The National Interest

Stephen Silver

Dish Network, Americas

The cord cutting across American cable continues to gain steam.

Dish Network, in fourth quarter earnings announced Monday, announced another drop in subscribers, losing a net 133,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter. The company had lost 194,000 subscribers in the same quarter the year before.

As of the end of the quarter, Dish had 11.29 million pay-TV subscribers, of which 8.82 million were Dish TV subscribers and 2.47 million were Sling TV subscribers. At the end of the third quarter, Dish had 11.42 million subscribers and Sling had 2.46 million, indicating that Dish lost many subscribers in the fourth quarter while Sling added a small number.

Dish had added 116,000 subscribers, most of them on Sling TV, in the third quarter. The company also said that its retail wireless net subscribers decreased by about 363,000 in the fourth quarter, after they lost 212,000 in the previous quarter.

There was better news for the company in terms of profit, as the company reported net income of $733 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $389 million in the fourth quarter the year before.

The company beat analyst expectations for the quarter, posting revenue of $4.6 billion in the quarter, per Deadline.

In December, Dish announced a price increase for its main plans on the Dish TV service, by $5 each. The company also announced a $5 price increase on the main Sling plans, although only for new customers, although in keeping with the company’s pledge last summer to not raise prices on existing customers for a year, Sling did not raise prices for existing customers.

Also in the quarter, Dish settled a weeks-long dispute with Nexstar that blacked out channels in 160 markets, for the largest blackout of its kind in history.

The company has been pivoting towards the 5G business, having acquired Boost Mobile last year for $1.4 billion. Dish has also long claimed that an eventual merger with satellite rival DirecTV was inevitable, but Dish does not appear to be a factor in negotiations AT&T has been having talks with various parties about acquiring a large stake in that satellite service.

“Our Pay-TV business strategy is to be the best provider of video services in the United States by providing products with the best technology, outstanding customer service, and great value,” the company said in its 10K report, also released Monday. “We promote our Pay-TV services as providing our subscribers with a better ‘price-to-value’ relationship than those available from other subscription television service providers.”

“We have historically been viewed as the low-cost provider in the pay-TV industry in the United States. With our DISH TV services, we are currently focused on our brand promise ‘Tuned into You’ and a message of Service, Value and Technology. For example, for certain new and qualifying customers we guarantee our pricing for certain programming packages and equipment for a two-year commitment period.”

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

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Israel Coronavirus, Middle East

Their public vaccination campaign has gone well, although there are complaints about Jerusalem not yet offering the vaccine to all Palestinians.

Throughout the vaccine stage of the coronavirus pandemic, many eyes have been on the nation of Israel.

Israel has suffered three waves of the pandemic, which have also coincided with political turmoil. No government had yet been formed following the early March elections prior to the start of the pandemic in Israel, and while a National Unity Government was formed in May, another election—Israel’s fourth since 2019—is set for March 23.

The nation suffered some major outbreaks and was also struck by the British variant of the virus.

In recent months, Israel has embarked on an ambitious vaccination program, one that has had observers watching closely. If a small country with a small population can vaccinate a large percentage of its population, and do it relatively quickly, it will likely have lessons in how successful vaccination programs can work.

There have been many indications that Israel’s vaccine rollout is working.

“Good news from Israel. Researchers are seeing signs that COVID-19 vaccines are helping to curb infections and hospitalizations among older people, almost 6 weeks after shots were rolled out in that group,” Nature reported in early February. “Close to 90% of people aged 60 and older in the country have received their first dose of Pfizer’s 2-dose vaccine so far. Now, data collected by Israel’s Ministry of Health show that there was a 41% drop in confirmed COVID-19 infections in that age group, and a 31% drop in hospitalizations from mid-January to early February.”

“What we see here are early and very encouraging signs that the vaccine is working in the population,” Florian Krammer, a virologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, told Nature.

As of Sunday, per Times of Israel, 4.3 million Israelis had received at least one vaccine dose, and three million had received both, out of a population of nine million.

There was more good news for Israel’s vaccine-fighting efforts in a preliminary study specifically about the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE vaccine.

According to Bloomberg News, the study says those vaccines were “89.4% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed infections,” based on the data in Israel. The Israeli government has said that the Pfizer shot in 99 percent effective.

That study also showed that the Pfizer vaccine “may also prevent asymptomatic carriers from spreading the virus.”

“The pace of the Israeli vaccination roll out is indeed very [impressive],” Dr. Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at Israel’s Hadassah Hospital/Hebrew University, told The National Interest. “In several weeks, the vast majority of people at risk were vaccinated. We already see how effective is the vaccine in real life in prevention of morbidity and mortality among vaccinated by more than 90%.”

“This is an important issue globally and locally, to see if we can reach elimination rather than control,” Dr. Levine said. “At any time point, we should be aware of the possibility of new variants, with lower effectiveness of the vaccine. Good ongoing surveillance and public health infrastructure is essential.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that following the vaccination effort, Israel has “lifted restrictions on most commerce and public activity, opening malls, markets and museums.”

So, what can the United States learn from Israel’s experience in dealing with the virus?

“Universal community health coverage is highly effective and efficient,” Dr. Levine said. “We have a great system of semi-public preventive and community health system. Be prepared, be flexible approach is very good.”

Of course, there’s one other aspect of Israel’s vaccine efforts that’s also gotten a great deal of attention. Israel has been criticized, since the start of the vaccination effort, for not offering to vaccinate the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The Times of Israel said that all citizens of Israel proper, including Jews and Arabs, have been offered the vaccine, as have Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

But that offer has not been extended to Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza. The Palestinians in those areas have received some vaccines from international efforts such as Covax. Israel last week temporarily blocked a shipment of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine to the Gaza Strip, before ultimately allowing it.

The controversy was referenced in an instantly controversial Saturday Night Live Weekend Update joke over the weekend, in which anchor Michael Che joked that “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m gonna guess it’s the Jewish half.” Che has been asked to apologize for the joke by the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

Israel agreed earlier this week to vaccinate 100,000 Palestinians who regularly cross into Israel for work, the Washington Post reported. Those shots, the Post said, will be administered at “ad hoc centers set up along the line dividing Israel from the West Bank.” That agreement was reached following what was described as a rare meeting between Israeli and Palestinian officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The debate, per The New York Times, is over who is ultimately responsible for providing health care in occupied territory.

“To Israel’s critics, international law obligates Israel to give Palestinians access to vaccines comparable to what it offers its own citizens,” the Times said in an analysis. “But supporters of Israel’s policies contend that the Palestinians assumed responsibility for health services for their population when they signed the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.”

“We want everyone in the area to be vaccinated, but the Palestinian Authority is the party responsible for providing for the health of Palestinians,” Yoav Kish, Israel’s deputy health minister, said, according to the Times. “Our responsibility is to vaccinate our own population.”

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

Image: Reuters.

Bonnie Kristian

Security, Asia

Cooperation and diplomacy are an important part of the complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship.

President Joe Biden anticipated having “a whole lot to talk about” with Chinese president-for-life Xi Jinping, he said in a CBS interview shortly before their first call since Biden took office.

In a few brief lines in that interview, Biden sketched his stance toward China, which his administration has named as the most significant threat to U.S. security moving forward. “I’ve said to [Xi] all along that we need not have a conflict,” he said, describing the Chinese leader as smart and tough but undemocratic. “But there’s going to be extreme competition. And I’m not going to do it the way that he knows, and that’s because he’s sending signals as well. And I’m not going to do it the way [former President Donald] Trump did.”

There’s much to like here—but also a worrisome aggressive turn. Lacking Trump’s habit of superlatives, Biden’s description of Xi was diplomatic without giving praise the autocrat does not deserve. And far more important than this personal style, of course, is Biden’s aversion to conflict between the United States and China.

The president is here rejecting dire forecasts of a Thucydides trap, the notion that war is nearly inevitable when a rising power is perceived to challenge an extant great power’s dominance. Biden’s right to dismiss that fallacy at the outset of his term. It will be difficult for Washington to navigate Beijing’s rise, for “China has shown a desire for greater economic interdependence abroad, to protect its own internal security, and control a relatively small sphere of influence,” as Richard Hanania has argued at Real Clear Defense. But “this is the behavior exhibited by all major powers,” Hanania continues, and China “has shown little appetite for the kinds of military investments that would allow it to project its power globally.” As Biden himself said, competition need not mean conflict.

But will Biden’s own policies steer us through that often-narrow strait? That’s much less obvious. The phrase the president used—“extreme competition”—is juvenile (is the competition in question a snowboarding tournament?) and vague. It’s also clearly antagonistic, maybe even dangerously so.

Biden’s comments elsewhere reinforce that impression: He wants to work with U.S. allies to “pressure, isolate, and punish China,” he said last year, and in December he indicated he’d keep the Trump administration trade war on China intact for the time being, despite its harm to American taxpayers generally and farmers specifically. He chose a secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who has backed sanctioning China in an (almost certainly futile) attempt to change its governance of Hong Kong. Indeed, Biden campaigned as a China hawk, and “extreme competition” is far more in that vein than the restraint toward which he nodded in the comment about needless conflict.

A more prudent perspective came—somewhat surprisingly, but welcome—from Blinken in his own interview earlier this month. “There’s no doubt that China poses the most significant challenge to us of any other country, but it’s a complicated one,” he said. “There are adversarial aspects to the relationship, there’s certainly competitive ones, and there’s still some cooperative ones, too.”

This has a nuance “extreme competition” lacks. It acknowledges the obvious, namely that the U.S.-China relationship is rivalrous and will include clashes (perceived and actual) of national interest. But Blinken’s mention of cooperation is not to be missed.

A zero-sum approach to engagement framed entirely around competition will not only harm China’s interests. It will also harm the interests of the United States. This trade war—let alone a more expansive antagonism—has hurt America’s economy and complicated U.S.-China relations, undoubtedly exacerbating the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Continuing to prosecute it is not rebuilding U.S. industry. It is making Americans pay an additional, regressive tax on consumer goods while raising tensions with China instead of lowering them.

If Biden truly wants to pursue a new course with Beijing, engaging differently than Trump did and differently than Xi expects, the task at hand is not “extreme competition,” which sounds like Trump-era escalation just barely warmed over. U.S. policy toward China should rather center on honest but pragmatic diplomacy which neither downplays the Xi regime’s brutality nor makes empty demands Beijing will not concede without a war America realistically will not fight. Mutually beneficial trade—which is cooperative as much as competitive—should continue, while U.S. military build-up in close quarters with the Chinese military should not.

There will always be some competition between the United States and China. But extremity in great power relations is reckless, unserious, and should not be our goal.

Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities, contributing editor at The Week, and columnist at Christianity Today. Her writing has also appeared at CNN, NBC, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Defense One, among other outlets. 

Image: Reuters.

Debra Cagan, Andras Simonyi

Russia, Eastern Europe

Energy is used by Russia as a political weapon to gouge, dissuade, and suppress countries and populations from their own aspirations. With Nord Stream 2, that will include much of Europe.

