It’s Time to Revise the ROK-U.S. Nuclear Agreement

Yulgok Kim — November 4, 2023

In the Washington Declaration, South Korea reaffirmed compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the ROK-U.S. nuclear agreement. Nonetheless, North Korea is expected to conduct its seventh nuclear test, China is expanding its nuclear arsenal, and Russia is withdrawing from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT). South Korea exchanged its nuclear last resort for national survival with the pledge of extended deterrence contained in the declaration.

Less than a year after South Korea declared denuclearization, military technology and arms talks between North Korea and Russia have emerged as potential threats. North Korea has already provided Russia with artillery shells for the war in Ukraine. In return, Russia is likely to transfer some of its most advanced military technologies to North Korea, such as nuclear warhead miniaturization, nuclear-powered submarines, and reconnaissance satellites. Russia even bluntly made a public endorsement of North Korea’s nuclear program during the recent Putin-Kim summit, calling it a matter of sovereign security.

In addition to South Koreans’ natural distrust towards the nuclear umbrella, Russia’s recognition of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, China’s acquiescence, and North Korea’s growing offensive and nuclear-related capabilities have already begun to erode the expected benefits of the nuclear umbrella. Conventionally-armed South Korea is now the closest country to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, as well as to maritime and territorial conflicts with nuclear-armed China.

South Korea should respond legitimately. The best way to do so without leaving the NPT regime is to revise the U.S.-ROK nuclear agreement to secure its nuclear latency. Although the deal is due for renegotiation in 2035, it should be changed as soon as possible to send a robust message to North Korea and China. As time goes on, neither the nuclear deterrence of Japan (a nuclear threshold state) nor the acknowledged nuclear-armed United States will deteriorate in East Asia. Oppositely, non-nuclear South Korea would find itself cornered compared to all other regional powers.

A Non-Partisan Case for Revision

The current U.S.-ROK nuclear agreement was signed over 40 years ago and stemmed from Seoul’s need for American nuclear technical support and the détente at that time. This no longer reflects the current situation. Indeed, there is still a discrepancy in South Korea’s long-term nuclear roadmap, but as a short-term goal, South Korea has already reached a consensus regarding the agreement and nuclear weapons.

Even the Yoon administration, which publicly emphasized its non-proliferation stance, agrees with this idea. The National Security Office even acknowledged that South Korea needs close consultation with the United States regarding the issue of reprocessing and reducing nuclear waste, as South Korea has been utilizing nuclear energy in a peaceful manner and has the most advanced nuclear facilities and management experience. South Korea recognizes it as a prime task.

The opposition party, which has a much stronger nuclear non-proliferation stance, has already argued for the need to revise the agreement to strengthen South Korean nuclear capabilities in both security and economic aspects. The party thinks that the revision is necessary and that the government should take an active role in revising it to the level of the Japan-U.S. nuclear agreement. The former Liberal government’s Foreign Minister also openly advised President Yoon to prepare for nuclear latency.

The reality is that South Korea is the only nation that does not have the right to reprocess nuclear wastes and enrich uranium among countries that export nuclear power plants. Australia, which possesses a poor nuclear infrastructure, will acquire nuclear-powered submarines as a non-proliferation exception in the AUKUS framework. But nuclear-advanced South Korea is still hesitant to develop a nuclear-powered submarine for political reasons, even though a submarine’s nuclear propulsion can be interpreted as a non-military use of nuclear energy that does not carry a nuclear warhead and, therefore, does not violate the NPT, depending on the interpretation of the NPT.

Having declared its adherence to the NPT and abandonment of indigenous nuclear weapons, most South Koreans now believe that the agreement should be revised as a minimum quid pro quo. This would undoubtedly address complaints and concerns of pro-nuclear Koreans.

An Outdated Agreement

South Korea is in the abnormal position of not being able to acquire nuclear latency despite its advanced technology, economic and security justifications, and its position as a key U.S. ally. The nuclear agreement is excessively restrictive compared to the Japan-U.S. nuclear agreement. The root of the problem is Washington’s different treatment of South Korea compared to Japan. South Koreans tend to share the impression that the White House does not care about treating Korean nuclear capabilities as much as the United States did for Japan and Australia, underestimating direct nuclear threats posed to allies by neighboring adversaries.

The current ROK-U.S. nuclear agreement was revised in 2015 when Washington insisted it could not allow Seoul to enrich or reprocess nuclear materials. In the end, South Korea is only authorized to conduct some basic research, but not much else. Seoul was only allowed to go further on the condition that it must be consulted with the United States in advance, as per Articles 7 and 11. Nevertheless, it has not been easy to obtain it in practice.

According to the deal, the written agreement of both states could enable further nuclear activities, but South Korea could never do it because the United States did not give consent. Reprocessing has significant economic and security benefits, but South Korea has not been able to take advantage of its nuclear prowess because of the shackled agreement.

Security and Economic Implications of Revising the Nuclear Agreement

Economically, nuclear waste management threatens the sustainability of South Korea’s nuclear power as its primary environmentally friendly energy source. Storage facilities are almost full, and there is a growing concern that nuclear power plant operations could be disrupted. As the agreement prevents South Korea from reprocessing nuclear wastes, it has resulted in significant economic losses due to outsourced reprocessing abroad. South Korea thus spends a considerable amount of money to import nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants.

Also, plutonium-free dry reprocessing technology is projected to take decades until commercialization, and landfilling still faces environmental concerns and public backlash. It is also difficult to build multiple new nuclear waste repositories due to activist group opposition. Reprocessing plants can increase efficiency as they would produce recyclables for operating nuclear power plants, reduce the volume of waste, and eventually minimize the financial losses and environmental concerns of South Korea.

Regarding national security, a revised nuclear agreement would create a “semi-nuclear balance” that would allow South Korea to take a breath and align itself more with the White House in its security strategy with lessened anxiety. South Korea is the country that needs more nuclear latency than any other state. North Korea and China are nuclear-armed, but South Korea only has conventional weapons, and the American nuclear umbrella alone might not assure the confidence of mutual assured destruction and balance of terror. If nuclearization is not physically possible in the near term, and the United States does not want to allow it, then having nuclear latency is the least Washington should let South Korea do.

From the perspective of energy security, it is concerning that Russia is the largest exporter of nuclear fuel. South Korea depends on Russia for 30 percent of its nuclear fuel. There are many reasons why South Korea does not provide arms to Ukraine, contrary to Western demands. Still, the possibility of a nuclear fuel embargo is a bargaining chip that Moscow has over Seoul. If Seoul should be more supportive of Washington’s multi-sided engagements in the world, the White House should agree to revise the agreement to ensure that South Korea does not fall under the influence of authoritarian powers.

Therefore, it is fair for South Korea to demand nuclear rights for both security and economic reasons, as long as Seoul does not go nuclear without Washington’s consent. When India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, for example, Japan reassured the United States that Tokyo would outsource nuclear waste reprocessing to Britain and France and would not proliferate. Similarly, the Yoon administration made clear recently that Seoul is committed to its NPT obligations, even under Chinese and North Korean nuclear threats. At the Camp David summit, South Korea, the United States, and Japan agreed to respond to Sino-North Korean movements as a team.

Transparency and trust between the two countries are stronger than ever, as governments have reiterated their non-proliferation principle. South Korea has also been a role model state in nuclear energy, having sufficiently shown its sincere commitment to the peaceful use of atomic energy since the 1970s. Hence, there is no problem for the United States to start discussing revising the nuclear agreement with South Korea.

The Japan Model

Japan’s path to revising its nuclear agreement was not smooth. Tokyo re-negotiated sixteen times with Washington between 1982 and 1987. Japan’s successful revision is a case that Seoul should closely look at. Tokyo gained the trust of the international community by declaring the three non-nuclear principles that Japan will not possess, make, and introduce nuclear weapons. It was a strategic choice to achieve its goals.

Japan began its nuclear program in 1954 for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, simultaneously demonstrating its commitment to nuclear latency. A year later, Japan gained the right to reprocess waste. Tokyo decided that it would adopt a policy of not possessing nuclear weapons for the time being while maintaining the economic and technical capability to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Finally, in the 1988 revision, the United States gave Japan advance consent for constructing facilities for reprocessing, plutonium conversion, and storage in Japan. As per the mutual agreement, Japan has stored approximately fifty tons of stockpiled plutonium, which could be converted into 6,000 nuclear warheads. The former prime minister’s comment in 2002 that Japan could go nuclear in a short period was not a bluff.

This nuclear potential has allowed Japan to become a nuclear threshold state and accept regular severe inspections led by the IAEA. This was a bold measure, confidently taken by Japan, based on the reassurance that it is capable of going nuclear shortly in a life-or-death situation.

So, it can be inferred that there are two reasons why a long-standing nuclear debate has barely affected Japan compared to South Korea amid the nuclear escalation of authoritarian states. First, the rigorous anti-nuclear sentiment among the Japanese public due to the nuclear trauma since World War II holds Japan back from having nukes. Secondly, Japan feels less urgent or vulnerable than South Korea does due to its latent nuclear capabilities through the U.S.-Japan nuclear agreement.

Conclusion

Given that both ROK-U.S. and Japan-U.S. alliances are at the core of Washington’s strategy in Northeast Asia, it is unfair that South Korea’s nuclear capabilities are treated very differently than Japan’s. Since South Korea and the United States pledged to strengthen nuclear cooperation, revising the nuclear agreement is an essential follow-up process for Seoul’s more responsible global role in U.S. strategy.

As a critical player in the Indo-Pacific, South Korea must demand the revision talks at an early stage, and the United States should answer positively. Nuclear latency would not only enhance the alliance, but it would also remarkably appease the mainstream pro-nuclear public opinion and security anxiety in South Korea. Reconsideration of Washington’s discriminatory and harmful stance toward South Korea’s nuclear latency thus serves American interests.

Yulgok Kim is the Secretary General of the ROK Forum for Nuclear Strategy (ROKFNS). He tweets at @rokfns.

Image: Shutterstock.

America Is An Overstretched Superpower

Ivan Eland — November 4, 2023

Joe Biden, in concert with American public opinion, soured on the long U.S. military disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and finally withdrew U.S. forces from the two-decade disaster in Afghanistan, even though other prior presidents lacked the courage to carry out what was likely to be—and was—a messy exit. Yet one must not lose sight of the fact that the very experienced and effective president is a traditional foreign policy interventionist who believes that the United States should continue to lead the world through military actions and informal and formal security alliances, pledging to protect other countries.

In a recent speech, Biden reiterated his advocacy of an expansive global U.S. security umbrella: “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away…, it’s just not worth it.” Echoing their leader, other U.S. officials claim that alliances are a bastion of a “rules-based international order.”

And recently, given Russian aggression against Ukraine, Chinese assertiveness in East Asia and the South China Sea, and Iranian and North Korean advancement of their missile and nuclear programs, other countries have flocked to attempt to take advantage of the U.S. government’s pledging taxpayer dollars to defend ever more countries or strengthen existing American alliance commitments. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland joined NATO, and Sweden is on the cusp of entering the alliance. With an assertive China in mind, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines have enhanced alliance cooperation with the United States. Under the Abraham Accords, the United States agreed to sell high-tech weapons to Arab despots. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, had implausibly begun to threaten to reorient the desert kingdom’s security relationship toward China, including arms purchases unless the United States signed a security agreement to defend Saudi Arabia if it was attacked. Finally, despite the United States providing more than $100 billion dollars in military, economic, and humanitarian aid to help Ukraine beat back Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is demanding NATO membership or that the United States and Europe develop an alternative security guarantee to assist the Ukrainians deal with the future threat from Russia.

Understandably, after the twin U.S. quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan—just as happened after the debacle in Vietnam fifty years before—some on both the left and right in America are currently reluctant to pour tens of billions of dollars more into helping even informal U.S. allies fight wars. After all, these informal and formal alliances have been set up for the United States to defend other countries, not for other countries to defend the United States—especially given the vast discrepancy between American military capabilities and those of all other allies, particularly in the ability to project power. Thus, President Biden’s assertion that so many alliances enhance U.S. security is questionable; in fact, perhaps these commitments only increase dramatically the possibility that the United States could be dragged into unnecessary, non-strategic, and costly wars.

The huge destruction and replacement of war machinery and expenditure of expensive ammunition in a single war in Ukraine should make Americans ask if the United States, with a yawning $33 trillion national debt, is not overextending itself by pledging formally and informally to defend a growing plethora of countries worldwide. Today, assisting informal allies in two wars right now is straining the U.S. budget, much as the long brushfire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan added greatly to the existing mountain of American debt. In the future, if two formal treaty allies came under simultaneous attack in two different theaters, the United States would be required to respond to both—thus likely generating taxpayer-funded outflows that would make the huge expenditures in Ukraine pale in comparison.

After World War II, the United States accounted for 50 percent of global GDP; now it accounts for only about 15 percent. Yet the United States—to defend itself and fulfill its security commitments to all these countries—accounts for about 40 percent of global military spending. This is considerable American overstretch, especially when most of the countries the United States defends or is thinking about defending are wealthy, can afford to spend more on their defense but don’t because of the U.S. security umbrella, and could also band together against bigger threats such as China or Russia. Thus, the immense expense of aiding two informal allies during wartime now should make American taxpayers reevaluate alliance commitments and extensive overseas foreign military aid.

Ivan R. Eland is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty. He is the author of War and the Rogue Presidency. He tweets at @Ivan_Eland.

Image: Creative Commons/U.S. Navy.

The Houthis' Attacks on Israel Are Bad News for Saudi Arabia

Mahad Darar — November 4, 2023

Yemen’s Houthi movement launched missiles and drones at Israel on Oct. 31, 2023 – provoking fears of a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict.

With the militia – which controls part of the Arabian Peninsula state – vowing further attacks, Israel countered by sending missile boats to the Red Sea. They join U.S. warships already deployed in the area.

The Conversation U.S. turned to Mahad Darar, a Yemeni politics expert at Colorado State University, to explain what is behind the Houthis’ involvement in the war – and how it could risk not only widening the conflict but reigniting hostilities in Yemen itself.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthi group, also known as Ansar Allah, is an armed militia of the Zaydi Shia sect in Yemen. They ousted Yemen’s transitional government led by Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in a 2014 coup and have since been engaged in a bloody civil war with the ousted administration, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. A truce has stemmed fighting in the country, with the Houthis currently in control of most of northern Yemen.

Why did the Houthis attack Israel?

In the first analysis, one can argue that the Houthis are part of a broader regional alliance with Iran. As such, the attack on Israel can be seen as showcasing both the Houthis’ – and Iran’s – military capabilities to both local and regional audiences. Indeed, some analysts argue that the reason Tehran supplied the Houthis with long-range missiles was so it could pose a threat to both Israel and also Tehran’s rival in the region: Saudi Arabia.

However, although it may seem that the Houthis are acting as an Iranian proxy, the main reason the militia launched the attack could be to gain domestic support. Houthi leadership may be trying to present the group as the dominant force in Yemen willing to challenge Israel – a country that is generally unpopular in the Arab world.

This approach helps the Houthis outmaneuver local rivals and unite the Yemeni public behind the cause of Palestinian liberation. It also allows the militia to carve out a unique stance in the region, setting them apart from Arab governments that have so far been unwilling to take strong action against Israel – such as severing ties in the case of more Israel-friendly states, such as United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and others.

In particular, the Houthis will want to present a different face to the Arab world than Saudi Arabia, which had been looking to normalize ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia, it should be added, is the main backer of the internationally recognized Yemeni government – one of the Houthis’ main opponents in the civil war.

It is also important to note that there appears to be growing popular discontent in Arab countries over the perceived weak stance of their governments toward Israel. But due to the authoritarian nature of many of these regimes, public opinion has little influence on policy.

This does not, of course, change the fact that the Houthis themselves run a theocratic regime with no democratic values.

Plus, launching a missile or a couple of drones is relatively cheap for the Houthis, especially considering the benefits they might gain from the action.

How could the Houthi attack affect the Israel-Hamas conflict?

Some analysts have suggested that an attack by the Houthis heightens the chances of overwhelming Israel’s defense systems, if it forms part of a coordinated effort involving Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But this idea falls short for two reasons:

First, the Houthis likely have fewer ballistic missiles than Hezbollah and Hamas and realistically stand little chance of inflicting much damage on Israel. Moreover, they will be mindful of keeping these missiles for their own use in the ongoing civil war in Yemen – which poses a more immediate threat to the group than Israel does.

The threat from the Houthis toward Israel is far smaller than both Hezbollah and Hamas, whose fighters can cross a land border to enter Israel.

Second, the imprecision of the Houthi missiles means that any attack also poses a risk to countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as these projectiles could land in their territories and cause damage. In fact, drones reportedly launched by the Houthis have already caused explosions after erroneously crashing in Egypt.

Could the Houthi attack affect US thinking on the conflict?

There is a scenario in which the Houthi attacks may benefit Israel. The strike plays into a narrative that Israel is facing a multi-front war sponsored by Iran, potentially escalating tensions between Iran and both Israel and the United States.

And this could bolster the arguments of hawks within the U.S. foreign policy establishment who are pushing the U.S. toward a more confrontational stance against Iran.

On the flip side, any perceived threat from the Houthis gives Iran more of a negotiation card in the wider context of regional disputes such as over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran will be keen to position itself as a country with an array of proxies, capable of wreaking havoc in the region should it wish.

Could the attack be Iran’s bidding?

Houthi actions primarily serve their own interests rather than those of Iran.

And unlike Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria – which have recently attacked U.S. troops – the Houthis have not targeted U.S. forces in the region. If the Houthis were truly in the same basket as other Iranian proxies, I believe they would have targeted the nearest U.S. stationed base, which is Djibouti.

But Houthi leadership will be mindful that such an attack would not only be unpopular among the Yemeni population but also would potentially come at a high cost to themselves.

Unlike Hezbollah and Hamas, which are focused on resisting Israeli occupation, the Houthis are primarily concerned with local issues within Yemen. Historically, member of the Zaydi Shia sect have managed Yemen’s issues without foreign support, going back hundreds of years before they were overthrown in 1962.

That said, the Houthis haven’t shied away from appearing aligned with Iran of late, mainly because they rely heavily on Iranian supplies of weapons.

What could this mean for the Yemen civil war?

Negotiations between Houthis, Saudis and the Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemeni government forces are at a delicate point.

Recently, it was reported that the Houthis killed four Saudi soldiers just days after Saudi Arabia shot down a missile from the Houthis that was headed for Israel.

In the latest Houthi attack, the missiles passed through Saudi territory uninterrupted before being shot down by Israel. It is unclear whether this is an indication that the Saudis heeded the Houthis’ warning, which is potentially why they didn’t shoot down the latest missiles. To know more about the true state of Saudi-Houthi negotiations, there needs to be greater evidence, such as increased clashes between the Saudis and Houthis, or even a direct attack by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.

But if Houthi missile attacks escalate in the coming days, it could put Saudi Arabia in a difficult spot. At that point, the Saudis would face a difficult choice. They could allow the Houthis’ missiles to continue passing through their land or they could try to shoot them down. But that would risk jeopardizing diplomatic efforts with both the Houthis and Iran. And that, I feel, seems very unlikely.

Mahad Darar is a Ph.D. Student of Political Science at Colorado State University.

Image: Creative Commons.

Think the F-22 Is the Sky’s Top Dog? The Filipino FA-50 Proved You Wrong

Alex Hollings — November 4, 2023

Earlier this week, the Phillippine Air Force (PAF) announced that one of its FA-50 light attack jets managed to score a notional kill against America’s reigning air superiority champ, the F-22 Raptor, during air combat exercises held in July. This announcement came alongside an image captured by the FA-50’s gun camera, showing the Raptor in the Philippino fighter’s sights as the pilot locked onto the stealth jet with an infrared-guided (heat-seeking) missile.

“This incident marked a momentous development in military history. The Philippine’s Lead-in Fighter Aircraft triumphed over a 5th generation fighter jet in a simulated court of air combat, which took place in the airspace over Luzon, within the context of the Cope Thunder Exercise,” the PAF statement reads.

But while this accomplishment is certainly worthy of celebration for the Philippines Air Force, a closer inspection of this image offers a number of worthwhile clues into how a $38 million trainer-turned-attack aircraft managed to best the $350 million+ Raptor.

And here’s a spoiler: As is so often the case in these sorts of exercises, the F-22 appears to be flying with one wing metaphorically tied behind its back.

The mock engagement between the Phillipino and American jets took place during Cope Thunder 23-2 – a series of bilateral fighter training exercises and subject matter expert exchanges that took place in the Philippines between July 2 and 21. The U.S. Air Force sent 15 aircraft, primarily F-16s and F-22s, along with over 500 Airmen to participate in the drills alongside a similar number of PAF personnel operating ground attack-oriented FA-50s, A-29s, and AS-211s.

But despite dozens of aircraft flying dozens of sorties over the span of nearly three weeks, the part of these drills that has captured the world’s attention occurred in the moment before a PAF pilot proudly announced over the radio, “Fox 2! Killed one Raptor on the right turn!”

COMBAT EXERCISES AREN’T MEANT TO BE FAIR FIGHTS

Combat exercises, like those conducted during Cope Thunder 23-2, are often misunderstood by the media outlets reporting on them (though, that misunderstanding can sometimes be attributed to biased outlets). Engagements between aircraft, for example, are often presented without context, as though two jets were simply put up into the sky in the airborne equivalent of a no-holds-barred cage match, but the reality of these situations is anything but.

The goal of these exercises is not to secure victory so much as to create circumstances that are conducive to learning. In order to ensure all pilots and support crews get the most out of these expensive endeavors, the rules of these drills – commonly known as the Rules of Engagement or ROEs – are intentionally set to not just even the playing field, but often, to place the more capable unit or platform at a distinct disadvantage.

In the case of the F-22 Raptor, its stealth, sensor fusion capabilities, and AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles (AMRAAM) are all about giving its pilot what the Air Force calls, “first kill opportunity.” In other words, the fighter and its onboard systems are all meant to allow the Raptor to sneak through enemy airspace without being detected to engage enemy fighters from beyond visual range – wiping out the competition before they realize they’re even in a fight.

Even if forced to fight in close quarters, the aircraft’s capabilities allow Raptor pilots to dictate the nature of the engagement by sneaking through the airspace until they place themselves in the most advantageous position before the fight begins.

But if you were to allow F-22s to fly like that in air combat exercises… they would simply wipe out the competition from 60 miles out the minute the exercise commander said, “Go.” And no one would get much out of the training at all.

Sandboxx News discussed this very possibility in a previous video in which we explored the 2014 exercises that saw German Eurofighter Typhoons score similar kills against their F-22 competition:

Instead, it’s common practice in exercises like these to establish ROEs that compromise the Raptor’s strengths and create advantages for lesser fighters to press. By barring engagements from beyond visual range, for instance, you eliminate the F-22’s stealth advantage (stealth doesn’t work against eyeballs and shorter-ranged infrared-guided weapons have a better chance at locking on).

Other rules, for example forcing Raptor pilots to fly with fuel-heavy drop tanks underwing, can dramatically reduce the aircraft’s aerobatic maneuverability, and through intentional positioning of aircraft at the onset of the exercise, like placing the less-capable jet directly behind the F-22, can make things extremely challenging for Raptor drivers.

THE KING OF SKY: F-22 RAPTOR

In a real way, an FA-50 taking on the F-22 is a modern David and Goliath story.

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is widely considered to be the most dominant air superiority fighter ever to fly, thanks to its unique combination of stealth, sensor fusion, and hot rod performance usually only found in non-stealth Cold War-era fighters like the F-15. Powered by a pair of advanced Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines that each produces more power under afterburner than the J58 turboramjet that powered the SR-71 Blackbird, the Raptor has an acknowledged top speed of Mach 2.25 and the ability to supercruise – or fly at supersonic speeds without the use of its afterburner – at speeds above Mach 1.5.

Top speeds may not win fights, but the incredible power of these F119s grants the Raptor an arguably best-in-the-world thrust-to-weight ratio of somewhere between 1.25 and 1.37 to one. In other words, the aircraft’s engines produce between 1.25 and 1.37 pounds of thrust for every one pound the aircraft weighs with a standard combat load, making this stealth fighter among the fastest accelerating and climbing tactical jets on the planet. These engines are adorned with two-direction thrust vector control nozzles that allow the pilot to orient the outflow of thrust independently from the airframe, allowing for greater control while flying at a high angle of attack (as when orienting the jet’s nose and weapons down toward an opponent) as well as extreme maneuverability.

But the Raptor is about much more than raw power. Despite being the first and oldest 5th generation fighter on the planet, it remains the stealthiest, with an estimated frontal Radar Cross-Section of just 0.0001~0.0002 sqm. That makes the Raptor potentially as much as 30 times stealthier than the F-117 Nighthawk, and 1,000 times stealthier than even the most optimistic estimates for Russia’s intended competitor, the Su-57. This extreme degree of low observability is bolstered by the F-22’s powerful upgraded AN/APG-77(V1) active electronically scanned array radar that’s said to be so capable that it even outperforms the F-35’s more modern AN/APG-81 – the most powerful radar ever affixed to a fighter – for air-to-air duties.

The F-22 fights with up to six AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missiles (AMRAAM), two AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided missiles, and an M61A2 20-millimeter Gatling gun onboard.

THE UNDERDOG: FA-50

The FA-50, on the other hand, is the light-combat version of the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainer aircraft initially designed to replace Korea’s aging fleets of Northrop F-5Es and Cessna A-37 Dragonflies.

While the F-22 was designed to outperform the best fighters on the planet with no expense spared, the FA-50 was designed with affordability and efficiency front and center, but that’s not to say that it lacks teeth. Powered by a single General Electric F404-GE-102 afterburning turbofan engine that pumps out around 17,700 pounds of thrust, this two-seat aircraft can reach speeds as high as Mach 1.5 and offers a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.96 to one.

The FA-50 comes with a General Dynamics A-50 3-barrel 20mm rotary cannon and seven hardpoints for carrying weapons including the AIM-9 Sidewinder, along with a long list of air-to-ground munitions for attack duties. Targeting for both air and ground operations is handled by a modified Israeli EL/M-2032 pulse-Doppler fire control radar that’s rumored to be similar in performance to the American-sourced APG-68(V)7 multi-mode radar leveraged by Korea’s KF-16s.

The FA-50 is an economic performer that won’t break many records, but it won’t break the bank either. So… how on Earth did it manage to score a kill against the most potent fighter in the sky?

WHAT THIS PICTURE TELLS US ABOUT THE FA-50 VERSUS F-22 ENGAGEMENT

While we do not know the rules of engagement these aircraft were subject to during this exercise, there are some things we can immediately glean from nothing more than the single image above.

The first is that this engagement is clearly going on within visual range. Because it’s all but certain that the F-22 Raptor would quickly dominate the engagement from beyond line of sight, it’s a safe assumption that the ROEs for this exercise forced the two aircraft into close quarters where the Raptor’s advantages, in terms of both stealth or situational awareness, couldn’t be of much use.

But some small details in the F-22’s silhouette are even more telling. If you look closely at the image, you can clearly see what appears to be the Raptor’s fuel-filled drop tanks still underwing during this engagement.

When not in combat or when flying missions that don’t require stealth, the F-22 Raptor is often seen flying with two massive 600-gallon external fuel tanks underwing that carry an additional 8,000 pounds of fuel. These external fuel stores have a seriously detrimental effect on any fighter’s performance, and as such, they’re the first thing most pilots will drop prior to squaring off with an opponent.

These drop tanks dramatically increase the amount of weight carried under each wing, which can raise the fighter’s stall speed (or the speed the jet must maintain to prevent an aerodynamic stall) while also dramatically increasing the inertia of each wing, limiting the fighter’s ability to roll or execute tight turns. They also increase drag, forcing the fighter to work harder in all forms of maneuvers, and dragging down climb rate and acceleration.

In other words, no Raptor pilot would head into the merge with their drop tanks unless it was required by the exercise’s rules of engagement to inhibit the fighter’s performance and give the lesser jet a better chance.

So, without further context regarding the circumstances of this combat exercise, it seems clear that the intent here was to provide all personnel involved with the greatest training benefit, not to put on a clinic about the Raptor’s dominance. And as such, the deck was, once again, stacked against the mighty F-22.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This first appeared in Sandboxx.

Image: Shutterstock.

China’s Cold War with America Has Already Gone Hot

Anne Pierce — November 4, 2023

It’s time to move beyond the question of whether the United States is, or should be, in a cold war with China, for China’s cold war with the United States is well underway.

In fact, China’s multi-pronged “struggle” against America and the Free World has hot war dimensions. In the varied research areas of human rights and international institutions, cyber and information domains, military strategy, and global economics, analysts use words in common to describe China’s behavior. In collectively pointing to China’s coercion, aggression, deception, violations, threats, and attacks, they portray the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) domestic, regional, and global policies as definitively hostile.

China today is expansionist, fiercely anti-democratic, and determined to subvert the post-World War II, U.S.-oriented world order. Toward that end, it is deploying every grey-zone tool conceivable while building a massive military arsenal, honing war plans, and mobilizing forces to seize Taiwan. A drive for internal and external predominance that eschews accommodation is manifest everywhere: in omnipresent domestic repression and terrible atrocities against “minorities”; in the exploitation, intimidation and control that accompanies the CCP’s expansive military and economic footprint; in the worldwide exportation of authoritarianism, surveillance, and propaganda; in bellicosity and territorial and maritime encroachments against neighbors; and in the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis which aggressively challenges the West and backs other dictators and extremists.

The United States has no choice but to quickly regain a secure lead in hard and soft power. U.S. foreign policy must fire on all cylinders, and that includes, along with allies, containing China’s military, confronting China’s sabotage and espionage, and challenging China’s ideology. In other words, the United States must engage in a cold war that pulls from the previous Cold War the best practices for success.

The United States is more likely to be forced into a horrific war over Taiwan, or to choose temporary peace with China at the expense of Taiwan, if it stays the current course. (If past is prologue, policymakers might vehemently “object” to a Chinese incursion while failing to defend Taiwan.) The U.S. and allied deterrent posture and level of resolve relative to China’s shows the urgent need for bolstering defenses, rebuilding the U.S. defense-industrial base, and mounting a credible threat of overwhelming force. Given Western tendencies toward prevarication, incrementalism, and risk avoidance (all too evident in the response to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the failure to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion in the first place), the Free World must demonstrate the will and the means to preempt a Taiwan invasion, but to fight for Taiwan if truly necessary.

China’s subjugation of Taiwan would, in the words of Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Jude Blanchette, turn that vibrant, prosperous democratic country into a “penal colony, a police state.” The knock-on damage to America’s allies in the region, and to America’s credibility and reputation, would be devastating.

Yet, even short of full-scale war on Taiwan, China poses a dire threat to the Free World’s very security and way of life. Lest there’s doubt of the merciless, dystopian reality a CCP world order would bring, there’s the fact that China is the chief sponsor and enabler of North Korea, a country where repression is so omnipresent and severe that the country itself could be said to be a “camp,” and that routinely engages in nuclear brinkmanship. There’s the fact that China has forced Uyghurs into camps and prisons where sadistic torture and total control and surveillance prevail, and ethnic minorities and rural workers into forced labor. There’s the attempt to erase Uyghur and Tibetan identities and the abduction of Uyghur and Tibetan children into “boarding schools” for “re-education.” There is China’s alignment with Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine and with Iran’s brutal domestic crackdown and terror sponsorship.

Since this is the China we’re dealing with, it behooves us to face up to ways China is, already, engaged in a Cold War with hot war characteristics.

Starting with the obvious, there is China’s drive to replace the United States as the world’s dominant military power, dominance that can ensure imperial gains and compromise democracies’ decisions. The gargantuan scale and pace of China’s military build-up clearly suggest offensive as well as defensive purposes. Pentagon officials report that China’s overall military might is on a trajectory to surpass the United States and that China has the world’s largest Navy. Modern Chinese Maritime Forces found that “In terms of ship numbers, each of China’s three sea forces is the world’s largest by a large margin.” Making matters worse, the Office of Naval Intelligence says that China has over 200 times the ship and submarine building capacity of the United States. Moreover, the Department of Defense (DOD) warns the PLA Air Force “is rapidly catching up to western air forces.” No wonder Navy Admiral Philip Davidson told the Senate Armed Service Committee that “the military balance ... is becoming more unfavorable to the United States and our allies.”

Expansive partnerships between Russia, China, and Iran enhance the power of all three and challenge U.S. security and influence. The three countries benefit from energy trade, weapons and technology transfers, joint military exercises, breaches of sanctions, and (sometimes coordinated) anti-American disinformation. Testimony to the lethal potential of Russia and China combined, the RAND Corporation reported last year that U.S. forces were defeated by Russian and Chinese forces in European and Asian hot spots in simulated war games. Russia and China are producing space weapons to attack U.S. satellites and evade U.S. missile defense systems, and Russia is providing highly enriched uranium for China’s nuclear program. Add to this China’s cyber and bio-weapons capabilities, and dramatic ramp-up of nuclear weapons and intercontinental and submarine ballistic missile production, and the picture gets more alarming. In the words of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb, China “has an ever-growing inventory of sophisticated long-range strike systems putting US forces at risk at greater and greater distances.”

The DOD’s 2023 China Military Power Report not only confirms all this but says China’s nuclear build-up is “exceeding previous projections” and that China appears to be building a new intercontinental missile system that would enable it “to threaten conventional strikes” against the continental United States, as well as Hawaii and Alaska. Another chilling finding is that China is focused on “dominating artificial intelligence for warfare.” Notably, the report also highlights “China’s increasing military coercion.” This is seen in multiple “unsafe intercepts” of U.S., allied, and partnerships and planes operating in international air and seaways in the Indo-Pacific, in “intensifying military, diplomatic and economic pressure” on regional neighbors; and in ballistic missile overflights of Taiwan, warplane incursions into its air defense identification zone, and encirclement of the country with ships and drones. In August 2022, China mounted a “large-scale simulated joint blockade and simulated joint firepower strike operation” around Taiwan and fired ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

The strain China’s militarism and imperialism place on U.S. allies Japan and South Korea cannot be ignored. China uses both military and economic might to apply pressure. As examples: China’s maritime militias, coast guard, and navy routinely traverse Japan’s Senkaku Islands. South Korea decided to forbid domestic companies from working on Taiwan’s military submarine program due to the “risk of Chinese economic retaliation.” Given the combined nuclear and missile threats of North Korea and China, and China’s “no limits partnership” with nuclear-power Russia, Japan’s defense minister calls the security environment “severe.” It doesn’t help that China often cancels bilateral defense engagements, and has denied the DOD’s multiple requests for military-to-military communication.

China preposterously claims most of the South China Sea as its own, with a map based on “ancient navigation” that international law and common sense show has no validity. Thus, in addition to “island building” and construction of military bases and outposts in the South China Sea and beyond, China intimidates and harasses Southeast Asian countries. China’s illegal fishing, which devastates food supplies and livelihoods is common not just in the South China Sea, but as far east as Hawaii. And China has dramatically and provocatively expanded its naval-maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. Chinese ships have multiple times blocked and collided with Philippine vessels off Second Thomas Shoal, and have repeatedly entered Vietnam’s and other countries’ exclusive economic waters. In yet another high-risk maneuver in the region, a Chinese fighter jet came within 10 feet of an American B-52 bomber on October 24.

But we mustn’t fool ourselves. China’s aggression and hostility toward the Free World is global, not just regional, and takes many forms. Never mind Xi Jinping’s doublespeak for susceptible democratic ears to the contrary, Xi wants Communist China to defeat and replace the United States as the world’s superpower; the CCP’s every move proves it doesn’t want a “multilateral” world that respects “sovereignty” and avoids “meddling in internal affairs.” Xi believes China’s national-historical and international-communist destiny is to rule the world.

China’s tremendous success in making Western countries dependent on Chinese goods and supply chains and its major commercial agreements and loans on every continent have greatly augmented China’s power. Moreover, China has benefited from decades of highly aggressive espionage, corporate, political, and academic infiltration, and intellectual property theft, especially in the United States. China altered American, European, and Latin American universities via Confucius Institutes, sinology programs, and joint scientific research which advanced China’s ideological and military-strategic priorities. The CCP has worked assiduously to steer media narratives and compromise academic, business, and policy elites.

A world influenced by the CCP’s united front system and propaganda cries out for a United States of America that knows what it stands for and why, and sees U.S. power and ideals as “indispensable” for the kind of world we want to live in. Look, for example, at Latin America, where China has taken full advantage of moral and strategic deficits in U.S. policy. China, along with Russia and Iran, has significantly increased its presence and leverage, and support of oppressive anti-American dictatorships in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Venezuela even hosted Russian war games which included China, Iran, Cuba, and others in 2022. China is establishing airports, seaports, and space facilities, as well as Confucius Institutes, in the region. Honduras’ decision to drop diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of China and Brazil’s enthusiasm for “deepening ties” with China are sobering reminders of China’s sway.

In spite of China’s narrative of fighting terrorism, China backs terrorist groups as well as extremist regimes. Analyst Kabir Taneja explains China’s growing ties with the Taliban: "The core ideas driving Beijing's thinking are to solidify Chinese influence to a point where the West has very little space in the region for the foreseeable future [while] having first access to any economic, mineral and natural resource benefits.” Chinese (as well as North Korean) weapons are in the hands of Hamas and other Iran-backed militias. China and Russia have shrewdly saturated social media with pro-Hamas narratives. Beijing exploits China-owned TikTok’s popularity with American youths to inflame anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism. China, Russia, and Iran endlessly foment the chaos, strife, and division which give them new opportunities for control.

Across the “global south,” where America leaves a vacuum, China steps in ... to expand its military footprint, become the gatekeeper of vital minerals and resources, create economic and geopolitical dependence, and spread anti-democratic, pro-CCP propaganda.

China has made massive foreign infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, and real estate investments and has spent about $920 billion on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In spite of setbacks, the BRI has advanced China’s imperialistic drive, leading not only to new security agreements and docks for China’s navy, but also to the insidious expansion of Chinese information and surveillance technology. Hikvision's latest software offers “ethnic minority” recognition technology, an obvious tool for oppression. Among the deals that serve Xi’s claim that “the East is rising and the West is declining” are the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, Cambodia’s Ream military base, and the massive Pinglu Canal project.

The United States’ ongoing dependency on China for minerals and components key to advanced technology, medications, and even weapons systems exposes dangerous vulnerability to Chinese supply chains in critical areas. Making matters worse, a new report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute concludes that China is leading the United States in researching and developing thirty-seven of forty-four critical or emerging technologies across key sectors including space, defense, artificial intelligence, energy, biology, and quantum computing. Worse still, China uses the financial hub of Hong Kong for the clandestine acquisition of technology and intellectual assets from overseas” and the establishment of shell companies. It would be a gross error to do too little too late to address this problem.

China’s relentless cyberattacks against the United States and increasing penetration of critical infrastructure are additional ominous signs of the times. When a Chinese-sponsored hacking group targeted infrastructure including U.S. Navy telecommunications systems in Guam that are key to Pacific defense, that foreshadowed China’s likely instigation of cyber war as part of a move on Taiwan. China has the world’s largest number of state-sponsored hackers, and per a U.S. official cited in the Washington Post, “is developing cyberattack capabilities that could be used to disrupt critical services (for) the U.S. and key Asian allies and shape decision-making in a crisis or conflict.”

So too in international organizations, China fixedly pursues predominance. China, Russia, and Iran run interference for each other in the United Nations, and China uses bullying of member states and UN leaders to avoid accountability and dictate narratives. From corrupting the UN, the WHO, and the World Bank, to realigning the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, to attempting to turn BRICS into an anti-U.S. coalition, to forming new “Global Development,” “Global Security,” and “Global Civilization” initiatives, China never lets up. Xi insists China’s redefinition of the world order will free peoples from U.S. “unilateralism” and lead them to “equality” and “justice.” But the truth is found in China’s genocide of Uyghurs and severe persecution of Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong adherents and dissidents.

There is a connection between China’s antagonistic external aggression and draconian internal suppression. As groundbreaking scholar on the Uyghur genocide Adrian Zenz said at a conference I attended: China’s brutal “assimilation” of ethnic minorities, which even includes forced sterilization and abortions, is related to China’s belief that to be a global superpower it “has to achieve national unity.” Han Chinese nationalism and “unified (Chinese Communist) thought” are to serve the global struggle.

In addition to all of this, it is hard to look at China’s transnational repression of Chinese Americans; deceptive, uncooperative behavior during the Covid epidemic; sinister role in deadly fentanyl making its way to American streets; purchase of land near U.S. military bases; and the thousands of military age Chinese males recently apprehended at the southern border, and not worry about China’s ill-intent for the U.S. homeland. Clearly, China is weaponizing everything in its strategic tool kit against the United States.

The United States sees China as its chief adversary, and is resigned to “great power competition.” AUKUS, Five Eyes intelligence sharing, enhanced U.S.-Japanese military cooperation, and other strategic initiatives are good. An executive order controlling exports of advanced computer chips, microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence technologies is good. Congress’s Human Rights Policy Act and Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act are good. But they are not enough. The White House must not skirt full enforcement of sanctions, or avoid secondary sanctions. The United States and its European and Asian allies must make building up and modernizing their military defenses and fortifying alliances urgent priorities. They must speed up weapons production and delivery of weapons to Taiwan.

Democracies should stress to non-aligned countries the dire implications of aligning with China; the “National Security Law” stamping out freedom in Hong Kong is the real face of the globalization of the CCP. And they should give Ukraine the weapons to win, not just hang on, and take a robust stand against Iran’s proxy wars. To do otherwise sends a dangerous green light to already emboldened China. Moreover, China’s drive for technological supremacy and control of the world’s data, rare earths, and energy assets require a coordinated, comprehensive response. Western businesses should end all businesses tainted with forced labor, cease complying with CCP demands to overlook human rights, and stop selling China dual-use technology. For the United States, there is no time to waste in rebuilding manufacturing and “onshoring” energy, food, and medicine.

America must rediscover its voice for freedom, once again become the partner of choice in commerce and development, and recall the post-World War II understanding that peace comes through strength. As China Commission chair Mike Gallagher says, “China is a threat to our sovereignty and our values.” Let’s act accordingly.

About the Author

Anne R. Pierce is an author of books and articles on American presidents, American foreign policy, and American society. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, is an appointed member of Princeton University’s James Madison Society, and was a Political Science Series Editor for Transaction Publishers. Follow her @AnneRPierce.

Image Credit: Chinese Military.

Israelis' Rally Around the Flag Won't Save Benjamin Netanyahu

Amnon Aran — November 3, 2023

Over the past year, Israel has witnessed an extraordinary wave of non-violent protests, involving hundreds of thousands of activists from across society. The extensive demonstrations were triggered by a judicial overhaul announced by the Israeli government in early 2023.

The government passed into law in July 2023 the first planned change of the overhaul – a so-called “reasonableness” bill. This removed the power of the country’s supreme court (and lower courts) to cancel government decisions deemed “extremely unreasonable”.

The proposed judicial overhaul, which was designed to weaken the judicial branch, plunged Israel into one of the most serious internal crises in its history. An unprecedented pro-democracy civil movement mounted an extensive anti-government campaign aimed at stopping the judicial overhaul.

Each week, hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated. These included several groups of reservists serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) – including pilots and combat units – who refused to report to duty unless the government scrapped the judicial overall.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, presided over this internal turmoil. Yet rather than seeking a political compromise, his strategy was to sow political and social division.

Netanyahu and his ministers denounced the pro-democracy demonstrators as “traitors”, “anarchists”, and the “privileged elite”. In fact the protesters came from all walks of life: tech workers, lawyers, teachers, professionals, as well as members of the security services.

The pro-democracy campaigners, in turn, have referred to Netanyahu as the “crime minister”. This aims to highlight that the prime minister’s newfound impetus to weaken Israel’s judiciary arose after he became embroiled in a criminal trial. He faces multiple corruption charges: bribery, fraud and breach of trust, stemming from three separate cases.

Campaigners also repeatedly charged the government with violating the social contract with its citizens. They accuse the ultra-orthodox bloc, which Netanyahu relies on to hold on to power as part of his coalition, of using the judicial overhaul to preserve its economic interests and political influence and of permanently exempting ultra-orthodox males from serving in the IDF.

Social resilience and political strains

The murderous attacks launched by Hamas on October 7, which triggered the Israel-Hamas 2023 war, have had a unifying effect on Israeli society. The social divisions that marked the confrontations over the judicial overhaul have given way to a rare moment of social unity and rallying around the flag.

One of the key organisations opposing Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, Brothers in Arms, has now turned its entire logistical, financial and human effort to support the war effort. It is also helping the communities that were devastated after more than 1,300 Israelis were murdered by Hamas terrorists and more than 230 kidnapped.

Meanwhile, several religious Jews volunteered with the ultra-orthodox Zaka organisation, which retrieves bodies and body parts after terror attacks. They have been tasked with the terrible duty of identifying victims.

But while Israeli society has pulled together, the country’s leadership has not risen to the occasion. Given the monumental military and intelligence failure Israel experienced on October 7, the Netanyahu government entered the war with a severe legitimacy deficit. And yet it took the prime minister five days to form an emergency government. This brought in Benny Ganz, former defence minister and the leader of the National Unity party.

Gantz will serve alongside Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant in the “war management cabinet”. Former chief of staff with the IDF, Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity Party), and Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs – and a close Netanyahu ally – will sit as observers.

The formation of the emergency government does not amount to a National Unity Government, which many Israelis had hoped for. Yair Lapid, the leader of the main opposition party, Yesh Atid, has so far opted not to join the government. He has justified his decision on two grounds: Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping the extreme right parties in the government and the proposal to form a double security cabinet without establishing clear lines of authority.

Netanyahu’s day of reckoning?

Whereas the ongoing political divide is significant, the more serious tension seems to be between Netanyahu and the security-military establishment. Since the October 7 attacks, heads of Israel’s key security organisations – the IDF and the intelligence service Shin Bet – have acknowledged their responsibility for the multilayered system failure that enabled the Hamas offensive.

In fact, Netanyahu has refused to assume any responsibility. Worse still, as the Israeli ground invasion into Gaza deepened, Netanyahu wrote on Twitter (now renamed X) at 0100 on October 29:

In contradiction to the lying claims: Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned about Hamas intending to go to war … Every defence official, including the heads of military intelligence and the Shin Bet [Israel’s security agency], believed Hamas was deterred and sought accommodation. This was the assessment that was presented time and time again to the prime minister and the cabinet by all defence officials and the intelligence community up to the outbreak of the war.

The prime minister later deleted the message and apologised. But crucially, he did not say that what he tweeted was wrong. This leaves the strong impression that Netanyahu is still highly invested in passing the blame for Hamas’s attacks to secure his political and personal future. The fear is that this may affect his decisions in relation to the war.

This concern has prompted calls from business leaders, columnists, diplomats and former security personnel, to remove Netanyahu and replace the government, possibly through a constructive vote of no-confidence. Netanyahu is hanging on, for now, but his day of reckoning will come, possibly even before the Israel-Hamas 2023 war is over.

Amnon Aran is Professor of International Relations at the University of London.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

After 75 Years On, Gaza Is Unraveling With Disasters Results

Robert Purssell — November 3, 2023

The media continually reports that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) will soon launch a massive assault into Gaza with the dual objectives of rescuing the hostages that Hamas took prisoner on 7 October 2023; and killing or capturing Hamas in its entirety. Similar in purpose to what Israel attempted in 2006 in Lebanon, a Gaza incursion will likely achieve, at best, only partial success, since Hamas’ tight security has blinded Israeli intelligence.

To date, in hopes of ostensibly facilitating the rescue of the hostages, the Biden administration has counseled Israel to restrain the IDF, effectively substituting a siege for an invasion. A siege that makes Hamas militarily impotent, reduces Gaza’s civilian casualties and decreases the diplomatic pressure on Israel.

For its part, Hamas can continue futilely launching missiles and terrorist raids against Israel. The Israeli air defense (Iron Dome) will shoot down the missiles, and the thousands of deployed IDF ground forces will obliterate any attempted Hamas terrorist raids.

Meanwhile, with dangers occasioned by Israel’s aerial bombardment prompting Egypt to restrict the flow of people and goods through its Rafah entry point to Gaza, Israel has effectively besieged Hamas-controlled Gaza. Unless Israel permits their passage, only limited food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies can cross into Gaza.

Hamas’ current situation parallels the conditions of helplessness and starvation faced by the British at Yorktown in 1781, the Confederacy at Vicksburg in 1863, and the Japanese marooned on numerous Pacific islands in the later stages of the Second World War. Unless the Israelis abandon their siege of Gaza, Hamas must rely on Gaza’s populace remaining loyal and meekly accepting their punishing deprivations. With its Iranian and Hezbollah ally’s incapable of launching militarily significant operations to break the siege of Gaza, unable to influence Israel directly through its terrorist activities, Hamas must now rely on international pressure, primarily demonstrations in Arab countries, and United Nations’ condemnations authored by the anti-Israel lobby and its allies.

By restraining its army, Israel has dramatically reduced its casualties and avoided international pressure. If mired in a lengthy, likely inconclusive, Gaza invasion, as civilian casualties rose, Israel would face demands from its populace, world public opinion, and its allies to curtail its military.

On the other hand, a siege allows Israel to manage its world image. In all likelihood, pressure from inside and outside Israel may soon compel the Israeli government to relax its near-total blockade. Rather than ineffectively resist and then ignobly submit to international pressure, the Israeli government could remain in its controlling position by immediately partially relaxing its embargo by allowing enough supplies to enter Gaza for the next day, but no more.

If Hamas initiates missile strikes or terrorist raids, Israel could respond by blocking the next day’s shipment of supplies. This action would immediately create an inventory crisis that pits the needs of the Gaza population against Hamas-initiated terrorist activities.

While the Gaza citizenry determines how much of Hamas’ strategic ineptness and attendant suffering it can tolerate, Israel should make two demands: First, Israel’s border policy of restricting supplies flowing into Gaza should remain in effect until Hamas returns all hostages to their home countries.

Second, Israel should continue its partial blockade of Gaza until all known Hamas personnel have either died or accepted Israeli detention as prisoners-of-war under conditions consistent with international norms.

When both conditions have been fully met, the return of the hostages and the incarceration of Hamas personnel, Israel should negotiate with Gaza’s Hamas-replacement government about establishing a more permissive flow of supplies into Gaza.

The proposed policy has seven short-term immediate advantages:

First, it stops the aerial bombardment of Gaza.

Second, it incentivizes Hamas, fearing a backlash from a suffering Gaza populace, to halt its missile and terrorist attacks on Israel.

Third, it eliminates the possibility of Israeli military action harming the hostages before their release from captivity.

Fourth, it links the return of the hostages to the ending of the very restrictive partial embargo on critical supplies.

Fifth, it pits the Gaza populace's short- and long-term interests against those of the Hamas terrorists.

Sixth, it provides a non-violent way to eliminate a terrorist organization, Hamas.

Seventh, it moves Israel and Gaza from a hopeless position of unending violent confrontation to a new political reality with the possibility of a more normalized relationship.

As President Biden opined in his TV address of 19 October, one often hears the hopeful sentiment that an oppressive, dictatorial government's evil views and dogmas do not reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the supposedly peace-loving populace over whom they rule. Hopefully, in a better world, such observations will reflect reality.

From mosques, in schools, in the local media, and from politicians, a

continuing propaganda barrage has inundated the Gaza populace with hate vilifying both Israel and Jewish people. Undoubtedly, some Gaza residents do not accept such malicious messages, but many eventually embrace such hate-filled thoughts as accurate and truthful.

Similarly, attitudes have hardened across the Gaza boundary on the Israeli side. Currently, thoughts of reconciliation in Israel or Gaza hold little sway. Instead, the talk now focuses on justifications for retribution and punishing reprisals.

Is a negotiated settlement possible with hate so profoundly embedded on both sides?

Diplomats and national leaders seem to believe there is, but decades of fruitless negotiations say otherwise.

What other alternatives are there?

Conflict-ending international agreements often work because they separate the warring parties. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, required Great Britain to abandon all claims to her former colonies, which had the effect of using the Atlantic Ocean to separate Great Britain and the United States, thus giving both countries and their leaderships a chance to refocus their thinking. The emigration of Loyalists to England and the British Empire effectively ended the civil war aspect of the American Revolution. After World War II, Japan had to disband her empire and repudiate all claims to conquered Asian mainland territories and Pacific islands. Reconstituted as an island nation, isolated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean, Japan went on to prosper as a peaceful country. The former Japanese-occupied lands became sovereign countries that focused on their futures rather than past grievances. The 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement established a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, which continues to prevent the renewal of hostilities.

The most readily apparent separation of Gaza and Israel would involve expanding the ‘no go’ zone associated with the current border. Unfortunately, such an enlarged ‘no go’ zone would consume virtually all the available land in Gaza and Israel’s surrounding territory, thus precluding its viable implementation.

A second option would involve a transfer of population and territory. A precedent for such a population/territory exchange occurred after World War II in Europe. Poland surrendered its eastern territory to the Soviet Union while receiving from Germany territory along its western border up to the Odor-Neise River. Similarly, the Israelis would get the whole of Gaza while the Palestinians would receive an equivalent area of West Bank settlements.

Such an exchange would settle the Gaza problem and address the Palestinian concerns about West Bank settlements. Of course, there would be objections to the transfer concept by the governments involved and the people impacted. However, continuing the current Gaza situation of endless conflict has little to no appeal. One is reminded of the choice between a risky operation and a painful, possibly fatal malady.

Alternatives exist if the parties reject the West Bank settlements for Gaza territorial exchange. Nations have exchanged territory for money or alternative land. The United States, for example, has on numerous occasions expanded its territory by purchasing land from foreign countries (Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, Gadsen Purchase from Mexico in 1854, Alaska from Russia in 1867; and the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917.) In 1667, Holland exchanged its ownership of New Netherlands (later the state of New York) for the South American colony of Suriname.

The land west of Gaza belongs to Egypt’s North Sinai Governate. It has oil wealth, a population of less than a half million, desert lands, roughly ten thousand square miles, and an ongoing ISIL insurgency.

If a donor could make Egypt an acceptable offer for a portion of the North Sinai Protectorate, the current Gaza residents could relocate to a new home located entirely within the North Sinai Protectorate, physically separated by some distance from Israel, without oil resources, and with aerial and maritime access to the world. Initially constituted as a protectorate of the United Nations, the enclave would eventually grow into a viable sovereign nation independent of Israel.

Again, many nations and peoples will find many reasons, some valid, to object. However, sticking with Gaza’s status quo ante has little attractiveness and will perpetuate the endless hostility between the Gaza populace and the Israelis.

A fourth set of relocation options would include the transfer of Gaza’s population to lands distant from Israel. In 1492, the Turkish Sultan welcomed the transfer of Spain’s expelled Jewish population to the Ottoman Empire. In 1762-3, Katherine the Great of Russia invited non-Jewish Europeans, primarily from Germany, to emigrate to Russia and settle along the Volga, where they were identified as Volga Germans. After World War II, Canada encouraged displaced Europeans to immigrate to Canada. In 1980, the United States accepted Cubans fleeing the Castro regime (the Mariel boatlift.)

Many Eastern European countries, Russia and China, face severely declining populations. Following the example of 19^th and early 20^th century America, such countries could open their borders to Gaza residents to repopulate their countries.

In the aftermath of the war created by the 1948 partition of Britain’s Palestinian mandate, the 1949 Egyptian-Israeli peace created Gaza as a temporary home for displaced Palestinians. Seventy-five years later, the unsatisfactory quick fix that never worked very well now does not work at all. The people living in Israel and Gaza need a solution that reforms the current chaos into a livable resolution.

Robert (Bob) Purssell is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Bob worked in the defense and semiconductor industry first as an engineer and subsequently as an engineering manager. Currently retired, he writes novels and gives talks on military and historical events.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

It's Time to Get out of Syria

Lora Karch Dulgarian — November 3, 2023

The United States military presence in Syria has placed our troops in the middle of rising tensions between local adversaries while also sitting in the crossfire of multiple escalating regional conflicts. The argument for leaving Syria becomes clear once adversarial drivers and America’s questionable interests are broadly examined.

As the Russia-Ukraine War continues with no end in sight, Moscow has for eight years sent extensive resources and manpower to Damascus. Russian president Vladimir Putin has aided Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in eliminating his regime’s opponents. Putin sent troops to Syria and began airstrikes in 2015 to combat ISIS at Assad’s request. Still, since the Ukrainian war and American deployment on Syrian soil, Russia must divert hard power back to its own frontlines.

Iran has fought alongside Russia throughout much of the Syrian Civil War. It has launched its own efforts to keep Assad in power by sending thousands of armed personnel to serve as military advisors, guards, special forces, and frontline troops. Iran shares ideological interests with Syria, which also cooperates with Shia militant groups in Iraq and Lebanon. To simplify decades of history, after the 1979 revolution deposed the Shah, the country’s new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, signaled his intention to export the revolution across the Islamic world. Iran’s regional partners form what is colloquially known as the “Axis of Resistance.” They view their conflict with the West as a righteous struggle against foreign invaders and influences.

Just north of Syria lies another two actors who also view their conflict as an existential struggle: Turkey and the Kurds. It is generally known that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan harbors “neo-Ottoman” ambitions to reclaim prestige and territory. What is less known is that Turkey occupied parts of Iraq thirty years ago to target the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement that currently operates in the region. The PKK’s founder, Abdullah Ocalan, led an insurgency from 1984 until his capture by the Turkish government. His successors continued to demand an independent Kurdish state. Today, the PKK has a recorded presence in Northeast Syria and has been involved in recent clashes that have endangered American troops and local inhabitants. The U.S. State Department labeled the PKK a terrorist organization in 1997.

Washington has differentiated its relationship with the Kurds through the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The United States partnered with the SDF in 2014, and their ties persisted beyond the threat of the Islamic State in Northeastern Syria.

There are five additional actors currently active in Syria. The SDF serves as an umbrella force for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), Women's Protection Units (YPJ), and the Syrian Military Council (SMC) and is the leading force of the mega-coalition composed of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian/Syriac, and smaller Armenian, Turkmen, and Chechen constituents. The majority of remnants from these groups are now in Europe as migrants. Turkey, allied with its auxiliary Syrian National Army (SNA), aims to create a “safe zone” with an understated presence in the north. The Syrian branch of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (the Democratic Union Party, PYD) complicates U.S. objectives in the region due to its controversial relationship with the PKK.

To combat the growing presence of ISIS in 2014, President Barack Obama partnered with the SDF as an adopted strategy to eradicate extremists from the region while simultaneously avoiding the mass deployment of U.S. soldiers. This was a temporary solution for the long-term operation, which overlooked the fact that a controversial history with Turkey haunts the SDF’s sub-factions.

Tensions between Turkey and the PKK escalated more recently when PKK militants originating from Syria claimed responsibility for detonating a bomb in Ankara on October 1. In response, four days later, Turkey launched an offensive in northeast Syria that considered the YPG militia and PKK as “legitimate targets” for its campaign. The same YPG that the SDF, a U.S. ally, oversaw in Al-Hasakah. The attack on October 5 killed forty-four people, including security personnel and civilians. On the same day, the U.S. military shot down an armed Turkish drone 500 meters from American troops, which was deemed “appropriate action to protect U.S. forces” despite “no indication that [our fellow NATO ally] was intentionally targeting U.S. forces.”

In summary, Turkey, espousing Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman irredentism, is attempting to reconquer designated territories for the Turkish nation that includes modern parts of Syria. This expansion stands in conflict with a terrorist organization that seeks political ends through violence. This is where American military personnel stand right at this very moment.

What is the United States doing in Syria? U.S. forces are currently stationed in northeastern Syria under Operation Inherent Resolve to complete the lasting fight against ISIS, according to a U.S. Central Command statement last year.

The fight against ISIS culminated this past July when the United States conducted a strike in Syria that killed Usamah al-Muhajir, one of its leaders in Eastern Syria. Though this is a significant win, America has expressed that it will not leave the country until the whole group has been eliminated. This oddly counters statements that the ISIS caliphate was defeated, including in the New York Times and by President Donald Trump, who famously held up a map of the evaporated ISIS caliphate.

The United States actually shares a common desire to eliminate ISIS with Russia and Syria, who claim lost territory in the northeast; Iran, whom ISIS has attacked at home; and the Kurds, who are seeking territorial integrity. However, U.S. troops also sit on the perilous highway running between Baghdad and Damascus inside Syria and train the Revolutionary Commando Army. This coalition, known as the “Al-Tanf Garrison,” differs from the SDF-U.S. alliance.

Every day, Americans should ask their policy leaders what strategic victory looks like in Syria. Moreover, Americans should ask their policy leaders if they have a plan to stop the second-largest army in NATO, Turkey, from aggressive tactics, putting American lives in danger and supporting groups that were once part of Al Qaeda.

Turkey supports HTS, a coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that evolved from Al Qaeda’s former branch in Syria. HTS has de facto administrative authority in Idlib and mainly targets the Assad government. Still, more recently, its leader called for retaliatory attacks against the U.S.-led coalition in response to American airstrikes in Syria. HTS is generally opposed to the other military and rebel factions in northwest Syria and has clashed with the Syrian National Army, which is also allied with Turkey. This leaves HTS in an awkward position that forces it to remain in the Idlib province it captured in a notable 2019 attack against the National Front for Liberation. One thing is sure: Americans remain a target on HTS’ list.

The situation is becoming more complex as the shadow war between Iran, Iranian-backed Shia militant groups and Israel escalates. Last month, Israeli strikes simultaneously shut down two main airports in Aleppo and Damascus shortly before a delegation of Iranian lawmakers was allegedly set to visit the country to meet with Palestinian militants. This also came only hours after two key events: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel and Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi’s phone call with Assad to discuss Arab and Islamic cooperation to counter Israel. It also marked the sixth day of Israel trading fire with Hamas after Hamas gunmen breached the Gazan border and killed 1,400.

Syria and Iran are longtime political and military allies, and their alliance has fostered increased dependency on mutual trade, credit lines, and military support. Assad has said that Israel’s strikes are justified under the guise of Iran’s presence but continue to target the Syrian army. Considering that Iran is a longtime enemy of the United States, the two are bound to clash on Syrian terrain. This was proven earlier this year when President Joe Biden released a warning to Tehran after Iran-backed militias attacked and killed an American contractor. Biden stated that America does not want war with Iran, but any violence directed toward American troops would be met with retaliation. The continued violence today highlights the obvious risk for escalation over matters such as Iran’s nuclear program, proxy militias, and its supplication of military technology to Russia amidst the war in Ukraine.

America’s leaders should recognize that there are several major intra-group conflicts occurring in Syria, including those between:

1) the Assad government, Russia, Iran, and Iranian-backed Shia Groups vs. various Syrian opposition forces (including HTS and other Turkish-backed groups)

2) the United States, SDF, Iran, Russia, and the Assad government vs. ISIS

3) Turkey vs. the PKK

4) Turkey vs. the SDF (and the United States indirectly)

5) Israel and the United States vs. Iran, Iranian-backed Shia-militant groups, and the Assad government

6) the Assad government, Russia, and Iran vs. the Revolutionary Commando Army and the United States (at the “Al-Tanf Garrison”)

7) the United States vs. Russia (a generally cold conflict, despite occasional fighting between the U.S. military and the Russian Wagner Group)

8) Syrian opposition forces against themselves.

China’s new entry into the region by purchasing Middle Eastern oil and gas that our forces are protecting in the northeast contributes to the instability in the region and higher risk for our troops. The proof of this growing alliance is in Assad's visit to China just last month, where they announced an established strategic partnership. This signifies China’s growing influence in the Middle East, which strengthens its geostrategic ambitions and further endangers our local troops.

Failure to acknowledge that rising regional tensions and growing American hard power involvement in Syria are creating a hazardous situation will likely result in another large-scale loss of military troops and equipment in the Middle East. This is shown in the most recent hard power exchange between the United States and Iran in Iraq and Syria. The United States launched airstrikes on two of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps locations in eastern Syria in retaliation to previous missile attacks from Iran on American forces and a diplomatic support center near Baghdad International Airport.

American involvement in Syria does not serve U.S. security interests. America should withdraw its forces and discharge resources to local allies who are more than capable of continuing the counter-ISIS efforts in the region.

Lora Karch Dulgarian is an independent analyst focusing on national security, social, political, and economic issues in the Middle East and Europe. She is passionate about human rights, religious minorities, and safeguarding the legacies of forgotten civilizations. Fluent in Arabic and French, she lives in Washington, D.C.

Image: Shutterstock.

The China-Russia-Iran Axis Is a Clear Threat to America

Ariel Cohen — November 3, 2023

As Hasan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, escalates his threats of a broader war and continues the shelling of Israel’s north, Jerusalem, as well as Washington, needs to face an increasingly toxic and dangerous international environment. Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon have become another front in a global confrontation that started in Ukraine in February 2022.

