The National Interest

Richard Douglas

Gun Sig Sauer, Americas

The SIG P239 was meant to be a competitor to the Glock 19 and it could be again.

With Glock rising in the firearms market with a compact 9mm called the Glock 19, Sig needed a small, concealable pistol to compete. It was discontinued for a reason, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a bad firearm. Did Sig make a mistake in discontinuing it or are we better off without it? Find out in my review of the Sig P239.

Accuracy

It should be no surprise that a Sig firearm shoots astoundingly well. I had relatively high expectations for the P239 and they were well met during my shooting tests. You can expect to be consistently hitting shots at twenty-five yards with ease; you can even land hits at over 100 yards, but not with much precision.

The bottom line is that the accuracy on the P239 is exceptional despite only having a 3.6-inch barrel, but you’ll likely be purchasing this gun for concealability. The P239’s accuracy is unrelentingly accurate at close ranges. At ten yards, this gun’s precision is only limited by the shooter.

Concealability

Concealability is where the Sig P239 suffers the most. Despite the P239 being released a full eight years after the Glock 19, it ends up being a bit clunkier than it should be. Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely conceal this, but you’ll be losing nearly half your mag capacity even at a comparable size to most other compacts.

It’s not a big gun by any means, but it just doesn’t feel like the Sig brand name is worth concealing because of the size compared to its sub-compact magazine capacity. You’ll also find the P239 to be rather chunky a little over twenty-five ounces. The weight alone drove me away from this pistol as a viable option.

It may not seem like a significant amount of weight, but when you combine that with its large frame, and weak mag capacity, it’s just not really on the table as a contender for an everyday carry. It just doesn’t stack up to countless other competitors with all these factors taken into account.

Reliability

After mag dumping 250 rounds and frequent long-term shooting, I can safely say that the Sig P239 won’t quit on you any time soon. Sig has never really had an issue with reliability, I wasn’t expecting any hitches and didn’t experience any. If your P239 somehow misfires, it’s likely to be a user error, instead of the actual weapon.

I did my absolute best to get this pistol to malfunction, but it just wasn’t happening, even while I was shredding through ammo. Even in the months following, it never jammed. Sig has reliability covered in both the long-term and short-term no problem.

Recoil

While the weight makes this gun a little heavy, that weight redeems some of that with its recoil-reducing properties. While it’s heavy, it’s not very big and with small guns, you expect some snappy recoil but the Sig P239 has no such problems. In fact, the soft recoil makes up for the heftier weight. It’s easy to control and then snap right back on target for follow up shots.

The flat-shooting nature of the P239 even spoiled me a little bit because other compact 9mm’s didn’t even come close to the recoil control of the P239.

Price

The price is another issue I have, but it’s a Sig. What else did I expect? This handgun had an MSRP of over one grand upon its release; now it’s a slightly less painful $799.99 which is still pretty pricey for a simple guy like me. This is a quality firearm and the price reflects that even if there’s a couple of issues I have with it.

Is the Sig P239 Worth It?

The P239 was great for its time, but I’m not convinced of its practicality in the modern era since I don’t have any nostalgia for its original release. It’s still a great firearm regardless of my quarrels with it. Here’s why:

• Reliability (zero malfunctions, even during stress testing)
• Accuracy (flawless accuracy limited only by the shooter’s ability)
• Recoil (a flat shooting dream with easy recoil management)

The Sig P239 is no slouch, it’s just been outpaced and it’s still worth your time if you like Sigs.

Richard Douglas is a long-time shooter, outdoor enthusiast and technologist. He is the founder and editor of Scopes Field, and a columnist at The National Interest, Cheaper Than Dirt, Daily Caller and other publications.

Image: Amazon.

Donna Ford

Education, The Americas

Black students are underrepresented in gifted education programs.  Amid numerous articles about how Black students lag behind others in educational achievement, occasionally you may hear about a young Black “prodigy” who got accepted into college at an early age. According to Donna Y. Ford, an education professor at The Ohio State University, there could be far more Black prodigies. But it would take the right support from families, who may not be familiar with some of the characteristics of gifted students and the existence of gifted programs, and educators, who often overlook the talents of Black students. Indeed, while Black students represent 15.5% of the student population in the U.S., they represent only 9.9% of all students in gifted and talented programs. In the following Q&A with education editor Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Professor Ford – who has been a consultant for Black families thinking about sending their gifted children to college early – argues that public schools are holding back Black talent rather than cultivating it. The Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Jamaal Abdul-Alim: Why do public schools so often fail to identify gifted Black students?

Donna Ford: The No. 1 reason for the underrepresentation of Black students in gifted education is the lack of teacher referrals, even when Black students are highly gifted. I definitely think stereotypes and biases hinder educators from seeing Black students’ gifts and talents. In most schools in the U.S., if you are not referred by an educator, you will not move through the identification pipeline for gifted education programs and services, as well as Advanced Placement. It starts and it stops with teachers.

This is why Black families have reached out to me. They’re saying, “This predominantly white-female discipline” – meaning teachers – “is doing my child an injustice.”

They’re saying, “I’m frustrated, I don’t know what to do other than pull my child out and home-school.” You don’t see a lot of Black home-schooling. If the parents are able to do it, they have the means.

Abdul-Alim: Are these children really prodigies or do they just have parents who are just really actively involved and concerned about their children’s education, and recognize the public schools are doing them a disservice?

Ford: There’s a lot of controversy in the field about how children become gifted, no less a prodigy. To me, it’s not just nature or nurture. It’s both. So nature is they have the capacity, the potential. And then nurture is they have the experience, the exposure, the opportunity, access. And that includes the families who have the means and wherewithal to advocate for their children or to nurture whatever potential is there. But personally and professionally, I believe that the most important factor – for students being very gifted and prodigies – is the environment. That means their families, and their cultural, social and economic capital.

Abdul-Alim: But doesn’t that kind of point away from the idea of these children being “prodigies”? Because if the thing they have in common is well-educated parents who have high incomes, it seems like almost any child in that situation could achieve similar educational results.

Ford: A prodigy just means that you have children who are performing at the level of an adult; that’s the basic definition of a prodigy. So that has nothing to do with their income and families, education, etc. It is about how they are performing. They’re playing the piano like an adult who has taken lessons. They picked up on these skills and skill sets very easily. Or they are inventing mathematical formulas that you would only see adults doing. They’re in middle school and can do the work of college-level students. You can have this potential, but if you don’t have these opportunities at home, at school, even in the community, then the gifts and talents that you have may not come to fruition at the highest level.

Abdul-Alim: When families come to you about whether or not to enroll their young child in college, what do you generally advise them to do or to consider?

Ford: There’s a lot of variables to consider. One is the child’s emotional and social maturity. I think their size is important. Are they small for their age? That can contribute to some social and emotional issues, in particular bullying or isolation. Do they have siblings who are older who might be intimidated or negatively affected by their younger sibling being accelerated?

Abdul-Alim: What is your advice to families who can’t afford to home-school, but who have children who could very well be higher-performing if given the opportunity? How does society provide opportunities for children who fall in that category?

Ford: I want the families to become familiar with what the barriers are. So when Black families have contacted me about their child not being identified as gifted or not being challenged like their white classmates, then I point them to the Civil Rights Data Collection website, which is run by the U.S. Department of Education. I have them look specifically at what the data says for representation in gifted programs and Advanced Placement classes. I ask them to look at suspension and expulsion by race and corporal punishment, if that exists in their schools, which it does in some states, and very last, take a hard and critical look at all the data.

You can go straight to data for your child’s district or school building. And so, they can come armed with these demographic data showing underrepresentation in gifted and Advanced Placement, but overrepresentation in certain categories of special education as well as discipline, such as suspension and expulsion. And when they come informed, then sometimes – not always – the educators are put on notice. And they do what they’re supposed to do anyway, which is share information with families about how to gain the resources and opportunities that their children need.

Donna Ford, Professor of Special Education, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

South China Sea Oil, Asia

The entire contested region is chock-full of valuable resources. Or is it? 

Stretching from Singapore and the Strait of Malacca in the southwest to the Strait of Taiwan, the South China Sea long has been considered one of the most important trade routes in the world.

The vast sea is also known to be rich in resources that can help meet the quickly rising energy demands of nearby countries.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, it is estimated that the South China Sea holds about fourteen trillion barrels of natural gas and sixteen to thirty-three billion barrels of oil in proved and probable reserves—most of which are situated along the margins of the South China Sea rather than under the long disputed islets and reefs.

Despite what seems to be high figures, the exploitable oil, in fact, makes up only a tiny percentage of the global supply.

“(It) would account for about one year of China’s daily consumption if it magically dropped into the Chinese market tomorrow,” Gregory Poling, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the National Interest.

“The gas is more substantial, but it is only commercially viable if it is piped to the nearest coastlines for use. So, the stuff nearest Vietnam isn’t useful to anyone but Vietnam, and the same for the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.”

Although international disputes regarding the South China Sea often make headlines, Poling added that there likely aren’t any significant global energy-related implications for the United States or other Western nations.

“The energy argument itself has really been a red herring in South China Sea discussions. The real implications for the United States and other nations are that China’s threats to the right of other nations to tap their own energy resources amounts to an unacceptable threat to international maritime law, and there are few American foreign policy interests as abiding as defending freedom of the seas,” he said.

“And if China’s at-sea coercion of U.S. partners and allies, especially the Philippines, challenges U.S. credibility as a regional security provider and therefore ultimately risks undermining American forward presence via its alliance network.”

Still, several of the countries bordering the sea have declared ownership of nearby islands to claim the surrounding sea and its plentiful resources.

China, however, has made dozens of moves to shut down further resource development in energy-hungry Vietnam and other smaller nations, as Beijing aims to force all foreign oil and gas companies out of the South China Sea.

China’s chief goal is undoubtedly to be the only potential joint development partner for rival sea claimants.

For example, China has harassed energy explorers in Malaysian waters and has sunk several Philippine and Vietnamese fishing boats in contested sea areas. In 2017, China forced Spain’s Repsol from Vietnam’s Red Emperor project via threats to the communist nation.

The one exception that was allowed is Vietnam’s current drilling projects with Russian oil firms, including Rosneft and Gazprom, with Beijing not wanting to confront Moscow.

There, however, have been instances of countries fighting back. For example, in 2014, when China positioned a massive exploration rig within sight of Vietnam’s coast, violent anti-China protests erupted and forced China to evacuate its citizens. Critics of the Vietnamese government, though, often accuse it of not taking a hardline stance against China regarding sea disputes.

China also has seemingly reached out to some nations, such as the Philippines, for cooperation on oil and gas exploration, though how genuine those advances are remains to be seen.

Just last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi highlighted China’s increasing desire to move the focus away from maritime disputes to joint exploration of resources in the sea.

“Both sides believe that the South China Sea issue is only partial to the entirety of Sino-Philippines relations,” Wang said during a press conference.

