The National Interest

Ethen Kim Lieser

2022 Tax Season, United States

The IRS is reassigning additional employees from other duties to assist with the backlog of unprocessed tax returns.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins said during a congressional hearing on Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service is expected to stand up a second “surge team” to address its backlog of unprocessed tax returns.

The IRS already made the decision to temporarily reassign about 1,200 employees to the frontlines of a daunting tax season to help with the backlog. 

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has also noted that the agency is dealing with serious staffing and budgeting issues. The agency has roughly 20,000 fewer employees and 20 percent less funding than in 2010 when adjusted for inflation, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

‘Important First Step’

According to CNN, Collins told lawmakers that the addition of another surge team is “an important first step.”

“A toxic combination of office closures early in the pandemic, inadequate staffing, antiquated IT systems and the need to divert resources from core work to administer the three rounds of stimulus payments, the monthly child tax credit payments, and several financial relief programs has created an unprecedented imbalance between the IRS’ workload and their resources,” Collins said.

Collins then went on to address the outdated processing of paper returns—which have become the IRS’ “kryptonite”—and pressed for more rapid modernization of the agency’s services.

“So, in essence, the IRS, we need to get out of the age of the dinosaur or the Dark Ages,” she said. “They look at it as a funding issue. This is a heavy lift for the IRS. They need to have sustained long-term funding in order to take on a project that size.”

Tax Season Moving Along

Despite these well-documented troubles at the IRS, the current tax season is moving along with only a few hiccups.  

“The IRS is off to a strong start to this year’s tax season,” the IRS said in a press release.

The IRS has processed about 13 million of the 16.7 million returns it has received. Of those, about 4.5 million have resulted in refunds that average $2,300.

The agency has given notice that most Americans—if they have error-free returns and file electronically—should receive their tax refunds within twenty-one days of filing.

Meanwhile, Rettig has urged taxpayers to take special care this year on their respective returns due to the sending out of the monthly enhanced child tax credit and the third stimulus check that was green-lighted in March.

“Incorrect entries when reporting these payments mean the IRS will need to further review the tax return, creating an extensive delay,” the agency wrote in a press release.

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

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Social Security Fraud, United States

The government says that after the woman’s mother passed away in 2007, she did not report the death to the Social Security Administration, as required by law.

This week, a forty-nine-year-old woman from Wilmington, North Carolina, became the latest person to plead guilty to charges of stealing Social Security funds from a deceased relative. 

According to a statement by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the woman pleaded guilty to theft of government property, described as a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641. She faces up to ten years in prison. 

The government says that after the woman’s mother passed away in 2007, she did not report the death to the Social Security Administration, as required by law. Instead, beginning in 2008, the woman began rerouting the Social Security mailings to her own address, which continued through multiple replacements over the course of many years. 

In addition, the woman was “identified on bank footage utilizing her deceased mother’s Social Security benefits.”

According to the Charlotte Observer, the woman stole the checks between August 2008 and October 2019. No dollar amount was released for the total amount taken, except that it exceeded $1,000. Sentencing is set for May. 

Other Fraud Cases in Nebraska, Florida 

In another case involving fraud, this time in Nebraska, a fifty-five-year-old man who formerly lived in Omaha was sentenced for making a false statement on a Social Security Administration form. 

According to WOWT, the man has been sentenced to twenty-two months in prison and three years of supervised release, in addition to $24,552 in restitution. 

For ten years, between 2009 and 2019, the man received Social Security Disability and Medicaid benefits, along with SNAP benefits for four years, between 2013 and 2017. During that time, according to the report that cited the Office of the Inspector General, the man had lied about his employment status. While claiming “he only washed cars on occasion,” the man in fact owned a vehicle repossession business.

This follows a relatively high-profile case earlier this month in Florida, where a man stole $77,596 in Social Security income that was thought to be going to his father, who had died in Ecuador in 2010, according to the Miami Herald. The benefits had been deposited into an account in 1996, when the father was still alive, through 2017. Per the Herald, the father hadn’t been using his Medicare benefits—“a tipoff that the person might be dead.” But when the son changed the address in 2019, $22,074 was released to the account. 

The man, a U.S. Customs and Border officer in Florida, pled guilty to theft of government funds. Per the newspaper, he was sentenced to six months of home confinement (house arrest), one year of probation, and $77,596 of restitution.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, 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

Stephen Silver

Roku,

As Roku’s quarterly earnings were less than expected, the company is searching for new products to make up for the loss of revenue

Roku released its quarterly earnings this week, with revenue of $865.3 million short of expectations of $894 million, per CNBC. The earnings announcement led shares to fall by 20 percent to their lowest level since the early days of the pandemic. 

Revenue did, however, rise 33 percent year over year in the fourth quarter, although the growth was lower than the 81 percent growth in the second quarter and 51 percent in the third. The company also issued a guidance of the equivalent of 25 percent revenue growth for the next quarter. The smaller growth was attributed by the company to continuing supply chain shortages. 

The company now has 60.1 million active accounts, while the Roku OS was the top streaming operating system in the United States in 2021.

“Roku’s founding vision remains true: All TV and all TV advertising will be streamed. Almost every major media company is reorienting its business around streaming and has launched a flagship service, spending billions on content and marketing to attract and retain subscribers. At the same time, with the significant gap that exists between viewership and ad budgets, we are still in the early days of the secular shift to streaming,” Roku said in the company’s shareholders letter. 

A report earlier Thursday stated that Roku was considering jumping into TV production themselves, rather than rely on partner manufacturers, and had even convened focus groups to discuss the idea. 

Founder and CEO Anthony Wood addressed that on the company’s earnings call, and neither confirmed nor denied the earlier reports. 

“In terms of us making our own TV, there are rumors around that. We don't speculate on rumors. I'll just point out that the Roku TV program is a big area of investment for us,” Wood said. “It's been super successful. And we're successful not just because we have a great purpose-built operating system for TV, but we also are a great partner for manufacturers of TVs. We offer a full-stack solution and are really very helpful for them in growing their smart TV market share. So that's some thoughts on Roku TV and supply chain.”

If Roku makes a move into TV manufacturing, it’s not clear where it would be done, or whether that would be instead of its current partnerships or in addition to them. 

Roku is one of the companies that was hugely successful during the quarantine phase of the pandemic, with large numbers of people stuck and home and therefore using their product a lot more than usual. The challenge for Roku, along with Netflix, Peloton, and others, will be to find a way to adjust to the post-pandemic reality going forward. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, 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 Connect

Ethen Kim Lieser

Social Security, United States

It isn’t smooth sailing at the Social Security Administration.

For the past several weeks, it has been well-documented that the Internal Revenue Service is dealing with a massive backlog from last year while trying to process tax returns in a timely manner from this current season.

It appears that it isn’t smooth sailing at the Social Security Administration (SSA) either.

There already have been plenty of reports of Social Security applicants who just can’t get hold of anyone at the SSA in order to rectify their respective issues. Many who have called Social Security’s 800 number generally are put on hold for up to an hour and often just give up. Others who try to log on to SSA’s online account sometimes get a message that reads “account has been suspended.” If they try to call again, they are back at square one.

Pandemic Fallout

Unsurprisingly, it’s the nearly two-year-long coronavirus pandemic that is to blame.

“The Covid-19 pandemic prompted the Social Security Administration to pivot to mostly phone and online services starting on March 17, 2020. Since then, the agency’s more than 1,200 field offices have offered limited in-person services by appointment only. Customers have often had to submit paperwork by mail,” CNBC notes.

“Those processes have not always been smooth, the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General has found. Specifically, the agency needs to improve its timeliness and efficiency with regard to processing mail, including original documents provided as proof of eligibility, an investigation found,” CNBC continues.

There is, however, much-needed good news coming in the near future, as SSA field offices are expected to reopen to the public in early April. In the meantime, the SSA is advising people who need help to start with the agency’s website.

“As we expand in-person availability, we strongly encourage the public to continue to go online at ssa.gov, call us for help if they cannot complete their business online, and schedule appointments in advance,” an SSA spokesperson said, per CNBC.

Addressing Budget Issues

For Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, this is the perfect time to assess and correct the “draconian budget cuts” seen within the SSA and its field offices.

