The National Interest

Caleb Larson

B-25 Bomber, Americas

The B-25 was an American workhorse.

Here's What You Need to Know: The bomber's solid design helped turn the tide for the United States world-wide.

The B-25 was first designed in 1940 and was intended to be the United States’ medium bomber workhorse. On paper, the B-25 was not particularly spectacular: it had two engines, a pencil-like fuselage, and a fairly modest bomb loadout. Still, the B-25 was not without its merits.

A staggering number of B-25s were built during World War II. The design proved flexible, and a large number of aircraft variants were built to suit the needs of the different armed services—and other countries, as the B-25 platform was widely shared with the Allies as a part of the Lend-Lease war material sharing agreement. B-25s were shipped to Britain, the Soviet Union, and after the war to the Canadians, Dutch, and Australians, to name a few.

The B-25 Mitchell design was far from perfect, but highly regarded by flight crews as durable and reliable, forgiving to pilots even with one engine out and full of bullet holes. It was not out of the ordinary for B-25 to have logged enormous amounts of repaired damage throughout their flight lifetimes.

One of the few drawbacks from the crew standpoint was the B-25’s engine noise. The airplane’s engines were relatively close to the fuselage, and in a unique arrangement the plane’s exhaust was directed toward the cockpit. Some B-25 pilots and crew members would experience varying degrees of hearing loss after the war thanks to excessive engine noise.

Though the B-25 was used by the United States in every theater of war, it was most useful in the Pacific Theater. As the war progressed, the B-25 was outfitted with more and more forward-facing heavy machine guns. The bomber’s medium-level bombing proved to be useful for troops and against targets deep in thick jungle, where the B-25’s low-level bombing and strafing runs were particularly potent. The B-25 also experienced success by adapting this low-level strafing tactic in an anti-shipping role.

Guns Blazing

The B-25 design was evaluated as a potential gunship platform, a role the airframe could have excelled at, had it been adopted. As a gunship, the modified B-25 could bring an awesome amount of firepower to bear on a target. One of the gunship prototypes had four .50 caliber heavy machine guns mounted in the nose, as well as an enormous 75 millimeter cannon. Additionally, the prototype could carry four more .50 machine guns in two flank-mounted pods, two in a manned turret just aft of the cockpit, one on both sides of the waist, and two for the rear gunner, bringing the number of onboard guns to an astounding fourteen.

Empire State Building

The B-25 was also involved in an accidental crash with the Empire State Building in New York. Flying through heavy fog, a B-25 crashed into the north side of the building, en route to Newark Airport in New Jersey, killing all passengers on board and eleven people in the building. 

Doolittle Raid

Perhaps one of the B-25’s best-known chapters was in the Doolittle Raid of World War II fame. Four months after America’s Day of Infamy attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led a 16-plane raiding party on an attack on mainland Japan. The raid was successful, and though it caused very little in terms of actual material damage, it did much to boost American spirits early in the war. It also was a sharp psychological blow to the Japanese, who had considered mainland Japan to be too far out of reach to be bombed. As a result of the Doolittle Raid, Japan diverted ships and soldiers closer to the mainland to better protect Japan from American air attacks.

An American Icon

Though nothing fancy, the B-25 was a true American workhorse that just kept soldiering (or rather, flying) on. Its solid design helped turn the tide for the United States world-wide, but most especially in the Pacific. Hats off to an American icon.

Caleb Larson is a defense writer with the National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

This article first appeared in June 2020.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Caleb Larson

World War II, Europe

The Sonderkraftfahrzeug was an odd motorcycle-tank hybrid.

Here's What You Need to Know: Nazi Germany found a vehicle well-suited to the Eastern Front.

Germany likes small things. Be it the Wiesel tankette, a tiny two or three-man scout tank armed with a 20-millimeter autocannon main gun, or this odd motorcycle-tank hybrid, the Sd.Kfz. 2. The Special-purpose Vehicle, or Sonderkraftfahrzeug as it was known in German, was intended to be a compact heavy mover for the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War.

The Sd.Kfz. 2 was most used in Russia on the Eastern Front. In that intense conflict, the Sd.Kfz. 2 was used mostly as a support vehicle for towing or moving small amounts of troops or equipment in its small crew compartment or in a compact two-wheeled trailer.

It was also occasionally used to position airplanes on runways. Especially in the later stages of World War II, efforts were made by Germany to conserve as much jet fuel as possible, and using the Sd.Kfz. 2 to position jets was a conservation measure.

The Sd.Kfz. 2 was well-suited to the Eastern Front and the heavy muck that troops and vehicles had to wade through. In addition to a relatively low weight, the Sd.Kfz. 2 benefited from the large interleaving road wheels that rode on tracks, giving the Sd.Kfz. 2 low ground pressure. This neat video gives a good idea of just how capable the little tankette was off-road and is worth the watch.

Though low ground pressure was beneficial, the design suffered from mechanical complexity. The innermost road wheels were not quickly removable. In order to service them an outermost wheel would also have to be removed, hampering maintenance. In addition, the interleaving wheels could sometimes become filled with freezing mud and muck endemic to the austere Russian landscape and freeze, jamming the Sd.Kfz. 2’s tracks.

Variants

One of the more interesting Sd.Kfz. 2 variants was a demolition vehicle based on the Sd.Kfz. 2 chassis that could be driven both by remote control and by a driver. The Springer as it was called, lacked the motorcycle-like front wheel and handlebars of its Sd.Kfz. 2 parent and had a small one-man crew compartment that had additional armor protection.

To fulfill its demolition role, the Springer carried a 330 kilogram (or about 730-pound) explosive charge towards a target. Once near, the driver exited the little tankette and guided it via remote control towards its target. As the Springer would explode along with its payload, it could only be used once making it impractical for widespread use.

Postwar, an unknown number of Sd.Kfz. 2s were built as a cheaper tractor alternative. These low-cost vehicles were desperately needed to help alleviate the post-war food shortage in Germany that persisted until 1948.

Caleb Larson is a defense writer with the National Interest. He holds a Master of Public Policy and covers U.S. and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture.

This article first appeared in June 2020.

Image: Ben Norwood / Wikimedia Commons

Kyle Mizokami

North Korea, Asia

The PLA might lack the institutional skill of the battle-tested U.S. Army, but it is certainly better than the Korean People’s Army.

Here's What You Need to Know: While North Korea has traditionally been a Chinese client state, ties between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years.

Amid the near-constant threat of a crisis breaking out on the Korean Peninsula, one major power is often left out of the discussion: China. The People’s Republic of China shares an 880 mile long border with its notoriously unpredictable neighbor, has a large army and values stable borders at any cost. In the event it deems military action necessary, what are Beijing’s options for dealing with North Korea and what kind of force could it bring to bear?

North Korea is both a blessing and a curse for China. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an independent state that is openly hostile to the United States and other regional powers. Pyongyang’s military is a deterrent to attack without posing a direct threat to China. As a result, nearly a thousand miles of China’s borders are occupied by a regime that finances its own defense and will never fall willingly within the U.S. sphere of influence.

The situation is far from perfect. While North Korea has traditionally been a Chinese client state, ties between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years. Pyongyang’s fiery anti-American rhetoric and nuclear weapons program have provoked the United States, making North Korea a major point of contention between Washington and Beijing. The country’s flagrant violation of international norms have tested Beijing’s patience.

There are persistent rumors that Beijing has long prepared to intervene in North Korea, whether in the aftermath of a government collapse or should the country’s leadership make credible threats against China. No one outside of Beijing knows what those preparations might be, but we can outline some scenarios. One thing seems reasonably certain, however: if China goes into North Korea, the presiding regime, whether of Kim Jong-un or someone else, will not survive.

One possible scenario is a military incursion into North Korea in response to regime collapse. An imploding economy, military coup, or Syria-like rebellion could all cause the regime to fold, and it will likely fold quickly. When it does, the national food distribution system will likely fail, causing refugees to flee the country. Given that the border with South Korea is notoriously fortified and the Russian border is relatively far and remote, the least difficult border to cross is into China.

Beijing, obsessed with internal stability, would almost certainly not tolerate millions of refugees crossing into northern China. From a Chinese perspective, it would be far better for those refugees to stay in North Korea. In the event of regime collapse, we could see the three People’s Liberation Army (PLA) armies in the country’s Northern Theater Command move south. One option is to create a buffer zone in North Korea, but that would not solve the problem of political and economic instability. If the PLA does move South, it would likely go all the way to Pyongyang in order to establish a puppet government and reestablish some level of stability.

The most likely scenario is that China launches an all-out invasion to topple the existing regime. Of the sixteen armored, mechanized, infantry and artillery corps that make up the Korea People’s Army (KPA), only two are deployed along the Sino-Korean border. Three more corps are stationed in and around Pyongyang. Nearly 70 percent of the KPA is south of the Pyongyang/Wonsan line, sited to support a cross-border attack against South Korea.

China’s Northern Theater Command ground forces consist of the 78th, 79th and 80th Armies. These armies are what would be considered corps in the U.S. Army, collectively controlling eighteen combined arms brigades supported by three special operations, three aviation, three artillery and three engineering brigades. This gives the PLA a powerful force equivalent, at least on paper, to roughly five or six U.S. combat divisions. Supported by the two air attack divisions of the Chinese Air Force assigned to the Northern Command, the three PLA armies could quickly cross the border and march south into the KPA’s strategic rear.

