Diplomacy & Crisis News

Moscow is bringing Washington’s enemies together.

Switching out Nairobi’s foreign minister will grant President William Ruto greater power over international affairs.

Kim Jong Un has made it clear in everything he has said and done that he has no intention of getting rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability – the “treasured sword” that he regards as essential to the survival of his regime. He states repeatedly that the DPRK’s possession of nuclear weapons is irreversible and non-negotiable. Its permanence is even written into North Korean law.

Why North Korea Wants Nuclear Weapons

For Kim Jong Un, nuclear weapons are a vital asset. North Korea’s initial motivation for seeking nuclear weapons may have been defensive – to deter foreign (mainly U.S.) interference or attack. This motive persists, as North Korean leaders remain deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward the DPRK.

But whatever the North’s initial motivation, Kim Jong Un may feel emboldened by his expanding nuclear and missile capabilities to pursue more offensive goals, including intimidating South Korea, undermining the U.S.-ROK alliance, and engaging in increasingly aggressive provocations. Kim won’t want to give up the nuclear arsenal that supports either these defensive or offensive objectives.

There are other reasons why North Korea won’t part with its nuclear weapons. They have been a source, one of the only sources, of legitimacy and pride for the regime and have been used to justify the sacrifices of the North Korean people. They are one of the few reasons the world pays any attention to North Korea, and they provide leverage for Pyongyang with other countries. And not least, they have helped secure the loyalty and support of key domestic constituencies, including the military and nuclear establishments, for Kim family rule.

If North Korea were ever to give up its nuclear weapons, it would be the result of either a fundamental transformation of the policies and values of the current regime or the collapse of that regime. Neither outcome can be dismissed altogether, especially the eventual collapse of the regime.

But we can’t count on either one, at least not in the near term. Realistically, we will have to live with North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future.

But that doesn’t mean the United States and its allies should accept North Korea as a permanent and legitimate nuclear-armed state. It acquired nuclear weapons illegally and deceitfully. Accepting the DPRK’s nuclear capability would set a dangerous precedent damaging to the global nonproliferation regime.

What America and Its Allies Must Do

So, the United States and its allies should continue to adhere to the ultimate goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, however remote that goal may be.

But at the same time, it should be prepared to engage with North Korea on more modest, near-term steps that can limit the North Korean threat, and especially reduce the risk of intentional or inadvertent armed conflict that could escalate to the nuclear level.

Robert Einhorn is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2009 to 2013, he was Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Nonproliferation and Arms Control and a member of the U.S. negotiating team for the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Image Credit: Shutterstock. 

As these words are written, North Korea has halted the operation of the five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. This move is most likely intended to extract plutonium for weapons-grade enrichment and provide fissile material for more nuclear weapons. Late in September, North Korea amended its constitution to enshrine the goal of accelerating the production of nuclear weapons. Its focus remains on building up a significant force of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. These, it claims, are meant for deterrence. Nevertheless, Pyongyang could easily employ them for compellence and coercion.

Pyongyang continues a series of missile tests for weapons suitable to deliver nuclear warheads against South Korea, Japan, and United States military forces in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as against the continental United States itself. It has also unveiled a new conventionally powered but nuclear-armed submarine designed to give it a basic second-strike capability.

The Biden Administration isn’t really engaged with Pyongyang, even indirectly, in discussions on achieving the goal of comprehensive and verifiable nuclear disarmament of North Korea. If Donald Trump regains the White House after the 2024 Presidential election, it is unlikely that he will make meaningful progress toward that goal. Moreover, there will be no restoration of personal summit diplomacy, especially after the failure of the 2019 Hanoi summit.

Finally, lingering concerns remain that Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear weapons test, mainly to perfect the design of tactical nuclear weapons. If Russia follows through with its implied threat to withdraw from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and then tests a warhead, expect a North Korean test to follow soon after.

So what does this mean for North Korea’s future operational nuclear posture, and what are the implications for regional nuclear stability? Indeed, the nuclear dynamics will likely grow more dangerous and complex.

Of particular concern must be Pyongyang’s focus on tactical nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang must recognize the growing qualitative conventional imbalance with the ROK and seek to rely on tactical nuclear weapons to counter the conventional military superiority of South Korean forces. But it’s also conceivable that Pyongyang could choose to use the threat of tactical nuclear weapons coercively in a crisis—much as Russia has done regarding NATO during the war in Ukraine while relying on its strategic nuclear forces to deter American retaliation.