“Between 2010 and 2021, SSA’s operating budget shrank by 13 percent even as the number of beneficiaries grew by 22 percent … Those draconian budget cuts led to an unavoidable decline in service, despite the best efforts of a dedicated workforce,” Altman wrote in a recent op-ed in The Hill.

“Between 2010 and 2018, SSA closed 67 field offices across the country. At the other offices, operating hours were shortened and often staff reduced. People were forced to wait a year or more for hearings to determine eligibility for Social Security disability benefits, with nearly 110,000 Americans dying while waiting for a hearing,” she continued.

“That was the state of Social Security’s customer service prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, field offices have been shuttered for nearly two years for everything but dire emergencies. This was the right thing to do to keep beneficiaries and workers safe, but it has made it even more difficult for Americans to claim their earned benefits… The pandemic has made crystal clear the importance of the field offices,” Altman concluded.

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

Image: Reuters

Peter Suciu

India Tank, South Asia

India and South Korea could now be moving forward on developing light tanks.

Since establishing formal diplomatic ties in 1973, India and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) have become close trading partners. In 2010, the two nations also signed a number of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) that included defense cooperation and research and development (R&D). India and South Korea could now be moving forward on developing light tanks.

According to a report from Janes, India's Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is prepared to produce light tanks with South Korea's Hanwha Defense for the Indian Army. An L&T spokesperson told Janes last week that the Indian multinational conglomerate had plans to partner with Hanwha Defense to manufacture the light tanks.

The two companies had previously partnered to produce the K9 Vajra-T self-propelled howitzer (SPH), a variant of the K9 Thunder SPH, for the Indian Army

Rolling Forward?

It may not be a fully "done deal" just yet, as a spokesperson added that the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has only released the request for information (RFI) for the light tanks and has not actually placed any orders.

As such, the joint production of light tanks remains uncertain at this stage since the tender's categorization will decide what direction the program might take, the spokesperson added.

"Given this situation, I believe it is far too early for any global player to offer their product to India," explained the L&T spokesperson.

This comes after a spokesperson from Hanwha Defense told Janes last month that the South Korean company was willing to jointly produce the K21-105 light tank with L&T for use with the Indian Army. It would be similar to the program to build the K9 Vajra-T SPH.

"Hanwha Defense will discuss with its Indian partner the level of technology as required under the Make in India policy," the Hanwha Defense spokesperson told Janes.

Mountain Bound?

New Delhi has been making great strides to equip the Indian military with the latest in military hardware, and last year the government of India issued a request for information for 350 light tanks. That was reportedly spurred on by Indian troops who had spotted the new Chinese light tank, the Type 15 or ZTQ 15, deployed in Eastern Ladakh, where the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been locked in a border dispute for almost twenty-two months.

The India Army has deployed its fleet of T-90 main battle tanks (MBTs) to the region, but each weighs around 46 tonnes and as such could likely be too heavy for rugged terrain. In addition, a number of Soviet-made T-72 tanks—weighing roughly 45 tonnes—from India's vast tank arsenal had been previously deployed. Those tanks had been modified and adapted to run on a special fuel mix designed specifically for the high altitudes and low temperatures of the region.

However, the Ladakh Valley isn't considered ideal tank country, especially for lumbering MBTs, which is why the Chinese have deployed the Type 15 to the region.

Weighing in at around 35 tons, the tank is about half the size of the American M1 Abrams and armed with a smaller 105mm main gun. However, the Type 15, which has a crew of three, features a robust armor package as well as the chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CRBN) protection typically found in larger tanks. It is able to produce its own oxygen, which is critical in the high-altitudes, and also features advanced weapons and fire control systems, a ballistic computer, laser rangefinder, and thermal sights for the gunner.

It would seem that India is seeking to counter the Type 15 with its own light tank—and it could be turning to South Korea to help produce it.

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

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

Australian Navy, Indo-Pacific

The meeting revolved around how to get the most out of the American and Australian relationship from a naval perspective.

The United States and Australia held a high-level dialogue on how to cooperate for better interoperability in the Indo-Pacific.

A recent U.S. Navy press release explained that the “United States Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy, Vice Adm. Bill Merz and his Australian counterpart, Rear Admiral Chris Smith, Royal Australian Navy, Deputy Chief of Navy, co-hosted a strategic dialogue via video teleconference Feb. 16.”

The meeting revolved around how to get the most out of the American and Australian relationship from a naval perspective.

"Our capacity expands when we sail in company and operate with like-minded navies across the globe,” said Merz. “A key ally like Australia is critical to enhancing our joint capabilities and interoperability in the Indo-Pacific region. That includes traditional maritime security and stability, as well as emerging areas of importance like cyber and artificial intelligence.”

The Navy press release explained in a bit more detail that “broadly speaking, the framework aims to strengthen existing cooperation, address mutually strategic issues, and promote collaborative development and utilization of science and technology between both navies.”

The United States and Australia made a splash late last year when they announced, along with the United Kingdom, that the three countries were banding together on naval technology. In essence, the United States and the United Kingdom offered to hand the crown jewels of their naval technology to Australia: nuclear-powered submarines.

The move came as tensions in the Indo-Pacific are ratcheting up. China is on a shipbuilding spree, and the latest estimates place their ships at around 355 in number. And while the United States is slowly building up its naval forces, their pace does not match the Chinese—a strong incentive to join forces with the Australians.

Down Under

The Australian Navy is a newcomer to nuclear technology. Despite holding an estimated 33 percent of the world’s uranium deposits, the continent has never hosted a nuclear power station, largely thanks to abundant coal reserves.

Australia’s submarine fleet is a far cry from powerful American or British vessels, though the Royal Australian Navy may inherit, or at least train on, older American or British designs that are approaching retirement.

The U.S. has long been a vital partner in ensuring a free and open region in which we and our neighbors can prosper,” Rear Admiral Chris Smith said.

Regarding the joint naval dialogue, the Royal Australian Navy said the following: “These talks, although not face to face, provide an opportunity to build on that relationship, which forms the basis on which we can work together to build a stronger and more stable region.”

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and defense writer with the National Interest. A graduate of UCLA, he also holds a Master of Public Policy and lives in Berlin. He covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society for both print and radio. Follow him on Twitter @calebmlarson.

Image: Flickr/U.S. Navy.

Peter Suciu

Directed Energy Weapons, United States

Directed energy weapons won't replace kinetic weapons, but can complement them and help maintain technological superiority.

Earlier this month, Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (OUSD(R&E)) at the United States Department of Defense (DoD), called for a National Defense Science and Technology strategy for the DoD. As part of the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), the science and technology strategy would be structured around three strategic pillars: mission focus, foundation building, and succeeding through teamwork.

"This technology strategy will chart a course for the United States' military to strengthen its technological superiority amidst a global race for technological advantage," Shyu wrote in a memo. "To maintain the United States military's technological advantage, the Department will champion research, science, technology, engineering, and innovation."

One of the technologies that could help the U.S. maintain its technological superiority is directed energy (DE) – which the DoD defines as those using concentrated electromagnetic energy, rather than kinetic energy, to "incapacitate, damage, disable, or destroy enemy equipment, facilities, and/or personnel."

Building Trust in DE Capabilities

One issue hindering the development of DE is the current lack of trust. Joe Shepherd, vice president of directed energy innovation at Booz Allen Hamilton, said that there are a few steps the United States could take to change that mindset.

"There are DE systems today that have demonstrated the ability to address threats like UAVs, vehicle borne IEDs or various gray zone warfare threats better than any bullet or missile," Shepherd wrote in an email interview. "Giving warfighters the opportunity to test these systems and instill the necessary familiarity and trust to use them in operational missions can not only save lives, but also advance the field of directed energy with lessons learned and relevant tactics, techniques and procedures.”

Finding the right balance between speed of production and fielding, as well as effective engineering and technical maturation, could also be key to building that trust. It would also require a significant investment.

"Achieving this will require commensurate funding in the field: if the U.S. government increased its current level of funding of roughly $1 billion annually to $2 billion, it would radically transform industry’s ability to develop and field prototypes of these new technologies," Shepherd wrote. "We need to move past closed door testing and give directed energy technology advancement a spotlight. We must put these systems into the hands of warfighters so they can gain needed experience with this increasingly important class of weapons."

The Advantages and Challenges

This technology could offer significant advantages, which is why the United States isn't alone in developing DE weapons. As with hypersonic technology, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI), it is yet another area where the U.S. can't afford to lag behind.

