Diplomacy & Crisis News

Scott Lincicome

Politics, Americas

It turns out, people just keep getting richer.

A frequent refrain among Washington populists (and in omnipresent political advertising) these days is that decades of global capitalism have “hollowed out” the center of the American workforce, leaving two predominant classes in the United States: the poor and the super‐​rich (aka “the 1%”). The alleged “polarization” of the American workforce drives domestic and international economic policies on the left and the right, all of which seek to “restore” the middle class to its long‐​past glory (and often blame the “rich” for deliberately causing the current predicament).

New research, however, calls this narrative into question by examining individuals over time instead of the prevailing methods of analyzing certain groups – most notably income classes or occupations – during certain periods. These “real world” analyses reveal that, while the American middle class is indeed shrinking, this trend has been caused less by “polarization” (i.e., Americans moving both up and down the economic ladder) and more by Americans simply getting richer.

First, in a new Brookings Institution analysis, George Washington University’s Stephen Rose conducted a “longitudinal” analysis of the same people over time using the popular Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID) dataset. These data, Rose tells the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson, “provide a picture of what is really happening to people because they have data on each specific person for many years.” In particular, Rose examined individuals aged 25 to 44 during two different 15‐​year periods: 1967–1981 and 2002–2016. To standardize the data, he converted all individuals into “family units” of three and adjusted for inflation (using Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Personal Consumption Expenditure price deflator). The results, which the Post helpfully summarized in the table below, run counter to the prevailing “polarization” narrative:

As the table makes clear, the predominant trend during and across the two periods – although certainly less so during second one – is fewer poor and lower/​middle‐​class Americans and more upper‐​middle and rich Americans. Rose thus draws two important conclusions from these data:

First, while the benefits of economic growth have not accrued equally, they have not gone solely to the top 1%. The upper middle class has grown. Second, the main reason for the shrinking of the middle class (defined in absolute terms) is the increase in the number of people with higher incomes.

He also finds another bit of good news: “many more Black people are in higher income classes” during the latter period (though there is still more work to do in that regard). Samuelson helpfully adds in his Post piece that these figures likely understate the individuals’ actual gains, because the income figures do not include government transfers (which, as this CBO analysis demonstrates, substantially improves poor and middle class income gains over time) or non‐​wage employer compensation like healthcare premium contributions. (I’d also note that the latter period not only featured the 2008-09 Great Recession and the 2015–16 “mini‐​recession” in U.S. manufacturing, but could show even more improvement if it ended last year instead of 2016 and thus captured the strong gains for middle‐​class workers in 2018–19.)

Second, a 2019 paper from Jennifer Hunt and Ryan Nunn provides similar conclusions when examining wages at the individual level (rather than occupation‐​average wages) over time. They explain that “[w]hile occupations may provide reliable information about tasks and the nature of work at a point in time, average occupation wages are in general not appropriate proxies for individual wages, nor is the distribution of occupations by average wage very informative about the distribution of workers’ wages” (and thus wage inequality and polarization), in large part because wages can vary dramatically within occupations (even those classified as “low wage”).

Instead, they assign workers to real hourly wage “bins,” ignoring specific occupations and their average wages, and then track annual changes in the shares of workers in each bin between 1973 and 2018, again adjusting for inflation. The groups examined here are different from those used by Rose – the highest‐​wage bin starts at $35.08 (equivalent to about $70,000 per year), and these individuals are not converted to 3‐​person “family equivalents” – but the findings are nevertheless similar: low and middle‐​wage jobs are slowly declining while higher‐​wage jobs are increasing more quickly:

These general (and positive) long‐​term trends do not change when adjusting for worker hours or business cycles, or when increasing the number of wage bins from four to ten. In summarizing their research at VoxEU, the authors conclude: “The share of workers earning middle wages has declined for the last 50 years…. But in a departure from employment polarisation, the figure does not show simultaneous increases in the top and bottom group shares…. [S]hares of workers earning bottom and top wages have generally moved in opposite directions, and do not rise together in the polarising fashion that would provide a link to rising wage inequality.” They subsequently find that women benefited most from these trends, though their analysis of male wages still shows a long‐​run increase in high‐​wage jobs and no clear “polarization” trend:

These “real world” analyses effectively counter the “polarization” narrative that we hear so frequently from politicians, pundits and the media. They (and some other recent assessments, including one on this very blog) show that America’s middle class is indeed getting smaller, but it is primarily because Americans are moving up the economic ladder.

