aircraft Combat”:

“The British held the gun in extremely high regard and put a massive emphasis on its production during the war. In fact, Commonwealth factories produced over 19,000 Bofors 40 mm guns … During D-Day, Bofors guns were vital in protecting newly captured areas, with crews from the Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery shooting down 17 enemy aircraft over the Orne River in France … The weapon also holds the title of being the first ground-based anti-aircraft weapon to shoot down a jet aircraft – in this case, it was a German Me 262.”

As for the Oerlikon, its kill record was certainly nothing to sneeze at either; Daniel Garas of Naval History and Heritage Command cites an anti-aircraft summary published on October 8, 1945, that credits the 20mm cannon with 617.5 enemy aircraft shot down between 1941 and 1945.

The 40mm Bofors continues to make a literal and figurative impact today, ironically now with the proverbial script being flipped, i.e., being used from an airplane against targets down below rather than vice versa, as part of the arsenal of the AC-130 Spectre gunship. Meanwhile, the 20mm Oerlikon still arms some naval units, nominally as a last-recourse anti-air weapon (somewhat akin to the Phalanx CIWS, albeit with nowhere near the impressive buzzsaw-like rate of fire of the Phalanx), but mainly used for firing warning shots or incapacitating small vessels.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

 Image: Shutterstock.

A stable post-Assad future will require Tehran’s involvement.

The end of the Edo Period brought forth several innovations in military technology to improve upon Japan’s two-century-long gap since its previous contact with any European civilization. From mass-produced sidearms to sabers that nixed the Japanese tradition of slow and meticulous craftsmanship, arguably the greatest improvement of all was an infantry rifle which did not, quite literally, blow up in your face. 

Of course, I am referring to the Arisaka rifle. 

Origins 

Named after Nariakira Arisaka, the foremost leading arms designer in industrial Japanese history and baron to Emperor Meiji himself, the standard infantry weapon of the Japanese Empire likely took inspiration from the German Gewehr 8mm Model 1888 bolt-action rifle. This adoption of European technology coincided with an existing cultural tsunami sweeping across Japan and breaking the highly structured status quo: the Meiji Restoration. Throughout the nineteenth century, Japan discarded its hierarchical Samurai class from the top of the national military’s totem pole. 

Who needs a handful of men studying the blade for a lifetime when you could send hundreds of soldiers through basic training in a matter of months? 

The new Japanese infantry, adopting Western-style military garments, began to equip its soldiers with the Arisaka Type 30, a huge improvement over the Murata Rifle family which still relied on black gunpowder at the time. 

The Type 30 was chambered for the 6.5×50mmSR cartridge and featured a bolt-action system with a five-round internal magazine. Despite its modern design, the rifle’s performance in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) exposed flaws, such as its insufficient stopping power and failure to perform under harsh conditions. 

As a response, the Japanese military introduced the Type 38 in 1905. This version retained the 6.5mm cartridge but improved its strength and reliability. The Type 38 became a staple of the Japanese military, remaining in service for decades. 

Shocking the World 

Field-testing the Arisaka proved to be a success in the aforementioned Russo-Japanese War, and the world’s jaw dropped at the news of an Asian power defeating a European army. This gave Japan and by extension the Arisaka prestige on the world stage as a weapon that can hold its own compared to its German, British, or American counterparts.  

The rifle followed the expansion of the Japanese colonial empire from the acquisition of Taiwan and Korea to even mainland China.  

At the precipice of World War II, the Arisaka rifle family had become a fixture of the Imperial Japanese Army. Millions of Type 38 and newer, sleeker Type 99 rifles were produced, equipping troops to expand the territorial possessions of the Land of the Rising Sun and all of the natural resources she needed to keep her up and running. Indeed, the Arisaka as the standard rifle of the Japanese Empire was the bite at the end of Hirohito’s bark. 

Performance During World War II 

In the early stages of the conflict, Japanese troops equipped with the Type 38 and Type 99 enjoyed success against poorly equipped opponents in China and Southeast Asia. The rifle was hailed for its reliability and allowed for the rapid advance of forces. 

As the war progressed and Japan faced more well-equipped Allied forces, the limitations of the Arisaka became more apparent. While the rifles were durable and accurate, they were outclassed by the semi-automatic M1 Garand used by American troops, which provided a superior rate of fire. From 1944 to 1945, as American forces were expelling Japanese forces from colonized lands, the quality of the Arisaka dropped massively. 