“We should not let such 1 percent difference derail the 99 percent of our relations.”

For the most part, the United States had stayed out of the regional conflicts but has insisted that freedom of navigation would not be affected by territorial spats over the Spratly and Paracel island chains, which have been contested by an array of countries like China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

“Any (Chinese) action to harass other states’ fishing or hydrocarbon development in these waters, or to carry out such activities unilaterally, is unlawful,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last year.

He added that Washington stood “with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources.”

According to the U.S. State Department, it has been estimated that China is effectively blocking the development of $2.5 trillion worth of oil and gas resources in the South China Sea. Other notable analysts have put that hefty figure even higher.

The statement from State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus reads in part: “China’s actions undermine regional peace and security (and) impose economic costs on Southeast Asian states by blocking their access to an estimated $2.5 trillion in unexploited hydrocarbon resources.”

It continued: “U.S. companies are world leaders in the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbon resources, including offshore and in the South China Sea. The United States therefore strongly opposes any efforts by China to threaten or coerce partner countries into withholding cooperation with non-Chinese firms, or otherwise harassing their cooperative activities.”

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.

Traci Morris

Politics, The Americas

Indian Country and the Interior Department have had a history fraught with controversy that makes this nomination particularly powerful.

President Biden’s nomination of U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to lead the Department of the Interior is historic on many levels. Haaland, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, was one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, along with U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas. And if confirmed, she will be the first Native American to head the agency that administers the nation’s trust responsibility to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Indian Country has a significant history with the Interior Department that has more often been bad than good. But Haaland’s record shows that she is committed to making progress on larger challenges that affect all Americans. She has been especially vocal on climate, environmental protection, public lands and natural resource management.

As the executive director of one of the only Indigenous policy institutes in the nation, a scholar of Indigenous studies and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, I’ve been acutely aware of Haaland’s work since she was elected to Congress in 2018. I’ve tracked her leadership on issues such as broadband access and infrastructure for Native nations.

To Indian Country, Haaland is viewed as everybody’s “auntie.” Having her in leadership gives Native America a seat at the policymaking table. For New Mexico she has been a productive member of Congress, reelected in 2020 with over 58% of the vote. And while a few Western senators have called her views “radical,” I believe that Native issues are American issues. If Haaland is confirmed as interior secretary, many observers expect her to provide bold leadership for an agency that oversees what is arguably the heart of America: its land.

A big portfolio

Haaland grew up in a military family, raised a daughter as a single parent and worked in tribal administration before entering politics. A self-described “proud progressive,” she supports policies including a ban on hydraulic fracking, the Green New Deal, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a national single-payer health care system.

Haaland’s knowledge of Native and Western issues are important credentials for heading the Interior Department. Created in 1849, the agency manages U.S. cultural and natural resources. It has nine technical bureaus, eight offices and 70,000 employees, including many scientists and natural resource management experts.

The department’s portfolio includes national parks and wildlife refuges, multiuse public lands, ocean energy development, regulation of surface mining and mine cleanups and research conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. It oversees the use of more than 480 million acres of public lands, mainly in Western states, 700 million acres of subsurface minerals and 1.7 billion acres of the outer continental shelf along U.S. coastlines.

The Interior Department oversees more than 480 million acres of public lands, mostly in the Western U.S. USGS

One key departmental mission is fulfilling the trust responsibility – a legal obligation that the U.S. has to uphold promises made to tribal nations in exchange for their lands. This political relationship is derived from 370 treaties between the federal government and Native nations.

Tribal nations are part of the family of governments in the U.S., along with the federal and state governments. There are 574 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations that have a nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. government via the trust relationship. They are located in 35 states on 334 reservations. Tribal lands total 100 million acres.

According to the National Congress of American Indians, the trust responsibility covers two significant interrelated areas:

– Protecting tribal property and assets that the U.S. government holds in trust for the benefit of tribal nations.

– Guaranteeing tribal lands and resources as a base for distinct tribal cultures, including water for irrigation, access to fish and game and income from natural resource development.

The term “Indian Country” is a legal designation of tribal lands. It is also a philosophical definition of where we as Indigenous people are from.

Native nations and the Interior Department

Indian Country and the Interior Department have had a history fraught with controversy that makes this nomination particularly powerful.

One of the most significant issues has been the agency’s long-standing mismanagement of Indian lands on behalf of hundreds of thousands of individual Native Americans since the late 1880s. In 2009, the Obama administration negotiated a US$3.4 billion settlement in a long-running class-action lawsuit against the Interior Department. Elise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, brought the suit on behalf of more than 250,000 plaintiffs.

A current issue is the struggle over Oak Flat, a sacred Apache location in southern Arizona that is about to be mined for copper. The site is both culturally and archaeologically significant. Several different groups are suing to prevent mining there, and members of Congress have introduced legislation to block the federal government from transferring title to the land to mining companies.

Another example is the struggle over the Dakota Access Pipeline, which members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other water protectors argue threatens Native burial sites and water supplies. Still another controversy is the Trump administration’s decision to shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which protects sites that are sacred to more than 20 tribes and pueblos. President Biden is reviewing the Bears Ears decision, and tribes and environmental advocates are urging him to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Beyond these high-profile cases, Interior Department actions affect many other facets of tribal governance. For example, the Bureau of Indian Affairs oversees tribal gaming compacts and right-of-way infrastructure decisions for projects that cross Native lands.

Many of the agency’s resource stewardship activities also affect tribes. The department recently approved a drought contingency plan for the Colorado River that will impose water conservation requirements on multiple states, counties and tribes. And resource development proposals often affect lands that are important to Native Americans even if they are not officially part of a reservation, but are traditional homelands or sacred spaces.

Since the trust relationship includes a relationship between governments, all federal agencies must fulfill it. President Biden issued a Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening the Nation-to-Nation Relationships on Jan. 26. This policy statement, which builds on and expands similar declarations from Presidents Clinton and Obama, has been well received in Indian Country.

If Haaland is confirmed, Biden’s memo will require her to submit a detailed implementation plan and progress reports to the Office of Management and Budget. Tribal consultations are already planned. Policy experts expect that overall, Haaland will work to restore tribal lands, address climate change – which is significantly affecting Indigenous people – and safeguard natural and cultural resources. The Biden-Harris Plan for Tribal Nations outlines this agenda.

Indigenous issues are American issues

I believe that as secretary of the interior, Haaland will focus on issues that are important to all Americans, not just Indigenous people. Recent surveys show that a majority of Americans think the federal government should do more to combat climate change and protect the environment. “I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land,” Haaland said when her nomination was announced.

For Native Americans, seeing people who look like us and are from where we come from in some of the highest elected and appointed offices in the U.S. demonstrates inclusion. Indian Country finally has a seat at the table. The gravity of this position is not lost on Haaland, and I expect that she will make a difference for all Americans.

Traci Morris, Executive Director, American Indian Policy Institute, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Stephen Silver

iPhone 12, Americas

The tech powerhouse seems poised to rise to even greater heights.

Back in August of 2018, Apple became the first American publicly traded company to reach a market cap of $1 trillion. About two years later, the company’s value reached $2 trillion.

Now, a leading Apple analyst says the company has a shot at hitting a $3 trillion market cap by the end of the year, thanks to the success of the latest iPhone lineup.

“Given the fundamental strength we are seeing for this supercycle, coupled by a further re-rating on the horizon, we believe Apple will hit $3 trillion in market cap by year-end,” analyst Daniel K. Ives of Wedbush Securities said in the note.

“Importantly, with our estimation that 350 million of 950 million iPhones worldwide are currently in the window of an upgrade opportunity, we believe this will translate into an unprecedented upgrade cycle for Cook & Co,” Ives wrote. “We also believe there is an upward shift of ASPs for iPhones in this cycle as the iPhone Pro continues to be the predominant model sold globally, which bodes well for top-line numbers heading into the March and June quarters.”

Ever since the 2020 line of iPhones arrived on the market in October and November of last year, every indication has been that the iPhones are the most popular 5G smartphones in the world.

PCMag reported last week, citing Speedtest by Ookla and M Science data, that the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most popular smartphone in 49 of the 50 states, with only Vermont and Washington, D.C. preferring the iPhone 12 Pro.

When Apple announced its fourth quarter earnings, it had pulled in record revenue of $100 billion, which included $65.6 billion in sales from iPhones.

Ives’ report also addressed the recent saga of Apple’s plans to produce an electric car, which has entailed numerous reports of talks commenced and broken off with different manufacturers, including Hyundai and Kia.

“We believe at this point its a matter of ‘when not if’ Apple will enter the EV race over the next few years,” the analyst wrote of those plans. “While the timing of an EV partnership remains a key focus of the Street and EV industry over the coming months we assign a 85%+ chance that Apple will announce an EV partnership/collaboration over the next 3 to 6 months. With U.S. auto stalwarts GM and Ford announcing very aggressive EV endeavors over the past month and a Biden-driven green tidal wave on the horizon, we believe now is the right time for Apple to dive into the deep end of the pool on the EV front.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

Surupa Gupta

Politics, South Asia

While farmers may not have much power individually, they have been a force to contend with in Indian politics.

For over two months, farmers in India have been on a largely peaceful protest over three laws the Indian Parliament passed in September 2020 to liberalize how and to whom farmers can sell their produce.

Men and women, young and old, have been participating in these protests and show no signs of giving up. Tens of thousands of farmers from all over India came together on Feb. 6 to set up blockades across all main roads in the country, shutting down all traffic for nearly three hours.

As a scholar of the political economy of India’s agricultural sector, I argue that farmers in India, though not organized, have nonetheless been a formidable political force in the country. In the past, they brought the nation’s cities to a near standstill in disputes with the government, and they could do so again.

India’s regulated farm markets

The government claims that the new laws are meant to raise farmers’ incomes and transform Indian agriculture. According to the government, they will also end “excessive regulatory interference” and thereby encourage the private sector to invest in storage, transportation and other parts of the agriculture supply chain. The laws will, officials say, offer farmers the opportunity to market their produce to various groups of buyers – processors, retailers, exporters and so on.

In the past, the Indian government has played a major role in providing farm infrastructure in India.

In response to persistent food insecurity in the 1960s, the government put in place a set of policies that would increase agricultural production through the use of inputs such as high-yielding seeds, chemical fertilizers and adequate water and electricity supply.

On the demand side, the government bought grain and other commodities from the farmers, guaranteeing floor prices, and then distributed the food to consumers throughout the country.

To maintain price stability and to protect farmers from being ripped off by middlemen, the government created regulated markets. These policies, which began within two decades of India’s independence in 1947, were consistent with the socialist model of governance India had adopted.

However, according to experts, these regulated markets, created to protect farmers, emerged as obstacles to growth in the farm sector.