The Biden administration is understandably attempting to repair what it perceives as damage done to relationships with some of America’s closest European allies. But there is a cost, often substantial, to pleasing one's allies when there is no clarity of reciprocity. New rumored arrangements to protect Germany and others in the EU from U.S. sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline will be pocketed by those governments which now will be even more convinced that doing business with Russia—and for that matter, China, the EU’s latest go-at-it-alone venture—will have no negative impact on their relations with the United States. There is only one victor of this arrangement designed to sanitize Nord Stream 2: Vladimir Putin. The loser, transatlantic relations.

The supposition behind all of these attempts to “fix” this relationship is that the Biden administration must issue a huge mea culpa for the recent mistakes and insults to Germany, and backing off of sanctions would sound just the right note. They are unfortunately buttressed in their view by those within the United States who believe Germany, and by extension Russia, merits if not an apology then a pass under the guise of alliance relations. But the U.S. relationship with Germany is stronger than a disagreement over a single issue. Sanctions are not, nor should they be, viewed as an irreparable point of contention.

While alliance unity is often important, allies are never going to agree on everything. Democracies debate, argue, and make decisions on what is best for one’s own national security and economic interests and sometimes those decisions do not comport with one's allies. And that is the way it should be. It would be foolhardy to suggest that countries only have policies that are designed not to hurt the feelings of their allies. No democracy operates this way.

What is truly naïve’ is the wishful thinking on the part of the Europeans who after repeatedly getting embarrassed and harassed by Moscow still believe an energy deal with Russia makes sense. There are many in Germany, and certainly a number of EU countries, who remain vociferous opponents to the pipeline. The opponents are clear-eyed about the long-lasting political damage Nord Stream 2 will cause between Western and Central European members of the EU, and between the United States and the EU. Recently, a prominent member of the European Parliament from Central Europe pleaded for the United States to keep the sanctions intact.

Only a small portion, perhaps as little as 12–15 percent of Russian gas will stay in Germany. Germany imports more than one-third of its gas supplies from Russia. But it is unclear in light of lessening manufacturing demand and conversion to renewables how much German consumption will grow, or more likely decrease. German businesses associated with the pipeline stand to earn substantial profits as the entry point provider and originating transit country for Russian gas. For Germany, as opposed to Russia, “shockingly” this is less about geopolitics and more about money.

One can be forgiven for wondering how this massive import of Russian gas makes sense when the European Union recently announced far-reaching decarbonization goals for 2030 and 2050? In fact, the European Union is adopting legal and policy tools to reduce greenhouse gases from the gas sector under a new legislative package. While supposedly targeting at all gas imports, the United States is getting special attention. This past week President Emmanuel Macron added his support to Nord Stream 2 “in a sign of solidarity with Germany.” Yet in what can only be termed hypocrisy, a few months ago a French company (a Nord Stream 2 investor) was forced to cancel a deal with an American LNG supplier citing environmental and climate concerns.

U.S. gas producers of LNG, a commodity critical to European energy security, have stepped up their efforts aiming at zero methane emissions, decreasing flaring, and radically cutting their CO2 footprint to meet what will undoubtedly be new U.S. guidelines and the EU’s present and future stringent criteria. None of that seems to matter for Russia’s gas production, which is neither “clean” nor transparent.

Such an arrangement would appear to be even more implausible in the broader context of the overwhelming bipartisan Congressional vote for sanctions and the recent climate statements made by the Biden administration about the future of America’s hydrocarbon industry. It would seem unfathomable that President Biden would sign onto an arrangement with Europe that grants Russia precisely what this administration has suggested it does not support for American companies and workers.

Energy is used by Russia as a political weapon to gouge, dissuade, and suppress countries and populations from their own aspirations—a practice it has honed to a fine art. Nord Stream 2 is no longer just about Ukraine, if it ever was. It is about Russia’s goal of monopolizing Europe’s gas market from the Baltics to the Balkans, and if countries like Ukraine and Belarus get caught in this forward march, so much the better.

Russia already controls about 40 percent of the European gas market, which will only increase with the completion of Turk Stream, Russia’s foray into Turkey, Bulgaria, and the Balkans. When and if both Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream are completed, almost 70 percent of all global Russian fossil exports will be sold to the European market.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is anathema to energy diversity and security of the European Union. Instead of focusing on the so-called unfairness of these U.S. sanctions, the question we should be asking is why key members of the EU are intent on underwriting the Russian economy. As Russian opposition activist Aleksei Navalny contemplates his next arraignment in his prison cell, he is surely puzzled why his life is worth less than a “business” transaction.

Debra Cagan is the Distinguished Energy Fellow at the Transatlantic Leadership Network. She served as a senior career official with the Departments of State and Defense.

Ambassador Andras Simonyi (PhD) is a Strategy Analyst in Washington and host of the "Leadership in our Time" webcast at George Washington University. He is the former Hungarian Ambassador to NATO and to the United States.

Desmond Lachman

economy, United States

With Janet Yellen now embarked on an overly expansive budget policy course, and with U.S. government bond bears now coming out of hibernation, is there a chance of a financial crisis on the horizon?

While serving as Bill Clinton’s political advisor, James Carville famously remarked that if he were ever to be reincarnated he would like to come back as a bond trader. By this, he meant that he would like to wield the great power that Wall Street bond traders do over policymakers when they make wayward economic policy decisions.

With Janet Yellen now embarked on an overly expansive budget policy course, and with U.S. government bond bears now coming out of hibernation, it will likely not be long before Yellen experiences the full force of James Carville’s wise remark. 

This would seem to be especially the case considering that Yellen is engaging in her budget experiment at a time that the world is experiencing an everything asset and credit market bubble of epic proportions. It also does not help that the bubble is premised on the assumption that U.S. interest rates will stay ultra-low forever.

Signs that the bond vigilantes are coming out of the woodwork appear to be in plain sight. Since January this year, when the Democratic Party gained control over the Senate, 10-year U.S. government bond yields have increased by some 50 percent to around 1.4 percent—their highest level in the past two years. Meanwhile, the market now expects inflation over the next five years to average 2.1 percent a year, which would be above the Federal Reserve’s inflation target. 

The bond vigilantes are coming out of the woodwork because they fear that the passage of Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion budget stimulus would almost certainly result in rising inflation later on this year. In this respect, they share Larry Summers’s view that—especially coming on top of the December 2020 $900 billion bipartisan budget stimulus—the Biden stimulus is far too large in relation to the estimated amount by which current U.S. output is falling short of its potential level.

The bond vigilantes also seem to be fazed by the fact that at the same time that the United States would be engaging in massive budget stimulus, it would also be experiencing unusually easy monetary policy conditions courtesy of the Federal Reserve. It seems to be a particular market concern that over the past year the U.S. broad money supply has grown by some 25 percent.

The return of the bond vigilantes would be coming at a most dangerous time for the U.S. economy, in that it would be occurring at a time during which the world is experiencing an everything asset and credit market bubble. It is not simply that today’s U.S. equity valuations are at lofty levels last seen on the eve of the 1929-stock market crash—it is also that very risky borrowers, especially those in the emerging market economies, can raise money at interest rates not much higher than those at which the U.S. government can borrow.

Today’s global everything bubble is premised on the assumption that U.S. interest rates will remain indefinitely at their currently ultra-low levels. A real risk of the Biden stimulus proposal is that it could force long-term U.S. interest rates to rise as inflation fears put the wind in the bond vigilantes’ sails. As in the past, rising interest rates could prove again to be the trigger for the bursting of today’s everywhere bubble.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the potential U.S. and global financial market fallout from the bursting of today’s everywhere bubble. This would particularly seem to be the case considering how much more pervasive and larger today’s bubble is than was the 2008 U.S. housing and credit market bubble.

In 1981, French President Francois Mitterrand was forced by a large-scale market sell-off to make a humiliating and abrupt U-turn from his overly progressive economic policy agenda. If Joe Biden wishes to avoid the same fate, he would do well to scale back his $1.9 trillion budget stimulus proposal to a level that would not be perceived as posing a real inflationary threat to the U.S. economy.

Desmond Lachman is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was formerly a deputy director in the International Monetary Fund's Policy Development and Review Department and the chief emerging market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney. 

Stephen Silver

Economics, Americas

If true and a deal were concluded, it would propel the streaming retail and giant to even greater heights.

DirecTV is in a great deal of flux in relation to who’s going to own it going forward, with an auction taking place over the last several months to determine who will purchase a stake of the satellite service from AT&T.

It’s not clear who’s going to emerge from that process, but after that will come the question of who takes over the DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package.

Sunday Ticket is the NFL’s out-of-market game package, in which fans can pay extra money to gain access to all NFL games, and not only the ones that are televised locally in their own market.

Since Sunday Ticket launched in 1994, it’s been exclusive to DirecTV, and as served as a major selling point, both for individuals and for bars and restaurants, to subscribe to DirecTV. Jon Taffer, the future host of the reality show “Bar Rescue,” has been credited with inventing the idea of DirecTV, when he was running a bar in Chicago back in the early 1990s.

It’s widely believed that DirecTV’s current exclusive contract with the NFL expires after the 2022 season, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has indicated that he would like to see a change in how Sunday Ticket works.

Now, a new report indicates that a favorite has emerged for the package.

According to Streaming Media Blog, Amazon has emerged as the leader to become the new Sunday Ticket host, although talks remain early.

“It’s well known that the current NFL deal with DIRECTV (AT&T), which runs through the 2022 season, will not be renewed. This makes sense since AT&T is trying to sell off the DIRECTV business and I’m told the NFL no longer wants the restrictions that come from distributing the package via satellite, which is completely outdated, as is the current streaming experience,” the report said. “Multiple people I spoke with said that while talks are still in the early stages, Amazon looks to be in the lead for the new digital direct-to-consumer offering of what is currently branded NFL Sunday Ticket.”

Amazon is already in business with the NFL, with a deal to stream Thursday night games, and also had an exclusive deal to stream one NFL game that was not available anywhere else. Amazon is also available in much of the world, which is also important to the NFL.

The story went on to argue that most of the other companies mentioned as potential partners would make less sense than Amazon does. A Sports Business Daily report last year indicated that interested suitors for Sunday Ticket included Amazon, ESPN, Comcast, and the sports streaming service DAZN.

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

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Security, Europe

Moscow hopes that this advanced weapon system will catch the eye of potential buyers.

Russia is taking its advanced Antey-4000 anti-aircraft missile system on the road for the first time, and is apparently seeking to spur international interest for future exports of the long-range platform. Last week, the Russian-based manufacturer of the platform, Almaz-Antey, announced that the air defense system would be demonstrated at the IDEX 2021 international Arms Show in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“For the first time at a foreign exhibition, the company will present information materials on the Antey-4000 long-range anti-aircraft missile system as a follow-up of the Antey range of products,” the company’s press office said in a statement as reported by Tass. “The system has received new air target fighting capabilities: its potential has been expanded in terms of the range, altitude and speed of striking targets.”