The Arisaka’s service died with the Empire of Japan. However, captured Arisaka found use even after the war, as Allied forces brought the infantry weapons home as war trophies and Chinese and Korean forces utilized them during the early stages of the Korean War. 

Lake Dodson is an Assistant Editor for the National Interest. His interests are Korean-American relations, cybersecurity policy, and nuclear energy/weapons policy. He currently studies the Korean language and has completed courses on North-South Korean Relations and conducted various experiments on an AGN-201K Nuclear Reactor at the prestigious Kyung-hee University in Suwon, South Korea. His specific interests are effective nuclear energy policy, cyber-security, and the economy and politics of East Asia. He holds a BA from the University of Mississippi.  

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

A pair of United States Navy pilots sustained minor injuries, but are safe after their Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet was shot down in a "friendly fire incident" on Sunday. The multirole aircraft was operating from the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75).

CNN reported that the twin-engine, two-seat Super Hornet was "mistakenly fired" upon early Sunday morning by the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64), one of the warships that is part of the Truman carrier strike group (CSG). CG-64 along with CVN-75 only arrived in Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility last week.

The CSG is part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, the U.S.-led mission launched last December to protect commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden from attacks carried out by the Houthi militants in Yemen.

What We Know

According to multiple sources, the Boeing-made Super Hornet, assigned to Carrier Air Wing One, was in the skies over the Red Sea when the guided-missile cruiser fired at the aircraft. The squadron wasn't identified but USNI News reported that "The only two-seat F/A-18F squadron embarked aboard Truman are the 'Red Rippers' of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 11 from Naval Air Station Oceana, Va."

The carrier operates between twenty-four and thirty-six F/A-18 Super Hornets.

"Both pilots were safely recovered. Initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries," CENTCOM said via a media statement. "This incident was not the result of hostile fire, and a full investigation is underway."

Recent Airstrikes On Houthi Positions

The friendly fire incident came just hours after CENTCOM also announced that U.S. forces "conducted precision airstrikes against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis within Houthi-controlled territory in Sana'a, Yemen."

The strikes were meant to "disrupt and degrade" the Houthis' ability to carry out "attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden."

CENTCOM added that "During the operation, [its] forces also shot down multiple Houthi one way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) over the Red Sea," while acknowledging that the F/A-18s were involved.

The Houthi militants have gained a significant foothold in eastern Yemen, and have been targeting commercial shipping in the region in the guise of support for Hamas in Gaza, since Israel launched its invasion following the October 7, 2023, attacks into southern Israel.

Friendly Fire Incidents Not All That Uncommon

Serious questions will be asked in the hours and days to come as to how the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser mistook the F/A-18 for an enemy—as The Associated Press noted, the "ships in a battle group remain linked by both radar and radio communication."

Yet, as seen in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the fog of war remains a very serious issue, even in the era of advanced technology and improved communication. There have been multiple accounts of Russian air defense systems firing upon, and even shooting down, friendly aircraft. As previously reported, two Sukhoi Su-35 (NATO reporting name Flanker E) have been downed in such incidents in just the past eighteen months.

The U.S. Navy's deployment of warships to the Middle East has been repeatedly described as the most intense naval combat the United States has seen since World War II, as the warships have come until intense missile and drone strikes launched by the Houthis.

This is a developing story.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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From the Vault

Could China Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier in a War?

USS Parche: The Navy Submarine That Could Self-Destruct

Roughly 61 percent of Canada’s entire population exists within the two Southeastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the home of the Laurentian Elite, which controls the rest of the vast amounts of sparsely populated land. However, a lack of population does not correlate to a lack of importance: Canada’s far north is extremely important to its military grand strategy.

Earlier this month, the Trudeau administration unveiled a thirty-seven-page security policy detailing plans to enhance its military and diplomatic presence in the Arctic, citing rising threats from Russian and Chinese activity.

Why the Sudden Interest?

The new security policy highlights the need for an increased Canadian military presence in the region due to recent close brushes in North American airspace with Russian pilots skirting the line of international boundaries. The report detailed Russian weapons testing and the experimentation of missile systems in the Arctic, which are capable of striking North America and Europe as, “deeply troubling.”

Canada likewise accused China of deploying vessels to carry out civilian and military missions. Collecting data in the region could strengthen Chinese claims that it is a near-Arctic state.