Farmers’ apprehensions

Under the Indian Constitution, regulation of agriculture happens at the state level. During the last two decades, several states have changed policies to make it easier for farmers to sell outside those regulated markets, but those policy changes were not enough to attract the private sector to invest in the agricultural supply chain. The government claims that the new laws will create uniform legislation across the country.

Farmers, however, are afraid that the new laws will drive down prices and drive the farmers off their lands.

They are also concerned about the unbalanced negotiating power with a powerful corporate sector, which would own infrastructure such as warehouses and refrigerated transportation.

The power of farmers

While farmers may not have much power individually, they have been a force to contend with in Indian politics.

Most notably, in the 1980s, farmers protesting low crop prices and demanding free electricity supply brought New Delhi to a standstill. At the time, farmers’ groups with diverse political ideologies from various parts of the country quickly unified behind their common demands.

At that time, in New Delhi, they held protest marches as a show of power; in rural India, they restricted entry of government officials into their own offices; and nationally, they blocked food transportation routes.

The federal government yielded to their pressure and raised the minimum support price of crops; many state governments offered free electricity to farmers.

Farmers also demonstrated their power on several occasions when the Indian government was engaged in negotiations to form the World Trade Organization. Pressure from farmers led India to demand high tariff protection – ranging from 100% to 300% – as a way to lessen the competition from imports.

India’s rural economy is still largely dependent on farming and related activities, and the farm sector accounts for nearly 50% of the workforce. Farmers also constitute an important voting bloc.

Nationwide support

The current protests are being led by farmers mainly from the northern states of Haryana and Punjab, states that are central to India’s food supply. These are the states from which the Indian government buys a majority of the wheat and rice that is eventually distributed at subsidized prices to consumers in the rest of India. In the past, farmers from these states have enjoyed enormous political clout as well. To add to the power of these protests, farmers from other states have been been joining the protests.

The current administration, thus far, has indicated that it will not roll back the laws. Prolonging the protest, in my view, makes the administration appear ineffective, a risk it can scarcely take with major state elections looming ahead. The protest is costly to farmers as well.

Although the protests have been largely peaceful so far, on Jan. 26, India’s Republic Day, clashes took place between farmers and the police. If that happens again, it would be an alarming prospect for all concerned.

Surupa Gupta, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Mary Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Charlie Gao

Security,

The gun is designed to perform "mercy kills," but not on people.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The pistol is not intended for assassinations. A closer look at the design and contemporary technology suggests that B&T was being honest with the name of the pistol.

B&T’s Veterinärpistole 9 (VP9) is one of the most niche products made by Swiss firearms manufacturer B&T AG. A bolt action pistol with a magazine grip designed to quietly kill wounded animals, it outwardly resembles the suppressed Welrod pistol used by the Allied Special Operations Executive (SOE) to assassinate targets during World War II. This, along with the stylish leather case the gun comes in, has led some to suggest that the VP9 is a modern stealth assassination pistol. But a closer look at the design and contemporary technology suggests that B&T was being honest with the name of the pistol.

In mechanical design, it’s amazing how much the modern VP9 resembles its predecessor, the Welrod. It wouldn’t be surprising if the VP9 project started as a way to see if the company could modernize the Welrod. The design of the trigger bar and grip safety are practically the same as the original Welrod, albeit made with better materials and manufacturing. The design of the bolt is also similar, with two locking lugs operated by a rotating knob on the rear of the pistol.

The suppressor itself is where the differences begin to be seen. B&T’s VP9 has a detachable suppressor that screws onto a very short barrel. The detachable suppressor makes it easier to interchange the wipes and perform maintenance on the suppressor. The detachable suppressor also means that the sights are moved onto the front of the upper “receiver,” rather than being on the tip of the suppressor as they are on the Welrod.

So why is the VP9 a true “veterinary” pistol? Part of it is the target market. Police in Germany are often called out to perform mercy kills on wounded animals, an action called a “Gnadenschuss” (directly translated, a mercy shot). These are usually carried out with hunting rifles or Bundeswehr surplus G3s. However, these usually end up bothering citizens due to the loud noise of a rifle shot.

The VP9 provides a quiet alternative that’s less likely to disturb citizens. It ships with a manual that shows the various positions to aim to quickly kill most animals. Prototypes of the VP9 were also capable of being fired with a “tool like” grip, so the VP9 can be used more discreetly than a normal suppressed pistol.

As for actual “assassination” weapons, suppressor and pistol technology have advanced considerably since the 1940s Welrod. For actual “combat” usage, a suppressed semi-auto pistol that provides follow-up shots will always be preferred to the bolt-action VP9. The short sight radius on the VP9 limits accuracy, and even in the case, the whole pistol is a relatively bulky deal.

Mossad assassins in the 1970s were known to use suppressed semi-automatic Beretta 71 pistols in .22LR, a cartridge that suppresses far better and provides rapid follow up shots. A Beretta with a suppressor is a far smaller package than the VP9’s entire case, with its wipes, spare magazines, and additional parts.

Charlie Gao studied Political and Computer Science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national security issues.

Image: Stealth Pistol

Rodney E. Rohde

Coronavirus, The Americas

Most children don’t get severely ill from COVID-19, but they can still spread the virus.

It may be summer before children under 16 can be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States. That’s a problem for reaching herd immunity quickly.

Children are a significant portion of the population – roughly 65 million are under the age of 16, making up 20% of people in the U.S. While children appear to face less danger of severe illness or death, they can still spread the virus, though how much young children contribute to transmission is still unclear.

Some simple math shows why America has an immunization numbers problem.

America’s immunization numbers problem

Initially, it looked like herd immunity could be reached when 60-70% of the population was immune. Herd immunity means that enough of the population has either been vaccinated or gained immunity through natural infection to stifle the virus’s spread.

However, research and expert opinions now tell us this number is likely much higher – in the 70-90% range due to highly transmissible virus variants that are emerging.

With children under 16 unable to get the vaccine, that leaves 80% of the U.S. population eligible to be immunized. A tiny percentage of those adults shouldn’t be vaccinated due to severe allergies to ingredients in the vaccines or other serious health conditions.

But not all of the remaining adults plan to get the vaccine. A large percentage – 32% in one recent national poll – say they either probably or definitely won’t get inoculated. In another poll, nearly half either said they won’t get the vaccine unless required to or they want to “wait and see” and how it works for others.

Without broadly vaccinating children to reduce COVID-19 transmission, herd immunity simply will not happen.

What about natural immunity?

You may be asking: What about all the people who have already been infected?

So far, the U.S. has had about 28 million confirmed COVID-19 cases. Since a large number of infected people never show symptoms, the CDC estimates that 83 million people in the U.S. were actually infected last year – about a quarter of the population.

At this point, however, researchers don’t know how long natural immunity lasts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who had COVID-19 should still get vaccinated.

The vaccination effort will still have an impact on the pandemic, even if herd immunity takes longer. As former CDC Director Tom Frieden pointed out to me, “Even without children being vaccinated, vaccination of adults will decrease deaths substantially and could decrease spread.”

When can kids get vaccinated?

One of the main questions among parents is when children can get the vaccine. The short answer: We don’t yet know.

First, the national vaccination process is still ramping up, starting with medical staff and the most vulnerable adults. About 1.5 million people are getting the vaccine each day, and each needs two doses.

Second, the two vaccines with federal emergency use authorization are only authorized for adults and older teens right now – Moderna’s for ages 18 and older and Pfizer’s for 16 and older.

Drug companies must run extensive tests on thousands of subjects to show their vaccines are safe and effective. While the FDA fast-tracked the COVID-19 vaccine trials for adults, the process for children will likely take longer due to factors like safety data. Depending on the vaccine technology, this data for children can take up to six months compared to two months for adults.

Moderna also had difficulty initially finding enough volunteers for its trials in adolescents. In mid-January, the company had only enrolled about a third of the 3,000 volunteers needed. Pfizer’s clinical trial for adolescents completed recruitment but has not publicly released data.

For younger children, Moderna’s CEO reported in January that the company would likely soon begin clinical trials for ages 1-11. Pfizer has not released details for that age range.

A third vaccine could also soon be in the mix. FDA advisers are expected to discuss Johnson & Johnson’s application on Feb. 26.

Frieden said it’s likely vaccines could be authorized for adolescents by summer. That would add children ages 12 to 15 to the vaccination eligibility list – another 5% of the U.S. population.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser on COVID-19 to the president, recently suggested a similar time frame. Vaccine trials in younger children will begin in the “next couple of months,” Fauci said, and “as we get to the late spring and summer, we will have children being able to be vaccinated.”

Rodney E. Rohde, Professor of Clinical Laboratory Science, Texas State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Eliga Gould

Politics,

The decline of impeachment in Britain coincided with the rise of another, more effective process by which high officials there could be held accountable.

Impeachment was developed in medieval England as a way to discipline the king’s ministers and other high officials. The framers of the U.S. Constitution took that idea and applied it to presidents, judges and other federal leaders.

That tool was in use, and in question, during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Republicans raised questions about both the constitutionality and the overall purpose of impeachment proceedings against a person who no longer holds office.

Democrats responded that the framers expected impeachment to be available as a way to deliver consequences to a former official, and that refusing to convict Trump could open the door to future presidential abuses of power.

An impeachment case that was active in Britain while the framers were writing the Constitution in Philadelphia helped inform the new American government structure. But the outcome of that case – and that of another impeachment trial a decade later – signaled the end of impeachment’s usefulness in Britain, though the British system of government offered another way to hold officials accountable.

Impeachment in Britain

During the 17th century, the English Parliament used impeachment repeatedly against the royal favorites of King Charles I. One, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, went to the gallows in 1641 for subverting the laws and attempting to raise an Irish army to subdue the king’s opponents in England. Although kings couldn’t be impeached, Parliament eventually tried King Charles I for treason too, sentencing him to death by public beheading on Jan. 30, 1649.

A century later, impeachment no longer carried a risk of execution, but in 1786 the House of Commons launched what would become the most famous – and longest – impeachment trial in British history.

The lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons, impeached Warren Hastings, who had retired as governor-general of British India and was back in England, for corruption and mismanagement. That action provides a direct answer to one current legal question: The charges were based on what Hastings had done in India, making clear that a former official could be impeached and tried, even though he was no longer in office.

Future U.S. president John Adams, who was in London at the time, predicted in a letter to fellow founder John Jay that although Hastings deserved to be convicted, the proceedings would likely end with his acquittal. Nevertheless, Adams and Jay were among those who supported the new U.S. Constitution, whose drafters in 1787 included impeachment, even though that method of accountability was close to disappearing from Britain.

Nearing the end of its usefulness

The trial of Hastings, in Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, didn’t actually begin until 1788, and took seven years to conclude. The prosecution included Edmund Burke, one of the most gifted orators of the age. Eventually, though, the House of Lords proved Adams right, acquitting Hastings in 1795.