The Antey-4000 is the export version of the S-300V4 anti-aircraft missile system, and it was developed as an air defense platform to protect vital administrative, industrial and military installations while its tracked chassis allows for the system to be mobile enough to travel on rugged terrain. It can also be employed in military formations in a range of theaters of military operations.

The platform is comprised of a 9A83M-2E launcher, a 9A84M-1E launcher-loader vehicle and 9M83ME and 9M82ME surface-to-air missiles, as well as transport and launch containers. It was first presented to the public at last year’s Army-2020 International Military and Technical Forum, which was held outside of Moscow in August. The primary improvement of the Antey-4000 over the prior Antey-2500 and S-300VM systems was reported to be the enhanced engagement envelope for all targets engaged by the system.

The Russian-based defense contractor also announced it would demonstrate an upgraded version of the Strela surface-to-air missile system.

“Compared to its predecessor, the Sosna anti-aircraft missile system features a doubled target striking range and a tripled ammunition load, higher stealth properties of its use and a completely automated target tracking and striking system,” the press office added.

Other Almaz-Antey hardware that could be making the trek to the UAE will reportedly include the S-400 ‘Triumf,’ S-300PMU2 ‘Favorit’ and Buk-M2E air defense systems. The company will also demonstrate models of its Viking, Tor-M2E, Tor-M2K and Tor-M2KM surface-to-air missile systems in their stationary and mobile versions; the Palma shipborne anti-aircraft artillery system; and the Komar turret mount for Igla man-portable air defense systems. The Russian state-owned defense contractor—which was created via a merger of the Antey Corporation and NPO Almaz and unified some of the national military enterprises—also indicated that it would provide new information on it products that were designated for naval air defense, including Rif-M and Shtil-1 shipborne air defense systems.

Almaz-Antey is headquartered in Moscow and is the world’s eighth-largest defense contractor. It reported sales of $9.125 billion in 2017 and given that it has increased exports of its popular platforms including the S-400 ‘Triumf,’ those revenues have likely seen a sharp increase in recent years.

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

Image: Reuters.

Caleb Larson

History, Europe

Because why settle for just one turret when you can have more?

The history of Soviet tank design is replete with odd and rather hare-brained ideas. From massive, nuclear-proof tanks designed to ride out nuclear armageddon, to flying tanks with wings intended to glide into battle with their crews inside. And this tank is no exception—it had not one turreted gun, not two turreted guns, but a whopping five.

Unlike the T-34, which enjoyed huge production numbers and was arguably one of the most successful tank designs of World War II, the Soviet Union built the larger T-35 heavy tank in much smaller numbers. The tank itself was about forty-five to fifty tons, which made it among the heavier of the tanks that saw combat during World War Two. It had a crew of about ten (sources differ, listing anywhere from nine to eleven crew members), which despite the tank’s large size, would have made onboard space rather cramped.

The T-35 may have drawn inspiration from the British Vickers A1E1, a broadly similar multi-turreted prototype design that had a single 47mm main gun, and four other smaller machine gun turrets, thought the Vickers never saw combat and only a single prototype was manufactured.

Like the Vickers, the T-35 had a large, central main turret that sported the tank’s largest gun, which was flanked by four smaller turrets. Two diagonally mounted 45mm tank cannons were complimented by two other diagonally mounted medium machine guns. Despite being quite heavily armed however, the T-35 was not correspondingly armored.

Though the T-35 was likely produced in the dozens, their shortcomings—in particular a woefully inadequate armor package and an underpowered engine—were soon obvious. Even moderately powerful anti-tank guns would have a high chance of penetrating the T-35’s armor, not to mention large-diameter German anti-tank guns. Despite these critical design flaws, the T-35 nevertheless experienced some combat on the Eastern Front against better armed and armored German tanks. Not surprisingly, the T-35s performed poorly.

Though the T-35s were essentially combat-ineffective against German armored vehicles, the platform was supposed to have good mechanical reliability. T-35 breakdowns have been attributed to improper servicing as well as very long intervals between scheduled maintenance rather than an unreliable design.

Postscript

The T-35’s large chassis was also the basis for an experimental Soviet heavy self-propelled gun, the SU-14, though like the T-35, that vehicle was also produced in very small numbers. Thanks to the T-35’s aforementioned shortcomings, it is estimated that just a single hull still exists, represented by a T-35—said to be in running condition—on the outskirts of Moscow.

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: Wikimedia.

Peter Suciu

Glock, Americas

Unfortunately, this simple and small device could land people in big trouble without them realizing it.

Earlier this month it was reported that at least three residents of North Texas have found themselves in big trouble for possession of a rather small device. Dubbed a “converter switch,” it attaches to the end of a Glock handgun and illegally transforms the regular semi-automatic-only firearm into a fully-automatic “machine gun.”

As the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE or ATF) described on its website, “A relatively simple, albeit illegal, device that allows a conventional semi-automatic Glock pistol to function as a fully automatic firearm. The switch is classified as a machine gun under federal law.”

The switch isn’t exactly new, and it has been imported to the United States from China for more than a decade. It was in September 2017 that TheFirearmBlog even reported that the switches were being sold via online retail giant Amazon.com. What is notable is that the device even features a Glock logo, which could confuse the less knowledgeable to think it is a sanctioned product—something it certainly isn’t.

And as TFB noted, “Given the size of the Amazon marketplace, it isn’t surprising that some unscrupulous sellers slip through the cracks. Nothing that I saw on the seller’s page indicated they are affiliated with Amazon beyond having a presence on the e-commerce giant’s marketplace.” However, no such product is now available and Amazon has done a good job of cracking down on such illicit sellers of illegal products.

Flowing From China

Whilst Amazon no longer sells the items, these continue to be available online from Chinese websites—and ATF has stepped up efforts to crack down on imports of the devices, which have been advertised to convert all Glock pistols to “Full Auto.”

According to the ATF, “the device operates by applying force to the trigger bar to prevent it from limiting the weapon to firing only one round each time the trigger is depressed.”

It isn’t just Texas that has seen a spike in the sale of these devices. Last April, the ATF announced that efforts to track the source of the parts in the United States had been hampered by the novel coronavirus pandemic. What is especially worrisome is that the switches aren’t just being imported from China.

The ATF reported that it was tracking shipments not only from overseas, but has seen evidence of them being made in Southern California as well. As of last year, the ATF had identified 4,000 converter switches that had been smuggled into the United States, while the agency was able to recover more than 3,000. However, that still leaves hundreds that could be in the hands of criminals and others intent to commit nefarious purposes.

What is especially worrisome is that with the right tools, the switch isn’t that difficult to make. DallasNews.com reported that a Las Vegas man had used a 3D printer to produce the switches.

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

Image: Reuters.

Robert Clark

Security, Middle East

Due to the consistent pressure which Iran is applying on the new administration, time is running out for President Biden to show a stronger hand needed to deal with this repeated Iranian aggression.

The various threats to American security interests posed by the Iranian regime were always going to be a serious test for President Joe Biden; the direction of the United States’ subsequent Iran strategy would be an early indicator of his administration’s foreign policy priorities.

Already this year there have been numerous instances of Iranian security threats which have so far gone unaddressed. This includes the announcement that Iran will proceed to enrich uranium to 20 percent, in its latest breach of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Additionally, the hardliners in the Iranian parliament passed a law threatening to end additional short-term inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (in further breach of the JCPOA) from February 23, less U.S. sanctions are lifted immediately.

The possibility of a U.S. return to the Iran deal was always going to be an early priority since then-President-elect Biden announced his intentions back in November 2020. With the appointment of his Obama-administration colleague Robert Malley as Biden’s Iran envoy, the new policy looks set: diplomacy, not coercion.

However, last week’s deadly attack on U.S. forces stationed in Iraq by militia group Saraya Awliya al-Dam—widely assessed to be a front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controlled Kataib Hezbollah—highlights that Tehran will forego diplomacy in favor of hostility. This is in order to exert additional leverage to bring the new U.S. administration back to the negotiating table—and this time on Iran’s terms.

In the short-term, last week’s attack on U.S. forces based at Erbil airport caught the United States off-guard. In the midst of attempting to seduce Tehran back to the nuclear deal, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his team are afraid of calling out Iranian complicity, for fear of risking Iran’s cooperation. This attack was almost certainly sanctioned by Iran, if not directly ordered.

This situation is wholly counterintuitive to both American and British national security interests in the region. Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iranian proxy, was responsible for a similar indirect fire attack at camp Taji last March, killing two Americans and a British servicewoman. They were also responsible for the attack which caused a U.S. contractor’s death in December 2019.

Whilst Kataib Hezbollah and other powerful Iranian proxies continue threatening U.S. and British personnel in Iraq, last week NATO announced an increase from 500 to up to 5,000 personnel deployed to its training mission in northern Iraq. The British Army alone is expected to potentially triple its presence in the country as a result. This surge of British personnel will be an even bigger target for an Iranian regime intent on exerting maximum leverage in the run-up to any potential renegotiation of the nuclear deal.

Irrespective of potentially damaging Iranian sensitivities, both the United States and Britain need to call the regime in Tehran out for complicity in the Erbil airport attack last week. Saraya Awliya al-Dam—under the command of Kataib Hezbollah—immediately claimed responsibility. Refusing to acknowledge this reality will only further embolden the Iranian regime at what is undoubtedly a critical juncture for Biden’s Iran strategy, and foreign policy more broadly.

In addition to holding the Iranian regime to account for last week’s attack—something which Secretary Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab both promised to do to the perpetrators—a renewed effort to bring Iranian compliance for nuclear non-proliferation should undoubtedly include robust measures put in place to curb Iran’s ballistic missile development.

While the break-out time for developing a nuclear weapon once Iran reaches 20 percent uranium enrichment (which they have assured under the guise of national sovereign law to implement from February 23 unless U.S. sanctions be lifted) is only a mere three and a half months, Iran will still require the delivery capability which will truly enable the regime to be a nuclear military power.

Only three weeks ago Iran tested a new rocket with improved technology which could be used in its missile program. The new Zuljanah rocket, developed to send satellites 310 miles into orbit, is easily transferable to Iran’s military missile program run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Any renegotiation of the JCPOA by the United States must factor in the requirement to limit Iran’s ballistic missile program, and Britain will be instrumental in helping shape this policy with fellow JCPOA signatories. Curbing Iranian uranium enrichment is only one side of the nuclear coin; the other lies in restricting the ballistic missile program needed to operationalize a nuclear warhead.

Due to the consistent pressure which Iran is applying on the new administration, time is running out for President Biden to show a stronger hand needed to deal with this repeated Iranian aggression. This includes publically acknowledging the role in which Tehran has over sponsoring and controlling the Shia Iraqi militias which continually cause the biggest source of U.S. and British casualties in Iraq. With the recently announced significant uplift of NATO troops to Iraq, this is not the time for appeasing an aggressive Iranian regime.

Robert Clark is a Defence Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank in London, United Kingdom. Robert specializes in Arabian Gulf security and the trans-Atlantic alliance. Prior to this Robert served in the British military for 13 years, including serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Image: Reuters.