Since Moscow and Beijing proclaimed “limitless friendship” before Russia’s massive assault on Ukraine assault in February 2022, the two Eurasian great powers are shaping the global landscape to put maximum pressure on the United States and our allies. Iran spearheaded the current escalation in the Middle East to derail the Israeli-Saudi rapprochement. Russia and China support the escalation, as the U.S. intelligence sources are telling me that Wagner PMC trained Hamas in logistics. Wagner also started deployment of the Russian SA-22 anti-air systems.

The current crisis provides a unique opportunity for Washington to send an unequivocal message to Moscow and Beijing: back off—or lose Iran.

The United States is now facing a global coalition of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, which are trying to capitalize on the October 7 Hamas mega-terror attack, which left 1400 killed, tortured, and kidnapped, including over thirty Americans, and over 200 taken captive in Gaza.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has trained, equipped, and funded Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and reportedly coordinated the attack in a series of meetings in Beirut. Since the 1980s, Tehran also founded, trained, and equipped Hezbollah, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Islamic Republic. Iran is also a major supplier of drones to Russia and of oil to China. It is also a beneficiary of a giant, $400,000,000,000, twenty-five-year investment agreement with Beijing and an aspiring member of BRICS+ and Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Iran is the principal purveyor of instability in the Middle East, from the Red Sea, where its Houthi proxies have rocketed UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and U.S. oil facilities, military bases, and ships to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, where Tehran weaponized the Shi’a militia to dominate Sunnis. The United States remains the “Great Satan” for the theocratic dictatorship, while Israel is America’s “Little Satan” earmarked for destruction.

Russia benefits from the chaos aimed at destabilizing the pro-American architecture of the Middle East, which ensures the steady flow of oil to the world—over 30 percent of oil ships from the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz. If the Strait is mined, or Iran fires upon the tankers, as they did before, oil prices will skyrocket, causing oil prices as high as $150 a barrel, a new spiral of inflation, and possibly contributing to Joe Biden’s defeat in 2024 presidential elections. Putin thinks that, while stuffing his coffers, he can help Donald Trump get elected, and the feeling is mutual.

As the late Russian political guru Gleb Pavlovsky said, Putin’s political system always raises the stakes. Russia has been providing international cover for Hamas since the Islamist movement won the U.S.-promoted elections in 2006. Putin was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Hamas and host its leader, Khaled Mashal, in Moscow—despite Russia’s supposed anti-terrorism stance in the Caucasus and Afghanistan.

Russia also used Iran as a battering ram against America for decades. It supplied missile technology to the mullahs in the 1990s, trained their nuclear engineers, built the first stage of the Bushehr nuclear reactor in 2013, and is planning to complete Stage 2 next year and Stage 3 of the reactor in 2026.

Moscow is now buying their Shahed and Muhajar-6 drones by a thousand to use in Ukraine in exchange for military tech transfer to Tehran. With the U.N. sanctions on the sale of missile tech to Iran expiring, Russia said it would not extend them, which means longer-range and more powerful missiles and warheads, possibly for future Iranian nuclear weapons. This is a potential disaster for the Middle East, Europe, and the world.

Russia and China are also coordinating their Middle East policies. Simultaneously, President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Middle East envoy Zhang Jun blamed the United States for “failed leadership” in the Middle East and support of Israel. Moreover, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that Israel “exceeded its right of self-defense.” This is from a country that is overtly planning an invasion of Taiwan and jailing up to 1,000,000 Uyghurs in labor camps.

China, which has a military base in Djibouti, near Bab-el-Mandeb, the global chokepoint at the entrance to the Red Sea, recently deployed a six-ship squadron to the Persian Gulf, first at Muscat and now in Kuwait. China recently brokered a historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran as Riyadh felt that Washington’s support was not forthcoming. Both oil-rich countries are major suppliers of oil to Beijing. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lacks the background and the knowledge necessary for a sophisticated Middle East policy or for credible power projection thousands of miles from Chinese shores.

After the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. policymakers hoped to forget about the Middle East and yearned to focus on peer competitors: Russia and China. But the Middle East has the gravitational force of a black hole: it pulls great powers back in.

In the global conflict with the Moscow-Beijing-Tehran axis, the American superpower needs to walk and chew gum: it needs to support Ukraine while giving Israel the window to eradicate Hamas terrorists and deter Iran. Both China and Russia do not have the military power, especially naval and air assets, to credibly dethrone the United States as the dominant actor in the Middle East—if America has the political will and leadership to stay the course. If Iran does not heed warnings from Washington and unleashes the Hezbollah dogs of war, causing unacceptable damage to Israeli civilians, it needs to be severely punished, and its nuclear program, military posture, and possibly oil terminals destroyed. The kleptocratic Shia jihadi dictatorship is unlikely to survive this. That will be the message Moscow and Beijing will not be able to ignore.

Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the Atlantic Council, Managing Director of the Energy, Growth, and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center, and author of Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Could Hezbollah Destroy Israel?

Maya Carlin — November 3, 2023

As Israel enters its 28th day of warfare against Hamas, analysts are growing more concerned that other regional actors could expand and, therefore, prolong the crisis. Skirmishes between Israel’s Defense Forces and the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah have increased since Hamas waged its brutal surprise attack against the Jewish state. Since October 7, the Iranian-backed terror group has lost several dozen militants to Israeli strikes along the shared border.

For the first time on Sunday, Hezbollah debuted its surface-to-air missile capability for the first time when it claimed to have shot down an Israeli drone. Obviously, the group’s weapons arsenal is only growing and advancing.

Since the last Lebanese-Israeli war in 2006, the terror organization has had ample time to expand its capabilities and secure more fighting essentials from Tehran. Now that tensions between Hezbollah and Israel are mounting, an all-out war is considered a real possibility.

Introducing Hezbollah

Like many of Iran’s regional proxy groups, Hezbollah was a product of exploitation. In the middle of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp founded the organization to better export the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary principles abroad. Domestic chaos during this period resulted from the emergence of terror groups, international failures, and widespread sectarian violence. Tehran took advantage of the power vacuum created from this instability. Under the guise of fighting against the “Zionist” and “imperialist” occupation of Lebanon at the time, Hezbollah was able to recruit Lebanese Shi’ite Muslims, who received scores of funding, training and assistance from the IRGC.

Since Hezbollah’s founding, the IRGC has been able to deeply entrench itself into all aspects of Lebanon’s polity. From the shadow economies it controls to the social services it provides, the terror-designated group is deeply embedded in the country. According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Hezbollah seizes between $500-$1 billion annually from Lebanon’s economy.

With this stolen wealth coupled with support from the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah has been able to amass a concerning weapons arsenal over the years. Even back in 2010, then-U.S. defense Secretary was quoted asserting that “We are now at the point where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world.” While the terror group had only fought Israel from within its borders at this time, Hezbollah would later deploy to Syria to support the rule of authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad. As an Iranian proxy group, Hezbollah has the same objective as Hamas- eliminate the world’s sole Jewish state. In fact, on October 7, Hezbollah said it was in “direct contact with the leadership of the Palestinian resistance.”

Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal is deadly

Considering the depth of Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal, a full-scale war along Lebanon’s shared border with Israel would be deadly for both sides. The terror group possesses a wide variety of weapons, including stockpiles of rockets and guided missiles which can travel distances of over 300 kilometers while carrying 500-kilogrm payloads. Additionally, Hezbollah’s air defense systems, combat drones and anti-ship cruise missiles could enable the group to mount a coastal blockade of the Jewish state down the line. As detailed in a Politico piece, “The rocket attacks against Israel by Hamas since October 7 would be a light summer shower compared to the deluge Hezbollah could bring down on towns and cities across Israel.”

Analysts predict Hezbollah has roughly 150,000 rockets and missiles, making the terror group the most heavily armed non-state actor across the planet. The advancement of the group’s arsenal over the years mirrors the evolution of other Iranian-backed groups in the region. The Yemen-based Houthi rebels have reportedly worked alongside its Lebanese affiliates to strengthen rocket development and launch divisions. Existing Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Syria also indicate that the spread of technology and more lethal weapons contribute to Hezbollah’s evolution.

Due to Hezbollah’s arsenal and the willingness of other Iranian-linked groups in the region to join a war effort if one arises, a victory for the IDF in a potential northern war would result in many deaths.

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.

How the U.S. Economy Could Slip Into a Recession

Milton Ezrati — November 3, 2023

Recent economic news signals strength, at least on the surface. Retail sales for the last few months have surpassed expectations and outpaced inflation. Mainly because of the strong consumer, the nation’s recently released gross domestic product (GDP) showed a robust annual real growth rate of 4.9 percent for the summer quarter. This news has changed opinions among economists. According to the Wall Street Journal, the consensus of economists has dismissed the once widely-held expectation of recession. Given the poor forecasting record of consensus thought, this shift of opinion should, at the very least, raise red warning flags. Indeed, behind the bright headlines, the economic landscape warns against a too-glib dismissal of future financial trouble.

Federal Reserve (Fed) policy constitutes one bit of that worrisome economic typography. Monetary policymakers show no sign of relenting in their anti-inflation efforts. They may pause in raising interest rates further than they already have, but they have indicated that there still may be rate hikes in the future, and at the very least, they will keep rates elevated until they are sure that inflationary pressures have firmly returned to the Fed’s preferred rate of 2 percent a year. That is a long way from where things are today. If that were not enough to give optimists pause, policymakers have no doubt noted how GDP inflation actually accelerated during the third quarter to a 3.5 percent annual rate, up from an otherwise comforting 1.7 percent in the spring quarter. The seeming recent economic strength might also embolden the Fed’s inflation-fighting efforts by offering policymakers security against recession. While such Fed responses do not guarantee recession, they certainly give no reason to look for ongoing economic strength.

Nor is there a reason for much economic optimism in the ongoing slow pace of new capital spending. The recent GDP report that has otherwise lifted spirits in the economics community also included news of an actual decline in capital spending by American businesses and industries. The whole sector showed only a tiny drop of 0.1 percent at an annual rate, but it is particularly worrisome that spending on new equipment fell at a 3.8 percent annual rate. This extends the average 1.3 percent real drop of the past four quarters. Since much of the technology industry and business applies is embodied in the new equipment it buys, this shortfall says nothing good about the nation’s developing productive capacity or productivity growth. Nor does it help that direct spending on technology—what the Commerce Department calls “intellectual property products”—has slowed dramatically over the past three quarters.

Moreover, there is good reason in the mix of consumer spending to doubt the durability of the consumer “splurge” at the root of all the good news. The Commerce Department notes that the bulk of recent spending came from outlays on durable goods, things like cars, and household appliances. Spending in this area jumped at a remarkable 7.6 percent annual rate in the third quarter, far surpassing a little over 3 percent growth in spending on nondurable goods and services. Since these sorts of goods last for a while, surges in spending on them are almost always followed by a spending ebb. This expectation of a coming ebb receives reinforcement from households’ typical response to inflation. When prices are rising quickly—and they continue to do so even if not as fast as a year or so ago—households will buy sooner than they otherwise might to get ahead of expected price increases. Goods that last over time—durables—are especially attractive in this inflation-beating game. But again, because the stuff people buy lasts, the surge from this motivation, as well, is usually followed by an ebb.

Continued strong consumer spending also seems vulnerable to the deteriorating state of household finances. Inflation, according to all indicators, has outstripped household income growth for three years running. Real household income, according to the Commerce Department, has actually declined over the past two years. Yet real spending has held up, especially in recent months. Consumers have managed this trick by cutting back on flows into savings they might otherwise have made. Those flows have dropped from 8.5 percent of after-tax income in the third quarter of 2021 to barely 3.8 percent in this year’s third quarter. Households could squeeze savings even more. They have saved at lower rates in the past. But there is clearly a limit at which point the “splurging” will have to stop. And it is not very far away.

Presently, thoughts of recession have receded under a tremendous flow of good economic headlines. Those headlines, however, do not tell the whole story, which is not nearly so sunny. It would be a mistake to dismiss the prospect of economic trouble sometime soon—even recession.

Milton 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 books are Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live, and Bite-Sized Investing.

Image: Shutterstock.

Merkava: Israel's Secret Weapon to Crush Hamas?

Maya Carlin — November 3, 2023

Earlier this week, Israel launched its largest raid into the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. The Israel Defense Forces published photos of the overnight incursion, showing main battle tanks, infantry, and armored engineering units.

Although limited in scope, the operation resulted in the deaths of many Hamas terrorists, according to Israel’s military. The raid’s purpose was to gain more comprehensive intelligence on the territory, although Hamas can always change its approach as time passes before a full-scale invasion. Israeli officials have vowed to completely eliminate Hamas from Gaza, which will only be possible with an all-out war waged from land, sea, and air.

Introducing the Merkava

Leading Israel’s armored corps is the Merkava MBT. For over forty years, this formidable series of tanks has been the backbone of Israel’s army.

The Merkava was conceptualized as a means for Israel to limit its dependence on foreign manufacturers for its survival. In the mid-1970s, the Jewish state was set to embark on a joint tank-development initiative with the United Kingdom that would have provided Israel with Chieftain tanks. This effort was nixed, forcing Israel’s armored corps to look inward for land-based protection.

The Merkava was designed with crew protection as its top priority. Thick-spaced armor and a reversed engine-transmission position were installed on the original Merkava, helping to keep personnel losses down in combat. Additionally, the Merkava’s engineers created more space in the tank’s rear, increasing storage capacity and access to enemy fire for operators.

The atypical Merkava design is a proven asset for Israel’s armored corps. As detailed by Forbes, “A top-down strike on the front of the hull at best destroys the tank’s engine and immobilizes it. A strike on the back of the turret, on the bustle, tends to ignite the ammo stored there. But the ensuing secondary explosion occurs outside the turret, not inside, where the crew is. All that is to say, the Merkava is better-protected from top-down drone attacks than other tank types are. It’s not invulnerable, of course. But a drone strike on a Merkava is far more likely to immobilize the tank and spare the crew than it is to take out both the tank and the crew.”

Newer Merkava Powerhouses

Successive variants of the Merkava have incorporated several new technologies. Upgrades include AI multi-touch screens and the kind of advanced helmets that are often associated with fighter jet pilots. The Elbit helmets display critical battlefield information to the tank’s crew members, generating “an image that enables the crew to see through the vehicle’s armor,” according to the helmet’s manufacturer.

Another key addition incorporated by more recent Merkava variants is the Trophy active protection system. Able to defend the tank against anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, the Trophy system can locate a threat before intercepting it, giving the tank enough time to return fire. The Trophy frees Merkava operators to act more offensively on the battlefield.

Hamas releases video of ‘destroyed’ Merkava:

While footage of Israel’s limited raids into Gaza remain sparse, Hamas has released a clip showing an attack on a Merkava. In the roughly 60-second video, a terrorist is seen hiding in the bushes and popping out as a Merkava moves by. The terrorist is then seen firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the tank’s hull before running away. Once the RPG is fired, a bright explosion is seen. While Hamas claims this is evidence of the tank’s destruction, the explosion might have been caused by the Trophy system activating and blasting the RPG round out of the air prior to impact.

All Images are Creative Commons.

The Federal Reserve's Interest Rate Hikes Are Now Done

Desmond Lachman — November 3, 2023

There is some good news and some bad news about today’s weaker-than-expected jobs report number.

The good news is that the Federal Reserve is probably done with its aggressive interest rate hiking cycle. That means we can expect considerable mortgage and auto-loan interest rate relief and less competition from high interests to stock market valuations. The bad news is that the weak jobs number is likely an indication of a rapidly slowing US economy that could be well on its way to an economic recession in the first half of next year.

One of the characteristics of today’s Federal Reserve is that it is highly data-dependent in making its interest rate decisions. That is to say, it makes its decisions to raise interest rates largely on the basis of whether the most recent inflation data show that inflation is picking up and whether the most recent jobs and wage data show that the labor market is continuing to be tight. In behaving in this way, the Fed effectively pays little heed to Milton Friedman’s teaching that monetary policy operates with long and variable lags of anywhere between 12 to 18 months.

At this week’s press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was at pains to indicate that the Fed thought that inflation was running too high and that the Fed was keeping open the option to raise interest rates at the next Fed meeting. Today’s weaker-than-expected jobs numbers make it very unlikely that the Fed will raise interest rates at its next policy meeting. Not only did the pace of job gains slow dramatically from 300,000 in September to 150,000 in October, but the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent, and the year-over-year pace of wage growth slowed to 4.0 percent.

The financial markets have welcomed this news as indicated by their driving market interest rates considerably lower. They now consider only a very low probability that the Fed will raise interest rates again this year while they anticipate that the Fed will start cutting interest rates next year. This has now induced the markets to drive the all-important 10-year Treasury bond rate down from a recent high of 5 percent to something in the region of 4.5 percent. That in turn should provide considerable relief to home buyers, who will no longer have to pay 8 percent interest rates on their mortgages.

Since March 2022, the Fed has raised interest rates by 5 ¼ percentage points. That has constituted the most aggressive interest rate hiking cycle in the post-war period. In addition, after having allowed the broad money supply to balloon by a cumulative 40 percent between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021, the Fed has now allowed the broad money supply to contract by around 3 percent. Such a broad money supply contraction is unprecedented since the Fed started publishing this data in 1959.

The bad news about today’s weaker than expected jobs numbers is that they might be an early warning sign that the Fed has engaged in monetary policy overkill to regain inflation control. It is not simply that the pace of job growth, which itself is a lagging economic indicator, has halved in a single month. It is that this has occurred at a time when the full effects of the last year’s monetary policy tightening and of the recent sharp tightening in monetary conditions are yet to be felt.

A source of comfort in today’s numbers is that the Fed is now likely to do less damage to the economy than it might otherwise have done by another interest rate hike. While the Fed is highly unlikely to cut interest rates anytime soon, at least it will not raise interest rates further. That should provide welcome relief to automobile and home buyers. It should also reduce the risk of another financial crisis that could be caused by a wave of loan defaults especially in the commercial real estate space.

About the Author

American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Desmond Lachman was 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.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Evolution of Terror Financing in Kashmir

Abhinav Pandya — November 3, 2023

For any counter-terrorism expert, including practitioners and academic experts, the field of terror financing has been a subject matter of great interest from both academic and operational points of view. Until 9/11, the main focus in counter-terrorism was on kinetic measures, which included intelligence-based military operations, covert operations, and full-scale military campaigns against the terrorist groups in their strongholds in Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine, and Kashmir.

However, the 9/11 attacks revealed a truly international and global face of terrorism, following which emerged a keen interest in the financing of terrorist organizations and operations. Post 9/11, the main focus of international efforts in countering terror financing and money laundering was on asset freezing and blocking the formal methods of moving money through banks and money service businesses. However, groups like Al Qaeda responded by shifting to informal means of moving cash like Hawala—an informal method of money transfers. Further, after fifteen years of war against terror financing, the Islamic State emerged as a far more lethal terrorist group in 2014. The so-called “Caliphate” controlled a vast territorial expanse and a diverse range of funding sources, questioning the efficacy of the global counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering regime. Hence, terrorist groups continue to improvise and innovate and manage to find ways to raise and move money. In this context, a conflict theatre that presents a classic case of one of the most complex and refined systems of terror financing is India’s Jammu and Kashmir.

Notably, Jammu and Kashmir is a territory contested by India and Pakistan and has reeled under Pakistan-sponsored terrorism for the last three decades. Over time, since the formal beginning of a violent separatist and Islamist insurgency in 1990, Pakistan has created a highly complex, sophisticated, and layered system of terror financing. However, this subject has so far eluded the watchful eyes of the global counter-terrorism community.

Kashmir’s terror financing landscape presents a classic example of how sustained efforts of three-plus decades in running Islamist militancy have successfully created a highly evolved structure and mechanism of terror funding, ensuring that the sinews of the insurgency ecosystem are not only held intact but strengthened in such a manner to be self-sustaining.

First Phase: 1990–96

In the early 1990s, funds were primarily sent through cash couriers. Since the border was porous, it was convenient to cross the Line of Control (the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir or LoC) to deliver cash inside the Indian territory from where the local handlers collected it. Besides, Jamaat-e-Islami, a Pakistan-supported separatist and Islamist group, collected money through donations and, in several cases, extortion. Most of these efforts were scattered and without central coordination. Initially, Pakistan’s strategic planners had not expected to get a robust response to their proxy war strategy; however, witnessing the massive interest among the youth in joining terrorist groups, they decided to create a proper system, including the financial modules, to run militancy.

As a result, a political separatist entity, the Hurriyat Conference, was created in 1993 by amalgamating twenty-six secessionist parties. Each one of them had a military wing. Hence, the money was needed to run Hurriyat’s offices, pay its cadres, finance its publicity and media operations, and enable foreign travel. In parallel, existing extremist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami and terrorist groups like Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM) and Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) needed funds. By 1993, new terrorist groups emerged, such as Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen. These groups, unlike Hizbul and JKLF, had a firm Pakistani control and religious nature. HuM was a Deobandi terrorist group with strong connections with like-minded groups in Afghanistan. They all needed funds to buy weapons, maintain “over-ground workers” (OGWs), and execute terrorist operations.

With the expansion of militancy, terror funding was also becoming specialized and systematic. Funds came to be centrally distributed from Pakistan and primarily routed through the Hurriyat and the commanders of terrorist groups. Along with cash, narcotics smuggling became a potent method of raising and moving money. As the operational demands increased, more money was needed. However, Indian agencies were firmly pressed into action against terrorism, which made transferring large amounts of cash a very challenging task. Hence, the terrorist organizations started funneling drugs through terrorist cadres and couriers who infiltrated the Indian side of Kashmir. A small packet of cocaine or heroin would sell for millions in the Indian and international markets. Hence, there was no need to carry large amounts of cash.

Second Phase: 1996–2005

By 1996, the Indian security forces had almost crushed the first wave of militancy in Kashmir. The year 1996 also saw state-level elections in Kashmir, bringing Dr. Farukh Abdullah, the leader of the mainstream political party National Conference, back as the chief minister of the state. However, Pakistan was determined to continue its asymmetric war against India due to the latter’s conventional military superiority. During this phase, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and the beginning of the U.S. “War on Terror” after 9/11 emboldened Islamabad to continue the proxy war against India with more rigor and enthusiasm. New terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which were under the firm grip of Pakistani intelligence, entered Kashmir’s terror scene.

When Indian security forces tightened the noose on infiltration and drug smuggling, Islamabad decided to improvise on many fronts. There were several cases of drug recovery from the militants, which led to significant losses. After that, Pakistan-based terror groups separated the drug channels from the terrorist infiltration and weapons smuggling channels to keep the former safe. Secondly, Hawala came to be used as an essential means of routing terror money. Now, the terror financing machinery was not merely confined to the hilly and porous borders of Jammu and Kashmir. The Hawala funds were being routed through West Asian countries, and in India, cities like Mumbai and Delhi became the financial hubs for Kashmir terrorism.

Third Phase: 2005–

By 2005, India had completed the border fencing and robust counter-infiltration grid. Hence, it became difficult to infiltrate and smuggle drugs and weapons through the LoC. In this phase, militants innovated new methods to raise funds. Raising money by selling medical seats was one such unique and novel means. The separatist leaders of Hurriyat and Jamaat recommend Kashmiri students to medical and engineering colleges in Pakistan. Each leader is allotted a certain number of seats. After the candidates show the recommendation letters from separatist leaders at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, they get the visa, admission, and other relevant documents. The selected students pay the capitation, accommodation, and tuition fees to separatist leaders in Kashmir. The amount ranges from INR 1 million to 2.5 million. This amount is distributed among the various terrorist and separatist groups as per the directions from Islamabad. In Pakistan, the state agencies bear the expenses of the selected students. These students also act as messengers and OGWs for terrorist groups. This method is still in use, though post-2019, the Government of India has introduced some checks by invalidating the degrees awarded in Pakistan-based medical and engineering institutions.

Another method that continues to be practiced is raising money through Hajj tours and travels. In almost every big and small city in Kashmir, there are hundreds of travel agencies that render services of arranging Hajj and Umra visits for the locals. The amount charged per person ranges from INR 150,000 to INR 300,000, which is then sent to a select few OGWs and coordinators, who in turn send it to separatist leaders and terrorist commanders. In Saudi Arabia, the expenses of the Kashmiri pilgrims are borne by individuals working for Pakistani agencies. While coming back, the pilgrims are asked to carry the gold within the permissible limits. After their return, the gold is taken from them and sold to raise funds, which are then sent to terrorist and separatist groups.

In the second phase, terrorist organizations used the LoC trade to smuggle weapons, cash, and drugs. This route was used to fund the state-wide public unrest in 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2016. In 2019, after the Pulwama fidayeen attack, the LoC trade was banned by India.

It is also pertinent to mention that this timeline is not separated into rigid water-tight compartments. The primary underlying idea is that terror financing methods in Kashmir have evolved in terms of diversity, scale, and innovation. The author discusses a range of other ways, such as over-invoicing and under-invoicing, money generated through Zakat and Usra (Islamic taxes), remittances and donations received from the diaspora, money generated by Islamic charities from domestic and international sources, mirror trading, direct allotment of funds by Pakistan’s intelligence, money raised by Jamaat through its schools, orphanages and facilitating government recruitments and appointments. With the advent and rapid rise of Ahl-i-Hadith in Kashmir in the 2000s, there was a massive influx of funds from the Arab world. The money, in turn, was spent on building ornate and lavish Salafi mosques. The Salafi Imams were paid a lot better than the Imams working in Barelwi/Etqadi mosques (Local version of Islam in Kashmir). These mosques became breeding grounds for producing highly radicalized and separatist individuals who were indoctrinated in global Islamism and extreme Wahhabi teachings. The products of Salafi madrasas and seminaries began to see Kashmir as a parallel conflict theatre with Palestine, Chechnya, Kosovo, and other international Islamist terror zones.

Terror Financing Portfolio: Diversity and Complexity

The author also analyzes at length the economics of the proxy war. A rough estimate based on field surveys and interviews suggested that Pakistan, on average, spends less than INR 250,000 to 300,000 million in producing one militant. In contrast, Indian security forces spend roughly INR 6 million to 7 million every day on counter-terror cordon and search operations in addition to spending vast amounts of money on narrative building and countering Pakistani narrative, maintaining a massive presence of armed forces, goodwill, and development projects, etc. The sheer difference between the figures mentioned above is sufficient to explain why Pakistan’s proxy war strategy is a robust way of bleeding India white.

Over time, the terror masterminds have devised new ways and investment fronts to sustain separatism and militancy. As the system evolved in complexity and scale, more investment for running separatist media, think tanks, organizing stone-pelting and protests, funding political parties and sustaining assets in police, administration, and judiciary, sustaining Islamist organizations like Jamaat-i-Islami, universities, schools, coaching centers, foreign trips of journalists and activists, information and narrative war. Another interesting feature of terror financing that emerged in Kashmir was the major involvement of mainstream institutions of politics, administration, banking, academics, and media in the terror financing dragnet. Mainstream institutions, in fact, became a crucial part of this illegal system.

The terror masterminds based in Pakistan and their state sponsors created an intricate world of terror financing, developing stakes for everyone in it, including the elites like separatist leaders, politicians, militant commanders, and ordinary middle-class individuals, who found various ways to use the terror funding dragnet to earn extra money. A whole illegal economy developed in parallel to the legal one.

So far, this subject has remained unexplored because of the fragile security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, preventing researchers from venturing into the conflict and interviewing key fighters and stakeholders. The absence of any systematic research in this field explains the paucity of data in the open domain and academic literature; hence, it had to be overcome with extensive fieldwork, which the author has accomplished to bring a story to light that has not been adequately told before.

Dr. Abhinav Pandya is a founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation, an India-based geopolitical and security affairs think-tank, and the author of Radicalization in India: An Exploration.

His new book, Terror Financing in Kashmir, will go on sale in December.

Image: Shutterstock.

Rising Turan in the Steppes

Harun Karčić — November 3, 2023

The modern Turkic nations trace their origins back to historical Turkic peoples who dominated the Eurasian landmass during the Middle Ages and early modern times, reaching their apex in the sixteenth century when the Ottoman, Safavid, Baburid, and Mamluk Empires—all essentially Turkic dynasties—ruled much of the Old World. Their mutual relations were not always harmonious; rivalry and violent clashes were not uncommon.

Dreams of once again renewing past glory are still very much present. Pan-Turkism is the name given to the idea of uniting all Turkic-speaking peoples of the Caucasus, the Volga-Ural region, Crimea, and Western and Central Asia under the aegis of a greater Turkic state. In recent years, certain nations have begun presenting their culture as an alternative to Western “universal values” and rule-based global order. These “civilizational states,” like China and Russia, have developed narratives that depict their values as fundamentally different from, and inherently distinct to, that of the West. This is pretty much the line of thought exposed by the Organization of Turkic States (OTS).

Astana is set to host the tenth-anniversary summit of the Organization of Turkic States on November 3. The event will be a significant gathering of leaders from member and observer states to reinforce cooperation and mutual understanding among Turkic nations. Discussions during the event are expected to touch on a wide range of issues, including economic cooperation, cultural exchange, and regional stability. In addition to the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the heads of state of Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, the Chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty of Turkmenistan, and the Prime Minister of Hungary will also attend.

The current geopolitical tension and the resulting turbulence in world politics create new conditions for the growing importance of non-politicized and non-military organizations. Certain Turkic countries, such as Turkey and Kazakhstan, believe that the Organization of Turkic States could play such a role and provide Central Asian and Caucasian states with a much-needed “third option.” The OTS, covering over 173 million inhabitants, is a significant market. The total GDP of member states and observers is about $1.4 trillion. Geographically, it represents a vast region from Europe (Turkey, Hungary), the Caucasus (Azerbaijan), and the Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) to the borders of China. The blocking of certain transport arteries through the territories of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shed light on the OTS as a critical factor in establishing alternative transport and communication routes passing through Central Asia and the Caucasus with access to the Middle East and Europe.

The concept of leadership within the Turkic world is multifaceted, embracing cultural, economic, and geopolitical dimensions. Among the Turkic nations, Kazakhstan has emerged as a pivotal player, harboring the potential to ascend to the vanguard of the contemporary Turkic community. Although Turkey likes to float the idea as its own, the actual initiative for establishing the Turkic Council is unanimously ascribed to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was the only Head of State to have participated in all Turkic summits since 1992 until stepping aside.

Once the most Russified of the non-Slavic Soviet republics, Kazakhstan has strived to strike a balance between different powers and geopolitical interests. Its multi-vector foreign policy has been instrumental in serving the nation’s economic interests as well as avoiding tensions with neighbors. Endowed with abundant reserves of natural resources, including oil, gas, and minerals, the country has leveraged its resource wealth to foster economic growth and diversification. This evolution has been a cornerstone of its rising influence within the Turkic world and improving relations with the European Union. Astutely navigating the global market, Kazakhstan has cemented its position as a regional economic powerhouse, fostering stability and growth within the Central Asian region. The successful management of its vast energy resources, coupled with strategic investments in infrastructure and technology, has bolstered Kazakhstan’s potential to lead the Turkic world economically.

The Organization of Turkic States has made strides to take unanimous political positions. Member states have adopted a collective perspective on various regional issues, such as the Afghanistan crisis, the Kazakhstan unrest, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflicts, and the Kyrgyz-Tajik border issue. Another primary objective of the alliance is to establish a logistical link between Turkic states by empowering the Trans-Caspian East-West-Middle Corridor and merging with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. With this objective, member states have the collective political and economic clout to challenge Beijing’s influence in Central Asia.

Much of the long-term plan of the OTS is codified in the Turkic World 2040 Vision document, which outlines how the Turkic organization will harness member states’ collective resources and become a force to reckon with on the global stage. Only time will tell whether this vision will succeed or not. But apart from external influence, internal issues may also compromise the goal of the OTS. Some member states have questioned Ankara’s leading role in the union. However, it seems that by cooperating, Central Asian leaders seek agency in a shifting geopolitical and economic landscape.

Differing from the emotional sloganeering of pan-Turkists, this integration within the Organization of Turkic States seems to be carried out in a coolheaded, pragmatic, and businesslike manner. This tendency constitutes the raison d'être of the then Turkic Council, which, in the words of Halil Akinci, the founding Secretary-General of the organization, has become the first voluntary alliance of Turkic states in history.

Central Asian leaders have been playing a difficult game in maintaining this “multi-vector” friends-with-all foreign policy alignment—especially in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, where they’re trying to keep their vital economic relationship with Russia while also trying to avoid running afoul of sanctions against Russia. The region, after all, relies on Russia as a trading partner, as a destination for migrant laborers, and for transporting its hydrocarbons to market.

The fact that the geostrategic context of Eurasia, as well as the global tectonic shifts, including the rise of regionalization, call for strengthened bonds, cooperation, and coordination, does not ensure that the right strategy and policies will be implemented. Turkic integration must be buttressed by sound intellectual groundwork, effective structures, and appropriately educated and motivated domestic and international bureaucracies.

For now, the dream of a union of Turkic nations remains a chimera, but the strength of business and political ties within the region augurs well for its future. Increasing regional solidarity and coordination makes succeeding in this more likely. Regardless of how the conflict in Ukraine ends or how the situation in Afghanistan develops, these Turkic states stand a better chance together than as rivals.

Harun Karčić is a journalist and political analyst covering the Balkans and Turkey. Over the past decade, he has authored numerous articles on Islam and foreign influence in the region, including Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, and more recently Chinese and Russian. He also regularly reports on Muslim minorities in Europe and rising right-wing nationalism. He tweets @HarunKarcic.

Image: Shutterstock.

Aid to Ukraine and Israel is Connected

Luis Fleischman — November 3, 2023

President Joe Biden’s October 20 speech tying together support for Ukraine and Israel as a battle for the fate of democracy is spot on. The war in Ukraine, like the conflict in the Middle East, is about what kind of ideas will prevail globally.

In the early 2000’s the enemy was radical Islam after Al Qaeda carried out the deadly 9/11 attacks. As President Bush’s Administration fell in disarray and Barack Obama won the bid for the White House, the topic of radical Islam began to fade away. Yet, as ISIS began its monstrous operations in Iraq and Syria, the United States redirected its attention to Islamist terror. However, Obama later signed a nuclear agreement with Iran that did not include Iran’s support for terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, Russia, which focused on radical Islam as it crushed the separatist movement in Chechnya, has turned to counteract NATO expansion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics.

Thus, Russia proceeded to invade Crimea and afterward invaded Ukraine to prevent it from shifting to NATO and the West.

Furthermore, Russia is part of an anti-American alliance with China and ominous countries such as Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Iran supplied Shahid kamikaze drones to Russia. North Korea is in the process of providing weapons to Russia.

Russia also systematically supports parties, groups, and Western governments that oppose liberal democracy. Russia has strong ties to the illiberal Viktor Orban in Hungary and non-liberal parties in Europe, including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, and others.

Russia has expanded its influence in Latin America by building alliances with and providing weapons to dictatorships such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua and launching a disinformation campaign against the United States.

As part of Russia’s global agenda, Moscow submitted a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and did not condemn Hamas’ atrocities in Southern Israel. Furthermore, Russia condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Russia wants to weaken the West and liberal democracy. Therefore, it politically supported Hamas. Likewise, as violence in the Middle East escalated, Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov visited Iran after stopping in China and North Korea.

This is precisely why Russia must not be victorious in Ukraine. If the United States wants to continue to play a role in shaping the global arena and liberal democracy, the United States and Europe must help Ukraine survive and not allow Russia to occupy more territory beyond Crimea. For the time being, there is no reason to end the war. Current attempts in the U.S. Congress to reduce or cut aid to Ukraine are counterproductive for the morale of Ukrainian fighters and for America’s global agenda.

Luis Fleischman, Ph.D., is co-founder of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy & Policy Research, professor of Social Sciences at Palm Beach State College, and the author of the book Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Security Threat to the United States.

Image: Creative Commons.

In the Gaza Tunnels, Israel Is in for the Fight of a Lifetime

Christopher Morris — November 3, 2023

Amid fears of yet another long war in the region, Israel has now begun its ground campaign in Gaza. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has already claimed several successes in its three-week campaign, including the elimination of several terrorist leaders including Ibrahim Biari, who it described as a “ringleader” of the October 7 attacks, and liberating at least one hostage held by Hamas.

But Israel’s military commanders will know that this is unlikely to be a simple operation. Among the factors complicating their mission of eliminating Hamas is the “Gaza Metro”, a vast network of interconnected tunnels within the region. Having invested heavily in subterranean infrastructure over the years, Hamas is counting on this network to aid its survival in the coming weeks.

Underground engineering has a long history in warfare. From antiquity to Vietnam, a range of groups have used tunnels to gain an advantage.

Not only can they provide concealment and freedom of movement, but they also present a range of challenges for the attacking force – they can be hardened against any attacks from the surface. Storming underground networks can also be prohibitively difficult for an attacker, given the limited space available.

Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t. For instance, the threat posed by western airpower caused Islamic State (IS) to construct a large network of tunnels. These tunnels made surveillance and airstrikes difficult and were riddled with traps, making capture by ground forces dangerous and difficult.

These benefits only really work if the tunnels are defended, of course, which wasn’t always the case. For instance, in the 2015 battle for Sinjar, the majority of IS fighters were long gone by the time Kurdish land forces arrived to liberate the city.

Established network

Hamas’s tunnel network presents a unique problem for the IDF. There have been tunnel networks in Gaza for years. Initially used for smuggling, they were quickly turned towards offensive uses, playing a role in kidnapping and weapons storage.

The Hamas subterranean networks really began to evolve after 2012, when restrictions were lifted on the importing of building materials to the region. The militant group was able to redirect construction supplies away from civilian infrastructure projects to expand its underground presence.

While the tunnels vary in quality, many are well equipped and hardened, and deep enough to evade detection by ground penetrating radar.

Unsurprisingly, key Hamas allies, including Iran are boasting about the Gaza Metro. The network provides the group with a haven and a means to move around the region unobserved.

It places leadership and organisational infrastructure out of reach from air attacks. The system is laden with supplies as well as weapons and fuel.

Defended, booby-trapped and likely to be populated with human shields and hostages as well as fighters, they will be challenging for even a well-equipped and capable attacking force.

Yet, if not addressed, Hamas may continue to operate irrespective of what happens on the surface. Indeed, as many of the tunnels lead across the border, there is a risk of further incursions, rocket strikes and attacks on IDF forces. And, given the heavily urbanised nature of Gaza, much of the network is beneath civilian infrastructure, which further complicates Israeli operations.

Hamas is a proficient and prolific user of tunnels. But in honing its expertise, the group has also provided Israeli forces with a decades-long crash course in how to deal with their underground operations.

In addition to their own experience with Hamas tunnels, the IDF can also draw upon lessons from the war on terror, where coalition forces had to contend with both natural and purpose-built tunnels, and even US experiences with drug cartels burrowing on their southern border with Mexico.

Bitter experience

While Hamas is counting on its tunnels to cause problems, Israel already has a range of solutions. It has already gained valuable experience in underground operations, having learned hard lessons from the past. A range of innovative purpose-built technologies and strategies can be used to provide the IDF with a technological edge.

Some are simple, such as flooding tunnels with sewage, whereas others are more complex, involving specialised engineering. Some solutions, such as ground-penetrating explosives, might be difficult to use, given the presence of civilians.

Israel has known about the tunnels for a long time and is taking them seriously. Recent operations suggest that the time spent training for this exact scenario is going to pay off, at least to a certain extent.

But dealing with a network of more than 300 miles is still going to represent a massive challenge, and storming or blocking off every part of the system is probably impossible.

Bitter experience has taught Israel most of Hamas’s tactics already – but this does not mean that the group doesn’t have more tricks up its sleeve. Hamas’s recent offensive success was rooted in the way it used a number of relatively low-level capabilities in concert.

For instance, paragliders, ground assaults and rockets only have a limited impact when used individually, but together, were used to devastating effect on October 7.

Now Hamas will be hoping for the same degree of success when acting on the defensive. Depending on how Israel chooses to deal with the issue, they may find their ground forces bogged down in slow-moving subterranean activity, or risk heavy civilian casualties if they simply choose to bomb or collapse the tunnels.

Almost any solution Israel chooses can be turned into a Hamas advantage: both in military and political terms.

Ultimately Israel has no perfect solution to the complex problem posed by the Hamas underground network. But years of dealing with the Hamas Metro means the IDF is not entirely unequipped to confront the challenge.

It seems inevitable that the next days and weeks will be a bitter and bloody struggle, both in the streets of Gaza and as deep as 70 metres below ground.

Christopher Morris is a Teaching Fellow, in the School of Strategy, Marketing, and Innovation at the University of Portsmouth.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

For Russia and Ukraine, Winter Could Be Their Fiercest Enemy Yet

Marina Miron — November 2, 2023

As the bitter cold of winter settles in and temperatures drop to between -4,8 and 2°C, both Ukrainian and Russian troops are preparing for a new phase of the war.

Freezing temperatures can hamper the performance of weapons and equipment. Ammunition can lose responsiveness and accuracy, meaning more is required. Wear and tear of equipment increases and battery life decreases, leading to increased maintenance, which is also more difficult in wintertime.

Drones, especially smaller ones such as the DJI Mavic series which Ukrainian troops are using, become harder to operate in low temperatures and wind or snow, reducing surveillance capabilities.

But these conditions can also limit the movement and use of heavy equipment, such as tanks and (especially towed) artillery. This can directly affect military operations as mobility is crucial in warfare, so that the troops can advance or retreat. Winter weather risks locking down the frontlines.

Frostbite risks

Winter landscapes, snow and lack of foliage require new types of camouflage to prevent detection by enemy forces. Another limiting factor in winter is the risk of frostbite and hypothermia among soldiers.

Aside from physical effects, wet and cold can also affect the morale of the troops. While this is a psychological factor, its importance should not be underestimated as low morale can lead to decreased battle effectiveness.

To avoid this, undertaking preparatory measures for both personnel and equipment is essential, as this may go a long way to determining success in winter campaigns. This includes not only switching to winter uniforms, but training for operating in winter as well as preparing the equipment for colder temperatures.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has declared that his country is prepared to continue military operations during the winter. Russian officials have stated that they are also prepared for winter warfare, with defence minister Sergei Shoigu visiting the Russian troops stationed in southern Donetsk to examine troop readiness.

For Ukraine, perhaps the biggest difficulties include not only the relative cold but the country’s damaged energy infrastructure. This can have a profound impact on military operations as, for instance, lack of electricity could undermine everything from communications to the operational capacity of field hospitals. This is why Zelensky stressed the need to install more air defences to prevent the Russians from destroying Ukraine’s energy grid.

If the energy infrastructure is protected, the Ukrainian side claims it does not foresee any difficulties. The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, claimed that winter would not affect either the Ukrainian or Russian sides, as they were both used to it.

The commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the Southern Front, Alexander Tarnavsky, echoed Budanov’s statement, suggesting that the Ukrainian forces are mostly moving on foot without heavy equipment, which is why the weather will have little effect on their operations.

And while rain and snow could potentially impede the mobility of heavy machinery such as tanks, Ukrainian troops have demonstrated their effectiveness primarily when working in small infantry detachments, often using lighter equipment.

However, some analysts believe that the winter is going to be a test for Ukrainians’ national will.

Russia has dedicated significant effort to ensuring that Russian troops can operate in extreme temperatures. For many years, they have been deploying to the Arctic to conduct cold-weather exercises. The topic of winter warfare is also widely discussed within official military publications, including the Armeyskii Sbornik (the Military Collection journal).

Meanwhile, the Russian ministry of defence is distributing information related to procedures and timeframes for preparing weapons and military equipment for seasonal operations.

Given that the Russians dedicate a considerable amount of attention to combat-readiness when it comes to winter warfare, and that Ukraine is not nearly as cold as the Arctic, the conditions in Ukraine should not be an impediment to Russian troops continuing their military operations.

Significant winter battles

Winter battles have taken place throughout history, with significant battles taking place under the leadership of Greek military leaders Xenophon and Alexander the Great, for instance.

More recently, the Soviet Union in particular demonstrated its ability to wage war successfully in winter. During the Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet troops endured extreme cold temperatures, scarcity of supplies and constant German attacks.

Notwithstanding these challenges, they managed to turn the tide of the war and eventually achieve victory. Stalingrad’s winter war has left a huge imprint on the Russian historical memory

Both western and Russian analysts expect that during the winter, both sides will use long-range strikes on critical infrastructure and supply routes far behind the front line. But how this will play out on the battlefield and where the main battles will take place remains to be seen.

One possibility is that the Ukrainians will continue pushing toward Tokmak in the Zaporizhzhia province and try to encircle Bakhmut, while the Russians maintain pressure on the important centres of Kupyansk, in the Kharkiv Oblast, and Avdiivka in eastern Donetsk. Ukraine will want to prevent the Russians from making any more territorial gains while trying to salvage its own counteroffensive, which some western sources say is failing.

But the future of this conflict will largely come down not to weather, but to political will and the availability of resources. For Ukraine, the crux will be military equipment and ammunition, while for Russia, it will be manpower – according to US estimates, as of August 2023, they have already lost some 120,000 troops.

Ultimately, the outcome of the winter operations in Ukraine will depend on the will of the opposing forces, and on the west’s ability, and willingness, to supply the Ukrainian side with the necessary quantities of ammunition. This might be a challenge with, for instance, US president Joe Biden struggling to get Ukraine funding through the House of Representatives, and the additional demands of an escalating war in the Middle East.

Marina Miron is a Post-doctoral Researcher at King's College London.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Even When Deep Diving, U.S. Special Forces Never Turn Down a Challenge

George Hand — November 2, 2023

My time as an instructor at the highly-regarded Combat Diver School in Key West, Florida never allowed for a single dull moment. During my time there, the manning roster allowed for one U.S. Army Ranger graduate of the academy, and three U.S. Navy SEALS – one lieutenant and two chief petty oﬃcers. The phenomenon of b*ll-breaking between the two branches was ever present and reared its head at all opportunities.

Military branches have a few traditions that are honored and exercised by their members – among them is the coin challenge. Each service member carries a coin representing his unit; the coin challenge calls for a service member to suddenly present his coin to his peers if asked, at which point his peers have to produce theirs. If someone fails to produce their coin, he must treat those who successfully produced theirs to a beer. Simple: if I show you my coin and you fail to show yours, you owe me a beer. Coin Challenge in full eﬀect!!

In the Unit, this is by far the most popular tradition and we carry our coins with great pride and aﬀection.

The Unit coin was typically the diameter of the Seiko G-shock watch, a device very popular among combat divers and a basic issue to the men of the Delta Force. It was proper etiquette to carry our coin between the watch’s band and face. Even sporting full naked-idity, most men had their watches on and therefore their coins at ready. It was even old hat to pull a coin check while in free-fall parachute operations. The men expected it to happen, so nobody failed to produce his coin.

Our SEALs at the Combat Diver School, Big Joe C. and John Paul (no kidding) Jones, were the first ones to introduce us to the coin check on our mandatory deep dives at 130 feet. On our first deep dive with Big, Big, (really big) Joe, he pulled out his coin at 130 feet and showed it to everyone; everyone showed him theirs, and there were no penalties to be paid.

On our next deep dive, John Paul Jones joined us while Big Joe remained at topside aboard our tender vessel. We entered the water and rallied around the dive buoy with a 130′ weighted rope tied oﬀ to it. We had to descend to 130’ and remain there for 10 minutes before ascending back to the surface.

“Have a good dive, ye there scurvy bilge rats!” shouted Big Joe from his coxswain’s position on the tender. “Beware ye of John Paul, as he has a strange registration at the high-pressure depth of 130’ – it is a strange and unexpected one, oh ye salty dogs!”

We wondered what Big Joe meant; we would just have to wait and see.

It took us approximately 135 seconds to descend to the 130’ depth, and there we huddled at the end of our rope (a-ha). John Paul promptly produced his precious coin; we all answered him back. There would be no beer penalties paid… other than by JPJ.

And then it happened.

(John Paul later attributed his behavior to the excess pressure on the body at deep depth.) He pulled back his dive shorts’ legs up high and over to one side, exposing his disgusting anus, and produced, much to all our chagrin, a formidable poop! Nary a single eyebrow among us remained unfurled.

From bow to stern she was a sea-worthy craft, aye. A full inch draft she touted, a full eight inches from bow to stern, and displacement all of a full pound of seawater – beware ye, mates! With no onboard system of propulsion, she kept speed with us in the incidental tidal current. The length of her stern boasted near a half cubit, and her breadth swelled abeam.

Oh monstrous, monstrous was the countenance that we bore.

“Who shall save us,” we pondered. “It should be captured and secured to the poop deck of our topside tender vessel!”

With that, the submersed demon drove in toward a diver’s mask in a tease of variable speed. The diver promptly and in all reflex batted it away that it might be the plight of yet another diver. The poop cruised first then dashed at flank speed at yet another stupefied diver who also lashed out at the fiend.

It then pin-balled among us six divers staring wildly at our watches for our no-saturation bottom time limit to be up – we knew at least JPJ’s bottom was up. It was only 10 minutes, though it seemed like an eternity.

“Eight minutes – only two more minutes remain until ascent!!”

We busied ourselves kicking like kangaroos and launching Muay Thai elbow strikes at the devil deuce, when to our horror it split in two at the thrust of a well-placed kick of a Rocket dive fin.

“There are too many!” I wailed, and we all in synchronicity motioned ourselves to an early ascent to the top of the rope. The turds initially followed our group as the force of our sudden departure drew the current up behind us. Ah, but then they released and sank out of sight, swirling in a Coriolis-eﬀected counterclockwise motion, straight toward Davy Jones’ locker where he too found himself thoroughly disenchanted by the unannounced caller.

“What the phuq, JP??” was the first lamentation expressed. I for one had new faith in any admonishment delivered by the sea-worthy Big Joe C., and never made another deep dive with that disgusting sea lackey John Paul Jones.

“Make your lubber back to shore post haste, Big Joe!” I called out.

“Aye-aye, was the aﬃrmation from the helm as a gentle sea-sprinkle lightly broke and politely ensued.

By almighty God and with honor,

geo sends

Master Sergeant George Hand, US Army (ret), from the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, The Delta Force. In service, he maintained a high level of proficiency in 6 foreign languages. Post military, George worked as a subcontracter for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on the nuclear test site north of Las Vegas Nevada for 16 years. Currently, George works as an Intelligence Analyst and street operative in the fight against human trafficking. A master cabinet-grade woodworker and master photographer, George is a man of diverse interests and broad talents.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Could the Mediterranean Be the Secret to Defeating Hamas in Gaza?

Jeff Goodson — November 2, 2023

The biggest problem confronting Israel in its war on Hamas is how to destroy the Gaza tunnel networks and the terrorist operations therein. Bombing works—mostly—but there’s a better way. Not only would it dramatically reduce Israeli military and Gazan civilian casualties, but it would effectively destroy the tunnel systems for the long term. That solution is to flood the tunnels with seawater from the adjacent Mediterranean.

I worked on the Gaza Strip back in the 1990s. The U.S. government was pouring tens of millions of tax dollars into development assistance there on engineering infrastructure, housing, and related projects. Part of reviewing that work on the ground involved tramping over much of the small territory on foot.

Gaza consists of a strip of beach, back beach, and coastal plain that’s flat to slightly rolling. The territory stretches for about twenty-five miles along the eastern Mediterranean. At its widest, in the south, it’s about seven and a half miles wide; most of it is far narrower, about half of that.

The Gaza tunnel system, mostly constructed over the last forty years, provides Hamas with offensive access to Israel. It also constitutes the terrorist organization’s most formidable defensive redoubt. The tunnels present by far the most difficult logistical problem for Israel in eliminating enemy targets. Open-source maps show at least eleven independent tunnel networks, some nearly adjacent to the sea. The number of independent networks, however, could far exceed that. Hamas claims that the total length of the tunnels is about three hundred miles.

The geography of Gaza argues strongly for the stratagem of flooding the tunnels. It would force the enemy above ground where they can more easily be destroyed, dramatically reduce the Israeli casualties required to accomplish that task and resolve the problem of dealing with parts of the tunnels that are too deep to destroy through bombing. Most importantly, flooding is a permanent or near-permanent solution to the Gaza tunnel problem. Once accomplished, pumping them out enough to be usable again would be both extremely costly and—especially in conjunction with bombing—exceptionally difficult. The timing of executing a flooding strategy is flexible; some could be flooded now, others later, and still others once they’re discovered.

The engineering is straightforward. Egypt flooded thirty-seven cross-border tunnels in southern Gaza back in 2015 in what stands as a practical proof of concept in this location. Seawater from the Mediterranean would be pumped directly into the tunnel openings through short pipelines. While there’s little hydrological head, there is also little topographical relief to deal with in laying the pipe. Large volumes of water are pumped long distances every day, and Israeli water technology is world class.

The shortest and most direct route to the tunnel entrances would be directly from the Mediterranean. This would require kinetic clearing of the construction sites and holding them for the duration of the operation to protect the temporary water transmission lines. The distance that would need to be cleared and held could be minimized on the northernmost and eastern tunnels by running a trunk line through adjacent Israeli territory and feeding water distribution lines to the tunnel entrances off that.

Flooding doesn’t have to be slow. A six-by-five-foot tunnel that runs 300 miles is a huge volume to fill, but how fast it fills depends on how fast the water is pumped. Rough calculations indicate that if a single pipe were used for each of eleven tunnels, with each pipe pumping at a very conservative 100 gallons per minute, it would take about seven and a half months for all eleven tunnel networks to fill. Pumping water at ten times that rate, however, is routinely done today everywhere from wastewater treatment plants to oil field operations. Also, the tunnels wouldn’t have to be filled to capacity to generate the desired effect. The effect would begin as soon as water started to flow; by the time a tunnel has two or three feet of water it would be effectively unusable.

The collateral damage to infrastructure should be minimal. The distances are short, the diameter of the required pipe is small, and the pipelines would run very close to the surface. As with the Egyptian tunnel operations, the impact of flooding on groundwater salinization would no doubt be raised. The extent of saltwater leakage through the tunnels into local groundwater would depend on the depth and construction of the tunnels and the configuration of the local aquifer. Gaza’s shallow aquifer is already over-depleted, however, and ninety-five percent of its groundwater was considered unfit for public consumption as far back as 2017. The reason is that it’s extensively contaminated with chemicals and sewage, as well as saltwater intrusion from the Mediterranean due to a long history of over pumping. Because of that, Gaza relies heavily on desalinization for potable water.

In the short term, think of flooding Gaza’s tunnels as humanitarian assistance. By eliminating the need to keep bombing them, flooding would reduce civilian casualties and other collateral damage. In the long term, think of denying Hamas access to the tunnels as an A2AD stratagem. At the end of the war, there can be no complete destruction of Hamas, nor long-term peace out of Gaza, unless and until the Gaza tunnels are taken out.

Jeff Goodson is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer. In 29 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development, he worked on the ground in 49 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, including the Gaza Strip. He served 31 months during three tours in Afghanistan. From 2006-2007 he was Chief of Staff and Head of Civil-Military Planning and Operations at USAID/Kabul, and from 2010-2012 he served as the DCOS/Stability Director of Development at ISAF Headquarters.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Chinese Defense Spending Is Bigger Than America's

Matthew Hipple — November 2, 2023

In June, Senator Sullivan (R-AL) discussed an unclassified intelligence estimate on the House Floor suggesting the Chinese defense budget is roughly $700 billion, over three times China’s official 2023 military budget of $224.8 billion (¥1.55 trillion). Applying the Economist’s Big Mac Index, which compresses the loose protein slurry of economic factors down to the single variable of the McDonald’s Big Mac, the Chinese military budget comes to $1.07 trillion in comparative value: $253 billion more in value than the U.S. defense budget.

To be clear, the Big Mac Index does not suggest $1.07 trillion in CCP military spending; it describes received value. Though a nominal budget of 4% China’s GDP may seem unbelievable, let alone a PPP valuation of $1.07 trillion, the results suggest fair valuation. While the U.S. Navy fights to maintain a fleet smaller than requirements, the PLAN raised the world’s largest fleet backed by a shipbuilding capacity 2000% America’s. Additionally, the PLAN fields over 80,000 sea mines of increasing quality and various methods of deployment while American minelaying and mine countermeasure projects struggle. While American air forces face material readiness and recruitment troubles, the PLAF pushes its boundaries and the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) fields the largest and most diverse missile force in the world – alongside 3200+ acres of reclaimed seabed bases patrolled by maritime militias. While American ground force sealift capacity struggles, China weaponizes their world class civilian maritime industry. China may be short on reliable friends and field systems of debatably lesser quality - but their 20 year military realignment shows value-for-money.

This record also demonstrates why comparing value is as appropriate as comparing capability. $1.07 trillion in value received may not be $1.07 trillion in valuable effect. Unfortunately, China’s military realignment and reforms demand dispensing with the hubris of rounding peer down to “near,” when broadly comparing. In 2015, the Navy’s “Distributed Lethality” reforms showed portions of the U.S. military establishment realizing objects in the mirror were closer than they appeared. In 2017, the U.S. recognized a state of Great Power Competition with China. In 2020, OSD publicly stated that “China has already achieved parity with—or even exceeded—the United States in several military modernization areas, including: shipbuilding, Land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, integrated air defense systems.” The U.S. may field many comparative advantages, but not to such extent those differences delegitimize PPP comparisons of military spending. China has achieved “good enough” in numerous categories, and a significant advantage in the ability to churn out those “good enough” products.

That productive capacity is a capability itself. While PPP focuses on the relative value of a currency – a PPP appreciation of Chinese military spending must recognize the benefits of their economies of scale & duel use industries. If half the $253 billion difference in value was applied towards U.S. naval shipbuilding, the U.S. would lack the capacity to spend it. The money must first support expansion of yards and associated industries – if the nation could even meaningfully approve and expend $126.5 billion’s worth of maritime industry expansion in a year. Thanks to de-industrialization, “there is no more arsenal of democracy,” which could ramp up in a time of war let alone to be tapped in a time of peace. Meanwhile, in 2020 the PLAN commissioned 21 new surface combatants followed by 28 in 2022. Mass-produced Chinese consumer electronics like the DJI become standards from Baseball games to the Battlefield – demonstrating industries rapidly transferable towards wartime ends. This relevant productive capacity also highlights a significant reserve of personnel with the ability to maintain and repair systems of wartime relevance.

Unlike In-n-Out, no secret sauce exists to instantly fix the cardboard-like unpleasantness of America’s comparative value conundrum. We require, “increased industrial capacity, capability, resilience, and a demonstrated commitment to fight the long war.” That will require time, and in the less-than-satisfying intervening years, a greater budget to pay for the mundane industry that underpins the capability and capacity we need. While innovation and wise expenditure of the public dollar remain important, sometimes the simple weight of “more” is necessary if not sufficient. Additionally, we may need to franchise – lean on the productive capacity of our allies from Japanese & Korean shipyards to Spanish sea mine development and production. While a, “Buy American,” policy prevents compromising purchases from the CCP and invigorates some portions of the U.S. defense industrial base, we undermine our flexibility and lose the potential industrial advantages of our global alliance network when time is at a premium. We will never surpass a weaponized industrialized nation of 1.4 billion on military production, but with work developing our domestic production, integrating with the productive capacity of our allies, and demonstrating credible commitment and demand – we can beat the adversary on value.

LCDR Matthew Hipple is active duty SWO with a focus on LCS and Mine Warfare serving at LCSRON THREE. He is a frequent writer and a former president of CIMSEC.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and not the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Federal Reserve Could Start a Financial Crisis

Desmond Lachman — November 2, 2023

Rudi Dornbusch, the late MIT economist, said of the Mexican central bank that he could understand it making mistakes. After all, its board was composed of humans. However, what he could not understand was how the same people could keep making the same mistakes time after time.

Judging by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference yesterday, where he omitted to reference heightened financial system risks as a major concern, we have to wonder whether Dornbusch’s incredulity might also apply to the Fed.

In 2008, the Fed made the major mistake of underplaying the risks that the subprime loan and housing market troubles posed to the country’s economic outlook. The net upshot was the 2008–2009 Great Economic Recession. Today, the Fed is underplaying the significant risks posed to the banking system by the recent spike in Treasury bond yields and the prospective wave of commercial real estate loan defaults. That all too likely is paving the way for a hard economic landing before the middle of next year.

As late as March 2008, then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke assured us that there was little reason to worry about the subprime loan defaults and the housing market bust that were unfolding. In fact, as late as June 2008, on the very eve of the Lehman bankruptcy, the Fed continued to raise interest rates. The net result of the Fed’s misjudgment was the deepest postwar economic recession up to that time.

Fast forward to today, and the Fed is sticking to its mantra that interest rates need to stay high for longer in order to regain inflation control. By this, the Fed means that it has no intention to reduce interest rates anytime soon after raising interest rates by 5.25 percent over the past eighteen months. Instead, Mr. Powell has been at pains to insist that the Fed is not removing the possibility that interest rates might have to be raised at its next meeting in December.

A key point that the Federal Reserve chooses to ignore is that its high-interest rate policy heightens the chances of a financial crisis. This is all the more surprising given how close we came to a full-blown financial crisis earlier this year with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank, the second and third U.S. largest bank failures on record. Those failures were all too reminiscent of Bear Stearns’ collapse in March 2008 that, in hindsight, was a harbinger of very much worse to come.

Even before the recent spike in Treasury bond yields to around 5 percent, the U.S. banking system was estimated to have $620 billion in mark-to-market losses as a result of a steep decline in their bond portfolios’ value. The recent decline in Treasury bond prices will add another few hundred billion dollars to those losses. This could pose solvency issues for the regional banks, which not only have large bond portfolios but also have around 18 percent of their balance sheet exposed to troubled commercial real estate lending.

Unfortunately, there can be little doubt that we will soon be experiencing a wave of commercial real estate loan defaults. Over the next two years, it is estimated that more than $1 trillion in commercial property loans fall due. It is difficult to see how these loans can be rolled over without default when post-Covid commercial occupancy rates remain so low and when interest rates today are so much higher than they were when those loans were contracted. According to a recent Social Science Research Network study, all of this could lead to some 200 bank regional bank failures.

By hewing to a very tight monetary policy stance, Mr. Powell seems to want to avoid going down in history as another Arthur Burns who allowed inflation to surge under his watch in the 1970s. With a financial crisis in prospect that could lead to a deep economic recession, Mr. Powell would be well advised to worry more about going down in history as another Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke who paved the way for a recession by turning a blind eye to the financial market risks that were in plain sight.

Desmond Lachman is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and served as a deputy director in the International Monetary Fund’s Policy Development and Review Department, as well as the chief emerging-market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney.

Image: Creative Commons.

Postwar Gaza Deserves Better than the Palestinian Authority

Robert Silverman, Eran Lerman — November 2, 2023

As the Israeli counter-offensive against Hamas in Gaza becomes a major ground campaign, more ideas are emerging on how to help the Gazans rebuild after this war. There are a number of dangerous ideas, and one that we think holds a better chance of success in the difficult situation that lies ahead.

One of those bad ideas is the return to Gaza of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governmental body based in Ramallah in the West Bank. Washington think tanks often float restoring the PA’s authority as an appropriate solution for a post-Hamas Gaza. It is also one of the main options considered in a draft Israeli Foreign Ministry paper leaked to the press. Ideologically, returning the PA to Gaza is attractive to some because it presents a “political horizon,” Washington jargon for an eventual unitary Palestinian state of the West Bank and Gaza.

Planning postwar Gaza must be focused on actors who have the capacity to help Gaza reconstruct, not on ideological constructs or regional schemes, all of which have failed in the past.

Atop the list of regional actors in the Middle East who lack the capacity to help Gaza sits the Palestinian Authority. Created by the Oslo Agreements between Israel and the PLO, the PA ruled Gaza from 1994 to 2006. It was so corrupt and so ineffective at governance that in 2006, the people of Gaza voted in favor of its opposition, Hamas, which was already then a designated terrorist organization by the United States and EU.

Since 2006, the PA has continued to govern the parts of the West Bank under direct Palestinian control. Here, too, it has lost control of much of the northern West Bank to Islamic Jihad and Hamas. It’s true that Israel shares some of the blame for the deterioration of the PA’s authority in the West Bank. But that isn’t a reason to now give the PA the very difficult mission of Gaza reconstruction, a task for which it would be destined for failure.

Supporters of a PA return to Gaza admit that it is not ready for this mission. So they refer to a putative “reconfigured” or “reformed” PA taking over this mission. What is meant by reconfigured or reformed? Salam Fayyad, a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, writes that a reconfigured PA would incorporate both Hamas and Islamic Jihad to give it greater credibility among West Bank Palestinians. Let us assure the reader that Israel, having defeated Hamas in Gaza, would not sanction the return to Gaza of any entity that includes Hamas.

Another unworkable idea, recently proposed by Dennis Ross, is turning over Gaza reconstruction to U.S. regional partners—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

Again, the critical question is one of capacity. Have any of those countries shown the capacity to manage their own security or reconstruction challenges effectively? Think of Saudi Arabia’s war with its neighbor Yemen, Bahrain’s periodic internal instability sparked by a restive Shi’ite majority, or Morocco’s difficulties in giving its own population effective earthquake relief. Even if they would be willing to accept this mission (doubtful), wouldn’t it just be setting up our friends for failure?