This stunning loss could have been the death knell for impeachment in Great Britain, but Hastings was not the last British political figure to be impeached. That dubious honor goes to Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, Scottish first lord of the admiralty, who was charged in 1806 with misappropriating public money. Dundas was widely assumed to be guilty, but, as with Hastings, the House of Lords voted to acquit.

These examples showed that impeachment, even when the accused government official had done the things that he was accused of doing, was a blunt, cumbersome weapon. With both Hastings and Dundas, the House of Commons was willing to act, but the House of Lords – which was (and is) not an elected body and therefore less responsive to popular opinion – refused to go along. As a tool for checking the actions of ministers and other political appointees, impeachment no longer worked, and it fell out of use.

A new method of accountability

The decline of impeachment in Britain coincided with the rise of another, more effective process by which high officials there could be held accountable.

British prime ministers answer to Parliament, doing so literally during the now-weekly question time in the House of Commons. Leaders who for whatever reason lose the support of a simple majority in the lower house, including through a vote of no confidence, can be forced to resign. The last time a British prime minister lost a vote of no confidence was in 1979, when the minority Labour government of James Callaghan was defeated.

If a prime minister receives a vote of no confidence, there is an alternative to resignation: call an election for a new Parliament, which is what Callaghan did, and let the people decide whether the current government gets to stay or has to go. If the prime minister’s party loses, he or she is generally out, and the leader of the party with the new majority takes over. In 1979, the defeat of Callaghan and the Labour Party paved the way for the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister.

This provides an immediate course of action for those who oppose a British government for any reason, including allegations of official wrongdoing, and delivers a rapid decision.

In the United States, by contrast, a president can be accused of corruption or even sedition but face no real consequences, so long as one more than a third of the Senate declines to convict.

Now that Trump has been acquitted, then the Constitution’s bulwark against presidential malfeasance could become yet another mechanism of minority government.

Another path

If impeachment is rendered useless in the U.S., as it was in Britain two centuries ago, the Constitution does offer another remedy: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Originally intended to prevent former Confederates from returning to power after the Civil War, Section 3 bars people who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. from serving in state or federal governments, including in Congress or as president or vice president.

The language in the amendment could justify barring Trump from future office – and the resolution to do so may require only a majority vote in both houses of Congress, though enforcement would likely also need a ruling from a judge.

Eliga Gould, Professor of History, University of New Hampshire

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

James Pethokoukis

Politics, The Americas

Partisan primaries have developed into anti-democratic and elitist purity tests for candidates. Those who fail particular litmus tests on abortion, guns, or fealty to Donald Trump may find themselves defeated.

What is next for Donald Trump? There are reports that the former president is intending to play a role in the 2022 election. One report says his hit list includes Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC).

Note: All of these individuals are Republicans. Rather than support opponents in the general elections against the Democrats who harried him, the former president wants to use the 2022 primaries to get back at legislators who were insufficiently obedient.

None of this should be surprising. One of the hallmarks of Trump’s presidency was his predilection for trying to exact retribution through primaries. During his presidency, he goaded #MAGA candidates to challenge senators and congressmen who dared to publicly disagree. Remember Arizona Senator Jeff Flake and Bob Corker? They are just two of the GOP legislators who crossed Trump and then chose not to run the primary reelection gauntlet. Most infamously, on January 6, Trump threatened to “primary the Hell” out of any legislator who refused to try to thwart the counting of states’ electoral slates.

That the electoral primary has become a weapon of an aggrieved former president is a remarkable development. But for those elections observers who have been complaining about primaries for the past couple decades, it likely is no surprise.

The partisan primary, wherein each party allows only its registered voters to participate, came into vogue a century ago. It was a progressive reform that toppled the old system that had Democratic and Republican party bosses picking their candidates. Letting party members pick their candidate was much more democratic and likely reduced some of the corruption that occurred in the proverbial smoke-filled backrooms. A recent report by the Open Primaries Education Fund notes:

“The American system of primary elections worked, because most Americans were members of one of the two major political parties and had access to them as a result of the overlap between voter and party registration. From 1940 to 1960, independent voters hovered between 15% and 20% of all registered voters. In 1961, 80% of Americans were members of either the Democrat or Republican parties.”

Reality, however, has moved on, and partisan primaries have developed into anti-democratic and elitist purity tests for candidates. Those who fail particular litmus tests on abortion, guns, or fealty to Donald Trump may find themselves defeated.

The causes are twofold.

First, many Americans have grown weary of the two parties. Today, 40 percent of Americans are independents, and in many states they are forbidden from voting in primary elections. The reader would be wrong to imagine this exclusionary policy was the province of the GOP. Both parties like closed primaries, which exist in red states like Kentucky and blue states like New York.

Second, astonishingly few voters participate in primaries. Typically, somewhere between 20 and 35 percent of those eligible to vote in the Democratic and Republican primaries do so. And these are not low-stakes races like local dog catcher — these abysmal participation rates are for congressional and presidential elections. The few who turnout naturally tend to be the most intensely partisan and single-issue voters.

The effects on Congress are plain for all to see. Legislators fear working across party lines on any issues that might tick off their most passionate voters. Republicans refuse to cut a deal on immigration that looks like “amnesty” and Democrats flee any talk of reigning in entitlements, which consume about 70 percent of the budget. Many legislators want to reach compromises on pressing issues like these, but they don’t. Nobody wants to get primaried.

There is, obviously, a way out. The parties could open their primaries to independents. Some states, such as West Virginia, have made this reform. Other states, like North Dakota, have open primaries that permit anyone to vote in the primaries.

In the meantime, the primaries trap draws tighter on GOP legislators, as Donald Trump plots his moves.

This article was first published by the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters

James Pethokoukis

Politics,

Currently, concerns about populism are focusing more on politics than economic policies. That might be even more the case if the next two years proceed as many forecasters are predicting. But the possible persistence of populist economic thinking could be a longer-term threat to American prosperity.

Donald Trump is gone, but his populism lives on. It’s not just that President Biden, like his predecessor, has signed a “Buy American” executive order for federal purchasing that’s meant to bolster domestic manufacturing. (Fun fact: Economists Gary Hufbauer and Euijin Jung estimate that federal and state “Buy American” requirements cost US taxpayers an additional $94 billion in 2017.) Nor is it just that Biden seems to be in no hurry to eliminate existing China tariffs. One could also point to an economic plan that shows scant current concern for its impact on national debt levels. There are also signs of an aggressive regulatory stance towards Wall Street and Silicon Valley. In an essay last December, The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner urged Biden to govern as “progressive populist” and to reclaim “the economic populism that was once the essence of the Democratic Party and the allegiance of its voters.”

None of this — call it populism lite — would likely surprise the economists who authored the new VoxEU essay, “The cost of populism: Evidence from history.” The researchers assembled a cross-country database, identifying 50 populist presidents and prime ministers in the period 1900–2018. And one of their findings is that populism often isn’t a one-off event. From their analysis:

The key message from the figure is that populism at the government level appears to be serial in nature, as it is observable in the same countries again and again. We identify long and repeating spells of populist rule. Having been ruled by a populist in the past is a strong predictor of populist rule in recent years. Interestingly, half of the countries with recurring populist spells … saw switches from left-wing to right-wing populism or vice versa.

Source: “The cost of populism: Evidence from history”

Now, most politicians strike populist themes from time to time. Recall Al Gore’s 2000 campaign theme, “The People vs. the Powerful.” But to qualify as a populist, according to Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch, the leader must place “the alleged struggle of the people (‘us’) against the elites (‘them’) at the centre of their political campaign and governing style (for example, based on this definition, Putin, Reagan or Obama cannot be classified as populists, but Bolsonaro, Berlusconi, or Trump clearly can).”

Based on that criteria, I don’t think Biden would make the cut — at least not yet — since his campaign, at least, was based on a theme of unity rather than conflict. That said, one might naturally expect some other future presidential candidate to run more explicitly as a populist, based on both Trump’s electoral success and the historical evidence gathered by the economists.

Which leads to the other big finding here:

When populists come to power, they can do lasting economic and political damage. Countries governed by populists witness a substantial decline in real GDP per capita, on average. Protectionist trade policies, unsustainable debt dynamics, and the erosion of democratic institutions stand out as commonalities of populists in power. … There are only nine cases in which the populists left office in a regular manner. The large majority of exits (32 cases) were irregular, meaning that populist leaders refused to leave office despite losing an election or reaching the term limit (eight cases), they died in office (three cases), they resigned (13 cases) or were forced to resign because of a coup, impeachment or a vote of no confidence (eight cases). … The erosion of democratic norms may explain both the persistence and the negative economic outcomes of populism

Currently, concerns about populism are focusing more on politics than economic policies. That might be even more the case if the next two years proceed as many forecasters are predicting. But the possible persistence of populist economic thinking could be a longer-term threat to American prosperity.

This article was first published by the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: "Buy American" by carnagenyc is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

 

Michael E. Webber

Climate Change, The Americas

The central U.S. has freezes, heat waves, windstorms, droughts and floods. All of these events stress the electric grid, pipeline networks, roads, rail and waterways.

Editor’s note: Amid record cold temperatures and skyrocketing energy demand, utilities across the central U.S. have ordered rolling blackouts to ration electricity, leaving millions of people without power. Energy expert Michael E. Webber explains why weather extremes can require such extreme steps.

1. The Plains states have a lot of wild weather. Why is this cold wave such a problem for utilities?

The central U.S. has freezes, heat waves, windstorms, droughts and floods. All of these events stress the electric grid, pipeline networks, roads, rail and waterways. Right now in my state of Texas, ERCOT, a nonprofit corporation that manages the power grid for most of the state, is imposing rolling blackouts because demand for electric heating is very high. So is the Southwest Power Pool, which serves customers in 14 states from North Dakota to Oklahoma.

About 60% of homes in Texas have electric heat, and most of the rest use natural gas or propane. Normally our peak electric demand is on summer afternoons for air conditioning. But in this sustained cold, electric demand is spiking to keep homes comfortable and pipes from freezing. This storm is more extreme than the most severe winter conditions that ERCOT typically plans for.

At this time of year, power plants that run on coal or natural gas often shut down for planned maintenance ahead of the summer cooling season. That means we have less capacity available than usual right now.

To meet the difference between high demand and low capacity, utilities are cycling power on and off to different neighborhoods or regions of Texas in a methodical way to keep things in balance. If they didn’t do this, there would be a risk of a much wider-scale blackout, which would be catastrophic and life-threatening.

2. How do utilities plan for this kind of extreme weather?

Utilities everywhere follow the weather very closely. Temperature changes affect the need for heating and cooling, which drives demand for electricity and natural gas. Meteorological conditions affect the availability of wind and solar power.