Russell A. Berman

Security, Middle East

Washington errs when it prefers to embrace hostile regimes over tradtional allies in the Middle East.

During the past weeks, the contours of the new administration’s Middle East policy have become clear. Speaking at the Department of State, President Joe Biden stated that the U.S. will limit military assistance to Saudi Arabia and cease supporting Riyadh’s efforts against the Houthis. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Blinken retracted the Trump administration’s efforts to initiate “snap back” measures against Iran, effectively conceding Iran’s right to import weaponry. That’s a one-two punch: reducing support for the Saudis and clearing the way for Iran’s military build-up.

Meanwhile, as Washington made these gestures of appeasement, Tehran had its proxies in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon continue their assaults on American assets or partners, including the February 15 rocket attacks on Erbil, with American casualties. As Iran ratchets up the violence, U.S. leadership makes unconditional concessions. American policy makers are living in a parallel universe, oblivious to the wars on the ground. This lack of realism became painfully clear in recent statements which deserve close reading: an article by Senator Chris Murphy addressing policy in the Gulf and responses by the State Department to gross violations of human rights by the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, operating in Northern Iraq.

Writing in Foreign Affairs on February 19, Murphy set out a vision for a revised U.S. policy for the region, including prospects for a military drawdown. One might in fact reasonably explore a transformed American presence in the region, as did both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. However, Murphy barely mentions Iranian ambitions for regional hegemony or considers the consequences if the U.S. abandons its partners. In addition, while correctly arguing that America should hold Saudi Arabia to human rights norms, he is silent on human rights abuses in Iran. This is a glaring double standard, calling out the Saudis but ignoring how Iran regularly tortures prisoners and has its agents murder critics abroad. For instance, the Lebanese activist Luqman Salim was recently executed by the Iran-supported Hezbollah.

Furthermore, Murphy’s article includes a factual error that undermines his credibility when he attacks the Gulf states. He criticizes those countries because they “maintain a draconian ‘guardian system’ that restricts women’s ability to travel” without permission of a male authority. Obviously, that is a truly reprehensible practice. Yet, he fails to mention however that Saudi Arabia abolished this practice a couple of years ago as part of the reforms initiated by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Murphy is a distinguished member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, therefore a key player in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. The fact that he can get this important point of information wrong—and that an influential journal like Foreign Affairs did not catch it through fact checking—is evidence of a strategic weakness of thinking in the foreign policy establishment. Apparently, any anti-Saudi claim gets a pass, as the administration steers in its pro-Iran direction.

We have recently also witnessed a comparable gaffe in executive branch foreign policy management. On February 10, Turkey launched an operation into Iraqi Kurdistan with the goal of retrieving hostages whom the PKK had been holding, in some cases for more than five years. As the Turkish forces approached, the PKK executed the hostages in cold blood, with point blank shots to the head. As with all failed rescue missions, one can question the operation retroactively; that debate is underway in Turkey. Yet there is no doubt that the summary execution of hostages is an egregious human rights violation. One would expect the Biden administration to be vocal in its condemnation—and not only because the Turks are a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally and Washington has labelled the PKK a terrorist organization.

Yet the initial statement issued by the State Department on February 14 was half-hearted at best. Not until the next day did the State Spokesperson offer a correction with a firm condemnation of the PKK. How to explain this waffling? One might be tempted to attribute it to incompetence, but this administration—in contrast to its predecessor—has recruited personnel with considerable prior government experience. This team ought to be able to get things right the first time round. More likely the two statements reflect a tug of war inside Biden’s foreign policy group. Some evidently want to cushion, if not entirely shield, the PKK from criticism, presumably because the PKK is crucial to the Obama-era legacy Kurdish strategy in the fight against ISIS: these Kurds were a potential partner in the counter-terrorism campaign and would not antagonize Iran. Yet others in today’s State Department seem to be trying to maintain the fiction that one can separate the PKK terrorists, the bad Kurds, from their alter ego, the YPG (People’s Protection Units) whom they view as the good Kurds worthy of American support.

Given the ongoing violence in the region—the wars in Yemen and Syria, the rockets hitting targets in Saudi Arabia, and the political violence across both Iraq and Lebanon—these two misstatements, by Murphy on guardianship and the State Department on the PKK—may seem to pale in significance: they are just words, after all. However, they are also symptomatic of a tendency in parts of Congress and in the administration to tilt toward Iran and its proxies and away from traditional partners, both Saudi Arabia and Turkey. According to this view, the major problems in the region are American presence and the character of U.S. partners and allies; the implication of this vision is for the United States to acquiesce to Iran’s campaign for regional hegemony.

An open question remains as to the source of this infatuation with Iran, despite its forty years of fever-pitch anti-Americanism that has never shown any sign of abating. The answer may have to do with some ideological affinity: the revolutionary character of the Islamic Republic may appeal to parts of the liberal Democratic spectrum, while the generally conservative Republicans are more comfortable with stable monarchies.

Yet more importantly, Iran’s anti-Americanism evidently confirms progressives’ America-centric world view that treats the United States as the primary cause of strife everywhere. It is an “America First” thinking with a negative sign: America as the worst, not the best. The hate-filled slogans from Tehran resonate with the internalized anti-imperialism of American progressives, who prefer to embrace America’s enemies instead of supporting its friends. During the next four years, the task for cooler heads in Washington will involve limiting the damage that this mindset can do to American interests and the network of partners and allies on which the United States relies.

Russell A. Berman is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Image: Reuters.

Martin Horicka

Italy, Europe

In the new Italian government of national unity, populists, conservatives, liberals, and nationalists will try to govern side by side.

Italy isn’t famous for its political stability. Since World War II, there have been sixty-seven governments. This January, the country witnessed yet another crisis. Former Minister of Parliament Matteo Renzi withdrew his party Italia Viva from the coalition government, triggering a series of events that culminated in the resignation of prime minister Giuseppe Conte.

The politicians disagreed over plans to reallocate more than €200 billion from the EU recovery fund. Following the fall of the government, President Sergio Mattarella held meetings with leaders of coalition parties to try to save the situation. But he didn’t celebrate any success.

Therefore, Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank (ECB), was tasked with forming a new government. He is known as a capable technocrat and a skilled banker with a strong pro-European and pro-Western orientation. As president of the ECB, Draghi gave a famous speech in 2012 that saved the euro and earned him the nickname “Super Mario.” Since 2019, when he was replaced in the central bank by Christine Lagarde, there have been rumors about his possible political future. However, not many anticipated that he would try to unite the Italian political scene.

The Third Republic

The new prime minister decided to form a government of “national unity.” It will rely on left-wing populists from the Five Star Movement, the center-left Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi’s liberals, and the social democrats, but also former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini with his nationalist League. Only the radical far-right party Brothers of Italy won’t participate in the executive power. Nevertheless, Mario Draghi has the support of almost 90 percent of deputies and senators in the bicameral parliament.

As a result, the coalition bloc includes diverse parties that aren’t ideologically compatible but are willing to work together in the interests of the people of their country. The politicians have set aside all differences to focus on rescuing the coronavirus-battered economy (and, of course, on more than 200 billion EUR from the European Union’s recovery fund).

Hence, Italy has a government where long-term rivals and politicians standing on opposite ideological barricades will try to work together. It could be a beginning of a change in Italian politics for decades to come. In recent years, there has been already much discussion about whether we’re witnessing the end of the so-called Second Republic, which has lasted in Italy since the 1990s, and the era of the Third Republic begins. The coming months may finally give us a clear answer.

The government of national unity is generally a broad coalition that unifies the entire political spectrum and involves all (or almost all) parties; typically in a country that is going through a major social or economic crisis. These types of governments aren’t at all too common in liberal democracies and appear only in exceptional situations which, due to their seriousness, are critical from the point of view of the public. Usually, the whole political spectrum can be unified during the war or economic crisis. Such broad coalitions normally last only a short period of time, but in some situations, they are necessary to ensure the stability of the country and to launch reforms that will lead the republic and its citizens out of a national emergency.

After the Second World War, European countries were destroyed and their economies exhausted by a protracted conflict. Therefore, politicians of republics liberated from Nazi Germany formed broad coalitions to take their countries through subsequent reconstruction. The communists had worked together with the social democrats, liberals, and conservatives to rebuild their war-torn states.

At least in theory. In reality, the whole picture was a little bit different. The east of the continent, which fell within the Soviet sphere of influence, quickly turned into a communist bloc, and the reforms gained a strong Stalinist flavor from the very beginning. In France and Italy, the governments of national unity lasted until May 1947, when the communists were cut off from executive power as a result of the beginning of the Cold War.

After 1945, Czechoslovakia also found itself within the sphere of influence of the USSR. The Third Czechoslovak Republic was ruled by the so-called National Front. It included all major political parties: the communists, the social democrats, the Czech national socialists, the People’s party, and the Slovak democrats. However, the times of national unity lasted only until February 1948, when Klement Gottwald and his communist comrades seized full power in a coup d’état.

A New Hope

The Italian government is facing challenges that will require unity on the domestic political scene. The appointment of technocrat Mario Draghi, former president of the ECB and darling of the European establishment, as Italy’s prime minister, immediately stabilized the markets and reassured foreign observers.

Italy ended last year in the deepest economic recession since the 1940s. However, it wasn’t in good economic condition even before the pandemic and its economy has been stagnating for decades. Therefore, the situation in this country is all the more urgent. It needs a new, responsible approach, as well as difficult and painful reforms, which, together with the EU recovery fund, could form the basis of future growth and prosperity.

“Today we have, as did the governments of the immediate post-war period, the opportunity or rather the responsibility to start a new reconstruction,” Mario Draghi said in a speech before the senate, which was interrupted by applause twenty-one times. “Today unity is not an option but a duty. But it is a duty guided by what I am sure unites us all: love for Italy.”

The new Italian government is created at the most difficult time since World War II. Cooperation between politicians of such distinct parties and opposite ideological movements is undoubtedly a chance for long-awaited change. At a time of increasing political polarization, Italy’s government can set an example for the other Western democracies (especially for the United States). We can only hope that the Italian Third Republic won’t turn out similarly to the Czechoslovak one.

Martin Horicka is a doctoral student at Comenius University in Slovakia. He specializes in the history of the cold war and international relations after World War II.

Image: Reuters.

Muhammad Bakr Ghbeis

Syria, Middle East

Those who have waged war on the Syrian people cannot speak for them. So, who does?

The Syrian Revolution approaches its tenth anniversary on March 15. A decade ago, ordinary Syrians, deprived of their dignity and robbed of their security by a self-dealing, violent regime, rose peacefully as others had done in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Ten years later, a family crime syndicate remains in place, having been saved and sustained by Russia and Iran.

Syria has become among the worst models of the Arab Spring, believed once to end corruption and improve political and economic injustices across the Middle East and North Africa.

Those who have waged war on the Syrian people cannot speak for them. So, who does?