"As our adversaries rapidly develop next-generation offensive capabilities that can't be readily countered by kinetic means, such as hypersonic missiles or drone swarms, it's critical that the U.S. continue to invest in the development of effective defensive countermeasures," Shepherd said. "The defensive capabilities of directed energy will be an essential component of our national security architecture, but first we must invest in maturing the technology to bring it to bear against a growing range of existing and emerging threats."

Most worrisome is that the United States is now at risk of falling behind in developing next-generation military technology.

"Now is the time to drive the proper resources towards directed energy to prioritize speed, adoption, and building the needed trust from the operators that will one day use them in the field," Shepherd said. "It is also necessary that we build a robust, reliable and trusted supply chain for the development of directed energy systems."

Update to Existing Systems

Another issue is how DE weapons could be employed on existing platforms. It would be more than simply swapping out a tank's main gun for a new DE cannon. But as the technology matures, it will find a place on many weapon platforms.

It could even be one of the most significant upgrades in weapons technology since the introduction of smokeless powder in the nineteenth century.

"Directed energy is an entirely different class of weapon systems that complements traditional kinetic weapons in several ways," said Shepherd. "The continued technical maturation of directed energy technologies has demonstrated the ability to integrate these weapon systems onto or into multiple combat vehicles including ground, sea and air platforms. With the advancements being made in size, weight and power (SWaP) packaging and modularity, it is clear that directed energy systems can be configured to 'drop into' many of these platforms with limited impact to the vehicle's form, fit and function."

Moreover, DE may not actually replace current weapons, but complement them.

"In many cases, directed energy systems can be emplaced alongside kinetic weapons to compliment the overall combat effectiveness with both lethal and non-lethal effect," Shepherd said. "As more of these systems are developed and deployed operationally, it is certain we will realize substantial operations and sustainment cost savings over traditional kinetic weapons."

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

Image: U.S. Air Force Flickr.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Space Force, U.S.

The military currently gets much of its imagery from government satellites, but a constellation of LEO commercial satellites could provide high-quality imagery.

The United States Space Force would like to see more than stars in the night sky. The sixth and newest branch of the U.S. military has been charged with considering how to best utilize small Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites for intelligence gathering purposes. This month, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall directed the service to look broadly at military requirements for overhead surveillance and how commercial constellations of satellites could be used in such a role.

"We were asked that question by the secretary of the Air Force: how are we going to use commercial capabilities?" Joseph Rouge, Space Force deputy director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, said on February 15, SpaceNews.com first reported.

"And so we’re in the middle of an effort right now to understand first the needs, and the requirements," Rouge said during an ExecutiveBiz online event on Tuesday.

Last summer the Department of Defense announced that it was working with a "who's-who" of military contractors, commercial satellite operators, and technology companies to finally demonstrate the feasibility of a proliferated constellation of satellites in the LEO.

Commercialization of LEO Satellites

The concept of using hundreds of small satellites spread out across that orbit to perform communications, missile warning, and other military missions has been discussed for years, but has largely been seen as infeasible due to the program’s cost. In addition, the size, weight, and power constraints required to operate and maintain capabilities in LEO has been a hurdle that engineers have been unable to clear.

However, there have been rapid technology advancements in the commercial sector and what was once little more than a pipedream could become reality.

Tactical ISR From Space

The U.S. Space Force, which is part of the Department of the Air Force, is currently responsible for providing space-based support services including satellite communications, GPS navigation, and weather data. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) has now been added to the list.

The military currently gets much of its overhead imagery from government satellites and aerial drones, but a constellation of LEO commercial satellites could provide high-quality imagery from the same location multiple times a day. The use of commercial space services for military ISR could help ensure battlefield commanders are provided with more reliable and timely data.

"Tactical ISR is our first venture into this," Rouge said. "It is an interesting challenge. We are finding a lot of requirements."

Space Force vs. NRO

One issue that might still need to be resolved is where the Space Force's mission could overlap with that of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—a less well known member of the United States intelligence community. It designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence to the NSA, imagery intelligence to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Along with the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, DIA, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the NRO is one of the "big five" U.S. intelligence agencies.

"I think before you hand off the ball, let's make sure there won't be a fumble ­and the Space Force has a lot on its plate right now," Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), chair of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, which oversees the Space Force, said during a webinar sponsored by the National Security Space Association.

"So let’s not rush these decisions, and if it's being capably handled today, let's probably stick with that for the time being," added Cooper, who is also on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the NRO. "Remember, we’re all on the same team here, whether you're playing half back or full back, like, give me a break. All that really matters here is whether the warfighter is well served, whether the Intel Community is well served."

Officials at the NRO don’t seem eager to have Space Force take the lead either, but suggested a future partnership could be in the works.

NRO “remains fully engaged and committed to meeting the tactical Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) requirements of our military command and service partners. We have not divested this mission,” a spokesperson told BreakingDefense last year. "Our programs support and complement each other, and our strong relationship is essential to our nation's strategy to protect and defend capabilities in this key domain."

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

Image: Flickr/U.S. Air Force.

Peter Suciu

S-400, Belarus, Russia

Belarus will deploy Russia's S-400. Here's why it matters.

As the United States and NATO begin to deploy more combat aircraft to Poland—including an undisclosed number of U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle fighters—Russia may be responding by permanently stationing its most advanced air defense system near the Belarusian capital.

Last month, Russia deployed two S-400 "Triumf" missile systems to Belarus, its Eastern European ally,  for use in joint Russian-Belarusian Union Resolve combat training exercises. Although the joint drills are expected to conclude on Sunday, it now seems that the advanced surface-to-air missile (SAM) platforms could remain long after the last soldier returns home.

On Thursday, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko announced the possibility of deploying more Russian S-400 systems near Minsk.

"We may deploy them somewhere east of Minsk or near Minsk and we will keep an eye on what is going on in Kiev, beyond Warsaw and so on," Lukashenko told journalists following his visit to the Osipovichi training ground, the BelTA news agency reported.

Belarus Training With the Triumf

According to TASS, the Belarusian head of state also confirmed that there are already S-400 systems in the republic, which are being "mastered by the Belarusian servicemen" at the training center.

"If necessary, we will deploy a couple more systems, although we don't need more," Lukashenko added. "We are talking about purchasing several of these systems."

The Belarusian leader suggested that the previous S-300 systems were more than sufficient for the country's defense. But it seems that Moscow could push its ally to permanently station the advanced S-400 closer to Poland and within range of multiple other NATO countries.

A More Advanced Air-Defense Platform

The Russia-built S-400 Triumf is the latest long-and-medium-range surface-to-air missile system and is designed to destroy aircraft, cruise, and ballistic missiles, and can also be used against ground installations. The S-400, which can also launch 40N6 missiles, was developed to engage targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers at up to six times the speed of sound, and at an altitude of up to thirty kilometers. It entered service with the Russian military in 2007.

The S-400 has also been seen as a significant improvement over its S-300 predecessor on several performance fronts. Whereas the S-300 was explicitly designed as a long-range air defense system, the S-400 is currently compatible with four missiles that are meant to satisfy a wide spectrum of operational categories: extremely long-range 40N6E (400 kilometers), long-range 48N6 (250 kilometers), medium-range 9M96e2 (120 kilometers), and short-range 9m96e (40 kilometers).

The S-400 has also been widely exported, much to the detriment of the United States and NATO. The United States has even imposed economic sanctions on countries, such as Turkey, simply for buying the system, but many of the world's powers have continued to express interest in it. The use of the S-400 as an economic warfare tool should not be underestimated as the platform is an example of Russian hybrid warfare against the United States and NATO.

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

Image: Reuters

Arash Toupchinejad

Iran Russia, Middle East

The potential of a twenty-year Iran-Russia pact is perhaps more significant for the West than it is for Iran and Russia themselves.