Such a scenario would likely prompt South Korea to look at its own nuclear weapons option, with President Yoon having already hinted that a South Korean independent nuclear weapons capability has been considered. Yet, in a crisis, Seoul is unlikely to have time to build a bomb. The concern in Seoul now must be that a change of administration in Washington could raise uncertainty about American extended nuclear deterrence security guarantees to both Seoul and Tokyo. Pyongyang, perhaps backed by Russia, might exploit such a scenario to challenge U.S. strategic influence in northeast Asia and coerce Seoul.

In a future scenario of weaker U.S. extended nuclear deterrence security guarantees, South Korea would likely need to move quickly to get nuclear weapons to avoid becoming vulnerable to nuclear coercion from North Korea. This would need to be followed by a similar Japanese move.

From Beijing’s perspective, such a nuclear future would complicate its strategic outlook immeasurably. Still, it would also emphasize a need for Beijing to move more rapidly and preemptively in its own nuclear modernization and expansion efforts to encompass a greater emphasis on sub-strategic and even tactical nuclear weapons as part of a move away from the traditional “no first use” and “minimum deterrent” force posture of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force.

Dr. Malcolm Davis is a Senior Analyst in Defence Strategy and Capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. His main research focus is on defense strategy and capability development, military technology, and the future of warfare. He tweets at @Dr_M_Davis.

Image: Shutterstock.

John Maynard Keynes famously wrote, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Now that the economic facts are rapidly changing for the worse, the Federal Reserve would do well to heed Keynes’s observation. Maybe then it would back down quickly from its current mantra that interest rates need to stay high for longer to bring down inflation. If, despite these new facts, the Fed persists with its hawkish monetary policy stance, we should brace ourselves for a hard economic landing.

Among the more disturbing new facts is the sudden loss of investor appetite, both at home and abroad, for long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. Investors are becoming increasingly concerned that the budget deficit is heading towards 8 percent of GDP at a time when the country is close to full employment. 

They are also concerned that given the political dysfunction in Washington, there is little prospect that this budget deficit will be reduced anytime soon.

The question investors are asking is: who will fund the government’s long-term borrowing needs and at what price? This question becomes all the more poignant at a time when the Fed continues to reduce the size of its balance by $95 billion a month by not rolling over maturing Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

It also becomes poignant at a time when we know that both China and Japan are reducing the size of their Treasury bond holdings.

The net upshot of this change in investor sentiment is that in the short space of two months, the all-important Treasury bond yield, on which many other interest rates are benchmarked both at home and abroad, has shot up from less than 4 percent to around 4.75 percent or their highest rate in sixteen years. This spike has already caused thirty-year mortgage rates to jump to close to 8 percent, making housing all the more unaffordable to the average American household. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. housing market and the auto market can withstand such high interest rates. 

Another major change in facts that the Fed will do well to heed is the cracks that are now appearing in the banking system. Already at the start of the year, we had the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history when Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank failed. These two banks failed mainly because of the damage that higher interest rates inflicted on their long-term bond and credit portfolios. With long-term interest rates now spiking even higher, the banking system is bound to take another big hit to its balance sheet from falling bond prices.

It also hardly helps that it is now all too apparent that we will have a wave of real commercial estate loan failures next year. That is when property developers will have to roll over $500 billion in loans at markedly higher interest rates at the very time that they are suffering from unusually high vacancy rates in a post-Covid world. This could constitute a significant blow to the regional banks, whose exposure to commercial property lending is close to 20 percent.

When he was Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan observed that no country is an island to itself in today’s highly integrated world economy. This is why the Fed would do well to pay heed to the rapid deterioration in the world economic outlook. China, the world’s second-largest economy, is now experiencing the slowest economic growth in decades in the wake of the bursting of its outsized housing and credit market bubble.

Meanwhile, Germany has already experienced three consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as it struggles with the combined impact of a Russian-induced energy shock and the slowing of the Chinese economy. With the European Central Bank raising interest rates at a time of economic weakness, it must only be a matter of time before the rest of the European economy succumbs to recession.