The uprisings of March 2011 in Deraa and Damascus were spontaneous. The people poured out their hearts and raised their voices against police brutality and savage detentions. In return, these peaceful demonstrators encountered the Assad regime’s deadly lethality, which in turn inspired the demonstrations to spread nationwide. 

Syrians defending themselves against the regime’s merciless killers were not waiting to take orders from a nonexistent commander. They decided on their own, in hundreds of different places and ultimately with millions of independent voices, that a government interested only in domination and self-enrichment simply had to go. There was no single address at which the authorized, anointed spokesperson and “decider” for these millions resided. But it certainly was not and is not Assad.

Bashar al-Assad continues to speak for and represent only a family and a clique that is farming Syria for revenue, to benefit his own bottom line, even as it destroys the country in a vicious campaign directed against civilians. He continues to commit UN-documented crimes and serving as the single point of contact for foreign actors occupying and exploiting Syria through him. And as for others who believe that engaging him diplomatically will somehow, after a ten-year rampage, now elicit a civilized response, they are only enabling a madman to stay in power at all costs.

The Syrian Revolution, like its American predecessor, is not commanded by a Fidel Castro-like personality. American officials who have sometimes criticized as disunited and leaderless the opposition to Assad’s mass murder—criticism perhaps intended to deflect blame for red lines erased and civilians undefended from mass slaughter—seemed to forget that George Washington never purported to speak for colonists rebelling against the Crown. Neither did he establish a republic as the head of a junta. What, after all, would it benefit Syrians rising against tyranny to try to mimic organizationally those who murder, terrorize, and torture them? Does the American experience of sealing a revolution by creating a constitutional republic not provide a better model?

When the United States declined to mount a significant challenge to a regime driving terrified refugees into neighboring countries and beyond, the exiled opposition had no choice but to accommodate itself to the interests of regional hosts and supporters—interests not necessarily corresponding to those of Syrians inside Syria—while Syrians opposing the regime inside the country braved barrel bombs and chemical assaults. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, both of which supported the Revolution and simultaneously, put their own interests before Syria’s became the principal sponsors of opposition movements. This did not help; these sponsors and others in Doha, Cairo, and Moscow, too, only added to the fragmentation of Syria’s opposition. In all cases, that opposition had to tailor its support for Syrians inside Syria to the interests of their paymasters.

Aligning a free Syria—which we believe can occur in the near future—with the West has been a long-lasting dream of the Syrian mainstream for decades. This sentiment is not uniquely Syrian, but it is most definitely Syrian also. My own story is one that pierces through the layers of all-too-familiar scar tissue that has grown around the hearts of the Syrian people. I was born and raised in a Damascus suburb before immigrating to the United States. I have traveled back to my homeland in the past decade, and saw first-hand the destruction, displacement, and deep loss suffered by my countrymen and women. I went to Syria so that I could return to America, my new home, to tell anyone who would listen that the United States must do more to save Syria. 

The Syrian people are interested, more than ever, in getting their country back. Syria can be a positive influence on the Middle East again, as it once was, in the fields of education and business, and more.

In the meantime, however, the chorus of voices seeking to speak for us Syrians must end. As Syrian-Americans, we are privileged and grateful to live in a country where peaceful advocacy is honored and protected. We are uniquely positioned to speak for Syrians demanding democracy and rule of law without fear of being silenced or subordinated to a political agenda or worse.

We see no contradiction at all between a truly democratic Syria—a Syria where rule of law reigns supreme for all Syrians irrespective of ethnicity and sect—and the interests of the United States. The opposite is true. We also see a stable Syria at peace—honorable peace—with all its neighbors as a worthy U.S. foreign policy goal. A Syria free of Assad and an end to foreign influence that only radicalizes Syria will also make America safer.

While no one person or faction speaks authoritatively for Syria or Syrians, the task of building a new Syria will be in the hands of those who have suffered at the hands of the Assad regime’s brutality in the past decade, and those who suffered from that brutality firsthand going back a couple of generations before the 2011 uprising. 

As Syrians who came to America in their youth or later in life, we must add our voices to urge the U.S. government to commit itself to Syria’s political transition, to continue to provide humanitarian aid to all Syrians in need and, with the support of our allies, to defend Syrian civilians from a tyrant that is responsible for a genocide in his home. The Syrian diaspora, uniquely positioned, must weigh-in as a vital voice of the Syrian people. To paraphrase President Joe Biden, U.S. foreign policy must also be driven by and in the interest of every day Americans. We, as Syrian-Americans, can do so, must do so, with the knowledge that a free Syria will enjoy a relationship of friendship, mutual respect, and equality with our adopted country. Syrian-Americans seeking freedom, independence, and genuine self-determination for their country of origin speak with a collective voice on behalf of our “voiceless” brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers in Syria. Our voices are our own, monitored and controlled by no one. Our silence serves no one, except a regime fully in the service of others. Our voices are rising and will be heard unlike ever before—for the sake of all Syrians.  

Dr. Muhammad Bakr Ghbeis is the president of Citizens for a Secure and Safe America, a US non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democracy in Syria so that its citizens may have the opportunity to live in a free, fair and prosperous country. The organization believes that an open and democratic Syria will also lead to a safer, more secure America.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Farley

History, Europe

Plan Z was destined for failure.

Here's What You Need to Know: Plan Z envisioned the construction of a balanced fleet, built along similar lines to those of the Washington Treaty powers, with some important exceptions.

In the mid-1930s, the Nazi government began to plan in detail for the reconstruction of German naval power. The destruction of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow remained central to the mythology of German betrayal and defeat in World War I; rebuilding the fleet would be a grand achievement worthy of the Nazis, but also in accord with long-term German foreign policy goals.

In March 1935, Adolf Hitler announced that Germany would no longer abide by the naval restrictions established in the Treaty of Versailles, which had drastically limited German construction. Berlin and London quickly came to a new agreement, the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, which would limit German construction to 1/3rd that of the Royal Navy (RN), and would establish Washington Naval Treaty style restrictions on ship size and gun caliber.

Even before Germany reached the limitations of the new treaty, Hitler and the senior naval command developed plans for abrogating the agreement.  These construction programs went by a variety of names but became known in their final form as Plan Z. If fully undertaken, Plan Z would have given Germany a world-class navy by the late 1940s.

The Ships:

Plan Z envisioned the construction of a balanced fleet, built along similar lines to those of the Washington Treaty powers, with some important exceptions. The final version of Plan Z expected to supply this fleet by 1948, assuming that war did not interrupt construction.

Battleships represented the core of the fleet. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were the first step of the project. Armed with 9 11” guns, the two light battleships gave German builders valuable experience with large, fast ships, experience that had dissipated since the First World War. Unlike the other major powers, the Germans had no large battleships to reconstruct during the interwar period. Bismarck and Tirpitz represented the next step in the evolution, and were designed in explicit rejection of the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. Although they carried only 8 15” guns, the Bismarcks displaced nearly 50,000 tons, well in excess of treaty limits.

Eventually, six “H” class battleships would have formed the core of the German battlefleet.  The H class went through multiple design iterations, but the 1939 project represents the most realistic culmination of Plan Z. Essentially enlarged Bismarcks, the Hs would displace 55,000 tons and carry 8 16” guns in four twin turrets.  This would make them competitive with most of the advanced battleships planned by the United States and the United Kingdom, although German designers still suffered from a lack of practical experience with modern vessels.

This would have given Germany ten modern battleships to contest the RN, supplemented four fast, modern, 35,000-ton aircraft carriers. The Germans also planned to construct three “O class” battlecruisers of classic design, faster than the battleships but unable to match them in armor. These ships would have specialized in attacks on enemy cruisers and merchant vessels.

Plan Z also envisioned a broader array of support vessels. The three Panzerschiff (“pocket battleships) represented an effort to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles, creating powerful, effective, long-range raiding units instead of the coastal defense battleships that the Allies expected. Nevertheless, Plan Z projected the construction of twelve additional vessels, suggesting that the ships would conduct operations along the lines of traditional heavy cruisers, as well as long-distance commerce raiding. The plan also allowed for five heavy cruisers and a range of smaller vessels.

Evaluation:

Plan Z would have resulted in a powerful fleet, but not one that could beat the world. In comparison, by the time Plan Z reached completion, the RN would have operated a fast squadron including five King George V class battleships, six Lions (45,000-ton battleships carrying 9 16” guns), HMS Vanguard, and three refurbished World War I battlecruisers.  A slow battleship squadron of between three and seven modernized ships would have supplemented the fast wing.  The RN also projected to have at least seven modern fleet carriers, plus several older reconstructed conversions. RN advantages in cruisers and smaller ships were even more substantial.

To be sure, the British had global responsibilities; the RN needed to face down the Italians in the Med, and the Japanese in East Asia. In the event, the RN did in fact need to fight (or deter) all three opponents, but projected construction still left the Germans considerably behind the British.  

Perhaps more importantly, the U.S. Two Ocean Navy Act, passed in 1940, established a plan to create a fleet that would have dwarfed Plan Z; by 1948 the U.S. Navy would have operated something along the lines of seventeen modern battleships, six battlecruisers, and an enormous number of aircraft carriers and cruisers. The Germans were also aware of Stalin’s plan to expand the Soviet Navy, although it’s unclear how seriously the Germans took this threat; the Russians faced dramatic geographic and industrial constraints that limited the effectiveness of their fleet operations.

The Germans understood this long-term deficiency, exacerbated by German geographic disadvantages. In part because of this, Plan Z still placed a strong value on commerce raiding.  The Panzerschiff would provide a worldwide surface threat to Allied commerce, while squadrons consisting of battleships, aircraft carriers, and battlecruisers would specialize in convoy attack.

The Final Salvo:

Plan Z was destined for failure. When the war began, Germany canceled or delayed almost all of the major surface construction programs, completing only Bismarck and Tirpitz. The Kriegsmarine decided, almost certainly correctly, that U-boats represented a more effective threat to Allied commerce than squadrons of capital ships.  Indeed, had the Nazi government rejected Plan Z entirely in favor of smaller raiders and U-boats, Germany undoubtedly would have been better prepared to wage World War II when it came. And even if Germany had prevailed in World War II, Plan Z would have left the Reich with a battleship heavy, carrier light force that would have matched up poorly with the modern U.S. Navy. Nevertheless, the prospect of German battleships, carriers, and battlecruisers fighting spectacular convoy battles against the RN and the U.S. Navy continues to spark the imagination.    

Robert Farley, a frequent contributor to TNI, is author of The Battleship Book. He serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat.

This article first appeared in December 2015.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Alex Hollings

History,

The former Soviet Union gained a reputation for offloading military hardware to the highest bidder.

In 2019, footage of a U.S. Coast Guard interdiction of a homemade drug smuggling submarine took the world by storm, and for good reason. As we watched one of the baddest dudes we’re ever apt to see anywhere outside of a movie pounding on the hatch of the mostly submerged sub, many of us were shocked to learn that drug cartels actually have their own submarines.

What may surprise you more is that these amateur submarines were really a consolation prize for drug smugglers out of Colombia. Their first choice? An actual Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. What’s even crazier, however, is that the Russians seemed to be more than happy to sell them one.