In their first in-person meeting on January 19, 2022, Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin displayed their commitment to stronger bilateral ties. In tandem with the exchange between the presidents, Iran’s oil minister announced that Tehran and Moscow had made strides in commercial agreements across the energy, transportation, and banking sectors. However, the most noteworthy takeaway from Raisi’s visit to Moscow was his presentation of a draft twenty-year cooperation agreement between Iran and Russia. The deal, intended to update an earlier economic cooperation pact from 2001, proposes increased collaboration in security, transportation, and trade initiatives between Tehran and Moscow. The agreement is still being negotiated, and the Iranian government states that its contents must first be made public and approved by parliament. The twenty-year cooperation agreement has been in consideration since last year, and while Iran has succeeded in gauging Putin’s interest in a deal, it may not materialize in the immediate future. In the interim, however, the prospective agreement is valuable because it signals both Tehran and Moscow’s convictions in their negotiations with the West.

Iran and Russia are both at a crossroads concerning their regional geostrategies. On February 8, Iran’s delegation headed back to Vienna for the eighth and possibly final round of talks to negotiate a revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Unlike conventional agreements, the JCPOA was conceived out of mutual mistrust, and Iran fervidly seeks guarantees that Washington will not renege on its commitments as it did in 2018. Iran also remains adamant about removing all sanctions in exchange for nuclear compliance, a demand that European officials seem to consider excessive.

As one of the nuclear deal’s more constructive signatories, some see Russia as Iran’s “lawyer” in the renegotiation process. The Vienna talks resume as Russia enters its own negotiations with the West via French president Emmanuel Macron. Russia is currently embroiled in a standoff against NATO and Ukraine. With over 100,000 Russian troops surrounding Ukraine’s borders, Putin has expressed his concerns over what he considers NATO’s encroachment on Russia’s western flank. In the coming days, Tehran and Moscow’s diplomatic approaches with the United States and its European counterparts will significantly impact the prospect of de-escalating tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. However, both countries remain committed to pursuing their best self-interests, and the twenty-year cooperation agreement may have significant implications in this process.

The Iranian government has focused on advertising the economic and security benefits the Iran-Russia deal may have. Russia currently comprises 4 percent and 2 percent of Iran’s imports and exports, respectively. Tehran intends to increase its trade volume with Russia to $25 billion. This goal may seem overly ambitious, but in 2007, Iran envisioned its trade with Russia to reach $200 billion within the next decade. However, bilateral trade peaked at just over $3.5 billion in 2021. For comparison, Russia’s annual trade with Turkey ranges between $20 billion and $25 billion. U.S. sanctions act as the main impediment, constraining Tehran’s commercial prospects and complicating any long-term commitments from its trade partners. Aside from its direct commercial interests with Russia, Iran also seeks to secure broader economic commitments vis-à-vis the Eurasian Economic Union. In their face-to-face meeting, Putin expressed his support to Raisi for a free trade zone between Iran and the economic union. Raisi looks to such financial breakthroughs with hopeful eyes amid the skepticism over sanctions relief.

In addition to its economic potential, Iran views the twenty-year agreement as a way to solidify its security cooperation with Russia and secure new arms deals. Having held a trilateral naval exercise with the Russian and Chinese navies on January 21, Iran favors increased military collaboration to show a semblance of defensive solidarity with its foreign backers. Tehran reportedly seeks to purchase Russian-made Su-35 fighter jets to revamp the Iranian air force. The Raisi administration is also interested in procuring the S-400 missile defense system. While the UN Security Council embargo that barred weapons exports to Iran expired in late 2020, Russia has refrained from offering any deals to Iran. One motivation is that Tehran may not have the funds necessary for such deals. Since President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran’s foreign currency and gold reserves have substantially decreased. Iran had planned to acquire $10 billion worth of Russian arms, but its dire financial situation has convinced some analysts that any defense contracts with the Kremlin may peak at just $2 billion. The cooperation agreement could enable Iran to attain favorable terms over its oil and gas sectors in exchange for larger discounts for Russian weapons. But the cost is not just financial, as Russia maintains close ties with Iran’s regional rivals, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. Putin will not risk an imbalance in his relationships with the Middle East’s strongest powers. Not everyone in the Kremlin sees a direct security benefit from a long-term deal with Tehran.

The prospect of the twenty-year agreement has its fair share of supporters and critics in Iran as well. The deal resembles a twenty-five-year cooperation pact with Beijing that recently became operational. While some support an Iran-Russia deal to diversify Tehran’s commercial dependence away from China, critics fear extraterritorial concessions reminiscent of those made to the Russian government during the Qajar period. For example, Russia’s Gazprom and Transneft recently secured the largest stake in Iran’s newly uncovered Chalous gas field. Russia estimated that the gas field could supply 52 percent of Europe’s needs over twenty years. Two Chinese corporations will share 28 percent of the supply, while the residual output of the gas field will go to Iran’s KEPCO. Therefore, some critics believe Iran may sacrifice its long-term economic potential for short-term financial alleviation.

The difference in Iran and Russia’s geopolitical interests raises questions over the extent to which a twenty-year agreement would strengthen the countries’ security, economic, and industrial collaboration. But even if a deal is expected to have few tangible benefits for either side, the prospect can give Tehran and Moscow the political leverage they seek in their negotiations with the West. The common factor between these two countries is their ongoing dialogue with the United States and its allies. If the situation in Ukraine is exacerbated, Putin may look past his reservations over fully committing to Iran in a bid to pressure the United States and its NATO allies from a different front. The Kremlin may also use the threat of arms sales to Iran as political leverage in the negotiations over Ukraine. As such, a twenty-year agreement may not offer an actual weapons deal, but the threat of one can be deployed as a bargaining chip. Likewise, Iran could use the agreement to signal it will not shy away from alternative strategies should the United States sustain economic sanctions. Raisi will not wait for the nuclear deal to determine how the rest of his presidency will go. Concerning the separate negotiations between Iran, Russia, and the West, the potential of a twenty-year Iran-Russia pact is perhaps more significant for the West than it is for Iran and Russia themselves.

Arash Toupchinejad is a Junior Research Fellow at the NATO Association of Canada and an MSF Candidate at Georgetown University. He is also a columnist for the European Student Think Tank. His research spans the impact of geoeconomics and geopolitics on foreign affairs. His primary interests span the history and politics of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, as well as the neorealist school of thought.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Aykan Erdemir, Kursat Gok

Turkey, Middle East

If Turkey joins Syria and Lebanon as the third narco-state in the Eastern Mediterranean, this will only compound the region’s trafficking and money laundering problems, while also presenting illicit non-state actors greater opportunities to exploit.

The assassination of the Turkish Cypriot casino tycoon Halil Falyali last week was the latest episode in Turkey’s underground wars over narco-trafficking and illicit finance. The Turkish mobster-turned-whistleblower Sedat Peker accused Falyali last year of being a key player in the cocaine trade and colluding with Erkan Yildirim, the son of former Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim. Peker alleged that Turkey, which has long been part of a major route for the heroin trade, has become a key hub for cocaine, too, following the nearly twenty-year rule of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). These developments raise questions about whether Turkey is becoming yet another narco-state in the Middle East, alongside Lebanon and Syria.

Timur Soykan, one of Turkey’s leading investigative journalists focused on narco-trafficking, claimed that Falyali, who is known for his extensive collection of compromising videos of leading political figures, might have used such a tape to blackmail Erkan Yildirim into setting up a cocaine route to Latin America. Erk Acarer, a Berlin-based investigative journalist, also claimed that Falyali was blackmailing politicians and civil servants with “inappropriate videos.”

Last year, former Turkish Cypriot president Mustafa Akinci accused Falyali of having illicit ties with and providing support to northern Cyprus’ Ankara-backed hardline government. It was no surprise that following Falyali’s killing, dozens of Turkish-speaking users took to Twitter, calling the attack a cover-up attempt aimed at “silencing Falyali.”

A week before Falyali’s assassination, Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, bragged that drug busts in the country reached an all-time high since the establishment of the Turkish Republic. In 2021 alone, he added, the police confiscated some 2.8 tons of cocaine. What the interior minister presented as a success story appears to others as the result of an alarming trend. Cocaine busts in the country have been on a steady rise over the last four years: 1.5 tons in 2018, 1.6 tons in 2018, and some 1.9 tons in 2020.

Last June, in what amounted to the biggest cocaine bust in Turkish history, police seized 1.3 tons of the drug hidden amid bananas shipped from Ecuador to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Mersin. Shortly thereafter, the police discovered an additional half-ton of cocaine concealed in another shipment from Ecuador at the same port. The seizures in these two cases alone exceed the annual totals from only a few years ago.