The positive solution to postwar Gaza must rest on proven best practices and be modeled on structures that have worked elsewhere. These include giving Gaza a transitional period to self-rule in which a multinational mission helps the Gazans, a mission composed of countries that have shown the requisite capacity in other places (such as the NATO-led stabilization force in Bosnia or the multinational training of Palestinian police led by a U.S. Security Coordinator). Depending on the extent of Hamas’s destruction, this transitional, temporary mission would include very sizable armed forces capable of gendarmerie duties and reconstruction experts from countries with prior experience in postwar conflict zones.

The core problem is that the United States doesn’t want to take on leadership of such a mission. It would prefer to pass it off to someone else—Ramallah or Riyadh comes to mind—unintentionally setting them up for failure.

We understand the reluctance. The U.S. government has a few other foreign policy crises to manage, including an active war in Ukraine. The salutary orientation of the Biden administration has been to avoid the interminable quagmires of the Middle East, especially ones that don’t affect core U.S. interests. Anyway, wasn’t Israel’s prime minister famous for boasting that Israel defends itself by itself?

Yet stabilizing Gaza is a core U.S. national interest, given longstanding U.S. alliances with both of Gaza’s neighbors, Israel and Egypt. Therefore, a temporary and transitional multinational mission would be best organized and led by the world’s indispensable power, the United States. It would include other countries with the demonstrated capacity to contribute to security and reconstruction effectively. The Middle East’s regional powers could provide funding and political support.

This is the best option for postwar Gaza. If carefully planned and, most importantly, carefully recruited, with a well-defined mission and easy-to-understand goals, including periodic assessments by contributing countries, it can avoid the usual quagmires and not become another Middle East distraction from U.S. interests elsewhere in Europe and East Asia.

Once the transition is over, as defined in the mission’s mandate, Gazans would be free to choose whether or not they want to unite with the Palestinian Authority. That should be up to Gazans after they get the requisite international help. The solution is clear. It’s only a question of whether the U.S. government wants to meet this challenge with careful planning now or come in later to clean up a postwar disaster.

Robert Silverman, former President of the American Foreign Service Association, is a lecturer at Shalem College and President of the Inter Jewish Muslim Alliance (IJMA).

Eran Lerman, former Israeli Deputy National Security Advisor, is a lecturer at Shalem College and Vice President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

Image: Shutterstock.

The World Crisis Viewed from London

William R. Hawkins — November 2, 2023

For our wedding anniversary this year, my wife and I decided to celebrate in the United Kingdom, mostly in London. We stayed at the Royal Horseguards Hotel in the political center of the capital. This afforded an interesting view of the world that compared favorably with the chaos and division back home in the United States.

A major decision to go ahead with the development of the UK’s largest undeveloped oil and gas field at Rosebank, off the Scottish coast, was announced. Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was the "right long-term decision" for securing energy supplies in the UK. This is in sharp contrast to the policies of the Biden administration which has rejected energy independence and condemned fossil fuels. There was opposition to the decision. We could hear from our hotel Green protests at Trafalgar Square (which undoubtedly disturbed the ghost of Admiral Horatio Nelson whose statue looks down on the square. He had given his life to protect his country at a time when Napoleon was trying to cut off vital supplies to England). The opposition Labour Party had been in the Green camp, pledging no more drilling. But the immediate response from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was his party will not block the new oil field if it wins the election next year. He said that allowing exploration to go ahead would provide "stability" to the economy. It will do so by helping insulate the UK from disruptions to the global energy market like those caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or would result from an expanded or prolonged war in the Middle East. The lessons of geopolitics in a contentious world have created unity at the center of government and pushed radicals to the sidelines.

Our tour guide for the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guard walk-along was a classic older gentleman who lives at his club and regales his audience with tales of Queen Victoria and Winston Churchill. He was wearing a pin with crossed UK and Ukrainian flags and pointed out several buildings flying Ukrainian flags in support of Kyiv. While we were there, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Spectator (the leading conservative publication) all ran major pieces advocating long-term support for Kyiv. The eminent International Institute for Strategic Studies hails “the remarkable cohesion and consistency” of the United States and NATO in backing Ukraine, and Chatham House, another leading think tank, awarded President Zelenskyy its 2023 annual award. This is not a divisive issue in the UK.

The Conservative Party was holding its annual conference in Manchester. In his address, Foreign Minister James Cleverly said “I consider it a personal privilege to have done what I can to maximize support for that courageous country. But never let anyone forget that for almost a decade now, every Conservative Prime Minister has backed Ukraine.” Britain has been one of Kyiv's strongest allies sending anti-tank weapons, artillery, long-range missiles, and armored vehicles (including the first-rate Challenger II tank) to the besieged country as well as training Ukrainian soldiers and pilots. In quality of aid, London has outpaced Washington. UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles have wreaked havoc on Russian warships. Cleverly declared the British are not mere "commentators" on world events but "players on the pitch." He declared aggressors cannot be allowed to invade their neighbors with impunity.

On the other side of the aisle, Labour’s shadow Minister of Defense Luke Pollard recently stated “Our commitment to Ukraine must be long-lasting….words do not defeat the tanks of an invader, only weapons, training, courage and determination stand up to them.” There is thus cross-party unity on issues presenting threats to UK security and a peaceful world order upon which stability and prosperity depend. Encouraging signs of reality in national policymaking, which is inherently a conservative (small “c”) approach.

The UK has also reacted strongly to the terrorist attacks on Israel launched by Hamas from Gaza. Prime Minister Sunak visited Israel just hours after President Biden departed, pledging "We will stand with your people and we also want you to win." A week earlier on the immediate heels of the attack, British warships already in the region sailed for the Eastern Mediterranean. There are nine British citizens among the hostages taken by Hamas and the elite Special Air Service (SAS) has been alerted for rescue missions. On October 9, PM Sunak joined President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, and President Biden in a statement expressing “our steadfast and united support to the State of Israel, and our unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism.” The Western nations pledged to “remain united and coordinated, together as allies, and as common friends of Israel, to ensure Israel is able to defend itself.”

Four days later, Sunak told another meeting of Western allies in Sweden that “terrorism must not prevail” in either Israel or Ukraine. The gathering was of the ten-strong Joint Expeditionary Force, where the wars in Europe and the Middle East both topped the agenda. This was also the case at the NATO defense ministers meeting in Belgium on October 11. A week later, UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps met with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to coordinate actions not only in Europe and the Middle East but in Asia on “how we're responding together to bullying and destabilizing actions by the People's Republic of China" in concert with Australia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has linked the two regional wars. On October 11 he accused the U.S. of inflaming the situation by sending aircraft carrier groups to the region and by accusing Iran “of all sorts of things, as usual without evidence.” He blamed the outbreak of violence on U.S. policy, just as he had blamed NATO for provoking his invasion of Ukraine. Russia presented a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire and aid for Gaza without mentioning Hamas’ initial attack. The obvious aim was to prevent an Israeli counterattack into Gaza to destroy Hamas. China backed Russia, while the UK, France, and Japan backed the United States in voting down the resolution. Both wars mark the return of great power competition to the center of world affairs.

The attacks on Ukraine and Israel are linked in many ways. Russia has long backed Iran, including conducting air strikes in Syria’s civil war to sustain the Assad regime. Attacks on civilians have been a common tactic in Syria, Ukraine, and Israel. Iran has repaid Putin by sending attack drones and other supplies for use in Ukraine. Tehran has vowed to wipe Israel off the map as Moscow has vowed to do to Ukraine. Both have threatened to use nuclear weapons. Hamas has taken hundreds of hostages. Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children for which the International Criminal Court has indicted Putin. Terrorism is deadly, but conquest is even worse because of the scale of the possible genocidal policies the victor may impose. The Israelis remember the Holocaust, while the Ukrainians remember the mass starvation Stalin used to kill millions in the 1930s to “collectivize” and crush Ukrainian society. Both people are fighting with all their might to prevent such horrors from happening again.

The scale and intensity of these new wars have given the United States and its allies a shock regarding the inadequacies of their defense industrial bases. There is a similarity with the British situation on the eve of World War I. Small colonial wars had been common for decades, but these were not large enough to place a strain on industry or the budget. But when the scale of combat jumped orders of magnitude in France compared with the Northwest Frontier, the British army found itself running short of artillery shells and other supplies. There was a "shell crisis” in 1915 which was not rectified until the next year. It thus took two years to mobilize industry to meet the new requirements of modern war.

The United States has also been fighting small wars since 9/11 but now realizes that these conflicts did not generate force levels or a production capacity that can meet the tempo shown in Ukraine, let alone what would be required to meet the threat China has been building and demonstrating around Taiwan. Fortunately, Beijing does not seem ready for a major war, so there is time for the United States and its partners to mobilize to a level that can deter further aggression both in capability and as an expression of will. But to do this, there must be a reforging in Washington of both cross-party and inner-party unity and resolve on the great national security issues facing America, similar to what I saw in London.

William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who served on the professional staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications.

Image: Shutterstock.

What is U.S. Central Asia Policy?

Alex Little — November 2, 2023

On September 19, President Joe Biden met with all five leaders of the Central Asian countries at the UN General Assembly in New York as part of the “C5+1” summit. This marks the first meeting between a U.S. President and every Central Asian leader. Such a significant meeting was sure to make analysts wonder if it would generate a change in the direction of U.S.-Central Asia policy. However, the meeting harped on similar themes that are par for the course in previous C5+1 summits.

“I think this is a historic moment. We’re building on years of close cooperation between Central Asia and the United States—a cooperation that is grounded in our shared commitment to sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity,” Biden told the leaders during his remarks. Topics for the meeting included renewable energy, humanitarian causes, U.S. investment in Central Asia, and regional security.

Regional security cooperation has strongly characterized U.S.-Central Asian policy, especially since the advent of the Global War on Terror following the September 11 attacks carried out by Al Qaeda on the United States in 2001. While the development of Caspian energy sources was the main focus of U.S. policy toward Central Asia before 9/11, eliminating threats in Afghanistan became the main objective. As part of this initiative, Washington established temporary bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, both of which have closed.

The U.S. military’s chaotic but necessary withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled that the United States had completed its objective to secure the U.S. homeland, capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and kill Osama bin Laden. Despite the United States' failure to install a liberal government, a misguided endeavor, peace finally exists in Afghanistan.

Regardless of Kazakhstan’s concerns about Russia potentially invading their country after Ukraine, the prospect of this happening is relatively low. Russia’s vaunted military is floundering in Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin has been unable to complete his maximal goals of subjugating Ukraine and turning it into a vassal state.

Leading cooperation with Central Asian states by lecturing them about human rights and democratic practices is also counterproductive. Prior rhetoric that has been rampant throughout the Biden administration regarding “a battle between democracies and autocracies” will only push Central Asia closer to Russia and China.

Instead, talks between the United States and Central Asian countries should be centered around U.S. interests, mainly concerning economic initiatives. One simple thing that can be done to facilitate private-sector engagement in Central Asia would be to remove Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, from the 1974 Jackson Vanik Amendment, a law designed to punish the Soviet Union on Jewish immigration issues that is still on the books but has been waived for Russia. While the case for Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is less clear-cut than Kazakhstan’s, the United States can construct a clear pathway for these countries to attain normal trade relations with the United States.

Additionally, emphasizing alternative trade routes, namely the expansive “Middle Corridor,” a route that spans the Central Asian steppe, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains, should be the primary focus for the United States in discussions with Central Asian leaders. Amid a lack of viable alternatives, the “Middle Corridor” will only become more critical as the Russo-Ukrainian War inhibits other trade routes that flow through Russia. Alternatively, the Middle Corridor can transport Chinese goods to European consumer markets while avoiding Russia. With a length 2,000 km shorter than Russia’s Northern Corridor, the Middle Corridor offers a solution to sanction-compliance issues, access to new markets, and new opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) engagements.

Central Asia is home to various natural resources, including oil and gas and critical minerals. At the same time, Central Asian countries are currently experiencing energy shortages, mainly due to their decrepit gas and power infrastructure. The United States has invested in Central Asian energy, particularly in Kazakhstan, as in 2019, U.S. firms contributed 30 percent of all oil production in the country. To expand Central Asia’s energy production potential, the United States can work with Central Asian states by improving their infrastructure, unlocking their potential to supply the West with energy, and creating a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship.

Critical minerals will be vital for Central Asia and the West in pursuing renewable energy sources. While fossil fuels will be necessary for countries in Central Asia, Europe, and the United States in the short term, the United States and Europe can collaborate with Central Asian countries on technologies that provide them with replacements for oil and gas exports in the long run—including by helping Kazakhstan, which accounts for 40 percent of the world’s uranium output, find a more prominent role for critical mineral processing.

The United States has limited interests in Central Asia but a wide variety of opportunities to address Washington’s energy needs. However, the United States is obfuscating these narrow areas of cooperation by returning to its militaristic tendencies in emphasizing Central Asia security and territorial integrity. Now is the time to discard security entanglements and embrace a new strategy focused on vital U.S. interests, including Washington’s economic prosperity.

Alex Little is an MS graduate of Georgia Tech and specializes in Russian and Central Asian affairs.

Image: Shutterstock.

Increased Collaboration Between Turkic States Can Benefit Eurasia

Alibek Bakayev — November 1, 2023

In today’s geopolitical landscape, it might seem that the world is becoming increasingly fragmented and divided. While this perception might hold true for global powers, a significant shift is quietly unfolding: the growing collaboration among Turkic states. This expanding unity presents new opportunities for Central Asian nations, which include four Turkic states. United by a common language, culture, and heritage, these countries, even as they maintain their distinct identities, are enhancing their joint political and economic influence. This can have broad economic and geopolitical implications beyond the region.

The deep-rooted history and the common linguistic and cultural bonds of the Turkic states—comprising Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—form the foundation of our collaboration. Central to our pursuit of closer ties is economic interdependence, given Central Asia’s abundant mineral resources and energy reserves. By working together to harness these resources, we can boost our economies. Beyond economic pursuits, we also aim to address regional security issues, such as terrorism, border tensions, and drug trafficking.

For Central Asian countries, such as Kazakhstan, closer integration is advantageous. Kazakhstan has consistently implemented a multi-vector foreign policy, enabling us to foster positive relationships with all our neighbors in the Central Asian region, with Russia and China, as well as with Europe and the United States. Similarly, a unified Central Asia can boost regional cooperation and trade, benefiting the entirety of Eurasia.

Firstly, Turkic states, particularly Kazakhstan and Turkey, occupy strategic positions. Situated at the crossroads between East and West, Europe and Asia, these states can play crucial roles in facilitating trade between Asia and Europe via Central Asia. A notable initiative in this regard is the development of the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor trade artery, which starts in Turkey and covers Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, and Kazakhstan before reaching China. The Middle Corridor offers a route at least 2,000 kilometers shorter than the Northern Corridor, which passes through Russia, providing another alternative for connecting Asia and Europe.

Secondly, increased collaboration between Turkic states can support global energy security. With vast reserves of oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and a network of pipelines crisscrossing throughout the region, the Turkic Central Asian states are not only energy-rich but also control crucial energy transit routes. This places them at the nexus of global energy politics. In particular, the transfer of hydrocarbon resources from Central Asia through Turkey holds considerable significance for Europe’s energy security. In this context, the development of the Middle Corridor becomes essential.

Thirdly, security remains a crucial concern in today’s unpredictable global landscape, characterized by complex geopolitical rivalries and emerging threats. Many Turkic states have proactively pooled resources, expertise, and intelligence. For instance, Kazakhstan, with the support of other Turkic Central Asian nations, has been actively promoting initiatives to stabilize Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal. The aim is to foster stability and development in Afghanistan by engaging in dialogue with its current leadership, offering humanitarian aid to the Afghan people, and supporting infrastructure and education projects.

Recently, ties among the Turkic states have been gaining momentum. The Organization of Turkic States (OTS) has been pivotal in this. In November 2021, the OTS transformed from a council into a full-fledged international organization with expanded mandates and capabilities. With Eurasia as its backdrop, the upgraded OTS is poised to establish a significant presence. Its objectives encompass enhancing its geopolitical influence through deeper diplomatic relations among members and other global actors, driving economic partnerships that leverage the collective strengths of its member nations, and celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the Turkic world.

For Kazakhstan, the largest of the Central Asian states and current OTS chair, closer integration between Turkic states is of particular importance. In line with our multi-vector foreign policy, Kazakhstan seeks to strengthen its collaboration with fellow Turkic nations, paving the way for added diplomatic and economic cooperation. By deepening relationships with countries such as Turkey and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan can play a pivotal role in enriching Eurasia through enhanced trade and political connections.

This is why, as chair of the OTS, Kazakhstan aims to intensify collaboration among Turkic nations, advocate for mutual opportunities, strengthen production and export alliances, and maintain stability and security within the OTS framework.

Leaders from the Turkic states are set to meet at the tenth-anniversary Summit of the OTS in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on November 3. It is our goal that this gathering will spur even closer ties and cooperation among them. Although the world’s attention often centers on major global powers, the increasing collaboration between Turkic states, especially in sectors such as transport, logistics, energy, and security, is notable. This burgeoning Turkic integration could significantly impact Central Asia’s future, which would have a positive influence on the wider Eurasia, including on Asia and Europe.

Alibek Bakayev is the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

Image: Shutterstock.

Why Eliot Cohen Is Right To Call Out Vali Nasr Over Israel

Jacob Heilbrunn — November 1, 2023

The United Nations has long been a redoubt of anti-Israel sentiment, a dangerous place, to borrow the title of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s memoir of his tenure there during the Ford administration, when he resolutely battled against its most retrograde tendencies, including feting Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who showed up packing heat to the delight of the Third World contingent. A fresh instance of its pathologies has surfaced with a letter of resignation from Craig Mokhiber, the Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, that basically calls, among other things, for an end to the state of Israel.

Mokhiber seeks to occupy the moral high ground in ascribing low motives to Israel, which he, like more than a few of his confreres at the U.N., has always blamed first. The last paragraph of his mendacious missive explains that he is resigning because Israel’s incursion into the Gaza strip constitutes “a text-book case of genocide. The European ethno-nationalist settler, colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine.”

Condemn Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu as the worst Israeli prime minister in its short history. Attack the policy of expanding West Bank settlements. But to hurl terms such as “genocide” and “colonial project” at the very moment that Israel has been brutally and wantonly attacked by a gang of murderers? Such wild language (are only the Palestinians “indigenous” to the region?) suggests that Israel qua Israel is illegitimate and, for good measure, that it is tantamount to a Nazi state.

Yet far from incurring censure, Mokhiber’s statements, as Eliot A. Cohen, who teaches at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies points out on “X,” drew the approbation of his colleague, Vali Nasr, the former dean of the school. The Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies, in assessing Mokhiber’s letter, declared, “[L]ast paragraph best tells how international law & international rules-based order are coming apart, w support of the very world powers that tout its values & claim to be defending it. The American-backed world order will not be able to easily reverse this blow to its credibility.”

This is the thesis, more or less, of Nasr’s book The Dispensable Nation. It is always comforting for an author when contemporary events confirm their previous diagnosis. But Nasr has it backward. As President Joe Biden has recognized, the United States and its friends and allies are under assault both in Ukraine and Israel. Simply allowing Hamas and its Iranian protector carte blanche in the Middle East would be deeply injurious to what Nasr calls the “American-backed world order.” Should America simply wash its hands of the Middle East and allow the cutthroats of Hamas and Co. to run riot in the expectation that, as Mokhiber’s letter seems to suggest, a new era of peace might ultimately dawn in the Middle East with a single state solution (one presumably denuded of the pesky Jews who have been living there)?

Mokhiber’s little letter amounts to an inversion of reality. It transforms the Israelis into the aggressors and Hamas into a hapless victim. Cohen took Nasr to task for embracing the letter, observing about its final paragraph, “Colonial. If Israelis are ‘colonists,’ what is the metropole? If an attempt to destroy the terror organization that avows its intent to kill Jews and celebrates torture and rape is ‘genocide,’ what does that word mean?” What that word would mean is obvious—a license to kill Jews around the globe, then proclaim that they brought it on themselves. In remonstrating with his colleague about the indispensability of Israel, Cohen has it right. Here’s hoping that Johns Hopkins, too, doesn’t become a dangerous place.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the one hundred notable books of the year by the New York Times. He is the author of America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, coming in 2024

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

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Armenia is an Isolated Democracy in Crisis

Mark Dietzen — November 1, 2023

Time is running out to protect the rule by law from rule by force in Europe’s southeastern frontier. Azerbaijan’s takeover of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh—resulting in the mass exodus of its native Armenian inhabitants and the dissolution of the enclave’s institutions—signals a dangerous trend in the South Caucasus. Armenia now faces a dual threat of further external aggression and greater internal strife. Without support from the United States and other democracies, Armenia’s democratic gains may be at risk—and the government may be pulled further into the autocratic orbit of the Kremlin.

A predominantly ethnic Armenian region that has been an object of contention for centuries, Nagorno-Karabakh, enjoyed special autonomous status within Soviet Azerbaijan. During the final years of the Soviet Union, Armenians fought to secede from Azerbaijan, winning the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, resulting in the formation of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh, the historical Armenian name for the region. The entity has never been internationally recognized.

Over the next three decades, neighboring Armenia provided pivotal security assistance and economic access to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and the region existed as a de facto independent state within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. A tenuous ceasefire held for much of that time, albeit with frequent skirmishes along the border.

In 2020, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War broke out, claiming an estimated 7,000 lives over six weeks. This time, Azerbaijan emerged the victor, taking large swaths of territory and surrounding the remaining Armenian-controlled regions, save for a single corridor with Armenia. Russian peacekeepers oversaw a brittle ceasefire agreement, which included significant Armenian concessions. Two years later, Azerbaijan orchestrated a nine-month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, severing its access to Armenia and the rest of the world. Food, medicine, and other crucial supplies became critically low, forcing the population to live in increasingly dire conditions. Baku even blocked Red Cross humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh in breach of all international agreements.

This was merely a prelude to September’s brutal seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, undertaken in violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement. Azerbaijan has demanded that the Armenians choosing to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh “reintegrate” into the Azerbaijani state, with President Ilham Aliyev claiming that “all their rights will be guaranteed.” Given Azerbaijan’s years of state-sponsored demonization of Armenians, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were not inclined to believe his promise. As a result, nearly all of the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh fled to Armenia over two weeks.

The government of Azerbaijan has not only violated international law and established diplomatic agreements—its actions pose an existential threat to Armenia’s democracy. If the takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh is not met with an adequate global response, President Aliyev and fellow autocrats will be encouraged to continue to use force to achieve political ends.

There are growing concerns in Armenia that Azerbaijan may again attempt to use force to install a so-called “Zangezur Corridor” across sovereign Armenian territory, which would link Azerbaijan with its landlocked region, Nakhchivan, which lies between Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. In addition to violating Armenia’s sovereignty, this could cut off Armenia from its southern border with Iran. There is precedent for this fear: In 2021, President Aliyev even went so far as to threaten to install such a corridor “whether Armenia likes it or not.”

Crucially, Azerbaijan enjoys the backing of Turkey, while Russia—Armenia’s traditional protector—has been missing in action. This is due in part to the Kremlin’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine and frustration with Armenia’s westward shift, as evidenced by Yerevan’s accession to the International Criminal Court last month in defiance of Moscow. During his speech at the UN General Assembly on September 19—the day Azerbaijan began its takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Armenia to open the “Zangezur Corridor.” Then, on September 25, Aliyev and Erdoğan met in Nakhchivan, where President Aliyev indirectly referenced a corridor through Armenia.

This development would undoubtedly have wider geopolitical consequences. Armenia would risk losing access to its southern border with Iran since Azerbaijan would have the ability to close the corridor, as it did at Lachin in Nagorno-Karabakh. Such a scenario could leave just one of Armenia’s international borders—Georgia—open to trade. If this happens, Russia’s interest in the conflict could be reactivated, as the Kremlin is reluctant to lose its South Caucasus link to Iran, which could lead Russia to increase its military presence in Armenia.

External threats combined with internal tensions could put severe pressure on Prime Minister Pashinyan, who has steered Armenia in a westward direction since taking office in 2018. The sudden influx of an enormous population of refugees poses major political and economic challenges for Armenia. Prime Minister Pashinyan’s government will no doubt face angry questions about why Karabakh was lost and must be prepared to offer reassurances that Azerbaijan will be held accountable for this outrage.

Armenians will need affirmation that the government can provide for their security following Russia’s failure to stop Azerbaijan’s seizure of Karabakh despite the Russian peacekeepers stationed there. What’s more, there is a threat that a deteriorating security environment could erode the government’s progress in strengthening democratic institutions if illiberal voices can exploit the situation to win political power and restore Armenia’s dependence on Russia.

The democratic world has a clear interest in ensuring that Armenia’s democracy survives this crisis and that Azerbaijan’s actions are justly punished. To begin with, robust humanitarian assistance must be provided for Armenian refugees. During a recent fact-finding mission to the region, USAID Administrator Samantha Power promised $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance. This is a good start, but significant humanitarian assistance will need to be sustained over the coming months—and even years—to help refugees transition to their new lives in Armenia.

The United States and other democracies must also prioritize programs that support Armenia’s further democratic progress, including efforts to strengthen the rule of law, continue legislative reforms, and advance citizen-centered governance. Additionally, as Yerevan works to resettle tens of thousands of newly arrived refugees, support will be needed to assist them in preparing proper documentation of the human rights violations inflicted during their exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh. These records are vital to any future legal action against Azerbaijan.

Washington and Brussels must also demonstrate their commitment to Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Holding Azerbaijan accountable for its outrageous violation of international law must be the first step. Punitive sanctions should be imposed on Azerbaijan, including its senior leadership, making it clear that aggression against Armenia will come at a high cost. U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan should also be suspended immediately. In the interest of a long-term settlement, the United States and EU should also dispatch senior envoys to Ankara to engage Turkey in international efforts to resolve outstanding issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan through political dialogue.

Finally, the United States and its democratic partners should engage Yerevan in new strategic discussions, which include opportunities to deepen security cooperation, following the first-ever U.S.-Armenia bilateral military exercises in September. Russian troops will soon leave Nagorno-Karabakh, but their presence in Armenia will continue until Yerevan has reliable security alternatives. We must pursue a long-term strategy that reorients Armenia away from Russia and towards the community of democracies.

Armenia’s democracy is in danger. If the United States and its democratic partners fail to stand with Yerevan and stand up to Baku, the broader consequences for the region could be dire. Strong political, economic, and security support will be crucial to ensuring that Armenia can continue on the path of democracy and that autocrats in Baku and beyond think twice before pursuing further acts of aggression.

Mark Dietzen is the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) resident program director in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he leads IRI’s Belarus and Baltic-Eurasia Inter-Parliamentary Training Institute (BEIPTI) programs. He previously led non-profit, democratic development efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh. The views expressed are solely those of the author.

Image: Shutterstock.

America Can Still Rise to the Occasion Amid a Crisis

Ahmed Charai — November 1, 2023

Usually, history’s turning points are invisible to the living. Forks in the road are spotted by historians only long after events and their immediate repercussions have faded.

Sometimes, it is undeniable that the great river of history has shifted out of its channel and onto a new course. We are now living through one of those turning points in history.

We must ask ourselves: Will we summon the courage to confront this titanic shift, or will its tides carry us away?

2023 was the year that it became clear that Russia and China, along with their allies, North Korea and Iran, united against nations on its periphery, NATO, and the great guarantor of global security itself, the United States.

It is a war of armies in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. It is an economic war of trade embargoes against Iran and Russia and, increasingly, against China. It is a diplomatic and cultural conflict. But, most of all, it is a war of values.

President Joseph Biden’s speech on October 19 was significant. His words come at a time when democracies face sustained and systematic attacks from those who abhor freedom because it threatens their power. Biden sees that history is moving. And he is right!

Iran has been the world’s largest financier of terrorism ever since its 1979 revolution. Tehran has long used a malicious strategy of proxy war, directing its militias in Syria and Yemen to attack Sunni Arabs, its militias in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip to kill and kidnap innocent citizens, and its militias in Tindouf to kill innocent Moroccan citizens. So, what has changed?

Vladimir Putin benefits from dividing America’s attention. China, too, wants to topple the post-World War II order that extended prosperity and peace to much of the globe. Instead, China prefers to return to a world of empires, one in which its dominion is unchallenged.

Iran offers China a chance to gain influence over the Persian Gulf—where a third of the world’s oil threads through straits barely eighteen miles wide. China has also encouraged more cooperation between historical antagonists Iran and Russia. The emergence of this alliance means an intensifying challenge to America’s global leadership.

Imagine a world without American leadership. The U.S. Navy no longer safeguards global shipping, meaning shortages multiply and prices climb. Without the U.S. dollar, prices are hard to compare across a welter of fluctuating local currencies. Without American might, larger nations invade their smaller neighbors, and terrorists strike with impunity.

Democracy and cooperation die. Authoritarian predators loom and lurk, striking at will, with all other countries seen as prey.

To keep this nightmare at bay, America must continue to fulfill its role as a global leader. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of the United States in 1943: “The price of greatness is responsibility.”

The military power available to the United States is essential to deter aggression. But equally vital is its self-confidence, its willingness to act upon its lofty ideals.

American policy towards Iran must be revised entirely. The current approach—endless negotiations over Iran’s needless construction of nuclear weapons and releasing some $6 billion in frozen funds to free five hostages—has failed.

Now that Iran’s proxies have attacked, taking a dozen U.S. hostages along with 200 people of other nationalities, and thousands of innocent people on both sides have been killed, the time for such engagement with Iran has passed.

While Iran is already one of the most sanctioned nations on Earth by the United States, the European Union, and other allied nations, Washington must impose new “smart” sanctions on the international travel of the mullahs and their revolutionary guard leadership. Controls on the sale of Iran’s oil and gas reserves must be reimposed. And America will have to maintain its aircraft carrier groups in or near the region for the foreseeable future.

Iran will continually test President Biden’s resolve, as it recently did through proxy attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. Yemen’s Houthi militia has launched ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones toward Israeli targets. In the coming weeks, as the war between Israel and Hamas escalates, attempts to take U.S. soldiers as hostages will grow, as will attempts to kill American troops or diplomats.

A military response may be necessary, but it will not be sufficient. The United States must also ensure this war does not spread to other countries.

Leadership starts with articulating a vision, a perspective for the post-war period.

Even if the war were to eradicate the military capabilities of Hamas, the threat of violence would only disappear if we give a better future to Palestinian youth.

But first of all, this war should be conducted in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritizes the protection of civilians. Secondly, Hamas should immediately release all civilian hostages. “By holding scores of Israelis and others as hostages in Gaza Hamas is committed war crimes,” announced Human Rights Watch in a statement.

Then, we need to replace hate with hope in the hearts of ordinary Palestinians. How?

Palestinians need to be shown a clear path to a better life, with jobs, schooling for their children, and modern health care for all. And they need to have trust in their local government that it can reliably deliver clean water, round-the-clock electricity, and streets safe from crime.

This begins with an imperative: after the fighting, a renewed Palestinian Authority will have to be stood up in Gaza because it is the only legitimate way to enable the Palestinian people to govern themselves. This will have to be a Palestinian Authority with solid management and financial controls so that it can be a reliable partner for peace.

To do these things, we must give it the money and the training to succeed. It would be perhaps helpful if an international coalition were formed with a clear mission for a limited duration, namely to provide aid to the Palestinian Authority, provide security, and train the Palestinian police. Rebuilding Gaza is not just about rebuilding buildings. We must create hospitals, schools, places of culture, and, above all, long-term jobs. It is this material base that will allow a political outcome.

What is expected of a U.S. president after the end of military operations is to create the conditions to negotiate a lasting peace. It is not simple since sometimes painful concessions must be made, but it is not impossible.

The current crisis offers America the opportunity to reaffirm its leadership in the region and present a new vision that will enable the democratic world to contain Iran, to weaken or even destroy its proxies, but also to begin the long march towards the resolution of a conflict that is the thorniest in the world.

America has always risen to take on seemingly “impossible” tasks. Here is the next one.

Ahmed Charai is the Publisher of Jerusalem Strategic Tribune. He is on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, the International Crisis Group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the Center for the National Interest.

Image: Shutterstock.

The Hamas War Is Far More Dangerous to Israel Than the Yom Kippur War

Henri J. Barkey — November 1, 2023

This current war with Hamas is a far more dangerous threat to Israel than the 1973 Yom Kippur War, almost exactly fifty years ago. In 1973, it was solely a military contest, one that the Israelis, despite suffering staggering losses, could manage to turn around. No one thought that the existence of the State of Israel was at risk then.

This time, it is different. This is a political war, and initial indications are that Israel is losing it.

This is far more dangerous because what is at stake is its legitimacy in the eyes of many. The Israelis may think and believe that this is wrong and that the brutality of the October 7 attack is being overlooked. It does not matter; impressions are impressions, and they do not disappear, and the carnage in Gaza feeds daily into the Hamas narrative.

Let's face it: Hamas may have already won the political battle.

At the heart of this Israeli debacle lies one person: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is, of course, ultimately responsible for Israel being unprepared and for pursuing constitutional changes that were strictly intended for his personal benefit.

But Netanyahu’s role in this tragedy is far greater; he is a leader with no international credibility. Over the years, his arrogance, lack of empathy, espousal of illegitimate and callous policies in the occupied West Bank, and probably most shocking to all, appointing overtly racist politicians to his cabinet and diplomatic corps. Imagine for a moment the descendants of the Holocaust, humanity's worst xenophobic experience, have self-described racists at the highest levels of their government.

He has alienated and is disliked by many of the leaders who even support Israel. His presence at the head of the government makes it very easy for people not to believe Israeli claims and arguments. He demonstrated his total inability to assume accountability for his failures by publicly blaming the intelligence leadership for the October 7 attack (he had to withdraw the statement under public pressure).

In addition to the world community, therefore, why should Israelis trust Netanyahu to conduct this war with the country’s interests at heart? He knows he is finished politically and will not survive the political accounting that will take place once the conflict is over. He has been reduced to hoping to extract some “victory” from this war with Hamas to salvage his reputation. After all, he is the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history, and this catastrophe will be what he will be remembered for forever.

He also refuses to grasp the bigger political picture and insists on prosecuting a disastrous war that Israelis were clearly unprepared for. As a result, this conflict is going to get worse by the day, as demonstrated by all bombs that kill Palestinian civilians erode any support.

History also provides a path. The Agranat Commission, after the 1973 War, blamed the political leadership and the higher ranks of the Israeli Defense Forces for the failures. Prime Minister Golda Meir fared somewhat better than Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the hero of the 1967 Six-Day War. He offered to resign at least twice, but Meir refused to accept it. His impeccable reputation was sullied. It must be remembered that the 1973 war ended with what most observers consider to be an Israeli victory as the Israelis crossed the Suez Canal, encircled the Egyptian Third Army, and pushed Syrian forces back beyond their starting point.

The failures of 1973 ultimately led to the emergence of the right-wing at the expense of the long-ruling Labor Party in Israel. This time, too, one can expect a similar outcome to occur as Israeli voters severely punish Netanyahu and the right wing. However, unlike Labor, which peacefully accepted its fate, one cannot be sure that the right in Israel still believes in democracy.

If Netanyahu really wants to be remembered somewhat favorably or rather less adversely, he should resign and support the creation of a national unity government under the leadership of someone who will inspire confidence at home and abroad. One name that has been bandied about is retired Air Force general Amos Yadlin.

Israeli society is strong, as demonstrated by all the reservists, including those who demonstrated week after week against Netanyahu's constitutional amendments, who immediately joined their military units, many flying back from destinations abroad. Netanyahu is risking further fracturing this compact.

It is worth remembering that Netanyahu benefited from his brother, Yonatan Netanyahu’s heroism back in 1976 in the rescue of civilian hostages from Entebbe airport in Uganda kidnapped by Palestinian and German terrorists. Yonatan Netanyahu, who commanded the special operations raid to rescue them, was Israel’s only casualty.

His brother sacrificed his life for the country, and today, “Bibi” Netanyahu should, like his brother, put the country’s interests first and resign.

About the Author

Henri J. Barkey is the Cohen professor of international relations at Lehigh University and an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Running Dry: Russia's Long-Range Bombers Might Be Out of Missiles

Stavros Atlamazoglou — November 1, 2023

The fighting in Ukraine continues to unfold on the ground as both militaries are trying to gain some momentum. It is the situation in the skies, however, that is particularly interesting.

The Russian Aerospace Force’s Long Range Aviation fleet has been responsible for some of the deadliest airstrikes against Ukraine since the war started. But for more than a month, Russian bombers have vanished from the skies around Ukraine. This is the longest gap between such strikes since February 24, 2022, when the war began.

And according to the latest Western intelligence estimates, the Russian Aerospace Forces are almost out of cruise missiles to fire against Ukraine.

WHERE ARE THE BOMBERS?

In their latest estimates, Western intelligence agencies assess that the reduced bomber sorties are “almost certainly” the result of diminishing stockpiles of cruise missiles, particularly of Kh-23a Kodiak air-to-surface munitions.

“While such breaks have not been unusual, the last similar break in strikes occurred between 9 March and 28 April 2023, a period of 51 days. In that instance, it was likely that LRA had almost depleted its stocks of capable AS-23 missile munitions following its winter campaign against Ukrainian critical national infrastructure,” the British Military Intelligence assessed recently.

With winter just around the corner, the Russian Aerospace Forces are likely waiting for the snow and low temperatures to arrive before they resume long-range strike missions against Ukrainian urban centers and critical infrastructure.

Last year, the Russians managed some heavy blows on the Ukrainian energy grid, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power, heat, internet, and water in the middle of the brutal winter.

Although the Kremlin can use other capabilities – including submarines and ground-based ballistic missiles – to hit the Ukrainian energy grid and urban centers, long-range bombers have been the main source of stand-off precision strikes.

The Russian military, however, can rely on its arsenal of Iranian suicide drones or loitering munitions. Moscow has bought thousands of these suicide drones, particularly Shahed-136s. According to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, Russia has also started using cheaper, domestically produced drones to target Ukrainian infrastructure.

“Russia will highly likely continue to supplement any such campaign with Iranian-designed one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicle attacks,” the British Military Intelligence added in its estimate.

Moscow recently used Shahed-136 suicide drones to strike the Ukrainian ports along the Danube River, some of which are within a few hundred yards of Romania, a NATO member.

Suicide drones like the Shahed-136 have better accuracy than the majority of cruise missiles currently used by the Russian military as, due to the munition shortages, the Russian military has been using missiles designed for other purposes, such as anti-ship munitions, against ground targets.

RUSSIA’S MILITARY TECH SUPPLIES AT RISK

More than 20 months of war and the heavy Western sanctions against Russia have suffocated the Russian defense and aerospace industries.

Despite the occasional statements of national defiance by Kremin officials, Russian weapon systems and munitions rely on Western technology including microchips. Although, on some occasions, the Kremlin has been able to bypass sanctions and smuggle technology into Russia, that is not enough to satisfy the needs of a country at war.

As a result, the Russian defense industry and military have resorted to extreme measures, even cannibalizing A/Cs, fridges, microwave ovens, and televisions to take microchips and put them on cruise missiles.

The Russian military has launched close to 3,000 ballistic and cruise missiles in the past year, while since the start of the war almost two years ago, the Ukrainian military claims to have shot down approximately 1,500 long-range munitions.

With winter just around the corner, the Russian Aerospace Forces will likely resume long-range strike missions against Ukrainian urban centers and critical infrastructure. But technology shortages mean that most missiles will run off course and end up killing and maiming innocent civilians. To deal with this incoming threat, Ukraine needs more air defense systems and munitions.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and national security. He is a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University, an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and is pursuing a J.D. at Boston College Law School.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Children Are Paying the Ultimate Price in the Israel-Hamas War

Omer Bartov — November 1, 2023

In 1903, a local mob killed 49 Jews, including several children, and raped and wounded 600 others, in the city of Kishinev, then part of the Russian Empire. These three days of violence later became known as the Kishinev pogrom.

A few days later, the Jewish-Russian poet Hayim Nahman Bialik published a Hebrew poem that every Israeli school child still knows today.

I am a scholar of the Holocaust and genocide. When thinking about the unfolding Israel-Hamas war, I am reminded of this Bialik poem, “On the Slaughter.” It laments Jewish helplessness and victimhood – and condemns apathy to violence, including the murder of children.

Bialik writes:

“And damned be he who says: Avenge!
Such vengeance, for the blood of a small child,
Satan has yet to devise.”

Hamas militants killed approximately 30 Israeli children when they attacked civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,400 people altogether. At least 20 Israeli children remain hostage in Gaza.

Since Oct. 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 2,000 Palestinian children and more than 8,000 people overall, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza began intensifying on Oct. 28, as Israeli ground forces entered Gaza.

Both sides in this war have focused on the deaths and kidnapping of children, sharing images and videos of the children as a testament to the other side’s cruelty.

Particularly, Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli children evokes collective Jewish memories of pogroms and the Holocaust – and the attempt to annihilate the Jewish people.

For Palestinians, too, the killing of their children represents both the injustice of Israeli rule and occupation, and the perceived attempt to stop Palestinians from having their own country. The collective Palestinian memory of the Nakba in 1948, when Israeli forces killed thousands of Palestinians and pushed out 750,000 people from their homes, is replete with tales of children who lost both their homeland and their parents.

A new kind of protection

Bialik ended up emigrating to what was then called Palestine in 1924, and today he is considered Israel’s national poet.

Bialik wrote a longer poem, titled “In The City of Slaughter,” in 1904, after he visited the site of the Kishinev pogrom. Bialik fumed against Jewish men for hiding, instead of protecting their wives and daughters from rape.

Bialik called for a new type of warlike Jewish manhood. If neither God nor the authorities could protect them from slaughter, Jews had to create a state of their own – and Jewish men had to learn to fight and kill.

Over the next four decades, the numbers of slaughtered Jews, including children, piled up.

In the Holocaust, Nazis and their collaborators killed an estimated 1.5 million Jewish children.

It was this kind of violence against defenseless innocents that the establishment of Israel in 1948 was supposed to prevent.

‘Never again’

Most Jews who emigrated to Israel in the late 1940s were Holocaust survivors. They had experienced precisely the kind of defenselessness that Israel said it would never allow to happen again. Their sense of vulnerability and their memory of victimization were transmitted from one generation to another.

The popular slogan “never again,” referring to the Holocaust, meant what Bialik had intended: not only the prevention of violence against Jewish people, but a new breed of tough and brave Jewish fighters, prepared to die for their new homeland.

Israel’s failure to protect its people is partially why the Oct. 7 attacks were so shocking to the Israeli public.

The Israeli military’s delayed response left people in the attacked communities feeling utter helplessness. The intentional cruelty of Hamas’ killings, often videotaped and live-streamed, reminded Israelis of past anti-Jewish violence.

Children in Gaza

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, half of the population is younger than 18.

In 2014, Israel airstrikes, coming in response to intense rocket fire from Gaza, killed over 500 Palestinian children. The Israeli government described the children’s deaths as unfortunate, but unavoidable. The reasoning is that bombing presumed Hamas targets was much less risky and costly, in terms of Israeli lives, than a ground incursion into Gaza.

Since Oct. 7, Israel has carried out unprecedentedly massive aerial bombardments of Gaza.

The images of dead and mutilated Palestinian children have served to mute some people’s criticism of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israelis – and to heighten other people’s sense of Palestinian innocence and Israeli brutality.

There are two major difference between this round of killing and previous ones, most prominently in 2014.

First, this time the violence began with the slaughter of over 1,400 Israelis.

Second, Israel’s current bombing campaign has killed more Palestinians, including children, than at any other time in the past.

Hamas’ slaughter of Jewish children is now being reciprocated by what the Israel Defense Forces says are unintended – but certain – killings of even larger numbers of Palestinian children.

Children are the ultimate victims

Both sides in the Israel-Hamas war are now flaunting and weaponizing their child victims to support their political causes.

For the Israelis and their supporters, the murder and kidnapping of children shows the inhumanity of Hamas and its supporters – and fuels calls for violent retribution.

For Palestinians and their supporters, Israel’s killing of even more children in Gaza helps wipe away Hamas’ crimes and exposes Israel’s alleged intent to kill all Palestinians.

Many people have flooded social media with images and videos of killed Palestinian and Israeli children, as well as bloody crime scenes where they were killed.

People have plastered posters of kidnapped Israeli children across the streets in American and European cities – and have videotaped those who tear them down.

But in Israel, at least, the media has mostly avoided showing images of both Jewish and Palestinian child victims. Showing kidnapped or killed Israeli children is considered demoralizing, and showing killed Palestinian children is considered to be enemy propaganda. In Gaza, people have been photographed and recorded carrying and mourning dead children, wrapped in blood-stained white cloth.

Is this Satan’s vengeance for the violence of men? In his deepest hour of despair, Bialik never hoped for more violence as a response to a massacre. As he wrote 120 years ago:

“If there is justice – May it appear at once!
But if it appears
Only after I had been eradicated under the sky -
May its throne be toppled forever!
And may Heaven rot in everlasting evil.”

Omer Bartov is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Democracy Cannot Be Defended Without a Strong Military Industrial Base

Mackenzie Eaglen — November 1, 2023

Amid extreme budgetary uncertainty in Washington and conflict flaring around the globe, President Joe Biden stressed the importance of America’s role as an “arsenal of democracy” in his Oval Office address last week. The White House backed up this call with the long-awaited announcement of a massive aid package for Ukraine, Israel, allies in the Indo-Pacific, and bolstered production here at home—including of Navy submarines.

While the administration’s supplemental spending request comes at a crucial time to bolster conventional deterrence and reinforce allies, it exposes the deficiency that policymakers allowed to occur over the past three decades of America’s military manufacturing. The surge now required to meet demand for our allies and the US military simultaneously requires the kind of investment the White House proposed, and much more.

Having just enough of select capability on hand only works when every planning assumption is perfect. Unfortunately, Washington bats nearly 1,000 in getting the future wrong. The limited stocks of 155mm artillery shells highlight inadequate supply as these key munitions intended for Ukraine have been hastily rerouted to Israel after Hamas’ massacre two weeks ago. Over and over, policymakers are reminded that the enemy “gets a vote.”

Horrific recent wars highlight mass and attrition are not relics of the past, as shell-hungry armies have devoured upwards of tens of thousands per day. This appetite for artillery blew the cover off America’s brittle defense industrial base, revealing numerous supply chain shortcomings and an inability to surge production of several key explosives after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

For this reason, the effort to supply and struggle to produce 155mm artillery shells has served as the newsworthy barometer for the health of America’s munitions industrial base. To be sure, Army leaders are working around-the-clock and posting impressive results (such as doubling production in under one year and on pace to sextuple 155mm production by 2028).

But what if there is no time to surge production after the fighting starts in the next war, particularly if in Asia? All we’ll have on hand is likely all our armed forces could have for weeks or months so it must be more than enough.

As the war in Ukraine drags on and Washington struggles to keep up, the consequences of our malaise have grown ever more apparent. This erosion of our defense industrial base was no accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices to sacrifice munitions production at the expense of other defense priorities. Munitions have historically served as a billpayer, creating a roller coaster of munitions production in which private industry struggles to maintain their workforces and keep plants operating.

According to Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante, when hit with budget cuts, the first place the services look are their munitions accounts. Findings from an Army Science Board study support the under-secretary’s claim. When faced the sequestration of the Budget Control Act in the early 2010s, the Army made continuous cuts to its procurement of 155mm artillery shells and other munitions, based off short-sighted analysis of low expenditure rates in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This continuous funding variation discouraged investment, modernization, and production within the Army’s munition industrial base ecosystem. Following budget sequestration, demand was so low that the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant idled production of 155mm shells for two whole years. This shocking decision allowed supply chains to atrophy and set the stage for surge challenges today.

As America scrambles to contain spiraling crises from becoming wider world wars, Pentagon leaders must ensure a strong, consistent demand for munitions and other essential weapons. If America is serious about remaining the arsenal of democracy, Washington cannot afford to take its foot off the pedal to increase surge production across the industrial base for munitions, ships, aircraft, and ground vehicles.

Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She is also a regular guest lecturer at universities, a member of the board of advisers of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and a member of the steering committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security.

This article was first published by the American Enterprise Institute.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Case For A Full Israeli Victory over Hamas in Gaza

Lawrence J. Haas — November 1, 2023

Israel is facing all-too-predictable global pressure to scale back its military operation in Gaza to spare innocent lives and prevent a regional conflict that could draw in Iran, the United States, and other nations.

But critics have it backward. Those concerned about human rights and those seeking peace should be rooting for Israel’s full-scale destruction of Hamas—however long it takes or bloody it becomes. That may sound harsh, but it’s the only path to more human rights and more peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.

On human rights, Israelis deserve to live without fear of rocket attack, infiltration, and slaughter from across their border. But Gaza’s two million Palestinians also deserve peace as well as the prospect of a better life—both of which will remain elusive not because they live next to Israel but because they live under Hamas.

Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a violent coup in 2007 and has ruled it since with an iron fist. It allows no elections; permits no free press; arrests, beats, and tortures its critics; and murders those suspected of collaborating, or seeking peace, with Israel.

Over the last sixteen years, Hamas has instigated multiple wars with Israel by launching thousands of rockets or attacking the Jewish state in other ways. It then hides its fighters (as it’s now doing) in hospitals, mosques, and other population centers in order to boost civilian casualties and turn global opinion against Israel after it responds and the deaths mount.

Nothing would reduce innocent deaths in Israel and Gaza more than Israel’s total victory over Hamas. Those pressuring Israel to ease its counter-attacks would, over the long term, subject Israelis to more terror and Palestinians to more rounds of Hamas-instigated war, more death, no freedom, and little opportunity.

For regional and global peace and stability, the case for a total Israeli victory is equally robust: it centers on the impact that Israel’s victory—along with parallel and supportive U.S. policies—would likely have on the aggressive aspirations of critical regional and global powers.

First and foremost, Israel’s destruction of Hamas would send a strong signal to Iran, which has provided hundreds of millions of dollars as well as weapons and military training for the group since the 1990s, trained hundreds of Hamas fighters in the weeks leading up to the group’s October 7 slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis, and has since recruited Iranian men and boys to fight alongside Hamas.

After empowering its terrorist proxy in Gaza, Iran is now unleashing militant groups to attack U.S. forces in the region, threatening to attack Israeli and U.S. interests directly if the Jewish state continues its ground operations, and raising prospects that Hezbollah (its leading terrorist proxy) will step in as well.

Anything short of Hamas’ destruction will encourage Tehran to pursue its expansionist agenda across the region further.

While continuing to support Israel as global opposition mounts, Washington should (1) abandon efforts to nourish U.S.-Iranian rapprochement because they surely lead Tehran to question U.S. resolve and (2) impose the harshest possible financial and other sanctions on the regime, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and key individuals.

Second, Israel’s destruction of Hamas would give pause to Moscow, which just hosted a meeting with top officials from Hamas and Iran, is building stronger military and economic ties to Tehran, and is watching events unfold in the Middle East and drawing conclusions about the major players.

Vladimir Putin is counting on waning U.S. support for Ukraine, which Russia invaded in early 2022 in hopes of conquest. Anything less than Israel’s destruction of Hamas—facilitated by unwavering U.S. support for the effort—would help convince Putin he’s right.

President Biden has requested $106 billion in additional funds for foreign affairs, the vast bulk of which would go to Israel and Ukraine. Congress should approve the aid for Israel and Ukraine at the same time rather than prioritize the former over the latter, which would further convince Putin.

Third and finally, Israel’s destruction of Hamas would help deter China, the most powerful partner in a growing China-Russia-Iran axis that’s designed to weaken U.S. global leadership.

As China flexes its muscles across the Pacific and increasingly threatens Taiwan, Xi Jinping, too, is drawing conclusions from events in Ukraine and the Middle East. Waning U.S. support for its allies in either theater would confirm Xi’s skepticism about America’s staying power and, thus, embolden him.

Rather than press Jerusalem to abandon its war aims, those who purport to care about human rights and peace should consider what the future will hold in the region and beyond if Israel fails to achieve them.

Lawrence J. Haas is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America’s Empire (Potomac Books).

Image: Creative Commons.

B61-13: This U.S. Nuclear Weapon Will Carry 360 Kilotons of Pure Destruction

Alex Hollings — November 1, 2023

On Friday, the Department of Defense announced a new effort to field an updated and even more powerful variant of the B61 series nuclear bomb currently in service. This new weapon, dubbed the B61-13, is expected to deliver around 360 kilotons of destructive power – 21 times the yield of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945; it will be among the most powerful nukes in the U.S. arsenal.

“Today’s announcement is reflective of a changing security environment and growing threats from potential adversaries,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb in a Pentagon press release. “The United States has a responsibility to continue to assess and field the capabilities we need to credibly deter and, if necessary, respond to strategic attacks, and assure our allies,” he added.

According to the Pentagon, these new weapons will replace existing B61-7s that are currently being phased out.

“The B61-13 represents a reasonable step to manage the challenges of a highly dynamic security environment,” said Plumb. “While it provides us with additional flexibility, production of the B61-13 will not increase the overall number of weapons in our nuclear stockpile.”

MORE THAN 7 TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN THE NUCLEAR BOMBS CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED

The B61-13 effort will likely tie directly into the ongoing B61-12 life-extension program that’s been underway since 2015. The B61-12 effectively serves as an overhaul for a large portion of America’s existing B61 series of nuclear bombs (known as the B61-3, B61-4, and B61-7). The -3, -4, and -7 variants all come with different and adjustable destructive yields ranging from 0.3 kilotons all the way up to 340 kilotons. All three variants will eventually be replaced by the single modernized B61-12.

The B61-12 program aims to use improved accuracy, delivered via a new tail kit and guidance system, to reduce the necessary yield of these bombs to no more than 50 kilotons. (The closer a bomb comes to its intended target, the less destructive power it needs to unleash in order to accomplish its mission.)

The B61-13 announced on Friday, on the other hand, will be comparable in yield to the soon-to-be-defunct B61-7, at approximately 360 kilotons. Below you can see a comparative blast radius, which was created using the NukeMap tool, overlaid over Moscow. It shows the 16-kiloton yield of the Hiroshima bomb, followed by the 50-kiloton B61-12, and finally, the newly announced B61-13’s projected 360 kilotons.

The blast radius isn’t the only destructive element of a nuclear strike, however. The map below, created by the Federation of American Scientists using the same NukeMap tool, shows a comparison of the radioactive fallout that would ensue after a 50-kiloton B61-12 detonation, versus the much larger 360-kiloton B61-13 that was just announced:

WHY DOES THE US WANT A MORE POWERFUL NUCLEAR BOMB?

Historically, the United States has preferred fielding more accurate, less powerful nuclear weapons than some adversary nations like Russia. The newest nuclear ICBM in the Russian arsenal, the RS-28 Sarmat, for example, is said to be capable of delivering as much as 50 megatons – or 50,000 kilotons – of destructive power delivered via multiple independent reentry vehicles. While this B61-13 bomb does deliver a much larger yield than most others in American armories, it offers only a fraction of the power of the Sarmat.

However, by combining a relatively high 360-kiloton yield with the same precision guidance kits devised for the B61-12, these new bombs will offer a unique combination of pinpoint accuracy and significant destructive power, which the Federation of American Scientists posits could make for an effective means of targeting even hardened subterranean structures.

“Due to the phenomenon of ground-shock coupling, the B61-13’s relatively high yield and accuracy will likely enable the bomb to strike underground targets with yields equivalent to a surface-burst weapon of more than one megaton,” according to experts.

The Pentagon did not acknowledge this bunker-busting capability, but did specify that these new bombs will be delivered via “modern aircraft.” The 50-kiloton B61-12 has already been tested aboard the F-15E Strike Eagle, but will eventually make its way to the rest of America’s fighter fleets. Reports suggest the higher-yield B61-13s will be reserved for strategic bombers; these will likely be the B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider due to their stealth allowing for deep penetration strikes inside contested airspace.

The B-52 bomber will still play a significant role in the airborne leg of America’s nuclear triad as well, though it will more likely be used to deliver America’s new Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) nuclear cruise missile that has seen significant testing in recent months, as it was revealed.

However, it’s feasible that the decision to field the more powerful B61-13 may not have to do with a dire need for a high-powered, precision-strike nuke, as for some time the pervasive narrative within the Pentagon had been that the combination of accuracy and 50-kiloton yield delivered by the -12 would be sufficient for any potential target. Instead, it’s possible that this decision was politically motivated as a means to finally do away with America’s most powerful (and expensive to maintain) nuclear bomb, the 1.2-megaton B83-1.

The variable-yield B83 series of bombs has been in service since 1983 and has been the subject of heated political debate in recent years. In 2014, the Obama administration announced plans to retire these bombs in favor of the aforementioned B61-12s. Four years later, in 2018, the Trump Administration overturned that decision, saying the powerful bomb needed to stay in service until a suitable replacement could be fielded. In 2022, it became the subject of debate once again due to costs; $52 million are allocated toward maintaining America’s stockpile of aging B83s each year.

While the B61-13 won’t have the same massive yield as the B83-1, it stands to reason that its 360-kiloton yield is large enough to hold secure underground facilities at risk, and as such, may be seen by lawmakers as a viable replacement for the increasingly expensive B83-1.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Israel’s Invasion of Gaza Will End Badly for Both Israelis and Palestinians

Paul Rogers — November 1, 2023

For the past four decades, Israel’s experience of fighting paramilitary militias has been grim.

Its last major operation was in southern Lebanon, which started with Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982. While initially successful, the subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon led directly to the rise of the Hezbollah Shia militias, persistent losses for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), a withdrawal to a nine-mile security zone within three years and from Lebanon as a whole in 2000.

In 2006 Israeli military units went back into Lebanon to counter Hezbollah rockets but ended with exhausted troops withdrawing in some disarray and the IDF resorting to a massive air war that did huge damage to the infrastructure of much of the country.

Then there is Gaza.

Before the current war, the IDF fought four other wars in Gaza since 2007, primarily to control Hamas’s use of rockets and its growing network of infiltration tunnels. The most significant one was Operation Protective Edge in 2014 which involved troops in a ground assault. In the event, they found the fighting extremely difficult, with the elite Golani Brigade experiencing serious casualties from the start.

Once again, there was intense use of air power and, as in the other wars, it was civilians that suffered most. Overall, the Israelis lost more than 300 killed in those four wars but for the Palestinians in Gaza, the death toll exceeded 5,300.

Bitter experience

Experiences in other wars are relevant to what happens now in Gaza. After the 9/11 attacks there was considerable international support for the US. War against the Taliban seemed inevitable though very few security analysts warned of the US-led coalition falling into a trap. The warnings were ignored and 20 years later the western troops finally retreated in disarray. Then came the Iraq war from 2003, with warnings once again ignored and, once again, with disastrous results.

As to Gaza, there are multiple concerns about what comes next, the current incursions being far short of a full-scale ground intervention. There are sharp differences of belief of what should come next within the military and within Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as well as within Israel as a whole, with much of it heightened by the concern over the loss of international support.

There is also concern about the experience of urban warfare elsewhere. Just six years ago, it took nine months for the US-led coalition to take back the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State. The US led the huge air assault, aided by France, the UK and other partners. The ground forces then were Iraqi troops and militias and they lost 8,200 troops.

A further 10,000 civilians were killed, and the old city was wrecked. It was likened to Stalingrad in early 1943.

Just last year, a small force of Ukrainian soldiers held off a large Russian force for nearly three months in the siege of the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol using a network of 24 kilometres of Soviet-era tunnels. Hamas has constructed vastly more tunnels under Gaza and is no doubt ready for months of combat.

Dwindling international support

Three weeks ago, Israel suffered a grievous loss and rightly got huge initial support, but that is already fading. Worse still, there is a terrible inability of the current Israeli government to understand what it is dealing with in a ground invasion of Gaza. But the death toll tells us all we need to know. If we look at the five Gaza wars since 2007, including the current devastating war, the Israelis have lost 1,700 people, but the Palestinians have lost more than 13,000 – and the numbers are rising by hundreds every day.

For now, the public mood in Israel still supports the Netanyahu government, however unpopular it might have been just a month ago. But the small but persistent campaign by families of the hostages for them to be the priority is having an effect.

Above all, it is the change of mood internationally that is a deep concern in Israel and, indeed, in the Biden administration. This was shown by the weekend debate in the UN general assembly when only 12 states supported the US and Israel in voting against a “humanitarian pause”. Also, eight EU states were among the 120 supporting the motion and the 45 who abstained even included Britain.

In some previous Israeli military actions, the end has effectively come about when international support for Israel has collapsed or got close to that. If the ground war against Hamas had started within a few days of the shock of October 7, and if that operation had been successful and Hamas had collapsed, then Netanyahu could have claimed success.

That has not happened and will not happen now. Instead, there is every prospect of a bitter war with many thousands more Palestinians killed, tens of thousands of young Palestinians all too ready to fight in the future, and a peaceful resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict delayed by at least another generation.

Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Israel-Hamas Conflict: Lessons from Afghanistan

Omer Niazi — November 1, 2023

In the present landscape of Middle Eastern geopolitics, the Israel-Hamas conflict stands as a volatile fuse. If mishandled, it threatens to spark a more expansive regional conflagration. The lessons from Afghanistan remain a stark reminder of the repercussions of post-9/11 interventions that lacked a clear endgame strategy, eventually spiraling into a conflict spanning two decades.

The current posture toward the Israel-Hamas conflict appears heavily tilted toward military measures. If recent history teaches us anything, including the Afghanistan aftermath, it’s that military solutions without long-term political strategy often offer temporary relief at best, leaving deep-seated issues unresolved.

For over two decades, the U.S. policy apparatus resisted recognizing the necessity of a negotiated settlement to end the Afghanistan war—a conflict that resulted in nearly 176,000 casualties. In the aftermath of 9/11 and during the early stages of the conflict with the Taliban, the United States and its allies sidestepped diplomatic engagements, opting instead for a predominantly military strategy despite calls by policymakers in DC acknowledging that there was no military solution to the war. Senior State Department officials advocated for diplomacy and negotiation with the Taliban to President George W. Bush as the United States’ initial response to 9/11. The United States chose to declare war.

A decade later, conflicting parties entered into a stage of stalemate that might have encouraged yet another opportunity for a negotiated settlement. Still, the United States disregarded the potential for a peaceful settlement and continued to pursue military victory over the Taliban. By 2018, when the United States finally prioritized negotiations toward a political settlement, the clock had already run out. Two decades of conflict had driven the parties to such distant poles that neither side could muster the requisite trust or willingness to compromise necessary to achieve a political settlement.

The absence of a long-term political strategy to guide U.S. military strategy, combined with its inability to pursue a path of diplomacy and negotiation early on, fueled the Afghan conflict. A widely held public opinion summarizes it all—it took four U.S. presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and twenty years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.

William Zartman’s “ripeness” concept suggests that a conflict reaches a stage “ripe” for political settlement when all parties recognize they are in a “mutually hurting stalemate,” with outright military victory impossible and see “the possibility of a negotiated solution (a way out).” The Afghan conflict, over its duration, presented several such moments reflective of this deadlock, yet the parties recurrently missed capitalizing on these moments for negotiated reconciliation. The Israel-Palestine dispute mirrors this pattern. The post-October 7 events serve as a further testament to this reality. It highlights the urgent need for policymakers to seize the moment and act now.

Years of enduring conflict between Hamas and Israel, combined with the recent swift intensification of hostilities and, most importantly, Israel’s national security strategy anchored in a doctrine of deterrence, have dismantled the ground for a political settlement between Hamas and Israel. However, laying the groundwork for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) could kickstart the process of reconciliation. It could exert pressure on Hamas to reevaluate its position and draw all parties to engage in a political settlement.

Given the absence of strong and unifying leadership across all conflicted parties, the onus squarely rests on the international community, with Arab states bearing more responsibility, to step in and fill the void towards a negotiated reconciliation. For a political resolution to lead to an enduring peaceful settlement, it must confront and address the root causes of the dispute and be inclusive of all parties involved in the conflict, including Hamas.

Mounting public pressure adds to Netanyahu’s reluctance to pursue a diplomatic resolution. The prevailing sentiment in Israel today parallels the U.S. psyche in the immediate aftermath of 9/11—a complete military victory over the enemy—ensnaring Washington in a twenty-year-long conflict it eventually lost.

In the broader context of Israel’s rivalries in the Middle East, including Iran’s subtle role in backing Hamas, Israel has more to lose than any other involved party in this conflict should it choose to forego the path of diplomatic resolution to end the conflict. For Israel, the decision to pursue a negotiated settlement is a delicate one—yet it will cost Israel less to make that decision now than later.