To what extent would the KPA resist an invasion? It depends. If the regime in Pyongyang is still in place, it China could face considerable resistance. A lack of fuel reserves, dictated by China, would likely strand many of the remaining fourteen army corps in place, rendering them unable to resist a Chinese invasion. If the government collapses the KPA could become part of the hungry, leaderless masses—masses with weapons. Ideally, Beijing would cultivate ties with the KPA leadership before a move South and persuade it to not resist and maintain order.

It’s difficult to foretell how well the PLA would do in wartime. The last time the Chinese Army engaged in such large scale combat was the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. Using inferior, outdated tactics, China’s ground forces suffered heavy casualties against their battle-hardened Vietnamese opponents, and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping vowed never to repeat such a costly war. It is unlikely that Beijing would order the attack if it did not have full confidence in the PLA to carry it out without embarrassing failure.

The PLA of today however is a completely different beast. While the PLA lacks the institutional skill of the battle-tested U.S. Army, it is certainly better than the Korean People’s Army. The army has modernized both its equipment and military doctrine—Xi Jinping’s repeated calls to be “combat ready”, often interpreted as outwardly aggressive, are more likely to be exhortations toward general readiness and against corruption in the ranks. A recent and pervasive emphasis on high speed, mechanized warfare will pay the PLA dividends in a drive on Pyongyang.

The most dangerous aspect of a Chinese invasion of North Korea is if it is launched concurrent with a U.S. and South Korean assault northward from the demilitarized zone. While the U.S. and South Korea would operate with the same objectives in mind, they would likely be very different from China’s. The possibility of fighting breaking out between those armies marching north and those marching south would be very real.

Barring a total collapse of the Pyongyang regime, China is unlikely to invade North Korea any time soon. The economic, political, and military costs outweigh the benefits—at least for now. That having been said, if the calculus changes China maintains the forces, just over the border, to decisively intervene in its smaller neighbor. Whether China, South Korea, or anyone is ready for the outcome is a very good question.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009, he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami.

This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Kyle Mizokami

China, Asia

China is willing to steal American military technology. Is America willing to do the same?

Here's What You Need to Know: These Chinese weapons highlight holes in U.S. capabilities.

We all know that there are plenty of U.S. weapons the Chinese military would like to get its hands on. The Arsenal of Democracy churns out some of the best, most technologically advanced and versatile weapons in service anywhere. China is willing to steal American military technology to help advance its own military research and development programs.

The United States on the other hand…well, there is probably not a single Chinese weapon that, in a direct comparison, is better than its American equivalent and that probably won’t change for another twenty years. So if we want to talk about Chinese weapons for the American military, we have to think about holes in current American capabilities. There aren’t many, but here are Chinese weapons that might make the American military a little better.

AG600 Seaplane

The United States made extensive use of seaplanes during the Second World War, where they were instrumental in rescuing downed pilots and providing long-range reconnaissance. It was a PBY Catalina seaplane that reported the location of Admiral Nagumo’s fleet, setting the stage for the American victory at the Battle of Midway.

If the United States is serious about fighting across the expanse of the Pacific, it will once again need a long-range aircraft that can land in the water. China’s new AG600 seaplane is the answer. The largest seaplane in the world, it’s as big as a Boeing 737. It can carry up to fifty passengers, has a range of 3,100 miles, and can stay aloft for up to twelve hours.

DF-ZF Hypersonic Vehicle

Washington has expressed interest in so-called hypersonic weapons—weapons that travel at more than five times the speed of sound. Several projects, including the X-51 scramjet—have undergone development, but despite the technical prowess of the United States no one system has reached operational status yet.

The DF-ZF hypersonic vehicle is seemingly farther along than its American equivalents. The DF-ZF, which travels at speeds between 4,000 and 7,000 miles an hour, has had seven successful tests. Although the Chinese weapon travels more slowly than its American equivalent, it appears much closer to operational status than anything in development in the United States.

ZBD-05 Amphibious Infantry Fighting Vehicle

The U.S. Marine Corps attempt to replace the AAV-7 amphibious assault vehicle is now in its fourth decade. The original project, begun in 1988 resulted in the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a failed effort that consumed $3 billion dollars before being canceled in 2011.

The U.S. is pressing ahead with the new Amphibious Combat Vehicle initiative, but in the meantime what about the Chinese ZBD-05? Developed by Chinese defense contractor Norinco, the ZBD-05 has a crew of three, can carry ten passengers, and has a 30-millimeter cannon mounted in a turret. It has ballistic protection up to .50 caliber rounds and shrapnel, and has a water speed of up to eighteen miles an hour.

Type 072A LST

Amphibious capability is going to be key in any future standoff in the Western Pacific. As part of a broader switch to fewer, more capable platforms America’s amphibious fleet is concentrated in massive the Wasp, America, and San Antonio-class ships of the U.S. Navy. Always accompanied by a slew of escorts, these hulking ships attract attention.

The Type 072A landing ship is a frigate-sized amphibious vessel. Just 390 feet long and 3,400 tons empty, the ships can carry three hundred troops, a dozen tanks, or eight hundred tons of cargo. It has a helicopter flight deck on the stern and a well deck that can accommodate China’s version of the LCAC air cushion transport. The Type 072A could be just the thing for quietly slipping into an area, depositing a small company-sized force of marines, and slipping away—without sending in an entire amphibious ready group.

Type 056 Corvette

The United States needs a capable littoral combat ship. Despite more than a decade of ship construction and development of high tech “mission modules”, the Littoral Combat Ship program has created a growing fleet of minimally capable ships armed largely with a single 57-millimeter and two 30-millimeter guns.

In the “perfect is the enemy of good” vein of thinking, consider the Type 056 corvette. The Type 056 is a small, 1,500 ton general purpose warship. The Type 056 may not rely on robotics and fancy swappable mission modules, but it’s cheap and available. It has a 76-millimeter gun, two 30-millimeter guns, and four YJ-83 anti-ship missiles. It has a FL-3000N launcher for air self defense.

For antisubmarine warfare, it has two triple-tube 324-millimeter torpedo launchers and more recent versions have a towed-array sonar system. It has a helicopter flight deck but not a hangar.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boringand the Daily Beast. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami.

This article first appeared in August 2016.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

David Axe

Mercenaries, Africa

Before Blackwater there was Bob Denard.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Men like Denard but perhaps a little less theatrical—many of them South Africans—took the next logical step. They founded businesses with boring-sounding names but a deadly purpose: to fight Africa’s nastiest conflicts on behalf of corrupt, inept governments, and for profit.

In the early 1960s, the former Belgian Congo came apart at the seams. U.N.-backed Congolese troops battled the forces of the breakaway region of Katanga, which in turn was supported by hundreds of foreign mercenaries.

Surely no one realized it at the time, but the seeds of a new way of war were planted in the Congo’s rich soil at that time—a way of war cultivated in large part by one man.

Among the pro-Katanga fighters was a tall, handsome, 30-something French soldier-of-fortune named Gilbert Bourgeaud, better known by his nom de guerre “Bob Denard.” The Frenchman was notorious for fearlessly manning a mortar while under heavy attack.

The Congo crisis was the young Denard’s first war-for-hire. He would later take part in conflicts in Yemen, Benin, Gabon and Angola, among others.

The Katanga rebellion failed and Denard fled. In late 1965, the mercenary reappeared in Congo, this time fighting on the side of strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, a one-time opponent of the Katanga regime.

Following the money, Denard had switched sides.

Mobutu consolidated power and declared himself president in November. Fearful of the mercenaries who had fought against him then for him and who still lingered in “Zaire,” as Mobutu had renamed the country, the new president asked Denard to help disarm one of the more notorious foreign fighters, a Belgian named Jacques Schramme.

Instead, Denard switched sides again. He joined Schramme in trying to overthrow Mobutu.

The coup failed when the mercenaries ran into a platoon of North Korean soldiers accompanying their vice president on a visit to Pyongyang’s African ally. The North Koreans didn’t hesitate to open fire on Denard’s men. Denard was shot in the head and lay paralyzed for two days, as a woman, later to be his first wife, tended his wound with ice and herbs.

Denard’s men then stole a plane and evacuated their wounded boss. Denard walked with a limp for the rest of his life. But the then-37-year-old Frenchman was not done fighting. He returned to Congo for one more (ultimately failed) coup attempt before drifting into other African wars.

Denard’s hasty attack on the leader of Benin in 1977 faltered after just three hours; he left behind live and dead mercenaries, weapons and other gear, and, most damning, documents describing his entire battle plan.

Families of victims of the attack filed suit in France and Benin. In France, Denard was sentenced to five years in prison. In Benin, he was given the death penalty.

But by then Denard was far beyond the reach of either court. He was on a boat, armed to the teeth at the head of a mercenary army, bound for the Indian Ocean island nation of the Comoros in the opening move of what would become a private war lasting nearly 20 years.

Denard’s army in the Comoros would breed an entire generation of mercenaries who, three decades later, would find gainful employment waging war on behalf of a much wealthier client.

The United States.

Mercenary king

A certain class of warrior deliberately obscured their origins, intentions and methods. They fought not for nation or state, but for money. More often than not, they didn’t even use their real names.