These figures are simply the tip of the iceberg and do not include cocaine shipments headed for Turkey but captured in Latin American ports of exit. Last June, for example, the Colombian police seized 4.9 tons of cocaine in the country’s southwestern port of Buenaventura en route to Istanbul’s Ambarli port. Similarly, the previous month, Panamanian authorities captured 1.3 tons of cocaine en route from Ecuador’s largest port, Puerto Bolivar, to Mersin. These two busts alone were more than twice the size of the total cocaine busts in Turkey last year.

In addition to maritime routes, traffickers also use airplanes. Last August, for example, the Brazilian police captured 1.3 tons of cocaine on a Turkish private jet previously owned by the Turkish prime ministry, now operated by a private company managed by a parliamentary candidate from Erdogan’s AKP. Earlier last year, Turkish police also seized cocaine en route from Colombia to Turkey in the Istanbul airport.

Many Turkish citizens suspect that senior Turkish officials are in bed with kingpins, facilitate narco-trafficking, and shield traffickers. Peker’s allegations that Yildirim is a central figure in cocaine trafficking through Turkey prompted the former prime minister’s son to sue Peker, who has been in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates since last year.

Peker claimed that Yildirim, who owns a maritime shipping business implicated in the Malta Files—a massive trove of leaked documents revealing illicit financial activity that was published by a European investigative journalism network in 2017—visited Venezuela twice in 2021 to set up a new trafficking route beyond the reach of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Turkey’s former prime minister defended his son by claiming that he had traveled to Caracas to deliver Covid-19 test kits and masks, a claim refuted by both Turkish customs records and testimonies of Turkish citizens residing in Venezuela. Falyali, meanwhile, was under criminal indictment by a Virginia federal court for his alleged role, as laid out in a DEA special agent’s affidavit, for laundering drug proceeds through the U.S. financial system.

What further raises suspicions about the complicity of Turkish officials is that the cocaine shipped to Turkey comes disproportionately from Ecuador’s Puerto Bolivar port, which a Turkish company backed by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a fifty-year concession to operate in 2016. This week, Israeli authorities reportedly disqualified that Turkish port operator from participating in Haifa Port’s privatization tender due to the alleged Hezbollah links of one of the owners and his involvement with a shipping company operating Lebanon’s Beirut Port. Of the major drug busts in Turkey in 2021, four of them originated from Puerto Bolivar, not including the 1.3 tons of cocaine shipped from the same port, destined for Turkey but seized in Panama.

However, what makes the AKP-linked figures’ alleged impunity most visible to Turkish citizens are not the major cocaine busts at seaports or airports, but the involvement of low-level party cadres.

In March 2021, images of Kursat Ayvatoglu, the parliamentary aide of AKP deputy chair and lawmaker Hamza Dag, snorting cocaine in the driver’s seat of a luxury vehicle went viral and rocked the country. Before his involvement in politics in the AKP ranks in 2014, Ayvatoglu, a high school dropout, was a humble graphic designer driving a barely functioning car in the small northwest Black Sea town of Kastamonu. After working for the AKP’s local mayoral candidate Tahsin Babas and his subsequent mayoral victory, Ayvatoglu has mysteriously gone from rags to riches. When his images went viral in March 2021, Ayvatoglu quickly denied the allegations and managed to walk free by simply declaring that he was snorting “powdered sugar.” Similarly, in 2020, when Turkish customs officers seized 100 kg of heroin in the car of a former press consultant at the Turkish embassy in Brussels with close ties to senior AKP figures, Turkish authorities hid the news from the press for two weeks and later introduced a gag order.

Turkey’s ongoing financial meltdown and its growing need for foreign currency amid the depletion of its central bank’s net international reserves will only make the country’s political elite and struggling citizens more susceptible to the appeal of narco-dollars. Traffickers appear to be enjoying impunity, and the drug busts feel more like window-dressing attempts aimed at hiding the real size of the iceberg. If Turkey joins Syria and Lebanon as the third narco-state in the Eastern Mediterranean, this will only compound the region’s trafficking and money laundering problems, while also presenting illicit non-state actors greater opportunities to exploit.

Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

Kursat Gok is a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University – Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a research intern for the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

Image: Reuters.

Keith Krach, Jonathan Pelson

Technology, Eurasia

New models promise to usher in an industrial era where China’s technology hegemony is broken and citizens of free countries worldwide can communicate without the fear that an authoritarian state has visibility—and control—over what they are saying.

When the world’s top athletes arrived in Beijing for the Winter Olympics, the coal-fueled smog had been cleared, but there was still a cloud hanging over the Olympic Village. Despite the desire to tweet and post to Instagram and Facebook, the athletes had been warned by security experts that their devices are vulnerable to Chinese hacking, compromise, infection.

Many followed the guidance and left their devices at home. Others brought “burner” phones to the games, using these disposable devices while connected to China’s networks and then discarding them when they leave. But this may not be as safe a plan as they think. Any access to email or social media accounts—or bank accounts and other connections—via China’s networks presents the opportunity for interception and compromise of usernames and passwords, giving foreign intelligence operatives visibility to activities long after the closing ceremonies are over, and they have returned home. The athletes have also been warned—by no less than Human Rights Watch—not to speak out on human rights issues, either from the podium or on their personal social media platforms.

Why should an Olympian, especially one living in a free country, be concerned about intrusion and oversight from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The NBA’s recent experiences around sports figures being punished for statements contrary to CCP doctrine—costing some teams and players millions—provide a warning about the dangers facing even non-political figures.

The visiting athletes are being kept in a “bubble” to avoid spreading Covid-19 to outside citizens, which some have complained denies them the traditional opportunity to experience the host country’s cultural values. But they are wrong. These strict policies give them a small taste of what it is like to live as a citizen of China, subject to the CCP’s authoritarian surveillance policies and thought control.

China’s scrutiny of the Olympic Village serves as a model for what is happening in the rest of the world too, at least in those parts of the world now using telecom systems from Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese vendors. While much progress has been made to prevent untrusted equipment from being deployed, many countries still have high-risk technology in their networks and continue to be vulnerable to techno-authoritarian threats. These countries know that the actions they are taking to secure their privacy may not be enough to keep them safe or to support their desires to use modern tech without sacrificing their security or sovereignty.

Over the past twenty years, the CCP has backed national telecom equipment champions who took on the world's leading suppliers: Lucent/Bell Laboratories, Motorola, and Nortel in the United States and Canada; Alcatel, Nokia, and Ericsson in France, Finland, and Sweden. Over that period, little-known companies like Huawei and ZTE grew to replace and effectively bankrupt nearly all these companies, with Huawei alone growing from start-up to a $130 billion behemoth with more than 50 percent share of the world's 5G deployments and more smartphone sales than Apple or Samsung. Now, only Nokia and Ericsson remain, competing to deploy 5G networks against Chinese companies with world-class technology and seemingly no bottom to their pricing.

What is China hoping to achieve through these telecommunication companies? One thing has become clear: Beijing is not simply trying to establish its local champions as the top vendors of equipment. No economic business case justifies the $75 billion in subsidies (according to the Wall Street Journal’s investigations) that China has delivered to Huawei alone. Given the decades it took to turn that investment into near ownership of the market, there is no way the company—or country—can ever make that money back through hiked prices or increased sales volume.

No, China’s real interest in that top-priority program has been to insinuate itself into the critical communications of as many countries as it can. With Chinese-made network equipment deployed worldwide, every city is an Olympic Village, with no communications safe from the prying eyes of China’s Ministry of State Security. As one advisor to Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump put it, “If Huawei is allowed to deploy their equipment into our 5G networks, they won’t need a back door; they can use the front door.”

To elaborate further, China has exfiltrated data from the African Union headquarters, which was built with Chinese money and equipment and was later found to be delivering sensitive business, military, and political information to servers in Shenzhen. In the United States, China Unicom was just declared a threat to national security and banned last month while Huawei has evaded its ban on selling equipment to U.S. cellular carriers by deploying equipment into cell towers to gather information from America’s nuclear missile bases, including Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

However, recent developments offer hope that China’s technological victory is not so inevitable, and the world does not belong to totalitarians. The emergence of a new trust-based model for advancing freedom is a beacon of light for the next generation. Remarkably, almost no one outside of government knows about it.