Policymakers, regional players, and the international community must heed the lessons from Afghanistan’s failure to seize, or at least fully explore, the ripe moments for negotiations on a political settlement. In Afghanistan, that failure concluded with the loss of a democratically elected republic government to the very faction it refrained from engaging in negotiations. In Israel, failure to contain the conflict through diplomacy and negotiated settlement is laying the groundwork for a larger conflict that threatens to engulf the broader Middle East.

Omer Niazi is an Edward Mason Fellow and Graduate Student at Harvard Kennedy School and a Research Assistant with the Middle East Initiative at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Follow him on X @OmerNiazai.

Image: Shutterstock.

Baltic Battle: A Chinese Ship Is Suspected of Sabotaging NATO Infrastructure

Mercedes Page — November 1, 2023

Earlier this month, as the world’s attention was focused on the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza, it was easy to miss the news that two subsea telecommunications cables and a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea had been damaged.

On the night of 7 October, the 77-kilometer Balticconnector gas pipeline and a separate but close-by subsea telecommunications cable stretching between Finland and Estonia were damaged in the Gulf of Finland. A week later, it emerged that, on the same night, another subsea telecommunications cable—connecting Estonia and Sweden—had also been damaged.

That might not seem particularly newsworthy. After all, subsea cables—despite facilitating around 95% of internet traffic, making them the physical backbone of our digital world—are notoriously vulnerable to damage. These fiber optic cables, often only the diameter of a garden hose, along with gas pipelines, zigzag all across the ocean floor, where they can suffer damage from storms, marine life, waves, earthquakes, and accidental maritime vehicle activity. There are hundreds of such incidents each year.

This case, however, appears to have been no accident.

Finland, Estonia, and Sweden soon announced that the gas pipeline and cables had likely been deliberately damaged and were being investigated as related incidents.

At the center of the investigation was a Russian state-owned nuclear-powered cargo ship, the Sevmorput. Russia has long posed a threat to vital subsea cables in the region, particularly since the start of the Ukraine war. The threat has escalated since the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2022. Indeed, earlier this year Russia announced that it could damage subsea cables in retaliation for Nord Stream and European countries’ support for Ukraine. In June NATO even set up a subsea cable taskforce because of the high threat of Russian sabotage in the region. And with Finland recently joining NATO—and Sweden in the process of joining—it’s highly likely that Russia damaged the cables in retaliation.

However, another vessel was also reported to be under investigation—a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship, the NewNew Polar Bear, that had been traveling with the Russian vessel.

Open-source tracking showed that both the Russian and Chinese vessels had been in the exact location at the exact time when each of three lines—the two subsea telecoms cables and the gas pipeline—was damaged.

This is where the mystery starts to get stranger.

On 20 October, Finland announced that the Chinese ship—not the Russian vessel—was the prime suspect for damaging the Balticconnector pipeline. Estonia and Sweden followed by saying that the Chinese vessel was also the prime suspect in both subsea cable incidents.

An investigation by Finland into the gas pipeline has since determined that the damage was indeed caused by the Chinese vessel. Finnish authorities have recovered its anchor from the site. The next phase of the investigation will be to determine—somehow—whether the damage was done intentionally, accidentally or as a result of poor maritime activity, and what the motivation was. After the revelation that the Chinese vessel was at fault for the gas pipeline damage, Estonia and Sweden reaffirmed that the subsea cable incidents were linked to the gas pipeline attack.

Unsurprisingly, both Russia and China have vehemently denied any involvement in damaging the cables. Russia, despite its history of threats to sabotage European subsea cables and its recent saber-rattling over NATO expansion, has dismissed the accusations as ‘rubbish’. China, for its part, has agreed to provide information and called for an ‘objective, fair, and professional’ investigation, emphasizing the Chinese vessel’s routine maritime activities. Central to this mystery is why a Chinese vessel would even be involved in damaging subsea cables in the Baltic Sea in the first place. Would China really take its ‘no-limits partnership’ with Russia to a whole new level?

Indeed, this is where the situation gets murkier still.

While initially the NewNew Polar Bear was reported to be operated by China’s Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Company, an update to the ship’s paperwork while still in transit a few days ago has changed its operator’s name to Torgmoll, a Russian company specializing in maritime trade with China. Marine ownership and control are often opaque, and in some instances, downright shady. It’s possible that Russia chartered the vessel to conduct the sabotage, knowing it would test and complicate any European response if the vessel was registered in Hong Kong. Russia may have undertaken the sabotage with or without the knowledge of Beijing. Indeed, China may be involved, knowing that the murkiness of the situation makes it difficult to figure out who was responsible for what.

Attribution of responsibility for this kind of incident is extremely difficult, and it’s unlikely we will ever find out exactly what happened. And that of course, is exactly why Russia—or China—has done it. The deliberate targeting of subsea cables and gas pipelines during peacetime is a tactic that falls in the grey zone—actions that are coercive, effective, and aggressive, yet fall below the threshold of armed conflict—even if it can be proved.

It’s not clear how this story will play out. What is clear, however, is that the world should be watching it closely, because it’s likely that the ripples from these attacks in the Baltic Sea will extend far beyond its waters.

Mercedes Page is a senior fellow at ASPI.

This article was first published by The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Has North Korea Joined Russia and China’s Anti-American Alliance?

Gabriela Bernal — November 1, 2023

Isolated from the international community and in urgent need of weapons and ammunition to continue its fight in Ukraine, Russia has chosen to double down on its alliance with North Korea. Although Moscow and Pyongyang have been allies for decades, recent developments point to deepening military cooperation, which may prolong the war in Ukraine and increase provocations on the Korean peninsula.

Russia reaffirmed its intentions on 26 October 2023, when the Kremlin pledged to ‘continue to develop close relations in all areas’ with Pyongyang. Similarly, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui warned on 28 October that North Korea’s relations with Russia will act as a ‘powerful strategic’ element if security in the region is endangered as a result of US-led trilateral military alliance with South Korea and Japan.

The deepening of the North Korea–Russia alliance took off in July 2023 when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un welcomed a Russian delegation to Pyongyang, headed by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, to mark celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement. The visit marked the first time North Korea had welcomed a foreign delegation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shoigu reportedly proposed trilateral naval exercises involving China and North Korea — a move that highlights just how far Moscow is willing to go to deepen cooperation with Pyongyang.

Although North Korea has yet to commit to such joint drills, Kim Jong-un expressed his interest in deepening ties with Moscow in a highly public manner by making a personal visit to Russia on 12 September 2023. The timing of the trip was bold given recent moves by the United States to strengthen trilateral deterrence efforts against the North with South Korea and Japan.

The United States has also been accusing North Korea of supplying arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine and threatened serious consequences if Kim strikes an arms deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the North Korean and Russian leaders seem undeterred.

Putin expressed his intention to help North Korea build satellites and develop its space program. He also aims to discuss further cooperation on a broad range of topics with Kim Jong-un. Although no official agreement was made public, the two leaders likely concluded a win-win deal.

The fruits of the summit seem to already be materialising. An October 2023 report indicated ‘a dramatic and unprecedented level of freight railcar traffic at North Korea’s Tumangang Rail Facility located on the North Korea–Russia border’. According to the report, ‘the dramatic increase in rail traffic likely indicates North Korea’s supply of arms and munitions to Russia’.

In exchange for the weapons, Russia may offer advanced military technology to help North Korea develop and expand its military capabilities. For example, technology for the refinement of solid fuel missiles and nuclear-powered submarines could be included in a list of North Korean requests. Ordinary North Koreans are also hoping to receive food aid from Russia.

Besides the material goods Kim may receive from Putin, the North Korean leader’s visit to Russia also served to show the world that the ‘hermit kingdom’ is not as isolated as many may think. North Korea is part of its own trilateral ‘bloc’ including Russia and China in opposition to the US–South Korea–Japan trilateral alliance. Deepening ties with Moscow also serves Pyongyang’s interests in reducing its overwhelming dependence on China for aid and trade.

China is in a tricky position as it seeks to maintain North Korea as a buffer state to counter the United States while also wanting to maintain stability on the Korean peninsula and prevent the escalation of tensions. To this end, North Korea’s denuclearisation is also in Beijing’s interests as this would arguably call into question the need for US troops to remain in South Korea.

China faces a challenging balancing act. Russia providing North Korea with advanced military technologies would result in a more dangerous weapons program. This would likely lead to greater tensions close to China’s border. But North Korean support for Russia in Ukraine could prevent Moscow from suffering utter defeat, which would serve China’s interests by containing US power.

Given China’s strong influence, North Korea and Russia are unlikely to engage in actions that would directly hurt Chinese interests. Both North Korea and Russia will likely maintain close communication with China over the course of their deepening bilateral ties. Days after Kim left Russia, Putin hosted China’s top diplomat Wang Yi. Putin also visited China on 17 October 2023. The news comes amid the Kremlin calling for closer policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing to counter Western aims at the ‘double containment of Russia and China’.

With Russia, China and North Korea united against a US-led world order, Cold War-era blocs are becoming increasingly solidified. The revival of these blocs is raising tensions across continents from Europe to Asia.

Gabriela Bernal is a PhD candidate at the University of North Korean Studies, Seoul.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The First Shot Has Been Fired Against U.S. Army Special Operations

Hope Hodge Seck — November 1, 2023

The Army has rolled out a plan that may cut as many as one in 10 special operations billets in a cost-saving measure – but lawmakers and Spec Ops advocates are not to let it happen without a fight, saying these positions are critical for dominance on complex future battlefields.

The plan to make deep cuts to U.S. Army Special Operations Command was confirmed in early October by the Wall Street Journal, which reported that 3,000 jobs could be on the chopping block. Indicators of such a move had been made public in May through Army budget projections from 2025 to 2029. Officials at the time said the issue was one of shifting priorities: more resources were needed for large-scale combat operations rather than the special operations-intensive counterterrorism work of prior wars. Army recruiting struggles also factor in: the service missed its 2023 recruiting goal by about 10,000 new soldiers, after falling 15,000 new recruits short in 2022. Fewer positions to fill means a slimmed-down recruiting goal that may be easier to achieve.

While the Journal reported that the pending reductions would include Green Berets, Task & Purpose later reported that would not be the case: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had expressly directed the Army and U.S. Special Operations Command to leave the Green Berets alone.

Since that news broke, Army officials including service undersecretary Gabe Camarillo met with lawmakers to discuss their planning. According to an Army Times report about the meetings, Army leaders said they plan to focus cuts on currently vacant billets, rather than reducing manned jobs. The cuts, the report added, would be made to enabler positions, and are designed to eliminate what Army Secretary Christine Wormuth calls “overstructure” in an effort to allow the service to complete necessary reorganization or restructuring.

None of that rationale makes the prospect of cuts any more palatable to the Special Operations Association of America, a veteran-run nonprofit that advocates for the Spec Ops community. Organization executive director sent a letter to lawmakers on October 11 saying that the non-operator billets targeted in the cuts were exactly the ones the military needed to retain to stay proficient.

“The proposed cuts take aim at our civil affairs units, psychological operations, and intelligence enablers – the very core of USASOC’s success,” Cook wrote in the letter. “These elite squads, honed through rigorous training, possess skills vital for neutralizing imminent threats. Diminishing their ranks equates to a critical loss of proficiency, knowledge, and strategic memory; putting our national defense at risk.”

Cook pointed to Ukraine, the recently erupted war in Israel, and the conflict hotbed of Africa as regions that demand Army special operations skill sets.

“USASOC has acted as a bulwark, preventing governmental collapses and full-scale enemy occupations,” he wrote. “Their unique blend of linguistic, cultural, and diplomatic acumen empowers them to collaborate efficiently in ambiguous environments.”

In an interview with Sandboxx News, Cook, who spent a decade in Army conventional and special operations units, expanded further on his concerns about the proposed cuts. He pointed to several of SOCOM’s five principles known as “SOF Truths:” Special operations forces cannot be mass-produced, and they cannot be created ad hoc after emergencies occur. With a training pipeline of one to three years to produce a special operator, capabilities can’t be rapidly regrown when a pressing need arises, he added. (SOCOM is the unified command under which all special operations units of the U.S. military fall.)

“When I look across the geopolitical spectrum right now, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Cook said. “You’re already in a recruiting retention crisis. And there’s conflict that’s popping up all over the world. Why would you cut your most valuable people?”

Information operations (IO), among the smallest specialties within USASOC, is a rumored target of the cuts, Cook said. Yet, he added, IO and psychological operations are among the military’s best non-kinetic options to deploy against China, the Defense Department’s primary concern and pacing threat.

Nor does it improve the picture, he said, that many of the targeted billets are vacant ones. Already, USASOC is affected by the larger Army’s struggles to recruit and retain talent, Cook told Sandboxx News.

“It’s a great talking point, when you’re getting slammed in the media, to say that [empty billets are being cut,” Cook said. “But you’re still reducing special operations.”

Multiple lawmakers have also joined the effort to halt this force reduction. Rep. Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican and the first Green Beret to serve in Congress, has been outspoken in opposition to the cuts, saying in a recent statement that he’s “stunned and appalled” by the move.

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and veteran of the Army Reserve and National Guard, also released a statement in support of SOF this month in light of the Wall Street Journal report.

Multiple outlets have also reported that SOCOM itself opposes the Army’s pursuit of USASOC reductions.

All this means the Army will face an ugly uphill battle to achieve the cuts it wants. Congress has a history of vetoing service-supported cuts, cancellations, and divestments, from the Air Force’s beloved A-10 Thunderbolt to underperforming Navy ships. That’s not to say the Army’s plan is dead in the water, though – unprecedented recruiting difficulties and budget-tightening may result in more support for seemingly extreme measures like this one. More details on the Army’s long-term strategy – and how willing leaders are to go to the mat on the force reductions it wants – are likely to come to light between now and the fiscal 2025 budget proposal next spring.

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter who has been covering military issues since 2009. She is the former managing editor for Military.com.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

To Beat Soviet Stealth, F-14 and F-15 Pilots Took on the SR-71 Blackbird

Alex Hollings — November 1, 2023

Despite flying into the sunset nearly a quarter-century ago, Lockheed’s legendary SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane was so far ahead of its time that even today, some 59 years since its first flight, there has yet to be a single aircraft to challenge its position atop the podium of fastest crewed jets in history. Throughout its three decades of service, the Blackbird famously had over 4,000 missiles of all sorts fired at it, and managed to outrun every single one.

But no aircraft is invincible and the Blackbird was no exception. With looming concerns about high-speed Soviet fighters closing the capability gap that insulated the SR-71 from intercept, the Air Force decided to pit its Mach 3+ Blackbird against America’s own best fighters, both of which have also become legends in their own right: the U.S. Navy’s Grumman F-14 Tomcat and the U.S. Air Force’s McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle.

And while no Soviet fighter or missile ever managed to catch up to the sky-storming Habu (a name pilots gave the Blackbird due to its aesthetic similarities to the pit viper of the same name), the same can’t be said for the simulated AIM-54 Phoenix and AIM-7 Sparrow missiles notionally lobbed its way by America’s top fighter pilots. Like any prizefighter with an undefeated record, the SR-71’s official tally may show only victories, but its unofficial training record is actually littered with defeats at the hands of its slower-moving (but highly capable) American fighter siblings.

But don’t let those simulated defeats fool you… because taking on the Blackbird and winning required a fair bit of meddling that stacked the deck in the fighter’s favor.

THE TRUTH ABOUT AIR COMBAT EXERCISES (AND WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THEIR OUTCOMES)

As Sandboxx News has covered at great length in the past, training exercises are rarely organized in a way that allows the superior platform to flex its distinct advantages to their fullest extent. Those sorts of exercises do occur in the form of platform and system testing, but the rules of engagement in complex combat training operations usually aim to level the playing field to some extent in order to give all pilots and crews involved some experience working from a tactical deficit.

In other words, commanders intentionally set the rules to give pilots experience fighting or surviving in uncomfortable circumstances, even if their aircraft are so capable that uncomfortable situations are unlikely. F-22 Raptor pilots, for instance, are regularly disallowed from beyond-visual-range engagements during training exercises against other fighters and are sometimes even required to keep their heavy drop tanks underwing when scrapping in close quarters – both conditions set by operational planners in order to nerf (or diminish) the Raptor’s greatest combat advantages.

But if you think the F-22 is often forced to fight with one wing tied behind its back, you’ll be downright shocked at the lengths SR-71 pilots would go to just to make themselves a viable target for America’s premier fighters. And when the fastest pilots in the sky got tired of losing and started breaking those training rules, not even the F-15 Eagle – the fastest fighter in American history with an unmatched modern air combat record of 104 wins and zero losses – could touch the legendary Blackbird.

PITTING THE SR-71 AGAINST THE AIR FORCE’S F-15 EAGLE

The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle program might be described as an American overreaction to alarming assumptions made by the Defense and Intelligence communities about the Soviet MiG-25. When the first images of this high-speed new fighter reached the Pentagon in 1967, its massive turbojet nozzles, vast wing area, and broad, gulping intakes led many to believe it was the most capable fighter ever seen to that point. In response, the U.S. redoubled its development efforts for a new air superiority fighter that might be capable of standing toe-to-toe with what certainly seemed to be a new Soviet juggernaut.

Of course, the MiG-25 was nothing close to the high-performer the United States feared it to be, but by the time American officials found that out in 1976 (when Soviet pilot Victor Belenko defected with one), the monster they built to take it on – by then known officially as the F-15 Eagle – had already entered service eight months prior.

However, as dominant as the F-15 would prove to be in air-to-air combat, even it struggled against the Habu’s elusive combination of speed, stealth, and electronic countermeasures.

In the books, The Complete Book of the SR-71 Blackbird: The Illustrated Profile of Every Aircraft, Crew, and Breakthrough of the World’s Fastest Stealth Jet, and, SR-71 Revealed: The Inside Story, former Blackbird driver and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Richard H. Graham discussed his time flying high-speed sorties against the legendary F-15 over the Nellis Air Force Base training range, not far from the clandestine installation many of us know today as Area 51.

The intent of these exercises, which the pilots took to calling Eagle Bait sorties, was to give F-15 pilots valuable practice intercepting high-altitude and fast-moving targets that only the Blackbird could simulate.

“To maximize scare, high-altitude/high-speed intercept practice for the fighters against the SR-71,” Graham wrote. “We stacked the deck in their favor to avoid a multitude of missed intercepts, and consequently, wasted time.”

But as powerful as the F-15 was, it faced all the same challenges as the Soviet MiGs. In fact, in order to give the Eagle a shot at scoring a kill against the Habu using the longest-range air-to-air missile available to it at the time, the AIM-7 Sparrow, the Eagle drivers had to be given special permission to exceed the jet’s safety envelope.

“In order to get high enough to take a reasonable shot at us, F-15 crews were given special permission to do a zoom-climb to 50,000 to 55,000 feet before a simulated AIM-7 launch against the SR-71,” Graham recalled. Flying to these altitudes in an F-15 wasn’t just a question of power, however. It also raised concerns about pilot safety inside the cockpit. “They had permission to be above 50,000 feet for a maximum time of 90 seconds without wearing a pressure suit.”

As they’d soon learn, the Eagle also struggled with approaching the Habu from head-on because its targeting systems weren’t designed to be able to see something closing with them so quickly. As former SR-71 pilot Dave Peters would later recall, the speed gate (a filter set to narrow down radar returns to only legitimate threats) had been set to 1,500 miles per hour.

“We were casually warping along from 1,850 to 2,000. So, for them, we didn’t exist,” Peters said. Yet, even once that issue was sorted out, the F-15s still had a steep hill to climb.

As part of “stacking the deck” in the Eagle’s favor, the SR-71 crews were instructed to fly along a specific flight path at altitudes no higher than 70,000 feet and speeds no greater than Mach 2.8. They even began executing fuel dumps, leaving a massive streak of jet fuel in the sky to help the F-15s find them overhead.

Similar to the F-22’s dogfighting conundrum, these rules rounded off the sharper edges of the Habu’s capability set, giving the Eagle a fighting chance.

When that proved not to be enough, Blackbirds were instructed to fly over a designated point in space (called the intercept point) and even call out their approach to it over open radio frequencies at one-minute intervals starting five minutes out. This approach, however unrealistic, gave the Eagle drivers the window of opportunity they needed, rapidly scoring simulated kill after kill against the SR-71 as it zoomed by.

“After each mission, we would debrief by phone, and the F-15 drivers would report ‘four AIM-7s launched, four kills on the HABU,'” Former SR-71 pilot, Capt. Steve “Griz” Grzebiniak later recalled.

TEACHING THE AIR-TO-AIR CHAMP A LESSON

Even with all of the allowances the Blackbird drivers made for their competition, just shaking one of the notional AIM-7 Sparrows launched by the F-15s was simple. The now-dated AIM-7 carried only a semi-active radar guidance system onboard, meaning it needed target information to be relayed from the launching aircraft all the way until impact.

The SR-71 carried an advanced electronic countermeasures system onboard that, among other things, has been said to be able to discern between radar transmission and even broadcast phantom returns that would force the engaging fighter to re-acquire the real target. Because of the Sparrow’s semi-active homing guidance system, the Blackbird could dismiss an inbound Sparrow with the flip of a switch.

But as the F-15s racked up victories, the competitive spirit of the Habu drivers began to take hold… and finally, they decided to break a few rules to inject a bit of humility back into the fighter pilots below.

This time, they didn’t execute a fuel dump at five minutes out like usual… mostly because they were flying 16,000 feet higher (now at 86,000 feet) and much faster than before… now cruising at Mach 3.2. The F-15s never had a chance.

“In the phone debrief after the mission, the F-15 flight lead reported ‘four shots and four kills’ on the first pass and mumbled something about radar problems and no kills on the second pass,” Grzebiniak said. “Even with the world’s best planes, pilots, and missiles, it would take a golden BB [a lucky blind shot by the enemy] to bring down a Habu.”

THE F-14’S AIM-54 PHOENIX MISSILE MAY HAVE BEEN THE REAL TOP GUN

The F-15 wasn’t the only top-tier fighter in the U.S. arsenal at the time, and the truth is, the Navy’s famed F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame was actually better equipped for these sorts of high-speed intercepts.

While the Eagle’s AN/APG-63 was a highly capable radar, it fell well short of the massive power output and multi-targeting capability of the Tomcat’s AN/AWG-9 radar and fire control system. With around double the detection range of the Eagle’s radar and the ability to track 24 targets simultaneously, the F-14 could guide six separate missiles into six separate targets at the same time. Despite being based on a fairly dated design, there wouldn’t be a more powerful radar installed in a fighter until the F-22 Raptor entered service.

But perhaps even more important was the Tomcat’s armament, because the F-14 came equipped with the now-legendary AIM-54 Phoenix missile – the longest-ranged air-to-air missile on the planet at the time that flew with a combination of a semi-active seeker to take cues from the F-14’s radar and an active radar-homing seeker for terminal guidance. In other words, once the Phoenix was close enough to a target, it could rely on its own onboard radar to close in, rather than needing the launching pilot to maintain a lock until impact.

AIM-54 hits a QF-4 target drone during testing. (U.S. Navy photos)

Training intercepts that pitted the F-14 against the SR-71 were known by insiders as Tomcat Chase sorties, and were usually carried out over the Pacific, rather than the Nevada desert, thanks to the presence of F-14-hauling aircraft carriers at sea. As with the F-15, Habu drivers did their best to give the F-14 a fighting chance, flying along straight, predetermined flight paths at lower altitudes and speeds than they would normally do. They also maintained open radio communications, allowing the SR-71 pilots to guide the F-14s into their relative positions so they’d have a chance to fire their notional AIM-54s.

The Blackbird flew with its transponder on, and again, without its defensive electronic countermeasures engaged. But, again, even in these very favorable conditions, Tomcats struggled to find their mark.

“The 14s could find us but they couldn’t do anything until we modified and gave them times, route of flight, speed, and altitude beforehand so they could have a pre-planned setup,” Pilot Dave Peters recalled. “The 15s didn’t do that well for quite some time.”

Tough as it was to spot the Blackbird zooming past, once the Tomcats did, the Phoenix missile was capable enough to pose some real problems for the Blackbird. With a top speed in excess of Mach 4 (except when put into a ballistic flight path into the ground, where it could exceed Mach 5), the AIM-54 had the speed and the range required to close with an airborne Habu, and thanks to its onboard radar seeker, it would be tougher to shake than the Eagle’s Sparrows.

However, there remains some debate about whether or not even the Phoenix could have found its mark in the Blackbird’s high-altitude domain.

“Another factor in our favor was the small guidance fins on their missiles,” Graham wrote. “They are optimized in size for guiding a missile to its target in the thicker air from the ground up and around forty thousand feet. At eighty thousand feet the air is so thin that full deflection of the missile’s guidance fins can barely turn it.”

TOMCATS, EAGLES, AND HABUS… OH MY!

At the end of the day, the Tomcat Chase and Eagle Bait sorties flown throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s were about far more than the pilots’ pride. These exercises were about identifying technical limits (like the Eagle’s speed gate), assessing aircraft capabilities in circumstances outside the norm, and helping pilots gain the experience they need to exercise complex problem-solving in the heat of a high-stakes situation.

These exercises, like a great deal of military training, weren’t about finding winners and losers, they were about making everyone involved, from the ground crews, to command and control, to the pilots better at some of the most difficult, arduous, and complex jobs in warfare.

But that doesn’t mean fighter pilots didn’t take their chance to down a Habu seriously… and as you might expect, they took losing just as seriously.

“There was some animosity at first with both the Eagles and the Tomcats because they kept accusing us of not showing up,” Peters recalled about the times the fighters couldn’t find his fast-moving Blackbird. Listening in on the open radio lines, Peters couldn’t help but enjoy their frustration a bit. “They got a little huffy because nobody told them we weren’t coming.”

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Axis of Resistance Threat to Israel

Daniel Sobelman — October 31, 2023

Hamas’s October 7 cross-border raid landed Israel in its worst strategic surprise in half a century and ignited a crisis with the makings of a regional war. Already now, Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah are engaged in the most serious escalation since the 2006 Lebanon War. And while both are carefully trying to keep the fighting below a certain threshold, the conflict will inevitably escalate further as Israel’s operation in Gaza proceeds. Both Israel and Hezbollah are already mobilized for war. Israel has evacuated dozens of border communities, including the city of Kiryat Shmona. Tension and uncertainty are high, as is the risk of miscalculation.

Whether or not these developments ignite an all-out conflagration between Israel, Hezbollah, and the entire Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” or remain relatively limited, the gravity of the situation is clear. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that in the immediate wake of Hamas’s raid, the United States deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, as well as troops and other major assets, in an active attempt to deter Iran and Hezbollah. Nowhere is the severity of the current crisis more evident than in the unprecedented military and diplomatic mobilization of the United States.

What is also abundantly evident is that while international attention has traditionally focused on its nuclear program, in recent years, Iran and its allies have developed conventional capabilities and a coherent strategy that now poses a vast military threat and a conceptual-strategic challenge to Israel. What some Israeli leaders had hesitantly suggested in recent years must now be bluntly acknowledged. Despite the Jewish State’s immense military supremacy, the conventional capabilities Iran and the “axis of resistance” have amassed near Israel’s borders and in the wider region essentially constitute an existential threat.

In addition to its status as a nuclear power, Israel boasts the most advanced conventional military in the region. It has not faced a traditional military threat or the prospect of an Arab coalition in decades. Moreover, its enemies in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and Yemen have themselves been dealing with enormous domestic challenges. But Israel’s military superiority does not preclude the possibility that a multi-front war could subject Israel to what nuclear deterrence strategists call “unacceptable costs.” Having surrounded Israel with vast and survivable firepower—including precision-guided munitions—the “axis of resistance” could theoretically inundate Israel’s defense systems and hit vital strategic assets. Israel’s airports, military bases, seaports, power plants, and water desalination facilities could be targeted with pinpoint precision. That its weaker enemies would, too, suffer unacceptable costs is a moot point.

The Prospect of a Multi-Front War

If all this is a rude awakening to many Israelis, it shouldn’t be. Israel’s enemies in the region, from Hezbollah to Hamas to Iran, have adopted a deliberate asymmetric “resistance” strategy that seeks to offset Israel’s aerial superiority and alter the balance of vulnerability. This would expose Israel’s home front to immense costs, ultimately leaving it with no other option but a military invasion—something that would supposedly play into the hands of the weaker side. Time and time again, “resistance” leaders have contrasted “resistance” strategy with that of “classic” armies, explaining that Israel would be unable to subject Hamas or Hezbollah to a decisive blow such as that delivered to the Egyptian and Syrian troops in the opening hours of the 1967 War.

What Israeli leaders had described—but perhaps failed to realize fully—was that the combined threat posed by Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and the various “resistance” forces had risen to the level of the threat posed by the vast Arab armies of the past.

In recent years, Israeli military officials have used startling terminology in describing the shifting balance of power in the region and the growing symmetry between Israel and its enemies. In November 2018, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told me that war with Hezbollah would be analogous to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel lost about 2,600 troops. He stressed that Israel must not limit itself in its acquisition of Iron Dome interceptors. In May 2020, former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot told me: “Hezbollah is not just Hezbollah. Hezbollah is Iran. This is represented in its capabilities—in terms of its computer systems, encryption, military manufacture, cyber, doctrine.” A senior IDF General stated in September 2021, “Iran is not just Iran, but also Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, as well as Gaza. One must look at the broader picture.” Two months later, Israel’s top missile defense expert, Uzi Rubin, went further, telling me that in the next war, Israel, like in the first days of the Yom Kippur War, could be the one seeking an immediate cease-fire.

For more than three years now, Israel’s defense establishment has increasingly warned against the scenario of a multi-front war. The 2018 IDF Strategy described, for the first time, Iran’s “Shiite axis” as a regional camp posing “the primary military threat to the state of Israel” and creating a “balance of deterrence” against it. The document also included, for the first time, Yemen and Iraq as countries from which Israel faced a military threat. In 2020, the evolution of the “resistance” challenge was outlined and explained by then-IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi. Israel’s enemies had become “dispersed terrorist armies who rely on high-trajectory weapons.” These actors sought to “offset the basic military superiority which the IDF had enjoyed for many years” and “to gradually impose a new reality” whereby “Israel would be unable to reach a decisive victory in war, and whereby it would be too costly and painful for it to attack its enemies and deter them from provocations and from continuing to build the threat on our borders.”

Israel’s “new generation of enemies,” specifically Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, Kochavi added, adopted a new strategic concept relying on two primary elements: “the component of assimilation and disappearance...the purpose of which is to offset the IDF’s advantages in intelligence and precision-strike capabilities,” and “the component of fire, which relies on missiles and is designed to exact a heavy cost from Israel....and erode the IDF freedom of action in the land, air and sea.” As Gen. Eran Ortal, commander of the IDF’s think tank, explained, Israel’s enemies were now an “advanced threat system” that had “successfully decoded Israel’s military strength” and now posed “an essential threat” to Israel.

A Supra-Conventional, Sub-Nuclear Threat

Given the emergence of this “threat system,” in June 2020, the IDF established the Strategy and Third-Circle Directorate, tasked with confronting the “axis of resistance.” Its commander, Gen. Tal Kelman, stated in 2021: “The ability to hit a country like Israel, which is not a large country, massively and accurately, could have severe strategic consequences.” Even more tellingly, Kelman stated that “the threat of precision-guided missiles is not at the level of the existential nuclear threat, but it is not far below it.” In a similar vein, then-IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned in 2022 that Iran’s regional deployment of “massed precision fires” and its ability to “launch coordinated strikes from several geographical locations” in the Middle East “reaches the level of supra-conventional or sub-nuclear threat.” This posed an “unprecedented” threat “to the functioning of the region’s nations and their population centers and critical infrastructure.” Two weeks before Hamas’s offensive, Kelman warned publicly that for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel now faced the threat of a multi-front war. Hamas’s attack came almost 50 years to the day after that war.

Whether Israel had internalized the profound implications of this reality—that in the moment of truth, there would be a need for the deployment of U.S. strategic assets to deter Iran and Hezbollah—is questionable. Even now, it is unclear to what extent Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies are impressed by such deterrent signals. In fact, in recent days, Iran and its allies privately and publicly communicated their own stern deterrent threats to Israel and the United States. Just three days into the war, the editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar daily, a mouthpiece of Hezbollah and Iran, cited exclusive sources warning the United States lest it actively join the fighting. Not only the aircraft carriers but America’s “interests and official civilian and military infrastructure in the region will be directly targeted” if Washington joined the war. It then published a map detailing the locations and coordinates of fourteen U.S. military bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. Indeed, in recent days, several U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq have come under rocket and drone attacks. A U.S. Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea has already intercepted ballistic missiles and drones launched from Yemen, possibly toward Israel. On October 31, the Houthis claimed responsibility for launching drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel.

This, too, is not surprising. As the United States rightly turned its attention to the increasing global competition with China and then to Russia’s war in Ukraine, it was viewed and presented by the “axis of resistance” as risk-averse and deterred. Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, whose role in the “axis of resistance” and Iran’s own decision-making is pivotal, claimed that the “resistance” forces had even subjected the United States to “rules of engagement.” Unlike their Israeli counterparts, U.S. military leaders seemed profoundly impressed with Iran’s retaliation for the aerial assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. That year, then-U.S. Central Command Chief Frank McKenzie admitted that “it is possible that Iran can control the early steps of escalation in the theater.” In 2021, he warned: “Iran’s strategic capacity is now enormous. They’ve got overmatch in the theatre—the ability to overwhelm.” In the same vein, his successor, General Michael Kurilla, said in March that the IRGC “of today is unrecognizable from just five years ago.” Currently, in Israel, Kurilla is now “particularly focused on avoiding other parties expanding the conflict.”

Vital Interests are at Stake

Hamas’s brutal attack is rightly perceived as a combination of Egypt’s and Syria’s surprise offensive in 1973 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The memory of the Jewish Holocaust, never wholly absent, looms large these days in everyday conversation and public discourse in Israel. But the sense of unprecedented mortal danger is not confined to Israel and the Gaza Strip. In recent years, the Syrian president’s senior adviser described “resistance” as a “strategy that undermines the tenets of our enemies’ strategy.” Qassem Soleimani, the adviser said, understood “the core strategy that opposes the axis of resistance” and “worked to destroy the principles of that strategy.” Soleimani also personally “coordinated this strategy among Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen.” In other words, the prospect of a decisive Hamas military defeat could threaten the “axis of resistance” and its asymmetric strategy. Hence, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has warned that if the “axis of resistance” permitted the downfall of Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah could soon be forced to defend their own cities.

For better or for worse, the long-term geopolitical ramifications of this war will be formative. Whether the “resistance” approach is discredited or confirmed, and whether Iran and its allies manage to deter and constrain Israel and the United States, will have huge implications on the strategic environment of other players. This includes regional heavyweights like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have found themselves facing their own “resistance” threats in the form of Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both have referred to the latter as a “second Hezbollah.” Thus, the current war could end up precipitating, not impeding, a new stage of Israel-Saudi cooperation.

Hours into the 1973 War, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stressed that the United States could not permit the defeat of its client—and of American weapons by Soviet weapons—which “would be a geopolitical disaster to the United States.” It is precisely for this reason that the Biden administration has been providing Israel with massive military aid. But Kissinger also had already formed a clear idea of how the United States would harness the war in the service of diplomacy and a geopolitical reconfiguration of the Middle East. At the moment, this is perhaps the most helpful analogy to that war. Like in 1973, Israel could emerge from the current war with a more sober understanding of its strategic situation in the region and its own constraints and risk acceptance.

That peace between Israel, Iran, and the “axis of resistance” is unrealizable does not preclude the possibility that the current war—and the palpable risk of grave “unacceptable” costs for all sides—could foster the conditions for an extended period of regional stability. In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a thirty-four-day war that neither saw coming and which both regretted, but which also helped pave the way to seventeen years of unprecedented deterrence stability. In 2016, President Barak Obama famously said that amid the fierce regional competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the United States had “to say to our friends, as well as to the Iranians” that they must “find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace.”

While the current crisis will not yield peace between Israel and its enemies, an all-out war in the region would entail costs that neither Israel nor the United States seem willing to risk. Given this reality, the two countries must now think hard and realistically about how this war, too, can indeed be leveraged in the service of promoting “some sort of cold peace.”

Daniel Sobelman is a research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs’ Middle East Initiative and an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Image: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock.

Malaysia’s Support for Hamas Endangers U.S. Relationship

Harry Richer — October 31, 2023

With U.S.-China tensions dividing the international arena, significant pressure looms over Southeast Asia. Which side will these nations take? Will they remain neutral? As President Joe Biden looks to secure partnerships among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia, in particular, has emerged as a potential strategic partner.

Since establishing a comprehensive partnership in 2014, Washington and Kuala Lumpur have shared a diverse and expanding partnership in trade, investment, security, environmental cooperation, and educational and cultural exchanges. Despite these solid relations, the United States has not been able to completely win over the country’s allegiance due to a multitude of diverging views on key issues.

Although Malaysia may subscribe to a neutral foreign policy stance regarding America and China’s strategic competition, it has shown less prudence when it comes to Israel and Palestine. This was most recently affirmed on October 16, following Hamas’ violent attack on Israel. Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim refused to condemn the Palestinian militant group and even went as far as to reassure the international community of Malaysia’s commitment to its relationship with Hamas.

Historically, Malaysia has always been a staunch supporter of Palestine in the region’s territorial dispute, backing calls for a two-state solution based on the United Nations 1949 Armistice Line. However, it appears that the Southeast Asian nation has now shifted its focus from aligning itself with the Palestinian cause to aligning itself in opposition to Israel, no matter the cost.

Not only does Malaysia reject diplomatic relations with Israel, but it also refuses to distinguish the Palestinian people from a group that is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization and outwardly states its commitment to the annihilation of Israel. Instead, it is one of the few countries that facilitate official and high-ranking visits with the group, citing Hamas’ legitimacy as an elected government (elections have not been held since 2006). That said, Israel’s security services have claimed that several trips to Malaysia by Hamas members were not for reasons of international diplomacy, including military training for operatives intent to return to Gaza.

After the viral release of videos showing Hamas fighters breaching Israel’s southern border on the morning of Saturday, October 7, one of the mechanisms that distinctly stood out was the use of motorized paragliders to sail over the top of the twenty-foot-high metal fence. Hamas has never employed this tactic before, and its use resurfaced accusations made as far back as 2014 by Israel’s intelligence agency, Shin Bet, that militants were being trained in Malaysia to use paragliders for a cross-border attack.

Malaysia has always denied such claims, but Israel’s intelligence agency discovered the information from a captured Hamas operative who confessed to at least ten fighters affiliated with the terror group going to Malaysia for paragliding training. He also admitted that the training was specifically in preparation for an attack on Israel’s southern border, a plan that has now unfolded in 2023.

The Biden Administration has backed Israel resolutely in the past weeks, with the president visiting Israel in a grand show of support. In the face of what Biden described as “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” Malaysia’s support for international terrorism may create a rift strong enough to prevent further advances in the bilateral partnership.

Alongside Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, American leaders have made clear that they will not accept Hamas as standing for the “Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination.” The United States has also pressured the international community to unanimously condemn the group’s violent assault as “acts of hate and pure cruelty.” But Prime Minister Ibrahim has forcefully rejected calls to hold Hamas responsible for its actions and instead continues to blame Israel for causing its own suffering.

Such continued support places Washington in a precarious position with a critical security partner in its Indo-Pacific strategy. It must be remembered, however, that although Malaysia has worked to position itself as a middle power in the ongoing great power rivalry, it has not fully aligned itself with the United States. As recently as April 2023, Malaysia’s prime minister endorsed the Chinese leadership’s narrative of “a community with a shared future.”

China has, for the most part, prioritized regional economic interests in its reaction to growing conflict in the Middle East, refusing even to employ the word terrorism in its reference to Hamas. At a time when Washington is seeking to actively reassert its position of influence as a global power in the Middle East, it must remember that lax approaches, even to allies, run the risk of being perceived as weakness.

Indeed, it is precisely this sort of weakness that has driven regional partners closer to Beijing. Many believe that Washington no longer ascribes sufficient strategic value to the region. Standing firm against Malaysian intransigence may challenge the U.S.-Malaysian relationship temporarily. However, looking the other way when a strategic partner overtly expresses support for terrorism, which the United States has itself faced and fought so fiercely to combat the world over, runs the even greater risk of painting American policy as weak and hypocritical at a time when it should instead be projecting power and resilience.

Harry Richer is a foreign policy analyst and currently a senior aide and economic advisor to a member of the UK Parliament.

Image: Abdul Razak Latif / Shutterstock.

China’s Other Military Buildup

Abhinav Pandya — October 31, 2023

In 1998, when then-Indian defense minister George Fernandes said that China was India’s enemy number one, it disturbed many comfort zones. Following his utterance, the majority of India’s Pakistan-centric IR experts and security professionals underwent a collective delirium. However, until 2010, New Delhi could live in the artificial space of peace offered by the slew of border agreements India signed with China after 1990, firmly believing that “good economics can offset bad politics.” Post-2010, when Chinese incursions became a regular phenomenon—at Depsang, at Doklam, and finally, in the most brutal manner, at Galwan, killing twenty Indian soldiers—India’s rendezvous with the peaceful rise of China ended. With those reality checks, India’s strategic establishment emerged from its slumber to understand, analyze, and find solutions to China’s influence and intelligence operations.

Besides China’s “string of pearls” policy to encircle India with friendly states and military-naval bases, the most alarming concern for New Delhi was China’s massive dual-use infrastructural build-up in the border areas. Due to China’s opaque political and military systems, robust internet firewall, and media censorship, finding information about China’s infrastructural initiatives in open sources is highly challenging. With the help of satellite imagery, geopolitical analysts attempt to sketch the constructions in the border areas with India. However, there are severe limitations.

Due to Beijing’s close watch on border areas and the difficult terrain, collecting human intelligence is also an arduous task. Given this context, the author recently visited Tawang district in Arunachal Pradesh for a field study. Notably, Tawang is home to the world’s second-largest Buddhist monastery after Lhasa, holds paramount importance in the religion, and lies in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state that China claims. Based on his extensive field study, which included interactions with the local stakeholders and interlocutors, the author found serious and alarming developments in dual-use infrastructure.

Airports and Helipads

One of the most crucial Chinese investments is building airports and helipads in the border areas. Beijing is upgrading the existing airports by building more runways and taxiways. Major constructions have come up in Tibet at Lhasa-Gonggar Airport, after which the Longzi Airport and Shigatse Airport have seen (or will soon see) massive infrastructure upgrades and construction. Besides, the authorities are constructing helipads wherever they can in the border areas. A large number of them are near the military establishments. Helipad constructions have been observed near the Tsona Zong army base (opposite Arunachal Pradesh, about thirty-four kilometers from the Bumla border post of India) and Sangoa (Lhasa). Since they are in the vicinity of military bases, they can be used for logistics, medical supplies, casualty evacuations, and drone launches.

Roads, Tunnels, and Bridges

China’s major focus is on constructing roads, tunnels and bridges. Additionally, the government is upgrading old roads and building new parallel expressway roads. These roads are being constructed along the border from Pangong Tso (Ladakh) to Nyingchi (opposite Arunachal Pradesh).

These roads have a particular pattern of construction suited to military uses in the event of a war.

Image: Author’s Impression

In the figure given above, road No. 1 is the main highway that runs along the entire border. The main highway or expressway is connected to the border by arterial roads marked 2,3,4,5 and 6. Then, there are roads marked as 7 and 8 connecting the others. This is a general pattern, and there is no precise information about the number of arterial and connecting routes and their locations. What can be said is this: first, the pattern has immense utility in the war from a tactical point of view. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could easily transport equipment and artillery on these roads. With such a lattice network of roadways, the PLA could harness the full potential of their weapon systems and equipment in any border dispute scenario. Second, if the advancing Indian military blocks one artery, then Chinese troops could still reach the border posts through alternative routes. Hence, capturing and barring one or two arterial or connecting roads would have limited strategic value. Third, this pattern hands the Chinese army the element of surprise in a military clash.

On the other hand, the infrastructure on the Indian side has yet to catch up. There is most often only one major road parallel to the border. If access to the main road is blocked, it will be difficult for the armed forces to reach other border areas. These limitations will be a significant hurdle to any offensive and defensive strategy. Additionally, throughout the Tibet region, China has set up a network of 5G towers, whereas India is still building a scattered network of 3G and 4G towers. Poor mobile and internet access haunts the Indian side of the border. In China, state-owned or affiliated companies establish the communication infrastructure. Hence, China’s strategic considerations reign supreme in its border policy. In India, however, private companies run telecommunications development, ensuring that economy, viability, and profitability triumph over geopolitical concerns.

Border Welfare Villages

China is building 400 “defense villages” in the eastern Indian border sector. However, Indian military officials the author spoke with believe that the total number of border villages China intends to construct could be much higher, perhaps over 600. Chinese authorities offer the local Tibetans employment, housing, and cash payments as incentives to settle in those villages. Previously, the local Tibetans lived in scattered settlements in the mountains. Since the locals settled in the new border villages, the mountains are now open to Chinese mining companies. Notably, the Ladakh and Tibet regions host enormous deposits of rare earth minerals.

These villages serve as containment areas. By settling the local Tibetans in these villages, China exerts physical and ideological control over the local population. The whole process is aimed at cultural indoctrination and the destruction of the indigenous Tibetan heritage, values, and practices. Also, reportedly, China is recruiting and training vulnerable individuals as spies and assets. These villages also have high-quality concrete accommodations for Chinese military officers and soldiers. This arrangement can be useful during wartime, and the local population could work as porters for the PLA.

Long-Term Implications

In addition to the military use and strategic edge, this massive infrastructural development will bring a range of other benefits to China. The industrial and tourism economy will flourish, generating jobs, new markets, and economic growth. Detrimental to the indigenous culture, over time, this economic development will be instrumental in the mainstreaming and sinicizing of the local population, which will ultimately strengthen China’s hold on the region. Furthermore, the pro-China narrative around Tibet will likely gain more apparent credibility as the local villagers submit to indoctrination and the CCP way of life.

The infrastructural developments discussed above have created a sense of alarm and serious concern in the Indian strategic establishment. The general perception among the Indian strategic experts is that China can unleash a full-scale war or a significant military offensive on India as a last resort, as it has advanced asymmetric capabilities. A discussion on them is not the key focus of this piece. However, China can initiate a military offensive with India to restore credibility in the eyes of its domestic constituency, for example, if Xi Jinping faces a major credibility crisis or loss of political capital within the country. Secondly, if Beijing cannot secure its preferred outcome with regard to Taiwan, it may choose to compensate for its losses with an adventure in the Himalayan heights. Similarly, if India were to attempt to force Pakistani troops from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, China could come to Pakistan’s rescue by opening a second front or staging limited border incursions in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh.

In a conflict situation, Washington would, at most, share intelligence, weapons, and equipment with New Delhi, albeit strictly according to its own strategic convenience. The intelligence would be crucial; however, the deployment of the equipment and weapon systems would be a challenging task in the rugged Himalayan terrain. Most likely, there will be procurement delays. By the time the weapon systems reach the front, the fighting will most likely be over.

Dr. Abhinav Pandya is a founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation, an India-based geopolitical and security affairs think-tank, and the author of Radicalization in India: An Exploration. His second book, Terror Financing in Kashmir, will be released soon. He has a Ph.D. from OP Jindal University and an MPA from Cornell University.

Image: Creative Commons.

Washington’s Willful Blind Spot on China

Paul Heer — October 31, 2023

China’s international behavior appears to be getting increasingly bold, more assertive, and coercive. Beijing’s diplomatic efforts to claim a global leadership role are accelerating as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping promulgates his signature “Global Security Initiative” and his pursuit of the “reform of global governance” toward the goal of a “community of common destiny for mankind.” With a particular focus on the Global South, Xi recently hosted the third “Belt and Road Forum” and is centrally involved in expanding the “BRICS” group. All these projects are clearly aimed at boosting Beijing’s international clout relative to Washington’s.

Meanwhile, China’s economic diplomacy and questionable trade practices continue to be aimed at maximizing Beijing’s global economic footprint and leverage relative to the United States. Its overseas influence and intelligence operations—both covert and overt—appear increasingly pervasive and, in some cases, increasingly malign. And China’s military behavior in the South China Sea and on the Taiwan Strait is getting more belligerent.

Echoing earlier Biden administration policy documents, the U.S. Defense Department’s annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” released in mid-October, assesses that Beijing’s overall objective is to “revise the international order in support of the PRC’s system of governance and national interests.” To that end, Beijing’s strategy “entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve, and harness the internal and external elements of national power” that will give China a “leading position” in the “enduring competition” between the “ideological systems” of the PRC and the United States.

The prevailing American view is that these Chinese objectives and ambitions are driven by the authoritarian nature of the CCP political system and by Xi Jinping’s personal leadership in particular. There is truth in this, but it overlooks—and in some respects denies—the reactive component of Chinese international behavior: the extent to which it is a response to external variables and the strategic environment as Beijing sees it. Indeed, it is essential to examine the extent to which Chinese leaders feel the need to push back against what they view as foreign challenges to—or disdain for—China’s interests and security.

This is not to suggest that Beijing’s characterization of China’s interests and security is wholly valid or should be taken at face value. CCP leaders routinely blur the distinction between the regime’s interests and the nation’s, and they exaggerate the threats to the security of both in order to rationalize objectionable domestic and foreign policies. At the same time, China does have legitimate interests and security concerns that it perceives as being challenged or disregarded by other countries. Indeed, foreign governments themselves sometimes blur the distinction between China and the CCP regime—potentially alienating the former in their efforts to avoid conceding anything to the latter. U.S. officials often distinguish between their problems with the CCP and their support for the Chinese people, but usually with an eye to the Chinese people’s presumed democratic aspirations and little reflection on their external national ambitions.

For example, Chinese foreign policy often invokes the need to rectify the “century of humiliation”—the period from the Opium War of the 1840s through World War II in the 1940s, during which China was attacked, colonized, and exploited by foreign powers. This is cited to defend China’s sovereignty claims and pursuit of great power status. Because much of this narrative has been exaggerated and propagandized by the CCP, U.S. officials often dismiss its validity and contemporary relevance. But the “century of humiliation” is not merely a CCP slogan. It evokes real historical experiences that remain a visceral source of genuine Chinese nationalism (even among anti-Communists) and affects how Chinese people view their country’s rightful place in the world.

From Beijing’s perspective, it often appears as if Washington is unwilling to publicly acknowledge that China has any legitimate concerns or national interests. Indeed, one is hard-pressed to find official U.S. statements that do so because the political environment in Washington—in which the Republicans and Democrats are competing to be toughest on Beijing—seems to proscribe conceding the validity of any aspect of the Chinese point of view. It also seems to proscribe acknowledging that Chinese behavior might in any way be reactive to U.S. policies and actions. Instead, U.S.-China tensions are attributed almost exclusively to the nature of the CCP, the unreasonableness of its international behavior, and its expansive strategic ambitions.

Beijing also perceives that its positions on international issues—unless they support U.S. policies—are similarly dismissed as duplicitous, disingenuous, or self-serving. This has been reflected in China’s approach to the war in Ukraine, where Beijing has asserted that Russia has “legitimate security interests” that were compromised by NATO expansion, and its approach to the Israel-Gaza war, where it has sought to promote the legitimate security interests of the Palestinians. Although Beijing maintains these views for genuine strategic reasons, in both cases, the Chinese position has been largely rebuffed in Washington as implicitly supporting aggression and inadequate to advancing peace.

On territorial and sovereignty issues, Beijing also sees Washington as generally dismissive of assertions that China’s aggressive behavior is in any measure a reaction to steps taken by other countries. In the South China Sea, there is a long and complex history to the interactive dynamic that has fueled regional tensions, but Beijing garners no empathy for its view that other countries have also assertively pushed the envelope in pursuit of their sovereignty claims. This is especially evident with regard to Taiwan. There is virtually no public acknowledgment in Washington that Beijing’s escalatory behavior on the Taiwan Strait might be a response to policies and statements emanating from Taipei and Washington, which have eroded the “one China” understandings that largely maintained stability for four decades. Instead, the rising cross-strait tensions are attributed almost exclusively to Chinese impatience and internally driven aggression.

Beijing also sees Washington as largely disregarding Chinese assessments of the strategic environment, especially when they incorporate judgments about U.S. intentions. The new 2023 DOD report on China states that PRC leaders view the United States as “deploying a whole-of-government effort meant to contain the PRC’s rise.” This correctly summarizes Beijing’s view, but it overlooks the fact that the U.S. government is expressly engaged in a “whole-of-government effort” to counter, constrain, and compete against China. Many U.S. politicians have even explicitly referred to this strategy as “containment.” Similarly, the DOD report states that PRC leaders have “characterized China’s view of strategic competition in terms of a rivalry among powerful nation-states. . . as well as a clash of opposing ideological systems.” This, too, is correct, but it overlooks the fact that the Biden administration itself routinely talks about “strategic competition” with China in terms of a rivalry between great powers and a clash between ideological systems. It thus should not be surprising if Beijing views Washington’s own rhetoric as disingenuous and self-serving.

Nor should it be surprising, given all these indicators of Washington’s apparent disregard for the Chinese perspective, that Chinese leaders are inclined to discount U.S. concerns in a similar fashion. More importantly, they are also inclined and even motivated to double down with their own competitive “whole-of-government” approach to confronting the challenge they perceive from the United States. In short, Beijing’s increasingly active pursuit of global influence relative to—and at the expense of—Washington is a predictable response to its failure to make headway in getting U.S. acknowledgment of and attention to Chinese interests and security concerns. Indeed, Beijing has arguably grown more ambitious, arrogant, and provocative in its international behavior because of its frustration with the lack of substantive progress in engagement with Washington. From the Chinese perspective, the U.S. side has made the strategic competition a zero-sum game. Beijing will act accordingly by using its levers of power and influence to bolster China’s position and effect changes in “global governance” that are more conducive to Chinese interests and strategic objectives. This is central to the reactive component of China’s international behavior, which is no less a driver of that behavior than the nature of the CCP regime or Xi Jinping’s personal ambitions.

Would the United States, or any other confident and powerful nation, react differently to circumstances in which its interests, security, and strategic perspective appear to be largely rejected—or deemed illegitimate—by a strategic rival? How do we expect Beijing to act in such circumstances? For example, how do we expect Beijing to act with regard to the Taiwan issue? By admitting the error of its ways, its exclusive responsibility for cross-strait tensions, and its relative vulnerability in a potential conflict scenario, thus abandoning its pursuit of unification with Taiwan? That is not going to happen because Beijing’s commitment to its position on Taiwan is visceral, and its calculus of its relative leverage is strong and may be getting stronger. Nor will Beijing retreat from its strategic calculus or principles about Ukraine, Gaza, the South China Sea, global governance, or a range of other international issues because Washington believes it has the balance of leverage and the moral high ground.

Again, none of this is meant to suggest that Beijing’s strategic ambitions and behavior are benign or that Washington should acquiesce to them. China seeks to maximize its global power, influence, legitimacy, and security relative to and at the expense of the United States. And it does seek revisions to the international system that facilitate and advance that goal. But that goal is partly a product of Beijing’s assessment that Washington is determined to minimize China’s power, influence, and legitimacy—and thus its security—and is unwilling to accept the validity of China’s external interests or pursuit of a global leadership role. This is the zero-sum contest that Beijing believes Washington has imposed upon China, even though Washington appears to judge that Beijing is responsible for making it zero-sum.

Does the United States really fear that China will succeed in supplanting it as the global hegemon by winning the hearts and minds of much of the rest of the world and imposing on it the CCP system of governance and development? That overestimates Beijing’s strategic intentions, underestimates the agency of other countries, and reflects a striking lack of confidence in the global appeal and legitimacy of democracy and capitalism. In any event, the international system is reshaping itself in the wake of historic shifts in the distribution of wealth, power, and influence—not because China has launched an effort to reshape it. Beijing, nonetheless, is taking advantage of the opportunity to drive the process to its benefit, while Washington appears instead to be resisting or denying the historical trend. The United States should be competing with Beijing to capitalize on it, with confidence in the assets and strengths it brings to the process.

China’s competitive moves against the United States and its efforts to cultivate support from other countries are partly driven by Beijing’s judgment that this probably will be more productive than seeking U.S. acknowledgment of and attention to its views through reciprocal engagement. Chinese leaders will not abandon the latter in their bilateral interactions with Washington, but they feel the need to maneuver for advantage both multilaterally and globally. They recognize that the United States has prioritized strategic competition with China over cooperation and engagement, so they are accelerating their plans to meet that competition. In short, Beijing will step up its efforts to score points against Washington because it judges that it is not scoring points with Washington and sees diminishing prospects for doing so.

Antagonism and the lack of strategic empathy on both sides are thus preventing Washington and Beijing from recognizing and genuinely responding to each other’s perspectives. Beijing, arguably the petitioner in the bilateral relationship because of China’s relative disadvantages, routinely invokes the need for diplomacy aimed at pursuing “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation.” Washington, openly confident of its relative strengths and openly critical of what it claims are Beijing’s true strategic intentions, generally dismisses this as CCP propaganda. In contrast, the U.S. side routinely describes U.S.-China diplomatic interaction as aimed minimally at “responsibly managing the competition and maintaining open channels of communication”—as Biden reportedly expressed personally to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in late October. This suggests a U.S. lack of interest in aiming higher or perhaps a lack of readiness to assume the necessary requirements and responsibilities of doing so.

The biggest obstacle to American understanding of China thus appears to be Washington’s seeming determination to misunderstand China—rather than grant any credibility and legitimacy to its strategic outlook and goals. This only reinforces Beijing’s adversarial response. Washington will not be able to work constructively with Beijing toward overcoming bilateral mistrust—and sharing global leadership, which ultimately will be necessary—until it is prepared to consider the Chinese point of view and recognize that the long-term risks of misunderstanding and antagonizing Beijing are greater than the risks of taking into account China’s strategic interests and concerns.

Paul Heer is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. He is the author of Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

Image: Shutterstock.

Su-37: Russia's 'Terminator' Fighter History Seems to Have Forgotten

Maya Carlin — October 31, 2023

The mid-to-late twentieth century saw impressive advancements in fighter aviation due largely to the ongoing arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Soviets developed the Mig-25 which caused the U.S. to rush to improve the F-15 Eagle.

The U.S. introduced the F-14 Tomcat, and the Soviets designed the Su-27 to match it.

These impressive leaps in design led to incredible technological advance in a short time, as seen on the Su-37.

A Brief History of the Su-37

Entering service in 1985, the Sukhoi Su-27 “Flanker” was a highly successful aircraft developed into several different platforms, the -30, -33, -34, and -35, with multiple capabilities and mission roles. Born out of the Flanker, the -37 or “Terminator”, was built to test a variety of new features and upgrades to improve the capabilities of the Su-27.

The eleventh Su-27M, or upgraded Su-27, designated T10M-11 rolled off the production line in early 1995, the airframe was redesignated the Su-37 and given to designers to test a myriad of new systems and equipment.

While some of the initial tests were simply on new radar systems, these proved incredibly capable. The new radar, N011M Bars, could lock onto and track twenty targets. The old radar on the Su-27 could only handle fifteen.

Pilots interfaced with this new radar as well as upgraded avionics using four full-color LCD multi-function displays.

These displays provided more functionality as well as a better picture in bright sunlight. By far the most significant improvement, however, was the addition of thrust vectoring nozzles to the engine.

The Su-27M was one of the first airframes to incorporate thrust vectoring

Initial testing of the Su-27M revealed that pilots were unable to maintain control at high angles of attack, that is the aircraft became difficult to maneuver at slow speeds. Beginning in 1983, Soviet designers had experimented with thrust vectoring which would allow the pilot or aircraft to change the direction of thrust produced by the engine by means of movable nozzles.

All jet aircraft up to that point had used fixed nozzles which meant the only way to maneuver was using flight controls. Thrust vectoring then was a novel idea that potentially had the ability to reshape dogfighting tactics.

Although Sukhoi was unable to equip the Su-37 with a new and powerful engine, they were able to install thrust-vectoring nozzles capable of deflecting up to fifteen degrees. Testing immediately revealed the capabilities of the new aircraft and at its debut in the Farnborough Airshow in September, 1996, spectators were enthralled by the Super Cobra maneuver, a variation of Pulgachev’s Cobra whereby the pilot pulls the aircraft to near vertical without gaining any altitude, slowing their airspeed to nearly zero and causing a pursuing aircraft to overshoot.

In the Super Cobra, Russian Pilot Yevgeni Frolov began the maneuver but carried it past the vertical. He then pushed the nose straight up and held the position momentarily before allowing it to fall back to level flight.

Over the next five years, the Su-37 would fly multiple times at different air shows as well as in test flights, proving its capabilities over and over.

Ultimately, it would crash in a test flight in 2002 when the left horizontal stabilizer broke off, likely due to exceeding g-limits multiple times over the course of its life.

The image is of a Su-27 fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The F-35 Stealth Fighter Is Really Three 'Warplanes'

Maya Carlin — October 31, 2023

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program was a collaborative project undertaken by the U.S. and partner nations to develop a multirole fighter aircraft.

The U.S. had even more in mind, however, expecting the F-35 to fill gaps in each of its three services with airborne components: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy.

As a result, the Lightning II comes in three variants. The A, B, and C models are all similar, but important distinctions allow them to meet the needs of their specific service.

Brief History

After a tense competition, Lockheed Martin was selected to develop its X-35 fighter, winning over Boeing’s X-32.

Following this initial success, the program was plagued by delays and design struggles.

Initial plans had the three variants sharing 70% of parts, but the final design ended up sharing only 25% of components.

In the end, though, all three variants are highly capable fighters.

Specs & Capabilities

The Pratt & Whitney F135 engine is a marvel of modern engineering. While the Lightning II is not quite as powerful as the twin-engine F-22 Raptor, it still packs a punch with a top speed of Mach-1.6. Some of the biggest advances of the F-35 are in its complex suite of highly sophisticated sensors such as the AN/APG-81 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, technology that allows the aircraft to detect, track, and engage targets at long ranges while synthesizing information and sharing it among platforms and combatants.

Taking lessons from the F-22, designers focused closely on the F-35’s stealth characteristics. The radar absorbing material used on the surface of the aircraft is far more durable than that used on the Raptor, making for easier long-term maintenance. The diverterless supersonic inlet helps mask the engine and turbine. Care was taken with the design of different external components such that they mask the signature of the Lightning II. All this work paid off. From certain angles the F-35 appears as no more than a metal golf ball.

F-35A - Conventional Takeoff and Landing

The F-35A is the Air Force variant, designed to takeoff from and land on long, paved runways. These parameters arguably made it the easiest to design, as they impose the loosest restrictions on weight and durability. The U.S. Air Force has planned for the F-35 to conduct suppression of enemy air defense missions as well as close air support missions, using its stealthy characteristics to provide timely support in contested environments.

F-35B

The B variant, designed for the U.S. Marine Corps, provided the greatest challenge to Lockheed Martin due to its short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) requirement, which allows the fighter to operate out of small, unfinished airstrips or off of amphibious assault craft. These same assault craft limited the viable wingspan of the Lightning II to 35 feet. In order to achieve STOVL, the F-35B has the smallest internal weapons capacity and shortest range of any of the variants.

F-35C

Designed for carrier operations, the F-35C is the largest of the three, with folding wings that allow it to fit neatly onto carrier decks. This increased wingspan increases performance at slow speeds, which is crucial for the difficult maneuver of landing on a carrier deck. Furthermore, this gives the F-35C a range of more than 1,200 miles, which is absolutely essential for operating over the open ocean.

Despite these differences, all F-35 variants are equally formidable.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Federal Reserve Could Tank the U.S. Economy

Desmond Lachman — October 31, 2023

John Maynard Keynes famously said that “when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?”.

Since the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting in September, the facts have changed for the worse in a major way for the US economy. The question now is whether the new facts will change the Fed’s mind and induce it to back off its “high interest rates for longer” mantra.

One way in which the facts have changed has been the spike in long-term interest rates in the wake of the return of the bond market vigilantes. Concerned about how the government will finance its ballooning budget deficit, which is running at 8 percent of GDP at a time of cyclical strength, the markets have dumped government bonds in a big way. That has driven up the bell weather 10-year Treasury bond yield to close to 5 percent or to its highest level in 16 years. That, in turn, has caused a rise in mortgage and auto loan rates to a demand crimping 8 percent.

A number of Fed officials seem to recognize that from the point of reducing aggregate demand, the recent spike in long-term Treasury bond yields is equivalent to several Fed interest rate hikes. This is especially the case considering that long-term Treasury bond yields are the key determinant for housing and automobile loan rates. As those rates rise beyond a certain threshold, one must expect that housing and automobile demand will be crushed.

Not recognized by Fed officials, at least in public, is the serious damage that the recent long-term interest rate spike is doing to the banking system’s balance sheet. It is doing so by reducing the value of its bond portfolio. Even before the recent spike, it was estimated that the banks had mark-to-market losses on their bond portfolios of some $620 billion. The recent bond yield spike could add a few more hundred billion dollars to those losses.