This good news, of course, does not mean that all is well in U.S. labor markets or with the American middle class. The studies show, for example, less significant and less stable gains for male workers (Hunt/​Nunn) or for all workers in more recent periods (Rose), as well as the increasing importance of education for upward mobility in the United States (both). And, while each study accounts for inflation (including housing costs), they do not address important cost‐​based challenges that are specific to certain American workers (e.g., higher education costs) or to important U.S. labor markets (e.g., coastal “megacities” like New York). Nevertheless, those very real challenges are very different, and more nuanced, than the common narrative peddled by populists like Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley about nefarious elites and multinational corporations “hollowing out” the American middle class. These challenges also require different policy responses (many at the state and local level), such as improving educational outcomes, eliminating occupational licensing or other regulations that stifle mobility, or lowering the cost of essential goods and services (see, e.g., my colleague Ryan Bourne’s suggestions or my recent presentation on housing costs), instead of punitive federal wealth taxes, wage controls, protectionism, or abandoning capitalism altogether.

U.S. policymakers should therefore focus their attention on these specific challenges and reforms — and maybe save the populist uprising for another day.

This article by Scott Lincicome first appeared in CATO on August 20, 2020.

Image: Reuters.

Regina Smyth

Politics, Eurasia

Navalny’s efforts have captured the imagination of young Russians and demonstrated the effects of generational change.

The harrowing videos of Alexei Navalny, a blogger who has captured popular frustration in Russia, screaming in agony on Aug. 20, 2020 before being removed unconscious from a plane to a waiting ambulance, demonstrate the Kremlin’s increasing reliance on coercion to control dissent.

This attack is not the first Navalny has endured. In 2017, he was doused with a green antibiotic that compromised his vision. In 2019, while in jail for organizing protests, he suspected he had been poisoned. Navalny has also been wrongly convicted on charges of financial wrong-doing three times. Although he was released to prevent him from becoming a national martyr, his brother and co-defendant, Oleg, served three-and-a-half years in jail.

Throughout this period, the Kremlin worked to discredit Navalny without making him a martyr.

My book “Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability: Russia 2008-2020,” reveals the nature of Navalny’s threat to the Kremlin – one strong enough to make the claims that he has been poisoned credible.

Focus on Corruption

When he came onto the national stage 2010, Navalny brought a new type of opposition to Russian politics. He is in tune with popular concerns and able to find common ground across nationalist and liberal activists. He calls for removing President Vladimir Putin through elections, while articulating a new vision for Russia.

Navalny’s importance is not about popularity. The Kremlin’s arrests and disinformation campaigns have raised enough suspicions among voters that polling shows he would not win a national election, even in the unlikely event of a fair fight.

Instead, Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s regime rests on his innovative ideas and organizing strategies that have made him a force in Russian politics.

He began as a lawyer, challenging the large Russian energy companies by buying stock and thus gaining the right to attend shareholders’ meetings. He used his access to defy corporate leadership and release documents to demonstrate malfeasance.

He established The Anti-Corruption Foundation – now labeled a “Foreign Agent” by the Kremlin – which collected citizens’ reports of corrupt practices. His RosYama project, literally “Russian Hole,” allows citizens to go online to report potholes – a widespread, chronic problem in Russia – and track the government response.

Navalny amplified his anti-corruption fight in 2011, when he labeled Putin’s political party, United Russia, the “Party of Crooks and Thieves”. When these efforts contributed to mass protest against electoral fraud, Navalny was at the fore. Addressing an unprecedented crowd in 2011, he said, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet.”

He joined the movement’s Coordination Council and forged ties across the diverse opposition with the goal of reforming Putinism.

His canny use of social media has given thousands of Russians – both old and, especially, young – new insight and ways to protest against their government.

New Model of Opposition

Navalny drew on the resources of these protests – activists, themes, online fundraising strategies and new coalitions – to build an opposition strategy that links elections and a variety of forms of protest. He brought together an impressive team of young activists who challenge the regime at every step of the election process, from party formation to candidate registration and vote counting.

Volunteers go door-to-door or accompany candidates to meet voters on their daily commutes or in apartment courtyards. They build temporary structures, called “cubes,” on busy streets, where they educate voters about policy. Campaign leaders urge activists to share online messages offline with those who do not use the internet.