This new trust-based model is called the Clean Network. The Clean Network was started by the Trump administration in 2020 to champion democratic values such as transparency, accountability, reciprocity, respect for the rule of law, human rights, labor practices, and the environment. So far, it has attracted sixty “Clean Countries,” representing two-thirds of the world’s gross domestic product, more than 200 Clean Telcos, and dozens of industry-leading Clean Companies in a global alliance of like-minded partners committed to only using trusted vendors in their 5G infrastructure. As former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has said, “The Clean Network’s defeat of the Chinese Communist Party’s master plan to control 5G communications was the first time a government-lead initiative proved that China’s economic warfare is beatable.” Robert Hormats, under secretary of state in the Obama administration, added that “The Clean Network’s success in countering China’s 5G plan serves as a powerful, nonpartisan model for rallying our allies, leveraging the private sector, and amplifying democratic values based on trust.” Harvard Business School credited the initiative for changing the future of global technology competition.

But the struggle to keep out untrusted gear showed China’s willingness to bully customers, whether they were developing countries with little political leverage or economic powerhouses like Germany, which saw threats to block auto sales into China if the equipment bans weren’t lifted. Across the world, China has flexed its muscle, using tools like crushing loan obligations and the withholding of critical supplies to compel sovereign nations to accept its bidding. So, while Russia masses troops on the Ukrainian border, China achieves its geopolitical goals without sending an army or firing a shot. The reach of its network deployments marks a neo-imperialism that is insidious in that the victims don’t realize they are being colonized--until it’s too late.

We believe the tide is turning. Citizens of the world have woken up to the truth about the Chinese Communist Party’s doctrine of concealment, co-option, and coercion. They now understand that the pandemic results from the concealment of the virus. They saw the CCP’s co-option of Hong Kong eviscerating all of its freedoms. They realize the coercion of Uyghurs in Xinjiang has grown into a punishable genocide. And they don’t like it. This widespread recognition of the CCP’s belligerence has given government leaders and CEOs around the world the political will to stand up to Beijing’s bullying. In Washington, this has become the most unifying, bipartisan issue of our time.

However, even if the world continues the Clean Network’s momentum, a credible alternative to untrusted Chinese technology is needed. The United States no longer has a telecom equipment sector, and Europe’s Nokia and Ericsson remain the last major vendors making equipment for 5G networks. Without world-class solutions, countries might free themselves of Chinese infiltration, but they won’t be able to take advantage of the business transformation and improvements in safety and productivity promised by the Internet of Things.

There are alternatives; some just getting started. New network models, including Open Radio Access Networks, called Open RAN, promise solutions that are not led by Chinese companies: cloud services dominated by American hyper scalers; chips and equipment made in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan; software delivered by the United States and India; and systems integration provided by companies across Europe, the United States and India. In Montana, the Huawei cell tower overlooking the nuclear missile base has already been swapped out for one provided by Mavenir, an American vendor of Open RAN solutions.

These new models promise to usher in an industrial era where China’s technology hegemony is broken and citizens of free countries worldwide can communicate without the fear that an authoritarian state has visibility—and control—over what they are saying.

Leon Panetta, the former U.S. secretary of defense, CIA director, and member of Purdue University’s Center for Tech Diplomacy’s Advisory Board, put the stakes in perspective: “China’s techno-economic aggression presents a serious threat to the United States and the free world, especially when it comes to advanced technologies such as 5G, AI, and semiconductors,” His prescient advice: “The key to securing freedom is securing high tech through widespread adoption of trusted technologies. The Clean Network pioneered a trust-based model for countering authoritarian aggression across all areas of techno-economic competition. I support the adoption of that successful model.” We agree and see the trust-based Clean Network model as the most effective way to safeguard tomorrow’s tech, advance freedom, and offer humanity the best hope for peace.

Keith Krach was unanimously confirmed as U.S. Under Secretary of State and is currently the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Center for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University. He served as Chairman and CEO of DocuSign and Ariba and Chairman of the Purdue Board of Trustees. Krach and his family were sanctioned by China.

Jonathan Pelson is the author of Wireless Wars: China’s Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We’re Fighting Back.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Social Security, United States

The Social Security Administration appears aware of the problem.

Social Security offices around the country are closed, though they’re scheduled to officially reopen in April, while the Social Security Administration has moved many of its services online. As a result, according to a new report this week, many people who are calling to apply for Social Security or ask questions are having trouble getting through.

According to CNBC, one woman has been trying to call for some time in relation to her application for her husband’s retirement benefits, but she has been placed on hold every time she’s called, often for as long as an hour.

“You call, and you’re on hold forever,” the woman said. “For three weeks now, I’ve been trying to get in touch with them.” According to CNBC, the average wait time for Social Security’s customer service number was 13.5 minutes in 2021, although it was longer than that in some individual months.

The Social Security Administration appears aware of the problem. They issued a report last fall admitting that “the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially transformed federal agency business processes and customer service,” and that the agency needs to do a better job in helping customers more efficiently.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated that in many cases — and particularly for low-income seniors and people with disabilities — there is often no substitute for individualized, in-person assistance,” Rep John Larson (D-CT), chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, wrote in a letter last December to Social Security Administration commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi.

Kijakazi responded, laying out some steps being taken by the agency. These include changes in how the agency deals with replacement cards, as well as expanding the hours that offices are open for appointments, prior to the official reopening of the offices in April.

The commissioner also laid out how that will work. “We recently reached reentry agreements with all three of our unions, and subject to the course of the pandemic, we are planning agency-wide reentry and the implementation of new telework schedules for most employees on March 30, 2022,” he wrote to Chairman Larson, although that date has since been delayed until April. Furthermore, the senior staff of the SSA returned to their offices in December.

This year, Social Security recipients are getting a 6.2 percent cost of living raise in their benefits, the largest increase since the early 1980s, and that increase went into effect in January. This was the result of rising inflation since last year, although concerns have been raised that the inflation that is continuing to rise will take a bite out of the benefits that Social Security collectors are receiving. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, 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.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Social Security, United States

The current trajectory of high-inflationary pressures is putting the much-needed focus on the ongoing financial pain that millions of senior citizens must endure daily.

The current trajectory of high-inflationary pressures is putting the much-needed focus on the ongoing financial pain that millions of senior citizens must endure daily.

There is no question that these retirees received a major victory last fall when the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that there would be a 5.9 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA) for this year. But when the dust settled, the nearly six-percent boost to the benefits only raised the monthly payments by approximately $90 to an average of $1,657.

“When the prices on the goods and services that retirees depend on go through the roof, their Social Security benefits don’t buy as much, and that causes enormous financial stress for all retirees,” Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League, said in a statement, per GOBankingRates.com.

To make matters worse, many seniors are entering retirement  with low savings. As a result, many try to live on Social Security. According to recent data released by the SSA, about twelve percent of men and fifteen percent of women rely on the monthly benefit for ninety percent or more of their income.

So, what meaningful actions can these vulnerable seniors take to combat inflation and have an enjoyable long-lasting and comfortable retirement?

Wait, Wait, and Wait Some More

One of the top things an individual can do—often touted by financial experts and planners—is to wait as long as possible before filing for Social Security benefits. A quick look at the numbers will confirm why this advice is popular.

For those seniors who need to start collecting Social Security benefits at age sixty-two—the earliest age to do so—the maximum amount is $2,364. But if one can wait until seventy to file, they would be eligible for the maximum amount, currently $4,194.

“The Social Security benefit is potentially 76 percent higher if you wait to file at age 70 (the latest) compared to age 62 (the earliest). Every year you delay past your full retirement age, you gain an approximately 8 percent boost,” Chris Farrell, a senior economics contributor to American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” told the Star Tribune.

“Market volatility doesn’t matter; you can’t outlive your Social Security benefit; and it comes with automatic cost of living adjustments. Social Security is a valuable asset,” he continues.

Most Won’t Be Eligible for Max Benefit

However, according to personal finance expert Maurie Backman at The Motley Fool, it is important to keep in mind that most retirees won’t qualify for the maximum $4,194 benefit.

“Claiming the maximum Social Security benefit is tough and something the typical senior can’t do. But rather than worry about that, focus on eking out as much money as you can from Social Security,” she writes.