Thermal power plants – which burn coal, natural gas or biomass – also need a lot of water for cooling to run efficiently, as do nuclear power plants. If climate change warms rivers or reduces their water levels, it could force those power plants to turn off or reduce their output.

Weather forecasting has improved as satellites become more abundant and computer models become more sophisticated. Utilities can take steps in advance of a major storm, such as asking customers to preheat their homes. For ratepayers who will do this, the utility may adjust their thermostats to reduce power flow when demand is high.

Power providers can also ask large industrial customers to temporarily shut down factories to reduce electricity demand. And they can give hourly or minute-by-minute updates to customers about rolling blackouts and provide real-time maps of power outages.

Utilities work year-round to harden the grid against extreme weather. They may build berms to protect power plants against floods, fill reservoirs in preparation for droughts, replace equipment that can get overheated in the summer or weatherize power plants for cold conditions.

Almost exactly a decade ago, in February 2011, Texas suffered a significant series of rolling blackouts when cold weather forced dozens of coal and natural gas power plants offline. This cold snap is testing the upgrades utilities made after that event.

3. Does having a diverse fuel mix protect against energy crunches?

Texas is blessed with multiple energy sources. Much of it is produced locally, including natural gas, wind and solar power. Over the past 15 years, the state has diversified its fuel mix: Coal use has dropped, wind and solar have grown, and nuclear and natural gas use have held steady.

Each of these options has pros and cons. Wind and solar do not require water cooling, so they work fine during droughts and floods. But they vary based on wind patterns, cloud cover and time of day.

Nuclear power is reliable, but sometimes nuclear plants have to reduce their output during heat waves or droughts if their cooling water is too hot or scarce.

Natural gas is a high performer, but in the 2011 Texas cold snap, gas plants struggled to keep up with demand because many homes and businesses were using the fuel for heat. That reduced the pressure in gas pipelines, which made it hard to physically move gas to turbines that needed the fuel to generate electricity.

Much of the coal burned in Texas power plants comes from Wyoming over a sprawling rail network that can be disrupted if a bridge or section of track is out of commission for repairs. Utilities store 30 days or more of coal in piles near their power plants, but those piles can freeze or be flooded, as occurred when Hurricane Harvey swamped Houston in 2017.

Because all of these options fail in different ways, a diverse mix is the best basis for a robust system. Today Texas has three times as much wind power-generating capacity as it did in 2011, which may help stave off the worst risks of a statewide blackout.

This extra wind will be especially important because about 30% of ERCOT’s generating capacity is offline right now, reportedly due to natural gas shortages. Some West Texas wind turbines have also shut down due to icing, but turbines in other parts of the state are partially offsetting those losses. ERCOT will investigate all power losses after this storm passes and use what it learns to make new improvements to its system.

4. California has had rolling blackouts recently, too. Is this a national risk?

California is a big state with power sources in many locations, so it relies on a sprawling network of wires and poles to move electrons from one place to another. Those power lines can sag when it’s hot out and fail when high winds blow trees down onto the wires.

Aging transmission and distribution networks can also spark wildfires, which is a growing risk as the effects of climate change worsen drought conditions in the West. To manage those risks, California grid operators will preemptively turn off the power to prevent wildfires. They also did this in August 2020 to ration power during a heat wave.

Weather-related power outages are increasing across the U.S. as climate change produces more extreme storms and temperature swings. States that design their buildings and infrastructure for hot weather may need to plan for more big chills, and cold-weather states can expect more heat waves. As conditions in Texas show, there’s no time to waste in getting more weather-ready.

Michael E. Webber, Josey Centennial Professor of Energy Resources, University of Texas at Austin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Nathan Bartlett

Coronavirus,

The AstraZeneca vaccine, sometimes also called “the Oxford vaccine”, is a core plank in Australia’s coronavirus vaccine plan, with the Australian government securing 53.8 million doses.

South Africa will pause its rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after a small study suggested it offers minimal protection against mild and moderate infection from the South African coronavirus strain known as B.1.351.

The South African health minister said the government was waiting for scientific advice on next steps.

A media release issued overnight by the University of Oxford said a study of about 2,000 volunteers with an average age of 31 found a two-dose regimen of the AstraZeneca vaccine (officially known as ChAdOx1 nCov-19):

provides minimal protection against mild-moderate COVID-19 infection from the B.1.351 coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa. Efficacy against severe COVID-19 infection from this variant was not assessed.

The analysis is yet to be peer reviewed or published.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, sometimes also called “the Oxford vaccine”, is a core plank in Australia’s coronavirus vaccine plan, with the Australian government securing 53.8 million doses. It’s worth remembering, though, that it’s just one of the vaccines that will be made available in Australia — and that vaccines are just one of a range of responses we will need to get the pandemic under control.

So what’s all this mean for you? There’s no doubt this news is disappointing — but it’s also no great surprise given how quickly this virus mutates. And it doesn’t yet mean Australia should abandon its plan to rollout the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The sobering reality is setbacks such as these are to be expected in vaccine development, especially when dealing with an agile, fast-mutating virus such as this coronavirus.

 

Still better for Australia to have AstraZeneca than not

It’s reasonable for the South African government to pause while it reflects on what these new data mean.

For Australia, it’s too early to bin the AstraZeneca vaccine as part of our rollout, especially as the South African variant is not yet prevalent here. If we did that every time we got new data, we would never get any vaccines out. I think, at this point, it is still better to have the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia than to not have it.

Based on Australia’s current circumstances, I think it’s reasonable to say we just need anything that will help reduce the risk of severe disease. That will help ease the burden on health-care systems.

We will get better vaccines coming out all the time. It’s an iterative process.

Encouragingly, Oxford said in its press release that:

Work is already underway at the University of Oxford and in conjunction with partners to produce a second generation of the vaccine which has been adapted to target variants of the coronavirus with mutations similar to B.1.351, if it should prove necessary to do so.

Such an agile virus demands a range of responses

These new developments highlight how quickly this incredibly agile coronavirus adapts and changes. While the level of infection remains so high, we must get used to the idea that new strains will be appearing all the time.

Vaccines are best suited to stationary targets and currently, SARS-CoV-2 is anything but — with so much human infection occurring, the virus has huge opportunity to mutate and generate variants.

Having said that, the newest vaccine technologies such as mRNA vaccines (including what’s commonly known as the Pfizer vaccine) can rapidly update and reformulate to keep up with mutant viruses.

Of course, it still takes some time to manufacture and distribute new vaccines so there will inevitably be a lag of months between identifying a new virus variant and making and distributing an updated vaccine.

A month is a long time in a pandemic. That underscores how critical treatments addressing these gaps are going to be if we are to have any chance of bringing this pandemic to an end within the next couple of years. Those responses will likely include antivirals that reduce duration of infection and other treatments that provide rapid, broad spectrum protection against viruses by directly boosting innate immunity in the airways.

Managing expectations

Vaccines can have amazing efficacy in clinical trials but things may be different in the real world when you are dealing with different populations and exposure to different virus strains. That is a normal part of vaccine development and global rollout, and we must manage expectations around this.

We always knew the first generation vaccines would be far from perfect, and certainly not a magic bullet. As scientists have said all along, this is a long game with incremental gains. And with so much research focused on beating this pandemic, there is huge reason for optimism.

We don’t want people to be discouraged from getting vaccines. Based on current circumstances and the fact the South African variant is not yet prevalent in Australia, the AstraZeneca vaccine will be one of a suite of responses that will help bring a reduction in serious disease in the first place — and ultimately prevent transmission as vaccines become more effective and supported by other treatments.

Just like you get a new flu shot every year, so it may be in the future you get a new coronavirus jab as better and more targeted vaccines become available.

New treatments will become available to support better and better vaccines, which will slowly but surely bring an end to this pandemic.

 

Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Robert Farley

Security, Middle East

There are several weapons that could be used to bolster deterrence.

Key point: Israel has a good triad and a robust deterrence. However, here is how it might build upon its mighty military.

With only a few notable exceptions, Israel can buy whatever it wants from the United States, generally on very generous terms associated with U.S. aid packages.

This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Notwithstanding the availability of weapons, however, Israel must still make careful decisions regarding how to spend money. Consequently, Israel can’t have quite everything that it would like, despite the continued good relationship with the United States and its arms industry. Here are a few US military systems that the Israelis could use:

Littoral Combat Ship: 

For a long time, the sea arm of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has examined the potential for warships somewhat larger than the corvettes that have historically dominated the force. As Israel’s maritime security interests increased (the necessity of maintaining the Gaza blockade, and of patrolling offshore energy deposits), this need has become more acute.

(This first appeared in 2016.)

Over the last decade, the IDF extensively studied the possibility of acquiring heavily modified versions of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship design. These would have had significantly different features, mainly making them less modular and more self-sufficient than their American cousins. On paper, the plan made a lot of sense; a high-speed, networked platform would fit in very well with the IDF’s operational concept. However, the necessary modifications drove up the cost of the warship, pricing it out of Israel’s range. Future changes in the market (or in Israel’s perception of need) might well shift the equation, however.

F-22 Raptor: 

The Obey amendment, which prohibits the export of the F-22 Raptor, was developed with Israel firmly in mind. Concerned about Israel’s transfer of high-technology equipment to Russia or China, the United States decided that domestic considerations meant it could not bar Israel from acquiring the Raptor without a blanket ban.

And so this has meant that only the USAF flies the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Historically, Israel has preferred fighter-bombers that can conduct both air superiority and strike missions, and the Raptor doesn’t yet have much in the way of a strike profile. However, the IDF purchased the F-15 when it was still primarily an air-superiority platform, then made the necessary modifications on its own to transform the fighter into a devastating bomber. The F-22, which otherwise serves Israel’s air superiority needs nicely, might have gone through a similar process.

Long Range Strike Bomber: 

Setting aside the periodic nonsense about Israel acquiring American B-52s, the long-term stand-off with Iran has demonstrated that Israel really could use a plausible long-range strike option. While Israeli F-15s and F-16s can, with refueling, reach targets in Iran, the immense distance would put them at a disadvantage as they tried to penetrate defended airspace. In this context, the Air Force’s B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber might seem attractive.

Of course, Israel hasn’t operated a strategic bomber since it retired a few B-17 Flying Fortresses in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the perceived need for an option that could penetrate Iranian air defenses and deliver heavy payloads might make the IDF reconsider its commitment to fighter-bombers. Whether the United States would ever consider exporting the bomber (which will likely fall under a variety of legal restriction associated with nuclear-delivery systems) is a different question entirely.

Massive Ordnance Penetrator: 

And what good are planes if they don’t have bombs to drop? Rumors of Israeli interest in the thirty-thousand-pound precision-guided bomb began to emerge at the beginning of this decade, fueling ideas in Congress about transferring the munition and an aircraft capable of delivering it. The MOP interests Israel because of its “bunker busting” capacity, which would give Israel the ability to hit deeply buried weapons facilities in Iran and elsewhere.