All of this would suggest that in setting interest rate policy, the Fed should be forward-looking and consider the major negative shocks at home and abroad with which the U.S. economy will have to grapple. Unfortunately, in clinging to its backward-looking, data-dependent policy, the Fed shows no sign of changing policy course anytime soon. By so doing, the Fed risks setting us up for a harder economic landing than would be needed to contain inflation.

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Desmond Lachman was a deputy director in the International Monetary Fund’s Policy Development and Review Department and the chief emerging-market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney.

Image Credit: Reuters. 

Last week, a user on the War Thunder gaming forum named BarteG98PL posted a complete technical manual for the AH-64D Apache Longbow – a modernized iteration of the long-serving helicopter gunship that entered service in 1997 and continues to fly for the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and several other nations. Based on our research, this could be as high as the 30th time a document of this sort has found its way into War Thunder’s forums.

With yet another batch of restricted documents now apparently leaked on forums associated with this popular game, these breaches of security have gone from semi-comedic novelty to what sure seems like a legitimate threat to the national security of more than one nation… But are they really?

In this era of internet trends collecting steam as they roll down the hill of online hyperbole, it can be difficult to assess just how grievous these breaches truly are, let alone how or why these leaks keep happening. But based on our findings, the ever-growing tale of War Thunder leaks seems to be less of a story about secrets being revealed by gamers, and more like media outlets and social media users really liking the idea of secrets being revealed by gamers.

WHAT IS WAR THUNDER ANYWAY?

War Thunder touts itself as “the most comprehensive free-to-play, cross-platform, MMO military game” available on various computer operating systems and console platforms. That modern acronym, MMO, stands for Massively Multiplayer Online, which denotes the ability to play in a single server shared with a large number of other real players.

The game advertises the player’s ability to control a wide variety of very real military platforms, ranging from aircraft to armored vehicles, to various warships and more. And it’s that ability to simulate combined-arms combat, along with its apparent dedication to realism, that has inspired a loyal fanbase since its initial beta release in 2012, followed by a mobile version of the game released for smartphone users just this year.

“The game is great for a combination of realism for some players, and arcade for others,” explains U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Ethan Long. Long is a Patriot Fire Control Operator and Maintainer by day, and a popular TikTok and YouTube content creator who goes by the name Habitual Line Crosser by night.

War Thunder‘s ability to pit vast numbers of real people against one another in highly realistic combined-arms battles, as well as the ability to play the game for free, has cultivated a massive player community. According to the gaming statistics site ActivePlayer.io, War Thunder sees a jaw-dropping 500,00 to 700,000 players each day. But War Thunder‘s online presence extends far beyond the confines of the game itself, with countless digital communities devoted to game-related discussions found throughout the world’s digital common areas like Steam, Reddit, and, of course, War Thunder’s official forum.

At the time of writing this piece, the official forum on Warthunder.com has a stated 31,885 users, and the War Thunder subreddit has more than 391,000. And despite writing this at 11 AM on a Wednesday morning, Steam not only shows more than 100,000 discussion threads related to War Thunder, but a mind-boggling 82,667 users currently playing the game through its platform and 3,000 more in the game’s group chat.

War Thunder users on Steam as of 9/29/23 at 11:07 AM EST

It’s safe to say that, while the MMO aspect of this game may scare off some old-timers like me, War Thunder has a massive following that includes many military technology enthusiasts and even many who are currently serving or have served in military forces around the world. But while its realism serves as a big part of War Thunder‘s international allure, it can also become the subject of some seriously heated debates within the game’s various online communities.

WHY DO LEAKS KEEP HAPPENING ON WAR THUNDER FORUMS?

War Thunder

For most players like Long, War Thunder’s realism adds to the fun of the game.

“The realism and simulation modes take [War Thunder] to the next level,” Long tells us. Aside from managing his growing media empire and serving on active duty, Long is also an avid gamer. “Level of penetration, weapons range, angle of the target, location of ammo storage… All of these things are taken into account.”

Long says that players who study real military systems often excel during gameplay, but for a handful of obsessive players, any departure from that realism can quickly become a sore spot… or even, an obsession. Debates about system capabilities are commonplace in the War Thunder forums, and sometimes, these debates lead to players posting restricted documents as proof that they’re right.

As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, there have been between 11 and 30 leaks of restricted documents in War Thunder forums so far (depending on how you count them), with the earliest dating back to July of 2021 and the most recent occurring just a few days ago. The problem has become so prominent that the War Thunder Wikipedia page has an entire section devoted to these leaks, though, to date, only 11 of the leaks we’ve identified are listed within it.