Canadian minister of foreign affairs Melanie Joly claims that “guardrails that prevent conflicts [between China, Russia, and Canada] are increasingly under immense strain…The Arctic is no longer a low-tension region.”

Both powers, but China especially, have been collecting research on potential Arctic trade routes. As climate change affects the far north, the once inhospitable climate and impenetrable ice sheets are more easily broken apart by modern icebreakers. As the ice continues to melt and military technology improves, capitalizing on these trade routes before they become important is vitally important to Chinese and Russian interests.

Canada, as part of this new security strategy, will establish consulates in Anchorage, Alaska, and Nuuk, Greenland, and is set to designate an ambassador to lead and coordinate Canada’s policies and actions in the region. The increased military presence in the area could include deploying new patrol ships and navy destroyers, ice breakers, and submarines capable of operating beneath ice sheets, as well as more aircraft and drones.

Can Canada follow through with the resolutions outlined in the new policy? This remains an open question, but according to the top brass of the Canadian military, the stakes are too high for failure.

Lake Dodson is an Assistant Editor for the National Interest. His interests are Korean-American relations, cybersecurity policy, and nuclear energy/weapons policy. He is currently studying the Korean language, has completed courses on North-South Korean Relations, and has conducted various experiments on an AGN-201K Nuclear Reactor at the prestigious Kyung-hee University in Suwon, South Korea. His specific interests are effective nuclear energy policy, cyber-security, and the economy and politics of East Asia. He holds a BA from the University of Mississippi.

Image Credit: J. Csiki / Shutterstock.com

Recent news reports indicate that President Biden plans to block Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel based on “national security” concerns, a justification that does not hold up to scrutiny. If these reports are accurate, Biden risks not only dashing the hopes of U.S. Steel’s 22,000 American workers and the communities they sustain economically but also undermining American national security in the process.

This deal promises job security for U.S. Steel’s workers, a substantial infusion of capital and cutting-edge technology for the company, strengthened domestic American steel production, and closer ties with Japan—our most important ally in the Indo-Pacific and an important contributor to the U.S. economy. 

Nippon Steel’s proposal is under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a panel comprised of representatives of key federal agencies that assesses foreign investments for potential threats they may pose to national security. It provides recommendations to the president, who has the authority to approve or block transactions.

Last week, The Financial Times reported that both the Pentagon and State Department—member agencies of CFIUS directly engaged in protecting national security—have concluded that the deal poses no national security risks. However, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, whose job is focused on international trade policy, opposes the acquisition, reportedly due to national security concerns. While Nippon Steel has repeatedly offered to take steps to address her security concerns, Tai has shown no signs of reversing her position. 

Her obstinance is troubling on multiple levels. As a former CFIUS official in the Biden administration aptly put it, “Tai is playing a game that exposes the CFIUS process to becoming a permanent tool of politicians, unreasonably expands the scope of what is considered national security and will force the U.S. to put in writing that Japan is a national security threat, which is simply untrue and detrimental to American security.”

Indeed, Japan is our most important ally in the Indo-Pacific. In 2022, President Biden prioritized the U.S.-Japan alliance as the cornerstone of security and stability in the region when he launched his Indo-Pacific Strategy to address the challenges posed by China. In a rare demonstration of bipartisan consensus, the policies comprising the strategy are largely based on those implemented by the first Trump administration.

Blocking the deal would undermine the U.S.-Japan alliance. As Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba noted just before taking office, rejecting it “could undermine the trust of its allies.” And once in office, he sent a letter to President Biden asking him to reconsider his opposition.

The proposed acquisition aligns with Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy in a number of ways, including furthering the concept of “friendshoring” and the practice of building resilient supply chains among trusted allies to reduce reliance on potential adversaries. China’s increased use of its dominance in critical industries as a weapon underscores the importance of this strategy. Beijing, which now produces over half of the world’s crude steel, banned exports of minerals essential for the production of advanced semiconductors and military technologies to the United States just two weeks ago.

The economic benefits of the deal are equally compelling. Nippon Steel is renowned for its cutting-edge technologies that minimize emissions and produce high-quality steel efficiently and cost-effectively. Its investment in U.S. Steel would not only sustain existing jobs but also create new ones. That’s why steelworkers held rallies last week at U.S. Steel facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, and Alabama in support of the investment. 