The impairment to the banks’ balance sheets is occurring at a time when the banks are facing the prospect of a wave of loan defaults in general and of commercial property loan defaults in particular. It is difficult to see how property companies are going to roll over the $500 billion in property loans falling due next year at markedly higher interest rates than those at which the loans were initially contracted at a time when they are experiencing meager occupancy rates in a post Covid-world.

All of this has heightened the prospect that soon we will have another round of the regional bank crisis that started at Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year. It must only be a matter of time before markets question the regional banks’ solvency, as indicated by the recent swoon in regional bank share prices. Not only do those banks have large bond portfolios. They also have as much as 18 percent of their balance sheets exposed, and they are now also having to pay much higher interest rates to maintain their deposit bases.

Another way in which the economic facts have changed for the worse has been the start of what is widely expected to be a long war between Israel and Hamas. According to the World Bank, if that war spread to the rest of the region, we could see international oil prices spike to $150 a barrel. The prospect of such a supply shock is bound to impact both investor and household expectations adversely.

In March 2021, when the Biden Administration secured passage of the budget-busting American Rescue Plan, the Federal Reserve did not change its policy of unprecedented monetary policy ease. The net upshot was a surge of inflation to a multi-decade high. We have to hope that the Fed has learned from that past egregious policy mistake. Maybe then it will back off from its newfound monetary policy religion in light of new facts that point to heightened economic and financial market risks.

If the Fed does not soon change policy course, we should brace for a very hard economic landing next year.

Russia and North Korea: A Military Partnership That Can Truly Last or Not?

Timo Kivimäki — October 31, 2023

Concrete evidence suggests a close relationship between Russia and North Korea. In July, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited North Korea for negotiations, followed by the third summit meeting between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in September and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit in October. While this cooperation appears to have immediate power-politics motives, it is based on an unsustainable ideological foundation. The two countries need support from the other for the defense of principles that the other consistently violates. This misalignment may render Russia’s cooperation with North Korea unsustainable in the long run.

The cooperation between North Korea and Russia is primarily driven by considerations of power rather than a commitment to shared principles. North Korea seeks allies to establish a sense of normalcy following the Supreme People’s Assembly enacting a law on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Policy on Nuclear Forces in September 2022, making nuclear weapons a permanent element of the country’s defense policy. However, while North Korea has underscored the international norm of non-interference in domestic affairs and criticized U.S. interventions and interference, the country’s foreign ministry has swiftly endorsed Russia’s violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the alteration of Ukraine’s state borders through the use of force. In the short term, principles hold little weight when geopolitical tensions between North Korea and the West compel the country to support Russia, yet Russia’s actions contradict the same principles that North Korea has consistently condemned the United States for violating.

After escalating the conflict in Ukraine, Russia finds itself in need of more ammunition than it can produce or had previously acquired from Iran. Suspicious Russian naval movements have been observed between North Korea and the Russian submarine base in the port of Dunai, near Vladivostok. A recent analysis by the Royal United Services Institute suggests that these movements may involve shipments of ammunition from North Korea to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

In addition to ammunition, Russia may view North Korea as a potential proxy in its power politics and nuclear brinkmanship. Putin perceives that the United States is using Ukraine in a similar capacity, willing to accept the risks of a nuclear conflict as a quid pro quo for military aid. For Putin, Ukraine is a U.S. asset in the global game of brinkmanship. There exists the possibility that North Korea could play a similar role for Russia. The readiness to approach the nuclear brink is often regarded as the primary source of bargaining leverage in the nuclear bargaining game. This concept was elucidated in the 1960s by the American game theorist Thomas Schelling, whose ideas on nuclear deterrence have been considered the intellectual underpinning of U.S. Cold War deterrence strategy. Within this framework, the use of an unpredictable and daring ally may prove useful in power-political brinkmanship games.

Yet, for Russia, its cooperation with North Korea deviates from its historical principles. As convincingly demonstrated by William C. Potter, Russia (and the Soviet Union) has traditionally championed nuclear non-proliferation. Apart from the Cuban Missile Crisis; it never stationed its nuclear weapons outside its own territory, a practice prohibited by Article 1 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The risk of nuclear missiles ending up in Ukraine was mentioned by Putin as one of the key reasons for the Russian aggression in Ukraine. However, the recent alignment and open support for the main proliferator indicate that power-political motives are guiding also Russia’s behavior.

While Russia has been critical of what it considers the United States’ use of Ukraine as a proxy, this is unlikely to deter Moscow from employing a similar strategy itself. It has been a recurring pattern in Russia’s international behavior that criticism of U.S. power politics does not dissuade Russia from adopting similar tactics in response. This could, however, lead to problems in Russia’s long-term strategy. Russia’s credibility in non-proliferation diplomacy diminishes, while its “justification” for the war in Ukraine becomes contradictory with its close cooperation with North Korea, the primary proliferator. Concurrently, North Korea’s insistence on sovereignty and non-interference in its internal affairs loses credibility when it supports Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Russia may be repeating a mistake it made in the 1960s, which ultimately soured Sino-Soviet collaboration. Then, Soviet power politics in Czechoslovakia undermined the credibility of a joint fight against what both perceived as Western imperialism, as China believed the Soviet Union itself practiced “social imperialism.”

This historical lesson may suggest that, in the long term, both Russia and North Korea could face challenges when seeking assistance in the pursuit of their principles from the main violator of those principles.

Timo Kivimäki is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Bath (UK) and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Sejong Institute (Seoul, Republic of Korea). Professor Kivimäki joined the University of Bath in January 2015. Previously he has held professorships at the University of Helsinki, University of Lapland, and at the University of Copenhagen. Professor Kivimäki has also been director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (Copenhagen) and the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Helsinki.

Image: Creative Commons.

Vietnam Rising: Will Hanoi Be the Next Indo-Pacific Power?

Long Le — October 31, 2023

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising US–China trade tensions, Vietnam leapfrogged South Korea to become the United States’ sixth largest trade partner by import value in 2022. This jump represents an important pivot in Vietnam’s economy — Vietnam’s biggest export to the United States is no longer textiles and garments, but high-tech products.

By the end of 2023, many flagship Apple products will have been assembled in Vietnam. Rather than competing against China’s ‘world factory’ tag, Vietnam has branded itself as an additional manufacturing destination to China within the global supply chain ecosystem. In so doing, Vietnam has subsumed some of China’s tech export market share and has been declared the biggest beneficiary of the US–China economic decoupling.

Vietnam has provided a much-needed ‘neutral’ environment for foreign fintech firms to de-risk and reroute their exposure from the US–China great power rivalry — including Apple’s shift of production away from China, US-based Amkor Technology’s investment of $1.6 billion investment in a semi-conductor factory. Vietnam is also welcoming back Huawei after initially deferring to US efforts to ban the company.

Vietnam has the potential to become the fourth largest exporter of high-tech goods behind China, Taiwan, and Germany. Though Vietnam currently holds the seventh position, its growth has no rival — high-tech goods as a share of Vietnamese exports hit 42 percent in 2020, up from 13 percent in 2010.

By some accounts, Vietnam is ‘shadowing’ China in its efforts to become an upper-middle income economy. But unlike China, Vietnam’s state capitalism is seen as non-threatening to Western and Asian economies. Through its ‘independent’ foreign policy, Vietnam is able to hedge and thrive in today’s geopolitical environment.

Vietnam is an autocratic regime with a very poor human rights record whose state-owned enterprises significantly crowd out private-sector innovation. At the same time, others have recognized that the Vietnamese government’s intervention in opening the country up for free trade and foreign direct investment can be seen as overwhelmingly positive and non-threatening to the global trading system.

Vietnam’s model of state capitalism is indeed compatible with market-driven economic growth. In a seminal work on the variations of state capitalism, three dimensions of state capitalism were identified. The first is whether government intervention is threatening or non-threatening, the second is the degree of state ownership and the last is statism, or the level of coordination between state actors and non-state actors in sectors such as education and healthcare. Countries can exhibit high ratings on one factor and low ratings on another.

While the Vietnamese government is strongly embedded in all sectors of society, statism in Vietnam often tolerates and responds positively to citizens’ criticism — particularly in areas relating to public corruption, climate change, education and public health.

But Vietnam’s meteoric rise in high-tech exports has yet to speed up its entry into the exclusive club of ‘Asian tiger’ economies. In previous decades, South Korea, Taiwan and China have entered the club by climbing from low-tech manufacturing to advanced high-tech production. It might take about 15 years for Vietnam’s GDP per capita — which was US$4320 in 2023 — to reach China’s 2023 GDP per capita of US$12,540.

While Apple is tasking its suppliers to invest, produce and assemble products in Vietnam, the question is whether Vietnam can capture value-added opportunities and see Vietnamese firms gradually becoming Apple suppliers. This seems unlikely in the short term, as all of Apple’s suppliers are Chinese or Taiwanese foreign-invested firms who have relocated to Vietnam.

While Vietnam’s high-tech exports are fuelling the country’s growth, there is an overreliance on foreign innovation inputs, with about 70 percent of Vietnam’s total export value driven and captured by foreign companies. Vietnam’s GDP per capita’s growth potential is significantly lower than that of other Asian tigers after reaching lower middle-income status. This is because Vietnam’s total factor productivity and human capital have yet to be driven by domestic inputs, and technology spillovers aren’t occurring fast enough.

But there is a significant bright spot — the current FDI inflows from fintech companies are giving Vietnam more time to address its dependency on foreign innovation inputs. For instance, the Vietnamese government could entice Apple to invest in research and development and deepen its relationships with Vietnamese universities and students, as Apple did in China.

Vietnam has uniquely positioned itself to be among the fastest-growing economies in the coming decade. And its success in managing COVID-19 as Asia’s top-performing economy during the pandemic has strengthened the country’s statism and reputation as a safe and friendly environment for foreign direct investment.

Vietnam’s race to becoming the next Asian tiger has its challenges, including the question of how to reduce the country’s overreliance on foreign innovation inputs. But it appears that core elements of an innovation ecosystem are taking root as Vietnam establishes itself as a high-tech export power.

Amid deglobalization and a global pandemic, Vietnam has emerged as an outlier, showing that its state capitalism is a capable growth model. Vietnam has secured more time — if not an inside track — in the race to become the next Asian tiger.

Long Le is Director of the International Business Program the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. He is also an affiliated Senior Research Associate for the University of Oregon’s US–Vietnam Research Center. His opinion is his own.

Russia Has Big Plans to Win the Israel-Hamas War

Anna Matveeva — October 31, 2023

The recent official visit to Moscow by representatives from Hamas and Iran was roundly condemned by Israel. A spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry called the visit an “obscene step that gives support to terrorism and legitimizes the atrocities of Hamas terrorists”.

The Hamas delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of the militant group. Iran was represented by deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, who was received by his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Galuzin.

Despite Russia’s involvement in a war in Ukraine that many still fear could engulf Europe, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly warned that the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could escalate into a regional war.

His concern is shared by many in the West, given an uptick in activity by Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq in recent months. This was given weight by US airstrikes overnight on October 26 against two facilities in eastern Syria that it identified as linked to Iran-backed militias.

A diplomatic solution to the crisis in Gaza remains a long way off, with the UN Security Council still riven with divisions. China and Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution while the US and UK vetoed a resolution sponsored by Russia.

The resolutions were similar in scope, calling for an immediate ceasefire. But the US resolution had language addressing states’ rights to self-defense while the Russian resolution called for a cancellation of the evacuation order for civilians to head into southern Gaza.

It appears that the Security Council is now so broken by Cold War-style divisions that it has effectively been rendered paralyzed, even if its members share the goal of avoiding bloodshed in Gaza that could trigger a regional war.

The general assembly approved a non-binding resolution at the weekend, calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, but Israel and the US voted against. They were supported by 12 other countries, and 45 nations including the UK abstained, suggesting a lack of real consensus on the issue.

But the visit of Hamas and Iran to Moscow does suggest that Russia could play a peacemaker role in Gaza – even while Putin is the subject of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed as part of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Russia has diplomatic relationships with all the parties involved, despite their mutual antagonisms, and has historically pursued active diplomacy in the Middle East.

Russia’s ties with Israel are also important. The two countries had a difficult relationship during the Cold War, when the USSR supported many of Israel’s mortal enemies in the Middle East as a way of countering US influence. But there was a rapprochement in the 1990s.

Putin and Ariel Sharon, who was then Israeli prime minister, developed a close rapport. Sharon’s successors have continued this policy of staying close to Moscow.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, while the West lined up against Moscow, Israel offered to act as mediator and refused to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. Putin has reciprocated by acknowledging Israel’s right to self-defense, while calling for the two sides to seek a long-term two-state solution.

While making war in Europe, Putin is clearly trying to set himself up as a mediator in the Middle East. This is not as far-fetched as it might sound. Moscow has strong relationships with many of Israel’s antagonists: Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Hezbollah, and major Arab powers, such as Egypt and the Arab League.

Before this most recent visit, Hamas officials had visited Moscow at least three times since the war in Ukraine. For them, Russia is only the actor which they trust to mediate, given its rapport with both sides of the conflict.

Moscow also maintains contacts with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose secretary general, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, visited Moscow in February 2021 and was formally received by foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. On October 17, ten days into the crisis, Putin had telephone conversations with the leaders of Syria, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, as well as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What’s in it for Russia?

From the Kremlin’s point of view, the crisis in Gaza diverts attention – and aid dollars – from the war in Ukraine. Although the US president Joe Biden urged Congress to approve another US$60 billion (£50 billion) in military aid for Ukraine against US$14 billion for Israel, it has been reported that ammunition destined for Ukraine has been diverted to Israel.

Many analysts believe that if it comes to prioritizing which country to support (a situation which hasn’t materialized – yet), Israel would win out.

Russia’s diplomatic stance makes sense. Both sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict are entitled to security, but neither should use excessive force. Importantly, Moscow has put the two-state solution – which appeared to have been shelved over recent years – firmly back on the agenda.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has called for the Middle East “quartet” of the UN, US, EU and Russia to be revived, to “move … in the direction of implementing and fulfilling all those resolutions of the [UN] security council and general assembly that have been approved over all these years”.

Given all this, Russia could play a pivotal role in bringing peace to the Middle East. And arguably, the nature and severity of the crisis calls for the US to put its frustration with Putin aside for the sake of a greater good. The crisis is too big for geopolitical posturing.

If Russia can help to resolve it, it should be given a chance. If it scores some points in the war of narratives, it is a small price to pay for peace.

Anna Matveeva is Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's Russia Institute, King's College London.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Boon or Burden?: The Truth Behind India’s Demographic Growth

Santosh Mehrotra — October 31, 2023

India’s demographic dividend began in the early 1980s and will end by 2040. In contrast, China’s dividend ended in the mid-2010s, but it took full advantage of its 9–10 percent annual growth rate for three decades.

Both countries had similar gross national incomes (GNI) per capita in 1980, but in 2022, China’s GNI per capita in terms of purchasing power parities was around Int$20,300, while India’s was Int$8,200. Until its demographic dividend ends, India needs to ensure a consistent annual GDP growth of at least 8 percent to generate sufficient non-farm jobs for its young population.

India achieved 7.9 percent growth on average over 2004–14, despite the 2008 global financial crisis. Over this period, the population grew on average 1.4 percent per annum and GNI per capita grew on average 5.5 percent per annum. Between 2004–5 and 2011–12, the economy created on average 7.5 million new non-farm jobs every year. This kept youth and total unemployment low and pulled workers out of agriculture at an unprecedented scale — a characteristic of the structural transformation undergone by China and other industrialized countries.

Rapid growth was accompanied by a hastening of structural change in employment. Manufacturing’s share of employment rose from 10.5 to 12.8 percent of total employment over 2004–11. The share of workers in agriculture had been falling since 1973–74, but the absolute numbers had always increased until 2004–05 after which it began falling.

Like China, most low-skill agricultural workers were absorbed into the construction sector where employment increased from 26 million in 2004 to 51 million in 2012. Public and private investment in infrastructure drove this growth, as well as growth in the services and manufacturing industries.

But this achievement has reversed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi as annual GDP growth fell to 5.7 percent over 2015–22. The number of new non-farm jobs fell from 7.5 million per annum to just 2.9 million in 2019. Total manufacturing jobs have also fallen since 2015. The contribution of manufacturing to GDP, which was a constant 17 percent in 1992–2015, fell to 13 percent before returning to 17 percent in 2022–23.

The structural factors at play during 2004–14 included corporate overborrowing that became problematic when the post-global financial crisis fiscal stimulus was rolled back from 2012. Many corporations stopped repaying loans, especially those from public banks. Banks subsequently reduced lending due to growing non-performing assets.

Slowed GDP growth was exacerbated by poor economic policies. Exports fell from 25 percent of GDP in 2013 to 22 percent in 2022 as the real effective exchange rate was allowed to appreciate. Then came Modi’s snap demonetisation in 2016 covering 86 percent of India’s currency notes. This sent the majority of cash-dependent micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) into a tailspin — many closed, never to recover.

MSMEs, which generate most non-farm jobs, were dealt another blow six months after demonetization when a national Goods and Services Tax was introduced. Though it subsumed 17 state and indirect taxes, poor planning caused further damage to largely unregistered MSMEs. GDP growth slowed for almost three years and dropped down to 4 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

The government then encouraged public banks to resume lending to the construction sector through non-banking financial companies. Construction was revived temporarily. As slower job growth suppressed consumption, the real estate sector and the new lenders collapsed.

Modi announced a national COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 when there were only 600 identified cases in India. The world’s strictest lockdown stopped all economic activities, including those of MSMEs. Sixty million city workers returned to agriculture, its share of employment rising from 42 to 46 percent — a reversal of the earlier structural transformation.

The post-COVID-19 K-shaped recovery meant that the informal sectors shrunk while the formal sector grew. Many new jobs are also in the services sector but require highly skilled workers which, much of the population is not. Realizing the demographic dividend in India means creating non-farm jobs for three population groups. India needs to pull millions out of agriculture to counter the reverse migrations of 2020–21.

The second group is better-educated youth, especially girls, since India has achieved a secondary education gross enrolment rate of 80 percent in 2015. India still has one of the world’s lowest female labour force participation because of constraints on how far they can travel for work as well as a lack of the skills and training required in non-farm jobs. The final target is the openly unemployed. The current government inherited about 10 million openly unemployed people which grew to 38 million by 2022.

India needs at least 10–12 million new jobs each year to absorb these three groups. For India to restore non-farm jobs and resume high GDP growth, it needs a manufacturing strategy akin to China and East Asia that raises the share of labor-intensive manufacturing in output. A slow global economy may not generate export demand, but boosting domestic demand can create jobs.

A renewed focus on MSMEs is also needed to regenerate jobs. The quality of education then needs more attention, especially one that improves non-farm job prospects for girls. Such policies can help sustain GDP growth and the realization of the demographic dividend.

Santosh Mehrotra is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath.

This article was first published by the East Asia Forum.

In Defense of Jake Sullivan

Jacob Heilbrunn — October 31, 2023

Is Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, an unmitigated failure, a servile lackey of the foreign policy establishment, a complete dunderhead? This is what Jeremy Stern, in a vituperative essay in Tablet, would have you believe.

The bill of indictment is sweeping: “His record includes a rapidly escalating stampede of failures: the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the failure of deterrence in Ukraine, the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, the economic war with China, America’s disastrous border policy, and now, decisively, U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran—which enjoyed the financial and diplomatic backing of Biden and Sullivan as it enabled the rape, murder, and kidnapping of thousands of Israeli Jews by a fascist death cult.”

My, my. The only thing missing is that Sullivan has not created world peace, solved global warming, ended inflation and figured out how to ensure the safety of NFL quarterbacks.

Stern’s strongest case centers on Afghanistan, where Biden bucked the very foreign policy establishment that Stern complains that Sullivan exemplifies. No doubt the exit was harum-scarum, but Biden made the right call. Had America not left Afghanistan, it would be unable to support Ukraine adequately in its struggle against Russian tyranny. Stern implies that Russian president Vladimir Putin could have been deterred from marching into Ukraine, but it’s hard to see what would have prompted him to abstain from trying to seize it. Biden himself repeatedly warned Putin, including in a phone call on the eve of the invasion, that it would end very badly for him, which it has. Anyway, to depict Ukraine as a Biden administration disaster flies in the face of reality. Biden, like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, recognizes the stakes and has ensured that Putin has come to grief, not to mention helped steward the further expansion of NATO, an outfit that was headed toward a state of inanition before his presidency.

Then there is the matter of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which Stern deems a failure. It isn’t. The Ukrainians were not the ones who created hypertrophied expectations about the counteroffensive. Yes, Biden moved more slowly than the Ukrainians would have liked in providing offensive weapons, including ATACAMS, to Kyiv. But his careful strategy—and it was a strategy—of gradually upping the ante foiled any ambitions Putin might have entertained about resorting to nuclear weapons. It’s also the case that in laying any Biden administration shortcomings in Ukraine at Sullivan’s doorstep, Stern skates over the fact that he is not the Decider. It’s Biden. With his decades of experience in foreign affairs, Biden is not going to allow himself to be dictated to by his national security adviser. Quite the contrary.

What about the now-famous Foreign Affairs imbroglio? Sullivan was imprudent enough to claim success in the Middle East, writing, “Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades.” This howler will probably go down in the annals of legendary misjudgments, but it isn’t as though this perception wasn’t widely shared in Israel itself. Since the Hamas attack, the Biden administration has deftly handled the crisis, aligning itself with Israel in order to restrain it from compounding the original disaster. Biden’s words of caution in Israel, presumably drafted in coordination with Sullivan, about not replicating the blunders that America committed after 9/11, when it lashed out in a spasm of rage against Iraq, were well-chosen. Biden and Sullivan have also managed to keep the war from turning into a wider one, a key American objective. The blunt fact is that a war that ranged from Turkey to Iran to Saudi Arabia would not only prove catastrophic for the region, but also terminate any hopes Biden himself harbors about being reelected as oil prices doubled or tripled.

The bottom line, however, is that the administration’s successes and failures can hardly be ascribed to Sullivan whose job, after all, is to coordinate the various national security agencies, not singlehandedly to fashion and implement American foreign policy. Stern, however, detects something of a foreign policy cabal in Washington: “Jake Sullivan’s rise, and the avalanche of bien pensant flattery that has validated disaster after disaster, contrary to every real-world indicator, as marks of genius, is as sure a sign as any that the United States is once again ruled by a vain and arrogant aristocracy that prizes credentials over experience, and prestige over integrity, and which spends its days endlessly gratifying each other.”

A vain and arrogant aristocracy? Pshaw! If anything, it seems shaken by the rise of Trump and determined to salvage what it can from the wreckage of his previous presidency, while cowering at the notion that he might return. No, Jake Sullivan is not a foreign policy genius, a new Machiavellian unerringly charting America’s course in a sea of new world disorder. But nor is he a bumbling innocent abroad.

Stern complains that Sullivan is “the George Kennan who wasn’t,” but then again George Kennan wasn’t really George Kennan, either. He turned on his own containment strategy almost as soon as the ink on it was dry, issuing calls for neutralizing Europe and treating with the Kremlin. Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson told him that the government was hardly the appropriate venue to “preach your Quaker gospel.” Thank goodness, Sullivan is no Kennan. Today, as the administration deals with a welter of crises, Sullivan, like Biden, is displaying, more often than not, something that has been in markedly short supply in recent decades—prudence and realism about American interests and power.

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the one hundred notable books of the year by the New York Times. He is the author of America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, coming in 2024.

Image Credit: White House Flickr/Creative Commons.

Trapped in a Forever War

Kelly Alkhouli — October 31, 2023

Twenty months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war grinds to a bloody stalemate with no end in sight. Neither side can afford or accept defeat; for Ukraine, this is an existential fight, and for Russia, the outcome of this war will have profound ramifications on foreign policy and domestic stability, which presents a survival threat to the Russian regime.

A complete Ukrainian victory would entail the restoration of 1991 borders, reparations, and security guarantees, likely in the form of NATO accession. Although morally justifiable, those are terms of capitulation, which could only occur if the Russian army collapses. Even if Ukraine achieves a military breakthrough, Russia has enough troops and weapons to maintain control over certain areas, particularly in the Donbas. Furthermore, by maintaining a military presence in Ukraine, the Kremlin would achieve its objective of preventing Kyiv’s geopolitical realignment with the West, particularly in the form of EU and NATO membership. As long as the war is ongoing and there are unresolved territorial disputes, Ukraine cannot join NATO, and the Kremlin hopes that the cost of reconstruction coupled with the threat of conflict flaring up again will make it exceedingly difficult for Ukraine to join the EU.

Russia appears to have given up on its initial goal of taking Kyiv and toppling the government. Its current objective is to gain complete control of the four annexed oblasts. While there is a possibility that the front line may shift in Russia’s favor, it seems inconceivable that the Ukrainian government would formally cede its territories or abandon its efforts to liberate them from Russian occupation.

Since the liberation of Kherson nearly a year ago, there have been minimal changes to the front line despite grueling fighting seasons and mounting casualties. Both sides are facing difficulties in regenerating offensive capabilities, and it will be increasingly challenging for either to achieve a military breakthrough, given the dense minefields and multiple lines of defense. Russia plans to increase its military budget by nearly 70 percent in 2024. It has started accelerating arms and ammunition production, indicating that fighting will likely continue at a similar intensity for at least two to three years.

From the Kremlin’s perspective, a long war will erode Western support and force Ukraine to make concessions. The war risks becoming a more polarizing issue in upcoming elections, particularly in the United States, and the emergence of other geopolitical conflicts, whether in the Middle East or over Taiwan, will divert attention and aid from Ukraine. On the other hand, Ukraine believes that its resilience and resolve will ultimately prevail, and the cost of the war will result in internal pressure within Russia to withdraw.

At some point, we will see a decrease in the intensity of the fighting, where the front line will stabilize, and both sides will agree to a ceasefire, which will likely be periodically violated. This does not mean that there will be an ease in hostilities or an immediate armistice agreement or peace settlement. Instead, we will see a shift to hybrid warfare, with an additional focus on covert operations aimed at destabilizing the opposing side, such as assassinations and sabotage. Ukraine has an interest in preventing Russia from consolidating control over occupied territories. Therefore, we may see an increase in partisan warfare. This new phase of the war could last several years, perhaps decades.

How the war develops from that point on is entirely unpredictable. It may gradually become a frozen conflict, or perhaps peace negotiations will materialize after a protracted stalemate. Much of it will depend on the overall geopolitical context and political changes in the West and also in Ukraine and Russia. While President Vladimir Putin’s regime appears stable for the time being, most of the senior Russian officials are in their late sixties or early seventies. If this war drags on for several years or decades, we may be faced with a different Russian leadership without a coup or uprising taking place. Putin’s successor could either be a pragmatic technocrat open to negotiations and willing to improve relations with the West or a hardliner who may decide to resume fighting or launch another war.

Kelly Alkhouli is a political consultant and director of international relations at the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA).

Image: Shutterstock.

America’s Foreign Policy Isn’t Normal

Christopher Mott — October 31, 2023

From Ukraine to Israel to multiple West African states, the public is bombarded with news of an international situation in the process of breaking down. Laments of a collapsing world order frame this as a global challenge to be met with vigilance as the supposedly normal and stable world gives way to barbarism. This rhetoric misses two very important things; the first is that it is usually in the interests of the great powers to compartmentalize conflict rather than globalize it. Second, the times we are exiting were historically more abnormal than where we seem to be heading. We are not entering a strange time but instead leaving an uncanny period into something more typical of the historical experience. The problem is that many in the policymaking and commentary classes are made up of people whose concept of normality is very much abnormal.

So much of what makes up “The Terrible Twenties” so far is, in fact, quite familiar to the historian. Pandemics, wars, and sectarian chaos (known in present-day terminology as culture war) are only perplexing events from the perspective of those conditioned by an outlier period of prosperity, seemingly endless growth, and relative political stability. The only new variables are the speed at which information moves across the world and the related tendency of large groups of people to internalize the struggles of others. Unfortunately for global stability, this behavior is not simply limited to social media clout chasers but is also becoming more common amongst governments and how they conceptualize their roles abroad. In the rhetoric of the North Atlantic commentariat, for example, there seem to be only two periods of human history worth referencing compared to contemporary events: World War II and the 1990s. According to this view, the Second World War is both a state of nature—a time nasty, brutish, and never to be returned to—and an existential battle of universal morality. The conflicts’ sacrifices nonetheless enable the post-Cold War normality of 1991–2001.

But both of these periods are intense outliers in human history, and the numerous international conflicts of the nineties, such as the Congo Wars, The Badme War, the Somali state collapse, the First Karabakh War, and the Balkan Wars show even the outlier cannot be romanticized. The real story of geopolitical history is one of occasionally structured chaos, moral ambiguity, and more localized and quotidian concerns of survival and pragmatic adaptation. Sometimes, ideologues allow world views to reframe these struggles as grand binaries of battles of darkness and light. Still, inevitably, reality makes policymakers return to their senses once such euphoria wears out its welcome.

Stephen Pinker and other contemporary prophets of progress use selective data and ignore the reliably dismal experience of their intellectual predecessors to make a case that the inevitable path of humanity is one of reason and eternal growth under conditions of Western enlightenment. The very non-liberal state of China is behind 75 percent of global poverty reduction, according to the World Bank, a point that would undermine the assumed convergence of humanity under a unified (and implicitly liberal-internationalist) world order. While battlefield deaths as a proportion of conflict participants may appear to be going down in the recent past (something which could change), the reach of conflict is expanding, setting up a situation where the ability for more societies to become entangled in the wars of others increases. All of this unfolds against the backdrop of grave and potentially irreversible environmental degradation.

Meanwhile, supposedly savvy entertainers like Aaron Sorkin create a pleasing narrative for the policy wonk classes where the political establishment’s obsession with technocracy is not the cause of their own decline through deindustrialization at home and over-expansion abroad but rather a romanticized normality. Unable to take refuge in history for their worldview, the historically abnormal political and managerial classes must resort to self-flattering fanfiction to justify their increasingly unstable grasp on the narrative.

As the great powers of the world consider escalating regionally limited conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, it would be wise to keep in mind that the actual global challenge right now is keeping one’s head and thinking rationally. Localized conflicts do not need to be expanded into global ones but rather contained. Ambiguous conspiracies of “authoritarians” marching in ideological lockstep to roll back a liberal world should be discarded in favor of understanding the genuine and material reality that great power influence over middle-tier nations is decreasing, particularly in regions with strong and anchored regional powers. Turkey’s say in the Middle East now counts for as much, if not more, than the United States, and the same applies to India and South Asia.

In a world with greater localization of powers, there will also inevitably be a greater localization of values. This makes claims to universal order not only farcical but dangerous and escalatory. Regional conflicts could be contained rather than spread by great powers, but nuclear war and endlessly expanding proxy conflicts know no such limits. This is why it is of utmost importance to acknowledge that regional war and rivalry are, in fact, the normal conditions of history. Rather than meet this challenge with panic at the loss of a once more predictable past, it is time to return caution and prudence to the forefront of navigating a more unpredictable—yet very much historically typical—reality. In a world where nothing lasts forever, pragmatic adaptability is the crucial virtue of statecraft.

Christopher Mott is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and the author of The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia. He holds a doctorate in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews and has previously worked for the U.S. Department of State.

Image: Shutterstock.

The U.S. Economy Has Drifted into the "Great Uncertainty"

Scott B. MacDonald — October 30, 2023

The U.S. economy has drifted into the Great Uncertainty, which is defined as a multitude of contradictory data signals, a greater emphasis on state-led industrial policy (with massive amounts of money being pumped into targeted sectors over a relatively short period of time), and the popping up unexpected geopolitical problems. This is further complicated by an overarching and often contentious debate over the energy transition and climate concerns, played out against a backdrop of growing disenchantment with the political status quo and the growing shadow of AI. And conditions are likely to get worse before they get better.

What the “Great Uncertainty” also means is that the American public is pessimistic. According to a USA Today/Suffolk poll released on October 22, 2023, only 17 percent of Americans believe that the country is heading in the right direction; 71 percent thought it is heading in the wrong direction, with the rest undecided. The same poll asked, “How much confidence do you have in the nation’s leaders (White House and Congress) to handle the major challenges the nation faces?” Only 4 percent responded with “a lot of confidence” and 32 percent with “some confidence,” but 34.5 percent said “very little confidence” and 27 percent “no confidence.” Most Americans look to the future, its political institutions, and economic prospects with trepidation.

The Great Uncertainty is also reflected in the ongoing misses in economic forecasts. Many Wall Street mavens and many economist shops have been consistently wrong about interest rates through 2023, repeatedly calling for an end to the rate-rising cycle and a new cycle of rate cuts. The same has been true regarding calls for the next recession; several Wall Street economists and rating agencies called for one in the summer. Now, the call is for Q4 2023 or Q1 2023. The difficulty in getting it right was also evident in Q3 2023’s real GDP, which many thought would be lackluster; instead, the number came in at a rapid clip of 4.9 percent, hardly a sign of an economy heading into a recession. Bearing this in mind, will forecasts of a drastic cooling of the economy in Q4 and recession predictions hold up?

There are good reasons to believe in a more dire forecast. Consider the following.

Higher interest rates are beginning to hurt. The overarching concern is that the Federal Reserve’s mission to bring inflation to 2 percent will break the economy. Interest rate hikes have resulted in a significant slowdown in new debt origination, which raises questions about those parts of the corporate bond market that need refinancings (many high-yield companies that drank deep on cheap loans), which, in turn, is expected to squeeze corporate bottom lines and cause employment reductions as well as bankruptcies. According to S&P Global, corporate default rates are creeping up and are expected to hit 4.5 percent in the U.S. by June 2024 (from 3.5 percent in June 2023).

The housing market is being hard hit by higher interest rates. Looking at existing home sales, the market has not been this bad since 2009–2010, following the Great Recession. Existing home sales declined by 15 percent in September. There is a “deep freeze” in the housing market, characterized by rising mortgage rates, elevated home prices, and constrained housing inventory. Affordable housing is not on the cards anytime soon, especially if the Federal Reserve raises rates one more time and leaves rates higher for longer, which is a possibility. While sales of new houses increased by 12.3 percent in September, the main driver was buyers’ concerns that rates could go even higher. October’s number could point down.

Pandemic savings have largely been depleted, raising questions over the sustainability of the American consumer in the months ahead. According to Deloitte, household savings rates have dropped from an average of around 9 percent before the pandemic to around 4.5 percent in Q2 2023. This is important as consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

Corporate earnings fade. Another point of worry is that the outlook for corporate earnings is weakening and could remain subdued through the last quarter of 2023 and into 2024. We caution on this as many companies provide more pessimistic future earnings, which makes it easy to beat earnings. According to Factset (as of October 2023), 73 percent of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise, and 66 percent have reported a positive revenue surprise. Despite the headwinds and some big company misses (Ford, Boeing, and Chevron Corporation), the likelihood of ongoing economic momentum in Q4 2023 could still see beats in earnings calls.

There are several other headwinds. These include the potential for a government shutdown and debt default, the UAW strike (which could spread), the resumption of student loan payments, problems in the commercial property sector, further upheaval in regional banks, and rising automobile payment delinquencies. Geopolitics could also be a significant factor, especially if either the war in Ukraine or the Middle East expanded, which could have a knock-on effect on oil and other commodity prices, putting more inflationary pressures into play.

However, there are contradictory data that point to continued economic expansion.

The U.S. labor market remains strong. On October 19, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a nine-month low compared to the prior week. While most economists expected a softening in labor markets, what they got instead was weekly jobless claims decreasing by 13,000 to 198,000. Unemployment remains at a low 3.8 percent, reflecting ongoing demand for workers, the retirement of baby boomers, and smaller numbers of Millennials and Gen Xers. Tightness in the labor market is not going away any time soon, even with greater application of AI and robotics.

Services remain expansive. Although the ISM Manufacturing Index has been on an extended (though improving) downturn, the ISM Services Index has maintained a strong performance. Economic activity in the services sector expanded in September for the ninth consecutive month as the Services PMI came in at 53.6 percent. As one index respondent in the construction sector stated: “Conditions remain favorable for mechanical contractors. New construction projects continue to launch. We are still seeing opportunities for cost reductions across many commodities. Inventory levels on finished goods remain strong.”

Retail sales remain solid. In September, retail sales continued to expand despite consumers facing mounting economic pressures. According to the National Retail Federation, core retail sales in September were up 0.5 percent month-over-month and 2.2 percent year-over-year. The U.S. consumer has been written off before but has managed to chug along in the face of headwinds.

Industrial policy means big bucks and jobs. The primary factor for continued growth is structural—the Biden administration’s massive push for energy transition, addressing climate change, and decoupling with China. Although some of the programs started under the Trump administration, the combination of the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other programs is pumping around $2 trillion into the economy in a relatively short period. This federal stimulus runs counter to the Federal Reserve’s effort to tighten monetary supply. Still, parts of the Homeland are seeing the construction of battery giga-factories, EV plants, lithium battery recycling plants, and CHIPS Act fabs. This re-industrialization surge also pushes the development of related infrastructure, including high-speed rail systems. The pipeline of federal cash is not going away in the short term and will be hard to reverse even with a change of administration.

The U.S. economy’s direction remains uncertain. The energy transition and decoupling from China represent positives for U.S. labor markets and industry, which might just help overcome the bite of higher interest rates. It is important to stress, though, that the balance between ongoing growth and recession is very narrow. It was Groucho Marx, who stated: “A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.” This is the challenge facing anyone trying to forecast the U.S. economy, as there are a lot of black cats crossing our path, making it difficult to calculate the right direction. Our advice: buckle up. The ride through the Great Uncertainty will only intensify, especially with elections looming on the horizon in 2024.

Dr. Scott B. MacDonald is the Chief Economist for Smith’s Research & Gradings, a Fellow with the Caribbean Policy Consortium, and a Research fellow with Global Americans. Prior to those positions, he worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Credit Suisse, Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, KWR International, and Mitsubishi Corporation. His most recent book is The New Cold War, China and the Caribbean (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).

Image: Shutterstock.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: What Makes Iran's IRGC Forces So Dangerous?

Maya Carlin — October 30, 2023

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s leadership functions to preserve and export the country’s revolutionary principles. Its premiere asset in chasing this objective is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, commonly abbreviated as IRGC.

This branch of Iran’s armed forces is deeply entrenched in all aspects of Iranian society, including the country’s economic, political, and military spheres. More significantly, the IRGC uses terrorism as a tool of statecraft, and the elite Quds Force serves as the IRGC’s foreign operator.

This paramilitary squad provides training, funding, and assistance to Iranian-backed proxy groups throughout the region. The IRGC comprises a substantial component of Iran’s armed forces, and its terror-sponsoring agenda embodies the regime’s ambitions.

IRGC: Origins

Iran’s proxy approach dates back to its founding in 1979, when monarchical rule was abruptly squashed as fundamentalist Shiite clerics seized power under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The supreme leader initially formed the branch as a counter to the army, which was suspected of maintaining deep ties to the former Pahlavi monarchy. While Iran does have an army, called Artesh, the regime still turns to the IRGC as its favored military branch.

Iran’s proxy strategy has grown in size and scope. By exploiting power vacuums, regional instability, and civil war, Tehran has extended its malign influence throughout the Middle East. The Quds Force uses militias as a way to achieve regional hegemony.

In Iraq, Iranian-aligned militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces openly defy Iraqi law and work on behalf of the regime’s interests. The militias undermine U.S.-Iraqi relations with consistent rocket and drone barrages targeting Baghdad’s Green Zone. In Lebanon, Iran presents itself as the country’s Islamic resistance force under the banner of Hezbollah. The “Party of God” extends its control over every aspect of the Lebanese polity. In Yemen, Houthi rebels trained and funded by the IRGC fight to push out the legitimate Yemeni government and prop up a Shiite coalition. The Houthis continue to launch drone and rocket attacks targeting civilian and economic centers in Saudi Arabia, setting back any prospects for peace.

In addition to its funding of dangerous proxies region-wide, the IRGC has carried out brazen abduction schemes abroad on numerous occasions. Most recently, Iranian assets were charged by federal prosecutors in New York of plotting to kidnap a prominent dissident and journalist, Masih Alinejad.

The Quds Force has been tied to previous operations involving the abductions of opposition activists from the U.S. and Europe. Schemes like these highlight the regime’s refusal to comply with international law.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

How the U.S. Military Lost a War to Iran (In a Simulation, That Is)

Maya Carlin — October 30, 2023

In 2002, the Pentagon convened a fictitious wargame to test a future enemy equipped with advanced technology and tactics. Dubbed the Millennium Challenge, the congressionally-mandated exercise pitted the “blue” U.S. team up against the “red” Iran-like Middle Eastern team, set in a timeframe five years in the future. The warfare practice involved both live exercises and computer simulations, which cost approximately $250 million.

The games grew to encompass 13,500 service members participating from 17 different simulation locations across several training sites. Within a matter of days the red team sunk 19 blue team’s ships and rendered its carrier battle group ineffective. While the rules of the game remain controversial, its outcome emphasized the detriment of group thinking and the power of innovative asymmetric warfare.

Iran vs. America – A Game of Asymmetrical Warfare

In the months following the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration implemented its doctrine of pre-emption, meaning the U.S. could launch an offensive on an enemy before being attacked. With this in mind, the red team’s leader Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper decided to begin the wargame by “pre-empting the pre-empter.” The U.S. suspected the red team’s smaller and inferior military would wait to be attacked first before it responded with a counterattack. Scrambling and caught off guard, the blue team was quickly overwhelmed.

According to War on the Rocks, “Once U.S. forces were within range, Van Riper’s forces unleashed a barrage of missiles from ground-based launchers, commercial ships, and planes flying low and without radio communications to reduce their radar signature. Simultaneously, swarms of speedboats loaded with explosives launched kamikaze attacks.”

In addition to its initial surprise attack, the red team also used unconventional communication methods that could not be detected and intercepted by the blue team’s advanced technology. To signal his army, Van Riper used the minarets of mosques to project coded messages during the call to prayer. Motorcycle messengers were also instrumental in relaying tactics to each team member.

The blue team assumed “Iran” would use the modes of communication that would allow them to listen and ambush their enemy, but Van Riper’s asymmetric assault made this tactic impossible.

Overcoming the Unpredictable

After the U.S. team’s quick and miserable defeat, additional constraints were placed on the red team. The control group of the games instructed Van Riper that his team could not shoot down the airframes flying cover for their enemy’s ground forces. The red team was also prohibited from hiding their offensive weapons or from using chemical warfare against the blue team’s paratroopers.

With these extreme disadvantages in place, the blue team ultimately succeeded in their mission to destroy “Iran’s” military capabilities. However, the blue team’s inability to use flexibility and quick thinking in its response to the red’s initial attack reflected a rigidity that would not serve the U.S. well in a real conflict.

The costliest wargame in America’s history did not play out exactly how the Pentagon had hoped. While obtaining advanced technology and sophisticated weaponry is a crucial component in war, it won’t necessarily guarantee a win.

Innovative warfare combined with adaptability can be just as lethal.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

How Hamas Angled for Russia-China Support

Seth J. Frantzman — October 30, 2023

When Hamas attacked Israel in a massive surprise attack that led to the massacre of 1,400 people, it may have gambled on support from China and Russia. Hamas knew that it would receive Iran’s help, and Iran’s foreign minister flew to Doha in the week after the attack to discuss cooperation. Hamas could count on support or sympathy from Turkey and Qatar. This would help shield it from some of the international blowback to its atrocities on October 7. Hamas may have wondered how Russia and China’s reactions would play out. Russia and China have, in the past, condemned terrorism due to their own conflicts with groups in Syria and China’s Xinjiang region, respectively.

However, Hamas would have known that there were changes in the air. Russia and China had grown closer over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both want to undermine the U.S.-led rules-based international order. In the last year, they have expanded groups like BRICS and SCO to include countries like Iran. Could Hamas count on their support?

A video translated at the Middle East Media Research Institute shows “Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashal: The Russians told us that our October 7 operation will be taught in military academies; The Chinese Are Thinking of Carrying out a similar attack in Taiwan.” Mashal said in the interview that Hamas wants to appeal to Russia and China. He also said the attack helped Russia because it distracted the world from the war in Ukraine. He spoke on October 26, so this is framing from three weeks into the conflict with Israel. Hamas may simply be providing a feedback loop now for the success it has found in Russia and China. However, this may also reflect the larger strategic plan it had before October 7.

When Hamas carried out its attack, it took at least 230 people hostage. It turns out that it took so many hostages it also ended up with many people with foreign citizenship. Some of them have Russian citizenship. Israel’s Yediot newspaper reported on October 28 that “the Hamas terror group said on Saturday that it was trying to locate eight Russian-Israeli dual citizens that were taken hostage during the murderous terrorist attack on Israel in order to free them on Moscow’s request, Russian news agencies reported Saturday.” Note how Hamas presents this as “trying to locate.” Hamas carried out the attack; it massacred people, but it is in the process of trying to hedge on the atrocities.

Hamas also did outreach to Russia. This is after outreach to Iran via Doha and also to Hezbollah. Hamas has also gotten Turkey on board to excuse its attack. Ankara will also not condemn Hamas terrorism even though Ankara constantly talks about “terrorist” threats from Syria. “A senior Iranian envoy met with Hamas representatives in Moscow following talks with Russian diplomats that underscored Moscow’s efforts to expand its clout as a power broker in the latest Israel-Hamas war, Russian and Iranian media said Friday,” the Associated Press reported.

This report notes that Hamas’ representative, Moussa Abu Marzouk, met with Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, in Russia. This means Russia is now brokering Iran-Hamas talks, much as it has hosted Syrian regime talks with Turkey and Iran. Russia is now key to the Hamas-Iran axis.

Russia has condemned Israel’s air strikes on Gaza, even as Russia carried out attacks on Ukraine and has carried out attacks in Syria. Russia is trying to exploit the conflict in Gaza to use it as a wedge against the United States, and Moscow is slamming Israel because Russia sees Israel as a close U.S. ally. Despite the work that previous Israeli administrations did to work with Moscow and not involve themselves with Ukraine, the return on investment for that has now resulted in Moscow backing Hamas.

Russia’s refusal to condemn the mass murder of 1,000 civilians appears to undermine global rules against terrorism. Russia has been a victim of terrorist attacks in the past, including in Beslan and the theatre siege in Moscow. However, now it has a new angle. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace claims that “despite the killing of 16 Russian nationals, and even as Muscovites laid flowers at the Israeli embassy, the Kremlin declined to condemn Hamas’s actions, expressing only ‘grave concerns.’ Some might see its overtures toward the group as an attempt to sow chaos. In fact, Moscow’s goal is to cement its status as a friend of the Global South.” It would seem that ignoring the massacre of 1,000 people to please the Global South is a strange excuse for Moscow’s current role. Where is the evidence that the “Global South” also thinks that it is okay to massacre 1,000 civilians? This goes unanswered.

Chatham House has a similar report about China’s position. “Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi went further, describing Israel’s bombardment of civilians in Gaza as actions that have gone beyond the scope of ‘self-defence.’ At the same time, Beijing avoided condemning Hamas’s atrocities against civilians. As in Ukraine, China is positioning itself as a peace-seeking, ‘neutral’ great power, in contrast to the United States, whose committed support for Israel is depicted by Beijing as a destabilizing, violent influence in the region,” a report noted. This report also claims that by not condemning the massacre of 1,000 civilians Beijing is “stressing its neutral stance and its role as a voice of the Global South, China wants to check the American moral standing and legitimize internationalization of the issue, calling for a global conference to initiate a peace process—thereby removing Washington from its decades-long position as the unchallenged arbiter in the conflict.”

Once again, the claim that not condemning the massacre of 1,000 people is all about joining the Global South seems to ignore the fact that the Global South countries are often the primary victims of mass terror attacks. For instance, there have been massive attacks in Somalia, Kenya, and Nigeria, and there are extremist threats throughout the Sahel. Is it true the Global South doesn’t see a massacre of 1,000 civilians as unacceptable? This part of the analysis seems problematic. Russia and China generally support authoritarian regimes. They could support the Palestinian Authority. In Syria, both countries back the regime because it is the “government.” They tend to be against rebel groups. Hamas, which illegally threw the PA out of Gaza, would appear not to be the legitimate government. Therefore, there seems to be much more at work here than the Global South and traditional views of Russia and China. Neither Russia nor China historically backed extremist groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood or “political Islam,” the ideology that Hamas has roots in.

What is clear is that Hamas did outreach to Russia. It also has cooperation with Iran. Ankara has been channeling the Hamas narrative and has been growing more extreme in condemnations of Israel. Russia and China may indeed be gambling that an in with Hamas will undermine the United States. Why they would undermine global efforts against extremism and harm to civilians is less clear, except that Russia has done the same in attacking Ukraine and bombing Syria. Chinese media and Russian state media are riding this issue. China’s CGTN had an article highlighting Ankara claiming “the West” is the “main culprit” behind Gaza’s “massacre.” This is the more likely agenda. Russia and China see a war against the West here. Hamas could be their proxy, and they are all too happy to play this role.

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Image: Shutterstock.

Why are 600 Americans Still Languishing in Gaza?

Daniel L. Davis — October 30, 2023

“No man left behind!” It’s an article of faith drilled into the heads of every volunteer of the United States Armed Forces from day one. It becomes imprinted on our DNA. We live it, breathe it, and—if necessary—die by it. We will never abandon a single American in harm’s way. But when it comes to our government, it appears when instead of one American, there are up to 600, different standards apply—at least if the American citizens in question are stranded in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the people of Israel in a speech on Saturday in which he articulated, in the strongest language to date, that his “number one objective” is to eradicate Hamas and considers it Israel’s “second war of independence.” The next stage of the war, he explained, had begun: the ground incursion into Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Air Force has dramatically escalated its attacks on Gaza in the past several days, and the destruction of the Strip’s urban areas has risen to a level the region has not seen in half a century. The civil population in the Palestinian enclave has suffered more than 8,000 killed and likely many thousands more wounded. There are between 500 and 600 American citizens trapped in this hellscape and continue to be denied permission to leave.

Thus far, the State Department has communicated with many of the trapped Americans, but their messages have instructed them to move south to the Rafah Gate on the Egyptian border. One State Department official told ABC News that they were having trouble getting an agreement with Israel, Egypt, and Hamas civil authorities. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, put the blame squarely on one source.

“Hamas has blocked [U.S. citizens] from leaving,” Blinken claimed, “showing once again its total disregard for civilians of any kind who are stuck in Gaza.” He intended to shift the blame onto the terror group, absolving the United States government from responsibility.

Yet just a couple of weeks ago, President Joe Biden scoffed at Scott Pelley on a 60 Minutes broadcast when the interviewer had the temerity to ask whether the United States could simultaneously support both Ukraine and Israel with war supplies. “We’re the United States of America, for God’s sake,” the president scoffed in reply, “the most powerful nation in the world—not in the world—in the history of the world.”

And yet we are to believe that this most powerful nation the planet has seen in the approximately 12,000 years of human civilization cannot get 600 of its citizens out of the Gaza Strip because a few Hamas fighters with rifles are allegedly blocking the exit—and we are powerless to overcome that obstacle? There have been now at least five occasions when the Rafah Gate was opened to allow trucks filled with food and water into and out of Gaza. How could it be that the United States cannot also direct its citizens out the same open gate?

The short answer: there is no reason.

Well, no good reason. If the president made it a priority to free our citizens, they would be out within twenty-four hours. Many in Washington love to talk about how the United States should be a leader in world affairs. This is the time for demonstrating that resolve in deed, not just words. Here’s how the president could (and should) have already facilitated the release of our trapped citizens.

To show resolve and support to Israel because of the horrific attack they suffered at the hands of Hamas terrorists on October 7, Biden landed in Tel Aviv on October 18 and met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac with a hug. After the two men left the throng of photographers and reporters behind and met in private, Biden should first have voiced his sympathy for Israeli losses. But in the very next breath, some version of this:

“We have at least 600 passport-holding American citizens trapped behind the Rafah Gate in southern Gaza and I need to get them out. Immediately. We will give you more weapons, ammunition, intelligence assistance, and public moral support as you conduct military operations to punish the terrorists. But in exchange,” Biden could have said, “we must get our people to safety immediately. That is my number one priority.”

The United States gives Israel about $3.8 billion in foreign aid annually, and we contribute an additional $1.4 billion to Egypt. There should be no discussions with either Tel Aviv or Cairo about whether our people will be allowed out of the Strip. There should only be talks to coordinate when and how the exodus will be executed, and that should have been an approximate forty-eight-hour timeline to begin operations. As of this writing, it has been an additional eleven days, and still no movement.

Why? Why has the “most powerful nation in the history of the world” been unable to tell two of its allies to get it done and open the gate to get our people out and to safety? Truly, it’s not that hard. It is all about political will. If the president forcefully demanded compliance, the process would start the next hour (for a deeper understanding of the plight of the 600, see my latest Deep Dive show).

But he has been either unwilling or unable to demonstrate the necessary level of resolve, and our fellow American citizens continue to languish and suffer in Gaza along with the other 2 million Palestinian civilians.

Barely two weeks into his administration, President Biden went to the State Department in Washington on February 4, 2021, to address its employees. “We’re a country that does big things, and American diplomacy makes it happen,” he declared to the diplomatic staff. “Our administration is ready to take up the mantle and lead once again.” It is time, Mr. President, to make good on that boast. Get our people out of Gaza—today.

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He hosts the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show on YouTube. Follow him at @DanielLDavis1.

Image: Shutterstock.

Biden Lifts Venezuela Sanctions for Nothing in Return

Jorge Jraissati — October 29, 2023

The Biden administration is lifting sanctions on Venezuela amid the latest round of negotiations between the Maduro regime and members of the opposition.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a six-month license authorizing transactions in Venezuela’s oil and gas sectors. It handed out licenses permitting business with Venezuela’s gold and mining company, Minerven. It also amended two licenses, allowing companies to incur in the secondary trading of Venezuelan sovereign bonds as well as the debt of its state-owned oil company, PDVSA.

The Treasury’s announcement comes a day after the Venezuelan regime and members from the opposition signed a twelve-point electoral pact, which includes promises from the government to give all opposition candidates access to public and private media, guarantees their free and safe movement throughout the country, ensures that the millions of Venezuelans in exile can vote, and approves the participation of international observers.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken remarked that America’s actions were “consistent with our longstanding commitment to provide U.S. sanctions relief in response to concrete steps toward competitive elections and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

However, there is no evidence to suggest that the Venezuelan regime will actually allow free and fair elections in the country, as Maduro and his partners have effectively tightened their grip on power for the past four years—thereby diminishing any potential incentive they could have for negotiations.

Currently, the Maduro regime holds a dominant position in Venezuela. The opposition’s popularity remains on the floor. Most activists and dissidents are in exile. And long gone are the days when Venezuela’s civil society protested daily on the streets of Caracas or Barquisimeto, as over seven million people have left the country.

Internationally, Venezuela’s geopolitical standing is miles ahead compared to its position a few years ago. Maduro has the full support of strong autocracies like Russia, Iran, and China. He now has Latin America as an ally, as most center-right governments have lost their power. And he now sees the democratic world eager to resume relations with Venezuela as they focus on Eastern Europe and East Asia.

Under these conditions, why would the Maduro regime allow a situation that could even slightly compromise his grip on power? Especially when they are being investigated by the International Criminal Court for human rights violations. There is zero chance.

This is why it is puzzling to read analysts arguing that the present situation should bring hope for an “eventual peaceful and democratic resolution” in Venezuela.

The reality is that this week’s sanctions relief from the Biden administration has nothing to do with the well-being of the Venezuelan people. Venezuela will not have free and fair elections next year, and the Venezuelan people will not enjoy greater political freedoms or economic opportunities.

The concessions have nothing to do with America’s interest in boosting global oil flows either. At best, Venezuela’s oil production is expected to grow by less than 200,000 barrels per day in the next two years, which is not enough to mitigate the high oil prices caused by the Russian sanctions and the OPEC+ output cuts. This increase in production would situate Venezuela at approximately one million barrels per day, which is less than a third of its production levels during the 1990s and substantially less than Brazil or Mexico.

Lastly, Biden’s concessions also have nothing to do with America’s national security, as an unfree Venezuela means having an increasingly dangerous authoritarian hub in the Western Hemisphere. Countries like Iran and Russia are projecting their power in the region through Venezuela. Criminal groups are also laundering money and basing their operations there. These reasons make the cause for a free Venezuela as important from a regional security perspective as from a human rights standpoint.

To me, it is evident that Biden’s decision is not driven by Venezuela’s democratic aspirations, the global oil market, or America’s national interest. It really looks like Biden’s call is all about those big corporations aiming to cash in on Venezuela’s oil fields and gold mines. It’s almost as if their profits are taking center stage, overshadowing America’s geopolitical needs and any resemblance of strategic thinking; a worrisome development, especially as the world is turning more dangerous, radicalized, and authoritarian.

Jorge Jraissati is the Director of Alumni for Liberty, an international network of young freedom activists with over 10,000 members from 139 countries. Its members include elected officials, think tank directors, journalists, academics, and other leaders committed to forming a global pro-liberty coalition. His initiatives include international advocacy, grassroots activism, policy proposals, training programs, research projects, and humanitarian missions. Jorge is also an economist and a researcher at IESE Business School for the Center for Public Leadership and Government.

Image: Shutterstock.

On Ukraine the Question is Not Who Started It, but Who is Going to End It

Ted Snider, Nicolai N. Petro — October 29, 2023

For twenty months, the focus in the West has been on who is to blame for starting the war in Ukraine. It is high time to stop asking who started it and start asking who is going to stop it.

Moving Beyond the Blame Game

It would be convenient for there to be a simple answer to the question of who started the war in Ukraine, as President Biden has suggested. The complicated reality, however, is that the answer to that question depends on the perspective of the actors.

Russia is surely to blame for starting the war with Ukraine. Although Russia had fears and security concerns and may have felt, in the words of its ambassador to the United States, that they had “come to the point when we have no room to retreat,” that does not legitimize a preemptive war undertaken without an immediate need for self-defense and without United Nations authorization. Russia made the choice to invade Ukraine and bears full responsibility for it, no matter how limited it felt its options were.

But, the horrific decision to invade Ukraine does not absolve the United States and its NATO allies from their responsibility for provoking that decision.

At the end of the Cold War, Russia hoped to transcend Cold War blocs and alliances and join a transformed international community where they would be part of a “Europe whole and free.”

But instead of abolishing the division of Europe, as the founders of the European Union did after World War II, post-Cold War leaders in the West decided to keep these divisions and just push them a bit further East. This not only removed the buffer zone between NATO and Russia that had kept the peace in Europe for more than fifty years, but it also relegated Russia permanently to the status of a non-European nation. This was done against the warnings of many of the West’s most knowledgeable and experienced officials—from William Burns to Jack Matlock, George F. Kennan, Richard Davies, Egon Bahr, Hans Dietrich Genscher, Colin Powell, and even Joe Biden in 1997.

Putin has been widely mocked in the West for his insistent claim that “the threat of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the reason, or rather one of the reasons, for the special military operation.” Still, that claim was recently confirmed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who stated publicly that Putin “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”

America’s European allies also bear their share of the blame for the eruption of hostilities. Germany and France consistently failed to pressure Ukraine to implement the agreement. After the invasion, their former leaders, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, admitted that they thought of the Minsk process as a deceptive soporific designed to lull Russia into a ceasefire with the promise of a peaceful settlement while actually buying time for Ukraine to build up its armed forces. Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock has said that the war in Ukraine “probably would have been prevented” had the Minsk Agreement been enforced.

And Ukraine, too, bears part of the blame for this catastrophe, specifically for pursuing military solutions when a diplomatic solution that would have restored all of Donbas to Ukraine was readily available through the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

Time for a Diplomatic Settlement

Whoever is responsible for starting this war, it is becoming horrifically clear that everyone would benefit from ending it.

That a diplomatic agreement is possible is testified to by the fact that Russia and Ukraine seemed close to a deal at least three times. First in Belarus, then in talks mediated by then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, and, most promisingly, in Istanbul, where they actually initialed a tentative agreement. We, therefore, know that but for the opposition of the United States and key allies, the war could have ended on terms that would have preserved Ukrainian statehood and its current government and even allowed it to join the EU with Russia’s blessing, provided only that it gave up NATO membership. We can also confidently say that, despite all that has occurred since, Russia would be willing to return to the Istanbul agreements if Ukraine agreed to negotiate.

So, what is preventing a ceasefire? The two most obvious sticking points are Zelensky’s presidential decree of October 4, 2022, prohibiting any negotiations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and the adamant opposition of the United States to any ceasefire “right now.”

Yet, the mere fact that a framework for an agreement has been reached before suggests that the most debilitating assumption about this war—that the parties’ differences are irreconcilable—is not true. In fact, it is the willingness to negotiate, not the terms of the agreement, that now stands in the way of peace.

Mindful of this past, meaningful negotiations could begin on what all sides can agree on, namely, that Ukraine should continue to exist as an independent state that has good relations with all its neighbors. No one disputes this, not even Russia. It is its therefore its borders, foreign policy, and attitude toward its minorities that are the subject of contention.

A diplomatic settlement must, therefore, accomplish three goals. First, Ukraine must be guaranteed sovereignty, security, and the potential to thrive. Second, Russia must receive guarantees that its legitimate security concerns will be respected. And third, the Russian-speaking population of Donbas—and Ukrainians in any new Russian territories—must be afforded legal protection.

In arriving at these three goals, ideally, three conditions should be met. One is that the United States and NATO cannot be overly rewarded for their desire to expand NATO into Ukraine in violation of the pledges they made to the “indivisibility of security” in Europe at the Istanbul Declaration of 1999 and the Astana Declaration of 2010. According to the Istanbul Declaration, “(8) Each participating State has an equal right to security… They will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States… (9) The security of each participating State is inseparably linked to that of all others.” In addition, as Richard Sakwa points out, it also violates NATO’s own principles, stated at its foreign ministers’ meeting in Copenhagen on 6-7 June 1991, “not to gain one-sided advantage from the changing situation in Europe,” not to “threaten the legitimate interests” of other states or “isolate” them, and not to “draw new dividing lines in the continent.”

In the 2022 Istanbul negotiations, for example, Ukraine promised “not to seek NATO membership.” In exchange, Russia reportedly agreed to alternative security arrangements that would include “giving Ukraine the tools it needs” to defend in accord with “the Israeli model” and include bilateral security guarantees from a number of countries, possibly including the United States, Russia, the UK, France, and China.

Second, Russia cannot be overly rewarded for its invasion of Ukraine and should be encouraged to negotiate over the status of the territories that it incorporated in 2022. And finally, Ukraine cannot be harmed in a way that undermines its future potential for achieving a harmonious, secure, and prosperous society. Part of that will require that it revise its approach toward its indigenous Russian-speaking minority and bring it in conformity with the norms of a modern and liberal society.

The issue of territory will clearly be the most difficult to address. The Minsk Agreement can no longer serve as a model. The current reality is that, as with Crimea, Russia is unlikely to allow the Donbas to return to Ukraine. However, with respect to the newly annexed Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, this position is tempered by the reality that recognized borders have not been established there. During the Istanbul negotiations, Russia agreed, in principle, to withdraw to its prewar position. Therefore, it is conceivable that Russia might be willing to return some parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts in the context of a larger comprehensive settlement.

Russia should also provide explicit assurances that it will not take any further territory, including Odessa and Kharkov. An assurance not to take Odessa or the coastline along the Black Sea would allow Ukraine to avoid being turned into what John Mearsheimer has described as “a dysfunctional rump state.” The potential for Ukraine to thrive would certainly be enhanced by a Russian commitment to aid in the economic recovery of Ukraine, including privileged oil prices and provision of technology for energy and nuclear power infrastructure, if the benefits of such investments were shared with Russia.

Given Russia’s demonstrated willingness to attack Ukraine and the long-range missiles supplied to Ukraine by the West, both sides would be wise to establish a demilitarized buffer zone and begin negotiations on some form of mutual strategic arms reduction.

It goes without saying that Russia must explicitly and meaningfully guarantee the sovereignty of Ukraine. Ukraine must be allowed to peacefully coexist as an independent state and never again fear being attacked and absorbed into Russia. At his press conference at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine based on its Declaration of Independence of 1991, which included a pledge not to join NATO. “On those conditions,” he went on to say, “we support Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” That statement suggests that Russia would be willing to guarantee the sovereignty of Ukraine in exchange for a similar guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO.

From Lose-lose to Win-Win: Why a Diplomatic Settlement Benefits Everyone

It is a platitude to say that ending the war will benefit all. But it is no longer merely a benefit for Ukraine; it is now essential for its very survival.

Despite the fact that the West now covers more than half of the country’s government expenditures and has deferred repayment until 2027, Ukraine’s debt this year stands at over 88 percent of GDP and is expected to rise to over 100 percent in 2025. In current dollars, the United States spent as much to rebuild Afghanistan as it did for the Marshall Plan. It has spent as much again to date in Ukraine without rebuilding anything.