Of course, not all of the leaks that we could confirm to date came as a result of digital mudslinging. Some of these leaks came from motivated players who wanted to see their favorite platforms hurried into the game. They hoped that by providing very real technical data to the programmers at Hungarian-based Gaijin Entertainment – the developers behind War Thunder – they could expedite the process of getting them fielded on the virtual battlefield.

Gaijin, it is worth noting, may be headquartered in Budapest, Hungary these days, but it was actually founded in Moscow in 2002 by twin brothers Anton and Kirill Yudintsev. In 2012, the firm expanded into Germany and has since opened additional offices in Latvia, Cyprus, Armenia, and the United Arab Emirates. More than one gamer has accused War Thunder of embellishing the capabilities of Russian military hardware to give them an advantage, though these claims are hotly disputed by others within the player community.

The company was accused of providing indirect financial support to Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine in January of 2021 after logos for War Thunder and another popular Gaijin game, Crossout, were seen in a video tied to these groups. The company denied any involvement in the video in a statement released soon thereafter.

“We do not provide political support to anyone anywhere. We know nothing about politics and prefer to stay out of it. Our agency that ordered an ad in the video in question took it down when they realized they might drag us into a political discussion. We have nothing more to comment regarding this, we prefer to talk about games and games only,” reads the Gaijin statement.

So, with all that context out of the way, let’s run through each of the leaks to date, the systems or platforms that were compromised, and the severity of the breach in security to see if we can’t assess if the War Thunder community poses a serious threat to national security… or if it’s just prime headline and meme-fodder in a world full of sensational takes.

I want to make sure to credit Steam user VoidVexy, as his list of leaks in Steam’s War Thunder guide was the most extensive I could find in my research.

ALL OF THE WAR THUNDER LEAKS SO FAR (AND HOW SERIOUS EACH WAS)

UHT-665 Eurocopter Tiger

Date of Leak: Possibly 7/16/2021

System’s Nation of Origin: France/Germany

What was leaked: According to media sources, the armor layout of the Eurocopter Tiger. This leak is particularly difficult to nail down, as the post has been deleted and different media sources claim the leak occurred in July of 2021, while other sources claim it occurred in late 2022.

Severity: Because this rotorcraft has been in service across multiple nations over the span of two decades, it’s unlikely that adversary nations do not have any reference material regarding its armor layout, but without more information regarding exactly what was leaked, assessing its strategic value is difficult.

Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank

Date of Leak: 7/17/2021

System’s Nation of Origin: U.K.

What was leaked: A player who self-identified as a Challenger 2 Tank commander in the UK military posted excerpts from the tank’s AESP (Army Equipment Support Publication) to prove that the game developer didn’t “model” the Challenger 2 properly in the game. The AESP is, for lack of a better term, a user manual of sorts, which outlines things like maintenance and repair operations for operators.

The player claimed to be a Challenger 2 tank commander out of the Tidworth garrison in Wiltshire, which is the home of a Challenger 2 regiment. He also claimed to be a former member of the UK’s Armoured Trials and Development Unit and a qualified instructor in armored fighting vehicles and tank gunnery among other things.

The user wrote:

“Linking those screenshots with the following edited image from the AESP’s which is meant to show the relationship of the various components. The image isn’t exactly to scale as its only meant to show the position of components relative to each other but it works for the point I’m trying to make here. The trunnion’s sit centrally of the rotor. The trunnions support the rotor in the turret structure and the GCE sub components as previously stated are all mounted to the rotor.”

According to multiple sources, the documents had the words, “UK RESTRICTED” crossed out, with an “unclassified” stamp over them, and did have some portions covered over.

According to a forum moderator, they received written confirmation that the images posted remained classified at the time. They posted the following response:

Severity: While certainly restricted, the document leaked was, in effect, the Challenger 2’s user manual, which is fairly widely distributed to all Challenger 2 crewmen and maintainers both within and beyond the UK’s borders. As such, it’s somewhat unlikely that this leak provided adversary powers with information they were not already able to gain access to during the quarter-century this tank has been in service.