Japanese investment undergirds the U.S.-Japan alliance, linking the economies of the two countries in mutually beneficial ways. Japan already holds $800 billion in foreign direct investment in the United States—more than any other country—while the United States remains Japan’s largest direct foreign investor by far. Japanese companies in the U.S. employ almost one million Americans—more than half of whom are in the manufacturing sector—and account for $80 billion in merchandise exports.

As CFIUS approaches a deadline of December 23 to make its recommendation, President Biden must recognize the strategic and economic merits of this acquisition and allow it to proceed. The proposal represents more than a simple business transaction. It will significantly benefit the American economy, strengthen America’s critical steel manufacturing capabilities, enhance the U.S.-Japan alliance, and bolster our national security. It will also be an important step in securing a bipartisan vision of a secure, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific and a vital measure in countering the economic and geopolitical challenges posed by China. 

Daniel Bob has worked on U.S. foreign and economic policy toward the Indo-Pacific in senior positions in the U.S. Senate and House.

Image: Evgenii Panov / Shutterstock.com.

While Canada’s national stereotype may be an overly polite and homely attitude to an almost comical degree, this certainly was not the case in World War I. In fact, throughout the Western Front, Canadian soldiers were feared for their cunning and brutality toward the Central Powers.

This was displayed in one of Canada’s most mythologized and revered tales of national pride on the battlefield, sandwiched between the infamous trenches of the Somme and the Belgian border: Vimy Ridge.

The Gritty Details

The Battle of Vimy Ridge was fought from April 9-12, 1917. As Canada was still classified as a dominion of the United Kingdom, Canadian troops were usually under the command of a British general, and this battle was no exception. British general Julian Byng alongside Canadian generals Arthur Currie and Andrew McNaughton led the Canadian Corps of the First Army of the United Kingdom.

This trio of Allied forces arrived at Vimy Ridge to dislodge the German Sixth Army and provide relief to the French in the region. To effectively oust the entrenched German forces from the rugged terrain, Currie and McNaughton coordinated a risky creeping barrage artillery tactic. While the idea of firing in front of advancing friendly troops is not a new strategy in war, and was quite common for the Western Front, the Canadians would advance closer than any other army to the barrage of heavy fire falling from the sky. 

It was hazardous, but if it worked, the Canadians would catch the Germans before they could emerge from their hideouts to return fire.

All four Canadian divisions advanced side-by-side for the first time in the war in a single attack on April 9, with over 15,000 Canadian soldiers advancing under the cover of artillery fire. While the casualties on the Canadian side were quite heavy—10,000 over just three days—the Germans were no match for the Canuck onslaught. The final objective, a fortification outside the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, fell to the Canadians on April 12.

Legacy

The victory at Vimy Ridge is often seen as a great turning point in Canadian history. It fostered a sense of national pride and unity, which contributed to Canada’s growing desire to be fully autonomous within the British Empire. 

In 1936, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial was unveiled on the ridge, commemorating the sacrifices of those who fought and died there.

Today, Vimy Ridge remains a symbol of Canadian resilience and achievement. The battle’s legacy is a testament to the courage and determination of those who served in the Great War, shaping Canada’s identity as a nation.

Lake Dodson is an Assistant Editor for the National Interest. His interests are Korean-American relations, cybersecurity policy, and nuclear energy/weapons policy. He currently studies the Korean language and has completed courses on North-South Korean Relations and conducted various experiments on an AGN-201K Nuclear Reactor at the prestigious Kyung-hee University in Suwon, South Korea. His specific interests are effective nuclear energy policy, cyber-security, and the economy and politics of East Asia. He holds a BA from the University of Mississippi.  

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So it appears the congressionally mandated National Commission on the Future of the Navy has commenced work at long last. As Breaking Defense recalls, the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act instituted the eight-member commission to “undertake a comprehensive study of the structure of the Navy and policy assumptions related to the size and force mixture of the Navy, in order to:

I) Make recommendations on the size and force mixture of ships 

II) to make recommendations on the size and force mixture of naval aviation.” 

Commissioners were supposed to have wrapped up their reportage and recommendations by now, but several lawmakers were tardy about nominating members. They have since remedied that.

Leaving naval aviation aside, here’s some counsel on future fleet design courtesy of the greats in the field. Historian and theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan advised fleet architects to center forces on “capital ships,” heavy hitters capable of dishing out and absorbing major blows in bouts with rival capital ships. 