“That could mean working hard to boost your job skills so you’re eligible for promotions and the raises that come with them. … Also, review your Social Security earnings statement each year for errors. If there’s a year when your earnings are underreported, it could result in a lower monthly benefit, but being vigilant could help you avoid that scenario,” she continues.

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

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Ammunition Shortage, United States

The shortage has made it much harder for hunters, recreational shooters, and even some law enforcement bodies to have difficulty obtaining ammunition and also pay more money for ammo than they typically had in the past. 

America has been suffering an ammunition shortage for nearly two years now, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The shortage has been attributed to many factors, including a surge in gun ownership in the United States, pandemic supply chain backups, consolidation in the ammunition industry, the 2020 bankruptcy of major supplier Remington, State Department sanctions on Russian ammunition, and other factors.

The shortage has made it much harder for hunters, recreational shooters, and even some law enforcement bodies to have difficulty obtaining ammunition and also pay more money for ammo than they typically had in the past. 

Most media coverage, especially in the last year, has been about specific areas that are suffering the effects of the shortages. This week, a report in the Rapid City Journal described people’s difficulty obtaining ammo in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

“People were panicking,” Mike Blote of First Stop Gun, Coin and Pawn told the Rapid City Journal. “They started buying a lot of firearms and a lot of ammo.” That continued with the civil unrest in the summer of 2020, followed by the election and the January 6 insurrection. 

In South Dakota, this has affected ammo availability during crucial hunting seasons. 

“During turkey season, it was extremely hard to find turkey ammunition,” Ryan Pearson, a South Dakota Game, Fish, & Parks conservation officer, told the publication. 

One game warden told the outlet that it led some to cut corners if they wanted to hunt. “There probably wasn’t nearly as much target practice in advance of the deer season, and they tried to make each round count,” Bill Eastman, a retired Butte County game warden, told the Rapid City Journal. 

People quoted by the report added that the shortage has been a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the perception of a shortage making the shortage worse. 

“We’re hoping that things settle down in this industry by the time 2023 rolls around,” Kristi Hoffman, co-owner of Black Hills Ammunition, told the publication. “But there again, that’s just a hope. We have nothing to go off of.”

Last September, local station KCAU and its website, Sioux Land Proud, reported on the shortage at the time ahead of hunting season. One store owner said that while he typically makes one call and gets a year’s supply of shells most years, he had taken to buying “a case here and two cases there,” while also paying more than usual. 

 Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, 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.

Kris Osborn

Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Poland

Poland's defense minister spoke at a joint press conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday and affirmed that his country was ready if Ukraine was invaded.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine could place thousands of Russian troops within striking range of Poland. 

Polish defense minister Mariusz Blaszcak emphasized his nation’s history during a press conference in Warsaw with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Friday. Blaszcak recalled the cruelty of Nazi Germany’s World War II invasion. 

“We are ready,” Blaszcak said through an interpreter. “We are ready to help all those who will be forced to leave Ukraine. We, as a nation that has so strongly and badly experienced World War II, we know what support is all about, and we are ready, of course, to support all those who need the support and who suffer because of such an aggression.” 

Blaszcak said that Poland would help displaced Ukrainian refugees and lend its full support to deterrence operations.

The relationship between the United States and Poland is indeed strong. The United States has more than 4,000 rotational troops in the country, the fourth-largest concentration of U.S. forces in Europe. Other American troops have arrived recently to bolster the American presence if needed.

“In light of Russian force buildup near Ukraine, we appreciate Poland for hosting an additional 4,700 U.S. soldiers who are prepared to respond to a range of contingency, and they will work closely with our State Department and with Polish authorities, should there be any need to help American citizens leave Ukraine,” Austin said.

Poland has also acquired the F-35 Lightning II fighters and operates American-built Patriot missiles. Austin also announced at the press conference that Poland would have the opportunity to purchase two hundred and fifty new M1A2 Abrams tanks in the coming years. Austin said the partnership has only grown stronger since the 2020 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the two countries.

Austin said he had no further information about additional U.S. troop deployments to the region, but said he remains in contact with allied nations to continue discussions.

“We highly appreciate the U.S. presence in Poland, and at the same time, we do believe that this is the biggest and the most important deterrent factor for a potential aggressor -- appreciate the possibility to cooperate between the Polish armed force and the U.S. Armed Forces because this is all about building interoperability,” Blaszcak said.

Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Belarus, Eastern Europe

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov also confirmed on Friday that Putin would oversee strategic deterrence force drills currently scheduled for Saturday, February 19.

Upwards of some 30,000 Russian troops are taking part in joint drills in Belarus that are expected to conclude on February 20. The exercises are spread across five Belarussian training ranges and four airfields and involve a raft of advanced military hardware. According to Russian state media reports, the Kremlin sent a dozen Su-35 air superiority fighters, a Pantsir S1 medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, 9K720 Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems, and two units of the S-400 missile defense system in anticipation of the drills.

However, even more notable than the vast military hardware that has been deployed to Belarus is the news that Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he would participate in military cooperation measures together with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko. The two leaders will attend the exercises in person.

"Of course, we will talk about the regional situation and assess how military cooperation is developing," Putin said during a meeting with Lukashenko in the Kremlin, TASS reported. "Now an active phase of military drills is in progress and tomorrow we will participate in one of serious measures in this series of military cooperation," Putin added.

The Situation on the Ground

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also confirmed on Friday that Putin would oversee strategic deterrence force drills currently scheduled for Saturday, February 19, from the situation control center.

"Putin will most likely be in the situation control center. Such drills and training launches, naturally, can't be held without the head of state. You know about the famous nuclear suitcase, the red button and so on," Peskov told reporters.

Lukashenko’s presence at the drills depends on their discussions with Putin, Peskov also explained. Yet, the Belarusian president had previously told reporters that he was planning to attend military drills together with Putin. Lukashenko had emphasized that "the Russian side will inform" about the place and the format of these maneuvers.

Russia's Defense Ministry also announced on Friday that the Russian Armed Forces would conduct scheduled strategic deterrence drills, during which ballistic and cruise missiles would be launched, on Saturday under Putin’s direction. The strategic deterrence force drills had been planned in advance and were intended "to inspect the preparedness of military command centers, launch combat teams, the crews of combat ships and strategic missile carriers for accomplishing assigned missions and the reliability of the strategic nuclear and conventional forces’ weapons."

Putin has continued to maintain that the ongoing Union Resolve 2022 drills are "purely defensive" and "not a threat to any other country"—by which he meant Ukraine. However, the buildup of more than 150,000 Russian troops along the Ukrainian border would suggest otherwise.

Western governments and NATO officials have voiced concern that a portion of the Russian troops currently deployed for Union Resolve 2022 could remain on Belarusian territory, contributing to a buildup of Russian forces along Ukraine’s borders. However, Moscow and Minsk have consistently rebuffed these claims, insisting on the full withdrawal of all Russian military personnel associated with the drills.

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

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Belarus, Eastern Europe

The Belarusian leader said that the United States' intelligence community has wrongly predicted that Russia would invade its neighbor.

There will be no invasion of Ukraine—at least according to Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who told reporters this week that there has never been any talk of "attack" with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Belarusian leader also said that the United States' intelligence community wrongly predicted that Russia would invade its neighbor.

Belarus, like Ukraine, is a former republic of the Soviet Union and had been controlled by Imperial Russia for centuries. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago, Moscow has viewed Ukraine as an important buffer to NATO.

In addition, Russia is Belarus' largest and most important economic and political partner. Last year the two nations agreed to closer economic ties, as Moscow provided Minsk with new loans to bolster the Belarusian economy. Currently, the two neighbors, linked in a so-called Union State, have agreed to closer coordination on economic policy but stopped short of a common currency.

Lukashenko had sought increased financial support from Moscow amid sanctions from the United States and the European Union in response to his brutal crackdown on opposition protesters since the disputed presidential elections in the summer of 2020.

No War?

Lukashenko may remain the junior partner, but this week he showed his loyalty to Putin, while maintaining that an invasion of Ukraine isn't as imminent as Washington has warned.

"There will be no invasion tomorrow," the Belarusian leader told reporters on Thursday.

"The military-political specter has been put in the lead through the efforts of our Western partners," Lukashenko explained, and said that the West has used the recent joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises as a propaganda tool to spread fear across Ukraine and Europe.