New Electoral Technologies

When he fell ill, Navalny was campaigning on behalf of a new generation of local candidates.

By demonstrating that Russian elections are little more than performances of the state’s capacity to manufacture votes, the Navalny team reveals the lack of choice and accountability in the system.

In summer 2019, this strategy led to significant protests after the regime barred almost all of the opposition candidates in Moscow’s municipal elections. When the government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, Navalny’s team built a web-based way to identify any candidate who shared its values and urged voters to support that candidate – even if the candidate was in a party that they detested.

Recent work by political scientists Mikhail Turchenko and Grigorii Golosov demonstrate that Navalny’s “Smart Vote” strategy made a real difference in Russias’s 2019 local elections, helping to defeat nearly a third of Putin-aligned candidates in Moscow. Navalny’s team was gearing up to do the same thing in the September 2020 vote.

Social Media Innovation

Navalny’s creative use of new media is not limited to pothole repairs and voting apps. Beginning in 2006, he wrote a popular blog on the Live Journal social networking service. When the Kremlin shut down his blog in 2012, he reinvented his social media presence.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation produced a short film, “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” that lampooned former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev by showing his vast sneaker collection and flying a drone over his duck pond. Like ducks, sneakers became symbols of the opposition. The expose revealed the myth of Medvedev as an honest leader.

The exposes have continued on Navalny’s YouTube channel. His broadcasts have probed Russian intervention in U.S. elections, the Kremlin’s failure to provide COVID-19 relief and rigged Russian elections. These stories challenge the narrative presented in Russian state media, combating the regime’s systematic disinformation campaign.

Inspiring a New Generation

Navalny’s efforts have captured the imagination of young Russians and demonstrated the effects of generational change. Following “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” tens of thousands of young people took to the streets, shocking a country that believed Putin’s opposition was played out. Months later, they flocked to join Navalny’s presidential campaign organization.

Navalny knew the dangers of being the face of opposition to the Putin regime. The day before he fell ill, he joked with young supporters that his death would do more harm to the Kremlin than his activism.

It’s clear that Russians – who have taken to Twitter to urge him to hold on – don’t want to test that hypothesis.

Regina Smyth, Professor, Indiana University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Kris Osborn

Security, Space

The U.S. Air Force is taking fast new steps to rev up for warfare beyond the Earth’s atmosphere by networking satellites and prototyping innovative new weapons for use in space, due in large measure to rapid Chinese and Russian advances.

The U.S. Air Force is taking fast new steps to rev up for warfare beyond the Earth’s atmosphere by networking satellites and prototyping innovative new weapons for use in space, due in large measure to rapid Chinese and Russian advances.

“Almost all of our military capabilities depend upon space capabilities, and our adversaries are weaponizing space,” Lieutenant General JT Thompson, Commander, Space and Missile Center, told The Mitchell Institute in a video series. 

Space war technology increasingly involves a wide span of sensors and weapons systems, including satellite-mounted missiles or lasers, cyber hardening, electronic warfare (EW) applications and defenses against anti-satellite weapons (ASAT). 

These are areas, Thompson explained, where China continues to make fast progress.

“China’s strategic support force with their EW and cyber force has begun training specialized units with ASAT weapons,” he said. 

The U.S. strategy, in response, is multifaceted, including ASAT defenses, new missile defense systems, new infrared missile warning sensors, space-based offensive weapons and even the possibility of some kind of space drone. 

Of greatest significance, and very close to being a possibility, is the Pentagon effort to network satellites to one another and launch additional smaller, agile, and faster lower-altitude sensors. Moreover, the sensors built into satellites themselves will increasingly perform more independent command and control functions, in some instances helping to discern the difference between an actual ICBM or nearby decoys intended to thwart and confuse defenses. Most seekers at the moment often rely upon missile-integrated sensors tasked with guiding various anti-missile weapons called “Kill Vehicles.”

“Gone are the days of every satellite having to have its own unique ground control segment. We have fueled innovation with rapid prototyping and have been making schedule and delivery a key performance parameter,” Thompson explained. 