A brawl between capital-ship fleets determines which force will command the sea, barring the maritime common to enemy naval and mercantile shipping while putting the common to use for strategic gain of its own. For Mahan, these brawlers are the decisive implement of naval strategy. 

He writes that “the backbone and real power of any navy are the vessels which, by a due proportion of defensive and offensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks. All others are but subservient to these, and exist only for them.”

Capital ships could dish out and withstand extreme punishment.

Commissioners should ponder these bracing words: was Mahan right about the primacy of the capital ship, does such a ship ride the waves today, and if so, what is it? 

Today’s capital ship is not the steam-driven battleship, the apex predator of Mahan’s day. The supercarrier has had a long and successful run at the forefront of American sea power. Whether it has run its course should and doubtless will be central to the commission’s debates. Maybe the guided-missile destroyer is the new capital ship, especially as new weaponry comes online, amplifying a tin can reach and destructive potential against hostile capital ships and aircraft. Maybe it’s an attack submarine if armed with some of that same long-range precision firepower.

Or maybe, bewildering the ghost of Mahan, there is no singular capital ship in today’s high-tech age. Dispersed swarms of small combatants able to concentrate firepower at the time and place of battle could be what hands the U.S. Navy a decisive edge in combat. Such a force would boast substantial offensive striking power in Mahanian parlance, while brute numbers along with dispersion in physical space would constitute its defensive power. 

Such a fighting force could lose substantial numbers of hulls to enemy action while, like the armored battleship of yesteryear, remaining resilient enough to stand in action against enemy ships of the line. That’s what happens when only a small percentage of a fleet’s fighting strength resides in any given hull.

Build Small, Lose Small

Speaking of which, Mahan goes on to propose a “broad formula” for gauging a navy’s sufficiency for ambient strategic surroundings. How to size a fleet or fleet contingent? The enemy force acts as a yardstick. 

The historian declares that a force must be “great enough to take the sea and to fight, with reasonable chances of success, the largest force likely to be brought against it…” 

The answer is simple: the friendly force must match up with the most powerful rival force likely to appear on the scene of battle. In the age of Mahan, determining the proportions of that hostile force demanded that U.S. commanders know their prospective foe, judging how compelling its interests were in the Western Hemisphere, the likeliest battleground, and thus how large a share of its fleet the hostile leadership would commit to action there. A potential antagonist like Great Britain or imperial Germany had commitments elsewhere around the globe that likewise demanded forces.

What London or Berlin could spare for Western Hemisphere contingencies after factoring in competing demands set the benchmark for U.S. naval adequacy at likely flashpoints. America need not run an open-ended arms race to accomplish its goals in expanses its leadership and society cared about.

However, commissioners need to update and amend the Mahanian formula, which after all is of 1890s vintage, for contemporary times and surroundings. He was writing for the America of his day, a rising maritime power on the make that aspired to predominance in its near seas, chiefly the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. 

In other words, he was thinking in terms of regional defense of American waters, where the United States enjoyed the advantages that go to any home team even when confronted by a brawnier away team.

But where Mahan was contemplating how to dominate the Americas’ near seas against a distant aggressor, today’s U.S. Navy will be the distant contender trying to outmuscle a regional defender in its near seas. From regional to global: Marine history has witnessed an acute case of role reversal since the time of Mahan.

This is where Mahan’s English contemporary and foil Julian S. Corbett comes in. Unlike Mahan, the evangelist of regional sea power, Corbett was writing for the Royal Navy, a globe-spanning force that did little but play away games across an empire on which the sun never set. That’s because such a force, the Royal Navy back then, the U.S. Navy today, is typically scattered across the nautical chart performing a multitude of errands at the behest of political magnates. 

No force, not even the world’s supreme sea force, can be stronger than every potential opponent, every place, all the time. Naval affairs don’t work that way. Oceans and seas are too big, challenges too numerous, and the biggest navy too small.

Corbett grasped that a contender can be globally superior yet locally inferior. That being the case, officialdom had to devise workarounds to offset and overcome regional opponents’ homefield advantages.

To prevail in a contest off faraway shores, Corbett beseeched Royal Navy commanders to learn to play what he called “active defense” at the outset of the war. Active defense is a strategy whereby weak but cagey combatants flip the script on the strong over time and win. Practitioners of active defense try to balk at a locally superior antagonist’s strategy, keeping it from achieving its goals, and to weaken that antagonist while they gather combat power at the scene of battle sufficient to prevail. 