The United States has thus far declined to send the bomb to the Israelis, in no small part because the IDF still lacks a plausible delivery system. The Obama administration also worried about giving Israel the tools it needed to strike Iran would upset the regional balance. But geostrategic changes (or domestic political shifts in the US) might alter that calculation.

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

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

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

Ballistic Missile Submarine: 

Israel’s submarine force teeters on the very edge of presenting a plausible deterrent. The IDF submarine arm has done excellent work with its group of transferred Dolphin-class subs. However, diesel-electric submarines carrying long-range cruise missiles simply cannot match the performance, endurance, or security of nuclear boats.

This is not to say that Israel needs, or could use, something analogous to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. However, a more modest boat with a smaller number of missiles of limited range could indeed prove very useful to Israel’s efforts to create a robust second-strike capability. A flotilla of four such boats would provide a nearly invulnerable retaliatory capacity.

Israel has most of what it needs from the United States; in several areas, the technical capabilities of the IDF exceed those of the U.S. military. But in some areas the Israelis could take more advantage of U.S. technology, especially if strategic necessity and financial reality came together in more productive ways. Given the dynamism of Israel’s economy, the IDF may have the chance to avail itself of some of these opportunities in the near future.

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This article first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

David Axe

Security, Europe

The escalating deployments point to growing readiness for war on both sides.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Russian planes flew over the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula before turning south into the so-called Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a maritime chokepoint in the North Atlantic.

Russian submarines are deploying farther, in greater numbers, than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The undersea surge has prompted NATO to initiate a surge of its own, launching large numbers of maritime patrol planes to find, track and practice sinking the Russian boats.

But there’s evidence Russia is doing the same thing, sending its own patrol planes farther south than they normally fly.

The escalating deployments point to growing readiness for war on both sides.

British and Norwegian Typhoon and F-16 fighter jets scrambled two times in late February 2020 to intercept pairs of Tu-142 patrol planes belonging to Russia’s Northern Fleet after the Tu-142s flew farther south than normal and approaches Norwegian air space.

“These Russian aircraft operate relatively routinely over the seas north of Norway,” Maj. Brynjar Stordal, a spokesperson for the Norwegian armed forces, told The Barents Observer. “It is not common that they fly as far south as they did this week.”

The Russian planes flew over the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula before turning south into the so-called Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a maritime chokepoint in the North Atlantic.

“Breaking through the GIUK gap in a potential conflict would be important for the Russian navy when establishing the ‘bastion defense’ concept, protecting the ballistic missile submarines patrolling in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean,” The Barents Observer explained.

The Tu-142 flights coincided with the beginning of a major NATO exercise in Norway. Exercise Cold Response involved 15,000 alliance troops from nine countries.

“We have experienced in the past that allied exercise activities in out neighborhoods has led to some increased activity from Russian surveillance capacities like this,” Stordal said.

NATO isn’t alone in staging large-scale war games. The Russian navy in mid-October 2019 sortied eight subs in the country’s biggest undersea exercise since the Cold War.

The eight submarines, including six nuclear-powered ships, sailed from their bases in northern Russia into the cold waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas. At the same time, an additional two boats -- the nuclear-powered Sierra-class attack submarines Pskov and Nizhny Novgorod -- sailed into roughly the same waters for tests and training.

The 10 vessels represent around 20 percent of the Russian submarine force. For comparison, the U.S. Pacific Fleet with its roughly 30 subs as recently as 2013 reliably could deploy eight boats on short notice.

More than a dozen NATO patrol planes flew back-to-back missions in order to find and track Moscow’s submarines. Amatuer plane-spotters using commercial software kept tabs on the planes’ transponders.

It’s unclear how many NATO submarines also joined the hunt for the Russian boats.

Between Oct. 25 and Nov. 7, 2019, the NATO planes flew more than 40 missions. Six Norwegian air force P-3s, four U.S. Navy P-8s and a Canadian air force CP-140 flew from Andoya in Norway. At least one additional P-8 flew from Keflavik in Iceland. A French navy Atlantic 2 patroller staged from Prestwick airport in Scotland.

Russian submarines also have extended their patrols across the Atlantic to the U.S. East Coast. In response, the U.S. fleet in March 2020 is doing something it hasn’t done in decades. Practicing to protect convoys.

“The Navy is exercising a contested cross-Atlantic convoy operation for the first time since the end of the Cold War, using a carrier strike group to pave the way for sealift ships with a cruiser escort to bring the Army ground equipment for the Defender-20 exercise,” USNI News reported.

The nuclear-powered supercarrier USS Eisenhower is leading the current convoy exercise. “The Ike, along with an unidentified submarine sweeping the depths of the ocean for unexpected Russian guests, is participating in an exercise that will throw simulated attacks at the convoy to stress test how prepared the Navy is to punch its way across the Atlantic,” Breaking Defense explained.

But NATO isn’t the only one preparing for undersea warfare, as the spike in Russian aerial patrols indicate.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared last year.

Venkatesh Shankar

economy, The Americas

Today, Amazon is the third-most valuable U.S. company – behind Apple and Microsoft – with a market capitalization of around US$1.7 trillion, greater than the gross domestic product of all but a dozen or so countries. Here’s how Bezos reshaped retailing.

Amazon announced Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO almost 27 years after he founded the company to sell books to customers over dial-up modems.

Amazon wasn’t the first bookstore to sell online, but it wanted to be “Earth’s biggest.” When it first launched, a bell would ring in the company’s Seattle headquarters every time an order was placed. Within weeks, the bell was ringing so frequently employees had to turn it off.

But Bezos – who will remain at the company – set his sights on making it an “everything store.” After achieving dominance in retail, the company would go on to become a sprawling and powerful global conglomerate in numerous lines of business.

Today, Amazon is the third-most valuable U.S. company – behind Apple and Microsoft – with a market capitalization of around US$1.7 trillion, greater than the gross domestic product of all but a dozen or so countries.

Here’s how Bezos reshaped retailing.

Redefining retail

Amazon – named after the world’s largest river – continually took shopping convenience to newer levels.

Before Amazon’s founding on July 5, 1994, shoppers had to travel to stores to discover and buy things. Shopping used to be hard work – wandering down multiple aisles in search of a desired item, dealing with crying and nagging kids, and waiting in long checkout lines. Today, stores try to reach out to shoppers anywhere, anytime and through multiple channels and devices.

After first experiencing two-day free shipping from Amazon’s Prime membership program, shoppers started expecting no less from every online retailer. An estimated 142 million shoppers in the U.S. have Amazon Prime.

The company made shopping more convenient through features like one-click ordering; personalized recommendations; package pickup at Amazon hubs and lockers; ordering products with the single touch of a Dash button; and in-home delivery with Amazon Key.

Shoppers can also search for and order items through a simple voice command to an Echo or by clicking an Instagram or Pinterest image. Amazon even has a cashier-less “Go” store in Seattle.

Amazon has also been a factor in the rising closures of brick-and-mortar stores that can’t keep pace with the changes in retail. Even before the pandemic, stores were closing at a phenomenal rate, with analysts predicting a coming “retail apocalypse.” Amazon benefited enormously last year as much of the U.S. went into lockdown and more consumers preferred ordering goods online rather than risking their health by going to physical stores.

Amazon’s share price has almost doubled since the lockdown began in March 2020, even as over 11,000 retail stores closed their doors.

A major employer

Amazon’s impact extends to other industries, including smart consumer devices like Alexa, cloud services like Amazon Web Services and technology products like drones.

Such is Amazon’s impact that industry players and observers use the term “Amazoned” to describe their business model and operations being disrupted by Amazon.

Today, Amazon is the second-largest U.S.-based publicly listed employer and the fifth biggest in the world. It employs 1.2 million people, having hired 427,000 during the pandemic. No wonder Amazon created such a buzz in 2018 when it held a competition to select a location for its second headquarters. It eventually picked Arlington, Virginia.

Amazon’s work culture is intense. It has a reputation as a cutthroat environment with a high employee burnout rate. It is automating as many jobs as possible, mostly in warehousing.

At the same time, after criticism from policymakers, Amazon stepped up in 2018 and raised the minimum wage for its U.S. employees to $15 per hour.

Faced with growing criticisms about the mounting impact of Amazon’s boxes and other packaging material on the environment, Amazon has also pledged to disclose more information about its environmental impact.

The next generation

What’s in store for Amazon as Bezos steps down from his CEO role later this year?

Bezos, who will stay on as Amazon’s executive chairman, has previously said his focus is on preventing Amazon from dying. As he noted at a 2018 all-hands meeting, “Amazon is not too big to fail.”

As a professor of marketing who has conducted research on online retailing and analyzed hundreds of cases, I believe that Amazon’s future – and humanity’s – is inextricably linked to the rise of artificial intelligence. Starting with Alexa, the company’s virtual assistant, Amazon is betting on AI.

In fact, Amazon is testing anticipatory shipping, a practice in which it anticipates what shoppers need and mails the items before shoppers order them. Shoppers can keep the items they like and return those they don’t want at no charge. It is also betting on cashier-free stores and AI-powered home robots.

Amazon’s future success will depend on how the incoming CEO – current head of cloud computing Andy Jassy – navigates these new technologies while pushing the company into more industries, such as health care and financial services.

His challenge is to keep Bezos’ legacy and Amazon’s disruptive culture alive.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 3, 2019.

Venkatesh Shankar, Coleman Chair Professor of Marketing and Director of Research, Texas A&M University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

History, Asia

Japanese-American interpreters serving in the U.S. Army provided valuable service to the Allies in the Pacific.

Here's What You Need to Know: During the war and for many years thereafter, the American public knew little about the service provided by the MIS linguists to the Allied forces.

American soldiers of Japanese ancestry made remarkable contributions to the Allied victory during World War II. The best known of their exploits was the outstanding fighting record compiled by the 100th Infantry Battalion and later the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during the European campaigns. The soldiers of the 442nd received more decorations than those of any unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.

Less well known were the World War II contributions made by Nisei (American-born children of Japanese immigrants) troops on the other side of the globe in the Pacific and the China-Burma-India Theaters. The U.S. Army kept their service classified as secret until 1973 when the Freedom of Information Act finally provided the vehicle for the public release of this fascinating story. What were the reasons for this delay? Certainly, the story of the hazardous and valuable contributions of this group of soldiers merited the attention of the American public much sooner than 28 years from the war’s end to the ultimate release of the information.

During the course of the war, some 6,000 AJAs (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) provided valuable language and information skills for Allied military and naval personnel throughout the Asian and Pacific areas. Their efforts proved to be doubly dangerous since, because of their racial identity, they could be mistaken for enemy soldiers by their own forces. In many cases, the linguists had to be provided with heavily armed bodyguards to keep them out of harm’s way. On several occasions, Nisei soldiers were taken captive by their own comrades in arms who were unaware of the role played by the AJAs in defeating the enemy. It is believed also that in more than one situation the Japanese Americans involved in frontline action were killed accidentally by friendly fire because of mistaken identity.