They were mercenaries. In the 1970s and ‘80s, Bob Denard was their king, and the East African island nation of the Comoros was their realm.

The three islands of the Comoros together represent Africa’s third-smallest country, with just 863 square miles of tropical forest-covered mountains and hills, beaches and dense, seedy, labyrinthine cities for its nearly 800,000 people.

The Comorans are poor people in a poor land. They hunt, they fish, they grow vanilla for export. A quarter of the countries country’s external trade is in the form of old, frequently toxic, decommissioned ships that the desperate Comorans dismantle and recycle or throw away—for a fee.

The islands were French until July 1975. Ahmed Abdallah, then 56 and the founder of his own political party, became the first president of the newly independent nation.

But not for long. In August he was overthrown. And so began one of the most bizarre, and grotesque, political successions in modern history. Abdallah’s overthrower, Said Mohammed Jaffar, was himself overthrown in January 1976 by Denard, acting on behalf of a man named Ali Soilih.

Soilih’s agents had found Denard in Paris, where he was bored and despairing. Africa’s wars of decolonization in the 1960s had been pretty good for the old “dog of war,” as the press liked to call Denard. But several of the Frenchman’s most ambitious gigs had ended in disaster. He found his reputation, and demand for his lethal services, waning.

The future Comoran president’s men offered Denard a $15,000 advance in exchange for his help raising an army against Abdallah. Denard called in some old cronies from Gabon and France, purchased 10 tons of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; and caught a commercial flight to Moroni, the Comoros’ biggest city.

There Denard equipped some overeager Comoran youths with unloaded weapons and sent them racing across the island in a show of force. There was one fatality: a young relative of Soilih who was decapitated by a machete-wielding guard.

Denard and his mercenaries flew to a neighboring island and laid siege to Abdallah in his villa. The president surrendered. Soilih handed him a passport and a million dollars and made him swear to never re-enter politics. Abdallah left for Paris.

Soilih held on for two years, himself surviving no fewer than four attempted coups.

He was a terrible leader. His drug and alcohol abuse, and his tendency to look to his witchdoctor for strategic guidance, compounded his policy failures. Soon the treasury was empty, and the country was growing hungry.

When the witchdoctor told Soilih he would be killed by a white man with a black dog, the increasingly mad president sent men to kill all the dogs on the island—an obviously fruitless task.

Deposed former president Abdallah watched Soilih’s implosion from the comfort of exile in Paris. Abdallah allied with two wealthy Comoran businessmen. Together they came up with a surprising plan. They would hire the man who had overthrown Abdallah two years ago to restore the former president to power.

They called Denard.

Back to the Comoros

The old mercenary was a desperate man. His attempted coup in Benin the year before had left him with a bullet in his skull and prison and death sentences in France and Benin. He accepted Abdallah’s contract—thus switching sides in a conflict for at least the third time in his career—and quickly spent millions of dollars of the conspirators’ money recruiting and arming his troops.

When the money ran out, a determined Denard sold a garage he owned and became a shareholder in “Abdallah, Inc.”

Denard bought a 200-foot trawler he renamed Masiwa, stocked it with weapons, and brought aboard 50 of his best men and a pet German Shepherd—the black dog of Soilih’s nightmares.

They sailed from France in March. On May 13, 1978, they slipped ashore wearing black uniforms, prophetic dog in tow. Killing four guards and cops en route to the presidential palace, they found Soilih drunk in bed with two young girls. “I should have known it would be you,” Soilih said to Denard.

Abdallah resumed his interrupted presidency. Sixteen days later, the imprisoned Soilih was shot dead, allegedly by Denard’s men.

And Denard reaped the rewards. Installed as chief of the 500-strong presidential guard—in effect, the military of the Comoros, equipped with machine gun–armed jeeps—Denard was widely considered the real power in the Comoros.

He recruited friends and fellow Europeans as guard officers. With his salary of more than $3 million a year, he built a luxurious estate on 1,800 acres. He married a hotel receptionist, his sixth wife, and had eight children. He converted to Islam. Or claimed to, at least.

Denard also claimed to have the support of the French government, which had been keen to retain some influence over its former colonies. But if that claim was true, Paris never publicly confirmed it.

But it seems Abdallah resented and feared Denard’s power. The Frenchman had, after all, helped overthrow rulers in Nigeria, Angola and Yemen. After 11 years of unofficial joint rule, in 1989 there were rumors Abdallah planned to replace Denard as chief of the guard.

The timing seemed right. All over the world, old alliances were weakening. The poor nations of the world were throwing off the chains of superpower conflict, ejecting its agents and realigning their interests.

But Abdallah never got the chance for his own version of the Soviet Union’s perestroika, or “reform.” On the night of Nov. 26, the president was shot and killed in his bedroom.

Newspaper accounts, what few there were, varied wildly. At least one breathless article described a mercenary firing a rocket-propelled grenade into Abdallah’s bedroom. The scant press actually paying some attention assumed Denard or his men killed Abdallah. Everyday Comorans believed it, too. They rioted in the capital city Moroni, chanting, “Assassin! Assassin!” when Denard appeared.

But Denard, who fled to South Africa after Abdallah’s death, later told a French court he was in the president’s bedroom when Abdallah’s personal bodyguard, Abdallah Jaffar, burst into the room and fired at Denard. Abdallah was hit by accident. Denard said he shot back and killed the assailant.

“I was a soldier,” Denard said tearfully. “I was never a killer,” he told the court.

Said Mohamed Djohar, former head of the Comoros Supreme Court, succeeded the slain Abdallah and ruled until 1995, when he was overthrown by … Denard, again, out for one last adventure.

That time, French troops swooped in to restore order. The old dog of war Denard, née Bourgeaud, was arrested and jailed. He died of Alzheimer’s in Paris in 2007, at the age of 78. The truth concerning that bloody November night died with him.

The same year that Denard died, one of his former lieutenants, a man who had served under the self-styled warlord as an officer in the Comoros presidential guard in 1985, flew to Mogadishu, where he was to fulfill the destiny denied Denard.

Richard Rouget, a.k.a. “Colonel Sanders,” was 47 years old when he helped conquer an African nation with the full but largely unspoken support of the U.S.

Rouget fought for his own personal gain. But America was happy to benefit. And it didn’t hurt that almost no one called Rouget a “mercenary.” Decades after Denard’s bloody heyday, mercenaries had learned to go by other names.

Contractors.

Guns for hire

In the late 1990s there was a seismic shift in the way governments waged war in Africa and across the globe. Bob Denard’s bloody antics in the Comoros had established a precedent.

Men like Denard but perhaps a little less theatrical—many of them South Africans—took the next logical step. They founded businesses with boring-sounding names but a deadly purpose: to fight Africa’s nastiest conflicts on behalf of corrupt, inept governments, and for profit.

They found willing customers in governments and international organizations increasingly unwilling to, or incapable of, waging war alone—inhibitions that only deepened following the Somalia bloodletting.

“In the post-Cold War era … this cross of the corporate form with military functionality has become a reality,” security expert P. W. Singer wrote in Corporate Warriors. “A new global industry has emerged. It is outsourcing and privatization of a 21st-century variety, and it changes many of the old rules of international politics and warfare.”

In 1989 former South African commando Eeben Barlow, a lanky, hook-nosed man with one blue eye and one green one, founded Executive Outcomes, a U.K.-based company offering security training services to the South African military and businesses. Barlow was in his mid-30s at the time. For five years he was Executive Outcomes’ sole employee.

Then, in March 1993, Angolan rebels seized Soyo, a major state-owned oil facility on the country’s lawless coast. The Angolan army was busy battling rebels elsewhere, so the government approached Barlow with an offer the former commando could not refuse: $80 million to oversee the liberation of the captured oil facility.

Barlow quickly assembled a strike team of 50 of his old Special Forces colleagues. With Angolan helicopters flying top cover and two chartered Cessnas shuttling in supplies, the Executive Outcomes strikers assaulted Soyo.

In a week of hard fighting, the mercenaries liberated the facility. Three of Barlow’s men were wounded.

The Angolan government was impressed. In June they offered Barlow an even more lucrative contract to train up an entire army brigade to fight the rebels. For this task Barlow recruited 500 former South African commandos and chartered a small air force, including 727 jets.

Executive Outcomes’ responsibilities gradually expanded. Soon the company was also providing pilots for Angola’s Russian-made helicopters, propeller-drive attack planes and MiG-23 jet bombers.

In November the Angolan brigade Barlow’s men were training attacked the rebels, initiating what would be an 18-month campaign fought in equal parts by Executive Outcomes and its Angolan trainees, but with the South African company providing all the expertise and air power.

The Angolan brigade was a front for a mercenary army. Two Executive Outcomes aircraft were shot down and several employees killed.

The battered rebels sued for peace and in January 1995 Barlow pulled his men out of Angola. They were not idle for long. The government of Sierra Leone, under pressure from rebels of its own, was Executive Outcomes’ next client.

In April, a hundred of Barlow’s mercs, led by a South African ex-commando named Duncan Rykaart, flew into the tiny coastal country in a chartered 727. Their plan: to evict the rebels from the capital Freetown and the country’s diamond fields, then locate and destroy the rebel headquarters.