The Soviet legacy of desperation

The Cold War that erupted between the United States and Soviet Union immediately after World War II came to an end prompted a massive build-up of military hardware in both nations. The Soviets, championing their communist political and economic model, secured a number of early PR victories over the capitalist U.S., being the first nation to send a satellite, a dog, and a person into earth’s orbit. This early lead created what some have taken to calling the “Sputnik Crises” in America and its Western allies. The Soviets weren’t just matching the technological might of the world’s first nuclear power, they were exceeding it, and showing the world just how effective their governmental model could be.

For the United States and its allies, dead set on preventing the spread of communism around the globe, these technological successes were seen as a clear and present danger to the American way of life. Those early Soviet wins led directly to the establishment of NASA, and the re-orienting of famed-former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun away from the Redstone missiles he was tasked with building and toward the heavens. Von Braun’s work led to the development of the Saturn V rocket–a platform that took America to the moon and still remains the most powerful spacecraft ever constructed.

America’s eventual victory in the Space Race can be seen as indicative of America’s broad approach to battling the Soviets on technological and financial grounds. In fact, many credit President Ronald Reagan with effectively spending the Soviets into ruin, fielding increasingly capable military platforms and weapons, which forced the Soviets to respond in kind, despite their struggling economy. Of course, the fall of the Soviet Union can really be attributed to a number of factors, including the will of its populous, but it’s tough to discount the dire financial straights the former superpower found itself in by 1991–the year the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and a new Russian government took its place.

It was during this transitional time that the former Soviet Union gained a reputation for offloading military hardware to the highest bidder. The new Russian state lacked the funds needed to operate or maintain its massive military apparatus, or even to sufficiently pay large swaths of its personnel. As a result, military officials participated in the sale of military assets as a means of survival amid the nation’s economic collapse. In one instance, the Russian government themselves even traded the American soft drink company Pepsi a fleet of warships and submarines in exchange for a new shipment of soda. In another, members of the Russian Navy actually conspired to sell a diesel-electric submarine directly to drug cartels in Colombia for the purposes of smuggling as much as 40 tons worth of cocaine into the U.S. with each trip.

Tarzan, Vanilla Ice, and Pablo Escobar?

In 1980, a Russian man named Ludwig Fainberg arrived in Miami with his sights set on the American dream. He quickly found work as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family, doing the sort of work we’ve come to expect from Russians with mob connections — beating money out of people. Fainberg, who went by the name “Tarzan,” eventually made enough money to open his own strip club near the Miami airport that he dubbed “Porky’s!” after the sexploitation flick of the same name, which reportedly filmed in the same building. It wasn’t long before the strip club owned by a Russian with mob ties became the hangout of choice for members of Russia’s own organized crime community who were operating within the opulence of 1980s Miami.

Tarzan’s crime-connections and booming business helped him meet a number of powerful or influential figures on both sides of the law. 90s rapper Vanilla Ice was one such friend–and it was actually Mr. Ice himself who first introduced Tarzan to the man who would become his partner-in-crime: Juan Almeida. Almeida was a prominent businessman and crook who dealt in high-end boats and exotic cars. Before long, Tarzan and Almeida were in business together, flying in and out of post-collapse Russia, and purchasing everything from motorcycles to helicopters for pennies on the American dollar, which they would then sell to customers for a tidy profit.

Before long, the exploits of Tazan and Almeida would lead them into a business-based friendship with a man who would go on to be the star of his own episode of America’s Most Wanted, Nelson “Tony” Yester.

Yester had strong ties to the Medellín drug cartel run by none other than Pablo Escobar. By all accounts, Yester was a serious criminal–more serious than the somewhat jovial (and notably less-murderous) Tarzan and Almeida. Nonetheless, Tarzan and his new drug contact became fast friends. That friendship turned highly profitable when Tarzan and Almeida brokered a deal with Escobar’s cartel through Yester to purchase two heavy-payload Russian Kamov helicopters intended to transport drugs throughout Colombia.

That deal led to even deeper ties with Yester as a connection to Escobar, as the Russian mafia weren’t going to allow the helicopters to leave without getting a cut of the deal. In a turn of events that sounds like a movie, Almeida flew back to Moscow pretending to be Escobar and managed to broker another deal for cocaine distribution in newly minted Russia.

Do you want your drug submarine with missiles or without?

Having proven their value to the cartel, Tarzan and Almeida became the go-between of choice for sourcing Russian hardware. But the next request sounded crazy, even to the two men who had managed to charter a military cargo aircraft to smuggle their ill-gotten helicopters to Colombia. A part of Escobar’s cartel known as the Cali Cartel had split from his organization and quickly became a significant player in the drug business. They wanted a better way to smuggle drugs into the United States, so they approached Yester to see if his new friends could purchase a working Soviet Navy submarine for the job.

Yester, shooting from the hip, told them it would cost him $50 million–a figure that gave the Cali Cartel pause, that is until Yester told them he could ship $40 million worth of cocaine with it in each trip. For the cartel, it seemed like an investment that was worth the risk.

Once he was given the green light from his sources within the Cali Cartel, Yester contacted Tarzan to have him reach out to his connections in Russia. According to Tarzan’s own statements, he reached out to inquire, but was told it would take a few days to find out for sure. Two days later, Tarzan got the call.

“Do you want the submarine with missiles or without?” Tarzan recalls his contact saying in a 2018 documentary about the ordeal called “Operation Odessa.” Just like that, the ball was rolling to equip Escobar’s former drug cartel with their own military submarine.

Diesel-electric subs are easier to spot than the nuclear variety employed by the United States while on the surface, thanks to their loud engines and the need to vent their exhaust. However, the submarines themselves don’t actually run off of diesel. The props that give the submarines their propulsion are run with electric motors that are recharged by diesel engines. As a result, even diesel subs are incredibly tough to spot when submerged. In fact, in a series of war games held in 2005, the massive USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, was “sunk” repeatedly by a Swedish diesel-electric submarine that managed to sneak past the carrier strike group’s defenses.

The Russian sub in question was a Foxtrot-class, which had been in service since the 1950s. At 300 feet long, the sub had space to spare for all the drugs the Cali Cartel could want… as well as ten torpedo tubes, in case things got dicey under the sea.

It goes without saying that a vessel of this sort would come in particularly handy for a drug cartel looking for a way to transport large amounts of cocaine into Miami–which is a well-known distribution hub for drugs smuggled in from South and Central America.

Instead of buying a sub, Yester ripped off the cartel

Tarzan and Almeida flew to Russia, where to their surprise, they were able to meet directly with a number of high-ranking members of the Russian Navy who took them to one of their secret submarine installations to tour a sub similar to the one they were offering to sell. While the facility was a secret and the pending purchase would have been seen as highly illegal by just about every nation on the planet, Tarzan and Almeida felt they wouldn’t be able to secure the funds without proof that there really was a submarine on the other end of the deal. They asked if they could take pictures with the subs as proof, but the Russians refused to permit it for obvious reasons.

Undeterred, Tarzan offered one of the Russian’s $200 American, which was a significant sum in the mid-90s Russia. Money in hand, the Russian officer changed his tune, and even posed in pictures with the duo. Tarzan and Almeida had done their job, now they just needed Yester and his cartel connections to do theirs.

According to Tarzan and Yester, the Russian’s even offered to sell them a nuclear weapon.

Warning: This video contains graphic language.

Of course, things weren’t actually moving as smoothly as they may have seemed. Unbeknownst to Tarzan, he had been under federal surveillance for months. They had even managed to introduce a mole into Tarzan’s circle of friends and co-conspirators–and it was that mole who first spotted the pictures of Tarzan posing in front of a Russian sub, left out carelessly on his desk. That same mole even gifted Tarzan a phone he claimed had been jailbroken to allow for free international calls, so Tarzan wouldn’t have a paper trail reflecting his frequent contacts with Russian sources. Of course, the phone wasn’t jailbroken… it was bugged, resulting in thousands of hours of conversation for law enforcement to pour through.

That betrayal of Tarzan’s trust, however, wasn’t to be the last. Yester, who had told the Cali Cartel that they should pay for the submarine in bi-weekly payments of $10 million, also had plans of his own. When the first shipment of money arrived in Europe for Yester to funnel to Moscow… he simply didn’t. Instead, he hid the $10 million in a friend’s home and paid that friend $10,000 to make himself scarce.

Soon, the Cali Cartel was in Miami–looking for Yester and their money. Of course, Tarzan and Almeida had no idea. Their side of the deal was done and besides, Yester had a habit of uprooting frequently, never living in any one country for too long at a time.

Ultimately, Tarzan, Almeida, and Yester all managed to avoid doing any hard time for the submarine deal, though both Tarzan and Yester would ultimately find their ways into prison for other crimes down the road. Almeida was convicted of charges stemming from his dealings with the Cartel and Russians, based largely on Tarzan’s own testimony. However, Tarzan later recanted that testimony, resulting in Almeida going free.

Two years ago, Showtime premiered a documentary about the whole ordeal titled “Operation Odessa.” You can now watch it streaming on Netflix.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran who specializes in foreign policy and defense technology analysis. He holds a master’s degree in Communications from Southern New Hampshire University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Corporate and Organizational Communications from Framingham State University.

This article first appeared on Sandboxx News.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Milton Ezrati

Economics, Americas

From remote work to automation, the country is facing a vast economic revolution that could change just about everything.

The coronavirus has surely altered the way Americans work, and things will not go back to the way they were. The changes will stick less because of the power of the pandemic than because the lockdowns and quarantines have telescoped trends and pressures that were building long before most people in the country knew about the city of Wuhan. Wide-ranging adjustments were and are in train and will demand a different mix of skills than the labor force had in 2019. Coping will require a major effort at training and retraining. The prospect would be daunting had not the nation done the same many times before.

The starting point of this revolution lies in the sudden jump in working from home. At last count, the Labor Department recorded that some 46 percent of Americans now work remotely, a vast difference from the miniscule proportion of the working population that did so only a year ago. Though businesses have long discussed plans for work from home, since the internet became a commonplace in fact, the projects never got off the ground. Old habits die hard. But the coronavirus forced people’s hands. Doubtless, the economy’s re-opening will bring some of these at home workers back to their shops and offices, but now that remote arrangements have established themselves, many will continue current arrangements. A recent Gallop poll found that fully one-third of those presently working from home would prefer to continue doing so. And it is also clear they will face little resistance from their employers. PWC polled of managements and found that a mere 20 percent of executives planned to re-establish pre-pandemic arrangements. Some 80 percent of executives claim that remote work has improved productivity. Accordingly, some 70 percent of managers are investing in tools to better facilitate work from home, while some 13 percent of them are looking into ways to abandon centralized office arrangements altogether.