Millions have fled the country. From a height of over 50 million in 1990, Ukraine’s population today is probably less than 32 million. President Kuchma’s former Chief of Staff, Viktor Medvedchuk, now in exile in Russia, estimates that there are more Ukrainians outside than inside Ukraine. To have any hope of prosperity in the future, Ukraine will need most of these people to come back, which can only be accomplished if the conditions inside the country are peaceful and conducive to raising a family.

As unfair as it is that Ukraine has to negotiate anything after suffering such horrendous losses, tomorrow it may well be worse. Ben Wallace, the former Secretary of State for Defence of the UK, inadvertently revealed that the average age of the soldiers at the front is over forty. To put this figure into perspective, the average age of American soldiers killed in Vietnam was just over twenty-three, and the median age of British servicemen during WWII was close to twenty-five. And it scarcely raised an eyebrow when Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, Natalya Kalmykova, mentioned in a television interview that draft dodgers currently numbered in the “tens, hundreds of thousands of people.”

These may be some of the reasons that one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, Polish President Andrzej Duda, recently referred to Ukraine as a “drowning man” who might pull those trying to help down with him. Baldly stated, a longer war means the obliteration of Ukraine. Reject negotiations under these conditions verges on moral depravity, particularly when, as President Zelensky’s former advisor Alexei Arestovych put it, the alternative of making a deal “would allow us to keep 80% of our territory.”

To be sure, ending the war will benefit Russia, and many will consider this fundamentally unfair. But Russia, too, has lost many lives and must consider the possibility that further escalation of the war will lead to more losses and bring more risks and danger, including the possibility that Russia’s current friends in the Global South may also grow weary of the toll of this war. The negotiating table will likely bring it what it seeks far faster than the battlefield will.

Finally, ending the war will benefit Europe’s suffering economies. It would arguably also benefit the United States, which, while benefitting from a weakening of Russia, cannot possibly benefit by pushing it closer and closer into China’s arms. Rather than isolating Russia and enhancing U.S. hegemony, the war has fueled economic and political multipolarity and strengthened the Russia-China strategic partnership. Having demonstrated the prowess of its military weapons in thwarting Russian expansion, the United States could now demonstrate the prowess of its diplomacy by encouraging an end to this dismal conflict through negotiations.

Even if the prospect of successful negotiations appears slim, the survival of Ukraine imposes a moral obligation on all the parties to try. It is time to stop asking who is to blame for starting the war and start focusing on what needs to be done to stop it.

Nicolai N. Petro is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island and the author of The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2023).

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative, as well as other outlets.

Image: Shutterstock.

Israel’s Proportional and Humanitarian Response

Sinan Ciddi, David May — October 29, 2023

Hamas murdered over 1,400 Israelis on October 7 in the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. As Israel prepares to launch widespread ground-based counterterrorism missions in the coming days, there is a growing chorus arguing that Israel is responding disproportionately to the terror attacks, launching indiscriminate attacks on Gaza, and engaging in collective punishment. Misconceptions surrounding these three issues are driving this anti-Israel sentiment.

Hamas’ horrific attacks continue to this day. The terrorist group is firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli population centers on a daily basis. A cursory look at a map of air-raid warnings in Tel Aviv poses an interesting question that critics of Israel seldom think about: what is the ethical and proportional response to indiscriminate rocket attacks on a civilian population by a terrorist entity?

Proportionality does not mean an eye for an eye or that there should be a balance of blood between Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas gunning down Israelis at a music festival does not give Israel a license to do the same to Palestinians. Instead, proportionality requires belligerents to weigh the expected military advantage derived from an action against the possible harm done to civilians.

Perhaps the most prominent example of Israel’s supposed use of disproportionate force relates to the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17. According to initial reports, an Israeli air strike on the hospital killed hundreds of people. What military advantage could justify such a horrific attack? Many news outlets in the region hailed this as proof of Israel’s merciless use of military power to kill innocent civilians in a hospital. Approximately forty-eight hours after the incident, as U.S. intelligence assessments (in conjunction with Israeli sources) concluded the strike was likely the result of an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, the same Western outlets that initially blamed Israel began retracting their claims. Though many of the outlets had relied on the Gaza Health Ministry for their information, only some of them conveyed that Hamas runs the ministry. Relying on the terrorist group as a source of data was a grotesque abandonment of journalistic principles, to say the least.

For anti-Israel activists, the widespread damage to civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including the attack on the hospital, serves as proof that Israel is attacking Gaza indiscriminately. This is erroneous for two main reasons. First, this claim requires knowledge of the intentions of the Israeli commanders ordering the strikes and the soldiers carrying them out. Second, Hamas’ cynical use of human shields forces Israel to choose between leaving its civilians undefended and risking Palestinian civilian casualties. Without knowing the objectives of each Israeli strike and the Hamas assets embedded within civilian areas, there is no basis for claiming that Israel is attacking Gaza indiscriminately.

The same crowd crowing about disproportionate and indiscriminate force is also accusing Israel of engaging in collective punishment. Israel has evacuated its civilians along the Gaza border and warned Palestinians to do the same in northern Gaza. When Israel warns of impending attacks, Hamas has actively prevented Palestinians from fleeing those areas. Somehow, Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties are a form of forced displacement and collective punishment.

Critics have attacked Israel’s humanitarian gesture without providing a practical alternative. An immediate ceasefire leaving Hamas intact is obviously a non-starter. But sending Gazans elsewhere is also impractical. No country is willing to take in Palestinians en masse, either for fear that they would be a destabilizing force or, ostensibly because this would aid in their permanent dispossession from Gaza. Israel cannot accept Gazans into its territory without possibly bringing in Hamas fighters disguised as civilians or civilians who would gladly join in the massacre of Israelis, as we saw on October 7.

Israel has also been accused of withholding the flow of vital aid such as medical supplies, water, fuel, and food into Gaza. This has been partially resolved following President Biden’s visit to Israel. Now, twenty trucks of aid will flow into Gaza as an experiment. But Hamas will likely seize some or all of the aid intended for civilians to support its war efforts. For example, a week into the war, the UN refugee agency dedicated to the Palestinians, UNRWA, posted on X that Hamas had stolen supplies from an UNRWA facility. UNRWA later deleted the post, which is common practice among groups subject to Hamas’ intimidation.

In the days to come, Israel will likely launch its ground offensive. Palestinian civilian casualties are the inevitable result of Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. False narratives and failing journalistic standards will aid claims of disproportionate and indiscriminate Israeli attacks and collective punishment. Rather than agitating for peace, those pushing these narratives are providing cover for Hamas to launch future attacks against Israeli civilians.

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Turkey Program and Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). He is also an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the Command and Staff College-Marine Corps University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Image: Shutterstock.

SR-91 Aurora: The U.S. Military's Secret Mach 5 Plane?

Alex Hollings — October 29, 2023

The U.S. military has had dreams of hypersonic platforms for many years now with China and Russia racing to make those dreams into reality. But did a Mach 5 plane already exist years ago and we knew nothing about it? Meet the SR-91 Aurora:

Rumors of a classified hypersonic aircraft known as Aurora have permeated aviation circles since the 1980s, but evidence of this triangular jet remains as sparse as ever. Could it be possible that the United States not only managed to develop and operate a fleet of Mach 5+ aircraft in the 1980s but has continued to keep them a secret to this day? The truth may actually be a bit more complicated than you might think.

Still commonly referred to as “Black Programs,” the Pentagon has a long history of funding the classified development of advanced technologies. Today, the most secretive efforts fall under Special Access Programs or SAPs, which limit the distribution of information even among those with the highest level of security clearances. Even some acknowledged SAPs are never fully revealed, even years after completion, and some SAPs are never acknowledged at all.

After pouring over historic media reporting, declassified documents, eyewitness accounts, and more forum posts than you could photograph from the U-2, it seems extremely unlikely that the United States ever had an operational fleet of secret hypersonic aircraft… but that doesn’t mean something like it never darkened the massive hangar doors at Area 51.

It’s important to remember that there’s a wide margin between technology that’s sufficiently mature and reliable to mass-produce and put into combat operations, and cutting-edge tech that may be within reach, but just isn’t sustainable from an economic, resource, or even political standpoint.

Put simply, the iPhone in your pocket is not the most advanced smartphone technology in the world today, even if it’s the latest phone to hit the market. It’s simply the technology that could be mass-produced for a target price point and consumer. The actual latest and greatest communications tech would undoubtedly cost exponentially more, may potentially be unreliable, and might even blow your mind.

Aircraft programs can progress in a similar fashion: You may be able to build an incredible aircraft for $2 billion… but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can kick start a production line for them the following week. Technology demonstrators, prototypes, and small-batch production of exotic aircraft are not only believed to be commonplace in restricted facilities like Lockheed Martin’s Palmdale plant or the fan-favorite Area 51… it’s a verifiable fact.

Sometimes efforts don’t produce the intended outcome. Sometimes they prove too expensive or maintenance-heavy to be palatable. And sometimes… America’s secrets literally get buried in the desert, never to be spoken of again.

SR-91 Aurora was born out of a strategic need for airborne reconnaissance

Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest jet-powered aircraft in history, famously outran more than 4,000 missiles during its service life as a reconnaissance platform. Its ability to reach and maintain speeds in excess of Mach 3 for hours at a time made it all but impossible to stop using even the most advanced surface-to-air missile systems or highest-flying intercept fighters. So, when the Air Force opted to retire the immensely successful (and equally expensive) SR-71 in the late 1980s, most people simply assumed it was because the U.S. already had an even faster and higher flying replacement in the works.

That assumption wasn’t without merit. Within the secretive halls of the Pentagon and Congress, there was ample discussion about a replacement for the Blackbird. Now, decades later, irrefutable facts have been twisted around hypothetical narratives so intrinsically that attempting to investigate the truth behind Aurora will inevitably lead you down a winding corridor of references to countless other real or imagined classified programs, including some that may continue to this very day.

Aurora, after all, has always been rumored to be a triangular hypersonic aircraft reminiscent of reports of Lockheed Martin’s own SR-72 program that the firm heavily touted prior to the onset of the modern hypersonic arms race.

Although satellites were already proving incredibly useful for intelligence gathering at the time, there remained a need for airborne reconnaissance following the retirement of the SR-7,1 just as there remains a need for it today. In fact, the SR-71 was un-retired for a time in the 1990s to meet the nation’s reconnaissance needs. In thee minds of many, the Air Force simply wouldn’t let the SR-71 go without a worthy successor already warming up on the sideline. And they could have been right to some extent.

Evidence of the SR-91 Aurora as a technology demonstrator

There is some evidence to suggest that an extremely fast aircraft was undergoing testing during the timeframe often associated with Aurora.

On two separate occasions in April of 1992 (the 5th and 22nd, respectively), a journalist named Steve Douglass was monitoring military aircraft channels in Southern California when he picked up some very unusual radio chatter. According to Douglass, an aircraft with the callsign “Gaspipe” was coordinating with air traffic controllers out of the nearby Edwards Air Force Base, and based on what he heard, the jet must have been flying at extreme altitude and speed.

“You’re at sixty-seven thousand [feet], eighty-one miles out,” the controller told the pilots, before continuing a moment later. “Seventy miles out, thirty-six thousand. Above glide slope.”

Coming in from 67,000 feet eliminated practically all of America’s fixed-wing assets save for the SR-71 and U-2, both of which were confirmed not to be flying on the days Douglass recorded the radio transmissions. Longtime Aviation Week and Space Technology Editor William B. Scott analyzed Douglass’ recordings for the Smithsonian Magazine in 2010 and felt confident that they were indeed real, suggesting the Air Force was either lying about the Space Shuttle secretly landing at Edwards in 1992 or “Gaspipe” had to be some kind of high-speed classified aircraft.

In August of 1992, Bill Sweetman and others from the well-regarded Jane’s Defense Weekly, a defense magazine, revealed that seismologists from the United States Geological Survey had been recording tremors near the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California that were in keeping with a sonic boom from a high-altitude supersonic aircraft. Notably, these events always took place on Thursday mornings at about 7 a.m. Douglass’ recorded radio chatter, however, came on a Sunday and a Wednesday

“All I can say is that it’s something that’s traveling through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound in a generally northeasterly direction,” Jim Mori, a seismologist with the United States Geological Survey at Caltech, told the LA Times in 1992.

Sweetman contended that the nature of the reported sonic booms wasn’t in keeping with any known aircraft in American hangars.

“It’s too fast for any aircraft that we know about,” he said.

Sweetman believed the sonic booms might have been coming from a classified aircraft being tested out of Groom Lake, more commonly known as Area 51, though the Air Force denied it at the time.

Just a month prior to the Jane’s report, however, another reputable aviation outlet, Aviation Week and Space Technology, also reported on sightings of an unusual aircraft with diamond-shaped lighting seen flying in formation with two F-117 Nighthawks and a KC-135 refueling tanker near Beale Air Force Base in northern California. According to the eyewitness reports in Aviation Week, the unusual aircraft quickly turned off its exterior lighting after joining the formation, and its engine gave off a distinct sound reminiscent of “air rushing through a big tube.” Beale Air Force Base is quite a bit north of San Gabriel Valley (near Los Angeles) but is still only about 320 miles from Groom Lake, which would take about five minutes to cover at Mach 5.

Other reports tied to Aurora include photographs of unusual contrails dubbed “doughnuts on a rope.” Because of the peculiar look of these vapor trails, it’s been postulated that Aurora may you an advanced pulse detonation engine, but that concept doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. In 2008, the Air Force Research Laboratory built and flew the first (known) PDE aircraft, achieving just 120 miles per hour with an engine comprised of four different PDE pipes each firing 20 times per second. That aircraft, ironically enough, was called “Borealis.”

In order to achieve hypersonic speeds, a similar PDE would have to fire literally thousands of times per second, making the distance between “doughnuts” of any sort far too small to see from the ground. (We discussed PDE technology more thoroughly in this previous feature.) Instead, if Aurora or something similar did exist, a liquid-methane combined cycle ramjet or scramjet, as was posited by Sweetman in the Washington Post in 1992, would be much more viable.

The reports suggest the possibility that Aurora may have been a program aimed at fielding a hypersonic technology demonstrator that could later serve as the basis for an operational aircraft. However, the earliest reported sightings tied to Aurora began some three years earlier… and on a completely different continent.

Evidence of SR-91 Aurora as an operational aircraft

The 1992 reports of what seemed like a high-speed aircraft in testing in the vicinity of the now infamous Area 51 could lead one to the reasonable conclusion that Uncle Sam had something exotic flying out of Groom Lake. But a string of sightings in the U.K. beginning in 1989 offered a very different narrative. If these reports are to be believed, American sightings in 1992 weren’t of a new aircraft in testing at all. They were flights of an operational aircraft hidden from the public’s eye.

The most famous of these British sightings came in August of 1989 when a Scottish oil-exploration engineer named Chris Gibson reported seeing an isosceles triangle-shaped aircraft flying in formation with two F-111s and refueling from a KC-135 from his vantage point on an oil rig in the North Sea. Gibson wasn’t just any aviation buff, he was a trained airfield observer adept at identifying aircraft from a distance.

“It was obvious to me that this aircraft was something ‘dodgy’. I watched the formation for a minute or two and went back inside with Graeme,” Gibson later told the Discovery Channel.

“At the time I was writing the aircraft recognition manual and had a Danish Luftmelderkorpset Flykendingsbog in my briefcase. This is probably the best aircraft recognition book ever produced. I looked through it, but nothing matched. I then sketched what I had seen and sent this to Peter Edwards, who was a Group Officer in the ROC [Royal Observer Corps] and was also on the recognition team.“

Some eight years later, in 1997, the U.K.-based aviation magazine Airforces Monthly published a report claiming that an American Aurora aircraft, also referred to in the article as the Astra (Advanced Stealth Reconnaissance Aircraft or AV-6) actually crashed while taking off from Runway 23 at Boscombe Down Airfield in Amesbury, England on September 26, 1994.

Airforces Monthly editor David Oliver claimed the story had taken two years to investigate, citing unnamed sources within the Royal Air Force among other, similarly anonymous, witnesses. According to the report, operators from Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) were soon on the scene and the aircraft was covered by a tarp.

On September 28, two days later, the story alleges that an American C-5 cargo aircraft arrived at Boscombe Down to haul the wreckage, which had been stored covered in a hangar, back to the States.

When asked about the incident, both the British Ministry of Defence and the U.S. Defense Department rejected it as fiction.

SR-91: Following the money (and dispelling the rumors)

Discussion of the Aurora program for good reason invariably comes down to money. Although the United States military has the largest budget in the world by a wide margin, it also has the furthest-reaching obligations. The U.S. military assumed a significant role in the defense of Europe following the end of World War II. It also provides a stabilizing presence in shipping lanes the world over, and must continuously innovate to maintain a deterrent edge against potential opponents. As a result, even with the massive pool of money in the Pentagon’s coffers to pull from, there’s never quite enough to go around.

Branches must continuously make compromises in order to meet their obligations today while ensuring they’ll be able to meet any challenges that may arise in the future — often prompting difficult and even unpopular decisions about divesting portions of the Navy’s surface fleet or pressing the Air Force to purchase new 4th generation fighters (like the F-15EX) instead of modern stealth jets that are more expensive to operate. If you’re going to take a multi-billion-dollar bite out of any publicly disclosed or secretive line of accounting, somebody’s bound to notice.

And notice they have… but it seems most of the internet noticed the wrong thing.

One of the most commonly cited facts you can find about Aurora online is that the program was revealed as a $455 million line item for the production of a classified group of aircraft in a 1985 document projecting Fiscal Year 1987 expenditures.

Supposedly, the story was broken by Aviation Week in 1990. But after digging through the long string of citations linked to by outlets repeating the story, this doesn’t appear to be entirely accurate. The original Aviation Week story isn’t hosted online, but if you trace these numbers back to their earliest hosted source, you’ll find most outlets citing a teal-text-on-black-background “Aurora timeline” page listing developments associated with the alleged Aurora program. The page was taken down in 2009, but can still be accessed via an internet archive.

The 1985 budget revelation, however, was indeed real. Five years prior to the oft-cited Aviation Week story, at least two outlets covered the inclusion of Aurora in the 1985 budget proposal in real-time: the LA Times and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Based on this contemporary reporting (as I couldn’t locate the original Defense Department document), the figures associated with “Aurora” were significantly higher than $455 million.

“The document, titled ‘procurement programs,’ indicates that the Defense Department plans to spend $80 million on the Aurora in fiscal 1986, which begins this October, and $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987.”

“Aurora Program May Involve Stealth Bomber or Fighter : Defense Document Tells of Secret Plane” by Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times — Feb. 9, 1985

The Sun-Sentinel corroborated those numbers, seemingly suggesting the Pentagon had a secret program going on that was expected to cost significantly more than even the B-2 Spirit at the time, which was estimated to cost between $900 million and $1 billion annually.

But there’s still more to this story… While Aurora did appear as an expensive line item on the procurement programs document, the document itself was just a proposal. The following year, when the Fiscal Year 1987 National Defense Authorization Act (defense budget) was submitted to Congress for a vote, both Aurora and its multi-billion dollar expenditure were not included. In other words, Aurora — whatever it may have been — doesn’t seem to have received a single penny.

The truth about the Aurora line item appears to have been revealed in 1994 when Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works who oversaw the development of the F-117 Nighthawk, published his book, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed.

According to Rich, the infamous “Aurora” line item was actually funding for America’s stealth bomber competition that Northrop ultimately won.

“The rumor surfaced that it was a top-secret project assigned to the Skunk Works – to build America’s first hypersonic airplane,” Rich wrote (with co-author Leo Janos).

“That story persists to this day even though Aurora was the code name for the B-2 competition funding. Although I expect few in the media to believe me, there is no code name for the hypersonic plane, because it simply does not exist.”

Congressional approval to move ahead with the production of the B-2 Spirit came in 1987, seemingly substantiating Rich’s sentiment, though it seems unlikely that the money was meant for competition. According to a 1995 report from the Government Accounting Office on B-2 procurement, it was around this period of time that the B-2 program was forced to shift priorities.

“At about the same time, the B-2’s mission emphasis was changed from being principally a strategic bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons to a conventional bomber capable of delivering precision-guided munitions.”

“B-2 BOMBER: Status of Cost, Development, and Production,” United Staes Government Accounting Office – August 4, 1995

Because the 1987 budget didn’t ultimately include Aurora, nor did the total budget indicate the $2.3 billion had simply been shifted into another program or distributed across a number of them, it seems the cost may have been anticipated but largely worked around — but not without some degree of headache. According to the same 1995 document, there were pressing concerns that the B-2 would not be ready for service by 1997, with that shift in emphasis cited as one of the problems.

“Test progress has been slower than planned. The test program is planned for completion in July 1997, but our analysis of the tests to be completed and the time that may be needed to complete them indicates that completion by July 1997 is optimistic.”

“The change in emphasis on the B-2 mission from nuclear to conventional increased the need to integrate precision conventional weapons into the B-2 aircraft.”

“B-2 BOMBER: Status of Cost, Development, and Production,” United Staes Government Accounting Office – August 4, 1995

This isn’t enough to conclude for certain that the Aurora line item on the 1985 document was meant to address concerns about changes to the B-2’s role, but it seems evident that it wasn’t aimed at funding a classified hypersonic strike or reconnaissance aircraft of the same name.

So was the SR-91 Aurora real? Well… It’s complicated

It does seem extremely unlikely that the United States was operating a fleet of hypersonic reconnaissance or strike aircraft in the 1980s or ’90s under the name “Aurora” or anything else for that matter. It’s evident that the U.S. has continued to invest heavily into advanced propulsion systems like those long-associated with the Aurora effort. Supersonic combustion ramjets, or scramjets, are the engine system commonly associated with Aurora, but if these systems were mature enough for operational aircraft in the 1980s, it seems crazy that the U.S. would dump literally billions of dollars into scramjet development for hypersonic missiles and potentially drone applications since 2016 alone.

Likewise, with a working propulsion system capable of reliably pushing an aircraft to speeds in excess of Mach 5, 6, or 8 (all speeds commonly attributed to Aurora), it also seems unlikely the Air Force would have continued investing heavily into the development of other exotic high-speed propulsion systems like Pulse Detonation or Rotating Detonation engines. Just this week, the Air Force awarded nearly $5 billion in contracts to firms ranging from Lockheed Martin to Pratt & Whitney for the development of more powerful and efficient engines for America’s next generation of fighters.

Even with a lot of money to play with, it’s unlikely that the U.S. would continue to funnel billions into technology that’s less advanced than the systems it was already operating when the original Top Gun was still playing in theaters.

But… and this is a pretty big but…

There is a significant difference between a development program that produces technology demonstrators and an aircraft that’s put into operational service. This distinction was highlighted in 2020 when Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Will Roper, told the press that the U.S. had already built and tested “a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world” tied to the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. Much of the media reported on it as though that meant the fighter itself was reaching developmental maturity, but a demonstrator needs only to demonstrate the function of systems… it doesn’t have to bear any resemblance to a production platform.

As Tyler Rogoway pointed out for The War Zone, an online defense publication, Northrop’s Tacit Blue stealth technology demonstrator played a vital role in the development of the B-2 Spirit’s low-observable capabilities. But you’d never know they were related by looking at them.

In other words, while it seems entirely unlikely that the Aurora was an operational hypersonic aircraft of any kind, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t a variety of experimental aircraft, prototypes, and technology demonstrators operating out of the wind-swept airstrips of Groom Lake and being spotted in the skies over America’s Southwest. The Cold War was still alive and well in the 1980s, and the United States was still fire-hosing money into forward-reaching defense programs.

The aforementioned Tacit Blue wasn’t revealed to the world until almost a decade after its final flight. Boeing’s alien-looking Bird of Prey technology demonstrator was flying over Area 51 seven years before being revealed. It stands to reason that exotic aircraft, some so rare there may have been only a single prototype, were likely testing systems ranging from advanced propulsion to new stealth technology around Groom Lake through the entirety of both decades. It’s been widely circulated that Area 51 remains the home of a number of aircraft that have yet to be disclosed — some occupying space in hangars, and some meant never to be declassified literally buried in the desert when storage space becomes limited.

With stories of an American hypersonic aircraft named “Aurora” widely circulating as early as 1985, one could argue that Chris Gibson could have seen the real deal four years later flying over the North Sea. Or, one might contend that the F-117, which had just been revealed to the public months earlier and remained widely misunderstood for years to come, could also have been the black triangle he spotted. The B-2 Spirit took its first flight just a month before Gibson’s sighting, making it extremely unlikely that it would cross the Atlantic… but even that seems more feasible than it being a completely different and somehow hypersonic black triangle with no trail of money or even logistics tied to it.

The fervor over the word “Aurora” likely provided a single catch-all term to lump sightings of a wide variety of unusual aircraft in testing over the United States into, and eventually, from elsewhere as well. Gibson, it’s worth noting, didn’t come forward with his sighting until 1992.

So, while the legend of a hypersonic aircraft called Aurora is likely just that — a legend — that’s not to say that the sightings associated with it, the exotic technologies it was claimed to contain, or the secrecy surrounding such a program are fiction as well.

Aurora may not be real… but out there somewhere, buried in the sands of Groom Lake, may lie an even greater secret just waiting to be revealed.

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 first appeared in Sandboxx.

Did the Navy Retire the F-14B Tomcat Too Soon?

Maya Carlin — October 29, 2023

The U.S. military’s climb to air superiority can be attributed to the introduction of three fighter platforms in the 1970’s. When the F-14 Tomcat, the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon took to the skies, America’s aerial arsenal truly became unbeatable.

Currently, two of these airframes remain in service and production, while the Tomcat has been relegated to museums.

The fighter that is notoriously linked to the classic hit Top Gun is widely recognized for its role in protecting U.S. carrier groups from enemy fighters and platforms during its tenure in service.

However, the latest F-14 iteration has capabilities that were not as popularized in the mainstream. In the last years of its service life, the F-15 became a bomber, dubbed as the “Bombcat.”

An overview of the Tomcat

The F-14 platform can be linked back to the late 1950’s, when the U.S. Navy first sought a long-range, high-endurance interceptor to aid its mission set out at sea and beyond. Specifically, the service desired a platform that could defend carrier groups against Soviet bombers and sea-based vessels. Ultimately, the Tomcat emerged as a product of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s Tactical Fighter Experimental Program, which was developed to create a cost-effective “joint” solution for the military. The Tomcat sported several advancements over its predecessors, including variable geometry wing set and the ability to carry long-range AWG-9 radar in addition to super-long-range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles.

While the Tomcat was a very powerful airframe at the time, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union the U.S. could not justify the jet’s maintenance on financial grounds. As explained by Popular Mechanics, without the presence of a “high-tech” adversarial air force there just wasn’t really an urgent need for the Tomcat in the immediate post-Cold War era. According to some estimates, the F-14 required between 30 and 60 hours of maintenance for every one hour it spent in the air. This factor alone really fueled the argument for the Tomcat’s earlier retirement.

Introducing the F-14B “Bombcat”

However, since the F-14s still possessed many service hours left in the early 1990’s, the Navy decided to repurpose the airframes. The new and improved Tomcats were equipped with the LANTIRN system.

As detailed by the Aviationist, “The pod introduced a masking avoidance curve display, preventing the pilots to put the airframe between the pod and the target and interrupting the lasing, and a 12,200 m (40,000 ft) capable laser that became very useful later in the higher terrain of Afghanistan, allowing the Bombcat to employ guided munitions high above potential threats. Another capability was the generation of accurate coordinates for any target, located on the FLIR, that could be then passed to other aircraft or ground assets.”

Image Credit: U.S. Military.

The F-15B airframes also featured advanced engines, digital cockpit and better avionics.

Even equipped with these improvements, the Bombcat’s life in service was short-lived.

The U.S. Navy retired the F-14B iteration along with other Tomcat variants in 2006, but the Bombcat did perform in missions against Yugoslavia and the Middle East before being relegated to museum duty.

Images: Creative Commons/U.S. Military.

Su-75: Russia's Cheap Stealth Fighter Is Now a Giant Question Mark Now

Maya Carlin — October 29, 2023

Russia’s Su-75 Checkmate fighter has had a troubling life. Initially envisioned as a cheap fifth-generation fighter intended for export, it has so far failed to get off the ground – both figuratively and literally.

In spite of the many challenges facing the Checkmate, its designers at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), a Russian aerospace company heavily subsidized by the Russian government, rolled up some significant upgrades and changes last month in the form of patents.

An Overview of the Checkmate

By all appearances, the Su-75 is the perfect entry to the global market to compete with the F-35. A lightweight fifth-generation fighter billed at only $25-30 million, only a third of the cost of the F-35 Lightning. It was with this idea in mind that the UAC unveiled a static prototype of the Checkmate at the MAKS airshow in 2021.

Initially, the aircraft was well received, with nations such as India and Vietnam expressing interest in purchasing early models. Additionally, the United Arab Emirates signed on to partner in the development of the Checkmate.

The design is typical of a fifth-generation fighter, with diverterless supersonic inlets, internal weapons bays, and radar-absorbent coating all designed to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) and make the Checkmate a stealthy fighter. Inside, the cockpit appears to be laid out almost identically to the Su-57. Its avionics include active electronically scanned array radar, a must in modern fighters as well as open architecture code which greatly eases the update process.

Su-75: Updates

Several months ago, the UAC filed new patents, which suggest the direction of development for the Su-75. Its overall shape appears to be modified, with larger wings that seem to have a smaller RCS and an enlarged fuselage which suggests either higher capacity weapons bays, larger fuel tanks, or both.

The bigger updates come in the form of a two-seat variant, which may be used for training or other missions, and an unmanned or “optionally” manned variant. The driving force behind such technology is the idea of a pilot in an F-35 or Su-75 managing several unmanned air combat aircraft, essentially being the flying quarterback. While the new update may look and sound as though the Checkmate is developing nicely, in reality, it means little and does not address the problems facing the Su-75.

It has been noted that these modifications are a natural part of the development process of new aircraft and do not represent a drastic shift in design or thinking on fifth-generation aircraft. Furthermore, they do nothing to rectify the issues previously noted such as lack of resources due to international sanctions as well as fading international interest following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

So far, the UAE has pulled out of its partnership deal and the Russian aerospace has struggled to field Su-57s for domestic consumption let alone diverting valuable resources to an export program. In all, these updates may renew interest in the Su-75 Checkmate program or spur additional consideration from other countries; however, none of that will matter if the airplane never flies.

With first flights pushed back from 2023 to 2024 and now beyond, it remains to be seen if the Su-75 Checkmate will ever get off the ground.

Maya Carlin, a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.

TAR-21: What Makes Israel's Assault Rifle So Powerful?

Maya Carlin — October 29, 2023

Israel’s homegrown IWI Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle has been the standard-issue weapon of Israel’s infantry since 2009.

That is the year the Tavor Assault Rifle-21st century took on the role the Israel Defense Forces formerly assigned to the American M16 and M4 rifles.

Designed by Israel Weapon Industries, the TAR-21 is equipped with a selective fire system that toggles between a semi-automatic mode and a full-automatic mode.

The rifle is gas-operated and shares similar modern mainstream features with a number of counterparts. Israel has exported the TAR-21 to more than 30 countries. It is used by law enforcement officers, government bodies, and militaries. The rifle’s efficiency and stellar track record have made it a staple in the IDF’s infantry.

Following the 1982 war with Lebanon, the IDF recognized the challenges urban warfare and close-quarter combat presented to its soldiers. The IDF needed a more reliable, durable, and maintenance-friendly weapon for its infantry. Ten years later, the IDF took serious action to design a more advanced automatic weapon when it launched the Tavor project in 1994. The IDF accepted the Tavor-21 in 2004, after two years of tests.

Versatility and Ease of Use

The Tar-21’s bullpup layout enables the rifle to be compact when necessary, without removing the capability of a long barrel. The bullpup design is also used to maximize soldiers’ effectiveness when turning corners in urban warfare, since it minimizes the soldiers' silhouette. The basic configurations for the rifle include its compact version, called the CTAR-21, and the micro rifle, or MTAR-21. The only differences between these configurations are in barrel length and accessories. The rifle’s long-stroke gas piston system features a piston that travels the same distance as the bolt carrier, simplifying the weapon and making it easier to maintain.

Additional useful characteristics of the TAR-21 are its ambidexterity and modularity. The rifle’s ejection ports are located on either side of the weapon, and both the right- and left-side ejections can be selected by installing the bolt with the ejector mounted on either side. This allows right-handed and left-handed soldiers to carry the rifle with equal ease.

The TAR-21 shares features with the American-made M-16 rifle, including a rotating bolt and a STANAG or NATO magazine. Each magazine that the TAR-21 fires is curved and features a double-column approach, similar to the M-16. The rifle’s fire-mode selector switch sits above the pistol grip.

Israel is unlikely to replace the TAR-21 rifle anytime soon. In 2021, the weapons division of Israel’s Ground Forces Command declared itself “very satisfied by its capabilities,” and said that “the rifle performs very well and has proven itself.”

Since its inception in the early 2000s, the TAR-21 has circulated widely. Its purchasers include Georgia, India, Portugal, and Thailand. In 2019, soldiers of the Royal Thai King’s Guard were seen carrying a gold-painted version of the Tavor TAR-21. Additional countries could make the Israeli-made rifle their infantry’s standard-issue weapon in the near future.

Maya Carlin is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

With U.S. Support, Ecuador’s New Leader Can Combat A Daunting Narco-Crisis

Andrés Martínez-Fernández — October 28, 2023

Centrist Daniel Noboa’s highly consequential victory over leftist Luisa Gonzalez in Ecuador’s recent snap presidential elections puts his country on a path away from the corruption and anti-American hostility that has dominated the country’s politics in the twenty-first century.

Both Ecuador and the United States now face an important opportunity to confront the South American country’s rising and deeply worrying security crisis, which has brought a wave of narco-related violence, including the assassination of a leading presidential candidate, and a sharp increase in migration and illicit drugs flowing to the United States. The election of a tough-on-crime president offers Washington an opportunity to regain influence in a key South American nation that has for too long been a geopolitical playground for Beijing.

President-elect Noboa can build on outgoing conservative President Guillermo Lasso’s success in stabilizing Ecuador’s economy. In his short two years in office, he rapidly reactivated the economy post-pandemic, restored fiscal balance, and fulfilled Ecuador’s reform program with the International Monetary Fund. However, Lasso’s efforts to address soaring narco-violence were undercut by anti-capitalist domestic opponents who cut his term short with a baseless impeachment effort.

Meanwhile, transnational criminal organizations steadily consolidated their grip over the South American nation, bringing a wave of drug trafficking and violence. The homicide rate soared by over 350 percent between 2018 to 2022. 2023 is set to mark another year of massively increasing violence, with Guayaquil, the nation’s largest city, registering nearly as many homicides in the first half of 2023 as in all of 2022.

Ecuador sits geographically between the world’s top two cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, a reality that has long left the country to contend with powerful drug cartels. With regional cocaine production spiking in recent years, Ecuador became an increasingly busy transit hub for illegal drug shipments to the United States and Europe. Increased drug flows attracted transnational criminal organizations from Colombia, Mexico, and from as far away as Albania, greatly accelerating the proliferation of homegrown drug trafficking gangs, resulting in inter-gang conflict that has driven the current wave of violence.

This year’s elections saw the violence upend Ecuador’s political stability with waves of car bombings and the assassination of conservative presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last August. Villavicencio’s death marks the first assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador’s history. In neighboring Colombia, the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in 1989 marked a rallying moment for Colombian society against the drug cartels.

A similar movement may be underway in Ecuador. The spike in violence has led some to call for a Plan Ecuador, alluding to Washington’s Plan Colombia of the 1980s and 1990s that neutralized Colombian drug cartels and a communist insurgency. A crucial precondition for Colombia’s success lay in broad consensus from the country’s political, business, and civil society leadership to confront the drug cartels head-on. That those conditions are present in Ecuador remains unclear, but it is possible.

Whether or not Ecuador embarks on a better path depends on President-elect Noboa. A young former lawmaker and son of Ecuador’s richest man and former conservative presidential candidate, Noboa ran on a centrist platform to defeat the chosen candidate of Ecuador’s former leftist strongman Rafael Correa, currently residing in Belgium to avoid corruption charges. How Noboa will govern is still unclear. However, a security partnership with Washington could help steer the country back from the precipice of becoming a narco-state, even with a Biden administration that seems to be adrift with a non-existent Latin America policy.

Indeed, to accomplish this, Washington would have to greatly bolster its offering of technical assistance, intelligence sharing, and equipment for Ecuador’s security forces and prisons, which have become a central hub for criminal groups. The United States must expand beyond its anti-money laundering program with more focus on dismantling the drug cartels and the corrupt regional officials that empower them.

More broadly, the Biden administration must abandon its hands-off approach and vigorously confront the region’s weak policies against drug trafficking. Whether it’s Mexico’s failed “hugs, not bullets” strategy or Colombia’s fruitless “total peace” plan, the Western Hemisphere can no longer afford to indulge policies that turn a blind eye to expanding transnational criminality as it sows chaos south of the border while flooding the U.S. with fentanyl and millions of illegal migrants. Both Colombia and Mexico are run by leaders unlikely to adopt tough anti-narco positions, but the Biden administration must at least make the case.

There are also broader geopolitical implications at stake. Ecuador is among the most China-dependent countries in the Western Hemisphere. Ecuador’s debt to China is equivalent to roughly 5 percent of the South American country’s GDP, giving it one of the most substantial debt-servicing burdens in the Western Hemisphere. Even pro-U.S. leader Guillermo Lasso had to make the trek to Beijing during his short presidency and cautiously managed relations with China. If the United States can effectively partner with Ecuador to overcome its daunting security challenges, it could create a political framework to curb Beijing’s substantial influence and show the region that an alliance with the United States is preferable to dependency on China’s communist regime.

Ecuador’s rapid descent into chaos is symptomatic of the dysfunction of Latin America’s politics. Whether it’s uncontrollable massive migration flows, erosion of national sovereignty, or unprecedented narco-violence, many countries of the hemisphere risk becoming failed states. This directly threatens America’s national security. If the Biden administration does not act, the task will once again fall to Congress, which should shift security aid and funding toward Ecuador and other willing partners and away from countries like Colombia and Mexico, whose current leadership refuses to face the narcotrafficking threat seriously.

One way or another, Washington must ramp up efforts to contain the spread of transnational criminal syndicates to stem the further destabilization of the Americas.

Andres Martinez-Fernandez is a Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation.

Image: Shutterstock.

The Rising Cost of Indoctrination

Marcus Sheff — October 28, 2023

Education plays a vital role in shaping the societies of the future, for better or worse. Optimistically, a UNESCO publication, Addressing Hate Speech Through Education, A Guide For Policy-Makers, frames education as a critical element in “building systemic resilience to hateful discourse.” Sadly, we are seeing with absolute clarity that in Gaza, education has been manipulated for precisely the opposite purpose—teaching a generation to hate with deadly and horrific consequences.

On October 7, graduates of Gaza’s education system perpetrated the most unspeakable crimes against thousands of Israeli civilians. Tragically, the seeds of the massacre were sown a long time ago. Our organization, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), has been watching these seeds germinate for decades, conducting extensive research into the curricula taught in Gaza’s schools and sharing the results with policymakers.

What we have consistently uncovered is Palestinian textbooks replete with hatred towards Jews, incitement to violence, and the glorification of terror and martyrdom. The roots of the unprecedented assault on Israelis are not hard to find. Eighth-grade reading comprehension is taught through a story promoting suicide bombings in which Palestinians “cut the necks of the enemy.” Another textbook is titled “From Stone to Missile” and lauds the use of rockets against Israel. Meanwhile, a fifth-grade study card teaches that it is a duty to commit jihad and become a martyr for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. These are just a handful of some of the dozens of examples found in Palestinian textbooks across all grades and subjects ranging from humanities to math and science. The correlation between these teaching materials and the horror of the Hamas attack is unmistakable.

Moreover, the uncomfortable truth is that the international community, including policymakers in Washington, has unwittingly contributed to this state of affairs. The Palestinian Authority (PA) receives hundreds of millions of Euros in aid from European governments and the European Union itself. The PA’s hate-filled textbooks, incorporating some of the examples mentioned, are taught throughout the Gazan school system, including schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Meanwhile, since 1994, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territories. Among the biggest beneficiaries of this largesse is UNRWA, which operates schools serving more than half of Gaza’s students. The United States is UNRWA’s largest donor, contributing over one billion dollars to its education program in the last five years alone. Not only do these U.S. taxpayer dollars pay the salaries of teachers in UNRWA schools who peddle the hatred of the PA curriculum, but they also fund the production of highly problematic additional teaching materials stamped with the UNRWA logo. These include a ninth-grade reading comprehension, which contains a story glorifying the bombing of a Jewish bus near the West Bank city of Ramallah as a “barbeque party.” The consequences of this hateful material are clear. The Hamas website lists at least one hundred UNRWA graduates as members of its military wing, including the murderers of British-Israeli Lucy Dee and her two daughters, 16-year-old Rina and 20-year-old Maia, who were shot at point-blank range earlier this year.

This type of incitement has been highlighted time and time again in our reports on UNRWA, the latest of which was presented in Congress in 2023 and identified forty-seven new cases of incitement by UNRWA staff, in breach of the agency’s stated policies of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination, or antisemitism in its schools and educational materials.

In light of the atrocities of October 7, Washington can no longer afford to write UNRWA a blank check. The human cost has become unbearable. Given Washington’s unequivocal support for Israel as it combats Hamas, it would also be untenable. Last week, the European Union quite rightly announced a freeze on Palestinian aid pending a comprehensive review. Washington must now follow suit and employ this same model by withholding its funding of UNRWA until due diligence has been completed. Anything less than demanding full accountability will mean sleepwalking toward the radicalization of another generation of young Palestinians to wage war against Israel and the West.

Marcus Sheff is the CEO of The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). He held positions as a political reporter at The Nation as well as an editor at The Jerusalem Post. He also previously held positions at Dow Jones International, Advanstar Inc., and The Israel Project. He has briefed world leaders, spoken at the United Nations and parliaments, and appears regularly in media.

Image: Shutterstock.

China Scorns Biden’s Climate Agenda

Don Ritter — October 28, 2023

While Climate Czar John Kerry was in Beijing in September, according to the New York Times, President Xi pointedly stated in the official People’s Daily that China will follow its own timetable regarding emissions reductions. “The pathway and means for reaching this goal, and the tempo and intensity, should be and must be determined by ourselves, and never under the sway of others.”

Most recently, and before the COP 28 meetings in Dubai in November, China’s top climate official, Xie Zhenhua, said, “The complete phasing out of fossil fuels is unrealistic.”

China is doubling down on coal consumption and coal power plant construction. China already has more greenhouse gas emissions than the developed world combined, at 33 percent. China accounts for 53 percent of the world’s coal consumption and is headed towards an even larger share. In contrast, the United States accounts for only around 6 percent of global coal consumption, a number that has been dropping fast.

The Biden Administration is presently constraining new investments in fossil fuel exploration, use, and production. Coal-burning plants to produce electricity are viewed as a particularly bad actor, to be eliminated entirely by virtue of both regulatory curbs on emissions and sizable subsidies to close plants and “go green.” Meanwhile, China permitted six times more new coal plants in 2021–2022 (106 Gigawatts or 100 new plants) than the rest of the world combined. That meant permitting an average of two new coal-fired power plants a week!

While China imports vast crude oil and related products from Russia and the Middle East, it is also expanding into a new $10 billion refinery and petrochemical investment with Saudi Arabia as the supplier of nearly 500,000 barrels of crude oil daily to produce the higher value-added petrochemicals and derivatives that are ubiquitous to modernity everywhere. In yet another deal with Saudi Arabia, a new petrochemical facility in China will be supplied with an additional 200,000 barrels per day. By virtue of its ever-increasing crude oil purchases and its lack of a climate change obsession, China is a reliable, long-term customer for Middle East oil-producing nations. It has thus become a mover and shaker in the economics and politics of the Middle East, engaging seamlessly between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Make no mistake, China, with oil coming increasingly from Russia and the Middle East, could also become the leading refiner and petrochemical supplier in the world, both for itself and for export to the rapidly growing Asian market. It is a very close second to the United States in refining today and in expansion mode, while the United States is not “permitting” new refining capacity. Note: Solar and wind have little or nothing to do with producing civilization-sustaining petrochemicals, but solar and wind electricity-generating facilities make extensive use of them.

In sum, this is not China weaning off fossil fuels by any stretch of the imagination.

With oil and gas as long-term common ground, and in unprecedented fashion, China brokered a ‘peace deal’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran and is even conducting joint military exercises with a U.S. ally, the UAE. Saudi Arabia is in discussions with China over building a nuclear power plant. The relationship between the Middle East and China is symbiotic over fossil fuel energy.

The climate change agenda of the Biden Administration simply does not fit well with the prime wealth-creator and lifeblood of the Middle East, oil, and China is taking advantage of that reality. Oil producers see a large and expanding market for their products in China and the developing world, and related business arrangements are overriding concerns about climate change.

All this is shifting the global geopolitics writ large.

Developing countries pay lip service to climate change as they expand their consumption of fossil fuels. Also, if the West subsidizes them with wind and solar generation, of course, they will take the free facilities.

At the G20 Summit in Vietnam, President Biden called climate change “scarier than nuclear war.” This is not only a highly debatable presumption, but it’s clear China, Russia, and the still-developing Global South do not share that view. What is scary is a China-Russia-Iran axis in the Middle East, aligning against the interests of the United States and Israel.

China is an “all-of-the-above” energy producer and consumer. That means all fossil fuels, plus nuclear power with thirty-five new plants permitted, massive hydro, and world-leading solar and wind energy production, deployment, and sales. Also, no matter how much solar and wind energy is deployed, a constant source of backup generation, primarily fossil fuels, will be needed in the case of China.

Between satisfying the needs and desires of its 1.5 billion people and its ambition to overtake the United States economically and militarily on the world stage, energy is paramount. That means climate change is simply not their priority, at least not for the foreseeable future.

The Biden Administration is spending and subsidizing hundreds of billions of taxpayer and printed dollars to try and impact the global climate, all the while increasing the price of energy (the main cost of goods and services driving inflation) for American citizens. And to what end?

Expansion of coal burning by China and increases in fossil fuel consumption in developing countries like India, Indonesia, and the “Global South” vitiate America’s greenhouse gas reductions. Substantially increased coal burning in China, along with their giant appetite for oil, gas, and refined product consumption, plus natural disasters—like the fires in Canada, Maui, and volcanoes—dwarf greenhouse gas reductions in the United States and make those very costly reductions, gratuitous.

For America and other countries of the West, present climate change policies are in dire need of change.

Don Ritter holds a Science Doctorate from MIT and served fourteen years on the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology Committees. After leaving Congress, he created and led the National Environmental Policy Institute. He has written extensively on energy and climate change.

He was a National Academy of Sciences Fellow in the USSR. He speaks fluent Russian and was a Ranking Member of the Congressional Helsinki Commission and founding Co-Chair of the Baltic States-Ukraine Caucus. He is a Trustee of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Museum.

Image: Shutterstock.

Is the Gaza War a Transformative Global Event?

Leon Hadar — October 28, 2023

Pundits tend to analogize international crises, comparing them sometimes using apocalyptic terms to world events that have transformed the international system. Is this another Sarajevo? Munich? Cuban Missile Crisis?

“War Shifts Global Dynamics,” proclaimed a recent front-page news report headline in The Wall Street Journal, suggesting that the war between Israel and Hamas wasn’t just risking a regional conflagration but is also affecting the global balance of power in a dramatic way, not unlike the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Ukraine War seemed to have created the outlines of the post-Cold War international system, under which a Western democratic bloc led by the United States faces a Sino-Russian axis of authoritarian states challenging the post-1945 liberal international system.

Some could argue that this “New Cold War” narrative disregards the reality in which the strategic interests of Moscow and China or even between Washington and Paris aren’t always aligned.

Hence, the Chinese didn’t vocally support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the French have distanced themselves from America’s “de-coupling” approach toward China. And the global balance of power could change once again depending on the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the Gaza War has encouraged members of Washington’s foreign policy community to try to extend the “New Cold War” narrative and integrate into it what is a national-ethnic war between Israelis and Palestinians and, in a wider context, a conflict between two regional powers, Israel and Iran and its regional proxies.

The suggestion that we are now facing a confrontation between a China-Russia-Iran-Hamas axis and a Western bloc allied with Israel does reflect a rudimentary reading of the way the Hamas attack on Israel has affected the interests of the major players.

Recall that on October 6, the conventional wisdom was that Israel and Saudi Arabia, as part of an ambitious U.S. strategy, were on their way to normalizing their relations, a process that could have led to the formation of a pro-American Arab-Israeli partnership aimed at containing Iran and its regional partners, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran.

Such an American diplomatic triumph would have been a major blow to the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially since the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement would have been accompanied by a security agreement between Washington and Riyadh and would have allowed the Saudis to set up a nuclear program.

From the perspective of Hamas, a Saudi-Israeli deal, very much like the Abraham Accords that preceded it, would have left the interests of the Palestinians on the foreign policy backburner, demonstrating that it was possible to reach Arab-Israeli peace without resolving the Palestinian issue.

In the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been much talk about the American “retreat” from the Middle East that has supposedly left a strategic vacuum in the region. China’s diplomatic success in mediating a deal between the Saudis and the Iranians to end the civil war in Yemen was seen as part of an attempt by Beijing to fill the vacuum left by the U.S.

From that geostrategic perspective, an Israeli-Saudi deal advanced by Washington could have reasserted American power in the Middle East with relatively minor costs. Consequently, the United States could continue challenging Russian and Chinese influence in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, respectively.

Moreover, the accompanying Saudi-American security agreement would have allowed the Americans to press the Saudis to help manage the global energy markets and put downward pressure on oil and gas prices that have risen as a result of the Ukraine war.

It goes without saying that the successful Hamas attack against Israel has not only harmed the interests of an American partner but also delivered a massive blow to American plans to reshape the Middle East.

It’s important to consider that one of the reasons the Saudis and other Arab Gulf states warmed to the idea of establishing ties with the Jewish State was the perception that Israel was a mighty military-technological power that could counterbalance Iran. Suffering the loss of its deterrence power following the Hamas attack, that perception of Israel may have changed.

Moreover, facing the pressure from the “Arab street” over rising Palestinian civilian casualties brought about by Israel’s bombing of Gaza, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab-Sunni states may reconsider their affair with Israel and distance themselves from their American patron.

All these developments are certainly good news for the Russians and the Chinese, who benefit from American losses and hope that the war in the Middle East would force Washington to reassess its strategic ambitions across the Pacific and the Atlantic.

At the same time, Russia has been strengthening its ties with Iran, which has provided it with drones and other weapons to help it fight the war in Ukraine, while China, whose economy is dependent on Middle Eastern oil, has been strengthening its cooperation with Iran. Both have invited Iran to join the BRICS+ economic club to counter U.S. geo-economic hegemony. So they would supposedly be content to see Tehran and its partner winning the last round in the conflict with the U.S.-Israel partnership.

As part of the New Cold War, China and Russia also hope to win the hearts and minds of the nations of the so-called Global South. The Gaza War has provided them with an opportunity to do just that by supposedly exposing American “hypocrisy” by arguing that the Americans support the Israelis and the Ukrainians because they are “white” while disregarding the interests of the Palestinians, a “brown” third-world people.

Never mind the fact that more than half of Israeli Jews are of Middle Eastern extraction, and the Palestinians are classified as Caucasians. Nor is there recognition of Chinese and Russian hypocrisy: the former repressing their Muslim Uygur minority and the latter conducting a genocidal war against the Muslims in Chechnya that makes the Gaza Strip look like Santa Monica.

And in any case, the notion that the Global South is buying into Chinese and Russian marketing of the Gaza War disregards reality. India, the symbol of the Global South, is a strategic ally of the United States and a close partner of the Jewish State.

In reality, the response to the Chinese and the Russians to the Gaza War was opportunistic in nature, seeking to exploit America’s problems. That is very different than suggesting that their strategic interests are fully aligned with that of Iran or that they support Hamas.

In fact, Russia maintains close ties with Israel, home to hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants. It has allowed Israel to attack military targets in neighboring Syria, which is, for all practical purposes, a Russian protectorate. This, in part, explains why Israel has resisted American pressure to join the pro-Ukraine coalition.

Similarly, China maintains dynamic cooperation with Israel in the technological and scientific fields, and like in the case of Russia, the Israelis don’t support America’s anti-China strategy.

Also, China and Russia don’t necessarily share the same interests in the Middle East. In addition to its geographical proximity, Russia has historical ties to the region going back to the Crimean War. At the same time, China’s engagement with West Asia, based chiefly on economic interests, is much more haphazard.

In any case, there is no doubt that the Russians and the Chinese have benefited from the troubles inflicted on the Israelis and the Americans in the short run and that they will continue to exploit them as long as they can do that.

Dr. Leon Hadar is a contributing editor with The National Interest, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia, and a former research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He has taught at American University in Washington, DC, and the University of Maryland, College Park. A columnist and blogger with Haaretz (Israel) and Washington correspondent for the Business Times of Singapore, he is a former United Nations bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post.

Image: Shutterstock.

Negotiating with Hamas Is a Means to Defeating Them

Ivan Sascha Sheehan — October 28, 2023

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas as a military and political force in Gaza. This is a worthy goal and one that President Biden and members of Congress from both parties have come together to support. Even with America on its side, however, Israel faces daunting challenges in fighting this war.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who also served as Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and is Israel’s most decorated soldier, identified three key constraints to the IDF’s campaign in Gaza: the hostages held by Hamas, the possibility of intervention by Hezbollah and Iran, and time.

Time is not on Israel’s side in this conflict. The controversy over the purported bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital serves as a graphic reminder that the longer the combat drags on, the greater the outrage over civilian casualties, and the more international pressure to end the fighting will grow. Either Israel wraps this up quickly—which is impossible—or we find ways to help the civilian population in Gaza and give the IDF the breathing room necessary to accomplish its military objectives.

President Biden made significant progress with the Israelis in creating humanitarian corridors into Gaza. Unfortunately, it takes two to tango, and Hamas isn’t dancing. As the governing authority in Gaza, Hamas controls everything: the economy, infrastructure, and logistics. Until now, it has used this power to block relief in a cynical ploy to exacerbate the suffering of non-combatants and ratchet up the international pressure on Israel. Hamas has stolen UN-supplied fuel intended for civilian use and prevented families from fleeing south, as ordered by the Israelis.

Objectionable though it may be, securing some concessions from Hamas is a tactical necessity if we are to see hostages released, civilians moved to safe zones, and aid delivered. Achieving any or all of these objectives will significantly enhance the IDF’s ability to pursue its military campaign. In this respect, diplomacy becomes a powerful weapon in the fight against Hamas. Successful negotiations with Hamas will provide Israel’s soldiers with the breathing room necessary to do their jobs.

In previous rounds of fighting, two nations—Egypt and Qatar—have served as intermediaries between Israel and Hamas. Qatar’s good offices, in particular, proved indispensable in securing vital assistance for Palestinians caught in the crossfire and in healing the scars of war. The United States encouraged, supported, and expressed gratitude for their successful efforts to negotiate hostage releases, broker cease-fires, and provide humanitarian relief.

If we want to facilitate Israel’s ongoing military operation, we need Qatar. The world is beating a path to Doha’s door because Qatar has the contacts with Hamas and the experience necessary to free the hostages, as evidenced by the recent release of two Israeli-Americans. For years, and in cooperation with the Israelis, Qatar has been providing for the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s civilian population. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously defended his government’s decision to allow Qatar to transfer millions of dollars to Gaza, arguing that it helped maintain stability. The Israeli government went so far as to send the head of Mossad to Doha in 2020 to plead for the Qataris to maintain the flow of aid to Gaza.

President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu have reason to be concerned that Hamas will siphon off the aid intended for besieged civilians since they have a history of doing just that. Qatar’s network of relationships in Gaza and its track record of providing help to the captive population there could spell the difference between success and failure of the relief effort.

Calls for the closing of Hamas’s office in Doha or sanctioning Qatar over its contact with the group are as misguided as they are self-defeating. The office is one of the only channels the United States has to Hamas; without it, we lose a critical channel for securing the release of American hostages held in Gaza. Qatar knows how to negotiate hostage releases. They have done it for us successfully with terrorist regimes in Afghanistan and Iran.

Until the savagery of the October 7 attack against Israel, it was U.S. policy to rely on Qatar as a proxy with Hamas since we couldn’t deal with a terrorist organization but still required a trusted intermediary to act on our behalf. In 2004, the Bush Administration asked Qatar to open a channel with Hamas and persuade them to participate in Gazan elections, which the group won in 2006. Six years later, again at the request of the United States and with the endorsement of Israel, Qatar allowed Hamas to open its political office in Doha in 2012. Since then, every elected government in the United States and Israel has encouraged Qatar to maintain relations with Hamas.

Everything changed on October 7. Peace with Hamas is not an option. The United States has committed itself to helping Israel destroy the group. Qatar’s unique capabilities and cooperation are critical to achieving this objective. Equally importantly, both Israel and the United States will once again need Qatar to secure a better future for the Palestinian people.

Professor Ivan Sascha Sheehan is the associate dean of the College of Public Affairs and past executive director of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. Opinions expressed are his own. Follow him on X @ProfSheehan.

Image: Shutterstock.

Why Won't America Sell F-35 Stealth Fighters to Taiwan?

Maya Carlin — October 28, 2023

A Taipei-based news outlet reported months back that the U.S. has once again denied Taiwan’s request for F-35 fighter jets.

According to Taiwan Plus, American officials have only sold F-16 Fighting Falcons to their Taiwanese counterparts, which have similar capabilities to their homegrown AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo platform.

Last month, Taipei and Washington agreed on a whopping $420 million deal for maintaining fighter airframes operated by Taiwan’s air force. In light of China’s escalating hostilities in the South China Sea and over Taiwan, Taipei has relied more on American air defense capabilities to secure its airspace.

However, the U.S. has drawn a red line when it comes to providing Taiwan with its stealth fighter F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter platforms. Many Western nations refuse to sell advanced fifth-generation jets to Taipei over fears of angering Beijing and concern that the fighters’ sensitive technology could fall into the hands of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

As explained by an aviation expert in an Aviation Geek Club piece, the U.S. is fairly confident that any weapons it provides Taiwan will ultimately be seized by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) if kinetic warfare does erupt. During the Chinese civil war in the late 1940s, the U.S. delivered billions of dollars worth of its top-of-the-line equipment and weaponry, which eventually made its way to the PLA.

A super simple summary of the cross-strait tensions

The Chinese government views Taiwan as a renegade province and has asserted its intention to militarily “reunify” with the island. Taipei views itself as a sovereign nation with its own constitution that it has governed with since the first half of the last century. Officially recognized as the Republic of China (ROC), the island is separated from mainland China by the Taiwan Strait. Since the nation is positioned as the “first island chain” in an area the U.S. maintains is paramount for national security purposes, aiding Taiwan’s independence from China is significant.

Since 2016, tensions between Taipei and Beijing have spiked following the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Unlike her predecessor, Tsai has not promoted strengthened relations with the mainland. A major sticking point in the conflict has been differing understandings of the 1992 Consensus, which was reached by the former Kuomingtang Party in Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the PRC’s takeaway from the 1992 Consensus is that “the two sides of the strait belong to one China and would work together to seek national reunification.” For Taiwan, it means “one China, different interpretations,” with the ROC standing as the “one China.”

The US has aided Taipei amidst escalating tensions with Beijing

Bound by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which was intended to “make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability,” the U.S. delivered F-16s in the 1990s.

Without more advanced fifth-generation fighters in its arsenal, Taiwan has settled on upgrading its current fleet. Taiwan’s air force has been enhancing older F-16A/B variants to new Viper F-16Vs, featuring sophisticated radar systems and new mission computers. According to CNN, Taipei has also signed a deal with manufacturer Lockheed Martin to purchase 66 additional Viper airframes.

Why Taiwan will likely never procure the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

While the F-16 is a formidable platform, Taipei has its eyes set on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – and for good reason. Many industry experts and aviation buffs consider the newest American fifth-generation fighter to be the greatest stealth airframe on the planet.

The fighter is reportedly unrivaled by its near peers in terms of sensing, computing, and weapons systems. While the F-35 is often and rightly considered to be a stealth-heavy fighter, the jet also has another side. In combat, the fighter can convert to a “bomb truck” also known as “Beast Mode.”

As explained by the Aviation Geek Club, “In stealth mode, the F-35 can carry 5,700 pounds of internal ordnance. Once air dominance is established, the F-35 converts to beast mode, carrying up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external weapons.”

The F-35 can sport two AMRAAMs, six JDAMs, and two Sidewinders when in “Beast Mode” configuration.

While the F-35 is a powerful airframe that has been exported to many foreign air forces in recent years, Taiwan is unlikely to ever make the list of recipients.

For good or for ill, America’s concern that the PRC ultimately acquire the Joint Strike Fighter’s secretive technology is perhaps enough reason to block this theoretical deal from ever coming to fruition.

Image Credit: All Images Creative Commons.

F-4E Phantom: The Warplane Israel Made Famous

Maya Carlin — October 28, 2023

The beacon of the Israeli air force’s fighter fleet throughout the 1970s was the American F-4E Phantom, a twin-engine, tandem-seat, supersonic jet interceptor.

This third-generation aircraft, nicknamed Kurnass (Hebrew for “heavy hammer”), played an instrumental role as Israel defended the gains made through its decisive victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Considered the most advanced Western jet developed for air-to-air combat, the F-4E Phantom significantly altered the battlespace in the region.

Fought between the newly established Jewish state and a coalition of its neighbors, the third Arab-Israeli War had geopolitical consequences that would alter the region for years to come. The short conflict led to Israel’s tripling in size, and this outcome was vehemently challenged by Egypt in the 1967-1970 War of Attrition.

A Unique Aerial Addition

The first 50 F-4E Phantoms entered Israeli territory in 1969. They were delivered despite the Pentagon’s evaluation that the sale would harm U.S.-Arab relations, and against the prospect of a U.S.-Soviet agreement to limit arms sales to the region. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s provocations essentially sealed U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to sell the F-4Es.

The first Phantom fleet arrived in Israel at the height of the War of Attrition in 1969. The Israeli air force immediately integrated the fleet into its mission of taking on Egyptian air defenses along the Suez Canal. The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) platform established altitude, 16-speed and time-to-climb records, making it a versatile and threatening addition to the air force’s aircraft arsenal. The aircraft’s suppression of air defenses and its fleet attack and defense missions would prove vital in the battle along the Canal. The IAF used the Phantom’s long-range radar and AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missiles to successfully thwart Egypt and its Soviet weapons suppliers.

The Phantom’s advanced capabilities allowed Israeli pilots to execute tactics that would ultimately lead to the downing of some 100 Egyptian MiG fighters during the War of Attrition. Dubbed Operation Rimon 20, the aerial “bear trap” made possible by the IAF’s Phantom fleet remains one of the most famous strategies in Israel’s military history. Similar to Operation Bolo in the Vietnam War, Rimon 20 started by setting the bait: Four armed French-made Mirage III jets teamed up to simulate a reconnaissance mission typically carried out by two unarmed Mirage III jets. Meanwhile, other Mirages alongside a fleet of F-4 Phantoms flew undetected along the Sinai border. When Soviet fighters assisting the Egyptians took the bait, they were attacked by the barrage of Phantoms and other fighters, firing from below.

The IAF’s strategic superiority over Egypt, made possible in part by its F-4 Phantom fleet, ultimately superseded the Egyptian military’s numerical advantage. The Phantom fleet would go on to aid Israel’s air force in the 1973 Yom Kippur Wars. Although the Kurnass Phantoms were retired in 2004, they remain a revered part of Israel’s military history. Without the victories secured by the Phantom fleet throughout the 1970s, Israel today would look very different.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Will Everyone Lose the Israel-Hamas War?

Gregory F. Treverton — October 28, 2023

Hamas took more than 200 people hostage during its deadly rampage in Israeli border towns on Oct. 7, 2023. Among the hostages are children and the elderly. While four of them have been released, the fate of the rest is unknown, as Qatar serves as an intermediary in working to free the hostages. In this interview with Naomi Schalit, The Conversation U.S. senior politics and democracy editor, Gregory F. Treverton of USC Dornsife, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration, says most hostage-taking has specific goals. This one, says Treverton, “is basically an adjunct of warfare, and that makes it very different” – and very hard to solve.

How do people in your field think about hostage-taking? I would imagine that the feeling is, “Oh, my god, please let nothing like that happen.”

It’s an utter dilemma, because on the one hand you feel for the hostages. And as we’ve seen in the past, the Israelis have been prepared to – and did – release a thousand hostages to get one Israeli back.