LeClerk Main Battle Tank

Date of Leak: 10/6/2021

System’s Nation of Origin: France

What was leaked: During a debate about the turret rotation speed of the LeClerk main battle tank, one user – who claimed to be a LeClerk crewman in the French Army – resorted to posting portions of the tank gunner’s manual along with some details about the speed in which the turret in the LeClerk Series 2 tank they served in could rotate.

After the user’s claims were not taken at face value during the debate:

The same user then returned to post portions of the platform’s gunnery manual in an attempt to prove that they were correct.

Within a few hours, the document was taken down and the moderators served up a heap of admonishment for the breach of security.

Severity: Once again, despite the information in this manual being restricted, the manual itself is fairly widely distributed among tank crews and maintainers. As a result, it’s unlikely that adversary nations gained any new insight into the platform or its performance as a result of this leak.

DTC10-125 Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS)

Date of Leak: 6/5/22

System’s Nation of Origin: China

What was leaked: In the first leak to emerge in the War Thunder forums from a non-NATO nation, a debate about the penetration capabilities of the Chinese DTC10-125 tungsten penetrator, a tank-killing round leveraged by a variety of China’s tanks, one user posted an image of the round resting atop what appears to be a previously unreleased technical diagram of the weapon.

Severity: Although the technical diagram shown in the image does not appear to have ever been released to the public, we were able to verify that most of the information visible has been released in various foreign sales brochures and similar documentation (though to be clear, it’s possible that some of this information hadn’t been previously).

Likewise, we found multiple reports that this image had been shared on other websites previously, particularly some within Chinese internet websites, but we were unable to conclusively prove it. However, because we were able to verify much of this information was already publicly available rather quickly, it seems unlikely this leak truly compromised secret details about this weapon.

F-15E Strike Eagle

Date of Leak: 1/18/2023

System’s Nation of Origin: U.S.

What was leaked: In what may be among the largest leaks of restricted documents, a slew of Operational Flight Program (OFP) software manuals for various F-15E Strike Eagle systems were all uploaded at once by an overzealous user. The list included manuals for the AN/APG 70 radar, as well as more specific manuals for the radars operating in air-to-air and air-to-ground modes, among others.

Severity: All of these documents were dated between 1998 and 2000, and to be clear, they’re all from Operational Flight Program Suite 3, which has been subject to a series of updates and replacement efforts in the years since. The Air Force fielded OFP Suite 9.1 in the Strike Eagle in Fall, 2022 – making these documents rather dated. That does not, however, mean there are no commonalities between the dated systems and their more modern iterations.

The documents themselves were declassified, though their distribution is still considered restricted. Nonetheless, because of the age and fairly widespread dissemination of these documents, it’s unlikely they produced any revelations for adversary nations.

F-16A Fighting Falcon

Date of Leak: 1/18/23

System’s Nation of Origin: U.S.

What was leaked: Shortly after the F-16 Fighting Falcon was introduced to the game, one user took to the forums to highlight something about how the F-16A leveraged America’s long-serving radar-guided AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air missile, or AMRAAM, along with documents to support his position.

“Interesting thing I found during my research. During early AMRAAM testing you can see how F-16A would equip the AIM-120 and use TWS on the non-MFD stores control panel “SCP”,” the user wrote.

In this context, TWS stands for “track while scan,” MFD stands for “multi-function display,” and SCP stands for “Stores Control Panel.” The Stores Control Panel has since been replaced by the Multi-Function Display.

Severity: As you might imagine, documentation associated with the F-16A, which is the earliest iteration of the fighter that began production more than 45 years ago, is rather dated – and the documents themselves have been declassified. However, moderators argued that sharing these documents still amounted to a violation of America’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) export manual.

With 25 or so countries operating the F-16 and these documents being both widely distributed and rather dated, it’s unlikely this leak resulted in any actionable intelligence for foreign adversaries.

Shenyang J8-B

Date of Leak: 1/31/23

System’s Nation of Origin: China

What was leaked: Despite entering service in 1980, China’s J8 can be thought of, to some extent, as an enlarged and improved version of China’s previous J7 – itself a licensed copy of the Soviet MiG-21 that’s been flying since the 1950s. The J8-B, however, saw significant reworking, incorporating more modern design elements borrowed from aircraft like the MiG-23 and F-4 Phantom to keep it competitive.