The trend’s effects will filter through the economy. Urban restaurants and retail outlets of all sorts counted for a big portion of their business on the millions who gathered at centralized workplaces. Some of these people, and the shops and restaurants that served them, will return with the economy’s re-opening, but not as many as before. Meanwhile, reduced traffic will reduce the staffing needs of those shops and restaurants that do re-open. Because the pandemic has also curtailed business travel and managements are rethinking old patters, hotels will face a similar challenge and adjust staffing accordingly. Bricks-and-mortar retailing, even outside urban areas, will face an additional challenge from online ordering and delivery, which was always a threat and that the pandemic has made it a commonplace.

The adjustment will affect millions. Retail, restaurants, and the hospitality industry generally have long been important employers. Over thirty-two million people earned their living in these sectors before the pandemic arrived last January, slightly over one fifth of the nation’s entire workforce. These sectors suffered tremendous losses as a result of pandemic-related strictures, laying off some ten million between February and April, about half the nation’s entire job losses during that time. The partial re-opening so far has brought some six million of these people back to work. That is still four million short of pre-pandemic levels. A more complete re-opening will bring more back, especially since many Americans are eager to take holidays that they had postponed during the medical emergency. But work from home and reduced levels of business travel will hold back a complete recovery in staffing and certainly flatten the growth trajectory that had prevailed until January 2020.

Equally significant, the pandemic will accelerate the application of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). American mining and manufacturing have long since stepped up to the cutting edge of robotics. The trend has already brought much manufacturing back from abroad. In the financial sector, AI has enabled many firms to bring back facilities that they had once located in India and elsewhere where labor was reasonably well educated and relatively cheap. But these returning operations never promised jobs. On the contrary, the new technologies, by allowing more output from fewer workers, have created a surge in productivity. The pandemic has encouraged other areas of the economy, those that could not seek economies overseas, to use technology to eliminate staffing needs as well. Potentials are innumerable. A couple of examples should suffice to give a feeling for the change.

The surge in online ordering and delivery has been a boon to firms in that area and so far has greatly increased their hiring. Amazon is a standout, but many other retailers, including huge chains such as Target and Walmart, have embraced this approach. This drive has also encouraged a considerable jump in the application of robotics. The pet food distributor, Chewy, has for instance just constructed a new distribution center that can handle the flow of older centers with only a third of the staffing needs. Chewy and all these other operations surely will in time retool all their facilities to achieve these efficiencies. In another example, restaurants, even before the pandemic, were beginning to introduce their customers to computerized ordering from counters and tables. Those that come back from the pandemic now have an excellent opportunity to do the same on a grander scale, with commensurate reductions in staffing needs. The list could go on indefinitely. No statistics exist because many of the changes are as yet prospective, but the likelihood is undeniable.

All these changes—already in place and prospective, from both altered business practice and from the application of AI—have renewed concerns about widespread unemployment and a large class of unemployable people. Even before the coronavirus accelerated these trends, such concerns had evoked a considerable response from politicians and business leaders, most especially in the tech space. Many have proposed a government administered stipend to sustain this unemployable class and also perhaps to buy social peace. Such a universal basic income (UBI), as it is called, has enjoyed periods of popularity and will likely do so again as the economy re-opens and it becomes apparent that the old ways and many old jobs are not coming back. But if these concerns are easily understood, they nonetheless fly in the face of history and so also in the economy’s likely response to these challenges.

The message of the past is clear. Such concerns have arisen with each technological revolution and major change in business practice, but reality never validated the worries. When the invention or machinery to spin and weave yarn into fabric were introduced into eighteenth century Britain, thousands of weavers and allied workers rightly felt threatened. They formed into bands called luddites to break up the machinery. They failed to stop the trend. No doubt the adjustment brough hardship to hand spinners and hand weavers, but ultimately the machinery made Britain’s textile industry so much more efficient and competitive that it employed many times the number it did before the technology arrived, in different sorts of jobs, to be sure, but employed and at a higher standard of living. The same pattern repeats with each technological and business revolution—railroads, telegraph, telephone, automobiles, air travel, computers, and so forth. Each wave invites the kinds of concerns that have arisen recently and doubtless will intensify as it becomes apparent that pre-pandemic jobs and ways are not returning, but they have all been misplaced, as will these.

The country went through this in the 1960s in early days of robotics. In response to what then was called automation, a group of Nobel Laureate economists put out a report that worried over how the trend would “sever the link between incomes and jobs.” Then President John Kennedy fretted over what he termed the “dark menace of industrial dislocation, increasing unemployment, and deepening poverty. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, proposed “family relief” to combat the inevitable unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness. Yet today’s alarmists look back on that period as a kind of golden age of good paying manufacturing jobs. Similar fears arose in the 1980s when personal computers were introduced. Millions of clerks and typists did lose their jobs, but the PC itself and later the internet created opportunities in areas that had not previously existed and that depended to a large extent on the technology that had displaced others. Cable TV and next day delivery services like Federal Express were early examples. More recently there are Amazon, Uber, and like services, all of which employ millions in jobs previously unimagined.

The most compelling evidence of this pattern lies in long-term statistics on employment. For more than two centuries, through countless waves of technology and changing business practice, this country and most of the rest of the developed world have managed to employ on average some 95 percent of those people who want to work. Had these changes destroyed jobs on balance, that figure would have fallen over time.

The answer, then as now, is neither despair nor plans to support large parts of the population in idleness but rather in training and retraining the workforce so that it can quickly take advantage of the new work opportunities as they arise. That need already existed before the pandemic. Then Labor Department noted what it called a “skills gap” in the country’s workforce that left some 6.5 million jobs unfilled because employers could not find workers with the training to fill them. This situation will only become more acute as the changes accelerated in the pandemic become more evident in the economy’s re-opening.

Fortunately, businesses and schools were and are beginning to recognize the need. The renewed emphasis on STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at the university level is part of that recognition. More important is the push to train technicians outside the degree-granting institutions. Increasingly in the last few years, community colleges and local officials have begun partnering with businesses to tailor training programs to the emerging needs of new technologies and new ways of doing business. Many of these partnerships involve the American operations of businesses headquartered in Germany and Switzerland, where there is a well-developed program for apprenticing and training skilled technicians of the sort this country increasingly will need.

If the coronavirus helps jumpstart an effective response to pressures that were already building before the pandemic, then it will have done the U.S. economy a service despite all the ills it has also brought. The adjustment, as in the past, will take place regardless of the effectiveness of the nation’s response. The need to cope with the new is nothing new. Effective efforts at training and re-training cannot erase all the hardship of the adjustments, but it can minimize its extent and duration.        

Mr. Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, the New York based communications firm. His latest book is Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live.

Image: Reuters

Michael Rubin

Security, Middle East

No leader stays in power or lives forever, and Turkey’s dictator is getting old.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dominated Turkish politics for much of the last two decades. He is the most consequential leader in Turkey since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who founded modern Turkey almost a century ago. While Atatürk sought to tie Turkey to the West, Erdoğan has worked to reorient Turkey instead to the Islamic world. He built a palace, fifty-eight-times the size of the White House, where he lives like a Sultan. Indeed, that may his goal as he increasingly promotes his own family over party. Erdoğan demands respect. He surrounds himself with courtiers who praise him constantly and imprisons those whose criticize him. While Erdoğan sees himself as larger than life, the true measure of how Turks view him will become apparently only after his death.

Erdoğan’s demise is a topic about which Turks increasingly speculate. On February 24, Erdoğan will turn sixty-seven. He has had multiple health scares. In 2006, he passed out in a locked, armored car causing panic among his desperate bodyguards. A decade ago, Erdoğan underwent surgery for colon cancer. In 2017, he fainted while praying at a mosque. He is also allegedly an epileptic. Nor can Erdoğan be certain about a peaceful death. Every democrat awakes knowing when his term in office expires; dictators awake recognizing on some level that any day could be their last. Erdoğan may get his state funeral, but he also may live out his final days in exile.

How might Turks honor Erdoğan after his death? Turkey often treats its leader with more respect after they die than when they were alive. Turkey has long been politically polarized. Over the decades, party gangs have done battle on the streets as their leaders sometimes came to blows in the parliament, but partisan animosity toward leaders fade with time.

The most respected figure in Turkey remains Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who founded the modern republic almost a century ago. His mausoleum, the Anıtkabir, towers above a leafy neighborhood in central Ankara. Prior to Ankara’s explosive growth, residents across the hilly city could, like a modern acropolis, see it. Tourists, school groups, diplomats, and visiting military delegations continue to visit it and the same-complex tomb of Atatürk successor İsmet İnönü on an almost daily basis.

Atatürk’s shrine might be the largest, but he is not the only Turkish leader honored with a mausoleum. In 1960, the military ousted Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who led Turkey through the 1950s, and executed him the following year. While they initially buried him in a small plot within the shadow of İmralı, Turkey’s highest-security prison, Turkish authorities ultimately rehabilitated him and constructed a mausoleum in Istanbul where he now rests. Menderes’ colleague Celâl Bayar, president at the time of the 1960 coup and sentenced to life imprisonment by the same court that condemned Menderes, served only three years, and died in 1986 at age 103. The Turkish government honored him with a museum and mausoleum in Bursa.

One of modern Turkey’s most famous statesmen was Süleyman Demirel, who rose to power in 1965, ruled Turkey for the next six years, and returning to power three subsequent times against the backdrop of political instability over the next decade, and then once more in the early 1990s as head of the True Path Party. Widely respected, he became president of Turkey in 1993 and led in that capacity into the new millennium. When Demirel died at ninety years old, he was buried in Atabey, the town of his birth where the Turkish government subsequently constructed a mausoleum.

Nor was he alone. Turgut Özal, whose center-right Motherland Party dominated Turkish politics for a decade after the return to civilian rule in 1983, was laid to rest (twice) with honors at a mausoleum near Topkapı Palace in central Istanbul.

Center-left leader Bülent Ecevit who served as prime minister four times between 1974 and 2002 did not get a mausoleum but nevertheless received state honors at the Turkish State Cemetery in Ankara, where Turkey also interred Cemal Gürsel, Cevdet Sunay, Fahri Korutürk, Kenan Evren, the fourth through seventh presidents who lead the country consecutively from 1961 to 1989. Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s first Islamist leader and Erdoğan’s former mentor, received a more modest burial at the Merkezefendi Cemetery in Istanbul.

Erdoğan revels in the image of a pious Muslim but, behind closed doors, eschews the ascetic life. Whereas Erbakan requested a simple funeral, if Erdoğan’s 1,000-room residence is any indication, he will expect far more.

He may not get it. Like Erdoğan, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini amassed a fortune while seeking to project an image of material disinterest. Upon his death, the Islamic Republic built a huge mausoleum along the highway between Tehran and Qom. When I first visited it in 1996, it was set up like many Shi’ite shrines with an inner sanctum in which a silver cage encased his coffin. Pilgrims would insert cash through the cage. When I returned three years later, Plexiglas sealed off the cage. I asked some guards why, and they said Iranians would fold feces into bills and push them toward the coffin. Shrine size is not always proportional to respect.