Corbett was no defeatist, then. He was all about offense and decisive victory at sea, just like his American counterpart. He merely saw victory as something that the Royal Navy would attain ultimately but probably not on day one of a high-seas conflict, the way too-exuberant navalists insisted. That’s why the English sage inveighed vehemently against chest-thumping among the Royal Navy old guard, whose Mahanians insisted that “seeking out” the enemy fleet in its home waters at the outset of war constituted the be-all-and-end-all of naval strategy.

In place of triumphalism, Corbett prescribed sobriety, realism, and patience. In a humble scribe’s view, molding attitudes represents probably his greatest single contribution to maritime strategic theory. 

No One Can Play Offense All the Time

Jointery, the art and science of getting armed services that inhabit different domains to work together in harmony, is his other great contribution. Corbett insisted that the fleet was not a war-winning implement in itself. It was an enabler that helped the army achieve its goals on dry earth. After all, land is the decisive theater in any war. People live there, therefore wars are settled there, and he was right. 

Here again, though, we see some role reversal between then and now. Corbett saw the navy as an implement for projecting power ashore in support of ground forces. That function endures. Today, though, ground-based air and missile forces working in concert with numerous, light, short-range naval forces can make things exceedingly tough on hostile fleets prowling offshore.

Corbett foresaw this turn of events at least dimly. He bewailed a technological “revolution” that seemed to render traditional fleet design, rooted in practices from the age of sail, moot. In the past, ships of the line had little need to concern themselves with lesser warships. Gunnery was the measure of a ship in yesteryear. Capital ships mounted more guns and would blast ships from lesser rates to kindling if challenged. 

That mismatch began to erode during the age of steam, as newfangled weaponry such as torpedoes and sea mines made its debut. All of a sudden small craft, rudimentary submarines, torpedo boats, and minelayers could do grave harm to capital ships that ventured within their reach.

Corbett called these flotilla craft, and he fretted at how they had upended his scheme for fleet design.

If new technology superempowered the flotilla in Corbett’s lifetime, it has hyperempowered it in ours. In particular, long-range, precision anti-ship cruise missiles have given surface patrol craft and submarines deadly striking power for any navy that avails itself of them. Commissioners should look at this as both a danger and an opportunity for the U.S. Navy. 

It’s a danger because potential foes like China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy have already installed anti-ship cruise missiles in a variety of platforms specifically to assail U.S. and allied surface navies. It’s an opportunity because the U.S. Navy can reciprocate. The commission should exhort Congress and the Pentagon not only to arm every hull in the inventory but to propagate hard-hitting flotilla vessels, crewed and, potentially, uncrewed, of America’s own. Stationed in embattled regions such as East Asia, such craft can help deny antagonists access to waterways where they must go to accomplish their aims.

Waterways such as the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and South China Sea.

Swarms of flotilla ships acting in unison are sea-denial platforms par excellence, ideally suited for the opening phase of active defense against aggression. They can help confound an aggressor’s strategy until the U.S. Pacific Fleet and affiliated joint and allied forces can assemble in the theater in numbers. Buying time, weakening the foe, and amassing friendly forces is what active defense is all about.

This brings us from the greats of strategy to a few more specific items for the National Commission on the Future of the Navy to consider. The budget for sea power looms large, of course. More of everything is desirable considering how lean and fragile the U.S. Navy force structure has become since the Cold War. 

However, our Republic can afford more. Spurred by the fall of France in 1940, Congress set the Two-Ocean Navy Act in motion on the heels of several humbler naval expansion acts. By the end of fighting in 1945, the navy had swelled to close to 7,000 hulls of all types. Then the United States spent an average of six percent of GDP for the next four decades waging the Cold War.

That far exceeds what we spend today relative to our means. My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that defense spending for 2023 came to three percent of GDP almost exactly. In other words, the republic can double expenditures on sea power should the government and society resolve to do so. Commissioners should impress on lawmakers, the incoming administration, and the larger society that they are making a conscious strategic choice if they decline to support more generous defense budgets. 

They are choosing not to compete with the Chinas, Russias, and Irans of the world, or to support longstanding allies, partners, and friends such as Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.

They are choosing to relinquish America’s standing in world affairs.

Leave aside the glamour platforms that dominate discourses about force structure. They will get their due in the commission’s work. Here are some relatively low-cost ways to boost numbers and firepower in the U.S. Navy fleet in the fairly near term, if indeed more shipbuilding dollars are in the offing. 