This time, the leak came as a result of a user’s complaint about the game’s depiction of the J8-B’s avionics – specifically, its ballistic computer in the Heads Up Display lacking a Constantly Computed Impact Point (CCIP) to show the pilot where their ordnance would impact.

Along with his argument, the user also posted a file called “Printout for the modification of J-8II, pt. Flight Operations,” said to be “composed by Institute 601, Ministry of Astronautics Industry.”

Severity: Despite being rather dated, the J-8 is actually still in service, transitioning from its original interceptor role to serve as a “scout aircraft” in China’s air force. Because these aircraft have not been sold to foreign operators, it stands to reason that documentation regarding its avionics may be limited, so it is possible this leak resulted in some gained insight into the fighter’s onboard systems, but significant value remains unlikely, particularly since the aircraft’s radar and fire control systems were updated in 2000.

Eurofighter Typhoon DA7

Date of Leak: 8/30/23

System’s Nation of Origin: France/Germany

What was leaked: In a first for War Thunder leaks, this time a restricted document wasn’t uploaded to win an argument, but instead because the user really wanted another aircraft added to the game as a playable platform. To expedite that process, the user uploaded a complete 730-page manual for a specific Typhoon prototype known as Development Aircraft 7 (DA7). The DA7 prototype was built for testing by the Italian Armed Forces.

Severity: Once again, nothing in the document posted was considered “classified,” with seven of its pages marked as “NATO Unclassified” and the rest marked as “NATO Restricted” – denoting that these portions were not meant to be shared outside of NATO member nations.

This specific document has been available online in other places for a few years now, which is likely where the user got his hands on it in the first place. As such, it’s unlikely this leak resulted in any actionable intelligence for adversary nations.

F-117 Nighthawk

Date of Leak: 9/11/23

System’s Nation of Origin: U.S.

What was leaked: According to multiple media sources, one user in the War Thunder forums leaked a series of screenshots taken of the F-117A’s flight manual, allegedly showing engine specifications, sensor locations, and more. Unlike in previous instances, where moderators simply removed the documents uploaded, the entire thread was taken down after the leak was identified.

Severity: Once again, this leak was not of “classified” materials, but rather material that is generally considered to be restricted, despite its availability to the public. In fact, a simple Google search for the F-117’s flight manual produces a number of interesting results that share more information than could be gleaned by these War Thunder leaks.

AH-64D Apache Longbow

Date of Leak: 9/15/23

Nation of Origin: U.S.

What was leaked: The Apache Longbow began production in 1997 and remains in service for a long list of nations including the United States. Once again, a debate between users prompted one to post a link to the helicopter’s technical manual in an effort to prove a point. The post was once again taken down by moderators and the user who uploaded it has been suspended.

Severity: Once more, the document uploaded is considered unclassified, though the documents themselves are said to have been marked “DOD AND DOD CONTRACTORS ONLY.” However, once more, you can easily find this manual in its entirety online with the right search terms, suggesting the intelligence value of this leak was all but moot.

MiG-29 and Su-57

Date of Leaks: 12/22 – 1/23

Systems’ Nation of Origin: Russia

What was leaked: In the first leak out of Russia, debate about the capability of the nation’s 4th and 5th generation fighters ultimately led to the posting of two different documents. One of these leaks highlights the Sukhoi Su-57’s radar cross-section, while the other focuses on the radar system capabilities of the MiG-29.

Severity: Once more, despite the restricted nature of at least one of these documents, the information contained within was hardly groundbreaking. While the thread has been taken down, the document showing the Su-57’s poor stealth performance was likely the Sukhoi patent paperwork that has been making the rounds on the internet for some time. Likewise, the excerpts from the MiG-29 user manual are equally easy to come by. In fact, the entire manual itself is available for download from multiple sources online.

SO, WHAT’S THE REAL STORY WITH THE WAR THUNDER LEAKS?

As is so often the case when stories about military technology reach the mainstream media, the real driver behind media coverage of these “leaks” isn’t their technical value at all, but rather, the public’s general interest in the story as a seemingly endless source of highly meme-able hot takes.

Throughout our research into these War Thunder leaks, we have been unable to identify anything that might provide foreign adversary nations with any truly valuable intelligence. In fact, aside from a few cases where the language barrier may have inhibited our ability to search through foreign websites, we were able to locate alternate sources for these documents all over the web. Often, these alternate sources had been hosting the documents for years, and in many, the documents remain available even after War Thunder moderators nuked the leaks on their forum.