On the other hand, when you do a deal to get hostages released, you’re only encouraging more hostage-taking. So you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. As a result, every government, including the United States, says, “We never deal with hostage-takers.” But of course, they all do – and they have to.

I think it’s one of the hardest parts of being in the national security business. You want to free the people – but you’re also going to get criticized. Every time President Biden has gotten somebody out of Russia, people have said, “Oh, he’s paid too high a price” or “He’s rewarded hostage-taking,” and to some extent, that’s true. You are basically rewarding the hostage-takers. But we still have to deal with them. We want to get our people out. And at some some point – as the Israelis have shown – they’re prepared to pay almost any price to get them back.

Israel released more than 1,000 prisoners in 2011 in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas captured and held for five years. This is more than 200 times the number of hostages, so how do you even think about that?

At least in my professional experience, this is without precedent. The closest parallel would be the 1976 Entebbe hijacking and hostage-taking by two Germans and two Palestinians on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Hijackers held 103 Israeli hostages, once they released the 148 non-Israeli hostages. Hamas holds twice the number of hostages, and in very, very different circumstances. In Entebbe, the Israeli government knew where they were, they were in a single place – the airplane – which had been forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda, after taking off from Tel Aviv. And that’s where Israeli commandos were able to rescue the hostages.

In Gaza, we don’t know where they are. We know for sure they’re scattered throughout the tunnels, likely in lots of different small groups. Hamas will presumably then use them as shields if fighting begins on the ground. They might think that that would encourage the Israelis not to make a major attack – to keep Hamas from killing all the hostages. We know that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t keen on a major ground assault, and this really puts the onus on the Israelis for how the hostage situation ends.

When you think about the history of hostage negotiations, do you see something that has any relevance to what’s going on now?

It seems to me it’s a really different category. Even Entebbe was hostage-taking for some political aim – the hijackers wanted Israel to release a large number of prisoners who were Palestinian. A colleague of mine used to say that the point of terrorism was to do the least amount of violence with the most people watching it. But Entebbe was political theater, basically, and this is not political theater. This is basically an adjunct of warfare, and that makes it very different. It’s not the usual kind of tit for tat, with “How much am I willing to pay?” or “Can I take a hostage to get somebody else out?”

What does Israel’s heavy bombing of Gaza and the beginning of a ground invasion tell you about the government’s approach to the hostage situation?

It suggests either that they have a pretty good fix on where the hostages are located, which seems unlikely given the network of Hamas tunnels, or that they have decided they must proceed in any case and will try their best to safeguard and free hostages as they go. Given the Hamas practice of using civilians as human shields, the outcome is likely to be very ugly.

Where do you see this going?

I see no happy ending. I don’t think there’s a deal that Israel could conceivably make, given its own politics. Or that Hamas would accept. So it does seem to me that at some point there is going to be that ground attack and the hostages are going to be caught in the middle of it. I see almost no alternative, given what Israel has pledged – to destroy Hamas. The Biden administration maintains that Israel doesn’t really have a strategy. They have a desire, which is to destroy Hamas. But that’s not a strategy for dealing with the hostages or for Gaza after the attack.

Gregory F. Treverton is Professor of Practice in International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

How Iran Set Hamas to War Against Israel

James Phillips — October 28, 2023

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas once again has launched a lethal campaign against Israel, its fifth major offensive and the most catastrophic since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 following Israel’s withdrawal.

Once again, Hamas has perpetrated a double war crime by hiding behind civilians in Gaza while savagely attacking civilians in Israel. But this time, Hamas also was able to penetrate Israel’s border defenses Oct. 7 through coordinated surprise attacks launched by land, sea, and air.

These attacks would not have been possible without Iran’s extensive support in providing arms, training, logistical support, and funding. A senior Israeli official told reporters that Iran pushed Hamas to act and has ordered Hezbollah, a larger terrorist group based in Lebanon, to be ready to participate in an expanded conflict.

By triggering the Israel-Hamas war, Iran seeks to derail Israeli-Saudi normalization negotiations; distract Israel and the United States from its advancing nuclear weapons program; distract its own rebellious population from the Islamist regime’s corruption, mismanagement, and repression; and incite Arabs and Muslims against Israel, the United States, and Arab governments that have made peace with Israel.

Tehran also has mobilized and deployed soldiers of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah terrorists, and Syrian militias in southwest Syria near the Israeli border in preparation for additional attacks against Israel. Hezbollah also has launched multiple attacks from Lebanon against Israel’s northern border.

Enabled and emboldened by Iranian support, Hamas terrorists managed not only to kill over 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians, but also seized 222 hostages, according to Israeli officials. At least 30 Americans have been killed and at least 10 are still held as hostages after the release of two American women Oct. 20.

The kidnapping of hostages is right out of Iran’s playbook, which is not surprising given Iran’s decades of support for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Iranian proxy group that serves as Hamas’ junior terrorist partner in Gaza.

An estimated 500 terrorists belonging to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad reportedly received specialized combat training in September inside Iran from the Quds Force, the special operations unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Probing Iran’s Role in Attack on Israel

It also should not be a surprise that Iran played a key role in helping to plan and support the Oct. 7 attacks. The Wall Street Journal reported the next day that senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to plot the attacks and gave a green light for the operation against Israel at an Oct. 2 meeting in Beirut.

Three other Iran-backed terrorist groups participated in the planning sessions along with Hamas: Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both based in Lebanon, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which operates in Gaza and on the West Bank.

Iran’s dictatorship bankrolls Hezbollah with an estimated $700 million annually and provides about $100 million annually to Hamas, in addition to supporting the two smaller Palestinian terrorist groups.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers reportedly set up a joint military operations center in Beirut that coordinated the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas during the 11-day mini-war triggered by Hamas in May 2021.

The current conflict has been much more destructive and is likely to become more painful and drawn out than past Gaza conflicts because of the hostage crisis. Israel is unlikely to halt military operations until it has freed the hostages through special operations raids or obtained their release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

But Hamas considers the hostages to be its trump card. The terrorist group, which governs Gaza, is unlikely to free many of the hostages unless it extracts an exorbitant and humiliating price from Israel.

Although it has freed four female hostages at this writing in a bid to delay Israel’s ground offensive and encourage international pressure to restrain Israel, Hamas is likely to prolong the crisis by retaining the hostages as human shields. It also has threatened to execute the hostages in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Biden’s Troubling Record on Hostages, Iran

President Joe Biden has taken a risky and shortsighted approach on hostage issues.

In August, the Biden administration negotiated a dangerous deal to pay Iran $6 billion for the release of five Americans held hostage there.

The deal rewarded Tehran with a record-setting $1.2 billion ransom payment for each hostage, which undoubtedly incentivized outlaw regimes and terrorist groups to take more hostages.

This dangerous precedent also has backfired spectacularly now that Americans reportedly are among the scores of hostages seized by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The Biden administration also made a bad situation worse by failing to enforce sanctions on Iran since it came to office in a misguided effort to revive the Obama administration’s flawed 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamist regime. That policy gave Iran’s predatory regime more oil revenue to finance its network of terrorist proxies, including Hamas, and reduced pressure on the regime to halt its threshold nuclear weapons program.

The Biden administration also failed to respond adequately to 83 drone and rocket attacks that Iran and its proxies launched against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria between January 2021 and this past March. U.S. forces weakly countered with only four operations.

After the Hamas terrorist offensive in Israel, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were targeted by 13 drone and rocket attacks launched by Iran’s proxy militias between Oct. 17 and Tuesday.

Although air defenses prevented the killing of Americans, it is only a matter of time before such attacks inflict a death toll. Yet the Biden administration has not responded effectively.

Don’t Feed the ‘Octopus’

Biden’s complacent approach to Iran-backed aggression allowed Iran’s Islamist regime to get away with murder by hiding behind proxy groups.

Israel is unlikely to make the same mistake. In 2022, Jerusalem adopted the so-called Octopus Doctrine, a strategy that then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett described as retaliating “against the head of the terrorist octopus and not just against the arms as was done in previous decades.”

Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mulling a counteroffensive against Hamas’ tentacles as well as the head of the octopus in Tehran.

The United States should back Israel to the hilt. The Biden administration should ensure that Israel has the military assets to win its current war, as well as the diplomatic cover to withstand inevitable criticism from the international community.

But equally important, the Biden administration should halt shortsighted efforts to appease Iran by easing sanctions in a dangerous push to reach an illusory nuclear deal.

It makes no sense to feed the “octopus” while Israel, the United States, and other Middle Eastern allies are being attacked by its tentacles.

James Phillips is the senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has written extensively on Middle Eastern issues and international terrorism since 1978.

This article was first published by The Daily Signal.

Image: Shutterstock.

Check the Funding: What Makes the Wars in Israel and Ukraine Different

Ben Judge — October 28, 2023

Since President Biden’s speech last week, politicians and commentators have debated whether or not Israel and Ukraine are part of one conflict. Those debates have focused on the nature of America’s strategic and moral interests, as well as the nature of the Ukrainian and Israeli regimes. Less attention has been given to the budget the President is proposing and what it means for our objectives.

This chart compares the proposed support to Israel and Ukraine outlined in the Office of Management and Budget’s Letter Regarding Critical National Security Funding Needs to the Speaker Pro Tempore dated October 20th, 2023. It excludes the funding requests for the Navy’s modernization, the border, foreign military financing in Indo-Pacom, and additional support to the World Bank. Additionally, this chart does not include the $3,495,000,000 for Israel and Ukraine migration and refugee assistance because the funds are not broken out by conflict.

So what does comparing these numbers tell us? In Israel, we are supporting a military operation. 74% of the proposed support to Israel flows through the Defense Department, and 100% of the International Assistance Program funding is for foreign military financing. In Ukraine, however, we are supporting a nation. 66% of the proposed support to Ukraine flows through the Defense Department, and only 8% of the International Assistance Program funding is for foreign military financing. The majority of the International Assistance Program funding to Ukraine is for an Economic Support Fund.

The debates over supporting Ukraine and Israel are necessary and important. But, as the President’s budget request confirms, the difference between funding Israel and Ukraine is not a difference in degree but a difference in kind. In order to properly debate each conflict, we cannot debate them together.

Ben Judge, Ph.D. is president of The America Fund and editor of United and Independent: John Quincy Adams on American Foreign Policy.

This article was first published by RealClearDefense.

Without Aid, UN Warns, Gaza Is Headed Toward Catastrophe

Paul Spiegel — October 28, 2023

United Nations agencies on Oct. 24, 2023, pleaded for more aid to be allowed into Gaza, saying that more than 20 times the amount of food, water and medical supplies and other items that are currently reaching people is needed.

Egypt first opened its borders for aid deliveries into Gaza on Oct. 21, and since then, 54 trucks with medical supplies had entered Gaza as of Oct. 23, according to the U.N.

But the U.N. and other international aid groups are warning that the 2.3 million people living in Gaza remain in dire need of more clean water, food, fuel and medical care. The U.N.’s relief agency in Gaza, UNRWA, is also saying that without more fuel, it will have to stop its work on everything from providing medical care to setting up shelters for displaced people on Oct. 25.

Safely delivering aid in Gaza has unique complications – including the fact that the U.S. and the European Union classify Hamas as a terrorist group.

The Conversation spoke with Paul Spiegel, an expert on complex humanitarian emergencies at the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to better understand the particular challenges this reality creates and how it affects delivering aid to civilians in Gaza.

What are the challenges with providing aid in conflict zones like Gaza?

Providing humanitarian assistance in any sudden emergency, like the one currently happening in Gaza, is complex – in terms of security, logistics and financing.

Often, there are simply not enough appropriate supplies available to quickly get into an acute emergency, which might be in a remote area or might be in a restricted area, as is the case with Gaza. There are often security issues that may affect an aid group’s access to a population. And there is the risk that aid workers will be attacked, as has happened increasingly over the last several years.

Typically, a U.N. agency like the World Health Organization would try to get assurances from all groups that are part of a conflict, so that those providing assistance will not be targets of violence. These assurances do not always happen, and then the agencies need to decide if they deliver the aid or wait until they get a guarantee they won’t be attacked.

There are also concerns about aid, which is intended only for civilians, being diverted for military purposes. This can vary from combatants secretly taking small amounts of supplies for their troops or stealing large truckloads of goods.

How do politics affect humanitarian work, which is supposed to be neutral?

Humanitarians try to follow basic principles of humanity, independence, neutrality and impartiality. We are not addressing the underlying causal issues related to a crisis. But the politics surrounding an emergency are still often a major, complicating factor in our work.

For example, at the Egyptian Rafah crossing into Gaza, various issues needed to be resolved, such as searching aid convoys for weapons, which items Hamas or other groups could divert from civilians and the assurance that refugees would not cross into Egypt. These and other aspects continue to delay much-needed aid for civilians in Gaza.

In this conflict, I have also seen aid workers express concern that the limited amount of aid currently allowed into Gaza would stay in the south, and consequently be a pull factor for people being displaced from their homes. Or, there is a concern that the aid may not get to where it is most needed, such as all hospitals throughout Gaza.

In other crises, like those in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in Syria, we have heard concerns from all sides of a conflict about how aid may be unevenly or inequitably distributed, depending on where people live or what particular ethnic or religious group they belong to. This can cause tensions and even fighting among different communities.

How does Hamas factor into this planning?

The U.S. and the European Union have very strict rules that will block the financial assets of organizations that give money or support to Hamas, or any other organization they classify as a terrorist group.

These sanctions also prohibit any direct contact between aid groups and a listed terrorist organization like Hamas.

Can you give an example of what this looks like in practice?

I arrived in Afghanistan immediately after the Taliban took over in 2021 with the World Health Organization. When that happened, the nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies – which receive the largest amount of money from the U.S. than from any other country – were not allowed to officially work with the Taliban and their ministries, or to give any money to them.

Previously, most of the global funding for health, for instance, was given to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, which then had systems in place to disburse the money and monitor how it was spent. These new restrictions made it harder for aid to be delivered. We needed to find new ways of doing work, in order to bypass the Taliban and the Ministry of Public Health, which the former now controlled. This disruption created challenges in terms of both distributing aid quickly and in terms of sustainability, as many of the employees at the ministry left.

What are the long-term effects of navigating around governments that are classified by some countries as terrorist groups?

When international assistance is not allowed to go through local governments because of sanctions, the U.N. and international nongovernmental organizations develop and run parallel services, like schools or hospitals.

While this may work in the short term and save lives, these parallel systems have longer-term, negative effects. Government officials may leave their jobs for higher-paying jobs in the U.N. and with NGOs, for example.

We have seen the negative, long-term effects of this firsthand in numerous countries, like Afghanistan, South Sudan and other places where the U.S. and other governments are concerned about terrorism, and consequently have imposed sanctions.

At this point in time, I think that lifesaving aid desperately needs to be provided to civilians in Gaza. Despite the various challenges I have mentioned in this discussion, I believe that humanity must prevail, over all other aspects. It truly is a matter of life and death.

Paul Spiegel is Director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

New Space Force Painting Reveals Future of Space Warfare

Alex Hollings — October 28, 2023

The Space Force’s Space Operations Command (SpOC) unveiled the branch’s first official painting earlier this week, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the future of space combat operations. The painting by Rick Herter, titled High Ground Intercept, shows a futuristic American spacecraft hunting down an orbital weapon system before it can reach a nearby American satellite.

“The artwork depicts a futuristic U.S. Space vehicle intercepting an adversary satellite, who in turn is positioning to disable a friendly satellite,” a Space Force release explains before clarifying that the unusual spacecraft depicted is not representative of an actual program underway.

“Because of the highly classified nature of many space operations, SpOC requested that Herter rely on historic space planes and his own imagination,” explained Christopher Rumley, command historian. Those historic space planes used as reference material include the now-legendary Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, which was a hypersonic sub-orbital bomber already in active development prior to the launch of Sputnik 1 all the way back in 1957. The program matured to the point of a full-scale mock-up being built and a crew being selected that included a young Neil Armstrong, who would eventually leave the Dyna-Soar program in favor of higher altitudes with NASA.

While the Space Force was happy to acknowledge the X-20’s influence on this painting, arguably the spacecraft depicted closer resembles a much more modern platform that, despite being in service with the Space Force today, remains shrouded in a great deal of secrecy: the unmanned mini-space shuttle known as the X-37B.

Sandboxx News has discussed the X-37B in the past, highlighting its potential value as America’s most useful spy satellite. Today, the engineering and development cycle inherent to deploying a new spy satellite usually takes about 10 years from design to orbit, meaning a new spy satellite launched today is already carrying outdated equipment. The X-37B, on the other hand, can come down from orbit and land, have its sensor payload swapped out, and be launched right back into orbit.

The X-37B is a long-duration spacecraft, meaning it can stay in orbit for long periods of time and currently has a record of 908 days in orbit. Further, its ability to carry cutting-edge sensors, as well as the orbital mobility allotted by its onboard thrusters, make the X-37B a very difficult intelligence asset to plan against. That isn’t lost on America’s competition, of course, and China is hard at work on its own apparent copy of the platform.

However, this painting might hint at another vital role the X-37B may already be able to fill for the American defense apparatus. Far from the science fiction depictions of space warfare we’ve come to embrace in pop culture, actual satellite warfare doesn’t need to involve phasers or photon torpedoes. Instead, compromising a nation’s missile warning, communications, or other satellite-based capabilities could be done simply by nudging a satellite into a degrading orbit that results in it burning up upon re-entry.

To that end, both Russia and China have been accused of fielding orbital systems – often called inspector satellites – designed for this very function. These maneuverable satellites could use any number of simple mechanisms to attack America’s vulnerable orbital assets that were largely fielded during a time when America had very little competition in low earth orbit, and as such, its satellites were not hardened against attack.

As former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson once put it, the United States “built a glass house before the invention of stones.”

As depicted in this painting, the X-37B (or a similar spacecraft) could be tasked with intercepting these inspector satellites as they close with other orbital assets, engaging them with similar simplicity – using a grabbing arm or similar mechanism to pull, push, or otherwise send the enemy craft off course.

A test from the RemoveDEBRIS program showed how a satellite could capture junk floating in orbit, but it also demonstrated just how easy it would be to capture something that isn’t junk.

This approach, while less dramatic than launching anti-satellite missiles, reduces the possibility that a destroyed satellite could produce a fast-moving debris cloud that would engulf other satellites in a cascade that’s sometimes called the Kessler Syndrome. As a result, most countries have moved away from the idea of launching missiles at satellites simply due to the risk of their own satellites being damaged by the debris that would result.

This new Space Force artwork will eventually find its way into the Department of the Air Force Art Collection, which maintains thousands of pieces of art meant to commemorate the service of Airmen – and now Guardians.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image: Shutterstock.

Israel Sent Its 'One of a Kind' F-35I Fighters to America to 'Fight'

Maya Carlin — October 27, 2023

In March and over 12 days, the U.S. Air National Guard, Marine Corps, and the Israeli Air Force participated in the latest installment of the Red Flag-Nellis combat training exercise.

Designed to improve capabilities and strengthen alliances between U.S. European and Central Command warfighters, the inclusion of Israeli F-35I Adir airframes was significant.

In the exercise, over 2,000 targets, an opposing enemy force, and realistic threat systems helped prepare both U.S. and Israeli pilots “to fly, fight and win together.”

Regarding the military training exercise, USAF 414th Combat Training Squadron commander colonel Jared Hutchinson said that “The Israeli F-35 participation in Red Flag 23-2 is another step forward for America and its allies in the transition to the next level of air warfare,” adding that “It’s a rare opportunity for warfighters from both countries to integrate our most advanced capabilities. As the Fifth-Generation Center of Excellence, Nellis AFB is uniquely capable of hosting allied F-35 units on the ground and challenging them in the air.”

How Did Israel Acquire F-35 Fighters?

In the early 2000s, the Israeli Air Force began to seek a replacement for its aging fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcon airframes.

Israel became the first foreign customer to purchase the American-made F-35 Lightning II back in 2010 when the fighter’s nine-nation co-development group gave the Jewish state the green light to procure a specially modified variant of the jet.

This deal was significant considering the Pentagon had refused to incorporate even the slightest foreign changes to F-35 export batches in the past.

The Lockheed Martin-designed airframe is widely recognized as the most formidable fighter to ever fly the skies. However, Israel’s unique F-35I “Adir” variant may actually top the U.S. version.

What Makes the Adir Variant Special?

Perhaps the most critical alteration the Adir fighter possesses is its electronic warfare system (ESW). The F-35I sports domestically-produced sensors and countermeasures, along with Israeli-made helmet-mounted displays and other data-gathering and processing capabilities.

This advanced electronics suite is paramount for Israel since it could use its capabilities to effectively jam the electronics and guidance systems of adversarial ground-fired anti-aircraft weapons.

The IAF also gained access to certain components of the F-35’s highly digitized architecture, including communications systems, mission control hardware, and the integration of its own weapons.

Israel’s desire to have both operational and developmental independence with its fleet of Adir fighter stems from wanting protection in case of a cyber-attack targeting the F-35, according to Eurasian Times.

American and Israeli F-35s Often Train Together

Two Israeli Air Force squadrons fly the F-35I Adir, including the 116thLions of the South Squadron and the 140thGolden Eagle Squadron based at Nevatim Base. The IAF also utilizes additional Adir airframes for training purposes.

Israel’s participation in the recent Red Flag-Nellis training exercise further emphasizes the importance of U.S.-Israeli collaboration. In January, the IDF (including the IAF) joined CENTCOM to carry out training drills in Exercise Juniper Oak 23.2.

While this series of exercises incorporated joint training on land, in the air, and at sea, the IAF’s fleet of F-35I Adirs stood out as powerhouses in the skies.

Image Credit: Creative Commons/IDF.

Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal

George E. Bogden — October 27, 2023

The House of Representatives, after three agonizing weeks, has a speaker in Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA). But the question remains: will Ukraine now get U.S. taxpayer dollars for its fight against Russia? A major contributor to the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the question remains at the heart of House Republican angst and is by no means settled, whatever President Joe Biden may say.

But while most in official Washington trumpet their support for Ukraine, never-before-released archival evidence dating back 30 years proves their forebears in office share blame for the current crisis. The documents show conclusively how two American administrations, senior Pentagon leadership, and NATO, all pressured Ukraine into giving up its only deterrent against Russian aggression—nuclear weapons—despite the credible risk of Russian invasion.

With this information coming to light as Putin himself threatens to deploy nuclear weapons on the battlefield, how willing might Ukraine skeptics in the House GOP be to listen to the foreign policy establishment urging more money and arms for ill-defined objectives?

In 1994, American officials browbeat Ukraine’s newly independent leaders into giving up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union—weapons which could have staved off future aggression from Moscow—in exchange for nebulous “security assurances,” declared as part of the so-called Budapest Memorandum.

These assurances ultimately proved meaningless, as Ukraine’s plight shows today. Yet, the Budapest Memorandum remains settled history for many in the foreign policy establishment: something that could not have unfolded any other way.

Drawn from archives in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United Nations, new never-before-published evidence flatly contradicts this idea. These documents are the grist of exhaustive searches and inquiries to the National Security Archive, two presidential libraries, and the Library of Congress.

These records cut sharply against the rationale for this historical resignation: that Ukraine was incapable of the technical means of operating nuclear weapons and that such weapons wouldn’t do much for its security even if it could. Moreover, their contents undermine the general belief that the effort—even if ultimately in error—was at least dedicated to the noble goal of reducing overall global stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

On the contrary, the evidence reveals President Bill Clinton’s future CIA director concluding that Ukraine did have the means to operate an arsenal. The unearthed papers show the USSR’s last foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, confirming that “just one nuclear missile” in Ukrainian hands would have been enough to safeguard its independence so far as Russian strategic planning was concerned. They also show top American officials—from both parties—fretting over Russia’s belligerent, irredentist behavior during the negotiations, including repeated concerns about a potential future Russian invasion of Ukraine even as they chided “whiners” in Kyiv for expressing the same anxieties.

The same “settled history” crowd contends the Budapest Agreement—even if ultimately in error—was at least dedicated to the noble goal of reducing overall global stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We now know it was nothing of the sort.

Historical materials also illuminate how American officials blocked serious attempts by Kyiv to trade its inherited arsenal for genuine security guarantees—even going so far as to lobby Europeans to keep Ukraine out of non-NATO security arrangements. Perhaps this was because, as the record now reveals, they were also backchanneling to Moscow respect for Russia’s “vital interests in its near abroad” and a willingness to “help in a variety of ways.”

Among the ways cited? The American-Russian-Ukrainian accord that preceded the high-level public declarations in the Budapest Memorandum.

Rather than a serious effort at global nuclear arms control, the actual imperative seems to have been a desire on the part of American officials to coax Russia into joining the Western democratic world. The Budapest Agreement, therefore, amounted to a diplomatic shell game—one where weapons were transferred from a weaker state to a stronger one with imperial pretensions, largely to soothe Russian insecurities about achieving “parity” in its nuclear stockpile vis-à-vis the United States.

That was an understandable and even laudable aim. Yet, it resulted in a doomed policy that required assuaging Russia at almost any cost, ignoring the Kremlin’s own words and actions, and ultimately leaving Ukraine to the perilous fate borne out today.

After all, the only reason Ukraine agreed to surrender its weapons is because Western powers linked that decision to “security assurances” that proved hollow. According to Yuri Kostenko, Kyiv’s former head envoy for disarmament, the outcome deprived his country of “the most powerful method of protecting the state.” It received nothing in return—except, perhaps, its worst fears fulfilled. Now, with forfeited Ukrainian missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities, it is time for Western policymakers to confront the past—their past—with the seriousness it deserves.

START-ing the Firing Gun

As the Soviet Union began to collapse, the George H.W. Bush Administration sought to preserve the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which promised to decrease the world’s strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles by 80 percent. After nearly a decade of negotiations, it was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1991. But with the USSR about to shatter into five sovereign countries, how would this two-party deal endure?

A few weeks before the union formally dissolved, President Bush met with Mikhail Gorbachev’s advisor, Alexander Yakovlev, and asked about the 30-odd percent of the Soviet arsenal that would soon fall outside Russian territory—in Kazakhstan, Belarus, and, most notably, Ukraine. “How do you see that working out[?],” Bush asked. “Control? Ratification? Safe dismantling[?]”

“They’ll look to the West [for direction],” Yakovlev said of the soon-to-be independent republics.

“Of course,” he added. “We won’t give up our weapons.”

It was an ignominious start to a years-long dance between the United States, Ukraine, and Russia—one in which leaders in Moscow would hardly be coy about their aims. In this case, they dictated that reductions be counted by first removing weapons from soon-to-be former Soviet subjects. Otherwise, the cuts START envisioned would place Russia’s own nuclear arsenal behind that of the United States—a nonstarter for Moscow.

This approach would also remove the only real lever of deterrence from a nervous and newly sovereign republic governed by Kyiv, a state that had been subjugated many times already by its supposedly amiable neighbor. Secretary of State James Baker was present and quickly intuited the strategic issue at stake. Could this pave the way, he asked, for a future war with Ukraine?

Yakovlev deflected before retorting blithely, “What sort of war could it be?”

“A normal war,” Baker responded.

During this period, Ukraine had linked its position on nuclear weapons to its prospects for an adequate conventional military. In 1991, it aspired to spend three percent of GDP on an independent army as large as 450,000 men. As months passed, however, Ukraine’s military ambitions drifted out of reach. The country lacked the immediate economic capacity and supply chains to equip its forces. Vladimir Lukin, a future Russian ambassador to the United States, intimated to American officials that Kyiv’s leadership “may now perceive that Ukraine’s future status as a great power could depend on nuclear weapons.”

Later that month, America’s first ambassador to the Russian Federation, Robert Strauss, wrote to Washington about the hysteria caused by reports of Yeltsin considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine. The situation was “made worse,” the emissary wrote, by the new president “acknowledging he had discussed the possibility with military experts.”

In his memoirs and later interviews, Brent Scowcroft noted that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney vigorously opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from the newly independent states at Russia’s periphery. Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments:

Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor.

Gompert dismissed these objections, and the Bush administration continued on its path. The document, however, bears witness to the persistent debate that unfolded within the administration.

While Ukraine preferred to develop its own conventional military means to deter Moscow, it simply lacked the resources to do so. Its inherited nuclear weapons became a chit to trade for an ironclad security guarantee from the West—ideally something commensurate to NATO’s Article V umbrella.

But looping, cursive marginalia on Gompert’s memo captured an impasse. “The dilemma we face,” wrote Nicholas Burns, then on staff at the National Security Council, “is that many Ukrainian leaders are concerned about a threat from Russia and will be looking for some sort of security guarantee from the West.” He added, “We cannot give them what they want but is there a way to somewhat allay their concerns?”

It was a critical question and one that never received a definitive answer.

Three months later, when Senator Richard Lugar raised these very same Ukrainian concerns to Secretary Baker in a public hearing, America’s chief diplomat demurred.

“As a part of the package from Ukraine,” said the Senate’s disarmament champion, there was “a very strong invitation to the United States to provide security to Ukraine.” “Clearly,” he added, “with some frequency,” and “very overtly,” leaders in Kyiv had expressed dismay “about giving up nuclear weapons and not knowing of their disposition by Russia and looking to us for some security.” He asked directly, “How are we responding to that?”

With regard to “formal security guarantees,” Baker replied, “We did not think it appropriate to provide” them.

For his part, then-Senator Joe Biden chimed in to suggest that Kyiv accept legal obligations to disarm or “be faced with a three-to-one superiority of nuclear weapons from Russia.” In one breath, he contemplated Ukraine becoming an independent nuclear power left beholden to Russia due to its nuclear dominance. A coercive double bind became a feature, not a glitch of disarmament.

Despite these inklings, Baker hectored Ukraine to confirm its renunciation of nuclear weapons by fully accepting various treaty obligations, including START. The full-court press to remove nuclear weapons from Ukrainian soil would soon transform from a key objective under the Bush Administration into an urgent and overriding imperative for its successor.

A Rodney Dangerfield Problem

Six days after President Clinton raised his hand from the Bible, he was on the phone with then-Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk, insisting on ratification of START and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. While Clinton told Kravchuk that he intended to “extend strong security assurances upon your ratification,” the menu of options to hasten Ukraine’s denuclearization actually remained largely set from the beginning. Kyiv needed to ratify these treaties (and related addenda) and agree to transfer all the nuclear warheads on its territory to Russia.

In return, Ukraine would receive “security assurances,” restatements of existing commitments under the United Nations and similar institutions where Russia pledged it would not violate Ukrainian borders. In essence, nice words that lacked real teeth. Limited sweeteners were available: Moscow could be persuaded to compensate Kyiv fully for highly enriched uranium, for instance, and Washington could provide technical assistance and other aid. But the issue of defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity was never truly up for debate.

Nevertheless, a version of these terms ultimately made up what became known as the Trilateral Agreement between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine, which prefigured the Budapest Memorandum.

A few months later, in April 1993, Kravchuk confided to then-Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze his “main headache” that “Moscow and the U.S. together have been twisting my arms painfully” in “demanding [the] transfer [of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons] to the Russian Federation.”

“I would understand Russia’s nastiness,” Kravchuk lamented, “But Americans are even worse—they do not listen to our arguments.”

Shevardnadze remarked to his fellow post-Soviet leader:

[The Americans] do not know about our terrible, rough relations with the Russian empire [and] the USSR. Without that knowledge, building predictable and trustworthy relations with ‘democratic Yeltsin and Russia’ would be very difficult, whom [the Americans] currently call ‘Russian democrats’...I know many of them, talked to them a lot. They are still sick with imperial infection.

He went on, referring to his previous job—as Soviet foreign minister:

Being a member of the Politburo I had access to many confidential and top-secret documents—secret reports, notes, different non-papers elaborated in different Soviet structures—the Central Committee offices, KGB, Military Intelligence, think tanks and so forth. Maybe you too know about them. But my access was much deeper and wider…I can say that the documents I have read were just horrible and frightening: about the different scenarios of relations of the Center [Moscow] with the Soviet republics directed toward ‘different kinds of emergencies.’ They included the partition of those republics, expelling their populations to different parts of Siberia and the Soviet Far East—indeed some remote places. To accomplish those goals, they will use military force.

“All those plans are not archival ones!” he continued. “They are fully intact to be used if Moscow makes that decision.”

Shevardnadze implored Kravchuk to “negotiate so as not to undermine your independence and your security.” After all, he observed, “if Ukraine succeeds in keeping at least one nuclear missile as a deterrent to defend itself, it will succeed in safeguarding its independence and sovereignty from those mad men in the Kremlin.”

“Just one nuclear missile.” It was a prophetic observation from a man who understood the inner workings of the Kremlin better than almost anyone else. Shevardnadze told Kravchuk that Russia’s new leaders “understand only power, they are afraid of it.” Nonetheless, forces beyond Kyiv’s control would continue to agitate fiercely against its primary means of deterrence. Moreover, it wasn’t as if they did not have a sense of the Russian threat themselves—of the throughline of deceit that Shevardnadze had so artfully drawn between the Soviet leadership and its Russian successors.

Later that year, in November 1993, Ambassador-at-Large Strobe Talbott wrote to then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher that he had “reached Henry Kissinger over the weekend” about “his skepticism about whether ‘the bear can change his spots.’” Kissinger, too, was questioning “both our NATO policy and our Ukraine policy.”

Documents from the same period suggest Talbott may have been entertaining similar misgivings. In September, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Graham Allison and associate B. G. Riley had written to him with their “concern about Russian unilateralism and increasing Russian pressure upon other states of the former Soviet Union.” They noted Moscow’s “unilateral abolition of unified control of strategic nuclear weapons,” as had been agreed under previous arrangements, “and assumption of direct Russian command.” They noted that while negotiating joint control of the Black Sea fleet the month before, “Russia blackmailed Kravchuk with oil and gas.” The ensuing circumstances were dire: “If Russia cuts off oil and gas, Kravchuk…will be forced out.”

Senior administration officials also appeared confident that Ukraine did, in fact, possess the means to become a fully nuclear-capable state. Clinton’s CIA Director-in-waiting, James Woolsey, wrote a memo during the campaign that concluded “Ukraine, unlike Byelarus [sic] and Kazakhstan, has a very substantial military-industrial complex capable of supporting a nuclear-armed state.” The paper, written based on Woolsey’s vantage as the chief negotiator for another arms treaty at the time, further emphasized that Ukraine “has not only ICBMs, but nuclear-armed bombers.”

President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Tony Lake, ridiculed Ukraine’s trepidation in giving up these capabilities. After receiving a Congressional delegation led by Dick Gephardt that had visited Ukraine, he summarized their request for security assurances in American legislation as “a Rodney Dangerfield problem.” Years of Ukrainian appeals in this regard sounded, to American ears, like the comedian’s bumptious assertion, “I get no respect.”

As negotiations wore on, the Clinton Administration increasingly viewed Ukrainian disarmament as a political prize. A few months after receiving input from U.S. Representatives, in October 1993, Talbott thanked Vice President Al Gore for dropping in on the Ukrainian Foreign Minister at the White House. Clinton did the same.

“If we succeed in getting those nuclear weapons out of Ukraine,” Talbott quipped to Gore, “I’ll try to arrange for one to be mounted on your wall as a trophy.”

What if Russia invades Ukraine?

The administration would score a significant prize with the signing of the Trilateral Agreement on January 14, 1994. Yet, on the way to Russia, Clinton’s delegation stopped in Kyiv, where Talbott admitted his superiors shut down eleventh-hour pleas regarding its terms by “roughing [Kravchuk] up.” Then, when Clinton’s delegation arrived in Moscow, they encountered strong Russian hostility based on the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative. This new category of affiliation was actually proposed to cool down the discussion of NATO enlargement by succoring prospective applicants with no real chance of full membership in the alliance.

American officials prepared the talking point that it would provide “security underpinnings for countries—Ukraine, Kazakhstan—that otherwise might not be willing to give up nuclear weapons.”

But this was not enough to satisfy the Russians.

Following further spats, Clinton officials like Talbott began to accept privately that Russia would exert special influence in Central and Eastern Europe. In March 1994, he noted the necessity of responding to PfP opponents like Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev with respect for “Russia’s vital interests in the ‘near abroad.’” “It has such interests; we recognize that,” he told Christopher. “In fact,” he added, “we’re prepared to help in a variety of ways.”

Among the examples he provided was the “Trilateral Accord with Ukraine.”

Later that month, Polish Defense Minister Piotr Kołodziejczyk “emphasize[d] strongly” to Talbott that “the independence of Ukraine is of strategic importance for Poland, and not just Poland.” Noting that his own nation’s president had helped persuade Kravchuk to relent on the nuclear question—and given that Belarus, another post-Soviet republic with inherited nuclear weapons, “had already come almost totally under Russia’s control”— Kołodziejczyk emphasized that “Poland was watching to see whether the same thing would happen to Ukraine bit by bit: first Crimea, then eastern Ukraine, then the remainder.”

Apparently, doubt crept in six days later when Talbott asked Christopher rhetorically: “Do we have good answers to questions about what we’ll do if reality refuses to follow the script we’re writing for it?”

“What if,” he wondered, “Russia invades Ukraine?”

This was another important question, but one that apparently did not stop the administration from speeding ahead with the removal of a potentially formidable means of deterring Russian aggression. Indeed, after the Trilateral Agreement was signed, American officials resisted allowing serious guarantees of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. They stymied Kyiv’s overtures to regional organizations beyond NATO.

Before the Western European Union (WEU) became defunct, its Secretary-General Willem Van Eekelen explained to Talbott in June 1994 that Ukraine “was quite unhappy about being left out” of the continental military alliance. Jim Steinberg, director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, rationalized American opposition to Kyiv’s aspiration to join. “The WEU could not” accept Ukraine, he said, “without implicitly creating new obligations on the part of the alliance.” While acknowledging the WEU was separate from NATO, as “the European pillar of NATO, it would be anomalous for it to have full members not in NATO.”

This baffling explanation likely sounded presumptuous to an exclusively European institution.

Yet, as Talbott asserted, “the U.S. has sought to avoid an abstract, theological debate on the extent to which Russia and Ukraine were part of Europe.” As a result, Ukraine’s attempt at a concrete security guarantee—even a much less potent one—remained out of the question.

Rather, Ukraine would instead have to settle for the high-level public restatements of the assurances it received in the Trilateral Agreement and, later, via the Budapest Memorandum.

A month later, Talbott addressed the North Atlantic Council regarding his efforts on India and Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, which he analogized to the “Moscow-Kiev shuttle.” Ambassador Leif Mevik of Norway asked if Talbott had read Charles Krauthammer’s op-ed published two weeks before, in which the author “posited two categories of new nuclear states.”

“First,” the Ambassador explained, “there were the ‘good guys,’ which are not outlaws”; second, “there were the outlaws, North Korea, Iraq, and Libya, which should be kept at bay as long as possible.” Mevik asked whether Talbott made “the same distinction between non-threatening and outlaw-nuclear-weapon states.” He responded, “The U.S. opposes proliferation in general.”

Perhaps the American stance towards Ukraine’s security concerns is best summarized by Rose Gottemoeller, who would serve on the White House National Security Council as Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. She recently attributed the following joke to one of the American negotiators on the nuclear question:

Kyiv’s airport has long runways made for bombers, and the wheels whined upon our long landings for what seemed like ten minutes. When we were arriving at the airport, John Gordon, then Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, said[,] ‘Ukraine is the only country where the whining never ends.’

“Though we accorded them respect and they played their difficult hand well,” Gottemoeller recalled in an interview, “they were seen as whiners.”

The Club of Civilization

A month before the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the final step in its legal commitment to disarm, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin met. The question of nuclear parity once again entered the picture.

Russia’s Defense Minister, Pavel Grachev, who was present, stated: “We are cutting back strategic nuclear weapons in accordance with START I, but the Treaty is not ratified. Now START II is pressing us, with a date of 2003 to complete reductions.” The sequel to START would extend its cuts. He added, “If you do not press Ukraine, then we will not be able to proceed with START II.”

Yeltsin chimed in, “So we have to press Ukraine with all our might.” President Clinton added, “So we need to press them to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by the time of the [upcoming] Summit in Budapest.” Yeltsin thundered, “we should bring all the pressure we have to bear. We signed the Trilateral accord, we three, so then what?” Though Russia would postpone ratifying START II until it became obsolete, Yeltsin assured Clinton at the time, “I’m going to press [Ukraine’s newly-elected President Leonid] Kuchma to the wall. NPT or they get no gas or oil!”

Other concerns plagued the Clinton team. The NPT, which came into effect in 1970, approached a precipice. It initially had a twenty-five-year lifespan. In 1995, a conference would decide its fate. Thomas Graham, Jr., Clinton’s diplomat in charge of ensuring the document survived, attested that “delegates had the power on a one-time basis to bind their governments to an extension.” He added, “any further extension could only be by treaty amendment, a practical impossibility.”

In short, the NPT had aged into a legal Humpty Dumpty. A failure in 1995—even in the form of a fixed extension—would have been a great fall. Putting the NPT back together again would have entailed lengthy negotiations and re-ratification, presuming a quorum existed to reconstitute it.

Graham observed that “indefinite extension appeared in 1992 and 1993 to be a long shot.” Although France and China had joined in 1992, when Ambassador Errera asked his counterpart, Ambassador Ho, about Beijing’s intentions, he said, “Indefinite? That is a good word but we do not have that word in the Chinese language.” Amid this dissent, Graham memorialized that the “majority remained uncertain” to favor making the NPT permanent.

Many of the treaty’s signatories remained on the fence. Some—like Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, and Malaysia—looked forward to lucrative political wrangling. Ukraine’s status outside the NPT would have been their most valuable bargaining chip. Skeptical governments could point both to Kyiv’s nonadherence and its grievances about adequate guaranties to justify holding out for concessions.

According to Graham, Belarus and Kazakhstan’s earlier NPT accessions “focused all attention on Ukraine.” When discussing the NPT’s fate with NATO allies in the summer of 1994, Talbott stressed “acute worry about Ukraine.”

Graham’s address to the Rada in 1994 called the treaty a “Club of Civilization,” which he implored the deputies to join. Had the body’s vote reflected the will of the people, his appeal would likely have failed. Just over a year before, a poll by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences found that under 50 percent of the population favored becoming “non-nuclear.” Another independent research center, “Democratic Initiatives,” found three months later that 45.3 percent preferred “nuclear-weapon status” for Ukraine, whereas 35 percent preferred disarmament.

Ukraine’s farmers, shopkeepers, schoolteachers, and laborers likely saw the club they were asked to join as premised on the exclusive position of five great powers, who jealously guarded their station. When citizens were consulted on the issue in 1994 by the Advisory Council to the Ukrainian Parliament, Ian Brzezinski summarized input from Bohdan Horyn, a human rights activist and dissident: “The West has failed to adequately respond to the resurgence of Russian hegemony.” Struggling to speak in English, one participant asked, “why did not America help us in 1933?” The unnamed citizen stated, “Ukraine must rely only on its own forces for its defenses.”

As Kuchma deposited the treaty in Budapest weeks later, as the memorandum required, French President Francois Mitterrand remarked to him, “young man, you will be tricked, one way or the other.” “Don’t believe them,” he admonished, “they will cheat you.”

Two weeks after Yeltsin left the stage in Budapest, where he declared a “cold peace,” the celebrated reformer tested the Topol-M, a missile lavishly redesigned in 1992, capable of striking American soil—later wielded as evidence Russia could overcome Western defenses. On New Year’s Eve, he launched an invasion in Chechnya that killed tens of thousands, justifying delays in Russia’s domestic elections.

Rarely does a commander-in-chief openly disavow a prior foreign policy decision. But Bill Clinton repeatedly did so last spring. Referring to the Budapest Memorandum, Clinton stated his regret for insisting Ukraine “agree to give up [its] nuclear weapons.” He also admitted that the story of the agreement was hardly the open-and-shut case of win-win nonproliferation that advocates have presented. “None of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons,” Clinton said, referring to the ongoing full-scale invasion.

Shell Games & Security Guarantees

The satellite images are eerie and unequivocal: President Putin has delivered on his threat to install weapons of mass destruction in Belarus, his ally adjacent to Ukraine.

No one should be surprised. Since launching his invasion, Mr. Putin and his acolytes have often touted their willingness to use nuclear arms. Earlier this month, Moscow orchestrated national drills to prepare for nuclear retaliation.

A few days later, Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko opined, “[The] Americans are pushing Russians toward using the most terrifying weapon,” referencing Washington’s sending long-range missiles to Ukraine. Russia, Lukashenko insisted, “will take out the red button and put it on the table.”

The same Western commentators who argue these provocations amount to mere bluffing tend to defend the removal of Kyiv’s nuclear arsenal thirty years ago. Their camp reflexively rejects claims that history could have taken a different course. As Clinton’s comments make clear, however, the story of the Budapest Memorandum is anything but settled history. And, as a new wave of historical revelations shows, the time has come to overturn such simplifications.

Ukraine may very well have had the means to operate a nuclear arsenal.

Maintaining those weapons would have potentially deterred Russia, and there are now very few reasons to doubt the Kremlin’s long-term plans to invade its neighbor date back to the 1990s. This outcome was also something top American officials worried about at the time themselves.

Documents unearthed in the last two years similarly undermine the presumption that moral arguments about global nonproliferation played a predominant role in Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear arms. Rather than embarking on an idealistic crusade to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide, it was more of a shell game carried out with the grittiest and most realpolitik of aims: calming Russian insecurities about the size of its nuclear stockpile compared to the United States and shoring up a legal regime that would soon become a dead letter.

And while the archival record also reveals key moments of self-awareness about the threat Russia posed, American officials pushed ahead regardless—seemingly reassured in the misapprehension that Russian aggression could be negotiated or theorized away in the future.

These officials wanted to bring Yeltsin and company into the democratic fold and were willing to pay almost any price to see that happen. It was a gamble—a well-meaning and perhaps even worthwhile one—but the chips they were gambling belonged to someone else.

And what did Ukraine get? With over 100,000 Ukrainian souls lost since 2014 and a trillion dollars of wreckage piled high by Mr. Putin’s war, the country’s brief interregnum of peaceful independence offers little solace.

The only thing Ukraine didn’t get was what it wanted all along: Not nuclear weapons, but the security those weapons provide. Ukrainians would have gladly traded every warhead for serious means by which they could have quashed its neighbor’s imperial impulses. But that was denied to Kyiv as well.

The tale of Ukraine’s disarmament is really one of great powers haggling over a vulnerable nation’s fate despite its protests and legitimate concerns about regional security. That is the true story of the Budapest Memorandum. Then, as now, close-minded determinism bears grave dangers. It’s time policymakers came to full grips with that reality.

George E. Bogden is a Krauthammer Fellow and an Olin Fellow at Columbia Law School. The Smith Richardson Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the British Library, and the Kennan Institute funded his research for this article.

Image: Mark Reinstein / Shutterstock.

How to Curb Tehran’s Oil Exports

Saeed Ghasseminejad — October 27, 2023

In a letter to President Joe Biden, a bipartisan coalition composed of 113 members of the House of Representatives asked him to hold Tehran accountable for its support for Hamas and “end Iran’s oil trade to China.” That may sound like a tall order—but it can be achieved if Biden is determined enough.

Since Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, Tehran has exported oil worth approximately $84 billion to $95 billion, with China as its largest customer. This revenue has funded Iran’s aggression abroad and oppression at home. In August 2023, Iran exported 1.7 million barrels of crude oil per day (MBPD), a level not reached since March 2019. Tehran’s average daily export in 2023 reached 1.4 MBPD by the end of September. That level represents a 61 percent increase from 2020 and a 22 percent increase from 2022.

Those increased daily export flows are reflected in the numbers for annual export flows. For example, as the World Bank notes, Iran’s overall exports declined in 2019 and 2020 by 17.3 and 12.8 percent, respectively, but then increased by 5.2 and 8.2 percent, respectively, in 2021 and 2022. With the higher export flows, Iran’s revenue flows have grown as well.

In fact, Tehran’s funds from increased oil exports over the last two years, combined with its significant increase in non-oil exports, have filled the regime’s coffers. The Central Bank of Iran’s net foreign assets—that is, its foreign assets minus its foreign liabilities—have increased by a whopping 46 percent, from $111 billion in March 2021 to $162 billion in March 2023.

Tehran’s access to its export revenue and reserves has also increased. Iranian officials have publicly boasted about their success in repatriating these funds. For example, over the last few weeks, Tehran has managed to tap into a $16 billion blocked reserve—sending $10 billion from Iraq to Oman and sending $6 billion from South Korea to Qatar. While the U.S. Treasury Department says it has reached a “quiet understanding” to refreeze the $6 billion now held in a Qatari bank, Qatar's prime minister and the governor of Qatar’s central bank have rejected that “quiet understanding,” according to Iran International. The governor of Qatar’s central bank went so far as to mock the notion of a possible refreeze, calling it “a joke and media game.”

The combination of increased export revenue and improved access to it has enabled Tehran to intensify its nuclear and missile programs, domestic oppression, and overseas aggression. According to Reuters, Israeli security officials estimate that Tehran's funding for Hamas has risen from $100 million to $350 million over the past year. As Tehran's financial resources have expanded, its ability to support acts of terror and warfare has grown significantly.In response, it only makes sense to block Iran’s financial pipeline, especially the regime’s oil exports.

To reduce Iran’s access to hard currency, Washington should embark on a three-stage plan:

First, Washington should focus on disrupting Iran's access to its revenue and reserves. The Biden administration can begin by reversing its decision to allow Tehran access to the above $16 billion. Following this reversal, the administration should prevent any further release of blocked funds in friendly jurisdictions, such as Japan, India, and Luxembourg.

Subsequently, Washington ought to prepare a designation package targeting banks that facilitate Tehran's access to its revenue and reserves. This information must be communicated to government officials and the financial sector in Tehran’s key trade partners—Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and China—giving them the choice between aligning with the United States or with Iran. The designation package should include the threat of secondary sanctions; it must absolutely block access to U.S. financial markets and networks and the U.S. dollar.

Second, Washington should curtail Tehran's oil exports through a five-pillar plan that targets the end-users of Iran's oil in China, financial intermediaries that facilitate these transactions, the tanker operators and their holding companies that transfer the oil, insurers that insure these cargos, and, finally, the front companies and individuals engaged in exporting Iran's oil. Up to this point, the Biden administration has primarily concentrated on the fifth pillar, which involves front companies. However, without addressing the other four elements of Tehran's illicit oil export network, the administration's efforts do not—and cannot—have a substantial impact.

Third, the Biden Administration should prepare for a campaign to seize the tankers involved in the transport of Iranian crude and the oil they carry. The activities and movements of these tankers are well-documented and known to both the U.S. government and industry observers. By confiscating these vessels and selling the oil on the market, the U.S. government can achieve multiple objectives. It gains greater control over the oil market by increasing the supply Washington controls, deprives the Tehran regime of revenue, and dismantles a crucial component of the oil smuggling network, which could be supporting other malign actors, such as Russia and Venezuela. Additionally, this action could compel China to purchase more oil from U.S. partners in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which would likely indirectly increase U.S. leverage over China. The revenue generated could then be allocated to fund projects that support the Iranian people in their struggle against the regime, such as ensuring free access to the internet or establishing a labor strike fund.

In response, Tehran will most likely retaliate. The nature of this retaliation could involve targeting U.S. forces in the region or striking oil and gas fields and shipments from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For the United States, the imperative is a decisive response, ensuring Tehran faces substantial consequences as a means of deterrence. This has worked before. At the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the United States successfully forced Tehran to stop its tanker war by targeting the regime’s military and economic assets in the Persian Gulf.

Tehran has a lot to lose and knows it. By targeting oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it would be indirectly challenging China, given Beijing’s reliance on the Persian Gulf for nearly half its oil supply. Beijing will most likely pressure Tehran to consider China’s strategic concerns. Targeting Saudi Arabia and the UAE will also jeopardize the rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh. Engaging in a full-scale conflict with the United States in Syria and Iraq through its proxy forces threatens the fragile stability in those countries where anti-Tehran forces are waiting for an opportunity to change the status quo. Armed with superior firepower, the United States is well-positioned to counter pro-Tehran forces effectively on both fronts and impose a heavy cost on them.

For years, Khamenei has created chaos in country after country to forge a new order that benefits him. Considering Russia's challenges in Ukraine and Israel's preparedness to address threats from Hamas (and possibly Hezbollah in the future), the gathering storm presents an opportunity for the United States to recalibrate the power dynamics in the Middle East, which have been tilting away from U.S. interests.

The Biden Administration must understand that funds flowing to Tehran ultimately become bullets, missiles, IEDs, and bombs used against the United States and its allies.

The time has come to cut off this source of terror.

Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior Iran and financial economics advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets at @SGhasseminejad.

Image: Shutterstock.

Big Question: How Many Nuclear Weapons Does Israel Have?

Maya Carlin — October 27, 2023

Although Israel has maintained its nuclear-ambiguous policy since its founding, military and industry officials predict the Jewish state has at least 90 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. Since Israel never signed the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), its nuclear opacity is not violating any international standard.

Ambiguous Nuclear Power

This landmark accord intended to halt the spread of nuclear arms was signed by every country except Israel, India, and Pakistan. North Korea would later withdraw from the treaty in 2003. Israel’s regional position, surrounded by hostile adversaries, initially spurred the new state in the 1950s to explore nuclear capabilities. Israel’s rationale to offset the combined conventional superiority of its neighbors through nuclear deterrence has helped mold the country’s defensive strategy over time.

A few years after its 1948 founding, Israel’s first Prime Minister Ben Gurion made the critical decision to pursue nuclear capabilities. According to historian Avner Cohen, “Ben Gurion’s determination to launch the nuclear project was the result of strategic intuition and obsessive fears, not of a well-thought-out plan. He believed Israel needed nuclear weapons as insurance if it could no longer compete with the Arabs in an arms race and as a weapon of last resort in case of an extreme military emergency.”

Initially a collaborative effort between Israel and France dubbed the Jericho project, it produced the two-stage solid-fuel Jericho I missile in 1973. During the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War when Israel’s conventional capabilities seemed weak, these missiles were supposedly placed on high alert. It is also suspected that nuclear weapons were loaded onto the Jericho I missiles at this time as a last resort option, yet the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) never confirmed this.

Israel’s nuclear ambiguity could be tied to its adversaries’ lack of nuclear capabilities. The Jewish state’s preventative strike policy, called the Begin Doctrine, allows the IDF to intervene in neighboring countries’ nuclear acquirement. Last year, Israel confirmed that it took out a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007. Decades earlier in 1981, Israeli jets destroyed a nuclear reactor being constructed near Baghdad by the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The Islamic Republic of Iran is veering close to its nuclear breakout time, and Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity could change if its adversary does acquire nuclear capabilities.

Stockpiles and Upgrades

Experts believe the Jewish state possesses 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads today and has enough plutonium in its stockpile to develop 100-200 weapons if necessary. In 2019, a “rocket engine propulsion” test launch carried out by the IDF, was suspected of being a test of the latest Jericho-3 missile variant. The new Jericho variant is reported to have a range of approximately 4,000-6,000 kilometers, which could easily reach Iranian territory if launched. Additionally, Reputable sources believe the Jericho 3 is equipped with a 750kg nuclear warhead, although this is also unconfirmed.

While it has never been verified, the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is widely accepted by military and industry experts across the world. As Iran’s nuclear capabilities loom closer, Israel’s publicized nuclear posture could change.

About the Author

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Moscow’s Man in Belgrade

Richard Kraemer — October 27, 2023

Last month, the most serious violence witnessed for years in Kosovo played out as armed Serb paramilitaries ambushed a police patrol near the village of Banjska, leaving one policeman dead. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić responded defiantly. Diplomatic tensions continue to rise after Kosovo banned Arena Sports—which holds the rights to Europe’s major soccer leagues and is owned by Serbian state telecoms company Telekom Srbija—for broadcasting a video message glorifying the attack.

Meanwhile, Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik is accelerating his drive to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina. That country’s democratic citizens, whatever their self-assigned ethnicity, continue to simmer with anger over the undemocratic electoral amendments Biden backed last autumn. To the east, perennial impasses in Montenegrin politics and society are threatening NATO security interests.

Might the Biden administration change tack? One such sign occurred in July this year, when the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Aleksandar Vulin, the boss of Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA).

The U.S. designation of a sitting spy chief in an EU candidate state is noteworthy. OFAC cites Vulin as engaging in illegal arms dealing, illicit drug sales, and corrupt use of his office. It further asserts that Vulin has acted to destabilize the Western Balkans, in part by supporting and facilitating Russia’s malign activities there. Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson stated plainly, “Today’s action holds accountable Aleksandar Vulin for his corrupt and destabilizing acts that have also facilitated Russia’s malign activities in the region.”

Vulin’s allies came sprinting to his defense, claiming that the U.S. sanctioning is an exclusively political affair linked to Vulin’s overtly pro-Russian stance regardless of Moscow’s baseless and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, was quick to assist his former minister of defense (2017–2020) and interior (2020–2022): “The sanctions were imposed because of his position toward the Russian Federation,” Vučić volleyed in response.

Ultranationalist voices in Serbian-language media were quick to disseminate their boss’ protests. Media outlet B92’s news portal (owned by Greece-based Antenna Group) readily regurgitated a statement from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) calling Vulin’s sanctioning “A new act of American aggression against Serbia.” Similarly, the daily tabloid Blić ran pieces quoting at length Vučić and other governmental officials inveighing against Washington. Vreme soon after published bootlicking, pro-Vulin remarks from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ambassador in Belgrade, Aleksandar Vranješ. This echo chamber looks set to worsen if the Serbian government succeeds in pushing through two controversial new media laws, which transfer even greater power to the state to own media outlets, strengthening its ability to control public opinion and sow division in neighboring states like Kosovo.

Still, even the most vehement of Vulin’s defenders solely decried what they claim to be a political hit job. Tellingly, they remained silent on his activities.

As to arms dealing, Vulin’s association with notorious weapons broker Slobodan Tesić should raise eyebrows. Tesić is no bush-league player. He spent ten years on the United Nations travel ban list for breaking its arms embargo on Liberia. Libyan and Saudi Arabian entities are also among his clients. Identifying him as “among the biggest dealers of arms and munitions in the Balkans,” the Trump administration sanctioned him in 2017. Two years later, the Treasury doubled down on Tesić by sanctioning nine of the war profiteer’s associates together with all his related commercial entities in Serbia, Cyprus, and Hong Kong. In partnership with Tesić, the Treasury further sanctioned Vulin due to his involvement in illicit narcotic trafficking; however, OFAC gave no details.

Vulin is a key agitator of Western Balkan instability in action and ideology. His actions speak for themselves. Concerning the latter, Vulin is an unrepentant public advocate of the doctrine that brought death to more than 100,000—mainly Bosniaks—in the wars of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. Known as Greater Serbia, it is the bigoted conviction that all ethnic Serbs be united in a so-called “homeland” reflecting the borders of a medieval kingdom, extending far beyond today’s Serbia.

Treasury further sanctioned Vulin for his destabilizing endeavors in the Western Balkans, conceptually driven by this toxic doctrine. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Greater Serbia (or “Serbian World) proved an ever-dependable catalyst for political action typically accompanied by violence. The propagation of virulent irredentism by a ranking state official could destabilize the Western Balkans.

Vulin unabashedly promotes this poisonous creed. At a meeting of his Socialist Movement party in 2021, Vulin declared that “The task for this generation of politicians is to form a Serb world, that is to unite Serbs wherever they live.” Similarly, in 2022, he stated, “I dream of the unification of Serbs, just as my ancestors dreamed it of it.” He then followed up with a caveat that Greater Serbia should achieved without violence. The sharp spike in Serbia’s defense spending during his tenure as defense minister (e.g., a 43 percent increase in military spending in 2019) loudly suggests otherwise.

Vulin is Moscow’s man in Belgrade. True to his anti-democratic roots, he vowed to work with Moscow in combatting “color revolutions” while interior minister. Since Moscow’s second invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vulin has unswervingly shown his endorsement of the inhumanity that is Vladimir Putin and his armed forces. In August 2022, he flew to Moscow to reassure Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Belgrade’s backing. Most recently, Vulin and First Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dačić attended an international security conference in Moscow last summer.

In the wake of the Treasury’s decision, Serbia agreed to halt arms exports for only thirty days. Moreover, within weeks, the White House signed off on the sale of sixty-six Humvees to Belgrade, with another fifty-two to be soon delivered. Meanwhile, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen still advocates for Serbia’s Union membership.

Serbia is currently governed as a mafia state. Yet Biden and VDL seem convinced that with various gifts and encouragement, Serbia will somehow “come round” to be a state worthy of membership in the global democratic community. Such wishful thinking and well-intended approaches failed miserably vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China. Why would a state run by the likes of Vučić and Vulin be any different?

Richard Kraemer is president of the US-Europe Alliance and formerly a senior program officer for Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey at the National Endowment for Democracy. Richard previously oversaw projects at the Center for International Private Enterprise. He is an affiliated expert of the Public International Law and Policy Group, having advised the governments of Georgia and Montenegro. He and his works have appeared in numerous international and U.S. media.

Image: Shutterstock.

Israel’s Invasion of Gaza Will Not Succeed

Alexander Langlois — October 27, 2023

As Israel finalizes its plans for a would-be ground invasion into Gaza following a massive escalation of violence in October, many experts and analysts are correctly asking important questions about the substance of such a military decision.

Day-after inquiries are crucial to any serious and successful operation that achieves Israeli objectives, raising basic concerns that Tel Aviv is failing to consider under current circumstances.

Indeed, a ground invasion will enhance the pre-existing ideological and material reasons why Israel cannot destroy Hamas or stifle Palestinian resistance.

Urban combat is notoriously brutal, as evidenced by recent Middle East battles like Fallujah, Aleppo, Mosul, and Raqqa. Israel and its supporters acknowledge this reality. In parallel, Israel is amassing hundreds of thousands of troops along its borders, with a focus on the disputed borders with Gaza. Israeli defense minister and war cabinet minister Yoav Gallant released vague details of the operation, noting a three-phase effort involving land, sea, and air operations that will contribute to a years-long effort to establish a new governing and security entity in Gaza.

While Israel understandably refuses to share further details of their military and post-military operation, Washington continues to provide full support to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Israel’s military brass noted the unprecedented level of support for their planning efforts – highlighting that U.S. support is currently at levels they have not previously experienced.

Yet even with Washington’s support, Israel faces an extraordinary task if it invades Gaza. The blockaded Palestinian enclave is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth, constituting roughly 2 million people across a 141-square-miles. Hamas is likely prepared for any IDF operation, laying traps while operating via a vast network of tunnels. The tunnel component presents the largest challenge to any Gaza invasion because subterranean warfare is more difficult than urban combat, according to military experts.

Such details suggest the ensuing battle will be a long-term fight, resulting in substantial casualties that include military and non-military actors. Worse, the operation risks opening new fronts for Israel to its north with the Lebanon-based and Iran-backed Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias in places like Syria. Such an escalatory pattern could envelop the region in a brutal conflict unseen since World War II.

Even if actors avoid regional war – a possibility given signals by most parties to prevent such an outcome – the scale of destruction and violence in Gaza make Israel’s objective of eliminating Hamas and instilling a new governing and security regime impossible.

On a physical level, Israel will further pummel Gaza into an unlivable space for civilians – already a long-running issue due to Israel’s de facto occupation via its 16-year blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israel continues to indiscriminately target civilian infrastructure, including residencies, hospitals, shelters, religious sites, and utilities, directly or indirectly. Over 1.4 million Palestinians are reportedly displaced. Most will not have homes to return to soon, let alone if the conflict expands and prolongs.

On an ideological level, Palestinian resistance is and will continue to be strong against Israel’s illegal occupation. Palestinian resistance – violent or peaceful – continues to sustain itself due to Tel Aviv’s deepening occupation that denies them basic rights and often leads to their death. As previous wars prove, pummeling Palestinian communities failed to stifle resistance. In fact, it has likely contributed to the growing approval of violent resistance that is particularly prominent among Palestinian youth, who have only known the occupation for their entire lives. The right to self-determination and equal rights is not extended to Palestinians, even in a failed post-Oslo space that centered peaceful negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state. As such, more Palestinians are hardening their stance against Israel – a common trend throughout human history and the foundation of democracies such as the United States.

As such, Israel’s operation will fail to destroy Hamas because it will fail to destroy the principles undergirding Palestinian political thought. The root cause of this conflict is the illegal and armed occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). A segment of the Palestinian population will continue to support violent resistance so long as Israel continues this.

Hamas, as a violent liberation movement, will not be destroyed within this context as it is transnational, with members in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Qatar. Even if these countries remove Hamas members, a new group will take its place. Those hoping for a post-Hamas context that includes the Palestinian Authority (PA) or an Arab coalition force live in a fantasy land as the former is hugely unpopular in the Palestinian street, and the latter would rightly be viewed as another occupation force. The latter also assumes that Arab states will buy into this approach – an unlikely outcome without progress on a Palestinian state.