"They lost the first round," the Belarusian president added. "They are now, as I see, starting a second round, scaring the entire world by saying we will attack Ukraine tomorrow, encircle it, destroy it and so on. Although we didn’t have [these] plans when we discussed these issues."

The two Union State members will continue to hold military exercises however.

"We will teach people to fight a war," he said. "There's no way around it."

Russian Military Build-up

Just this week, U.S. officials warned that Russia has amassed an additional 7,000 troops on its borders—even as Moscow has claimed many troops have returned to their home bases. While the bulk of the some 150,000 Russian troops are massed along the Russian-Ukrainian border, upwards of 30,000 Russian soldiers are reported to be deployed to Belarus and taking part in the joint exercises known as Allied Resolve 2022 and described by NATO as the largest deployment of Russian troops in Belarus since the end of the Cold War.

NATO officials believe the military drills could serve as cover for an assault on Ukraine, which shares a nearly 700-mile-long border with Belarus.

Lukashenko and Putin may have each claimed that an invasion isn't coming, but given the increased troop deployments, it is hard to take them at their word.

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

Image: Reuters.

George Beebe

Ukraine Crisis, Europe

President Joe Biden stated today that Russian president Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine.

Watching President Joe Biden state on Friday afternoon that he believes Russian president Vladimir Putin has made the decision to go to war over Ukraine and to attack Kyiv itself, I recalled a disturbing experience that I recently had on Russian national television. As a former director of Russian analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency, I was asked on a prominent political talk show to discuss reports being circulated by the United States and other NATO member states about Russia’s plans in Ukraine. Did the West believe them?

I replied that intelligence analysis is an inherently difficult business. Errors of course happen, the Iraq weapons of mass destruction fiasco being among the most notable. But in this instance, I said that I was certain the U.S. government truly believes that Russia is preparing for an invasion of Ukraine.

The Russians on the show—among their country’s most informed and insightful foreign policy experts—openly scoffed. They simply would not accept that the American and British governments sincerely believed reports that Moscow was planning to stage a fake Ukrainian attack to justify a Russian invasion, that the Kremlin was preparing to install a puppet government in Kyiv, or that the invasion was set to begin on a certain date. It would be one thing, they argued, if these reports were simply fusillades in an ongoing information battle between the West and Russia. Truth is the first casualty of war, after all. But if Washington and London actually “believe their own propaganda,” as the Russians put it, then we have a genuine problem.

Indeed, we do. Russia and the West find it almost impossible to make sense of each other’s perceptions about Ukraine and the broader European security architecture. We do not merely disagree about what ought to be. We disagree about what the present reality is.

In the West, the notion that Russian experts could sincerely doubt that their government is preparing to initiate an attack on Ukraine is itself viewed as laughable. Is it not obvious that Moscow has been massing forces near Ukraine’s borders, holding ominous military exercises in Belarus and on the Black Sea, and openly threatening to take “military-technical” steps should NATO refuse demands that it back away from Russian borders? Did Russia not already prove its aggressive intentions by attacking Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014? Just as Russian experts accuse the West of peddling propaganda, we regard assertions that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine as little more than Kremlin disinformation.

But among Russians, the suggestion that Moscow wants to attack or conquer Ukraine, a nation they regard fraternally, albeit condescendingly, is itself far-fetched. Western claims that Russia wants to stamp out democracy in Ukraine elicit guffaws. Russians do not regard Ukraine as a democracy or close to becoming one. They see its government as mired in corrupt and dysfunctional patronage politics, with little regard for the rights of Russophones. And they are incredulous at the notion that they want to reestablish the USSR. Many Russians remember the Soviet days nostalgically, but few want to recreate the old empire, recognizing how burdensome and counterproductive that would be. Where Americans see Russian forces poised for an invasion of Ukraine, Moscow sees them as part of a broader defensive effort to stop the world’s most powerful military alliance from setting up shop on Russia’s doorstep.

The situation recalls a comment that Teddy Roosevelt made about Great Britain and Germany in 1904: “[Kaiser Wilhelm II] believes that the English are planning to attack him and smash his fleet … As a matter of fact, the English harbour no such intentions, but are themselves in a state of panic terror lest the Kaiser secretly intend … to destroy their fleet and blot out the British empire from the map.” It was, he observed, “as funny a case as I have ever seen of mutual distrust and fear bringing two peoples to the verge of war.”

That case, of course, ended in the tragedy of World War I. As the distrust and fear plaguing Russia’s relations with the West today spiral toward a modern catastrophe, we should ponder some critical realities.

The first is that, like Imperial Germany and Edwardian Britain, each side today believes that it is the other that harbors hostile intent, while regarding its own actions as merely defensive. The Kremlin is convinced that the United States has long had Russia in its crosshairs, moving military forces and infrastructure ever closer to Russian territory, arming and empowering anti-Russian factions in neighboring states, and actively supporting subversive elements inside Russia itself. The West, in turn, regards Putin as the mortal enemy of democracy and freedom, both in Europe and inside the United States itself. The result has been that both sides believe they must “stand up” to aggression, producing a cycle of action and reaction that is careening toward conflict.

The second reality is that neither Russia nor the West can defeat the other, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. Since the early years of the nuclear age, we have been yoked together as co-hostages, with one side’s security dependent on ensuring adequate security for the other. Our mutual vulnerability has only grown as cyber technology has deeply entangled the worlds of military operations, espionage, news, and commerce.

Neither Russia nor the West can bring Ukraine into its sphere of influence without tearing that country apart internally. The Kremlin cannot drive the United States from Europe, and Europe cannot be stable so long as Russia is excluded from the region’s most influential security organizations. Under such circumstances, any efforts to produce “win-lose” scenarios between the West and Russia will inevitably result in “lose-lose” outcomes.

John Kennedy observed that the chief lesson of the Cuban missile crisis was that the leaders of nuclear superpowers needed to defuse crises by helping each other find mutual, face-saving compromises. That applies today, no less than in 1962. The window of opportunity for averting disaster is fast closing.

George Beebe is Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for the National Interest, a former head of Russia analysis at the CIA, and author of The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Catastrophe.

Image: Reuters.

Trevor Filseth

Iran Nuclear, Vienna, United States, Iran

In Vienna, high-level diplomatic talks are meant to address Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon. But will they work? 

On Thursday, U.S. officials claimed they had made “substantial progress” toward reaching an agreement with Iran over the future of the country’s nuclear program after a months-long diplomatic standoff between Washington and Tehran.

Despite this progress, however, ongoing issues between the two remain, putting the outcome of the final negotiating session in question. 

The Vienna negotiations have continued since late 2021 and are currently in their ninth round. The discussions are being held between Iran, Germany, and permanent members of the UN Security Council.  Thus far, the Iranian delegation has refused to engage directly with the United States, blaming Washington for the country’s economic misfortunes following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the original deal, the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), and his subsequent reimposition of sanctions in 2018.

A State Department spokesperson claimed that, “if Iran shows seriousness, we can and should reach an understanding on mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA within days,” according to Agence France-Presse. 

The spokesperson added, however, that “anything much beyond that”—e.g., an agreement attempting to resolve other issues in the U.S.-Iran relationship, such as Iran’s ballistic missile program or its support for Tehran-aligned private militias in neighboring countries—“would put the possibility of return to the deal at grave risk.” 

While Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions caused severe damage to the Iranian economy and led to an increase in tensions in the Persian Gulf region, it also allowed Iran to return to its enrichment of uranium—a process the country had largely abandoned following the JCPOA’s implementation in 2015.

By now, Iran is estimated to have nearly enough highly-enriched uranium to create a nuclear weapon. Western diplomats have urged the creation of a settlement before the threshold is crossed; French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the timeframe as “a matter of days.”

Further, Iran has never acknowledged that it intends to construct a nuclear weapon, although blueprints for nuclear devices and nuclear-capable missiles have been found and stolen from Iranian government computers. 

Iranian authorities have requested a guarantee from the administration of President Joe Biden that the United States would remain within the deal for the foreseeable future to avoid a repeat of Trump’s 2018 JCPOA withdrawal.

However, nearly two hundred members of the House of Representatives, all Republicans, published a letter earlier in the week explicitly announcing that “they would work to obstruct a renewed deal if certain controversial measures were not included.” This effectively indicates that a potential agreement is vulnerable to cancellation if the GOP  reclaims the White House.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters