The National Interest

Kris Osborn

F-35B China, Asia

Beijing has yet to master the engineering feat required to provide its jets with a vertical-takeoff ability.

The first-of-its-kind F-35B fighter jet with short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing capability is now a threat factor possessed by U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships across the world. The jet has many merits yet one key factor eclipses all of the others: China does not have an equivalent. 

Why China Fears the F-35B

It is well known that China is rapidly developing an aircraft-carrier-launched variant of its fifth-generation J-31 aircraft to perhaps rival the F-35B and F-35C jets when it comes to maritime warfare power projection. But there does not appear to be any kind of vertical-takeoff capability emerging within the Chinese military. This is important because a vertical takeoff and “hover” ability bring an entirely new dimension to maritime warfare. The technology allows a smaller ship (such as an amphibious ship) to operate with the kind of fifth-generation fixed-wing fighter jet support typically thought of as only being possible with aircraft carriers. That would allow an amphibious assault operation to rely on its own organic fifth-generation air support. 

Should amphibious assault vehicles, ship-to-shore transport landing craft, Osprey helicopters, and attack drone vessels all launch from an amphibious ready group, then the military force would not need to rely upon fighter jet support from aircraft carriers within striking range. The USS America, the first of the Navy’s now emerging America-class amphibious ships, has traveled long distances of key deployments carrying as many as thirteen F-35B jets on board. The America-class amphibious ships have been specifically modified and engineered to house and operate F-35B jets. 

Hovering Matters 

The F-35B jet’s ability to “hover” can bring previously unanticipated advantages to an amphibious assault given the aircraft’s “drone-like” ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Its 360-degree cameras, long-range, targeting technology and onboard computing enable the aircraft to gather and disseminate various video feeds from great distances. This, combined with its ability to hover above the surface in support of an approaching amphibious operation, might provide an attacking force with new levels of forward visual “scouting,” threat assessments or close-air-support capability. Of course, that hover ability, assisted by advanced automation and software, is what enables an F-35B jet to perform a vertical landing on an amphibious ship without needing a runway. 

The F-35B jet is able to hover due to through the construction of a “lift fan” technology that was built into the center fuselage, which is just behind the pilot. This generates massive downward vertical thrust, sending horsepower to the LiftFan from the main engine through a “spiral belevel gear system,” according to Rolls-Royce, which has a division dedicated to making engines for military equipment.

The LiftFan looks like a square door on top of the fuselage behind the pilot intended to generate the downward airflow needed to enable vertical landing. The LiftFan feeds air into the engine much like any aircraft engine would in some respects. Air ducts on either side of the nose “suck” in air to the engine, the air is then compressed before being ignited with gas—generating what looks like a controlled explosion of fire coming out of the back. The force generated through this process enables the speed, maneuverability, and acceleration of the aircraft. Mechanical information provided by Rolls-Royce, which makes the F-35B engine, states that “to achieve STOVL, the lift fan component of the LiftSystem operates perpendicular to the flow of air over the aircraft.” The LiftFan can operate in crosswinds up to 288mph, according to Rolls-Royce data.

Given all this, if China were to rely on an aircraft carrier capable of launching fifth-generation fighter jets during a military mission, then the country would likely operate at a significant deficit when it comes to countering an amphibious assault or conducting attack operations requiring smaller ships. 

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.

Kris Osborn

F-35 South Korea, Asia

It is clear that a stealthy fifth-generation fighter jet could give South Korea an increased ability to destroy North Korean air defenses--and much more.

Although the unstable North Korean regime could test some kind of nuclear weapon or new ballistic missile to intimidate South Korea, the possibility of the Hermit Kingdom launching massive, mechanized ground assault across the DMZ cannot be fully discounted. Clearly, South Korea should be prepared to repel some kind of armored assault from the North.

This kind of deterrence could be achieved by simply maintaining a modernized, trained, and well-equipped army to defend the border. But it also stands to reason that preventing this kind of attack could be the main reason why South Korea is acquiring the F-35 fighter jet. 

Why North Korea Hates the F-35

It is clear that a stealthy fifth-generation fighter jet, such as the F-35 jet, gives South Korea a massively increased ability to destroy North Korean air defenses, achieve air superiority or even track and attack the North’s known arsenal of road-mobile missile launchers. Beyond that, a fleet of F-35 jets could prove decisive and impactful in any kind of defensive stand against a North Korean invasion.  

This is particularly true given the glaring discrepancy between the North and South Korean armies. Globalfirepower.com lists North Korea as now operating a sizeable 1.3 million man active-duty force, with millions more in paramilitary support. Their military reportedly operates as many as six thousand tanks and ten thousand armored vehicles alongside a well-known arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching major South Korean cities. South Korea, by comparison, is listed by Global Firepower as having only six hundred thousand active-duty forces as several million fewer paramilitary capable soldiers, when compared with North Korea. Perhaps of even greater consequence, Seoul is cited as operating only twenty-eight hundred tanks, less than one-half of North Korea’s six thousand tanks. 

Why Seoul Needs the F-35

What this means is that having massive air superiority in the form of an F-35 force gives South Korea a very credible and realistic chance of destroying an invasion from a much larger North Korean Army. North Korean troops could be killed from the air. Also, ideally, any mobile ballistic missile launcher on North Korean territory could be destroyed from the air by South Korean F-35 jets. Accordingly, would it be a stretch to suggest that having a fleet of ready F-35 jets might actually save South Korea? Maybe. It would seem that given the known capabilities of the F-35 jet and the obvious absence of any kind of North Korean equivalent, a South Korean F-35 force might make a North Korean invasion far less likely. 

Add to this overall equation the networking and allied advantages associated with the F-35 jet. South Korea’s deterrence posture will be greatly fortified and strengthened by a large Japanese F-35 force along with a regular U.S. presence of F-35C-armed carrier aircraft and F-35B-armed amphibious ships. 

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.

Kris Osborn

F-35 Technology, Americas

This powerful combination presents potential warfare dilemmas likely to cause Russia pause should it contemplate any kind of an attack in Eastern Europe. 

Some people believe that the fast-modernizing Russian military, complete with fifth-generation aircraft, tactical nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles, T-14 Armata tank and large standing Army presents an extremely serious threat to the United States, NATO and Eastern Europe.

If this threat already exists, then what danger would Russia pose should the United States and its coalition of allied European partners not have F-35 jets? How much would that change the threat equation? Would the absence of F-35 jets catapult Europe into new dimensions of vulnerability? The answer is obvious. It’s clear that the collective impact of a multinational F-35 force may be sufficient to deter potential Russian aggression. 

The question seems quite relevant to the threat equation for Europe and may explain why more countries such as Switzerland are acquiring F-35 jets. There are many reasons for this. First and foremost, there is the networking potential among allied F-35 nations—to include the UK, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Poland and Switzerland. Of course, the stealth and fifth-generation characteristics of the F-35 jet present attack possibilities as well as a counterbalance to Russia’s Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet. 

A networked web of European F-35 jets, integrated through a common Multifunction Advanced Datalink could cover an expansive geographic scope potentially sufficient to thwart any kind of large-scale Russian land advance. Russia’s land army is known to be quite large and technologically sophisticated. While that army may be matched or outgunned by a NATO ground force of M1 Abrams tanks and multinational troops, artillery, drones, helicopters, and armored vehicles, the existence of a combined F-35 air assault might prove to be the most decisive factor in preventing a Russian attack. 

Without a coalition of F-35 nations, NATO could wind up being extremely vulnerable and cede air superiority to the Russian Su-57. The F-22 Raptor is arguably unparalleled but it is only available to the U.S. Air Force and there may not be enough of them to thwart Russian aggression. Also, the absence of the F-35 jet would deprive NATO of some very key surveillance, networking, and air-ground coordination. The jet’s sensors and drone-like surveillance technology are formidable. Thus, a fleet of F-35 jets could be key to multi-domain operations in any kind of combat circumstance. The jet’s ability to share information and support ground forces from the air changes the deterrence equation. This presents potential warfare dilemmas likely to cause Russia pause should it contemplate any kind of an attack in Eastern Europe. 

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: Flickr / U.S. Air Force

Michael Peck

Russia, Americas

Calls for Russian missiles in Venezuela could trigger conflict between the United States and Russia.

Here's What You Need to Remember: If this sounds familiar, it should. Moscow placed nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba both to deter the United States from invading the island, and to compensate for the American missiles and bombers that ringed the Soviet Union. Russian commentators seem to be suggesting that Venezuela could also serve the same purpose.

With the United States developing a new generation of cruise missiles in response to alleged Russian arms control violations, a response from Moscow was inevitable.

But Russian missiles in Venezuela? That’s what some Russian commentators are calling for in retaliation for the Trump administration withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The Pentagon has already tested a new ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 500 kilometers (311 miles), which exceeds INF Treaty limits.

“Russia has legal grounds, in response to the emergence of new weapons from the USA after leaving the INF Treaty, to deploy their submarines and ships with medium and shorter-range missiles in relative proximity to the U.S. borders,” Major General Vladimir Bogatyrev, a reservist and chairman of the National Association of Reserve Officers, told Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Bogatyrev suggested that Russian warships equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles could operate from Venezuela. The Kalibr is a family of naval cruise missiles, including the SS-N-30, a subsonic weapon equivalent to the U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile. The SS-N-30, carried by surface ships and submarines has an estimated range of up to 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles). Like the Tomahawk, the Kalibr is typically armed with conventional warheads for missions such as attacking Syrian rebels. But the missile can be armed with a nuclear warhead.

Russia recently signed a naval agreement for port visits with Venezuela, whose embattled and impoverished government relies on Russian support. “Venezuela has excellent seaports, in which ships and submarines of the Russian Navy can regularly enter, replenish supplies, and then perform combat missions off the coast of North America,” Bogatyrev said. There is also a naval agreement between Russia and Nicaragua.

Bogatyrev also pointed to the Zircon, a hypersonic anti-ship missile with an estimated speed of between Mach 6 and Mach 9. “One of the measures to neutralize potential threats from new U.S. weapons, including the recently tested U.S. cruise missile, could be a hypersonic weapon. In particular, it is the Zircon missile, capable of hitting ground and surface targets at ranges of over a thousand kilometers [621 miles].”

Significantly, a member of the Russian parliament’s defense committee also favors deploying missiles in Venezuela—even if it risks another Cuban Missile Crisis. “Maybe there will even be a Caribbean crisis 2, but it was the Caribbean crisis that allowed the Americans to cool off for a long time,” said Alexander Sherin, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense. “If such a system is deployed in Venezuela, the U.S. will behave more accurately.”

That the Soviet Union withdrew its ballistic missiles from Cuba in 1962 is well known. And also well known is that in return, the United States quietly agreed to withdraw its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

Oleg Shvedkov, a retired submarine captain who is chairman of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Military Forces Trade Union, argued that Latin American bases would ease deployment of Russian submarines near the United States. “The possible permanent presence of Russian warships off the U.S. coast equipped with medium- and shorter-range missiles will certainly be a headache for them."

If this sounds familiar, it should. Moscow placed nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba both to deter the United States from invading the island, and to compensate for the American missiles and bombers that ringed the Soviet Union. Russian commentators seem to be suggesting that Venezuela could also serve the same purpose.

But Russia ultimately had to withdraw its missiles in the face of a threat to use overwhelming U.S. force, especially given the inability of the Soviet Navy to confront the U.S. military in Caribbean waters. Nor was Moscow prepared to risk nuclear Armageddon over some distant island.

Which naturally raises the question of how the United States would respond to nuclear-armed Russian ships operating from Venezuela. Or rather, what U.S. administration could dare refrain from acting forcefully against such a threat.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This article was reprinted due to reader demand.

Image: Reuters.

Trevor Filseth

Afghanistan,

Although doubts were raised by Western experts and commentators about the feasibility of a full withdrawal by that date, as of 12:00 noon on August 31 in Kabul, the last U.S. flight has left the country, withdrawing the last remaining foreign troops.

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban militant group, the United States occupied the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, using it as a staging ground for their withdrawal from the country. The Taliban did not contest the withdrawal but insisted that it be completed by August 31, President Joe Biden’s revised deadline for withdrawal from the country.

Although doubts were raised by Western experts and commentators about the feasibility of a full withdrawal by that date, as of 12:00 noon on August 31 in Kabul, the last U.S. flight has left the country, withdrawing the last remaining foreign troops.

The Taliban, whose spokesmen have claimed in statements that the presence of foreign troops represented a major challenge to the country’s stability, celebrated the withdrawal. Suhail Shaheen, one of the group’s long-time spokesmen, tweeted, “Tonight 12:00 pm (Afghanistan time) the last American soldier left Afghanistan. Our country gained full independence.”

The group has indicated that its next major challenge is asserting full control over the country, including defeating the presence of the Islamic State’s “Khorasan Province,” or ISIS-K, which was responsible for a high-profile terrorist attack on the airport that claimed the lives of more than a dozen U.S. troops and more than one hundred Afghan civilians. The group is also widely expected to intensify its military operations against the Panjshir Valley, which has held out against the group and remains the only province outside of the Taliban’s control.

Videos are already circulating of Taliban soldiers entering hangars at the airport, which U.S. and Afghan civilians had occupied hours earlier.

The final departure of U.S. troops from Afghanistan closes the book on America’s twenty-year war in the country, which has cost the lives of more than 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghans. According to official sources, at least 122,000 people have been evacuated from the Kabul airport since August 15, making the events of the past two weeks the largest known human airlift in history.

In Monday remarks, Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie acknowledged that the Taliban had been “very helpful” in providing security at the airport during the withdrawal.

While it is unclear if all U.S. and European civilians have left the airport, and roughly 300 Americans are estimated to remain in Afghanistan, the Taliban has committed to allowing foreign nationals to leave the country. McKenzie underlined that while the military mission had ended, “the diplomatic mission to ensure additional U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans who want to leave continues.”

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

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

China's Navy, Asia

Beijing probably fears outsiders will come to Taiwan’s aid when forced to choose.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Beijing needs to win in a hurry, denying the island and its protectors time to react in force. Taipei mainly needs to stall for time. It needs to prolong any cross-strait war, reminding the international community it is a fighter while allowing the United States and potentially other rescuers time to marshal a response, fight their way to the scene of combat, and make a difference.

Could Communist China blockade Taiwan, which mainland boilerplate portrays as a wayward province? Sure. And the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would doubtless do so should Xi Jinping & Co. opt to settle the cross-Taiwan Strait stalemate by force. At the same time, it’s doubtful that PLA commanders would make a naval blockade their main effort to subdue the islanders. They would undertake a blockade as an adjunct to more decisive measures such as a cross-strait amphibious offensive.

The PLA could deploy a blockade to stretch and thin out Taiwan’s defenders around the island’s perimeter while Chinese forces ready a concentrated blow across the strait. China hopes direct action will yield clean and swift results, letting it present Asia, America, and the world a fait accompli—a done deal. A blockade could enhance its prospects of success around the margins.

But wouldn’t a blockade spare China the hazards, costs, and diplomatic blowback of a cross-strait assault? Well, blockades come with dangers of their own. Most notably, they are slow-moving affairs. By itself no blockade can deliver the speedy results Chinese leaders want. Quite the reverse. Explains naval historian Julian Corbett: “Unaided, naval pressure can only work by a process of exhaustion” whose effects are both gradual vis-à-vis its target and “galling both to our own commercial community and to neutrals.”

A long, slow grind that affronts everyone is precisely what Beijing hopes to avoid, and for the reasons Corbett lists. Therein lies the opportunity for Taipei.

The PLA Navy could station ships either hard by Taiwanese harbors or at a distance to intercept shipping. Its goal would be to starve out the islanders, depriving them of natural resources necessary to power a modern industrial economy. That would take time and inflict massive human suffering. Starving out a free people is not a good look diplomatically—especially for a regime fresh off crushing freedom in Hong Kong and instituting concentration camps in Xinjiang.

It would gall the international community, as Corbett prophesies.

In light of these realities, combatants typically find blockades unpalatable except as accompaniment to more direct strategies. But they are not easy even then. For example, the American Civil War demonstrates how dicey the politics, legalities, and strategy of blockades can get. Three quick points from that intra-American bloodletting.

One, what foreign powers think matters—and the language political leaders use to describe things shapes how they think and what they do. At the outset of war the Abraham Lincoln administration mistakenly announced that the Union Navy would impose a blockade on the breakaway Confederacy. Mistakenly because a blockade is a legal act of war. It confers status and a measure of legitimacy, signifying that a combatant might prevail and take its place in the society of nations.

Think about it. War is something lawful belligerents do when they cannot resolve their differences through diplomacy. Union leaders wanted to brand the Confederates insurgents or pirates—denying the South any patina of legitimacy and discouraging foreign powers from granting it diplomatic recognition or otherwise involving themselves. The official narrative held that the war was a purely internal matter. And yet Washington couldn’t walk back its diplomatic and legal blunder. The early misstep left open the possibility that European powers might interject themselves into the struggle.

They might mediate a peace that left the Confederacy standing as an independent nation.

And indeed Great Britain and France did contemplate embroiling themselves in the fracas through diplomacy. In the end their go/no-go decision rode on the fortunes of the battlefield. Neither London nor Paris was prepared to risk diplomatic capital on a likely loser, but Europeans might back a South whose armies fought to a stalemate. Not until it became apparent that the Union would prevail in the Civil War, sooner or later, did the great powers abandon fancies of intervention.

Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis tenders a glum verdict on this episode: “Domestic strife invites foreign difficulties. This is an axiom of diplomacy.” And it is an axiom Xi Jinping cannot flout any more than Abraham Lincoln could. Chinese Communist magnates have reason to dread outside entanglements during a cross-strait war. All the more reason to do something uptempo rather than trust to a slow-paced, politically fraught strategy like a blockade.

Two, if the American Civil War highlights the problems innate to naval blockades, it also seems to have revealed some solutions to Beijing. Any power that covets quick victory in a limited war tries to isolate its opponent diplomatically—and therefore militarily. It forestalls intervention. Isolating the foe simplifies the strategic problem, keeping the encounter to a one-on-one fight. For Chinese officialdom, studying the Civil War suggested a diplomatic strategy to discourage the United States from interceding on Taiwan’s behalf.

Chinese Communists are masters of deploying wordplay for political effect. In 2005 Beijing enacted a law reserving the right to use armed force to settle the cross-strait impasse. It rendered the law into English under the title “Anti-Secession Law.” The word choice cannot have been accidental. Depicting the law as a measure against “secession” rather than the more precise translation, “national splittism,” seems to have been an effort to conjure up the Civil War in the minds of U.S. political leaders and the electorate.

The mainland cast itself in the role of the North. That makes Taiwan the South.

China’s strategy may seem too clever by half, but it actually makes sense. In American memory, secession is what slaveholding rebels—evildoers and enemies of national unity—do. What U.S. president risks war to save a modern-day Confederacy? Now, the likeness between liberal Taiwan and the Confederacy doesn’t pass the giggle test. But some Americans might buy the comparison. At a minimum Beijing could hope the analogy’s visceral emotional impact would induce Washington to hesitate while debating policy and strategy toward the conflict.

Hesitancy would grant the PLA time to complete its mission of conquest. And again, time is what it needs. If China did center its strategy on a blockade (or another peripheral strategy such as aerial bombardment), such a respite could partly alleviate the pitfalls of gradualism of which Corbett wrote. This was a diplomatic stratagem worth trying, no matter how the PLA decided to proceed in the strait.

Whether word games work is another question. It is doubtful foreign capitals sincerely believe China’s effort to discredit Taiwan. They might placate a bombastic China in peacetime. They might even revoke diplomatic recognition for Taipei. It’s quite another when Chinese warships and warplanes try to strangle an open society fighting for its life. That’s not a good look for China diplomatically. It’s a brutal look—and it would cast disrepute on any narrative portraying Xi’s China as Lincoln’s Union.

Beijing probably fears outsiders will come to Taiwan’s aid when forced to choose. All the more reason it hopes to use cruelty well—incisively and swiftly—rather than settle for a strategy of incrementalism that might come to naught.

And three, the American Civil War holds strategic and operational lessons for China. They will come as cold comfort to PLA overseers. Historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, who served on blockade duty with the Union Navy, jeered at his navy’s rickety cordon in retrospect. Mahan maintains that a sufficiently numerous Southern populace could have built a serious navy. Southerners could have gathered forces at some place along the Union perimeter and punched through to the high seas.

Yet they did not—and the Northern blockade held. So Beijing should take heart. It too commands overbearing demographic, industrial, and economic advantages over its opponent. It too could prevail through naval pressure alone. Right?

Not necessarily. Taiwan bears little physical resemblance to the American South, a sprawling, thinly populated region suffering from distended, permeable land frontiers with its enemy. Rivers were another strategic liability. Mahan notes that Confederates “admitted their enemies to their hearts” once the Union Navy forced its way past New Orleans into the Mississippi River, and thence into the deep continental interior. Union sea power sealed off the South with a blockade while dismembering it from within.

But Taiwan is more like Cuba, an island Mahan acclaimed as a mini-continent whose inhabitants could outflank a blockade. It was blessed with natural resources, making its populace hard to starve out. Blockade runners could shift from side to side, probing for and exploiting soft spots in the quarantine line. Mahan deemed Cuba prime real estate for a U.S. Navy base during the age of British maritime supremacy, when a naval war in the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico remained far from unthinkable, albeit improbable.

The comparison to Cuba should give heart to Taiwan’s defenders while giving China pause. The likeness between Taiwan and Cuba is inexact, as all comparisons are. The most glaring difference: Cuba rambles on for some 700 miles between its western and eastern tips, while Taiwan runs only about 240 miles from north to south, its major axis. Acreage matters. And yet Taiwan has rugged and indented shorelines, mountainous topography, and a populace with intimate acquaintanceship with its strategic features. It has advantages of its own to offset geographic size. Its armed forces must turn them to maximum effect.

The Cuban example suggests how Taiwan’s defenders can overcome not just a blockade but an amphibious onslaught. Beijing needs to win in a hurry, denying the island and its protectors time to react in force. Taipei mainly needs to stall for time. It needs to prolong any cross-strait war, reminding the international community it is a fighter while allowing the United States and potentially other rescuers time to marshal a response, fight their way to the scene of combat, and make a difference. Studying the American Civil War could pay dividends for Taiwan as well as China, showing the island’s guardians how to make trouble for their archfoe through diplomacy, law, and military strategy.

And troublemaking is what it’s all about. Strategic guidance from Corbett: make things worse to make them better. Use every resource at your disposal to make maritime operations galling for China—and for everyone else—and you may endure.

This article was republished for readers' interests.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. The views voiced here are his alone.

Image: Reuters

Michael Peck

Tanks, Europe

It can be argued that the best tank is the one that destroys the enemy.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The T-34 had impressive specifications but serious reliability issues in the field: U.S. experts examining a 1942-model T-34 were shocked to discover that the life of the tank's diesel engine was only 72 hours, while the engine air filter was so poorly designed that motors could only survive a few hundred miles of dusty roads before they were finished (the Americans also discovered that the British Cromwell required 199 man-hours of maintenance compared to 39 for the M4A3).

It can be argued that the best tank is the one that destroys the enemy. Or, depending on your point of view, it's the one that isn't shooting at you.

But otherwise, choosing the top tank is always a nightmare of technical and historical analysis. There are so many variables, and so many experts and history buffs that will argue those variables to the death. Yet into the fray steps "Armored Champions: The Top Tanks of World War II", written by Steven Zaloga, a defense analyst and well-regarded writer on World War II armored warfare.

So let's cut to the chase. What's the best tank of World War II?

Sorry, armor fans, but there isn't one! Zaloga wisely avoids the scholarly minefield of picking The Greatest Generation's Greatest Tank. "A tank protected with 45-millimeter armor was invulnerable in 1941, but it was doomed to quick defeat by 1945," he writes. "A tank armed with a 76-millimeter gun was a world-beater in 1941, but by 1945 was a pop-gun in a tank-versus-tank duel."

Instead, "Armored Champion" hedges its bets by spreading them. Instead of one best tank for World War II, there is one best tank for each year of the war. More important is how the author tackles the vexing question of why the seemingly "best" tanks so frequently belong to the losing side. For example, markedly inferior German armor decimated the Soviet tank fleet in 1941, while Israeli Super Shermans -- upgraded World War II leftovers -- destroyed modern Russian tanks in 1973.

Zaloga tackles this conundrum by picking two champions per year. The first he calls "Tanker's Choice," awarded to the vehicle that ranks highest according to the traditional yardsticks of firepower, armor and mobility. But the second he calls "Commander's Choice," which is based upon a tank's overall usefulness in light of factors such as reliability and quantity produced. Thus while Germany's legendary Tiger boasts more firepower and armor than the humble StuG III assault gun (a turretless tank with the gun stuck in the hull), "the German army could have bought 10 StuG III assault guns or three Tiger tanks," Zaloga writes. "Factoring in reliability, the Wehrmacht could have had seven operational StuG IIIs or one operational Tiger tank."

This choice of analysis produces some surprising results. French armor gets as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield, but in 1940, the Somua S-35 wins Tanker's Choice for its balance of armor, firepower and mobility. Yet the problem with the S-35 and many other early war Allied tanks was their two-man turret, where the tank commander was also responsible for firing the gun. This meant the tank commander couldn't keep his eyes on the battlefield, which in turn meant a lack of situational awareness and an inability to respond to changing battlefield conditions.

In contrast, the German Mark IV, with its low-velocity main gun, may have been inferior on paper. But it had a three-man turret with a designated gunner and loader, leaving the commander free to actually command the tank. Thus, the Mark IV wins Commander's Choice, because it was superior as a tool for winning battles.

Some of Zaloga's choices are less surprising. The only tank in "Armored Champions" to receive both the Tanker's and Commander's prize is the T-34 in 1941. Despite a two-man turret, its superior firepower, armor and mobility shocked the hitherto-invincible German panzers, as well as German infantry terrified to see their anti-tank guns bounce off the T-34's thick skin. Some might object that the Germans decimated the Soviet tank fleet in 1941 anyway, but that was more a result of poorly trained tank crews, poor maintenance, and inept Soviet tactics. The T-34 wasn't a champion because it won battles in 1941, but rather because it kept the Soviets from losing worse than they did.

It is in 1943 that the contrast between technical capability and battlefield utility becomes most striking. Not surprisingly, the Tiger I is Tanker's Choice because of its thick armor and powerful gun, which created "Tiger fright" among Allied troops. But Tigers were expensive, few in number (only 1,347 were built, compared to 84,000 T-34s)  and hard to maintain. The depleted and desperate German infantry divisions on the Eastern Front needed armor support to stave off massed waves of T-34s, and a few battalions of overworked Tigers were not going to save them. It was the little StuG III assault gun, not much taller than a man, which saved the day. It was cheap, had decent armor and firepower, and stiffened the hard-pressed German infantry against the relentless Soviet offensives. Hence, the StuG III assault gun knocks out the Tiger for Commander's Choice.

In 1944, the German Panther, whose balance of firepower, protection and mobility influenced post-war Western tank design, wins on technical grounds, while the Soviet T-34/85 was most useful because of its solid capabilities coupled with large numbers flowing from the factories. If U.S. and British tanks seem strangely absent from their list, it was the mediocrity of models like the Sherman and the Cromwell that made it so. Though the British Matilda briefly ruled North Africa in 1940-41, and the Sherman was actually quite good when it debuted in 1942, it isn't until the war was nearly over that Western Allied tanks win plaudits. In 1945, the American M-26 Pershing edging out the formidable, but overweight and unreliable, German King Tiger for Tanker's Choice, while the Sherman model M4A3E8 wins Commander's Choice for its reliability, quantity and high-velocity armor-piercing ammunition.

Much of this material will be familiar to those who know something about tank design and armored warfare. But Zaloga has a knack for sneaking in various fascinating facts. For example, the T-34 had impressive specifications but serious reliability issues in the field: U.S. experts examining a 1942-model T-34 were shocked to discover that the life of the tank's diesel engine was only 72 hours, while the engine air filter was so poorly designed that motors could only survive a few hundred miles of dusty roads before they were finished (the Americans also discovered that the British Cromwell required 199 man-hours of maintenance compared to 39 for the M4A3).

Do historical rankings make a difference beyond mere curiosity? The answer is yes, for those wise enough to learn from history. The post-1945 U.S. military has been fond of cutting-edge weapons; if you could transport today's Pentagon back to 1943, it would doubtless choose to build Tigers instead of Shermans or T-34s.

At a time when the U.S. defense budget is grappling to pay for extremely expensive systems such as the F-35 fighter, it is worth remembering that a relatively minor design feature -- be it a two-man tank turret or a few bits of faulty software -- can make a profound difference in the actual effectiveness of a weapon. No matter how great it looks on paper.

Michael Peck, a frequent contributor to TNI, is a defense and historical writer based in Oregon. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, WarIsBoring and many other fine publications. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Flickr/Contando Estrelas

Stephen Silver

North Korea, Asia

The vaccine was likely from the cache of Sinopharm vaccines distributed to North Korea by China earlier this year. 

There has been a great deal of controversy about North Korea, coronavirus, and vaccines. 

North Korea has claimed repeatedly, including as recently as this week, that it is entirely free of the coronavirus, despite taking stringent measures to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. 

COVAX, a UN-affiliated organization that has been distributing vaccines to various countries throughout the year, was scheduled to deliver millions of doses to North Korea earlier this summer, but talks reportedly stalled. COVAX also planned additional deliveries to the country in early August. 

The group offered North Korea three million doses of the Sinovac vaccine this month, in addition to the 1.7 million AstraZeneca doses that remain in limbo. 

Meanwhile, a new report claims that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have received a coronavirus vaccine earlier this year. 

According to Daily NK, “rumors are circulating” that Kim received a COVID jab back in May. The rumors say that Kim received the vaccine at “a villa located away from Pyongyang,” and that he had suffered “high fever and nausea” after the shot. That would coincide with one of the leader’s lengthy disappearance from public view, which went from early May to early June. This was the disappearance from which Kim returned having lost a considerable amount of weight, setting off speculation as what the leader’s weight loss meant for his position. 

“North Korean cadres believe it highly likely Kim was vaccinated at this time,” according to the report. “There are even rumors that about 100 people have been vaccinated, including high-ranking cadres who meet with Kim in person.”

The rumors indicate that Kim was likely not the first person in North Korea to get the shot, since a “test vaccine” was likely given to at least one other person before Kim was allowed to take it. Also, the vaccine was likely from the cache of Sinopharm vaccines distributed to North Korea by China earlier this year. 

The Daily NK story also said that part of Kim’s version to get vaccinated was as part of a plan to engage in in-person diplomacy at some point this year. 

“North Korean authorities hope to arrange a meeting between Kim and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the latter half of the year,” Daily NK’s source said. “And if the conditions are right, the authorities reportedly believe Kim could engage in dialogue with the United States as well.”

ABC in Australia quoted South Korean intelligence sources last month as stating that they do not believe that Kim has been vaccinated. 

“The National Intelligence Service (NIS) told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that it has not detected any information that North Korea has acquired vaccines,” the Daily NK reported, citing legislator Ha Tae-keung. 

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

U.S. Army,

The U.S. Army Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System, or ARES, will be the eyes and ears of the Army in the sky.

The U.S. Army Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System aircraft, ARES, just made its first flight. The Army hopes that the multi-engine jet will offer a more capable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability compared to older Army Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconaissance (ISR) aircraft.

The ARES platform is based on the Bombardier 6000/6500 airplanes, business jets originally designed for luxury flight, but that offer the right mix of range and payload capacity to serve in a specialized intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) role for the United States Army.

The ARES airplane is serving as a technology demonstrator for the Army’s High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) program, which the Army hopes can mesh “capabilities from the Army’s existing ISR fleet with capacity to add payloads, sensors and increase standoff ranges.”

And in an ISR role, the aircraft would succeed. Boasting brand-new Rolls-Royce engines and a nearly 7,600-mile range, the jet can cruise at over 40,000 feet and has a flight endurance of over fourteen hours in the ARES configuration. “Flight operations above 40,000 feet enhance aircraft survivability and line-of-sight,” according to a recent statement, and helped make “ARES and HADES key Sensor to Shooter (S2S) network enablers, the Army’s top modernization priority.”

Of crucial importance is the Bombardier 6000/6500 payload capacity: a whopping 14,000 pounds, with enough onboard space available to seat seventeen personnel comfortably. The planes are fast too—around Mach 0.90, depending on individual airplane configuration.

Out with the Old, in with the New

It is possible that the new Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System aircraft could go on to replace the Army’s Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS), the Army’s current Signals Intelligence aircraft. The Cold War-era legacy aircraft is nearly half a century old and an aircraft the Army would like to replace.

Previous reporting highlighted just how old the Guardrail plane is: Army technicians have been forced to source parts from airplane boneyards just to keep the turboprop airplane flight-worthy.

Postscript

Work on the U.S. Army’s new eyes and ears in the sky has been done at a break-neck pace. “L3Harris is helping the Army rapidly expand its ISR capabilities with ARES,” L3Harris’s President of Aviation Services explained. “Our design, fabrication, and integration team turned a green airframe into an initial single sensor capable platform with new sensing technology in six months.” Though still undergoing testing, the United States Army will likely have a greatly expanded intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability sometime soon.

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.

Image: Flickr/Bill Word

Khalid al-Jaber

Afghanistan, Middle East

In attempting to influence the Taliban’s behavior, the United States should be able to depend on certain regional allies, namely Turkey and Qatar, which have maintained relatively good relations with the group.

Since the Taliban captured Kabul on August 15, no government has recognized the “Islamic Emirate” as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. At this juncture, the Taliban is working to try to earn formal recognition internationally, although it is not clear if its efforts will succeed. The legacy of the group’s ultra-reactionary 1996-2001 rule, its seizure of power through force rather than negotiations, and the countless uncertainties on the ground help to explain why no state has so far acknowledged the “Taliban 2.0” as a legitimate administration.

However, this approach—refusing to engage with the Taliban and hoping it will go away—is becoming steadily less viable as the Taliban consolidates its power over its territorial gains. Barring minor holdout areas such as the “National Resistance Movement” in the Panjshir Valley, most countries have already recognized in practice, if not in principle, that the Taliban constitutes the new government of Afghanistan. These countries may or may not come around to concluding that establishing ties with the new government in Kabul is the most prudent course of action, even if uncomfortable. There are good reasons, however, to expect the international community to be polarized on this issue.

Most Western governments have already made it clear that they do not intend to recognize the “Islamic Emirate.” China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia are keeping the option of formally recognizing the Taliban on the table, but none of those countries have yet taken that step. Oddly, the United States has charted a path between these two positions; although it has kept the Taliban at arm’s length, U.S. officials have indicated that Washington might recognize the group’s authority if it protects human rights and severs its ties with Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, India’s position can best be described as ambiguous, with no commitments or rejections from New Delhi.

Probably the most interesting case is that of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. The Gulf monarchies find themselves facing a new and difficult dilemma vis-à-vis the Taliban regime. They are nervous about the “Islamic Emirate” returning to power for multiple reasons, including fears of instability in Afghanistan spilling into the Gulf and the West Asian country once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorist groups—threats to which the GCC countries, whose citizens have often joined and financed such groups in the past, are no strangers.

During the 1996-2001 rule of the first Taliban incarnation, three countries recognized its sovereignty. The first was Pakistan, long suspected of arming and financing the movement. The other two were Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both in the GCC. Like Russia and China, these two Arab states are closely monitoring the situation in Afghanistan and embracing a pragmatic approach to dealing with the new government.

Even if the GCC states drag their feet on making decisions about formal recognition, informal and below-the-table engagement between Gulf Arab governments and Kabul’s new rulers will most likely take place. For the Saudis, their channels of communication with the Taliban will likely go through Pakistan, which has managed the unlikely feat of maintaining close relations with both the GCC states and their regional rival, Iran. According to one foreign diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh will have “no other option” but to “accept the Taliban” a second time, especially considering the “historical relationship” between the two nations.

Saudi Arabia’s approach will likely be a moderating one. As the new Saudi leadership has championed “moderate Islam,” Riyadh may try to use its influence over the Taliban to push the group in a direction further away from the extremism that defined the “Islamic Emirate” of the 1990s and early 2000s. The Saudis have been on the receiving end of Islamist terrorism over the past three decades, and it is in their interests to reduce or eliminate it. At the same time, Riyadh is conducting outreach to Washington, and backing the American line on Afghanistan could prove politically advantageous to the country’s leadership.

On the other hand, the leadership in Abu Dhabi, which firmly opposes virtually all forms of political Islam, will almost certainly not welcome the Taliban’s return to power. That the UAE is hosting ex-president Ashraf Ghani, accused of taking nearly $170 million in cash from the country’s central bank during his escape, underscores this point.

With that said, the Emiratis are known for conducting a realistic foreign policy. The UAE has demonstrated its ability to work with various types of regimes, irrespective of ideological differences. Even if it would be difficult to imagine Abu Dhabi formally recognizing the Taliban, it is safe to assume that the UAE would engage the Taliban on some level if it maintains its grip on power in Afghanistan—a country where the Emiratis started playing a military role in 2001.

Qatar is an interesting case. From 2013 onward, the Taliban has maintained an office in Doha, and Qatar has mediated negotiations between the group, the United States, and the Ghani administration prior to its August dissolution. As a diplomatic bridge between the Taliban and the West, Doha finds itself in a unique position and, having distinguished itself by helping during the evacuation from the Kabul airport, is working to make itself increasingly useful to the United States during this difficult period in Afghanistan.

But would Qatar be the first country to recognize the Taliban? This is difficult to say. On one hand, the gas-rich Gulf Arab country goes to pains to show its support for its security guarantor, the United States, which is committed to trying to isolate the Taliban internationally. On the other, if the Taliban is in power for the long term and if Qatar wants to grow its influence in Afghanistan, officials in Doha realize that it would be difficult to achieve this goal without having an official relationship with the de facto government in Kabul. One way to understand Qatar’s likely actions in Afghanistan is to consider it within the context of broader geopolitical conflicts—such as the four-year blockade of the nation by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, from which tensions remain even after its official January 2021 resolution.

For now, the Qataris, much like the Saudis and Emiratis, are acting carefully in relation to Afghanistan. Doha has continued to play a mediating role amid the evacuation, and Qatar will likely make up its mind on the question of recognition further down the line. Regardless of how Doha approaches the developments in Afghanistan, the country’s humanitarian role during the ongoing chaos has earned it much goodwill in the United States and elsewhere.

Today the world looks at Afghanistan with apprehension. Countries bordering the war-torn nation have serious concerns about the influx of refugees, weapons, illicit drugs, and terrorists from Afghanistan. These governments have good reason to worry about Taliban rule resulting in tumult across Afghanistan, with serious ramifications for the wider region.

The debate about whether governments should recognize the Taliban as the country’s legitimate government is sensitive and unlikely to find a global consensus. It seems likely that the first country to formally open diplomatic relations with the “Islamic Emirate” will be a Eurasian one, geographically close to Afghanistan and not put off by the militants’ selective interpretation of human rights. Instead, economic and security considerations will probably drive their foreign policies vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, judging by the current approach, Western governments will continue to use whatever leverage they still possess to try to pressure states worldwide to back efforts to isolate the Taliban, rather than legitimizing the Islamist group through recognition. But countries in the Gulf, Pakistan, and global powers such as China and Russia are looking at the situation in Afghanistan with their own interests in mind, meaning that they may approach Kabul on different terms—and Western attempts to isolate the regime, whether originating in Washington, London, Paris, or Berlin, will almost certainly fall short.

In short, while working with the Taliban is unconscionable for many in the West, some measure of engagement with the group will lead to the best outcomes for the West. In attempting to influence the Taliban’s behavior, the United States should be able to depend on certain regional allies, namely Turkey and Qatar, which have maintained relatively good relations with the group. If Washington can present a unified strategy in coordination with these partners, it might be able to prevent the Taliban from taking its agenda from another country such as Iran, Russia, or Pakistan, making it even less receptive to U.S. interests. However, if the United States does nothing to encourage its objectives, it will have little standing to complain if Afghanistan returns to resembling its unfortunate condition in the 1990s.

Dr. Khalid al-Jaber is the Director of MENA Center in Washington, DC. Previously, he served at al-Sharq Studies & Research Center and as Editor-in-Chief of The Peninsula, Qatar’s leading English language daily newspaper. Al-Jaber is a scholar of Arab and Gulf Studies, and his research focuses on political science, public diplomacy, international communications, and international relations. He has published scholarly works in several academic books and professional journals, including the World Press Encyclopedia, Sage, and Gazette.

Image: Reuters.

Sam Abodo

Afghanistan, Middle East

Whatever the future of its Afghanistan policy is, Washington must go beyond the “loose fighters” perception by examining the Taliban’s bottom-to-top conflicts, studying its deliberative processes, and predicting its ethnic structural fractures.

For over a decade, Washington has spoken of the Taliban as a loose band of fighters. This assumption was, and continues to be, false. The Obama administration, for instance, devised a divide-and-conquer strategy to reach the “reconcilables” in the insurgency. To be sure, from building an economy to deterring ISIS attacks, a Taliban government faces steep obstacles. But cohesiveness is not one of them. A brief overview of the Taliban’s internal structure reveals a meticulous but flexible approach that Washington must reckon with to avoid being once again blindsided by the group’s advances.

Take the Doha Agreement, for example. During the negotiations, Haibatullah Akhunzada, the amir of the Taliban, strengthened the insurgency’s traditional consultative process by consistently deferring to committees. These consultations demonstrated that Taliban leadership can discuss disagreement within a framework without fear of retaliation. Though the amir is the supreme ruler, critical decisions like peace deals don’t occur without a dialogue.

Even the choice of who would lead the agreement wasn’t without thought. Mullah Ghani Baradar’s appointment to the Doha political office garnered the respect of rank-and-file members, signaled to the United States the group’s seriousness for a deal, and showed Pakistan’s interests in improved relations. What about in the lower ranks? One United States Institute of Peace paper by Ashley Jackson and Rahmatullah Amiri analyzes that structure too. At the local level, provincial (akin to state) governors appoint district governors. District governors oversee military tactics, resident complaints, and civilian commissions. While civilian commissions (akin to departments) had always existed, the Taliban have placed them at the forefront of community negotiations in hopes of greater impacts in sectors like education, health, and nongovernmental organizations. Oversight by top leadership is hands-off unless necessary: the provincial governor can argue against policy implemented by higher authorities, and the Rahbari Shura, the Taliban leadership council, is not directly involved in the appointment of district governors.

Jackson and Amiri further discuss how civilians in these positions work with the military side, but the implementation of these policies can remain independent. Regarding education policy, for example, local leaders are authorized to challenge military actors worried about anti-Taliban ideals in classrooms.

Of course, the structure is far more complex on the ground than on paper, and it differs from sector to sector. But keeping a general blueprint avoids conflict, decentralizes power, and keeps the military and civilian sides on equal footing. When asked about such reforms in 2018, one Taliban official asserted that “we needed to show we could be accountable and could form an accountable government that everyone could accept.”

The Doha Agreement process and subnational reforms show the Taliban has adapted to geopolitical changes. To ignore this fact means re-committing mistakes like attempting to produce dissidents among its ranks. Fortunately, there are three ways to keep the Taliban structure in mind if Washington decides to engage its government, diplomatically or not.

First, U.S. policymakers should understand that local leaders are in some ways more powerful than the Taliban central government. The Rahbari Shura cannot oversee the 70 percent of Afghans who live in the countryside, so it relies on appointed officials like the district governors. And these governors are more accountable to the provincial officials than the amir. What would cause a district governor to argue against central policy? Money? Lack of resources? By answering these questions, the United States will gain insight into the causes of bottom-to-top conflicts.

Second, as Bill Roggio, managing editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, argued, “We never understood the Taliban's singular goal of reestablishing the Islamic emirate.” Had the U.S. government better understood the Taliban’s structure, it would’ve known that the policy process, from consultation to evaluation, reflects an Islamic model. The jirga, the traditional form of assembly leaders common to Pashtun, predates modern law but more importantly, mirrors the consultative methods of the Rahbari Shura. To determine the policies of a Taliban government, Washington must study these deliberative processes.

Finally, the United States needs to acknowledge that the Taliban is no longer the Pashtun ethno-nationalist movement from the 1990s. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, the Taliban’s expansive recruitment of Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tajik Afghans “have given the militant group the ability to seize territory in areas outside of its traditional power base.” This strategy, too, was no accident. The Taliban tailored recruitment messages to play on minorities’ financial and political grievances towards the Afghan government. One of these Uzbek recruits was appointed as a military chief in several districts after only two years, allowing him to recruit members exponentially—like a pyramid scheme. How long the Taliban will keep these groups under this manufactured Islamic banner, no one can say. But if U.S. policy accounts for these ethnic differences within the Taliban structure, it can predict fractures here and there.

Whatever the future of its Afghanistan policy is, Washington must go beyond the “loose fighters” perception by examining the Taliban’s bottom-to-top conflicts, studying its deliberative processes, and predicting its ethnic structural fractures. Then, it should apply those analyses towards better anticipating Taliban government policies. To do otherwise means re-committing past mistakes.

Sam Abodo is an undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy and an editorial intern with The National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

Sami Jabarkhail

Afghanistan, Eurasia

China’s strategic intention to march West, Russian’s vision to create a Eurasian Union, and Iran’s ambition to prevail as the dominant force in the Middle East place Afghanistan at the intersection of all three countries’ geostrategic priorities.

On August 15, 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken responded to the question of whether the Biden administration would recognize the Taliban’s new government by stating, “A future Afghan government that upholds the basic rights of its people and doesn’t harbor terrorists is a government we can work with and recognize.”

Echoing Blinken’s remarks, Ned Price, the U.S. State Department spokesman, declared on August 20 that the United States has several tools at its disposal to hold the Taliban accountable for its treatment of women and minorities. Among the tools are designating the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) or including its members in Specially Designated Terrorist Group (SDTG). In fact, one of them already is.

Washington has already frozen nearly 10 billion dollars of Afghanistan’s assets, denying the Taliban access to the international financial system. Due to the U.S freeze of Afghanistan’s assets, Afghanistan’s currency has depreciated while prices have spiked, and banks remain closed. Several Taliban members have also been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury.

The Taliban cannot be held to the American standards of liberal democracy, free market, and civil liberties. Nevertheless, the Taliban have repeatedly acknowledged the need for an inclusive government, women’s rights to study and work, independent media, viable relations with the international community, and reforms in various sectors, though it is not clear whether they will follow through on these promises.

While President Joe Biden has the power to restore full diplomatic relations with the Taliban, such an action would occur as part of broader efforts to engage with them. These efforts must account for America’s three major rivals in the region: China, Russia, and Iran. All three have vowed to recognize the Taliban government.

This triangle of belligerent countries, while apart in their regional tendencies, remain united against the United States, seeking to undermine Washington’s interests and ultimately drive the United States out of the region.

For China, Afghanistan is important not only for security reasons but also economic ones. Afghanistan’s geostrategic position as the crossroad of major trade routes, connecting Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East on the one hand and the country’s abundant industrial materials on the other make Kabul an attractive economic and political partner for China.

The Taliban are in a position to enable China to implement its Belt and Road Initiative in the region by facilitating the importation of much-needed industrial materials from Central Asia and the exportation of goods from China’s coastal inlands to markets in the Middle East and Europe—all by rail. Central Asia also possesses large energy deposits. Given China’s future energy demands, Central Asia is likely to see an increasing Chinese presence.

Additionally, the Taliban can offer Beijing security guarantees on its northeastern border. Chinese officials have long worried about the rise of extremism in Xinjiang province which is home to the Uyghur Muslims. In return for Chinese political and economic support, the Taliban could deny safe heaven to Uyghur separatists in Afghanistan.  

For Russia, Afghanistan is also a major security concern. As a landlocked country, Russia has legitimate political and security sensitivities all around its borders, especially on its southern border.

Halford Mackinder’s twentieth-century geopolitical dictum that “all lands are politically connected” bears truth in the present time. The 2010-11 uprising in Tunisia was a testament to that fact. A protest by a fruit vendor in Tunis to change the country’s political landscape spilled to the rest of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

Under the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Russia’s influence on the Central Asian countries will depend on Moscow’s sway in Kabul. Thus, Moscow seems to have a vested interest in working with the Taliban.

Finally, Iran has benefited from U.S. involvement and subsequent withdrawal in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both wars, Tehran has supported specific militias to target and kill Americans. The U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan will give Iran yet another opportunity to advance its revolutionary vision well beyond its border and threaten Washington’s interests far and wide.

In all, China’s strategic intention to march West, Russian’s vision to create a Eurasian Union, and Iran’s ambition to prevail as the dominant force in the Middle East place Afghanistan at the intersection of all three countries’ geostrategic priorities. Thus, the fundamental question confronting U.S. policymakers is not whether Washington can keep China, Russia, and Iran in check in Afghanistan but whether Washington has the will to do so.

Sami Jabarkhail is a Ph.D. Candidate in Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University. Sami was a delegate to the 2014 NATO Future Leaders Summit in Wales, UK. Follow him on Twitter @SamiJabarkhail.

Image: Reuters.

Trevor Filseth

Afghanistan,

Even if the resistance group is able to retain control of the valley against a Taliban attack, it seems very unlikely that it could liberate more of the country from the Taliban.

Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have thrown their support behind the “Panjshir resistance” to Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The two congressmen issued a statement on Friday morning, in which they called for political and military aid to the group and called on President Joe Biden to recognize the group as the legitimate successor to the Afghan government.

“After speaking with Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh and representatives of Ahmad Massoud,” the statement reads, “we are calling on the Biden Administration to recognize these leaders as the legitimate government representatives of Afghanistan. We ask the Biden Administration to recognize that the Afghan Constitution is still intact, and the Afghan Taliban takeover is illegal.”

The statement praised the leadership of the Panjshir resistance for remaining in the country and creating a “safe haven” for Afghans and foreign citizens seeking freedom from Taliban rule. It also pushed Biden to officially designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization. While Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the “Pakistani Taliban,” is included on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), the Taliban in Afghanistan is not–largely because successive U.S. administrations have sought to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban but are generally forbidden from negotiating with terror groups.

Though the Panjshir Valley itself remains unoccupied by the Taliban, the group has tightened its control around the surrounding area, blocking roads in and out and severing phone and internet access to the valley. Negotiations between the Taliban and Panjshir’s leadership remain ongoing. Even if the resistance group is able to retain control of the valley against a Taliban attack, it seems very unlikely that it could liberate more of the country from the Taliban.

Waltz and Graham’s statement will probably not influence the Biden administration’s policy, as it appears to be attempting to build a relationship with the Taliban—a relationship that would be harder to build if it emerged that the administration was supporting a rebel group. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has indicated that the U.S. government would be willing to “work with” a Taliban-led government if it vowed to respect human rights, allow Afghans to emigrate, and refused to tolerate international terrorist activity.

Still, Waltz has indicated that his efforts to support the Panjshir resistance will continue, describing the mission to Foreign Affairs as “a play out of Charlie Wilson’s playbook”—in reference to Rep. Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman who played an outsized role in funding and arming the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

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

Image: Reuters

Dan Negrea

Foreign Policy,

There seem to be two Biden doctrines, neither is compelling, and they are at cross-purposes at times.  Neither is the political clarion call America needs for the great power confrontation with China.

Analysts parse the foreign policy statements of presidents and administrations in search of a dominant theme.  When they find it, they call it a presidential doctrine.  The Monroe, Truman, Nixon, and Reagan doctrines, for example, are enduring summaries of those presidents’ foreign policy.

There seem to be two Biden doctrines, neither is compelling, and they are at cross-purposes at times.  Neither is the political clarion call America needs for the great power confrontation with China.

The Foreign Policy for the Middle-Class Doctrine

“Every action we take in our conduct abroad, we must take with American working families in mind,” said President Joe Biden in a speech at the Department of State in February.

In his first speech as Secretary of State in March, Anthony Blinken also addressed this topic: “… Our trade policies will need to answer very clearly how they will grow the American middle class...”

At a press briefing in February, Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser, announced that:  “We will also be able to more effectively pursue a foreign policy for the middle class. …  Everything we do in our foreign policy and national security will be measured by a basic metric: Is it going to make life better, safer, and easier for working families?”

The intellectual origin of the doctrine is a 2020 study by the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace entitled “ Making Foreign Policy Work Better for the Middle Class,”  co-edited by Jake Sullivan.

The Carnegie study refers to a Pew Research Center report that defines the middle-income bracket for a household of three as $48,505-145,516.  The Carnegie study does not refer to “working families” but we can assume that the terms are used interchangeably.

Questions about The Foreign Policy for the Middle-Class Doctrine

Why design the foreign policy for the entire nation around just one class?  Pew estimates that about fifty percent of Americans are in the middle class, twenty percent in the upper class, and thirty percent in the lower class.  Doesn’t the lower class, the most vulnerable among us, also deserve consideration in our foreign policy?  And how about the upper class who pay seventy percent of total taxes and, by extension, of the salaries of our public servants. 

Furthermore, if the goal is to target the well-being of the middle-class, foreign policy tools are singularly ill-designed for the purpose (to paraphrase Churchill’s remark about golf clubs).  The tools of foreign policy are diplomacy, information, military, and economics.  The first three cannot be used to benefit just some Americans.  How exactly would our Russia diplomacy, for example, be different if we keep the middle-class in mind?  Or our military posture in Asia?

Economic tools, and especially trade policy, are usually offered as an option but they don’t quite work either.  The Interim National Security Guidance published in March said that “trade policy must grow the American middle class, create new and better jobs, raise wages, and strengthen communities.”  In a Washington Post article, Professor Daniel Drezner commented that: “… No trade policy in the world can do that, because no trade policy has effects of that magnitude.”

The Democracy Promotion Doctrine

In his introductory letter to the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, President Biden declared that “Our world is at an inflection point. …. I believe we are in the midst of an historic and fundamental debate about the future direction of our world. There are those who argue that, given all the challenges we face, autocracy is the best way forward. And there are those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting all the challenges of our changing world.” 

The Guidance describes a global security landscape in which “democracies are under siege” and  “authoritarianism is on the global march,” which requires “like-minded allies and partners to revitalize democracy the world over.”  China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are listed as “hostile adversaries.”

The Guidance lists eight national security priorities: Strengthening alliances and partnerships; leading in international institutions and on climate change; smart defense choices and leading with diplomacy; international economic relations that serve the middle class; building back better at home; revitalizing democracy at home and abroad; prevailing in “the strategic competition with China or any other nation;” and “investing in our national security workforce.”

The Guidance describes China as  “… the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.” 

It also notes that “..in many areas, China’s leaders seek unfair advantages, behave aggressively and coercively.” The guidance promises that the U.S. “… will confront unfair and illegal trade practices, cyber theft, and coercive economic practices that hurt American workers...”  And it states that “We will position ourselves, diplomatically and militarily, to defend our allies” and support our partners in the region.

Secretary Blinken gave his inaugural speech at the Department of State on the same day the Guidance was issued.  He also listed eight foreign policy priorities: The coronavirus health challenge; the coronavirus economic challenge; renewing democracy; humane and effective immigration; revitalizing alliances and partnerships; tackling climate change; securing the U.S. technology leadership; and managing the China relationship.

Referring to the United States, he argued that “there is no question that our democracy is fragile” and in need of strengthening.  Promoting democracy is important “… because strong democracies are more stable, more open, better partners to us, more committed to human rights, less prone to conflict, and more dependable markets for our goods and services.”

Regarding the implementation of democracy promotion, he promises that “We will use the power of our example.  We will encourage others to make key reforms, overturn bad laws, fight corruption, and stop unjust practices.”

Implementation has already started: Politico made public a cable from Secretary Blinken to all U.S. embassies in which he instructs our diplomats to promote human rights and democracy, even in countries with non-democratic governments that are friendly to the U.S.  To increase acceptance of this message, U.S. diplomats are encouraged to talk about shortcomings in the U.S. 

Questions regarding the Democracy Promotion Doctrine

The first question about this doctrine is its priority ranking.  The Guidance ranks democracy promotion sixth and the China relationship seventh (penultimate).  Among Secretary Blinken’s priorities, democracy promotion ranks third and the China relationship eighth (and last).  If China represents “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century,” shouldn’t the China threat rank first or at least higher than democracy promotion?

The second question regards the promotion of democracy in all countries, even those friendly to the U.S. when this may antagonize countries we need to counter China and other adversaries.  Will we complain to India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore about their democracy shortcomings and risk pushing them closer to China?  Or to NATO members Turkey, Poland, and Hungary who are key to checking Russia?  Or to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries in the Middle East that we need to counter Islamic Terrorism?

The third question regards the effectiveness of democracy promotion.  The U.S. has few tools to influence the behavior of foreign governments.  Withholding or reducing arms sales, a frequent sanction for this purpose, doesn’t work very well.  China and Russia are happy to sell weapons to dictators if the U.S. does not.  And so is our democratic ally France, a traditional arms supplier to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many other dictatorships.

President Biden talks about a Summit of Democracies.  What will be the democracy test that countries will have to pass to be invited? 

Contradictions Between the Two Doctrines

A central tenet of the Democracy Promotion Doctrine is that democracies should band together to oppose autocracies.  But Biden’s “Buy American” (just like Trump’s America First trade policy) appears protectionist to our allies and partners and will push them away. 

Selling weapons to dictators creates jobs for the middle-class but does not promote democracy.

Democracy promotion abroad was not popular with the middle class as practiced by Presidents Carter and George W. Bush.  It is still unpopular.  A February 2021 Pew Research Center poll gave Americans twenty foreign policy goals and asked them to pick their top priority.  The top three choices, with percentages in the seventies, were protecting American jobs, fighting pandemics, and fighting terrorism.  Dead last, with just twenty percent was “Promoting democracy in other nations.”

The Biden Administration believes that American diplomats advocating for democracy abroad should talk about shortcomings in America’s democracy.  But this sounds like President Obama’s “apology tours” and will not sit well with the middle-class who are very patriotic.  A poll by the University of Chicago showed that ninety percent of America’s poorest would rather be citizens of the United States than of any other country and eighty percent of all respondents believed that America is “better” than other countries.

The Doctrine We Need for the Great Power Confrontation with China

1.     Our world is indeed at an inflection point: The United States is in a great power confrontation with China and this must be Priority #1 for our national security strategy.  The United States must counter Communist China’s expansionist, revisionist, and illegal actions that have been harming vital American security, freedom, and prosperity interests.  Communist China wants to dominate the world but living in China’s totalitarian world is unacceptable for Americans. 

2.     Like the eagle in the Great Seal of the United States, the United States offers China the choice of the olive branch of cooperation or the thunderbolt of confrontation.  For decades, the United States has cooperated with China and aided in its growth assuming that it will become a responsible stakeholder of the rules-based system.  The assumption was wrong: China is today an adversary and will remain one under the leadership of Xi Jinping.  Selective cooperation with China is still possible and necessary.   But it is confrontation that sets the tone of the relationship.

3.     The goals of the United States in this confrontation are to limit China’s capacity to harm the interests of the United States and the Free World; to impose such costs on China that it will restrain or abandon its malign policies; and to position the U.S. and the Free World to prevail against China in the current confrontation and in a possible future conflict.

4.     Among the means of the China confrontation policy are: Increased defense spending; selective economic decoupling;  imposing meaningful costs for malign actions; forming defensive military groupings among countries threatened by Chinese expansionism; calling out China’s human rights violations and illegal economic practices; and opposing its attempts to censure criticism in the Free World.

5.     The United States is also challenged by countries in the League of Dictators that include major regional powers Russia and Iran, as well as North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba.  These countries frequently make common cause with China.  Importantly, after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, ISIS and Al Qaeda must also be added to this list.

6.     To face China and the League of Dictators, the United States needs to lead a Free World coalition of allies and partners.  Our closest allies will always be nations strongly committed to democracy.  But membership in the Free World network must be open to any country opposed to China’s designs.

7.     In this confrontation, the Free World led by the United States needs to build a broad-based, diverse, and flexible network of alliances and partnerships.  Some already exist, like NATO and the Quad.  Others need to be created, like Democracy-10 and Technology-12.  Also necessary is a Free World economic alliance with an Article V so China cannot use economic blackmail against another country the way it did against Australia without incurring retaliation.

8.     The Free World network will collaborate to defend and revitalize the Rules-Based System.  Since World War II, this system has helped prevent another world war.  It has also contributed to an unprecedented increase in prosperity and in the number of democratic countries.  But its institutions need updating and its members need to do better in burden-sharing.

9.     The United States should have an Open Invitation policy toward Russia.  It is in the United States’s interest to work out mutually acceptable arrangements with Russia if it abandons its aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist policies, distances itself from China, and supports the United States and the Free World.  This is not possible today but is more likely in the future with Russia than with China.  Long-term strategic trends are unfavorable to Russia.  It has a declining population, a low GDP per capita, and a technologically unsophisticated economy dependent on hydrocarbon exports in a world moving away from them.  Someday, the Russian people will force their leaders to follow the path of the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe which joined the Free World and adopted political and economic reforms that lead to prosperity. Also, an expansionist China with 1.4 billion people will eventually become an acute strategic threat to Russia with 140 million people and its sparsely populated, yet resource-rich Siberia neighboring China.  There is a precedent for such a switch:  Communist Russia was initially allied with Hitler but later came to the side of the allies.

10.  In this environment of increased tension, the United States must significantly increase dialogue with China and the League of Dictators to prevent accidental military conflict. 

China’s actions are a grave threat to America’s security, freedom, and prosperity.  But it is not the first time that America faces a totalitarian foe that seems formidable and has dreams of world domination.  America won against such adversaries in hot and cold wars, in World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the War on Terror.  And she will win again.

Mr. Negrea is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.  He held leadership positions in the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and Economic Bureau during the Trump Administration.

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Chinese Submarines,

The Chinese government is not disposed to transparency regarding its military accidents.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Only high standards of maintenance, manufacturing, and crew training can avert lethal peacetime disasters—standards which are difficult for many nations to afford, but which the PLA Navy likely aspires to it as it continues to expand and professionalize its forces at an extraordinary rate.

On April 25, 2003, the crew of a Chinese fishing boat noticed a strange sight—a periscope drifting listlessly above the surface of the water. The fishermen notified the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which promptly dispatched two vessels to investigate.

At first, the PLAN believed the contact to be an intruding submarine from South Korea or Japan. But when Chinese personnel finally recovered the apparent derelict they realized it was one of their own diesel-electric submarines, the Ming-class 361.

When they boarded on April 26, they found all seventy personnel slumped dead at their stations.

Military commissioner and former president Jiang Zemin acknowledged the tragic incident on May 2, 2003, in a statement honoring the sacrifice of Chinese sailors' lives and vaguely characterizing the cause as “mechanical failure.”

A month later, an inquiry by his commission resulted in the dismissal of both the commander and commissar of the North Sea Fleet, and the demotion or dismissal of six or eight more officers for “improper command and control.” Jiang and President Hu Jintao later reportedly visited the recovered submarine and met with the families of the deceased.

The Chinese government is not disposed to transparency regarding its military accidents. For example, it does not release the results of its investigations into jet fighter crashes and it never publicly acknowledged earlier submarine accidents. At the time, some commentators expressed surprise that Beijing acknowledged the incident at all, and speculated it was obliquely related to contemporaneous criticism of Beijing’s attempts to downplay the SARS epidemic.

The Type 035 Ming-class submarine was an outdated second-generation design evolved from the lineage of the Soviet Romeo-class, in turn a Soviet development of the German Type XXI “Electric U-Boat” from World War II. The first two Type 035s were built in 1975 but remained easy to detect compared to contemporary American or Russian designs. Though China operated numerous diesel submarines, due to concerns over seaworthiness, they rarely ventured far beyond coastal waters in that era.

Nonetheless, Chinese shipyards continued to build updated Ming-class boats well into the 1990s. Submarine 361 was one of the later Type 035G Ming III models, which introduced the capability to engage opposing submerged submarines with guided torpedoes. Entering service in 1995, she and three sister ships numbered 359 through 362 formed the North Sea Fleet’s 12th Submarine Brigade based in Liaoning province. You can see them together in this photo.

361 had been deployed on a naval exercise in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea gulf east of Beijing and Tianjing. Unusually, a senior naval officer, Commodore Cheng Fuming was aboard. In its last ship’s log on April 16, the submarine was practicing silent running while off the Changshang island, heading back to a base in Weihai, Shandong Province.

Because it was maintaining radio silence, the PLAN didn’t realize anything was amiss until ten days later. The method by which 361 was recovered after its presence was reported remains unclear. Several accounts imply the ship was submerged, but the fact that it was promptly towed back to port implies that it had surfaced.

The lack of a clear official explanation has led to various theories over the years. The typical complement of a Type 035 submarine is fifty-five to fifty-seven personnel, but 361 had seventy on board. Officially these were trainers, but conditions would have been quite cramped. The presence of the additional personnel and the high-ranking Commodore Cheng leads to the general conclusion that 361 was not on a routine mission.

Indeed, some commentators speculated that the additional crew was observing tests of an experimental Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system which would have offered greater stealth and underwater endurance. As it happens, another Type 035G submarine, 308, was used to test an AIP drive, and Stirling AIP drives would soon equip the prolific Type 041 Yuan-class submarines which prowl the seas today.

Another theory is that leaks allowed seawater to mix with battery acid, forming deadly chlorine gas that poisoned the crew. The Hong Kong Sing Tao Daily claimed the submarine had embarked on a “dangerous” antisubmarine training, and that “human error” led it to nose-down uncontrollably, causing it to get stuck on the seafloor.

However, the most widely accepted explanation today was first published by the Hong Kong Wen Wei Po, a pro-Beijing newspaper: the crew was suffocated by the sub’s diesel engine.

A conventional diesel-electric submarine uses an air-breathing diesel engine to charge up its batteries for underwater propulsion. This is usually done while surfaced—but a submarine attempting to remain undetected can also cruise submerged just below the surface and use a snorkel to sip air. The snorkel is designed to automatically seal up if the water level gets too high.

According to Wen Wei Po, 361 was running its diesel while snorkeling when high water caused the air intake valve to close—or the valve failed to open properly due to a malfunction. However, its diesel engine did not shut down as it should have in response. You can find what appears to be a translated version of the article here.

Apparently, the motor consumed most of the submarine’s air supply in just two minutes. The crew might have felt light-headed and short of breath during the first minute and would have begun losing consciousness in the second. The negative air pressure also made it impossible to open the hatches. A 2013 article by Reuters repeats this theory as well as mentioning the possibility that was exhaust was improperly vented back into the hull to fatal effect.

Any of these explanations would reflect serious failings in both crew training and mechanical performance.

The recent tragic loss of the Argentine submarine San Juan, the fire raging amongst moored Russian Kilo-class submarines at Vladivostok (a drill, Moscow claims), and the fortunately nonfatal but highly expensive flooding of the Indian nuclear-powered submarine Arihant highlight that despite being arguably the most fearsome weapon system on the planet, submarines remain dangerous to operate even when not engaged in a war. Even brief breakdowns in crew discipline or mechanical reliability can rapidly turn the stealthy underwater marauders into watery coffins.

Only high standards of maintenance, manufacturing, and crew training can avert lethal peacetime disasters—standards which are difficult for many nations to afford, but which the PLA Navy likely aspires to it as it continues to expand and professionalize its forces at an extraordinary rate.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Trevor Filseth

Afghanistan,

The Red Cross also served in Afghanistan under the Taliban in the 1990s, and its staff has asserted that the group has a “very good working relationship” with the Taliban.

As the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan at the Kabul airport continues, U.S. forces are madly attempting to meet an August 31 “red line” date imposed by the Taliban. Meanwhile, humanitarian efforts conducted by international aid organizations and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) have dropped precipitously. A major concern for these organizations going forward is the potential for poor treatment by the Taliban, which developed a reputation for mistreating foreign workers during its first period of rule during the 1990s.

However, even as other NGOs depart, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more commonly known as the Red Cross, has committed to remaining in the country and continuing its health mission there.

Red Cross staff confirmed the decision over the weekend, pointing out that the aid group had worked in Taliban-controlled areas during the active phase of the conflict and were welcomed then.

The situation in Afghanistan remains dangerous, despite the end of hostilities following the collapse of the internationally recognized Afghan government. On Thursday, a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed a dozen U.S. soldiers and nearly 200 Afghan civilians, injuring hundreds more. The attacks have been blamed on ISIS-K, a local offshoot of the Islamic State terror group based in Iraq and Syria.

Another factor complicating the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is the country’s ongoing economic problems. In the past week, UN officials have attempted to solicit an additional $800 million in donations to pay for humanitarian assistance in the country.

Prior to its collapse, eighty percent of the internationally recognized budget was sourced from aid from the United States—aid that Washington will not supply to the Taliban.

In addition to the conflict, Afghanistan is experiencing a historic drought, now accompanied by famine. If current trends persist, one-third of Afghans are likely to face food insecurity in the coming year if further aid is not provided. Moreover, there continue to be negative consequences from Afghanistan’s attempts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Afghanistan has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world—with only around two percent having received one dose, and around one-half of one percent fully vaccinated. The worst effects of the virus, however, have largely passed the country by, owing to its relatively youthful population.

The Red Cross also served in Afghanistan under the Taliban in the 1990s, and its staff has asserted that the group has a “very good working relationship” with the Taliban.

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

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Nuclear Submarines, World

The closest competitor to the Ohio-class submarine is Russia’s sole remaining Typhoon-class submarine, a larger vessel with twenty ballistic-missile launch tubes.

Here's What You Need to Know: The Ohio class will serve on until the end of the 2020s, and may even receive some additional acoustic stealth upgrades until they are replaced by a successor, tentatively dubbed the Columbia class. With estimated costs of $4–6 billion each to manufacture, the next-generation boomers may be fewer in number and will use new reactors that do not require expensive overhauls and refueling, allowing them to serve on until 2085.

Nine years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla depicted a monster awakened from the depths of the ocean to wreak havoc on Japanese cities. A giant fire-breathing reptile, however, was less horrifying than what was to come. In less than a decade’s time, there would be dozens of real undersea beasts capable of destroying multiple cities at a time. I’m referring, of course, to ballistic-missile submarines, or “boomers” in U.S. Navy parlance.

The most deadly of the real-life kaiju prowling the oceans today are the fourteen Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines, which carry upwards of half of the United States’ nuclear arsenal onboard.

If you do the math, the Ohio-class boats may be the most destructive weapon system created by humankind. Each of the 170-meter-long vessels can carry twenty-four Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) which can be fired from underwater to strike at targets more than seven thousand miles away depending on the load.

As a Trident II reenters the atmosphere at speeds of up to Mach 24, it splits into up to eight independent reentry vehicles, each with a 100- or 475-kiloton nuclear warhead. In short, a full salvo from an Ohio-class submarine—which can be launched in less than one minute—could unleash up to 192 nuclear warheads to wipe twenty-four cities off the map. This is a nightmarish weapon of the apocalypse.

The closest competitor to the Ohio-class submarine is the Russia’s sole remaining Typhoon-class submarine, a larger vessel with twenty ballistic-missile launch tubes. However, China, Russia, India, England and France all operate multiple ballistic-missile submarines with varying missile armaments—and even a few such submarines would suffice to annihilate the major cities in a developed nation.

What possible excuse is there for such monstrous, nation-destroying weaponry?

The logic of nuclear deterrence: while a first strike might wipe out a country’s land-based missiles and nuclear bombers, it’s very difficult to track a ballistic-missile submarine patrolling quietly in the depths of the ocean—and there’s little hope of taking them all out in a first strike. Thus, ballistic-missile submarines promise the unstoppable hand of nuclear retribution—and should deter any sane adversary from attempting a first strike or resorting to nuclear weapons at all. At least that’s the hope.

As such, the Trident-armed Ohio-class submarines will have succeeded in their mission if they never fire their weapons in anger.

The Ohio-class boats entered service in the 1980s as a replacement for five different classes of fleet ballistic-missile submarines, collectively known as the “41 for Freedom.” Displacing more than eighteen thousand tons submerged, the new boomers remain the largest submarines to serve in the U.S. Navy—and the third-largest ever built. With the exception of the Henry M. Jackson, each is named after a U.S. state, an honor previously reserved for large surface warships.

In the event of a nuclear exchange, a boomer would likely receive its firing orders via Very Low Frequency radio transmission. While a submarine’s missiles are not pretargeted, like those in fixed silos, they can be assigned coordinates quite rapidly. The first eight Ohio-class boats were originally built to launch the Trident I C4 ballistic missile—an advanced version of the earlier Poseidon SLBM. However, by now all of the boomers are armed with the superior Trident II D5 ballistic missile, which has 50 percent greater range and is capable of very accurate strikes, which could enable them to precisely target military installations as a first-strike weapon.

Ohio-class submarines also come armed with four twenty-one-inch tubes that can launch Mark 48 torpedoes. However, these are intended primarily for self-defense—a ballistic missile submarine’s job isn’t to hunt enemy ships and submarines, but to lie as low and quiet as possible to deny adversaries any means of tracking their movements. The submarine’s nuclear reactor gives it virtually unlimited underwater endurance and the ability to maintain cruising speeds of twenty knots (twenty-three miles per hour) while producing very little noise.

While other branches of the military may be deployed in reaction to the crisis of the day, the nuclear submarines maintain a steady routine of patrols, and communicate infrequently so as to remain as stealthy as possible. Each Ohio-class submarine has two crews of 154 officers and enlisted personnel, designated Gold and Blue, who take turns departing on patrols that last an average of seventy to ninety days underwater—with the longest on record being 140 days by the USS Pennsylvania. An average of a month is spent between patrols, with resupply facilitated by three large-diameter supply hatches.         

Currently, nine boomers are based in Bangor, Washington to patrol the Pacific Ocean, while five are stationed in Kings Bay, Georgia for operations in the Atlantic. The end of the Cold War, and especially the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, resulted in the downsizing of U.S. nuclear forces. However, rather than retiring some of the oldest boats as originally planned, the Navy decided to refit four of the eighteen Ohio-class subs to serve as cruise missile carriers to launch conventional attacks against ground and sea targets—starting with the USS Ohio.

Meanwhile, the New START treaty which came into effect in 2011 imposes additional limits on the number of deployed nuclear weapons. The current plan is to keep twelve Ohio-class subs active at time with twenty Trident IIs each, while two more boomers remain in overhaul, keeping a total of 240 missiles active at a time with 1,090 warheads between them. Don’t worry, restless hawks: that’s still enough to destroy the world several times over!

The Ohio class will serve on until the end of the 2020s, and may even receive some additional acoustic stealth upgrades until they are replaced by a successor, tentatively dubbed the Columbia class. With estimated costs of $4–6 billion each to manufacture, the next-generation boomers may be fewer in number and will use new reactors that do not require expensive overhauls and refueling, allowing them to serve on until 2085.

Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.

This article first appeared in January 2017.

Image: Wikipedia.

Sebastien Roblin

Nuclear Weapons, Eurasia

While there’s a tactical rationale behind Russia’s development of a fast, surface-skimming cruise missile with an unlimited range as a means of bypassing American missile defenses, it strikes many analysts as an inordinately expensive, extremely technically challenging, and—evidently!—downright unsafe.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Unfortunately, in a climate of escalating paranoia and nuclear arms competition, Moscow is not merely devising exotic new nuclear weapons, but resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past.

After days of speculation by Western analysts that a deadly accident on August 8, 2019 that briefly spiked radiation levels in northwestern Russia was tied to tests of an exotic nuclear-powered “Skyfall” nuclear-powered cruise missile, Russian sources confirmed to the New York Times the explosion of a “small nuclear reactor.”

While there’s a tactical rationale behind Russia’s development of a fast, surface-skimming cruise missile with an unlimited range as a means of bypassing American missile defenses, it strikes many analysts as an inordinately expensive, extremely technically challenging, and—evidently!—downright unsafe.

That’s because the United States has tried it before sixty years earlier—and even with the fast-and-loose safety culture of the Cold War 1960s, the poison-spewing radioactive mega missile it began developing was considered too dangerous to even properly flight test.

This project was most famously described in a 1990 article by Gregg Herken for Air & Space Magazine, which remains well worth the read.

In the late 1950s, the United States had yet to deploy the intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles that remain two of three pillars of Washington’s nuclear deterrence today. That meant the drawing board was open for alternative methods to threaten Washington’s adversaries with atomic devastation.

One concept was to use a nuclear ramjet propulsion system to create a rocket that could fly for months thanks to a small nuclear reactor on board. The ramjet functioned by sucking in onrushing air while traveling several times the speed of sound, and warming it with its small reactor. The heated air would expand and get squeezed out exhaust nozzles to result in high-speed propulsion.

The resulting Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile (SLAM) was powered by a small reactor codenamed “Pluto,” to be developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

While proto-hippies gathered at the nearby university campus, the scientists at the laboratory, under project director Theodore Merkle, were devising a huge missile designed that would make any caught underneath it “deafened, flattened, and irradiated,” as Herken memorably put it in his article.

The SLAM missile was expected to soar towards its Soviet targets at tree-top level, traveling at three times the speed of sound. The combination of low-altitude (reducing detection range) and Mach 3 speed was thought to make it too fast for interception by fighters or surface-to-air missile. The sonic shock wave produced by the huge missile was believed to be strong enough to kill anyone caught underneath it.

The huge missile, laden with up to twelve thermonuclear bombs, would proceed to race towards one Soviet city after another, visiting Hiroshima-level human tragedies upon each. And once the bombs were exhausted, the nuclear-powered missile would…simply keep on going and going like a murderous Energizer Bunny.

Because installing adequate radioactive shielding on such a small reactor would have proven impossible, the SLAM would have spread in its wake trails of cancer-inducing gamma and neutron radiation and radioactive fission fragments expelled by its exhaust.

Project Pluto scientists even considered weaponizing this property by programming the missile to circle overhead Soviet population centers, though how exposing even more people to slow deaths by radiation poisoning would be useful in an apocalyptic nuclear war that would likely leave both nations in ruin in a few days is hard to fathom.

However, realizing the SLAM concept involved a succession of serious technical challenges. For example, a separate conventional rocket system would be necessary for the missile to reach the supersonic speeds at which its ramjet motor could function. That, in turn, meant the reactor had to be designed to withstand the heat and stress of those powerful booster rockets. In fact, it’s believed precisely that problem may have resulted in the deadly accident in Russia this August.

As a result, the Livermore laboratory devised a 500-megawatt reactor so robust it was nicknamed the “flying crowbar.”

Thus, the missile’s structure would need to withstand the intense heat generated by the reactor, estimated to operate at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, the lab commissioned the Coors Ceramic company in Colorado—yes, the same as the beer-brewers of today—to build heat-resistant ceramic fuel elements.

To test whether the various components Project Pluto could coexist non-explosively, an expensive, eight-square-mile test facility was established codenamed Site 401 at the Jackass flats of Nevada.

A nuclear ramjet named Tory-IIA was tested successfully for a few seconds on May 14, 1961, at low power. After three more years of development, a lighter Tory-IIC ramjet was then tested in 1964, operating at near to full power for five minutes. Over 300 tons of pressurized air were channeled to simulate high-speed flight conditions necessary for the ramjet to operate.

Having established the workability of the nuclear ramjet, Merkle’s team then ran into a serious practical obstacle: where on Earth, literally, could a long-range weapon prone to trailing plumes of radioactive pollution behind it be tested? And what would happen if the supersonic weapon with theoretically nigh-unlimited range “got away”—ie., fell out of control, and potentially irradiated American communities? Some scientists even suggested tying the missile to the ground to deal with the latter problem.

Deploying the weapon operationally presented even worse dilemmas, as the missile would likely overfly U.S. allies on its approach to Russia. Even deploying an operational weapon to a remote Pacific island seemed to entail an inordinate amount of radiation poisoning for the surrounding environment.

By then, the United States was well into deploying ICBMs and SLBM missiles, which presented none of these problems and were at the time virtually unstoppable once launched. By contrast, advances in radar and missile technology seemed bound to make the SLAM less invulnerable than had been previously supposed. Finally, in July 1964, the military pulled the plug on the $260 million program—equivalent to over $2 billion in 2019 dollars.

Fortunately, the Pentagon was able to assess that the SLAM did nothing to alter the Mutually Assured Destruction dynamic of Moscow and Washington’s Cold War standoff, except perhaps by provoking an equally terrifying response. Furthermore, it presented undesirable budgetary burdens and intolerable safety and political risks.

Despite technical advances since the 1960s, those same fundamental considerations likely remain true for Russia’s Skyfall missile today.

As John Krzyzaniak succinctly put it in a piece for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

“The problems with a nuclear-powered missile are so numerous and obvious that some have questioned whether Putin is being hoodwinked by his scientists, or whether he is bluffing to scare the United States back into arms control agreements. In any case, what was once a terrible new idea is now just a terrible old idea.”

Unfortunately, in a climate of escalating paranoia and nuclear arms competition, Moscow is not merely devising exotic new nuclear weapons, but resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past.

Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.

This article first appeared in September 2019.

Image: Reuters.

James Holmes

US Navy, Americas

How can the silent service stay in tune with the times?

Here's What You Need To Remember: The navy is already staring a shortfall of attack boats in the face even without undertaking a major redesign of the submarine fleet. Technological transformation, in short, could outpace shipbuilding programs predicated on longstanding assumptions about combat in the depths. Change could be swift, while a reengineering a fleet is a glacial process unless something really, really bad transpires to compel the leadership to act swiftly and decisively.

S’pose Bryan Clark has it right. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) analyst and retired U.S. Navy commander postulates that a technological revolution is about to overtake undersea warfare, rendering the wine-dark sea transparent to hostile antisubmarine (ASW) forces for the first time. This would be a bad thing from the standpoint of U.S. naval mastery. It would place in jeopardy America’s capacity to execute an ambitious foreign policy in distant waters, preside over the liberal maritime order, or accomplish all manner of worthy goals.

Such matters were much on my mind while careening down I-95 to the submarine base at Groton, Connecticut last week, there to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Midway. The event took place on the pier where USS Nautilus—the United States’ and the world’s first atomic submarine—lies berthed as a nautical museum. Earlier this year the silent service marked the sixtieth anniversary since the day when Nautilus’s skipper first radioed home: “Underway on nuclear power.”

That signal heralded a new age in undersea combat—the age our doughty CSBA analyst contends is giving way to another new age. The advent of naval nuclear propulsion let these newfangled craft remain underwater for long stretches of time. It spared them the need for regular refueling. Machinery needed little sustenance apart from routine upkeep and overhauls. Stores such as food and other necessities for the crew became the chief limiting factors on nuclear boats’ voyages. For the first time submarines became true denizens of the deep, as opposed to surface ships able to submerge temporarily.

Nuclear power, moreover, shunted the competition between subs and sub hunters—what Clark calls the “hider-finder” competition—into the acoustic realm. No longer could anti-submarine forces count on finding enemy boats cruising on the surface, lurking just below the surface with a periscope or snorkel peeking above, or using radio or radar with their telltale electromagnetic emissions. They could hide more or less indefinitely.

Sound, then, is the chief limiting factor on stealth. Sub designers and crews go to elaborate lengths to keep machinery and other sources of noise quieter than an opponent’s passive sonar—sophisticated listening devices, and any navy’s ASW tool of choice—can detect. A quiet boat is an elusive boat. It can prowl the depths, prey on fellow subs or surface craft, or project power onto hostile shores. But, writes Clark, Big Data coupled with non-acoustic detection, tracking, and fire-control technology may soon expose American boats to the prying eyes of hostile forces.

For instance, ASW hunters could look for minute disturbances a submarine makes to its tactical surroundings. The most hydrodynamic hull makes a wake as it travels through water. Engineering plants discharge heat. Undersea craft may interfere with sea life as they pass. Finding such traces of an American sub’s presence—and parleying that information into actionable tracking and targeting data—would nullify its core advantage in whole or in part—namely its ability to vanish beneath the waves. A visible boat is a vulnerable boat. The competition between hiders and finders could swing decisively in favor of super-empowered sub finders after six decades of supremacy for the hiders.

That leaves the silent service—where, precisely? Struggling to stay abreast of the times, one suspects. That’s how beneficiaries of a congenial status quo commonly respond when change shakes their world. Paradigm shifts are agony for entrenched cultures. Stakeholders in the ancien regime resist believing that shifting circumstances have rendered old ways partly or wholly moot. Oftentimes they fight against unorthodox methods that are better fitted to the times. Progress is fitful and uncertain. Strategic innovation tends to lag behind events.

How can the silent service stay in tune with the times? First and foremost, by acknowledging the danger posed by foreign navies toting gee-whiz gadgetry. Clark hints at how hard adapting to more transparent seas could prove: “unless U.S. forces adapt to and lead the new competition, the era of unrivaled U.S. undersea dominance could draw to a surprisingly abrupt close.” That’s a grim prognosis in itself. Abrupt change begets major traumas in big institutions like navies. It’s hard to get ahead of the process.