First, retrofitting littoral combat ships with anti-ship cruise missiles is a start. An obvious one. “LCS is back!” proclaimed Secretary of the Navy Carlos not long ago, pointing to the installation of cruise missile launchers aboard these long-troubled small surface combatants. Are these ideal platforms to anchor an active defense, or for any other function? 

No. But they are hulls displacing water, of which the U.S. Navy has few to hand, and they are big enough to carry armaments useful for sea-denial missions. Neglecting to wring value out of them would amount to fleet-design malpractice.

Second, expanding the submarine fleet is a must. Yet the submarine industrial base is struggling to reach production rates needed to expand the U.S. Navy undersea contingent, let alone supply several nuclear-powered attack boats (SSNs) to the Royal Australian Navy as promised under the AUKUS arrangement. The U.S. Navy SSN contingent is limping along at about half its numbers from the late Cold War years. China poses challenges of at least the same dimensions as the Soviet Union. History thus implies that at least doubling the U.S. inventory of submarines would be a prudent move.

But submarines need not be nuclear-propelled to be effective. Many legends of undersea warfare were not. The good news is that conventional subs are cheap by contrast with their atomic-powered brethren. Japan’s latest diesel-electric sub, Taigei, runs the Japanese people about $720 million per copy, whereas a U.S. Navy Virginia-class SSN sets the American people back about $4.5 billion per hull. In other words, buying Japanese could provide our navy with six diesel boats, plus a little, for the price of one Virginia. Nuclear propulsion is desirable, but we need hulls in the water to compete strategically and fast. Nukes are not going to get it done. 

SSN construction is not going to expand the fleet noticeably in any timeframe that matters.

Diesels are Good Enough, Buy Some

Third, it’s high time to start fielding small surface combatants in bulk, the way service doctrine says should be done. Designs are readily available and in production. The U.S. Coast Guard operates fifty-eight fast response cutters that could be repurposed as U.S. Navy small surface combatants with relative ease. These cutters are a bargain at $65 million per copy, compared to around $2.5 billion for a frontline Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. That’s thirty-eight gray-hulled combatants bearing anti-ship munitions for the price of one destroyer, cheap by today’s standards. 

Let’s purchase a seventy-six-ship flotilla for $5 billion. Forward-deployed to the first island chain, that would start looking like a swarm.

And antagonists would weep and gnash teeth.

Fifth, the commission should review plans for a medium landing ship (LSM), the workhorse vessel the U.S. Marine Corps wants to shift Marine Littoral Regiments along the first island chain to help the fleet with sea denial and active defense. The LSM is supposed to be a truck for hauling troops and their gear across relatively short distances. It should be simple and cheap. And yet the program has stalled, years after the Marine Corps leadership declared a requirement for it in 2019. 

This is a travesty. Commissioners should take a stand on this controversy one way or the other. Better to ditch operational concepts that depend on a contingent of LSMs if that contingent will be built too late to make good on them, as appears likely.

After all, a strategy or operational design without the implements to execute it is a wish. The commission can foster clarity on island-chain operations, helping the Marine Corps define its role as an adjunct to the fleet in sea-denial operations.

And lastly, logistics. This one hardly requires belaboring. Between the U.S. Maritime Sealift Command, Merchant Marine, and Maritime Administration, the United States fields roughly as many logistics vessels as it lost to enemy action, sunk or damaged, during the horrific opening months of World War II. 

Here’s an anecdote for you: when asked what the decisive ingredients of U.S. victory in the Pacific War had been, wartime Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo picked three: U.S. island-hopping strategy, U.S. submarine operations against Japanese shipping, and the U.S. Navy’s ability to rearm, refuel, and reprovision at sea.

Notice that two of those three relate intimately to logistics. U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines raided the fleet of Japanese merchant vessels that carried raw materials hither and yon, binding together a scattered island empire. Sinking the logistics fleet helped dismember the Japanese Empire. Moreover, the U.S. Navy could fight more or less constantly because of lavish logistical support. Ships of war didn’t have to be put into port to restock with beans, bullets, and black oil, exiting the combat zone and depriving the fleet of their firepower. They could remain on station.

The service desperately needs to rediscover that philosophy. Whether it’s building new support ships at U.S. yards, buying from Korean or Japanese yards, or whatever—we need to restore our logistical dominance, pronto. Any war effort will fail without supply.