Ultimately, history proves bombs cannot wipe out a terror or liberation organization because this approach ignores the root causes that led to that group’s creation. The Islamic State (IS) still lingers in Syria and elsewhere; the Taliban controls Afghanistan again; and Al-Qaeda continues to thrive in places like Yemen. It is folly to assume that a new outcome can be achieved in Gaza.

About the Author

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl and @langloisajl.bsky.social.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

World War III: Is a U.S.-China Conflict Truly Mankind's Fate?

Amy K. Mitchell, Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu — October 27, 2023

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. “Two ways,” Mike replies. “Gradually and then suddenly.” So, with America’s inevitable war with the People’s Republic of China. It may be gradual or sudden. Yet, in neither instance would it be at the behest of Washington.

China's Military Is Rising

China, under General Secretary Xi Jinping, has been outwardly preparing for conflict for more than a decade. In 2012, as China’s economy began to slow, Xi and his Politburo accelerated China’s military modernization. That decision has resulted in the largest peacetime military build-up since the 1930s – the consequences of which are documented in the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2023 China Military Power report. Beijing’s fortification along the first island chain, increased military recruitment, fewer external dependencies, and a growing aggressiveness towards Taiwan all point to a China that is, as Xi has urged, preparing for “stormy seas.”

What Should America Do?

For the United States, this leaves two paths – neither favorable. China’s slow march to Taiwan under Xi’s dream of national reunification may result in the U.S. opting to do nothing, or very little. In this scenario, American inaction would likely be due to a combination of factors, including the realization that such a war would likely not be won quickly or decisively. This would be all the more true if U.S. weapons stockpiles remain at their current depleted levels and shortcomings in its defense industrial base go unremedied.

Short-term, the U.S. would avoid conflict with Beijing, but the long-term repercussions of what would likely be a fallen Taiwan would be immense and would steadily lead America into war. For China’s global ambitions are not limited to Taiwan. Emboldened by any military success, Beijing would likely decide to move on other first island chain nations, many of which have defense treaties with the United States. This, in turn, would necessitate an American response, which could eventually result in the brutal island-to-island warfare of World War II.

War, for America, could also come suddenly. Dual fronts now in Europe and the Middle East are part of a wider strategy on the part of America’s adversaries to bait it into conflict and usurp U.S. global leadership. So far, the U.S. has managed to avoid direct action in Ukraine. In the Middle East, increasing attacks on American troops could eventually elicit a belated U.S. response beyond “narrowly tailored strikes.” Should Xi soon decide to open a third front, the U.S. may rightly regard this as a critical tipping point and respond with force. Any less would see a major shift in the world order – in Beijing’s favor, and with America, then, as its subordinate.

War is always the last resort. It has, however, become abundantly clear that U.S. global deterrence is not working. The U.S. must, therefore, begin to ready itself for inevitable conflict, for the consequences of both action and inaction lead, ultimately – whether gradually or suddenly – to the same result. America may not seek conflict with China.

Yet, as one Secretary of Defense often remarked, “the enemy gets a vote.”

Amy K. Mitchell is a founding partner at Kilo Alpha Strategies. She has advised three Secretaries of Defense and several large defense contractors. Ms. Mitchell is currently a Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at New Lines Institute, serves on the advisory board of the Vandenberg Coalition and is a member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition Foreign Policy Study Group.

Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu is the founder of the geopolitical risk and strategic communications firm Magpie Advisory. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Visiting Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, Contributing Editor with the New York Sun, and serves on the advisory board of the Vandenberg Coalition. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Oxford.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

X-37B: A 'Space Bomber' Russia and China Must Fear (Or Something Else)?

Maya Carlin — October 27, 2023

Meet the X-37B - In the latest iteration of the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy, China is cited as America’s “pacing military threat,” rather than just a “global competitor.”

Released in January, the report detailed the People’s Republic of China’s agenda to become the world’s leading nuclear and conventional military power.

Additionally, Beijing is working hard to develop its space capabilities. According to the report, the PRC has tested at least two uncrewed spaceplanes, the Shenlong and the Tengyun, over the last year. The Pentagon believes these spaceplanes were designed to go head to head with America’s own experimental space platform, the X-37B.

A brief history of America’s experimental spaceplane

NASA originally selected Boeing Integrated Defense Systems to create an orbital vehicle back in the late 1990’s. The aerospace giant continues to provide program management, engineering, test and mission support for the program from its sites across the country. Over a four year-long period, NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Boeing contributed nearly $200 million to the spaceplane project. By 2002, Boeing was awarded as part of NASA’s Space Launch Initiative framework to develop the prototype. While NASA’s initial goal of possessing an Orbital Vehicle never came to fruition, the X-37B has proven to be a very successful robotic space vehicle.

Most of the X-37B’s technologies derived from the X-37A vehicle. This model was used as a test glider and lacked a propulsion system. As outlined in an earlier 19FortyFive piece, “The current iteration of the X-37B incorporates many technological advancements including all electro-mechanical flight controls, eliminating the need for flammable hydraulics, advanced avionics to automate de-orbit and landing, a lightweight composite structure, and novel materials designed to improve heat resistance.” The X-37B is nearly 30 feet long with a height of roughly nine feet. It has a launch weight of 11,000 pounds and a wingspan measuring at just over 14 feet long. In 2010, the X-37B was launched into space for the first time, strapped to the top of an Atlas V rocket.

How OTV-6 made history

The U.S. military’s X-37B made history last year when it touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center after spending 908 days in orbit. During its time in space, the Orbital Vehicle-6 (OTV-6) was the first mission to introduce a service module- a ring component that was attached to the rear of the vehicle and enabled more experiments while in orbit. The uncrewed spacecraft is boosted into space by a launch vehicle and then re-enters Earth by landing as a spaceplane.

While many details surrounding the experimental X-37B remain a mystery, some analysts have speculated the spaceplane’s probable future mission sets. According to Popular Mechanics, “The X-37B could allow the Air Force to test technologies bound for the next generation of spy satellites, before building a billion dollar satellite around them, and returning them to study after long missions in space. The X-37B could also allow such technologies to be used early, in case of a crisis or emergency on the ground.”

As tensions continue to escalate between Beijing and Washington, the potential militarization of space becomes a more possible prospect. While the U.S. works to improve the capabilities of the X-37B, China is undoubtedly ramping up its own efforts to achieve its own sophisticated spaceplane.

Image: Creative Commons.

Is the World Over China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

Jacinta Keast — October 27, 2023

With all that’s going on in the world, you could be forgiven for missing that the 10th anniversary forum of Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy and trade program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was held in Beijing in the middle of last week. Some saw the West’s involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine as creating a strategic opening for Chinese diplomacy at the forum. But that’s a misreading of China’s public diplomacy goals and a far too rosy view of how last week’s event actually went.

China wants the world to value the BRI and to view China as a legitimate leader of nations in global development. As an initiative that Xi himself proposed in 2013, its success is directly linked to his power as a leader.

Beijing saw this forum as a crucial chance to advocate for its ‘global community of shared future’ proposal. In the run-up, it released a white paper outlining how this proposal could lead to a new type of international relations that rejects the Western-led multilateral order and its emphasis on ‘universal values’. It also published a white paper on the BRI, positioning it as a core pillar of the ‘global community of shared future’ proposal. Xi’s keynote address at the conference focused on lauding the achievements of the first 10 years of the BRI and how following China’s development path through the ‘global community of shared future’ was the best way towards world peace and prosperity.

This message fell on deaf ears. Chinese state media reported that representatives from more than 140 countries attended the event, but, in fact, only 21 countries sent representatives at the head-of-state level. That’s the lowest ever attendance of heads of state at a BRI forum. Notably, the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa—which, along with Russia and China, comprise BRICS—were absent.

In a telling contrast, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka chose to make a state visit to Australia last week rather than attend the forum, sending his deputy to China instead. No bilateral BRI projects between China and Fiji were announced at the forum, whereas Australia announced a new pathway to permanent residency for citizens of the Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste. This is something China would never be able to offer the Pacific and addresses a genuine policy want from countries in the region.

China also made a public diplomacy blunder in giving Russian President Vladmir Putin top billing at the forum. Putin appeared next to Xi in the leader’s photo and was given the most important position after Xi as a keynote speaker. While we should worry about the strengthening Sino-Russian ‘no limits’ partnership, Russia isn’t even formally part of the BRI. Rather than emphasising strength and unity, giving Putin such a prominent role instead undercut China’s claims to multilateralism and anti-hegemony. That’s not to mention the image problems China has from its support of another rogue actor, the Taliban, who were invited to attend the forum and have been encouraged to join the BRI.

Many countries may have sent representatives to the forum as a way to maintain good relations with China, but not to further deepen their engagement with the BRI. With many Chinese development banks and financing institutions in attendance, countries with large BRI projects may have also used it as an opportunity to negotiate their existing financial agreements with China, rather than sign on to new deals. Indeed, Sri Lanka, which owes Chinese lenders more than US$7 billion, had its president advocating that a lack of debt relief for low-income countries posed an existential risk to the BRI.

In analysing where the BRI is going, we should look at what China does, not what it says. Major BRI projects are typically announced in an outcomes document from the forum, and an analysis of this year’s outcomes show a gap between what China says its new vision for the BRI is and what it is actually funding. Most projects in the list are not new deals and had already been announced prior to the forum. For example, the document announced that China would build the Solomon Islands’ national broadband network, although the deal was already signed more than a year ago. Similarly, China said it would construct the Kaduna–Kano railway in Nigeria, but ground was already broken on the project in mid-2021.

At the forum, Xi announced that ‘green development’ in the BRI would be a major step in the initiative, and early analysis has noted that the BRI will now be ‘smaller and greener’. While several renewable energy projects were announced, analysis of the outcomes document shows that the dominant type of project in the BRI still appears to be infrastructure, such as railways, ports, airports and sports stadiums. And as much as Xi’s speeches at the conference repeatedly emphasised his new focus on ‘high-quality’ Belt and Road cooperation, China will still have to manage a hefty legacy portfolio of large and not-so-high-quality projects like the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.

With close to US$1 trillion in funding granted over the years, the BRI remains a formidable tool of economic statecraft for China to pursue its foreign policy and security ambitions. But the poor attendance of world leaders at last week’s forum and the lack of international attention paid to it would be far from what Xi feels his initiative deserves.

Jacinta Keast is an analyst at ASPI.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Creative Commons/White House Flickr.

The UN May Be Caught in the Crossfire of the Next Israel-Hezbollah War

Vanessa Newby — October 26, 2023

On 15 October, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon headquarters was hit by a missile of unknown origin. This isn’t the first time UNIFIL has been caught in the crossfire of conflict between the Israel Defence Forces and non-state armed actors. Despite the presence of a UN peace operation, exchanges of fire have continued in southern Lebanon since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israeli civilians. The rapid escalation of hostilities between Hezbollah and the IDF is threatening regional and even global security.

Despite the inclusion of the word interim in its name, UNIFIL is one of the UN’s longest running peacekeeping missions. As the situation in south Lebanon deteriorates, should UNIFIL go on, given its seeming inability to prevent serious outbreaks of fighting?

UNIFIL’s main role is to maintain peace and security on the Blue Line that demarcates the territories of Lebanon and Israel, which remain officially at war. The Blue Line isn’t a border, but a line of withdrawal between two militaries. At the political level, there continues to be no formal contact between the Israeli and Lebanese governments about a path to an official, permanent peace.

I have written before about why restraining Hezbollah is so difficult, but since 2017 the situation has changed considerably. The group has been steadily escalating its activity and UNIFIL has struggled with reduced local support. One early signal has been reduced access to parts of villages, often at night, when residents would close roads and prevent UNIFIL from patrolling.

Another indicator of the changing environment has been an increase in attacks on UNIFIL patrols. While the mission had faced the occasional attack, typically by groups of young men looking to steal expensive equipment, in recent years these incidents have become more serious. The most tragic was the murder of an Irish peacekeeper in the southern village of al-Aqbieh in December 2022. The incident was a culmination of years of eroding support for UNIFIL in south Lebanon.

On the other side of the Blue Line, many in Israel argue that UNIFIL is doing little to control Hezbollah. The issue came to a head in 2018 after the discovery of six Hezbollah-built tunnels from Lebanon into Israel.

Hezbollah has upped the ante in other ways too. Surveillance equipment on the technical fence on the Blue Line has been tampered with, unauthorised firing ranges are operating south of the Litani River, and outposts have been set up close to the Blue Line. Most recently, in response to Israel’s reoccupation of the divided town of Ghajar, Hezbollah set up two tents in contested territory on the Blue Line, one of which remains despite repeated Israeli requests that both be removed.

However, Israel’s support for UNIFIL has been lukewarm at best. Over the years, UNIFIL has received marginal advance notice of Israeli invasions and has at times been refused access to Israeli territory after security incidents. Israel refuses to allow UNIFIL to patrol both sides of the line, even though this would improve local Lebanese perceptions of the mission’s impartiality, and refuses to refrain from conducting surveillance overflights in Lebanese airspace. During the civil war, official and unofficial militia sponsored by Israel gave UNIFIL as many headaches as the Palestinian militia, Amal and Hezbollah.

There has been increased debate in the UN Security Council of late about UNIFIL’s mandate, with criticisms of a lack of progress in disarming Hezbollah and establishing a weapons-free zone south of the Litani, high troop numbers, and the increasing lack of freedom of movement.

But in a conflict where no side can claim complete innocence, the value of UNIFIL is its ability to shine an international spotlight on the Blue Line and keep all parties a little more honest. There’s also no doubt that UNIFIL has prevented flare-ups and still inhibits an overt Hezbollah presence.

In the absence of an official peace, the conflict between Lebanon and Israel is likely to continue and when shocks to the system occur there’s little UNIFIL can do but observe. However, it has shown that it can manage the post-conflict environment well, including by deconflicting security incidents to stop them from escalating and accidentally triggering a new war.

Over the past 45 years, the mission has been retained because the international community understood that things would be worse without it. The intractable nature of the conflict and important geostrategic position of Lebanon have demanded some form of peace operation, so the practical choice at hand for the UN has been whether the expense and risks of establishing a new mission are worth it when one is already in place. Maintaining the status quo has always won out.

UNIFIL has also proven its dedication to helping local civilians during conflict and to providing shelter, emergency medical aid and evacuation support, often at great risk to peacekeepers. When the fog of war clears, UNIFIL has always been there to help local civilians recover. Helping to resuscitate communities devastated by conflict is a critical aspect of its work. While civilians in south Lebanon know they can’t depend on UNIFIL to protect them, they know it will be there help them pick up the pieces.

For now UNIFIL remains committed, saying: ‘In the event of all-out war, we won’t abandon our site. We didn’t in 2006, and we won’t this time either.’ UNIFIL may not be able to stop a war, but it can help ease the pain for civilians living along the Blue Line. For a country in the midst of a heinous economic crisis, this support is critical.

Vanessa Newby is an assistant professor at Leiden University and the author of Peacekeeping in south Lebanon: credibility and local cooperation. Her next book, Peacekeeping in the Mediterranean: narratives of agency in neglected conflicts, is under contract with Oxford University Press.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

Does Israel Have an End Game in Gaza?

Ian Parmeter — October 26, 2023

Not counting periodic cross-border skirmishes, Israel has fought three major wars against Hamas since withdrawing its forces from Gaza in 2005 – in 2008, 2014 and 2021. Each involved limited ground incursions, with Israeli soldiers in Gaza for about a fortnight.

In the past couple weeks, Israel has put together a huge force to mount another ground invasion in retaliation for the Hamas cross-border attacks that killed around 1,400 Israelis on October 7. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have called up their entire armoured corps – more than 1,000 tanks. Around 360,000 reservists will also join the force’s full-time personnel of about 170,000.

The operation is shaping up to be Israel’s biggest since its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was aimed at driving the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from its base there. The Israelis succeeded in that objective. But an unforeseen consequence of that war was the development of the Shia militant organisation Hezbollah. With Iran’s support and tutelage, Hezbollah has become a far stronger enemy for Israel than the PLO had ever been.

It’s a truism that wars have unintended consequences. And in the current conflict with Hamas, it’s not clear what the end game might be for Israel.

Why a ground invasion is so risky

The difficulties of a Gaza ground assault are clear enough. Fighting street to street in a confined, highly urbanised environment will be hideously difficult for Israel’s forces. Hamas also has the advantage of an extensive tunnel network estimated at up to 500 kilometres in length, enabling its militants to attack and then disappear.

Israel can counter these challenges to some extent with the use of robots and drones. But night vision technology will be ineffective in the total darkness of tunnels, as these devices require faint ambient light to work.

Israel has also warned the roughly 1.1 million civilians in the northern half of Gaza to move to the southern half. Altogether, the United Nations says some 1.4 million people in Gaza have been displaced so far in the conflict, with nearly 580,000 sheltering in UN shelters.

It’s unclear how many people are still in the north. Israel has warned that those who remain could be classed as sympathisers with “a terrorist organisation”.

Inevitably, there will be appalling civilian casualties. Not all will necessarily be the IDF’s fault, but the default position of the region and those in the global community opposed to Israel’s action will be to blame Israel.

Another challenge is the estimated 200 hostages taken by Hamas during its raid into Israel. Hamas says it has spread them around Gaza. Almost certainly, some will be in the northern war zone. Hamas claims 22 have already been killed by Israeli bombs. Some relatives of the hostages are criticising the Netanyahu government for not giving sufficient priority to freeing their loved ones.

When the fighting stops: no good options

What Israel intends to do if and when it has secured the northern half of Gaza is not clear. The coastal strip is already facing a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation, according to the UN. And in terms of administering the territory, there are few good options.

1) A military reoccupation of Gaza, as Israel did from 1967 to 2005.

This would constitute a huge military burden and expose IDF personnel to violence and kidnapping. US President Joe Biden has warned reoccupation would be a big mistake.

2) Eliminate Hamas’ senior leadership, declare victory, then leave.

Such a victory would almost certainly be short-term. Other low-level members of Hamas would take pride in coming forward to reconstitute the group. Or another group, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, might fill the vacuum. Israel would not be able to control who or what that entity might be.

3) Call on the secular Fatah party that now controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to take control in Gaza.

That is scarcely viable. Fatah lost a civil war to Hamas in 2007 and there’s no indication the Palestinian Authority’s return would be acceptable to Palestinians there. Moreover, the authority’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, was elected to a four-year term in 2005 – and is still in charge. As such, he lacks legitimacy, even in the West Bank.

4) Administration of Gaza by non-aligned local leaders.

This is a pipe dream. Even if such figures could be found, Gazans would almost certainly see them as collaborators with the Israelis, given their role would be to keep the strip’s hardliners under control.

5) Administration of Gaza by a non-Palestinian Arab force.

Again, this is not feasible. The leaders of potential Arab contributors to such a force, such as Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, would not want to be seen as policing Palestinians on behalf of Israel.

6) Administration of Gaza by a non-Arab or United Nations force.

Given the enormous risks, it’s very hard to see any non-Arab countries embracing this idea. A UN peacekeeping force would require not only Israeli approval, but a UN Security Council resolution at a time when Russia and China rarely agree with the three Western permanent members.

Israel also contends Hezbollah has impeded the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon from carrying out its mandate, preventing it from stopping militant attacks. After the Hamas attacks, Israel would be unlikely to entrust its security to peacekeepers with little incentive to put their lives on the line for its sake.

‘Mowing the grass’

For too long, Israel has believed the Gaza imbroglio could be contained. However, the population has grown so large, this is no longer the case.

With a growth rate of just over 2% per year, its population is expected to be three million by 2030.

Gaza is also incredibly young, with a median age of 19.6, compared with the global average of 30.5. Almost half the adult population is unemployed, and Palestinians in Gaza are four times more likely to be living in poverty than those in the West Bank. This is a recipe for social upheaval and radicalisation.

As two Israeli journalists, Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, noted in a perceptive analysis of Israel’s 2014 Gaza war, the Israeli military describes its assaults on Gaza as “mowing the grass” – acting to punish Hamas severely for its aggressive behaviour and degrading its military capabilities.

The aim was to achieve realistic and, therefore, limited political and military goals. It was part of a long-term strategy of attrition, which would have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along the border.

Eliminating Hamas altogether, the authors said, was not an “attainable military objective”.

Even if Hamas rule can be terminated, the alternatives are Israeli rule, the rule of more radical groups, or chaos.

Against an implacable, well-entrenched, non-state enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply needs to ‘mow the grass’ once in a while to degrade the enemy’s capabilities.

From a humanitarian perspective, this phrase is objectionable. The question, now, is whether Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu will attempt a different strategy this time. We’ll find out in the coming weeks.

Ian Parmeter is a Research Scholar in the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at Australian National University.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Image: Shutterstock.

Look Out, China: The B-21 Stealth Bomber Is Preparing to Take Flight

Alex Hollings — October 26, 2023

America’s forthcoming stealth bomber, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, has officially begun runway taxi testing under its own power, according to reports, marking a significant step toward taking flight later this year.

News of this milestone first reached us by way of The Warzone, who were able to confirm the B-21 had begun these tests via an unnamed spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force.

“I can confirm the B-21 is conducting ground taxi activities. Rigorous testing is a critical step in the B-21 flight test program,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Warzone. “Extensive testing evaluates systems, components, and functionalities. This testing allows us to mitigate risks, optimize design, and enhance operational effectiveness,” they said.

This news comes just months after Northrop Grumman announced the successful powering-up of the engines of the first test article B-21.

WHAT ARE TAXI TESTS AND WHAT’S NEXT?

Taxi testing, also known as ground testing, test an aircraft on the ground as it taxis down the runway under its own power, uses its braking systems to stop, ensures there’s no interference with tug vehicles, and other similar tasks that any aircraft would be expected to complete on a regular basis.

Taxi testing allows the program’s engineers to look for and identify any potential issues or risks as the aircraft goes from crawling (taxi tests) to walking (flight testing) and eventually, to running (operational service).

After taxi testing is complete, any issues identified in testing will inform changes made to the aircraft prior to flight testing – which will see the aircraft actually take flight and progress through increasingly complex tasks meant to shake out problems that might arise through the rigors of combat operations. This step-by-step approach is vital to reducing risk when fielding a new aircraft.

That de-risking process is of particular importance for the B-21, which has seen a fair portion of its developmental testing conducted in a virtual environment. This has allowed the program to mature the aircraft design far faster than traditional methods, where an aircraft is flight tested to identify issues, followed by changes being made to the design and further testing of the new design until all the wrinkles are ironed out.

Instead, the Air Force believes the six or more B-21s already in production are close enough to their final form that they’ll go directly from test articles to fully operational aircraft when the Raider enters service – which is expected to happen in just a few years.

THE B-21’S MOST IMPRESSIVE MIGHT BE THAT IT HASN’T ALREADY BLOWN ITS BUDGET

The B-21 Raider has been touted as the most technologically advanced and stealthiest, bomber ever to fly by American Defense officials and Northrop Grumman executives alike since the program first broke cover in 2015. But as remarkable as the design and technology housed within its radar-absorbent polymer-infused fuselage may be, perhaps the most impressive feat accomplished by the program thus far has been keeping development more or less on time and on budget.

The B-21’s timeline has slipped a bit over the past few years, thanks to unforeseeable complications like the COVID pandemic, but reports out of the highly classified effort have consistently suggested the Northrop Grumman-led effort has thus far avoided the budget-busting setbacks that have historically plagued advanced stealth aircraft.

The B-21’s predecessor, the B-2 Spirit, for instance, saw its total production numbers slashed as the Soviet Union fell and the program’s costs continued to rise. In 1988, the B-2 was reported to cost the United States some $450 million per airframe. By 1989, that price tag rose to $515 million, and today, most estimates place the actual cost of each of the 21 B-2 Spirits built at around $2 billion (or potentially as much as $3.7 billion per aircraft when adjusted for today’s inflation).

The B-21 Raider has seen its per-unit price climb in recent years, but not due to program setbacks. Instead, the program has had to adjust the per-unit price over the years to compensate for high levels of inflation. During early planning in 2010, America’s new stealth bomber was projected to ring in at approximately $550 million per copy. By 2019, that figure was adjusted to $639 million, and in late 2022, it was adjusted again to $692 million.

And while those price hikes may seem awfully large, when putting the figures through the inflation calculator provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics website, you’ll find that these increases don’t actually even keep pace with inflation over that same period. In other words, the projected unit costs of the Raider have seemingly dropped as inflation has continued to rise.

Instead, if the B-21’s 2010 price tag of $550 million per airframe was adjusted directly to 2023’s rate of inflation, current costs would actually be over $780 million per aircraft, meaning that now each aircraft is projected to cost nearly $82 million less than inflation would indicate.

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Image Credit: U.S. Department of Defense.

Iraq War Redux: An Israeli Invasion of Gaza Will Be No Cake Walk

Javed Ali — October 26, 2023

Israel appears to be preparing for the next phase of its military operation: a ground campaign to “crush and destroy” Hamas, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put it.

Israel has signaled that it might be willing to delay an invasion – but not call it off entirely – if Hamas releases more hostages. But that means an invasion is still very likely, which raises questions about how Hamas has prepared for a ground invasion and whether Israel is prepared for what could be a long, drawn-out fight.

Prior ground attacks from Israel into the Gaza Strip have been dangerous, deadly and costly for both sides.

The most recent significant ground campaign, known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead, occurred over a three-week period from December 2008 to January 2009.

According to the Israeli military, that operation was launched to strike the Hamas infrastructure that enabled its terrorist and rocket attacks against Israel. In that battle, thousands of Israeli troops fought Hamas fighters, with an Israeli cease-fire declared on Jan. 17, 2009. According to some accounts, losses in that operation totaled at least 13 Israeli military fatalities, 600 to 700 Hamas deaths and over 1,400 dead Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Since that conflict, up until the horrific Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli operations in Gaza have mostly involved airstrikes against Hamas, hitting targets in the Gaza Strip. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel has stepped up airstrikes, but also massed troops, tanks and other equipment on its border with Gaza.

The international community also expects a ground invasion. Former U.S. President Barack Obama has said an Israeli ground operation could “backfire” if civilians aren’t adequately protected.

Hamas has been guarded about its own details, but says it has prepared, with Iranian support, not only for the Oct. 7 attacks but also to respond to an Israeli ground campaign – including taking action outside the Gaza Strip if there is an invasion.

As a former U.S. government intelligence and counterterrorism senior official, who now teaches about those topics and national security, I expect that once combat begins, fighting will be intense. The conflict will likely resemble heavy urban fighting similar to other battles over the past 20 years elsewhere in the Middle East against Iraqi militants and the Islamic State group – and very different from the more limited engagements Israel has attempted in Gaza up until now.

Combat operations in densely packed urban environments are among the most complex for military planners and the troops who have to fight in them for a variety of reasons. The physical space is dense, with above-ground structures or subterranean networks that provide ample environments for fighters to attack, remain concealed or move without detection. There are narrow channels like alleyways or roads that military units have to navigate through. Large numbers of noncombatant civilians are also around. These factors can complicate the ability of even the best-trained troops to accomplish their objectives while also minimizing their risk.

Nowhere for Hamas to go

Though Israel estimates having killed more than 1,500 fighters during and in the days immediately following the Oct. 7 attacks, its military estimates that Hamas probably has tens of thousands more well-armed fighters in Gaza.

Hamas fighters have nowhere to fall back to in the face of an attack by Israel. The strip’s borders with Israel remain sealed, with only limited openings at the Rafah crossing with Egypt to allow for humanitarian aid to enter. Recently, Cindy McCain, head of the United Nations World Food Program, warned that the continued Israeli blockade around Gaza has pushed the civilian population there into a grave humanitarian crisis. But Egypt has been reluctant to allow people through, citing both humanitarian and foreign policy concerns.

With nowhere to go, it is highly possible that Hamas will decide to stand and fight an Israeli invasion. At that point, Hamas will likely use suicide attackers and the weapons it has and can make – some combination of roadside bombs, booby traps, improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons, mortars and snipers.

In addition, Hamas has built an extensive network of as many as 300 miles of underground tunnels throughout Gaza, which its fighters will use to hide and travel in. The Israeli air campaign since Oct. 7 will also help Hamas, because it has destroyed buildings and created piles of rubble that have not yet been removed, making above-ground travel of Israeli forces difficult.

Israel will face further political and humanitarian risks because Hamas kidnapped dozens of hostages on Oct. 7, and their locations are unknown. Even if some are released before an invasion, Israeli attacks could injure or kill any who remain. And rescue operations would require precise intelligence and careful military planning to work in a very small physical area with widespread fighting.

Israeli forces have not faced these conditions often or for very long in the past, but other nations’ militaries have.

The battles of Fallujah

In 2004 and 2005, thousands of U.S. Marines and troops from other nations in an international coalition fought Iraqi insurgents and members of al-Qaida in Iraq in Fallujah, Iraq.

While they inflicted significant losses on those adversaries, U.S. and allied troops also took heavy casualties.

In the first battle of Fallujah in early 2004, 38 U.S. troops were killed and at least 90 injured, with at least 200 al-Qaida or Iraqi insurgents killed and an unknown number of civilians killed or injured. In the second battle of Fallujah, later in 2004, U.S. troops suffered 38 fatalities and 275 injured, with upward of 1,000 to 1,500 insurgents killed and another 1,500 injured. Combined, these were the two biggest urban battles for U.S. forces during the Iraq War.

In addition, much of the city of Fallujah, which once had a population of 250,000, was destroyed, and required significant reconstruction efforts before residents could move back in – only to be displaced again when the Islamic State group emerged and also fought there against the Iraqi government in the mid-2010s.

A decade later, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and the Iraqi military took on fighters from the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, commonly known as ISIS, in cities like Baghouz and Raaqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq. Those fights resulted in tens of thousands of ISIS fighters killed or captured. The survivors, having lost control of any territory, went into hiding.

In these urban ground offensives against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the losses for the Iraqi military and the Syrian Democratic Forces were heavy, totaling over 1,000 for each of these forces. And just like in the battles in Fallujah, civilian deaths and injuries also occurred in high numbers due to the intensity of the urban combat and its proximity to regular people trying to live their lives.

Lessons for Israel?

In late October 2023, the Pentagon dispatched Marine Lt. Gen. James Glynn and other military advisers to Israel to consult on plans for a ground operation in Gaza.

Glynn fought in Fallujah and advised the Iraqi military in its fight against the Islamic State group in Mosul. He was expected to offer advice based on his experience in protracted urban combat, including ways to minimize civilian casualties.

No one knows precisely how events will unfold in the coming days. If Israel does indeed mount a ground campaign, the resulting fight between the Israeli military and Hamas will almost certainly be violent and difficult.

Casualties on all sides of the conflict will be high, and will include innocent Palestinians who have not left the northern part of Gaza for the southern end of the strip, where humanitarian aid and relief is beginning to arrive. The ensuing urban battles may resemble those in Fallujah in the mid-2000s or ISIS stand-offs a decade ago.

Javed Ali is an Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

This article was first published by The Conversation.

Image: U.S. Department of Defense.

2024: The Year America Has a Full-Blown Financial Crisis?

Desmond Lachman — October 26, 2023

A credit cycle is a normal process in a market economy. However, today’s U.S. credit cycle is anything but normal. Not only was its easy phase fueled by the loosest monetary policy in the postwar period. Its tightening phase is being reinforced by a spike in long-term US Treasury bond yields and a crisis in the commercial real estate sector. That combination now sets us up for a hard economic landing by the middle of next year.

Hyman Minsky, the late credit cycle expert, explained that easy monetary policy generally leads to complacency in the financial system and to irresponsible bank lending. When the music of easy money stops playing, we discover who has been swimming naked. That leads to a wave of defaults that causes real strain in the financial system.

The easy part of the current US credit cycle has been unusually easy, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s excessive money printing activity. In response to the 2020 Covid-induced economic recession, the Fed cut its interest rates to its zero lower-bound. At the same time, it flooded the market with more than $ 4 trillion in liquidity through its quantitative easing program.

In the process, the Fed allowed the broad money supply to increase by 40 percent from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2021. That encouraged reckless lending at very low-interest rates that did not nearly compensate lenders for the risk that the borrowers might default on their loans.

At the start of last year, the music of easy money policy stopped playing abruptly when the Fed was forced to slam hard on the monetary policy brakes. It had to do so to regain control over inflation that had surged to a multi-decade high of 9 percent. In the short space of 18 months, the Fed raised interest rates by 525 basis points or at the fastest pace in the post-war period. At the same time, the Fed shifted from a policy of flooding the market with $120 billion a month in liquidity through quantitative easing to one of draining $95 billion a month through quantitative tightening.

The Fed’s newfound monetary policy religion severely damaged the banking system’s large bond portfolios. It did so by causing a large decline in Treasury bond prices. That, in turn, led to the failure earlier this year of Silicon Valley Bank and First National Bank, the second and third largest US bank failures on record.

One factor increasing the chances that we are well on the way to another round of the regional bank crisis is the recent spike in Treasury bond yields as markets have begun to fret over the fact that the government is running an 8 percent of GDP budget deficit at a time of cyclical strength. Over the past two months, the 10-year Treasury bond yield has jumped from 4 percent to 5 percent.

Even before the recent jump in yields, it was estimated that the US banking system had $620 billion in mark-to-market losses on its Treasury bond portfolio. The latest fall in Treasury bond prices will only add to those losses.

Another factor that heightens the chances of a new round in the banking sector crisis is the expected wave of defaults on commercial real estate loans. With office occupancy rates unusually low in a post-Covid world, it is difficult to see how property developers will manage to roll over at higher interest rates the $500 billion in property loans falling due next year. This could be particularly problematic for the regional banks, with as much as 18 percent of their balance sheets exposed to commercial real estate lending.

This has to raise questions about the Fed’s current mantra of high interest rates for longer. It also has to raise doubt about the wisdom of its policy of withdrawing $95 billion a month in market liquidity at a time when the Treasury is having trouble financing itself at reasonable interest rates. By continuing to inflict significant losses on the banks’ balance sheets through higher interest rates, the Fed seems to be inviting a full-blown financial crisis before the middle of next year.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Republican Party Is Truly Lost

Neal Urwitz — October 26, 2023

Since House Republicans managed to take down one of their own – namely, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – we saw a painful spectacle of dysfunction. Countless lost votes, anger, public and private recriminations, candidates put forward whose candidacies are measured in hours defined the moment.

Republicans themselves called it “embarrassing.” Other Republicans admitted that one of America’s two major parties is incapable of basic governance. As Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) put it “We’re not a governing body.” The election of a relatively obscure backbencher, namely now-Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) just shows that the only person Republicans could agree upon was someone with so little profile that he hadn’t rubbed anyone the wrong way.

There were many proximate causes of the chaos, from a narrow majority to uncharismatic leadership to unchecked personal animosities. Yet the real cause is more fundamental and will not end simply because there is a new Speaker.

The fundamental cause of Republican chaos and disunity is a stunning lack of precision in what it is, exactly, that Republicans want to do with any power they amass. There are broad slogans like “end wokeness” or “close the border,” but little depth behind those sentiments.

The sad fact does not have GOP precise policy objectives, or even precise definitions of the problems America faces. Without common goals and a sense of mission greater than oneself, personal aggrandizement and feuds – with the other party and with members of your own caucus – is all that’s left for most GOP members of Congress. After all, there’s no larger cause that could force them to put aside their differences.

Take Republican concern about the border. Among Republican politicians, “secure the border” is nearly a mantra, repeated relentlessly at primary debates, on the House floor, and in television appearances. Online, politicians like Nikki Haley and conservative influencers too numerous to name go a step further, arguing we should “close the border.” Yet what do either of those phrases mean? Amb. Haley cannot possibly mean “close the border” literally, i.e., that no people or goods may pass through it; Mexico is America’s second-largest trading partner, and countless supply chains rely on products made in Mexico. Literally closing the border would start a depression in the U.S., and maybe globally.

“Secure the border” may sound more palatable, but it is similarly vague. Does that mean “reduce migrant crossings?” If so, the answer is comprehensive immigration reform, as the large majority of people in the country illegally are not sneaking across the border, and most migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexico border do so through legal channels. Is securing the border about stopping the flow of drugs? Roughly 90% of fentanyl, the most dangerous illegal drug in the U.S. right now, enters the U.S. through legal ports of entry, so again, it’s not about “border security.” Is border security simply about building a wall? Even Ronald Vitiello, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, who helped design the plan for a wall, said the wall “in and of itself, is nothing.”

I’m not saying that the situation on the border is a good one, of course, but Republican members of Congress cannot even define what makes our border insecure or what would constitute a secure border, let alone produce a plan to create one.

Somehow, GOP complaints about “wokeism” are even more ill-defined. Famously, Bethany Mandel flubbed the answer when asked to define “woke;” she was unable to provide a definition in a response she herself called “humiliating.” That flub was telling, as if you’re trying to fix a problem, you should understand exactly what the problem is. To her credit, she did eventually produce an answer, namely “a radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the end point, enforced by an angry mob.”

That would indeed be awful and worth addressing; unfortunately, that’s not what the GOP means by “woke,” at least if the things they label as such are any guide. Silicon Valley Bank was not focused on a radical redefinition of society. Disney does not support angry mobs (unless you count the line for Space Mountain). Math textbooks in Florida are not suggesting institutions are based on discrimination. M&Ms are candy. There may or may not be legitimate complaints about all of them, but it’s tough to argue that they’re all afflicted with the same malady.

When something is so poorly defined, it is very difficult to address; indeed, the few policies that have tried to stem “wokeness” have been so broad as to have massive unintended consequences, like the emptying of entire libraries in Florida for fear of breaking an imprecise law. Congressional Republicans, for their part, do little more than rail against “wokeness” without putting forward any plans. After all, they cannot define the problem, let alone put forward a policy solution or provide a clear objective.

One can see this plague of weak definitions and absent solutions across the Republican Party and the conservative movement writ large. The House GOP claims crime is going up (which is objectively false; the crime rate has dropped the last two years and is far below its peak in the early 1990s) but have no specific solutions for putting more police on the street or training them better, let alone a definition of what crime rate they would consider safe. They claim our enemies see us as weak but, other than having a more bellicose Commander in Chief cannot say what would make us look strong.

Most tellingly, the GOP did not put forth a party platform in 2020. As such, it is a party without an agenda.

This crisis of imprecision explains the House GOP implosion. Causes greater than an individual member’s profile and fundraising can unite people who otherwise dislike each other. Former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), before being convicted of money laundering, was a self-described “self-centered jerk.” He was also ruthlessly effective in passing conservative legislation, so his colleagues put up with him. Lyndon Baines Johnson was miserable to be around – loud, manipulative, rude, and relished in making other people uncomfortable – but he was a master strategist, so his ideological allies did as he said.

Similarly, shared policy goals are the glue that holds Democrats together. Whether or not you agree with the policy, support for programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child’s Health Insurance Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are why Democrats with beliefs and backgrounds as different as Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) can vote in lockstep.

“Stand for something,” the saying goes, “or fall for anything.” It is no coincidence that House Republicans spent three weeks falling over themselves. With no clearly-defined problems to address or solutions to offer, with nothing to stand for, they fell into the cutthroat politics of personality.

They’ve accomplished nothing for the country they serve. Indeed, they cannot until they define how they would like to serve our nation.

Neal Urwitz is a public relations executive in Washington.

Image: Shutterstock.

Why are the Israelis Stalling?

Eric Lob — October 26, 2023

There appears to be hesitation with the Israeli ground operation in Gaza because of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of eradicating Hamas. The same was the case with groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Taliban in Afghanistan. These are multidimensional movements with militias, politburos, intelligence services, media, and international support. In Gaza, Hamas and other militias have probably planned to resist a ground invasion and would welcome it. They possess high commitment and geographic familiarity and are well-armed and entrenched in underground bunkers and tunnels. One disadvantage Hamas and other militias may confront is a reduced ability to blend in with the population after Israel's heavy bombardment and mass evacuation of northern Gaza, depending on how many people remain there.

For Israel, a ground operation comprising close urban and subterranean combat would likely be costly, with high casualties and complications involving over 200 hostages held captive by Hamas and other militias. While conducting intermittent ground operations in Gaza since 2008, Israel has confronted greater casualties, even if those on the other side have been disproportionately higher and largely comprised of civilians. Without speaking about the United States in countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Israel experienced a similar scenario in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah, which also possesses an elaborate underground bunker and tunnel system. After approximately twenty years of occupying the territory and being subjected to guerrilla attacks, Israel withdrew after its public grew tired of seeing their sons come home in body bags. The longer the current conflict continues, the worse the humanitarian crisis, the lower the international support for Israel, and the higher the chances of a regional conflagration.

Assuming Israel could hypothetically degrade or dismantle Hamas, an analytical stretch at best and a leap of faith at worst, the longer-term options and outcomes would be suboptimal. Palestinian militias more radical than Hamas could reconstitute themselves, fill the vacuum left by it, and launch a fiercer insurgency. Israel would be reluctant to reoccupy Gaza and become bogged down there, as it had been between 1967 and 2005. The Palestinian Authority could potentially fill the void but confronts a legitimacy crisis with the Palestinians. Neighboring Arab states could step in but would not want to be seen by their citizens and other Arabs and Muslims as ruling over or subjugating the Palestinians and being complicit with Israel, the United States, and other Western countries. International peacekeeping forces like UNIFIL along the Israeli-Lebanese border have a mixed record and are no substitute for local leadership and governance. At the same time, and as previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas have shown, both sides cannot revert to an unsustainable status quo. Finding a feasible or viable political solution will require courage and creativity by local, regional, and international actors—which seem to be in short supply.

Eric Lob is an associate professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University. He is also a non-resident scholar with the Middle East Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.

The Collapse of Israel’s Hamas "Conceptzia"

David Makovsky — October 26, 2023

Whether deliberate or a cruel historic irony, it is remarkable that the Hamas’ barbaric massacre on October 7, which killed 1,400 and injured over 3,300 Israelis, came fifty years and a day after the 1973 war. That war was defined by strategic surprise: Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the holiest day of the year. The postwar Agranat Commission of Inquiry investigated not just the operational surprise but the conceptual failure. This became known as the “conceptzia”: the governing assumption that convinced key Israeli military figures Egypt, unable to engage in the necessary deep penetration bombing of Israel, would not start a war it could not win.

In 1973, the conceptzia was shattered because the Israelis defined Egyptian success differently from President Anwar Sadat. Sadat believed if he were only able to cross the Suez Canal, he would shatter the aura of invincibility Israel had enjoyed since its lightning six-day victory in the 1967 war.

So what was the conceptzia of 2023? Its shattered governing assumption was that under the heavy burden of governing the Gaza Strip, Hamas would feel the need to prove itself through economic performance. Specifically, economic inducements towards Hamas would moderate its foundational belief that Israel is an illegitimate entity whose very existence must be extinguished and its citizens killed. This Israeli conceptzia was driven by many factors, but at its core, it was based on the idea that Hamas was undergoing an organizational evolution in which it would now value even modest increases in living standards in Gaza. Economic advancement would bring calm, as it gave Hamas something to lose. According to this view, Hamas was willing to sacrifice at least some of its ideology on the altar of accommodating itself to the reality of governance.

This basic assumption was similarly held by many American and European diplomats. Israeli officials were also hopeful that it was possible to reach what became known as the “hasdara” or arrangement. If ideology was exacerbated by miserable conditions in Gaza, then perhaps the reverse could be true. Economic improvement could modify ideological zeal. Tragically, this doctrine was proven a complete failure on October 7.

How much of this conceptzia was built on strategic deception by Hamas, and how much by wishful thinking from Israel or other Western countries? Both likely played a role.

For its part, Hamas strongly indicated that it sought stability in Gaza in order to deepen its presence and enhance its threat in the West Bank. Furthermore, it made clear that it appreciated the fact that 17,000-20,000 Gazans worked in Israel, where they received salaries ten times above the average wage in the Strip. As it turns out, perhaps forcibly, it used the workers in Israel to extract intelligence details about neighboring villages. How many kids are in each room? Which families have dogs? These details were part of the intelligence manuals found on Hamas terrorists who were killed on October 7. Finally, Hamas favored a 2019 UN and Egyptian arrangement whereby it would halt violent demonstrations at the Israel-Gaza border and stop launching incendiary balloons to burn Israeli fields in exchange for $30 million a month in Qatari funding to Gaza. This arrangement held for a few years but did not deter Hamas from its massacre in Israel on October 7. Another false signal was Hamas’s decision—twice in recent years—to stay out of the fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This was taken as a sign of pragmatism, as Hamas saw Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a rival for Gazan popular affection.

For Israel’s part, Prime Minister Netanyahu indicated in his memoirs that he thought the Hamas issue was a manageable challenge and that Israel would lose too many soldiers in a ground incursion in Gaza. Netanyahu was invested in this thesis and linked it to his preference for maintaining the schism between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

So what was missed? First, Israel underestimated the primacy of ideology for Hamas despite the serious economic needs of the Gazan population. A telling moment came in 2017 when the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, met with Gazan students, apparently including people skeptical of Hamas. Sinwar vowed that Hamas would only disarm when “Satan enters paradise” and that “there’s not one minute of the day or night when we aren’t building up our military might.”Furthermore, “the discussion is not about recognizing Israel but about wiping it out.” These and many other bellicose declarations were chalked up to domestic considerations. Under the conceptzia, Sinwar was a first-hand witness to the suffering of his people in Gaza and was viewed as different and more sensitive to their concerns than his predecessor Khaled Meshal, who lived in Qatar.

This misreading of Sinwar was exacerbated by the emergence of Salah Arouri as his de facto deputy. Based in Turkey and Lebanon, Arouri sought to incite attacks against Israel in Jenin and other West Bank cities. Arouri seemed to believe Hamas could have it both ways: claim to favor stability in Gaza while dramatically increasing attacks in the West Bank.

In hindsight, there were many indicators that, for Hamas, ideology trumped economics. Hamas avoided negotiations that would have seen the building of a port in Gaza in exchange for disarmament, and when faced with a choice between the financial stability of the Qatari arrangement and pressing its ideology, Hamas made its priorities clear by launching the “Sword of Jerusalem” operation in May 2021.

Another clear but downplayed indicator was that Hamas used any economic gains not to improve public welfare but rather to secure armaments and build tunnels under Gaza for its fighters. Rocket production took precedence over civilian infrastructure.

After the October 7 massacre, there is now widespread agreement across the Israeli political spectrum, shared by President Biden, that Hamas must be removed from power. The President repeatedly likened Hamas to ISIS, an implacable and zealous jihadist foe whose name is synonymous with cruelty and brutality. Hamas is on Israel’s doorstep. Israel must maintain the distinction between Hamas, with whom there can be no coexistence and the bulk of Palestinians who do not share that absolutist ideology. This is bound to become increasingly difficult as the war progresses.

Reeling from the consequence of its failed conceptzia, Israel is determined not to underestimate Hamas’ dedication to its violent ideology again.

David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations. He is also an adjunct professor in Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2013-2014, he worked in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of State, serving as a senior advisor to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.

Image: Shutterstock.

Why Invading Gaza is a Bad Idea

Ali Demirdas — October 26, 2023

The October 7 attack has exposed Israel’s vulnerability in its intelligence and military. The question is how Mossad and the IDF, which rank among the most esteemed intelligence agencies and armed forces in the world, failed to anticipate such a terrifying assault—one that will likely define the future of not only Israel but perhaps the Middle East as well. The answer to this question should determine whether it is a good idea for Israel to invade the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s biggest issue right now is the dangerous political and social division that some argue will eventually destroy the country from within. In a country where everyone counts for defense, thousands of reservists threatened to resign over Netanyahu’s insistence on the judicial overhaul. The Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, warned in July that “If we do not have a strong and unified army if the best do not serve, we will not be able to exist as a country in this region anymore.” The friction between Netanyahu and his cabinet members became so extreme that in March, Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which, after strong protests, he had to withdraw. Ironically, Gallant is now overseeing Netanyahu’s anti-Hamas campaign. This extreme division considered, the notion that Netanyahu might become ever more powerful out of the Gaza debacle, which would subsequently allow him to move forward with the judicial overhaul, is undoubtedly going to determine whether the anti-Netanyahu factions within the military will be willing to perform as expected in Gaza.

Furthermore, the Hamas Blitzkrieg has left the Israeli armed forces members traumatized, such that the trauma experts have warned that the Israeli military is failing to address this issue, and due to that, many Israeli soldiers will find it hard to return to duty in the absence of active steps to provide them with emotional support. A possible Gaza incursion will undoubtedly result in casualties, increasing IDF members’ reluctance to fight.

Netanyahu is banking on the presumption that the US will become militarily involved in the conflict. However, it will be difficult for the Biden administration to sell to Americans another forever war in the Middle East on the eve of the 2024 presidential elections. Accordingly, Israel should not expect American boots on the ground. Iranian-backed militias have already stepped up harassment of the U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq, the latest of which resulted in the injury of twenty-four American servicemen. The arrival of coffins shrouded by American flags will hurt Biden, which will be a strong disincentive to fully support Israel militarily.

All these considered, it is exceedingly looking like an Israeli ground incursion in Gaza will fail to yield results favorable for Jerusalem.

Ali Demirdas is a former Fulbright scholar and professor of international affairs at the College of Charleston (2011–2018). You can follow him on Twitter @AliDemirdasPhD.

Image: IDF/Creative Commons.

What’s in It for Iran?

Pierre Pahlavi — October 26, 2023

No sooner had Hamas conducted its spectacular raid against Israel than the eyes of the whole world turned to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The shock of the incursion into Israeli territory and the scale and sophistication of the operation led many specialists to doubt whether it could have been entirely planned and coordinated by Hamas alone without external intervention. While the Iranian authorities applauded the attacks carried out by Palestinian commandos, some speculated that Iran could be behind this terrorist action. Beyond the degree of involvement of the Iranian regime in “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” it is also worth raising the following questions: to what extent have the Iranians an interest in this sudden outbreak of violence in the Near East, and what could be the longer-term consequences of a renewed tension with Israel and its allies?

Suspicions of direct involvement

The level of planning and expertise required for Hamas’s airborne, amphibious, ground, and subterranean attack has raised the question of whether the Palestinian movement acted alone—and whether it received logistical assistance from Iran. As the first images of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation flashed across screens around the world, the Wall Street Journal promptly asserted that officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, had prepared, with Hamas, the incursions on Israeli territory. During the fateful weekend, on the sidelines of a Franco-German meeting in Hamburg, President Emmanuel Macron considered it “likely” that Hamas had benefited from “external aid.”

Tehran was one of the very first capitals to praise the operation launched by Hamas, a movement that the Islamic Republic has openly financed since its inception in 1988. “Iran supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation,” President Ebrahim Raisi declared the day after the attack. A week before the attack, the Iranian Supreme Leader and the President of the Republic jointly urged Arab countries not to make a pact with Israel to ensure their security, adding that to do so would amount to “betting on the losing horse.”

During a visit to Lebanon at the beginning of September, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with officials from Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The head of the Iranian diplomacy then reiterated to these forces of the “axis of resistance”—an informal anti-Western, anti-Israeli, anti-Saudi, and pro-Iranian political and military alliance—the promise of Tehran’s unwavering support. In April, the senior political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, had already gone to Beirut to meet Hassan Nasrallah, a long-time ally of Tehran and secretary general of the Shiite organization Hezbollah, himself armed and financed since 1982 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

Denial and Caution

Nevertheless, at the time of writing, there is no tangible proof of Iran’s direct involvement in the conduct of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. American and Israeli military officials quickly reached that same conclusion. “What role did Iran play? We don’t know,” said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute: “I don’t think anyone knows.”

Despite their declarations of support for Hamas, the Iranian authorities have also formally denied playing an active role in the October 7 offensive. “Iran does not intervene in the decision-making of other nations, including Palestine,” said Iranian diplomatic spokesperson Nasser Kanani. In a separate statement, the Islamic regime’s mission to the United Nations called the attack “fiercely autonomous and resolutely aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people.” Three days after the tragic Gaza events, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected accusations that his country was behind the massive attack. “Supporters of the Zionist regime have been circulating rumors over the past two or three days, including that Islamic Iran is behind this action. They are false,” declared the Supreme Leader in a speech to a military academy, during which he reaffirmed Iranian support “for Palestine.”

Iran as a “Big Brother”

While rejecting accusations of its direct responsibility for triggering Al-Aqsa Flood, Iran does not hide its total solidarity with Hamas. A backing explicitly illustrated the day after the Gaza events by two giant banners displayed in the center of Tehran: “The great liberation has begun,” proclaimed one of them. Beyond symbols, Iran’s ties to Hamas have long been documented. Western intelligence services estimate that Iran contributes $100 million to Hamas’s $500 million annual budget. A 2021 report by the U.S. State Department established that the group has received funding, weapons, and substantial technical training from Iran and its various organizations like the IRGC and the Quds Force.

Many experts believe Iran has forged a robust strategic partnership with Hamas—even though the latter is a Sunni movement stemming from the Muslim Brotherhood transnational organization. For Gilles Kepel, there is no doubt that the Hamas attack “was only made possible thanks to the all-out help of Shia Iran.” For the Middle East expert, the high degree of coordination between the activities of Hamas in Gaza and those of Hezbollah in Galilee clearly shows the close complicity linking these organizations with the IRGC and al-Quds leadership. Keppel concludes that, even if there is no evidence of direct participation by the latter, the events in Gaza constitute “Israel’s 9/11.”

Although the details of Iranian-Palestinian cooperation remain shadowy, Washington maintains little doubt about the responsibility of the Islamic Republic in the October 2023 terrorist attack against Israel. Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser, expressed his convictions that Tehran is “largely accessory” to the Hamas raid. “What we can be fairly certain of is that Iran has been largely complicit in these attacks through its decades-long support of Hamas,” Finer stated in an interview on ABC, adding that U.S. intelligence services continue investigating Iran’s exact role in Gaza events.

Tehran’s Geopolitical motives

Beyond the Iran-Hamas ideological alliance, there remains the question of the strategic interest that Iran could have in a sudden outbreak of violence in the Middle East. U.S. authorities consider that Iranian encouragement, direct or indirect, is motivated by the desire to disrupt the process of diplomatic rapprochement between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf monarchies. Iranian leaders have made no secret of their staunch opposition to the process initiated by the Abraham Accords. A close adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, recently warned countries hoping to resolve their problems by normalizing relations with “Zionists” that they were seriously endangering their security and the region.

Analysts also agree that Hamas and the Iranian regime have a common interest in torpedoing the extension of the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. For Ismail Haniyeh’s Palestinian movement, any progress made in this direction by American diplomacy could—if successful—lead to the establishment of peaceful coexistence between Israel and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, synonymous with abandonment and marginalization of the Palestinian cause. For the Islamic Republic, a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement could ultimately lead to the emergence of a more robust anti-Iran regional bloc.

By reigniting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and Hamas seem to have already partially succeeded in derailing the extension of the Abraham Accords. The Gaza crisis is shaking up the Middle East’s political landscape. The massive bombings of the Israeli air force on the Gaza Strip with its civilian victims and devastation have forced the Arab capitals to distance themselves from the Netanyahu government. The vast majority of Arab chancelleries have formally accused Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories of being the source of the current crisis. Riyadh authorities were quick to suspend negotiations. Egypt and Jordan, pressured by their own public opinions, are also reviewing the emerging links with the Jewish state. In the longer term, the chill cast on the process of Israeli-Arab rapprochement risks calling into question the strategy of isolating Iran initiated by Washington. Unless, of course, all this results in widespread military conflagration.

Are clouds of war gathering?

Many observers now wonder whether the current crisis has the potential to lead to open conflict. At first glance, certain elements do not encourage optimism. Like the Balkans at the beginning of the 20th century, the Middle East is a veritable powder keg, and, as in 1914, the game of alliances could lead to a regional—or even global—conflict. The intensification of Hezbollah strikes on the Galilee could lead to Israeli larger-scale retaliation, which could, in turn, generate an escalation of tensions likely to result in a wider conflagration. Furthermore, the characteristic of this type of “gray zone” rivalry is the lack of clarity and communication—leaving room for miscalculated escalation.

However, other elements suggest that a regional conflagration is not entirely inevitable. First, all the protagonists are perfectly aware of the dangers of a spiraling conflict and the catastrophic consequences that a direct clash could have on the conventional battlefield. This is why they have, until now, refrained from confronting each other directly, relying instead on proxies and indirect approaches. Even though Iran has threatened to “intervene in the conflict” should Israel launch a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, they are all reluctant to embark on a peer-to-peer conflict.

Finally, the balance of military power is particularly disadvantageous for Iran in terms of conventional military capabilities. Iran’s army can count on several hundred thousand combatants but does not have the high-tech military equipment to support their deployment. Unlike the Iranians, the Israelis have access to the latest military technology but, for various reasons, do not have the means or legitimacy required to deploy an expeditionary force on a regional scale. Aware of this situation and the advantages that can be gained from it, Iran will, therefore, do everything to avoid confrontation by continuing to rely on a hybrid and asymmetric approach below the threshold of direct violence. For all the reasons above, an open war of a conventional type between the Islamic Republic and its regional adversaries, although possible, remains unlikely.

Toward high-intensity psychological warfare

Among Iran’s many benefits from its collaboration with Hamas, the first is to derail the normalization process between the petro-monarchies and Israel. Even the most pragmatic Arab capitals today denounce the bombings of the civilian populations of Gaza while calling for a pause in the rapprochement with the Jewish state. Indirectly, the crisis born from the October 7 attack also allowed Iran to deepen the geopolitical gap between Western countries and, on the other hand, China, Russia, and emerging countries.

Another benefit Iran derives from the current crisis is establishing its status as the “champion of the Arab street” in the region. Furthermore, Hamas’s land invasion of southern Israel has helped Tehran strengthen the so-called “axis” of resistance to the Jewish state. Finally, Hamas’ attack under the noses of Mossad and the Shin Bet allows Iran to question Israel’s technological invincibility and military supremacy. Ismail Haniyeh and his Iranian sponsors did not hold back from mocking the Hebrew State as “incapable of protecting itself.”

Sticking to their trademark asymmetrical approach, Mullahs and Revolutionary Guards will continue to rely on their powerful propaganda apparatus to exploit Israel’s “humiliation” to restore the image of the Islamic regime heavily tarnished by the recent veil uprising. Generally speaking, Iranian leaders will be playing, as during the 33-day war in the summer of 2006, the psychological card to promote a reconfiguration of the regional game to their advantage —even if, in doing so, they also know that they are playing with fire.

Pierre Pahlavi is a full professor at the Royal Military College of Canada in the Department of Defence Studies, co-located with the Canadian Forces College, Canada’s Staff and War College. His research focuses on Iran and its asymmetric strategies, public diplomacy, and the use of force in the international system. He has published in various journals in strategic and security studies. He has recently published a book on the Iranian revolution, Le Marécage des Ayatollahs, prized by the Académie Française. He has a PhD in political science from McGill University.

Image: Shutterstock.

The SR-71 Blackbird Spy Plane Was 'Hit' by Shrapnel During Vietnam War

Maya Carlin — October 26, 2023

The SR-71 was once nearly taken out: The F-35 Lightening II and F-22 Raptor are widely considered to be the best fighter jets to ever fly the skies.

These formidable fifth-generation airframes possess unparalleled capabilities and top-of-the-line specs. However, one Cold War era platform has both modern fighters beat in one category: speed.

The Lockheed Martin SR-71 can reach speeds of Mach 3.3, that’s more than three times as fast as the speed of sound.

Despite the fact that the “Blackbird” is more than four decades older than its successors, the airframe retains its legendary status in aviation history.

A Brief Overview of the Blackbird

Back in the 1960s, the “black project” to develop the SR-71 airframe was conceptualized as part of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division. Previously, the U.S. Air Force relied on the U-2 airframe for reconnaissance, however, this plane’s slow speed made it a liability.

When the U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers was downed by the Soviet Union early in this decade, the CIA’s need for a new and improved reconnaissance plane became very evident.

The Lockheed Martin A-12 was developed to fulfill the CIA’s spy plane needs.

While the airframe was much faster than its U-2 predecessor, the A-12’s aluminum frame could simply not handle the extremely high temperatures caused by flying at such fast speeds.

Ultimately, American engineers turned to titanium to rectify this friction issue.

When the Blackbird was developed, it was fully fitted with a titanium exterior. Able to fly at nearly 2,000 mph, the SR-71 could fly at a higher altitude than any of its foreign and domestic counterparts and at faster speeds, making the plane very challenging for enemy aircraft to detect.

SR-71 Blackbird Plane Came Close to Being Shot Down in Vietnam

During its tenure in combat, the Blackbird notably evaded ‘almost’ all enemy fire.

According to the Aviation Geek Club, only one SR-71 airframe was hit by shrapnel during the Vietnam War.

Former Master Sergeant at U.S. Air Force Jim Goodall told the aviation outlet that out of all the former SR-71 Blackbird pilots he had interviewed, one by the name of Dennis Sullivan could speak of a close encounter with one of these airframes.

As detailed in the interview, Sullivan confronted some debris from part of a Soviet-designed SA-2 over Vietnam, and “he survived multiple SAM missile attacks on his Oxcar while he was cruising at altitudes in excess of 82,000 feet. The damage was found on a post-flight inspection and the composite inboard leading edge had something wedged in it, and the CIA identified it as part of the fusing mechanism of the SA-2.”

An article in Air & Space Forces Magazine later confirmed the incident, adding that:

“On another October flight, pilot Dennis Sullivan detected radar tracking on his first pass over North Vietnam. Two sites prepared to launch missiles, but neither did. During the second pass, however, at least six missiles were fired at Sullivan’s aircraft, each confirmed on mission photos by missile vapor trails. Sullivan saw these vapor trails and witnessed three missile detonations. Postflight inspection of the aircraft revealed that a piece of metal had penetrated the lower right wing fillet area and lodged against the support structure of the wing tank. The fragment was not a warhead pellet but may have been a part of the debris from one of the missile detonations observed by the pilot.”

Despite this incident, the Blackbird could still arguably be referred to as one of the most invincible airframes to ever fly the skies.

Image Credit: All Images are Creative Commons.

Yes, This F-14 Tomcat 'Banana Pass' Photo Is Very Scary and Totally Real

Maya Carlin — October 26, 2023

In a famous photo from 1988 (see the link to the left), Capt. Dale “Snort” Snodgrass, executive officer of the VF-33 Starfighters, performs a low level maneuver known as a banana pass off the USS America aircraft carrier.

The photo - and the one shown above - became an instant classic for military aviation fans, demonstrating the power and precision of jet fighters.

Introducing the F-14 Tomcat

Snort in the photo is piloting a Grumman F-14 Tomcat, the U.S. Navy’s premier fighter-interceptor during the latter half of the Cold War.

Developing a replacement for the F-4 Phantom, the Tomcat’s designers in the 1970s drew extensively on lessons learned during the Vietnam War to produce a highly capable fighter. To replace the F-4, the Navy was looking to acquire an aircraft that could intercept and shoot down missiles fired at its carriers while also holding its own in air-to-air combat. Its distinctive swept wings allow it to cruise at Mach-2.4 while also maintaining control at the slow speeds required for carrier recovery.

Specs and Capabilities

This slow-speed maneuvering capability was also essential in dogfights, where the F4 Phantom was found to be less agile than the Soviet MiGs against which it faced off. Furthermore, many dogfights in Vietnam ended in a draw even if American pilots were able to gain an advantageous position, because early missiles were highly prone to failure. To counter this, the Navy insisted on the inclusion of a gun on the F-14. Should the high-tech missiles fail, good old-fashioned bullets would do the trick.

In addition to interception and dogfighting, the F-14 could be fitted with air-to-ground rockets and bombs. It saw combat in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom striking targets’ JDAMs.

Low-Level Pass or Banana Pass

The photo, which shows an F-14 up on a wing apparently right next to the carrier, puts the capabilities of the aircraft on proud display.

Beginning from behind the ship, Snort went to full afterburner and rolled up on a wing as he passed the stern of the ship for a dramatic moment.

While Snodgrass did say “it’s not risky at all with practice,” there are some definite dangers involved with this maneuver. When an aircraft banks, its lift vector — the imaginary line that represents the force of the wings keeping it aloft — is no longer pointing directly upward. If the pilot does nothing else, the plane will begin to sink. To counteract this effect, the pilot must pull back on the stick. The greater the angle of bank, the greater the back stick.

As Snodgrass says, he was at “an 85 degree angle of bank” requiring “a 2-3 g turn.” The catch is that he was turning into the carrier with little room for error. If anyone was to pull off this maneuver, it would be Snodgrass, the first Naval Aviator to qualify on the F-14 as his first platform. Named “Fighter Pilot of the Year” by the U.S. Navy in 1985 and “TopCat of the Year” by Grumman in 1986, Snodgrass knew his machine and its limits.

Following his Navy career, Snodgrass continued his impressive flying feats, learning to pilot a variety of retired warbirds and flying in multiple airshows. Sadly, he was killed in a crash in 2021. His legacy as an acclaimed aviator lives on in this photo.

The photo used is a Creative Commons version of the same style of the F-14 flight pass. All photos are Creative Commons.