Yet while change may come quick, many of Clark’s recommendations have long lead times. If anti-access is indeed diving underwater, it may behoove sub skippers to remain farther offshore—much like their brethren skimming around on the surface. It also may behoove the silent service to reimagine its boats as underwater aircraft carriers—except that they’ll operate fleets of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) rather than airplanes, helicopters, and drones.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? The mothership stands off in relative safety while smaller, more elusive, less expensive craft do the hard and dirty work inshore. But the devil, as always, lurks in the details. Clark urges the sub force to construct larger nuclear-powered attack boats (SSNs) with the capacity to handle UUVs in significant numbers, not to mention new self-defense weaponry like ultralightweight torpedoes. Yet the U.S. Navy has cast its die with the medium-sized Virginia-class SSNs now joining the fleet. No replacement will enter service until 2044 according to current plans. Shipbuilding patterns, then, imply that bigger platforms don’t lie in store for the silent service. Not without a tectonic shift in priorities, at any rate.

Meanwhile, the navy is already staring a shortfall of attack boats in the face even without undertaking a major redesign of the submarine fleet. Technological transformation, in short, could outpace shipbuilding programs predicated on longstanding assumptions about combat in the depths. Change could be swift, while a reengineering a fleet is a glacial process unless something really, really bad transpires to compel the leadership to act swiftly and decisively. It takes time to transform ideas into widgets, and to develop sound tactics for employing them.

Next, with regard to fleet design, it may be instructive to think beyond the aircraft carrier as an analogy for this coming brand of subsurface warfare. Sure, the carrier air wing makes a nifty model for thinking about the functions of UUV flotillas. They would constitute the SSN’s long striking arm, much as fighter/attack jets comprise the flattop’s offensive punch. There’s value in mining this comparison. But the fit isn’t precise, is it? Presumably sub-force leaders have no plans to divest attack boats of their torpedoes and missiles, as naval aviation long ago stripped carriers of any serious offensive weaponry. They will retain battle power.

Subs, then, will be both vulnerable and heavy-hitting. There’s precedent for this quandary. A century ago naval historian Julian S. Corbett professed bafflement at the spectacle of hulking, thickly armored, heavily gunned battlewagons surrounding themselves with escorts to fend off torpedo-armed small craft like … submarines! For Corbett this constituted a “revolution beyond all previous experience.” The “old practice” was no longer a trustworthy guide. History furnished little help with foreseeing how sea combat might evolve.

Let’s not confine our quest for analogies to the deep, though, or even to the sea. In one sense the silent service is an undersea counterpart to the U.S. Air Force. Sound farfetched? Think about it. Subs rely on passive defense measures such as quieting to conceal their whereabouts. The latest air-force planes, such as F-22 and F-35 fighters, rely on built-in stealth to help them evade detection. Naval aviation trusts less to stealth than to active countermeasures such as electronic warfare to help airmen ride out enemy air defenses. Naval airmen defeat or fool defenses rather than elude them. Submariners might study the two paradigms—passive and active defense—to learn whatever lessons from the aerial domain are worth learning.

And as long as we’re bruiting about air power, is the SSN more akin to a fighter aircraft or to a bomber? There’s a division of labor that merits pondering. Fighters scour contested airspace of hostile forces, helping the bomber get through to its target relatively unmolested. Is the submarine a “fighter” in that sense? Or are UUVs the sub’s fighter squadrons, clearing out anti-access defenses so the sub—the “bomber”—can close the range to launch torpedoes or missiles? The question warrants investigating.

And lastly, as we gaze through a glass darkly into the future, Clark’s revolution could complicate—or foreclose altogether—certain strategic options involving submarines. It’s worth thinking ahead about those even as we obsess over hardware and tactics.

To name one, Corbett urged navies to concentrate assets at “focal areas” where shipping had to converge to pass from point A to point B. The sea may be tantamount to a wide, featureless plain, that is, but nautical passageways like the Strait of Malacca funnel shipping into narrow—and easily monitored—lanes. Subs are uniquely suited to loiter unseen off such narrow seas, watching—and potentially interrupting—traffic that passes through.

But what if they’re no longer unseen? If the sub and its human crew must keep their distance to avoid anti-access defenses, will UUVs—robots without human intuition and powers of observation—provide an adequate substitute? If not, strategies like “archipelagic defense” in Asia could underperform. If subs and their robot fleets can’t close narrow seaways to surface and subsurface traffic, the outlook for strategies premised on controlling them could prove dim. Thinking ahead about workarounds is imperative.

The situation isn’t entirely bleak for submariners, thankfully. While a leap in underwater detection technology may be in the offing, Clark points out that the U.S. Navy enjoys a first-mover advantage in other technologies that may help offset the loss of stealth or otherwise augment subs’ efficacy. UUVs capable of extending the submarine’s reach and lethality figure prominently among the new hardware. A torpedo boasting ten- or twentyfold the range of today’s ten-mile torpedoes would help redress the imbalance between subs and access deniers. So would a new Tomahawk anti-ship missile.

It’s highly doubtful, moreover, that the tactical setting will go kerchunk—like throwing a breaker—with subs accustomed to lurking underwater with impunity suddenly thrown in full view. More likely, the vicissitudes of naval competition being what they are, the subsurface theater will come to resemble the aerial and surface theaters. The silent service will periodically introduce new passive and active measures to restore its advantage of concealment, while access deniers will experiment with countermeasures of their own. And on and on the cycle of one-upsmanship—of challenge and reply—will go.

In short, submariners will no longer be as exceptional as before. They’ll have to learn new habits. They’ll be more like surface officers, forced to train for active defense and counterattack for survival rather than trusting to invisibility. They’ll have to be more like aviators, operating squadrons of offboard craft to extend their combat reach. And subs will no longer be loners, sent forth to do great things in independent operations. In short, not just a technological but a cultural revolution is afoot.

Embrace it.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.

Image: Reuters

(Note: This article was reposted due to reader interest.)

Sebastien Roblin

China, Americas

Built by Hongdu in Nanchang, China, the L-15 Falcon resembles an adorably abbreviated Super Hornet or F-16.

Here's What You Need to Know: The market for trainer/light attack planes is relatively crowded with competitors such as the Russian Yak-130, Italian MB.346, China’s subsonic K-8, T-50 Golden Eagle or possibly Boeing’s T-X. It is too early to tell whether L-15 and JL-9 will prove a major export success—but sales of cut-price supersonic trainer/fighters could become an interesting signifier of Beijing’s expanding influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America in years to come.

Flying a high-performance jet fighter is a physically and mentally demanding skill that requires a lot of practice—but each hour flying a warplane can cost tens of thousands of dollars in fuel and maintenance expenses. That's why air forces employ lighter, easier-handling Lead-In Fighter Trainers (LIFTs) to give pilots a chance to accumulate real-life experience with supersonic flight, air combat maneuvers, and weapons launch before they take the stick of a possibly finicky high-performance jet fighter.

The thing is advanced jet trainers like South Korea’ T-50 Golden Eagle are quite capable of basic combat duties short of high-intensity conflict while costing half or a third as much as a brand new warplane. For example, Filipino FA-50s and Nigerian Alpha Jet trainers have played a major role in combating brutal insurgencies in 2017, though both were involved in tragic friendly fire incidents.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to purchase 350 new LIFT jets following its T-X competition and is evaluating several designs costing between $30 and $40 million per airframe. However, China has already been phasing into service its own very slick and speedy LIFT, costing the equivalent of only $10 to $15 million, which has attracted interest in Africa and Latin America.

Built by Hongdu in Nanchang, China, the L-15 Falcon resembles an adorably abbreviated Super Hornet or F-16. The Falcon’s two Ukrainian-built AL-222 turbofans afford the trainee and instructor a backup should one engine fail, while multi-function displays in the ‘glass cockpit’ and the hands-on-throttle-and-stick controls give trainees a chance to work with the kinds of instruments typical to fourth-generation fighters.

The Falcon' leading edge extensions on the front of its wings and a high G-load tolerance of 8.5 allow it to perform tight maneuvers and achieve high angles of attack up to 30 degrees above the vector of the plane. Quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire controls on three axes allow for precise maneuvers. These traits are used to prepare pilots for the diverse family of famously supermaneuverable twin-engine Flanker multi-role jets operated by China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Navy.

The L-15 prototypes first flew in March 2006 and entered service in limited numbers in 2013 as a subsonic Advanced Jet Trainer designated the JL-10. This basic model boasts six hardpoints to carry bombs, rockets and short-range air-to-air missiles, but lacks a radar to target long-range munitions.

However, Hongdu later exhibited a supersonic L-15B model with afterburning turbofans, allowing the Falcon to attain speeds of up to Mach 1.4. The L-15B also has a lengthened nose to accommodate a Passive Electronically Scanned Array radar with a reported detection range of  -seven or seventy miles (sources differ) which can scan both air and surface targets (photo here). A Radar Warning Receiver added in the tail gives it a fighting chance to dodge missile attacks, while an IFF antenna could help avoid friendly fire incidents.

The L-15B also has its payload capacity beefed up to nearly four tons of weapons loaded on nine hardpoints: six underwing, one belly pylon and two wingtip rails. The instructor's seat can instead be used by a Weapon Systems Officer to manage guided weapons. One photo depicts an L-15 lugging 23-millimeter cannon in a belly pod, PL-5E heat-seeking air-to-air missiles (distantly related to the AA-2 and Sidewinder), LT-2 laser-guided bombs, and LS-6 GPS-guided bombs with fold-out wings that allow it to glide to targets up to thirty-seven miles away. Reportedly, more modern PL-10 and PL-12 beyond-visual-range radar-guided missiles (range sixty-two miles) could also be carried as well as other air-to-ground munitions.

The L-15B can even lug jamming pods to serve as a cut-price electronic warfare jet. However, while the jet can theoretically fly up to 52,000 feet high and over distances of up to 1,900 miles, when fully combat-loaded its effective radius is reduced to just 350 miles.

Of course, the diminutive L-15B doesn’t boast the speed, defenses, sensors and heavy payload of a full-fledged fourth-generation multi-role fighter like the F-16 or Su-35. But for developing countries that don't expect to fight a major military power, jets like the Falcon could perform basic air defense and precision ground-attack missions, all on a platform that will be cheaper, easier to maintain, and used for training pilots.

The Zambian Air Force so far has acquired six L-15Zs for its No. 15 squadron for $100 million, plus simulators and various guided weapons. In 2015, Venezuelan Admiral Carmen Mirandez announced plans to acquire one or two dozen L-15s to help pilots transition to Su-30MK2 and F-16 fighters. However, cash-strapped Caracas has put the deal on hold. The Uruguayan Air Force has also expressed interest in acquiring eight L-15s to replace its A-37B Dragonflies, one of which suffered an accident in 2016. Pakistan, a close ally of China, is another potential operator of the L-15B, but the jet would conflict with plans to acquire two-seat JF-17B jets, which are a Pakistani-Chinese collaboration.

The L-15 also has a rival supersonic domestic jet trainer, the Guizhou JL-9. A heavily modified two-seat derivative of the legendary MiG-21 with cranked delta wings, the turbojet-powered JL-9 is less sophisticated and has only five weapons hardpoints, but is cheaper at $8.5 million each—and the basic model comes with afterburners, an Italian pulse-doppler radar and a built-in 23-millimeter cannon. JL-9s and carrier-landing capable JL-9Hs serve with the People’s Liberation Army and PLA Naval Air Force (PLANAF), and six export models called the FTC-2000 Shanying ("Mountain Eagle") were delivered to Sudan in May 2018. Sudan is infamous for using its warplanes to bombard villages in rebel-held territory, and Russia and China are amongst of the few major arms exporters from which Khartoum can obtain modern weapons.

Meanwhile, China operates between 130 and 150 L-15s in nine squadrons, presumably mostly the subsonic L-15A. In general, Chinese fighter pilots fly a decent number of hours annually but lack adequate training under realistic combat conditions; presumably, weapons-capable and radar-equipped jet trainers could help address that deficiency. Intriguingly, an L-15 was photographed in 2018 with PLANAF markings (it has been dubbed the JL-10H) suggesting a possible JL-10 variant for training carrier-based pilots. However, some in the Chinese media have expressed doubt that the Falcon's rear fuselage is strong enough to mount a tail hook to practice carrier landings.

The market for trainer/light attack planes is relatively crowded with competitors such as the Russian Yak-130, Italian MB.346, China’s subsonic K-8, T-50 Golden Eagle or possibly Boeing’s T-X. It is too early to tell whether L-15 and JL-9 will prove a major export success—but sales of cut-price supersonic trainer/fighters could become an interesting signifier of Beijing’s expanding influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America in years to come.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.

This article first appeared in August 2018.

Image: Wikipedia.