Strategy, operations, fleet design. So there are some observations from the masters of strategy, and a few from the cheap seats, as the commissioners set about their deliberations. Let’s wish them well and heed what they have to say.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

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The People's Liberation Army Navy's Type 001 Liaoning successfully—even infamously—jump-started Beijing's carrier program. The story of how the flattop was originally built for the Soviet Navy as the Kuznetsov-class aircraft cruiser Riga, has been repeatedly told.

The short version is that following the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, construction was halted and the unfinished vessel was put up for sale by Ukraine. The stripped hulk was purchased by a Chinese firm—reportedly to be converted into a floating hotel and casino, only to be left to deteriorate in the elements for several years.

At one point, it seemed unlikely it would be used as a tourist attraction, let alone a warship, and would be little more than scrap metal.

Yet, it rose like a Phoenix and was eventually refurbished by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and became China's first aircraft carrier, fulfilling a decades-long ambition for Beijing.

Launched China's Carrier Program

Without the Type 001 Liaoning, it is doubtful the PLAN would be where it is now—at least in terms of being on track to be the second-largest operator of aircraft carriers in the world.

The Liaoning originally served as a training carrier, while it allowed Beijing to build its first domestically-produced flattop, the Type 002 Shandong.

Now, as the far more capable Type 003 Fujian is undergoing sea trials and could enter service next year, questions are being raised as to what role the Type 001 could play. It is far from a capable combat vessel, and while not as old as the earliest U.S. Navy Nimitz-class carriers, one can only wonder how the years as an unfinished hulk have left its "bones."

It might seem that the first PLAN flattop has completed its mission and would be better returned to a training warship or perhaps finally preserved as a museum as a far more advanced warship is set to enter service. However, Beijing may want to have the numbers. It has set a goal of having six operational carriers by the mid-2030s—and therefore the Type 001 may be far from being retired.

Not Dead Yet—Not by a Longshot

China has no plans to scrap or even retire its first carrier. As international analyst firm Janes reported this week, the Type 001's flight deck had undergone several modifications and refurbishments from February 2023 to February 2024—which does suggest it could remain in service for years or even decades.

"Images of the vessel taken at its post-refurbishment sea trials in March 2024 indicate the presence of full-scale fighter aircraft mock-ups on its flight deck. Specifically, the mock-ups are of the J-15 and J-35 fighter aircraft," Janes reported, citing recent satellite images that show a new weapons elevator at the aft of the flight deck.

"It measures about 6×2 m, and it is located across the flight deck's foul line at about 3.5 m forward of the vessel's stern. Satellite images taken of the ship before its latest refurbishment do not show the presence of this elevator," the analyst report added.

The elevators could allow the crew to swap out an aircraft's weapon payload, even after the fighter is readied for launch. These were capabilities that weren't part of the original design when the warship was laid down for service with the former Soviet Navy.

No Catapults, No Problem?

The Type 001 Liaoning isn't equipped with catapult launch gear and instead employs a ski jump ramp. As a result, it has exclusively operated the Shenyang J-15, the Chinese-made version of the Russian Sukhoi Su-33 (NATO reporting name Flanker D) carrier-based fighter.

Though the J-15 features local improvements in terms of engines, avionics, and weapons, the Chinese clone has been viewed as an interim carrier-based fighter until a fifth-generation successor enters service. The question is whether a more advanced fighter could still be suited to the carrier and its ski-jump ramp.

It is a case of making twenty-first-century technology work with a platform designed during the Cold War, and in the Soviet Union no less—where carriers became some of an enigma.

Could the J-35 Operate From the Type 001?

It has been expected that the Shenyang J-35—which was derived from the FC-31 Gyrfalcon—was tailor-built to serve aboard Beijing's newer types of carriers, notably those fitted with catapults as well as arrestor gear. Yet, there has been some indication that the PLAN has explored whether the fifth-generation fighter could operate from the flight deck of the Type 001 Fujian.

The ski jump ramps require that an aircraft's payload be significantly decreased compared to one that takes off with catapult assistance. However, the PLAN may still be looking into how the J-35 could still serve aboard the older carriers, as images circulated earlier this year that suggested tests were conducted to determine if that could be capable.

Even if that isn't the case, all indications are that the PLAN will make the most of its first carrier for years to come.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

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