The MISLS

Prior to the commencement of World War II itself, the U.S. War Department recognized the need for developing a facility capable of translating the Japanese language—to monitor broadcasts, translate documents, and to communicate, if necessary, with the Japanese. One of the world’s most difficult tongues to master, Japanese was known and understood by few Americans. However, there were 200,000 American-born Japanese and their parents living in the United States. Unless born in the United States, Asians, by law, were excluded from citizenship, so most of the Issei, the foreign-born parents of the Nisei, could not change their legal status.

It was from the pool of Nisei that the War Department planned to recruit Japanese language experts. It ordered the testing of the nearly 4,000 AJAs serving in the Army at that time to determine their competency in Japanese. As it turned out, few of the young soldiers could read, write, or speak that language with any fluency. Most had made, to a greater or lesser degree, the transition to “the American way of life.” English had now become their principal language. The U.S. Army, depending on two Caucasian officers who knew Japanese, Lt. Col. John Weckerling and Captain Kai Rasmussen, established what came to be called the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at Crissey Field, on San Francisco’s Presidio Army base.

Weckerling and Rasmussen, in turn, began to recruit Nisei instructors to lead the classes. John Aiso, of Burbank, California, and a Harvard Law School graduate, became the school’s chief instructor. He was followed by Akira Oshida, Arthur Kaneko, and Shigeya Kihara, who managed to locate the necessary written materials for class use. In the short span of six weeks, the team assembled a staff, an initial class of students, and the buildings and supplies needed to begin the project.

The first class of 60 students at the Presidio commenced its studies on November 1, 1941. Fifty-eight members of the initial group were Japanese Americans. Two Caucasians with previous language training completed the first cadre. Five weeks later, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and other U.S. military installations on Oahu. Military authorities seemed confused as to the future of the new language school. The Army pulled both Weckerling and Rasmussen from the project and assigned them to other jobs. Fortunately, some Army officers realized the importance of the work that had begun and ordered Rasmussen back to the Presidio. The Danish-born immigrant with a native ability for learning foreign tongues remained head of the language training program thereafter.

The curriculum was designed to improve the students’ ability to communicate verbally, to read and understand Japanese military terminology and documentation, to translate intercepted radio messages, to read maps, and to understand the basics of cryptography. Later in the war, the school’s graduates proved effective in what came to be called “cave flushing,” the persuading of Japanese soldiers and civilians hiding in caves in combat areas to surrender rather than resist or commit suicide.

Recruiting Nisei in a Time of War

After the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, requiring all Japanese Americans, whether foreign born or American citizens, to vacate the coastal areas of the western states and enter some 10 relocation facilities, dubbed by some critics of the program as concentration camps. In accordance with this policy, the Army established a new facility for the language school at Camp Savage, Minnesota. Rasmussen began a desperate campaign to find Nisei with sufficient knowledge of the Japanese language to undergo the planned intensive training. Soon the demands for the expansion of the program resulted in its being moved to more adequate headquarters at nearby Fort Snelling, a permanent Army installation.

Rasmussen shouldered the task of selling recruits on the importance of the mission. His candidates often had whole families confined to the relocation facilities, living under extremely trying conditions. Nevertheless, he managed to acquire recruits for a variety of reasons. Some candidates felt that participating in the program would demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. Others felt that the language program would at least get them out of the relocation camps and could possibly open up other opportunities. By the fall of 1944, almost 1,800 students had completed extensive training in a variety of courses that would prove useful to the American military.

As the graduates streamed out of the Minnesota facility, they received assignments throughout the Pacific, from the Aleutian Islands campaign in the far north to General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, which became the center for the ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Service). At its peak the facility had over 3,000 AJAs serving at that location. The other two major centers for the assignment of the Nisei language specialists were JICPOA (Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area) in Hawaii and SATIC (Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center) in New Delhi, India. From these key facilities the AJAs were sent to various subordinate units and on special missions.

The need for language school graduates far exceeded the supply, and Rasmussen became increasingly desperate to find candidates. He turned to the Japanese Hawaiians, for this group contained a far larger number of Kibei, American citizens who had been sent by their families to study in Japan, than the AJAs living on the mainland. The Kibei could be expected to quickly learn the curriculum developed at the Minnesota facility. The Hawaiians proved to be a hard sell. Many of them preferred to serve with the 100th Infantry Battalion, consisting of Nisei from their home territory.

Facing Discrimination within the Armed Forces

General MacArthur, commander of U.S. forces in the South Pacific, had a great deal of respect for and confidence in the language specialists. He counted on them heavily to interpret all Japanese military documents that fell into Army hands. The translation of these often critical documents aided in the planning of future campaigns.

Ultimately, the AJAs would serve in every major area in the Pacific and the China-Burma-India Theaters throughout the war and act as language experts for Australian, British, Indian, and Chinese troops, as well as for their fellow Americans. The Commonwealth troops and the Chinese had no Japanese language specialists of their own.

The Military Information Specialists, MISers as they came to be called, all served in the Army. The Navy, clinging to archaic patterns of racial discrimination, refused to allow Nisei to enlist in its branch of the service. The same practice existed for the Marines as well. As a result, those two branches later came to depend on borrowed MISers from the Army on a temporary basis whenever the need arose. More than 100 were assigned to the Marines during land campaigns under such an arrangement. Yet. the role that the MISers played in the battles never appeared in Marine dispatches.

Linguists as Interrogators

Initial attempts to draw information from Japanese prisoners of war proved difficult. Capturing them alive was a major problem itself, for the Japanese soldier had been programmed to fight to the death. The Army managed to take only 28 prisoners, about 1 percent of the defenders, when the Japanese were driven from the Aleutian island of Attu. The ferocious fighting that took place on Iwo Jima resulted in only 38 prisoners. Having once secured a prisoner, however, the interrogators quickly learned that he would respond to kind and courteous treatment. Often the simple act of offering a cigarette, some medicine, a glass of water, or a small bandage for a wound would establish a mood of cooperation during the captor’s search for critical military information.

As the war progressed, the language specialists became increasingly effective in the art of persuading Japanese soldiers both to surrender and to divulge vital military information. The Japanese Army had apparently never taught its soldiers how to conduct themselves as prisoners of war since their military ideology stressed either victory or death in battle.

Nisei as a Tactical Asset

Nisei translators accompanied the Army throughout the campaign in the South Pacific. They served at Guadalcanal, the Solomons, the Carolines, New Guinea, and the Philippines, as well as in smaller and more limited engagements. MISers also accompanied the fabled Merrill’s Marauders during their raids behind Japanese lines in Burma. They performed the same service for the British Chindit guerrillas as well. A specially trained group of Nisei language experts joined OSS (Office of Strategic Services) commandos who worked with the Kachins, native Burmese fighters from the country’s northern hills. These guerrillas aided the Allies in their mission to open the Burma Road to resupply China with critical war materiél.

On the Front Lines in Okinawa

Possibly the most outstanding performance by the Nisei in the Pacific Theater took place during the struggle for Okinawa. This central island of the Ryukyus, some 350 miles south of the Japanese Home Island of Kyushu, represented the key to the southern defenses of the Japanese empire. To the advancing Allied forces its capture would provide an ideal staging area for the invasion of Japan itself. The fight for the island would prove to be the greatest battle of the Pacific War.

The Japanese 32nd Army defended Okinawa. Its commander, Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, led a force of some 75,000 Japanese soldiers plus an additional 25,000 or so Okinawans organized into a Boetai or Home Guard. These defenders were situated in an extensive system of fortified caves and underground tunnels, awaiting the arrival of the invading American Tenth Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. The total American force—ships, men, and equipment— numbered over 500,000 men, of which 180,000 assault troops (five Army and three Marine divisions) would actually go ashore.

The MISers’ contribution to the invading army’s ultimate success in capturing Okinawa was substantial. A copy of the Japanese Army’s final defense plan was captured early in the fighting. Also discovered was a contour map of the island, which was found on the body of an enemy artillery observation officer. The translation and reproduction of these critical documents by the language specialists proved to be of immense value to the American forces.

Okinawa presented a unique challenge to the language specialists. The island’s native inhabitants spoke a local dialect unfamiliar to the ears of most of the MISers unless their parents were originally from the island. The 450,000 Okinawans had also been warned by Japanese Army personnel that they would be raped, tortured, and killed by the invaders. In many cases, the civilians followed the Japanese as they began their retreat in the face of the powerful offensive launched against them by the Americans. Many chose to hide in caves and the tunnels. The job of the MISers consisted of trying to talk both the Japanese soldiers and the Okinawan civilians into surrendering.

Most Japanese soldiers chose to commit suicide rather than surrender, and they had urged the island’s civilians to do likewise. During fighting on the island of Saipan in the Marianas, many of the island’s civilians had committed suicide by hurling themselves off 800-foot cliffs into the sea. More than 50,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died as the U.S. Army seized control of Saipan.

For the Okinawa campaign, the Army followed the suggestion of a MISer whose parents were Okinawan and set up a special unit proficient in that dialect. As the invasion progressed, the group worked to get the island’s civilians away from the fighting. They also quickly identified any Japanese Army personnel who sought to escape capture by trying to blend in with the Okinawan civilians.

Some of the Okinawan language specialists became “cave flushers.” One heroic member of this group entered a cave and convinced its inhabitants, 350 Japanese officers and men, to surrender. Another MISer entered a total of 12 different caves and persuaded the holdouts in 11 of them to surrender.

Without question, the work of these Nisei translators saved thousands of lives, among both the Okinawan civilian population and the Japanese military. By the time the Americans secured the island, some 10,000 soldiers had given up in the only meaningful mass capitulation by the Japanese military of the entire Pacific War. About 300,000 civilians, approximately two-thirds of the island’s population, also survived the holocaust. While it was true that many Japanese soldiers and some Okinawan civilians still chose to commit suicide rather than surrender to the American forces, there is no doubt that the toll would have been much higher were it not for MISer efforts.

A Postwar Role

The work of the Nisei translators was not concluded at war’s end. They traveled throughout the Pacific, participating in the surrender of Japanese troops on small islands and in major cities. They moved quickly to POW camps as well to ensure the safety of Allied troops in Japanese hands. They also acted as interpreters during the war crimes trials of Japanese soldiers that followed in the Philippines and Japan. Their postwar contributions proved equally as important as their wartime efforts.

The Army sought to hold on to as many AJAs with Japanese language skills as possible following the war because the United States needed their skills during the occupation of Japan. Many Nisei chose to make a career in the Army, receiving advancement in the officer structure as time passed, before eventually retiring.