Again with native troops fronting and Executive Outcomes’ aircraft in support, Barlow’s fighters advanced. A year later the rebels sued for peace.

Riding high, Executive Outcomes alongside another security firm began negotiations with Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of the Congo facing a determined rebellion led by Laurent Kabila. “Neither firm took the contract, as the regime was on its last legs,” Singer wrote.

Instead, Executive Outcomes waited until after Mobutu fell … and signed a contract with Kabila, now president of the Congo and facing rebellions of his own. In a daring operation, Barlow’s commandos captured the strategic Inga dams. But Kabila failed to pay up, and so Executive Outcomes abandoned Congo, leaving Kabila and his ragtag army to fight on alone.

In the wake of Executive Outcomes’ successes, so-called “private military companies” sprouted like weeds. Nowhere were they thicker than in South Africa. The government in Cape Town moved to regulate the merc companies, and in 1998 Executive Outcomes folded. Its chief officers went to work for other PMCs or founded companies of their own. “Rather than truly ending its business, it appears EO simply devolved its activities,” Singer wrote.

Rykaart joined NFD, a security company with strong ties to Executive Outcomes and which was allegedly helping the Sudanese government in its battle with U.S.-allied southern rebels.

Later, Rykaart worked in American-occupied Iraq for Aegis Defense Services. In 2009, while working in Somalia for yet another security company, he was killed when the plane he was riding in crashed shortly after takeoff.

The company’s name was Bancroft Global Development. Among its roughly two- dozen mercenaries was Richard Rouget, former lieutenant of Bob Denard in the Comoros.

Private war

If the bush wars of the 1990s sparked the explosive spread of private security companies, then the U.S-led invasion and subsequent eight-year occupation of Iraq starting in 2003 was fuel poured directly on the fire.

“In the early days of the Iraq war, there weren’t enough troops,” Steve Fainaru explained in his book Big Boys Rules. “As the situation deteriorated, a parallel army formed on the margins of the war: tens of thousands of armed men, invisible in plain sight, doing the jobs that couldn’t be done because there weren’t enough troops.”

In just the first 18 months of the war, the U.S. government spent $766 million on security contracts with private companies. The governments of Iraq and various U.S. allies added untold millions to the total.

In July 2005 the Government Accountability Office estimated there were at least 60 major security companies operating in Iraq with 25,000 employees. In those first two years of the war, no fewer than 200 contractors died in combat.

It was apparent that the Pentagon could no longer—or would no longer—fulfill its national security responsibilities without the assistance of mercenaries. That raised some profound questions,. Not the least of which: accountability.

On Sept. 16, 2007, private soldiers from Blackwater, a North Carolina firm that provided security for the State Department, gunned down 17 civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad.

The mercenaries later claimed they had come under attack, but the U.S. Army found no evidence of insurgent fire. “The incident almost certainly would have been buried but for the sheer number of people whom Blackwater killed,” Fainaru wrote.

The Iraqi government protested. Blackwater attempted to settle the issue with payments to victims’ families. In the U.S. criminal and civil suits were filed. At least one of the shooters got off on a technicality. Another pleaded guilty to manslaughter and agreed to cooperate with investigators.

As of late 2012 four cases were still open, with the defendants facing manslaughter and weapons charges. Blackwater was barred from Iraq but held onto its State Department contract. The company changed its name twice in an attempt to distance itself from the killings.

The Nisoor Square shootings shone a light on the shadowy world of security companies but did nothing to reverse the trend towards more and more corporate involvement in America’s wars. Nor did the killings and the subsequent legal cases necessarily resolve the confusion over accountability.

At worst, a few of Blackwater’s employees could go to prison for manslaughter. But the business itself survived and even thrived, as did other companies like it.

“Public militaries have all manner of traditional controls over their activities, ranging from internal checks and balances, domestic laws regulating the activities of of the military force and its personnel, parliamentary scrutiny, public opinion and numerous aspects of international law,” Singer explained. Security companies, he added, “are only subject to the laws of the market.”

“Who can and should be punished for these crimes?” Singer asked. “It is very clear that privatizing security actions only complicates the issue.”

But that was the point. The more the Pentagon relied on hired guns, the greater the distance between the government and the conduct and consequences of the wars it waged.

Mercenary playground

Michael Stock’s family had made a fortune in banking. In 1999, shortly after graduating from Princeton, he used a portion of that fortune to found, in Virginia, a non-profit organization called Landmine Clearance International.

Its mission statement: to “rehabilitate populated areas in the aftermath of armed conflict through land-mine clearance and explosive ordnance disposal.”

In 2007 Landmine Clearance International got a new and fancier-sounding name—Bancroft Global Development—and new headquarters in a $4-million mansion on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.

And in 2008 Bancroft scored a new client: AMISOM, the 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, staffed mostly by Ugandans and funded by the U.S. to the tune of several hundred million dollars a year. With American money AMISOM hired Bancroft to provide training for peacekeepers in close combat and bomb disposal. By 2010 Bancroft would be taking in $14 million in a year.

It took Bancroft four months and “a lot of lawyers and money” to set up facilities at the A.U.-controlled seaport-and-airport complex in Mogadishu, according to Somalia Report, an online publication run by adventurer and war correspondent Robert Young Pelton.

The new digs would expand to include rooms for rent for $155 a night plus a bar popular with military advisers, journalists and visiting government officials.

Stock’s approach was careful, deliberate. “You better know the rules,” he said. After 17 years of war, those Somali bureaucrats who had survived were a hard and dangerous bunch. There were negotiations, mountains of paperwork, and not a few bribes to be proffered.

To staff its Somalia ops, Bancroft recruited two dozen veteran mercenaries—a mix of Europeans and South Africans. One of them was Richard Rouget, formerly of the Comoran presidential guard.

After a stint organizing safaris, Rouget had returned to the gun-for-hire business. In 2005, a South African court convicted him of illegally recruiting mercenaries to fight in the West African nation of Ivory Coast.

His fine was just shy of $9,000. But Rouget was evidently broke. He reportedly borrowed some money from a friend and raised some more leading a safari to Mozambique. Clearly badly in need of cash, in 2007 or 2008, it seems, Rouget signed on with Bancroft and flew to Mogadishu.

He was assigned to teach Ugandan troops, long experienced in forest fighting, how to do battle door to door, building to building. Though unarmed, Rouget routinely accompanied his trainees into the dust and clamor of urban fighting.

In five years of hard combat, the Ugandans and their allies, funded by the U.S. and trained by men like Rouget, steadily pushed back Islamic militants, gradually restoring an internationally-backed regime to Somalia after more than two decades of bloody warfare.

It was one of the first widely-sanctioned modern wars led, and in large part won, by mercenaries. The guns-for-hire helped Washington to keep its distance from Somalia and still wage war there.

Honoring the spirit of his mentor Bob Denard, that famed dog of war, Rouget told The New York Times he relished his work. “Give me some technicals”—gun-armed pickup trucks—“and some savages and I’m happy.”

David Axe served as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels  War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared in April 2020 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

Artillery, Americas

The Army has several fast-developing weapons programs such as Extended Range Cannon Artillery.

Here's What You Need to Know: The Extended Range Cannon Artillery doubles the range of previous howitzers.

The Army and the Air Force are working together to explore new methods of destroying enemy air defenses made possible by advances in networking technology, precision-guidance systems and long-range weapons.

The Army’s Long Range Precision Fires program, for instance, is fast refining new weapons able to travel hundreds of miles beyond previously possible ranges to potentially attack and destroy enemy air defenses in order to help air forces achieve and maintain air supremacy.

“We are going to have long range precision fires which will enable us to penetrate anti-access/area denial capabilities which they are very concerned about. We will have that capability. We are going to have air and missile defense capability that they will be concerned about because that is how we will protect their bases and it is how we aligned the sensors and shooters together,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told The National Interest last Fall at Project Convergence 2020, Yuma, Ariz.

The Army has several fast-developing weapons programs including Extended Range Cannon Artillery, a program which leverages modifications to 155mm artillery cannons to fire precision-guided rounds as far as 70km. Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, Director of the Army’s Long Range Precision-Fires Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, said the ERCA program recently reached the breakthrough range of 70km.

“We had a 70km target hit with Excalibur. We have been pushing incrementally up to higher chamber pressures and proved that it can get out to 70km and we feel pretty good about that accomplishment,” Rafferty told The National Interest in an interview.

Typically, Army 155mm artillery shells fire from either a mobile M777 or self-propelled Howitzer can travel 30km, a baseline the ERCA program has now more than doubled. This is accomplished in part by making modifications to the tube.

“When you are talking about doubling the range you need a longer tube and a larger caliber. We will blend this munition with a howitzer and extend the range. We are upgrading the breach and metallurgy of the tube, changing the hydraulics to handle increased pressure and using a new ram jet projectile—kind of like a rocket,” a senior Army weapons developer told The National Interest in an interview earlier in the development of the program.

The ERCA is configured to fire from an M109a8 Self-Propelled Howitzer, using a 58-Cal. tube; the existing M109a7, called the Paladin Integrated Management, fires a 39-Cal. weapon.

“The ERCA program develops not only the XM907 cannon but also products, such as the XM1113 rocket assisted projectile, the XM654 supercharge, an autoloader, and new fire control system,” an Army statement said.

The modification adds 1,000 pounds to the overall weight of the weapon and an additional six feet of cannon tube. The ERCA systems also uses a redesigned cab, new breech design and new “muzzle brake,” the official explained.

Rafferty explained that the success of ERCA is also opening doors to new applications for evolving Excalibur munitions such as a “shaped” charge effort and a now-in-development tank-killing “hit-to-kill” round.

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 Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

This article first appeared in March 2021.

Image: U.S. Army photo by Spc. Angel Ruszkiewicz

Stephen Silver

Comcast,

Strong revenue and an increase in broadband internet subscribers helped Comcast beat quarterly expectations.

Comcast reported a mostly successful third quarter on Thursday but also announced that it lost another 408,000 video subscribers. Those losses consisted of 382,000 residential subscribers and 26,000 business subscribers. 

That leaves Comcast with 18.55 million video subscribers, which remains the most of any U.S. cable company. Comcast had lost 273,000 subscribers in the same period the year before. After massive subscriber losses in the first half of 2020 due to the start of the pandemic, losses slowed across the industry in last year’s third quarter. 

Comcast lost just under 400,000 in the second quarter of this year after it dropped 491,000 in the first quarter. According to FierceVideo, Comcast has lost 1.3 million video subscribers so far in 2021. 

At the same time, Comcast gained 300,000 broadband internet subscribers in the third quarter. Comcast reported $30.30 billion in revenue and $.087 per share in earnings, according to CNBC, both of which beat analysts’ expectations. The broadband subscriber number also exceeded what analysts had predicted. 

“I am pleased with our strong operating and financial results this quarter. Each of our businesses posted significant growth in Adjusted (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), contributing to a double-digit increase in our Adjusted EPS,” CEO Brian Roberts said in the earnings release. “At Cable, our customer and financial metrics remained strong, highlighted by 10% growth in Adjusted EBITDA, the highest level of customer retention on record for a third quarter, and the most wireless net additions since the launch of Xfinity Mobile in 2017.”

The company did not share a subscriber number for its Peacock streaming service. The company said earlier this year that it had 54 million sign-ups at the end of the second quarter. 

The NBC Universal division saw revenue growth in the quarter due to the Tokyo Olympics as well as movie releases such as F9 and The Boss Baby: The Family Business. Theme park revenue also showed a comeback thanks partly to pandemic restrictions being eased.

Roberts also mentioned the company’s XClass TVs in the earnings release. They were recently unveiled as part of a partnership. 

“Going forward, I am excited about the opportunity to continue to invest in our global technology platform and other businesses while returning more capital to shareholders. This strategy is reflected in our most recent product launches – XClass TV in the U.S. and Sky Glass in Europe – as well as the $2.7 billion we returned to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and dividend payments,” he said. 

Comcast also announced a quarterly dividend of twenty-five cents per share on the company’s common stock, which will be payable next January. 

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

Charlie Gao

Chinese Weapons, Asia

China is alleged to have provided missile components, warhead designs, and even highly enriched uranium to Pakistan. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: While China has long supplied Pakistan’s armed forces, the relationship has deepened in recent years, with Pakistan making major purchases of top-of-the-line Chinese export equipment.

As Pakistan’s relationship has soured with the United States in the past two decades, Pakistan’s armed forces have largely looked towards Chinese suppliers for equipment. While China has long supplied Pakistan’s armed forces, the relationship has deepened in recent years, with Pakistan making major purchases of top-of-the-line Chinese export equipment.

Here are some of the most powerful weapons China has sold or licensed to Pakistan.

1. Nuclear Weapons Program

The acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1990s is considered to be one of the largest failings of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. But, it is widely said that China provided significant assistance to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program (in addition to the A.Q. Khan’s espionage). China is alleged to have provided missile components, warhead designs, and even highly-enriched uranium. The political motive behind this is clear, Pakistan acts as an effective foil against growing Indian regional ambitions. But it is clear that nuclear assistance is the most deadly example of Chinese/Pakistani defense cooperation.

2. JF-17 Fighter

The JF-17 fighter is the new premier multirole fighter of the Pakistan Air Force, supplanting the position previously held by American F-16Cs. Featuring integration with a wide variety of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions, including active radar air-to-air missiles and air-launched cruise missiles, the JF-17, while a “budget” aircraft brings a lot of modern capability and modern ergonomics for its cost. While it would probably lose a dogfight to Indian Su-30MKIs due to inferior thrust-to-weight ratio and turn rate, in the beyond visual range arena, the JF-17 could prove to be tough opponent, especially given the Indian aircraft are said to have issues locking on at range with their first-generation R-77 missiles.

 3. A-100 Multiple Rocket Launcher

Multiple rocket launchers (MRLs) are some of the deadliest artillery systems on the battlefield. Combat experience in the Donbass has proven that MRLs can wipe out entire units if they remain static and unprepared. The A-100 is one of the latest MRL systems, reaching an operational capability of around 2,000. The first units were sold to Pakistan by China around 2008, since then Pakistan has built facilities to indigenously produce rockets for the system. Long-range MRLs are fielded by both India and Pakistan, with Indians fielding the Soviet/Russian BM-30 Smerch MRL. Rocket artillery could incur massive casualties in rear areas in the opening stages of a conventional conflict, as such both MRL systems are considered to be key parts of conventional deterrence strategies for India and Pakistan.

4. VT-1A

The VT-1A, alternatively known as the Al-Khalid or MBT-2000 is one of the more capable tanks in the region. Designed as a joint project between Pakistan and China, the design was practically clean slate. Production tanks have thermal gunner’s sights, a panoramic commander’s sight, and a 125mm gun. While not up to the standard of modern Russian or Western tanks, the VT-1A is more than capable of combating the T-72Ms that form the bulk of the Indian tank forces. However, the more advanced T-90S may pose issues to the VT-1A. However, Pakistan is considering acquiring the VT-4, China’s further development of the VT-1A design.

 5. HQ-16

While the Pakistani military has long relied on the Pakistan Air Force for air defense, the Pakistan Army has acquired the Chinese HQ-16 medium-range surface to air missile (SAM) for the defense of its formations on the ground. A deep modernization of the Russian Buk SAM, the HQ-16 utilizes vertical launch and containerized missiles to enhance reaction times. HQ-16 batteries are also said to be highly mobile, allowing them to avoid artillery and SEAD/DEAD attacks. Pakistan is also in negotiations to buy the longer ranged Chinese HQ-9 system, a Chinese analog to the Russian S-300 long-range SAM.

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

This article first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

Social Security,

The new version of the bill follows the Social Security Administration’s latest estimates that the trust funds that support the program will be depleted in thirteen years.

A House Democrats reintroduced a Social Security reform bill—dubbed Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust—in an effort to garner more support from President Joe Biden and Republicans.

The bill, brought forward by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), the chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, appears to combine Biden’s proposals with House Ways and Means initiatives. It would expand and enhance Social Security benefits for the roughly seventy million Americans who are currently eligible.

“The U.S. faces a retirement crisis and a modest boost in benefits strengthens the one leg of the retirement system that is universal and the most reliable,” the bill’s fact sheet reads.

The new version of the bill follows the Social Security Administration’s latest estimates that the trust funds that support the program will be depleted in thirteen years. According to a recent report from the Department of the Treasury, the Old-Age and Survivors trust fund will only be able to pay the scheduled Social Security benefits until the year 2033, while Medicare’s hospital insurance fund is expected to run dry in 2026.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that “the finances of both programs have been significantly affected by the pandemic and the recession of 2020.” In 2034, only seventy-eight percent of the promised benefits will be payable to Social Security recipients.

According to CNBC, “the bill proposes extending that date to 2038 to give Congress more time to come up with a long-term solution to the program’s solvency issues. The measure would also incorporate proposals made by President Joe Biden during his presidential campaign.”

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, told CNBC that “it’s got a lot that’s attractive, and nothing that I think should cause Democrats problems in an election year.”

One major feature of the legislation proposes raising the minimum benefit for low-income workers to twenty-five percent above the poverty line. Moreover, that figure would be tied to current wages in an effort to “ensure that the minimum benefit does not fall behind,” according to lawmakers. There is also a benefit boost for both new and existing beneficiaries amounting to roughly two percent of the average benefit.

If the bill passes and is signed by Biden, Social Security will also adopt the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, also known as CPI-E, which Democrats say would “better reflect the costs incurred by seniors,” such as rising health care and prescription costs.

“Social Security is a sacred commitment made to all Americans and a promise that must be fulfilled. As seniors and individuals with disabilities struggle to afford the costs of food, housing, and prescription drugs, this bill expands benefits and protections for millions of Americans,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “The Social Security 2100 Act will keep this vital lifeline solvent and ensure our nation’s bedrock social insurance program provides current and future beneficiaries with a quality standard of living.”

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

Charlie Gao

NATO Artillery, Europe

What does NATO have to compare to Russia's artillery?

Here's What You Need to Remember: Designed to pump out a high volume of fire within a short period, rocket artillery systems are particularly dangerous in their ability to obliterate a position before units have a chance to take cover. This capability, while less relevant in Western counterinsurgency doctrine, has proven useful in recent conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Rocket artillery is one of the most destructive weapons on the modern battlefield. Designed to pump out a high volume of fire within a short period, rocket artillery systems are particularly dangerous in their ability to obliterate a position before units have a chance to take cover.

This capability, while less relevant in Western counterinsurgency doctrine, has proven useful in recent conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. However, most rocket artillery systems used in those conflicts are Russian or Soviet. What does NATO have to compare?

Here are what could be considered the best rocket artillery systems NATO has to offer:

1. M270 MLRS

In the 1980s, the United States developed the M270 MLRS, the most common rocket artillery system in NATO. It is fielded by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Turkey.

It shoots 227mm rockets, twelve of which are held in two six-rocket pods. During the Cold War, the standard rocket was the M26 cluster rocket, which held 644 dual-purpose submunitions. Nowadays, due to treaties on cluster munitions, a new rocket with a unitary high explosive warhead is being fielded.

The system is designed to be quickly reloaded via swapping the pods. The MLRS is also designed to fire the ATACMS tactical guided missile, which can be set in place of one rocket pod.

2. M142 HIMARS

The HIMARS in some ways can be considered the MLRS’ smaller cousin. Featuring more modern fire control (which is being retrofitted to the M270 in the M270A1 variant), the HIMARS only can mount one six-rocket pod to the MLRS’ two.

The system is significantly more strategically mobile compared to the M270, as it is C-130 transportable. It is also cheaper to maintain than the M270 since it is mounted on a truck chassis. However, this limits its tactical mobility.

The system has seen recent interest with NATO nations, with Poland buying twenty launchers in late 2018. Romania also bought the HIMARS in early 2018.

3. RM-70

Although designed for Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War, RM-70 launchers continue to serve in NATO arsenals in Central Europe.

Based on the proven Tatra truck chassis, RM-70 launchers can even serve as a budget alternative to the HIMARS, as Slovak companies have offered to convert RM-70s to be able to mount a NATO-standard 6-round 227mm rocket pack.

However, even with the original 122mm rockets (the same as on the Soviet BM-21 Grad), the RM-70 is a formidable launcher. Unlike the Grad, the long 8x8 truck chassis allows for the carriage of a single full 40-rocket reload in front of the launcher.

4. LAROM

In addition to the HIMARS, Romania also fields a lighter Grad-alike rocket system. The LAROM is a version of Israel’s LAR-160 rocket launcher mounted on a simple truck chassis. The ability to use Israeli 160mm rockets provides a significant increase of capability over a regular Grad launcher.

The Israeli rockets have cluster munition warheads and are mounted on pods to allow for fast reloading in the field. In contrast, a regular Grad launcher like those found on the BM-21 or RM-70 has to be loaded tube by tube by a crew. However, a podded reload requires a crane on an ammunition support vehicle.

The LAROM can use both a standard Grad array as well as Israeli pods depending on its configuration.

5. T-300 Kasirga

The Turkish T-300 Kasirga is perhaps the only NATO rocket artillery system that could truly be considered a “heavy” system like the Russian/Soviet BM-30 Smerch.

Firing massive 300mm rockets, the T-300 is one of the longest ranged rocket artillery systems in the NATO arsenal, with the rockets capable of reaching out to 100 km. This is significantly longer than the 70 km that the M270 can reach with M30/M31 GMLRS rockets, although rockets in development may extend the M270’s range out to 150 km.

The T-300 also has one of the largest warheads of an artillery rocket in NATO inventory. The M31 has a unitary warhead weight of 90 kg. This is far less than the T-300’s 150 kg warhead or the Smerch’s massive 243 kg.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in 2019 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Kris Osborn

China, Asia

Beijing has made rapid advances in recent years.

Here's What You Need to Know: The U.S. military is fast-tracking AI applications to existing and emerging weapons systems just to keep up.

A prominent member of Congress is expressing significant concern that China’s military-oriented AI initiatives could pass the U.S. in terms of sophistication in merely the next several years, absent a more vigorous, sustained, and well-funded effort to stay in front.

Speaking at the opening of an extremely pressing and high-priority joint hearing of the House Oversight & Reform Subcommittee on National Security and the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems,” Rep. Elise Stefanik said “China will surpass the United States in AI leadership and with the innovation race if we fail to invest in emerging technologies.

Intended to address the findings of a newly released National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence report, Stefanik, who is the ranking member on the HASC Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, cited the report’s conclusions.

In her opening statement on the hearing, Stefanik describes the report’s conclusions as delivering a “profound and disturbing” impact on national security.

“The report concluded that China will achieve superiority over the U.S. within the next decade if we don’t solve our organizational and investment challenges by 2025—just four years from now,” she said.

Stefanik’s comments speak to a pressing issue of great concern to the U.S. military, given the extent and scope to which the services are fast-tracking AI applications to existing and emerging weapons systems. The list of programs, and the anticipated impact upon future warfare dynamics, is far too expansive to describe or categorize in any kind of cursory fashion. However, broadly speaking, the ability to quickly gather, organize and analyze new combat-sensitive information against a vast existing compiled database and, in a matter of seconds, perform the analytics necessary to offer human decisionmakers an optimal series of tactical options, is completely reshaping war planning.

While a single term to describe this phenomenon may seem reductive to an extent, much of it centers upon the word “speed.” The military services characterize this in terms of sensor-to-shooter time, massively expediting, shortening, and improving the rapid-response time available to commanders in war. Gen. Murray, Army Futures Command Commander, told The National Interest in an interview that future warfare is expected to include a “hyperactive” battlefield. This means the force which gets inside or, or completes the decision cycle ahead of an enemy by virtue of being able to discern, analyze and transmit new information, is likely to prevail in warfare.

The fundamental concept of AI-enabled decisionmaking is the primary foundation for the Army’s breakthrough Project Convergence project last September at Yuma Proving Grounds, Ariz. By drawing upon an AI-enabled database called FIRESTORM, Army forces demonstrated a warfare scenario which reduced sensor-to-shooter attack and counterattack timelines from 20 minutes, down to 20 seconds. This means that, if under attack from enemy fire, an Army force will be instantly empowered by fast-analyzed response data outlining recommended courses of action based upon AI-enabled analyses, pairing the incoming sensor data with the right “shooter” or “effector” with which to attack. Project Convergence demonstrated this technical breakthrough in a variety of air-ground warfare scenarios to include the use of ground combat vehicles, forward sensing mini-drone operations, and even satellite connectivity across vast distances.

However, this concept of AI-empowered warfare by no means stops with the Army, but it rather a tactical and strategic premise inspire a DoD-wide Multi-Domain Operations approach to modern warfare. The Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System, as it contributes to the Pentagon’s well-known Joint All Domain Command and Control, is similarly based upon multi-node, real-time data analysis and sharing across a dispersed, yet interwoven, mesh of otherwise disparate combat “nodes.” Drones, bombers, fighter jets, and ground command centers, ideally, can simultaneously access organized threat data to make instant determinations amid war scenarios.

The entire aim is to introduce new paradigms for joint warfare, based on high-speed information sharing, analysis, and warfare tactics, across the entire military. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, described the Army’s Project Convergence success as a “contribution to Joint All Domain Ops where we (the Army & Air Force) come together as a team and take some of the things they are working on and some of the things they are working on and see if they can converge together. They have a great program with Joint All Domain Command and Control - we want to be part of that.”

Both the Army and the Air Force speak to the emerging urgency with which the U.S. military needs to refine, fast-track, and further operationalized AI-enabled technologies, in part to specifically counter rapid Chinese advances. 

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.

This article first appeared in March 2021.

Image: DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. DeNoris Mickle, U.S. Air Force

Stephen Silver

U.S. Marine Corps,

Marines may no longer be prevented from getting inked. 

A new report suggests that the Marine Corps is planning to change the policies that have restricted tattoos for the past five years. Task & Purpose reported this week, and the Marines confirmed, that the Marine Corps is “considering changes to its current tattoo policy.” 

“The Marine Corps is currently considering making changes to its tattoo policy and we will update once the policy is complete,” Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine spokesman, told Task and Purpose. 

The first inkling of the change came from a Reddit post that shared a screenshot of an email attributed to Sgt. Maj. Rafael Rodriquez of Manpower and Reserve Affairs. 

“This week, the updated [Marine Corps Bulletin] to the tattoo policy will be on the street,” the post said. “A lot of the restriction[s] were lifted… We will have one tattoo policy that covers both enlisted and officers.” 

The email said that full sleeve tattoos, which were outlawed in 2016, will be authorized, although “the main issue will be the content of the tattoo.” There will also be no restriction on the number of tattoos that a Marine is allowed to have, although officers will not be allowed to have more than four visible tattoos. 

In addition, “tattoos are not authorized C7 and above, no tattoos on the face, head, or hand,” with the exception of some ring tattoos. And those with a tattoo in the “V” portion of their neck will have to wear a crew neck shirt, according to the email. 

Stenger told Task & Purpose that the information included in the leaked email is not the final determination of what the new policy will look like. 

“I will say that all of this is pre-decisional right now,” Stenger told the site. “Something might be in a policy that has yet to be reviewed by the senior leadership that needs to review it. So whatever you’re seeing in that email, it might — and I emphasize, it might be — what’s in that current policy, but that might not be in that final policy and that happens often with policies that we’re generating.”

The current policy was enacted in 2016. 