Vengeance might also sully Erdoğan’s desire for post-mortem honor. Erdoğan is Turkey’s most hated man. The hundreds of thousands who he has fired, imprisoned, or revoked pensions from will not soon forgive him. Vandals broke into Argentine dictator Juan Peron’s tomb in 1987 and took a chainsaw to his corpse. During Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Khomeini destroyed memorials to his immediate predecessors. Only recently did Iranians by chance find the mummified remains of Reza Shah, who led the country from 1925 until 1941. Muhammad Reza Shah, the last shah, remains buried in Cairo exile. Idi Amin, too, lived a luxurious life across multiple palaces in Uganda, turning Mukusu Island on Lake Victoria into a personal resort. Forced into exile, however, Amin now rests under a non-descript grave in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Longtime Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali likewise is buried just 250 miles north in Medina. Erich Honecker, lived a luxurious life as East Germany’s longtime leader, but now lies in a small Chilean graveyard.

Erdoğan’s tenure as prime minister and president have shown Turks and the world that he is a fragile, thin-skinned, venal man, more content to crush dissent than win a policy debate on its merits. Over the course of his career, he has not only antagonized many Turks, but he has also made himself persona non grata among regional states and Turkey’s traditional allies. He may believe his legacy will be as a second Atatürk, but visitors may be sparse. After all, it is difficult for Turkish students to easily visit shrines in Azerbaijan, Qatar, or Somalia.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent author for the National Interest. 

Image: Reuters.

Richard Douglas

Security, World

When looking for a perfect rimfire for a novice shooter, the Marlin Model 795 is one of the top choices.

With sophistication and good pricing, the Marlin 795 beats out other popular rifles with several key features well-suited to beginners at shooting.

This semi-automatic .22 is an extremely accurate rifle that is easy and safe to use.

At over fifty yards, the Marlin 795 is on target with ease. It is equipped out of the box with iron sights and a ½” base for scope mounting both of which provides added accuracy at the longer distances. Generally, a 4” drop compensation will keep me on target when hunting at 100 yards.

Included with my Marlin was a ten round single column box mag, and there are aftermarket mags available with a capacity of up to twenty-five rounds.

In addition to being accurate, the Marlin 795 is very reliable and trouble-free. I don’t have to worry about failure to feed or fire when I’m out with a new shooter. Kids especially can be intimidated by jams and troubleshooting when learning to shoot.

Thankfully, the dual extractor is a workhorse and it removes spent cases without fail, even when the chamber is dirty. The magazine well gets pretty dirty thanks to its location in the action assembly, but the Marlin keeps on trucking.

Nickel-plated magazines, which are good for rust prevention, feed the uber-reliable (and affordable) .22LR ammo through the action trouble-free. When it comes to handling, the Marlin 795 is excellent for easy use and control. The cocking handle on the right reciprocates with the action, and the last shot locks the bolts back and keeps the action open.

Many experienced shooters may find the lock-back feature superfluous, but that mechanism for a new shooter is a crystal clear sign to indicate that an empty magazine is why this rimfire isn’t shooting anymore.

This rifle is also simple and very handy.

Some passive additions make this an easy shooter as well. Such as the checkered panels on the rounded forend and stock. It is easy to hold and synthetic for toughness without added weight. Easy for kids doesn’t mean kid-sized either.

The Marlin 795 is 37” in total length, with an 18” blued barrel. Nice and light, at 4.5 lbs, this Marlin is a full-sized rimfire. However, it is easily managed by youth shooters without being too small for me to use and enjoy as well.

When I’m teaching with the Marlin 795, the safety features are on-point and much appreciated.

The cross-bolt safety is easy to find at the rear of the trigger guard and easy to use. Additionally, the magazine disconnect prevents dry firing. That eliminates the risk of firing a chambered round without a magazine in place.

All of those features are packed into an incredibly affordable rimfire rife. At only $139, you can’t beat the Marlin 795 in price. You can add accessories, such as a sling, or other customizations such as a different stock. However, they aren’t needed with the Marlin.

Overall, the Marlin Model 795 is simply an excellent weapon for novice shooters. The accuracy and reliability of this rifle make it an ideal choice that won’t put a dent in your bank account. So, either as a nice upgrade to semi-auto from bolt action 22 for kids, or adults hunting small game at home or on the ranch. Shooters of all ages can enjoy the Marlin.

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

Image: Sportsmans.

Richard Douglas

Security, World

The Smith & Wesson Model 500 has held its rank as the world’s most powerful handgun since it was first introduced in 2003.

The Smith & Wesson Model 500 is one impressive weapon. At this point, it’s become almost as much of a classic as Ruger’s 10/22 semi-automatic rifle!

If you’re looking for one of the most accurate, reliable, and durable handguns on the market today, you won’t be disappointed with the Model 500. It’s made by one of the world’s most reliable manufacturers and backed by the S&W Lifetime Service Policy.

The specific sights you get with the Model 500 depend on the specific pistol you get. The Model 500 Magnum, for example, comes standard with an interchangeable HI-VIZ front sight and adjustable rear sight. These sights are perfectly adequate for my needs, but there is a huge variety of additional sights available to meet the goals of nearly any shooter.

Some models even include a Weaver rail mount instead of standard sights for mounting all kinds of scopes and optics. Just like Colt has improved their popular Python model to keep up with the needs of modern shooters, S&W has upgraded the 500 to do the same.

For one, Smith & Wesson recently developed the innovative “x-frame” to give you a better grip and help to handle the recoil that comes along with the immense power of this handgun.

This makes the 500 very comfortable to handle, and even features a recoil-absorbing rubberized grip complete with finger grooves to let you hold the gun at an angle that allows for optimal control and accuracy.

Another upgrade that S&W recently made to the Model 500 is an improved barrel design. This new design features a rifled tube inside of the barrel, which makes it shoot even cleaner and quicker than it did in the past. Since this handgun is so powerful, recoil is not exactly light. It’s also a pretty top-heavy pistol, which gives it even more of a kick.

Although recoil is substantial, it’s not overwhelming. The improved x-frame and grip angle go a long way to mitigate it. The Model 500 Magnum has a five-round capacity. It uses the Smith & Wesson .500 magnum cartridge, specifically designed to handle this high-powered pistol.

Ammo is a bit more expensive. However, it’s worth the cost for a dead-on accurate shot each and every time. You’ll have no problem getting your target down the first time.

The average barrel length is 8 ⅜,” but if you look hard enough, you can find them as short as 2.5” and as long as 12.” With an 8 ⅜” barrel, the overall length of this handgun is just around 15.” Unloaded, it weighs around 80 oz. It should be noted, however, that the weight of a Model 500 can fluctuate between 56-80 oz depending on the length you choose.

The 500 is a single-action/double-action pistol, which some people love and some people hate. It’s up to you to decide what you like, but I will say the trigger pull on the first shot is pretty different than all the follow-up single-action shots.

However, it’s still very smooth, clean, and accurate, making it perfect for both hunting and self-defense applications. The Model 500 retails for anywhere between $1000-$1500. It is definitely more expensive than some, but this isn’t just any pistol.

For the most powerful handgun on the market, it’s a great value and well worth the money. Whether you’ll be taking it hunting or using it to defend your home, it’s accurate, incredibly fun to shoot, and offers the user unmatched power.

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

Image: Smith & Wesson.

Kyle Mizokami

Security, World

It is not a gun for everyone.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Desert Eagle was never officially picked up by any major military or police force and is primarily the realm of gun enthusiasts and hunters looking for a show-stopping sidearm. In case of a rifle malfunction, the Desert Eagle’s hitting power could spell the difference between a successful hunt or serious injury.

In the mid-1980s, a powerful new handgun quickly achieved gun celebrity status. The Desert Eagle was an innovative design that ported over heavy revolver rounds to the semiautomatic pistol platform. The pistol was featured in dozens of action films, and although expensive and not widely adopted by military services the Desert Eagle gained a cult following.

Traditionally, heavy bullet calibers such as .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum were exclusively used by revolvers. Revolvers, with fewer moving parts, are mechanically stronger and can withstand the pressures of heavy handgun calibers. Semiautomatic pistols, on the other hand, were limited to .45 ACP or smaller calibers. If a gun enthusiast wanted a handgun in .357 or .44 Magnum, he or she was limited entirely to revolvers.

The Desert Eagle changed all of that. First introduced in 1983, it was unlike any other pistol in common use. The bolt face, which uses multiple teeth to lock into battery, was derived from the M-16 and AR-15 family of rifles. Unlike other pistols the barrel was fixed in place, and rather than use a blowback system the Desert Eagle used a gas piston system derived from the Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle. This was necessary to accommodate the high chamber pressures and recoil of using heavy caliber cartridges. Traditional pistols rely on the energy from a shooting a gun to drive the slide backward and cycle the action. The slide grabs the empty bullet casing and spits it out, picks up a fresh round from the magazine, and cocks the pistol.

The large caliber rounds fired by the Desert Eagle release too much energy to make the blowback system practical (or safe), so designers turned their attention to a system where they could regulate how much of the energy was diverted to cycle the weapon. When a user pulls the Desert Eagle’s trigger, the gas system diverts some of the hot gunpowder gases from the barrel to drive a piston that cycles the action. Although common in rifles, the gas piston system was unknown among handguns mostly because it was just unnecessary. In a way, the Desert Eagle is part revolver, pistol and rifle.

The Desert Eagle’s rifle traits have the advantage of taming recoil—an important consideration for a large caliber handgun. Diverting gases softens recoil, and one well-known gun reviewer claims, “Shooting this .357 Magnum is no worse than pulling the trigger on a Glock 19.”

The handgun’s manufacturing history was tumultuous: the Desert Eagle was first manufactured by Israeli Military Industries (IMI) for the American firm Magnum Research, but in 1995 was moved stateside to Saco Defense of Maine. Production moved back to IMI and Israel in 1998, but moved back again to Magnum Research of Minnesota in 2009. Magnum Research was purchased by Kahr arms in 2010 but still produces Desert Eagles in their original facility.

The Desert Eagle was originally produced in 1985 in .357 Magnum. The .357 Magnum version features a six-inch barrel, nine-round magazine, and Weaver-style accessory rail for mounting telescopic sights and red dot optics. The Desert Eagle is nearly eleven inches long, just over six inches high, and weighs four and a half pounds unloaded—more than twice as much as a loaded Glock 17. The Desert Eagle is also manufactured in .44 Magnum, which holds eight rounds and is dimensionally identical than the .357 Magnum version, and .50 Action Express, which also has the same dimensions but holds seven rounds.

The Desert Eagle was never officially picked up by any major military or police force and is primarily the realm of gun enthusiasts and hunters looking for a show-stopping sidearm. In case of a rifle malfunction, the Desert Eagle’s hitting power could spell the difference between a successful hunt or serious injury. The gun is also extremely popular in Hollywood, appearing in dozens of movies and television shows. It is also a popular sidearm in today’s video games, where it has earned the nickname “Deagle.”

The Desert Eagle is a celebrity gun with limited practical utility. That hasn’t stopped it from being enormously popular, and the Desert Eagle’s large frame has become synonymous with the idea of a big handgun. The pistol with the innards of a rifle won’t be going away any time soon.

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

Image: Wikimedia Commons.