Legacy of the MISers

The MIS linguists earned three Distinguished Service Crosses, five Legion of Merit medals, and five Silver Stars. They also received numerous Bronze Stars, Soldier’s Medals, and Purple Hearts. In total, 39 MIS personnel gave their lives in the service of their country.

During the war and for many years thereafter, the American public knew little about the service provided by the MIS linguists to the Allied forces. During the war, many MISers had relatives still in Japan, some even in the Japanese Army. The U.S. Army sought to protect the identity of the translators, so as not to bring harm to these family members. There has also been a natural reticence on the part of the Nisei themselves to discuss their accomplishments while in the service. However, General George Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, estimated that the work of the MISers shortened the war in the Pacific by two years.

The MISLS was moved to Monterey, California, after the war, and the language center has grown significantly since it began in 1941. It has remained the major U.S. facility for the instruction of foreign languages for military purposes. More than 100,000 students have passed through the school to date. It currently offers instruction in 50 different languages and has a library of 20,000 volumes on site. In January 2000, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service finally received a Presidential Unit Citation from the secretary of the Army.

Dr. Carl H. Marcoux is a World War II veteran of the U.S. Merchant Marine and a Korean War veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He resides in Newport Beach, California.

This article first appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Flickr

Peter Suciu

Security, Middle East

The Iranian government has been seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction technology and ballistic missile systems.

Here's What You Need To Remember: “Iran, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Syria, made efforts to procure goods and know-how for the further development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,” wrote the intelligence officials.

Multiple sources reported earlier this week that a German state intelligence agency has confirmed that the Iranian government was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technology and ballistic missile systems. Saarland’s Department for the Protection of the Constitution said the Islamic Republic was one of three foreign countries that sought to advance its WMD program on German soil.

“Iran, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Syria, made efforts to procure goods and know-how for the further development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,” wrote the intelligence officials for the Saarland reported The Jerusalem Post.

“Delivery system” would refer to the capability to launch missiles. Israel, the United States and many Persian Gulf nations all believe Iran has continued to seek to develop nuclear weapons and could obtain such technology by the end of this year.

Germany, along with France and Great Britain, has supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal. 

German Reports 

Multiple German intelligence reports have also confirmed that Tehran sought to purchase components used in the development of nuclear and missile weapons in 2019.  

Saarland's Department for the Protection of the Constitution is just one of the domestic intelligence services. Each of the sixteen German federal states has its own intelligence agencies, and each issues an annual report that documents threats to the state's democratic system. 

A report from the Baden-Wurttemberg state intelligence agency also reported that “countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are making efforts to optimize corresponding technology,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday.

An additional report from Baden-Wurttemberg on the proliferation of atomic, biological and chemical weapons also revealed how those countries listed above have continued illegal procurement efforts in Germany to perfect the range, deployability and even the impact of the respective weapons.

Saarland’s intelligence service also noted the apparent illicit nuclear weapons of Pakistan in Germany and abroad and reported, “Pakistan also operates an extensive nuclear and carrier technology program and continues to endeavor to expand and modernize, in order to retain a serious deterrent potential against the ‘Arch enemy’ India.”

Many experts believe Pakistan's nuclear stockpile has been steadily growing, and the German report only confirms such concerns.

Russian Style Tactics 

The Saarland agency also reported that Iran—along with China—is replicating Russia's tactics to target dissidents and opponents within Germany.

“The intelligence staff there (Iran), supposedly working as diplomats or journalists, conduct open or covert information gathering themselves or provide support in intelligence operations that are carried out directly by the headquarters of the intelligence services in their home countries. In addition, intelligence services also carry out operations without their legal residences being involved. The focus of their respective procurement activities is based on current political requirements or economic priorities.”

The Jerusalem Post also reported that Tehran has used German territory for surveillance and assassination operations targeting Iranian dissidents, pro-Israel advocates and Israeli and Jewish institutions. The Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence and Security has been known for its secrecy and efficiency, and now it appears that it has taken root—deep roots at that—within Germany. 

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters

David Axe

Security, Europe

The U.S. military is spending more and more on electronic-warfare systems, all in a desperate bid to keep pace with China and Russia’s own investments in jammers.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Instead of trying to out-radiate Russian ground forces, the Pentagon could invest in aerial and naval jammers that could overpower the Kremlin’s air and sea units, resulting in an asymmetric advantage for the United States.

The U.S. military is spending more and more on electronic-warfare systems, all in a desperate bid to keep pace with China and Russia’s own investments in jammers.

But the roughly $10 billion that the Pentagon plans to spend on electronic warfare every year over the next five years isn’t helping as much as it should, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments explained in a November 2019 report.

“The growth in [Defense Department] E.W. spending ... is not guided by a coherent vision of how U.S. forces would operate and fight in the [electromagnetic spectrum, or EMS] and is unlikely to yield significant improvements against China and Russia, the U.S. military’s most challenging competitors,” CSBA experts Bryan Clark, Whitney McNamara and Timothy Walton explained.

The Pentagon in 2017 published a new strategy for E.W. investment, which covers a wide range of programs for scrambling enemy sensors and communications. But “new networked, cognitive and agile E.W. technologies called for in the 2017 E.W. strategy have been slow to transition into operational systems, and [research-and-development] spending to field those capabilities is projected to decrease for several years after [fiscal year] 2020,” the experts wrote.

Procurement funding for E.W. gear is set to grow, but even that spending won’t make much of a difference, Clark, McNamara and Walton warned. “Although E.W. procurement is projected to rise through 2024, it is concentrated in a few platform-centric programs such as the ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer and SLQ-32 Shipboard E.W. Improvement Program. These systems update existing programs but do not fundamentally change the way U.S. forces operate in the EMS and represent a traditional move-countermove approach to military capability development.”

The problem, the experts explained, is that the Pentagon takes a reactionary approach to planning its E.W. investments. “It tends to result in a ‘laundry list’ of recommended solutions to symmetrically solve each identified gap instead of identifying ways the U.S. military could gain a more enduring advantage against adversaries by changing its own strategy and operational concepts.”

This approach cedes the capability development initiative to the adversary, and DoD may require a decade or more to fill the identified gaps, during which time adversaries may adopt new concepts and capabilities. Given the shortfalls identified by previous studies of DoD EW and [electromagnetic spectrum operations] capabilities, a gap-based assessment would also likely recommend increased investment in E.W. and EMSO capabilities relative to today. ...

E.W. spending increased until FY 2020 and is expected to be flat or lower during the next several years. It is unlikely this trajectory will change in the near-to-mid-term as defense budgets come under pressure by higher mandatory spending on federal debt service and social programs, combined with the growing cost to operate and maintain U.S. forces.

The Pentagon could tailor its E.W. spending to take advantage of the main weaknesses of its top rivals. Take Russia, for example. “The Russian military seeks to create a comprehensive electronic-warfare [system of systems] ... designed to comprehensively defeat the U.S. military’s [command-and-control] networks,” the CSBA experts explained.

“To that end, Russian ground forces are receiving new E.W. equipment down to the company level that has performed effectively against U.S. and allied forces in Syria,” That means that, in a ground war, the Kremlin’s forces would be well-equipped to jam U.S. and allied communications and sensors.

But Russian air and naval forces aren’t so well-prepared for electromagnetic warfare. “The Russian military’s efforts to improve E.W. and EMS operations among its naval and air forces have made less progress and may hinder its ability to achieve the level of comprehensive EMS superiority Russian military leaders desire,” according to the CSBA report.

“Despite the rapid improvements in E.W. units seen among ground forces, only a portion of Russia’s shrinking military benefits from new systems and operational experience because many units, ships and aircraft do not rotate to the front line for modernization and operations.”

Instead of trying to out-radiate Russian ground forces, the Pentagon could invest in aerial and naval jammers that could overpower the Kremlin’s air and sea units, resulting in an asymmetric advantage for the United States. New air and sea jammer could undermine Russian approaches to deep battle and reconnaissance-strike,” Clark, McNamara and Walton proposed.

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

History,

At the start of World War II, the French mobilized what was then the largest and reputed to be the strongest army in the world.

Here's What You Need to Remember: After its African colonies were granted independence in the 1960s, France froze military pensions and cited the cheaper living costs in Africa. In the years after the Second World War, the African soldiers were never represented in the memorials or celebrations that marked the victory in Europe or the end of the war.

At the start of World War II, the French mobilized what was then the largest and reputed to be the strongest army in the world. However, the 5 million men proved unable to stop the German blitzkrieg 80 years ago. When the Battle of France ended on June 25, 1940, France was defeated, but a handful of its forces continued to fight under the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle.

Among the men who joined the cause to liberate France from the Nazis were the men of the Army of Africa, which was made up of troops from France's African colonials. Their story has largely been forgotten.

Even before the Second World War France had recruited some five regiments of Tirailleurs Sénégalais from the North African and West African colonies, and these included not only men from Senegal but also from the Arab and Berber populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Some 40,000 of the men were deployed on the Western Front prior to the German invasion.

Many of those men defended France in the early days of the war and some 25,000 were killed during the blitzkrieg while as many as 3,000 may have been killed after they surrendered. Thousands of others reportedly were abused, deprived of food, drink, and even shelter.

The unofficial surrogate Army of Africa actually dated back decades prior to the Second World War, and after the fall of France in 1940 the Vichy government used those troops in Africa and the Middle East to maintain control. This included French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, where the Allies mounted an offensive in June-July 1941. While it involved an odd mix of Australian, British and Indian troops, it was also noted as a campaign where Frenchmen fought Frenchmen as the forces of Vichy France and Free France engaged in battle for the first and only time of the war.

Included among the forces on both sides were Senegalese troops.

It was just the beginning of the fight for those men. As the war continued with the liberation of North Africa and Corsica, and the invasion of Sicily and Italy; the French African troops were there. Notably in the summer of 1944 the Army of Africa played a role in the invasion of the south of France. While they were a major part of the Free French forces, for nearly all of the soldiers few had ever actually set foot on French soil before taking part in the liberation. Some 40,000 of the African soldiers were killed in those campaigns.

Instead of being welcomed as heroes, De Gaulle downplayed their role and he ordered a "whitening" of troops – replacing some 20,000 Africans with white French soldiers. The Tirailleurs Senegalais troops were then segregated in French demobilizing centers waiting to go home.

On November 30, 1944, some of the men mutinied, demanding equal pay and the same treatment as their French counterparts. French soldiers then fired on them and as many as 400 of the African soldiers were killed.

Their mass grave has never been found.

After its African colonies were granted independence in the 1960s, France froze military pensions and cited the cheaper living costs in Africa. In the years after the Second World War, the African soldiers were never represented in the memorials or celebrations that marked the victory in Europe or the end of the war.

Only in 2017 did then-President Francois Hollande honor surviving African veterans at a ceremony in the Elysée Palace in Paris, finally acknowledging, "France is proud to welcome you, just as you were proud to carry its flag, the flag of freedom."

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.