“Marines have inherited a legacy that we must honor and preserve for future generations of men and women bearing the title United States Marine, and that means meeting and exceeding the standards the American people have come to expect from our Corps,” then-Commandant Gen. Robert Neller wrote at the time. “The American people expect Marines to be disciplined, physically fit, and ready to accomplish any mission. They also expect Marines to possess esprit de corps and a squared away and sharp personal appearance.”

 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

Child Tax Credit,

In light of its success, the enhanced credits have been found to be one of the programs that made the cut as Democrats race toward an agreement over a framework for their social spending plan.

What recent data and studies have revealed is that the expanded Child Tax Credits approved last spring under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan are appearing to be doing a great job in feeding the country’s hungriest families and lifting millions of children out of poverty.

In light of this success, the enhanced credits have been found to be one of the programs that made the cut as Democrats race toward an agreement over a framework for their social spending plan. According to the $1.75 trillion proposal, there will be enough money set aside to ensure that nearly forty million families will continue to receive the monthly direct payments for at least another year.

However, the current proposal falls far short of what many Democrats had in mind—namely making the Child Tax Credit permanent. And Biden, in a previous proposal, aimed to continue the program at least through the year 2025.

Direct Cash to Parents

Due to the president’s ambitious stimulus bill, eligible parents and guardians, beginning in July, have been able to receive as much as $3,600 per year for a child under the age of six and up to $3,000 for children between ages six and seventeen.

Broken down, this means that a $250 or a $300 payment for each child will be direct deposited each month through the end of the year. In addition, parents can claim the other half of the total payments as a refund come next tax season.

Improving Lives

According to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, because of the expanded credits, the number of adults living in households with children that reported not having enough to eat has plummeted by 3.3 million—a total reduction of about one-third.

“Congress should make it a top priority to extend the monthly payments and ensure that the full credit remains permanently available to children in families with the lowest incomes,” wrote Claire Zippel, senior research analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

A separate report released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation showed that a permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit could potentially lift more than four million children out of poverty.

“Every child needs food, health care, and safe and stable housing. Millions of households with children already lacked these necessities before the pandemic,” the report noted.

“To continue on progress already made on recovery, the foundation recommends: making the expansion of the federal child tax credit permanent,” it added.

Another study released by the Urban Institute revealed that continuing the expanded credits beyond this year has the potential to slash child poverty to about 8.4 percent from 14.2 percent—which would represent a massive 40 percent drop. Furthermore, child poverty could be cut by 50 percent or more in eleven states.

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

Kris Osborn

Jets, Americas

Unfortunately, innovative upgrades to the Fighting Falcon might not enable it to rival Russian or Chinese fifth-generation stealth fighter jets.

The Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies recently published a study that recommends the rapid retirement and divestiture of the Air Force’s fourth-generation fighter jets. 

Despite calling for “wholly divesting” those fourth-generation platforms, the study, titled the Future Fighter Force Our Nation Requires: Building a Bridge, recommends that the Air Force “keep” large numbers of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Why? One pressing reason, apart from the fact that it costs less to operate a Fighting Falcon when compared with fifth-generation platforms, may relate to the success of the Fighting Falcon modernization program and its service life extension program (SLEP).   

Today’s Fighting Falcon dates back as far as the 1970s, a circumstance that raises questions as to how the combat aircraft has sustained its combat relevance and performance into today’s modern and vastly more substantial threat environment. The SLEP improved the upper wing skin and fittings. Additionally, it adjusted the bulkhead and canopy.  

Part of the equation relates to an effort to integrate some of the F-35 fighter jet’s technologies into the Fighting Falcon such as an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. The radar allows the Fighting Falcon to find, detect and track enemy threats at greater ranges. SLEP is expected to extend the flight time of Fighting Falcons from roughly six thousand to seven thousand flight hours all the way to eight thousand or more flight hours. On top of that, the upgrades have prompted the Air Force to have the Fighting Falcon fly up to twelve thousand hours. Lockheed Martin, which developed the AESA radar, claims it can track as many as twenty targets at one time, a scenario that allows the Fighting Flacon to be more effective in major-power warfare. 

Thus, the AESA radar is a massive upgrade beyond the mechanically-scanned radar previously carried by the Fighting Falcons. The AESA radar can scan in a 360-degree sphere that includes horizontal, vertical and diagonal vectors. In recent years, the Fighting Falcon has received new cockpit avionics such as moving map displays, video in the cockpit, digital graphics screens and new target tracking systems. Upgraded Fighting Falcons use a high level of onboard automation designed to free up a pilot’s workload.  

It’s notable that Lockheed Martin isn’t only focused on these upgrades. The company has been building a new F-16V Viper variant that uses new computers, software, a high-definition cockpit display. Also, the “V” model comes with a new data bus, electronic warfare suite, missile warning sensor and helmet-mounted cueing system. This is the technical starting point for Lockheed Martin’s next-generation F-21, which will be specifically built for India. The F-21 will have the AESA radar and a next-generation targeting system known as Infrared Search and Track (IRST) technology. IRST, which is used extensively in F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, is a passive, long-range sensor that searches for and detects infrared emissions. Much like the AESA, the IRST can track multiple targets at once and operate in an electromagnetic warfare environment. IRST is a passive, long-range sensor, that will allow the Fighting Falcon to conduct air-to-air targeting.

These innovative upgrades to the Fighting Falcon might not enable it to rival Russian or Chinese fifth-generation stealth fighter jets. Still, these upgrades may explain why the study recommends holding on to the Fighting Falcons. 

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

Stephen Silver

Social Security,

“We will continue to identify and aggressively pursue any instances of employee fraud and hold wrongdoers to account. These efforts are critical to maintaining the public’s trust in Social Security," says the Social Security Administration's inspector general.

Crime and fraud related to Social Security funds are pretty frequent crimes, but it’s not so frequent for them to entail dismemberment.

A Nevada woman is accused of dismembering the body of her husband, throwing the body parts in the trash, and continuing to collect his Social Security benefits for more than four years, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The sixty-nine-year-old woman is also charged with theft of government money. She was caught, per the report, after authorities received a tip that her husband was missing. She claimed that he was on a “walk-about,” but later admitted that he had been dead for several years.

She is accused of collecting more than $120,000 in benefits. The newspaper also reported that investigators found it unusual that the man, who was in his seventies, had no record of receiving medical attention after 2015.

The woman is not accused of having killed her husband, only of disposing of his body, and it’s not clear how he died.

In another, much less grisly case of alleged Social Security fraud, a man in the Boston area has been arrested for “fraudulently receiving Social Security disability benefits.”

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, the sixty-seven-year-old man has been charged with one count of theft of public funds. The man is accused of improperly collecting 38,601 in Social Security disability benefits over a four-year period between 2013 and 2017. He faces over ten years in prison.

Meanwhile, it was announced earlier this month that a Social Security Administration (SSA) operations supervisor was sentenced to over five years for wire fraud and identity theft. She had pled guilty to the charges two years earlier.

The woman, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, “caused over $760,000 in SSI (Supplemental Security Income) benefits to be electronically deposited into nine different bank accounts held in her name, and in the names of various family members, by making false and fraudulent representations to fellow SSA employees, including claims representatives and other supervisors.”

“We will continue to identify and aggressively pursue any instances of employee fraud and hold wrongdoers to account. These efforts are critical to maintaining the public’s trust in Social Security. I want to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office for its support of our investigation and efforts to bring it to a successful resolution,” Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, said of the North Carolina case.

In the Charlotte case, the woman has also been forced to surrender her Harley Davidson motorcycle, the Charlotte News and Observer reported. It was purchased with the ill-gotten funds.

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

Consumer Electronics,

Amazon’s TVs offer unique features and integration capabilities. 

Last month, Amazon officially announced the release of the first Amazon-branded televisions, the Amazon Fire TV Omni Series and 4-Series smart TVs. 

The TVs arrived on the market Wednesday and, per The Verge, the company has delivered a last-minute announcement: The imminent inclusion of AirPlay 2 and HomeKit in the TVs. AirPlay allows users to mirror their devices on a TV, a capability that is not possible on the existing Fire TV devices. 

“Coming soon, you can use AirPlay to share videos, photos, music, and more from your iPhone or iPad to your Fire TV,” Amazon said in a blog post. 

Amazon had announced in July that it was making the technology available on the Toshiba and Insignia-made 4K UHD Smart Fire TV models. These models had the “Fire TV’ branding but weren’t advertised as “Amazon-built” the way the new ones are. 

Amazon touted the new TVs in a blog post this past Wednesday. “These TVs combine our content-forward Fire TV experience with everything you know and love about Alexa, turning your TV into the smart hub in your living room. Available in a variety of sizes and loaded with features, there’s a lot to love about these new smart TVs,” the company said on its Amazon Fire TV blog. 

“Accessing your favorite movies, shows, video games, live TV, music and more has never been easier. Fire TV allows you to stream over 1 million movies and TV episodes across your favorite streaming apps, and you can access over 20,000 free movies and TV shows from apps like IMDb TV, Tubi, Pluto TV, and more,” Amazon stated. 

The company also highlighted specific features that the new TVs offer, including HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Digital sound, and Dolby Vision on the larger models. In addition to AirPlay 2 and HomeKit, the TVs also offer integration with Amazon’s own Alexa, allowing users to ask for specific programs just as they would ask for a song on an Alexa-controlled speaker. 

Users can also easily connect the new TVs to their home theater by pairing it to an existing Echo Studio. 

“We’ve reimagined what a TV can do by building it with two of our most popular experiences at the core—the intelligent always-available power of far-field Alexa, and Fire TV’s content-forward approach to entertainment,”   said Daniel Rausch, Vice President of Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services. “Our new Fire TV Omni Series smart TVs, with hands-free access to Alexa, make controlling your TV faster, simpler, and more natural.”

The Omni Series comes in sizes of 43”, 50”, 55”, 65”, and 75”, while the Fire TV 4-Series is available in 43”, 50”, and 55” models.

 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

Child Tax Credit,

A White House fact sheet lays out more about how the Credit will work starting in 2022.

Following weeks of negotiations, the Biden administration has reached a “framework” of what will be in the version of the president’s “Build Back Better” plan that will likely go before Congress for a vote soon.

The deal is not final, but in an email to supporters, the Biden-Harris political operation described the Framework as “a plan for my agenda I believe can pass the House and Senate.”

There have been various reports in recent weeks about what was in or out of the bill, but President Joe Biden’s announcement says that the expanded Child Tax Credit will indeed remain. However, while the administration had originally hoped to extend it by five years, the framework only extends it for one.

A White House fact sheet laid out more about how the credit will work starting in 2022.

“The Build Back Better framework will provide monthly payments to the parents of nearly 90 percent of American children for 2022—$300 per month per child under six and $250 per month per child ages 6 to 17,” the White House said. “This historic tax cut will help cover the cost of food, housing, health care, and transportation and will continue the largest one-year reduction in child poverty in history. And critically, the framework includes permanent refundability for the Child Tax Credit, meaning that the neediest families will continue to receive the full Child Tax Credit over the long-run.”

Brought into being by the American Rescue Plan Act in March of 2021, the monthly payments from the Child Tax Credit began in July, and have continued every month through December, while most will get additional credits when they file their taxes next year.

The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University has been issuing reports in recent months about how the Child Tax Credit has made a difference in reducing poverty, even after the first month.

“Using our innovative approach to tracking monthly poverty rates, we project that ongoing COVID relief efforts continue to have a sizable effect on reducing child poverty keeping 6 million children from poverty in July 2021 alone (a reduction of more than 40 percent). This impact also resulted in a notable drop in child poverty between June and July 2021, due primarily to the rollout of the expanded Child Tax Credit. On its own, this new payment kept 3 million children from poverty in its first month,” the Center said in late August.

Others, such as Bruce Meyer and co-authors, at the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, have been argued that the Child Tax Credit discourages work.

The Build Back Better framework is only a framework and has not passed Congress yet.

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

Kim Jong-Un, Asia

Kim has a long track record of going into seclusion. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been known to disappear from public view for long stretches. During one period in 2020, Kim’s disappearance even led to widespread rumors around the world that he was ill or even dead. Earlier this year, Kim emerged from an extended absence appearing to have lost a great deal of weight, leading to another round of speculation about his personal health and his hold on power. 

Kim, who will mark a decade in power this December, has now been absent from public appearances for close to two weeks, NK News reported, marking his eighth absence of more than two weeks just this year. Kim last appeared in public on October 11, when he posed in front of weapons that were unveiled shortly before North Korea’s latest missile launch. 

The report stated that “satellite images have shown renewed activity off the coast of his family palace in Wonsan,” suggesting that Kim has been spending time at the estate believed to be his childhood home. 

“The activity suggests the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) leader… may be spending yet more time at his childhood home on the east coast this month, while his subordinates oversee cabinet meetings and missile tests and make economic inspections around the country,” NK News said. 

The site also published a chart detailing Kim’s absences from public view since he took power in late 2011. 

“Boats that may be his multimillion-dollar yachts appeared cruising at Kim’s private Wonsan beach on Oct. 24 and away from one of his large leisure crafts anchored at a nearby island on Oct. 25,” according to Planet Labs satellite imagery. However, the quality of the images “makes it difficult to determine the precise type of boats being used,” NK News said. 

While state media has reported on Kim’s actions, including letters he sent to foreign leaders and an appearance at a cemetery, state media has not released photographs of Kim. Kim was not present for the recent missile test.

Meanwhile, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported this week that Kim has built luxury villas over the old home of Kim Il-Sung, his grandfather and the first leader of North Korea. The home is known as “Mansion No. 5,” and was the home of the current leader’s grandfather between 1950 and 1970. 

“Terraced houses are being built on the banks of the Potong River, and they are being touted as an example of modern development in the Kim Jong Un era,” a Pyongyang resident told RFA. 

 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

Caleb Larson

Japan, Asia

Japan is taking defense more seriously than at any time since World War II. And the U.S. Navy is right there to help.

A recent exercise involving the U.S. and Japanese Navy underlines the two country’s increasing military ties.

The  U.S. Navy detailed the activities of a Surface Action Group formed between a Japanese Murasame-class destroyer and a U.S. Navy Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship.

The pair of ships practiced a variety of “surface warfare tactics to include flight operations, communications drills and coordinated tactical maneuvering, all designed to enhance interoperability and enabling the ships to practice bilateral tactics in close proximity to one another.”

“Meeting our JMSDF (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force) allies in the South China Sea allowed both of our teams to build readiness as we sail in the Indo-Pacific,” explained Cmdr. Michael Root, commanding officer of the USS Jackson’s Gold Crew. “The complex maneuvering and operations we accomplished without meeting face-to-face reflects the strong friendship and maritime professionalism that our nations and navies share.”

The Russia-China Connection

The joint U.S.-Japanese cooperation comes on the heels of significant Chinese and Russian activity in the western Pacific. Chinese and Russian warships conducted their first-ever joint patrol that included tactical maneuvers and other military drills from October 17 to October 23. 

Although closer military integration between Russia and China is worrisome for the United States, the recent exercises were particularly concerning for Japan. During the exercise, the Sino-Russian flotilla passed through the Tsugaru Strait, a body of water separating Japan’s northern Hokkaido island from the Honshu mainland and connecting the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean.

During a press conference, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian emphatically stated that “China and Russia are united like a mountain, and our friendship is unbreakable. Under the strategic guidance of President Xi Jinping and President Putin, bilateral relations have withstood the test of the changing international landscape, setting an example of a new type of major-country relationship.”

Power Projection

The United States Marine Corps has recently paired with the Japanese Navy when a pair of USMC F-35Bs conducted operations off one of Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter destroyers, validating their new decks, modified to support F-35B operations. Though dubbed helicopter destroyers, the Izumo-class ships are, in effect, light aircraft carriers, able to host the forty-two F-35Bs Japan has on order from the United States.

Although the Japan Self-Defense Forces are constitutionally constrained to be a defensive force only, increasing tension in Japan’s near-abroad has prompted increased Japanese military investment and an increased power projection capability.

Not only is Japan putting serious investment in its naval capabilities, with an emphasis on interoperability with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, but the country is also taking defense more seriously than perhaps any time since World War II.

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

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

Social Security,

There are simple ways to maximize your Social Security checks. 

For tens of millions of American seniors who hope to have a comfortable retirement, every single dollar is precious.

That’s why it is incredibly important to make the right decisions at the right time regarding one’s Social Security benefits. A simple mistake could cost a senior tens of thousands of dollars. 

However, according to the financial site The Motley Fool, the bad news is that the monthly Social Security retirement benefit currently only comes in at a measly $1,559, amounting to roughly $18,700 annually.

“Chances are, that’s not looking like a perfectly sufficient annual income on which to live in retirement,” the site writes. “The good news is that you can, and should, supplement that with other income streams, such as retirement accounts, annuities, dividend-paying stocks, and perhaps even a pension, among other things.”

For those who are aiming to get their hands on more than just the average Social Security check, here are three helpful tips.

Delay Filing

It appears that the biggest decision one can make to net a higher monthly payout is to wait until turning seventy to file for Social Security benefits. “Workers planning for their retirement should be aware that retirement benefits depend on age at retirement. If a worker begins receiving benefits before his/her normal (or full) retirement age, the worker will receive a reduced benefit. A worker can choose to retire as early as age sixty-two, but doing so may result in a reduction of as much as thirty percent. Starting to receive benefits after normal retirement age may result in larger benefits. With delayed retirement credits, a person can receive his or her largest benefit by retiring at age seventy,” the Social Security Administration (SSA) notes.

Earn More While Working

Do keep in mind that Social Security benefits are primarily based on lifetime earnings. So, it’s best to always try to beef up one’s annual income. “If you’re not earning that much more than you have in the past, you can … juice your earnings for a few years or a lot of years by taking on a side gig or two. Think about ways you could generate more income that seem at least a little appealing. Maybe drive for a ride-sharing service on the weekends? Rent out your home or apartment now and then? Make and sell things online—like jewelry, crocheted items, candles, photographs, etc.? Do some freelance or contractor work? There are many possibilities,” the financial site writes.

Have a High-Earning Spouse

Spouses can have a huge impact on how much a senior will receive in their Social Security checks. This is true “when you're both receiving benefits, they will be more sizable due to your spouse’s bigger checks. If your partner dies before you, your household will go from two Social Security checks to just one—but you won’t be stuck with your smaller one. You’re allowed to start receiving the larger of the two from that point on,” writes The Motley Fool. 

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