Of course, that isn’t to say that posting these documents in an online forum is a good idea. It, of course, isn’t. But the truth is that national governments devote significant resources to gaining access to legitimately classified documents and designs, scour digital spaces for actionable intelligence, and go to great lengths to manipulate program insiders into revealing the latest breakthroughs in Defense technology.

For these War Thunder leaks to have real value to adversary nations, it would suggest that these nations have access to the War Thunder forums… but not the rest of the internet where these documents remain available.

At the end of the day, the War Thunder leaks story is an exploration into how pop culture shapes media coverage — with a number of outlets bending over backward to infer the severity of these leaks, but few making much of an effort to determine their actual severity at all. In a real way, a great deal of the coverage associated with these leaks could be summed up by the old adage, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.“

Of course, as our friend Habitual Line Crosser puts it, serious or not, “the cyber training guy would be very disappointed in War Thunder players.“

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Jason Wells / Shutterstock.com

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Washington sanctioned 25 Chinese individuals and entities for trafficking fentanyl-laced drugs.

Why it matters, and how worried we should be about it.

As the curtains fell on the UN’s annual high-level meetings last week, the world was left with an unsettling message: the international order is crumbling, and no one can agree on what comes next.

The focus of the week—the one time of the year that most of the world’s leaders are all in the same place—was meant to be on urgently accelerating global action on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Yet, against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical tensions, the war in Ukraine, coups in Africa, the escalating climate crisis and the ongoing pandemic, a different theme emerged: the fracturing and fragmenting of the global order, and the urgent need to reform the United Nations before it’s too late.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s opening address to the UN General Assembly was both a rallying cry and a stark warning: ‘Our world is becoming unhinged. Geopolitical tensions are rising. Global challenges are mounting. And we seem incapable of coming together to respond.’

Describing a world rapidly moving towards multipolarity while lamenting that global governance is ‘stuck in time’, Guterres warned that the world is heading for a ‘great fracture’. Urging the renewal of multilateral institutions based on 21st-century realities, he left no illusions about what will happen if this doesn’t happen: ‘It is reform or rupture.’

Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed this in a powerful address to a special UN Security Council high-level open debate later in the week. He warned that the gridlock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the UN meant that humankind could no longer pin any hopes on it to maintain peace and security. He then called for meaningful reform—including on the use of the veto in the UN Security Council.

It’s a sentiment shared by Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. In her address to the UN Security Council, she called for urgent reform, including ‘constraints on the use of the veto’. She condemned Russia’s use of its position as a permanent member of the Security Council to veto any action ‘as a flagrant violation of the UN charter’, and later told the media that ‘across many issues, the UN system is falling short of where we want it to be and where the world needs it to be, but what we want to do is to work with others to ensure that the United Nations evolves’.

While the existence of the veto prevents any Security Council action from being taken against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine (or against the other four permanent members), the UN charter more broadly—by design—makes any reform of the UN incredibly difficult and extremely unlikely. And given that US President Joe Biden was the only leader of a P5 country to actually show up to the UN for leaders’ week, it’s not clear that even Western countries like the UK and France are committed to the UN—the bedrock of the international system since World War II.

Where does all this leave a multipolar world teetering on the brink? With the existing order already so divided, how do we reimagine and agree on a global system that can meet the challenges of the 21st century?

After all, if, despite being a blatant breach of international law and the UN charter, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t caused any meaningful reform to yet take place, what will?

Indeed, the fact that the broader international community is relatively ambivalent about holding Russia to account for its ongoing atrocities in Ukraine is a testament to Russia’s and China’s efforts to dilute multilateral institutions and create an alternative world order that’s more accommodating of autocracies.

Confronted with these dynamics, the international community stands at a pivotal juncture. The decisions made now will determine the trajectory of the global order for decades to come. As Guterres said in his opening address, the international community is presented with a stark choice: reform and rally behind a renewed vision of multilateralism, crafted collaboratively to meet the multifaceted existential challenges of our times; or continue to pursue self-interest above all else, and prepare for a rupture.

By the looks of things, in this rapidly changing landscape marked by division and lack of consensus, we must steel ourselves for what lies ahead: an era of ‘unhinged’ global disorder.

Mercedes Page is a senior fellow at ASPI.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Reuters.