Networking satellites to one another through hardened connections with both ground terminals and other space-operating satellites can enable U.S. Commanders to establish a more accurate, continuous track on approaching weapons traveling through space. Instead of tracking or handing off threat data from one field of view to another in a separated or stovepiped fashion, meshed networks of satellites can massively improve sensor-to-shooter time for human decision-makers. 

There are several interesting technical elements here, such as current initiatives to integrate ground terminals successfully to each other through large-scale cloud migration with various kinds of hardened transmission systems. 

One element of this includes U.S. efforts to construct and add large constellations of Very Low Earth Orbit Satellites (vLEOs). These assets can move quickly, operate closer to the Earth, and quickly connect data while in space, all while closely tracking ground activity. Not only does this naturally improve space warfighting operations, but it also furthers the Air Force’s “redundancy” strategy, meaning a larger, more dispersed collection of satellites can ensure operations continue in the event that one is destroyed or disabled. 

China is also quickly adding new satellites to space, as evidenced by the recent launch of an upgraded Long March 11A system, described in a May report from China’s Online People’s Daily.

“The Long March 11A will be able to send 1.5 tons of payload to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers, nearly four times the Long March 11s capacity,” the paper says. 

The larger payload will allow a wider range of sensors, cameras, long-range data link signals, and possibly even function as a weapons detection or delivery system.

“Two satellites carried by a Long March-2D carrier rocket were launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Northwest China’s Gansu province, May 31, 2020,” the report said.

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

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

History, Europe

A forgotten tale of World War II.

Key Point: The catastrophe's impact would far outlast the Allied war effort.

On November 26, 1943 the SS John Harvey cruised into the harbor of Bari, Italy. The placid port city of 250,000, which had an old quarter dating back to the Middle Ages, had been seized by British paratroopers several months earlier without a fight. Located in southern Italy near the heel of the Italian boot, it was safely distant from the frontline to the north.

The Harvey’s cargo security officer seemed especially eager to expedite the unloading of his ship, but he could not explain to port authorities why his ship should be given priority over the dozens of others—so instead the Harvey await her turn at Pier 29 for five days. By December 2, Harvey was merely one of nine huge 14,000-ton Liberty ships in the harbor.

Indeed, the small port was swarming with more than two dozen Allied ships—one convoy lined up at the quays, unloading vast cargoes of aviation fuel and munitions, the second packed together, awaiting its turn. This vast logistical outpouring was intended to supply the British troops of the Eighth Army, then preparing for a slugging match over the fortress monastery of Monte Cassino, as well as to provide fuel and bombs for the hulking strategic bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force, which would soon begin a wide-ranging aerial bombing campaign over southeastern Europe.

The British did not think Bari was at much risk of attack, and correspondingly did not deploy any fighters for air defense and only a small number of anti-aircraft guns. The German Luftwaffe had fought intense air battles over the Mediterranean throughout 1943, but the by the end of the year its strength seemed to be spent.

In reality, however, German feldmarschall Albert Kesselring had been convinced by Wolfram von Richthofen (cousin of the famed Red Baron from World War I), that the port was a target ripe for the plucking. On December 2, the same day that British air marshal Arthur Coningham announced at a press conference that the air war over Italy had been won, a German twin-engine Me.210 fighter photographed the harbor—the transport ships moored dangerously close to each other in an effort to expedite unloading.

By the late afternoon 105 Ju-88A4 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 54 were flying southeast into the Adriatic Sea—then swerved west to attack Bari from the east. Their approach was preceded by a few aircraft dropping strips of metallic foil to cloud Allied radars.

The harbor remained brilliantly illuminated, as port officials had kept the lights on to expedite the unloading process. This made the rows of densely packed ships the perfect target as the twin-engine bombers swooped down at 7:30 PM and unleashed their 3,000-pound bomb loads and Italian-made Motobomba circling torpedos.

One of the harbor’s refueling pipelines was severed, causing it to pour petrol into the harbor. Two ships packed full of ammunition were struck SC250 bombs, causing massive explosions. The fires reached ammunition stored inside the Harvey, causing a titanic eruption that blew the vessel apart in a cloud of flame and sent a massive concussion wave rippling across the armor that knocked ships ajar.

The flames mixed with spilled petrol and aviation fuel, causing a massive wall of fire to course across the harbor, setting additional vessels aflame. A huge cloud of oily smoke swept over the port and drifted into the nearby city, smelling rather oddly of garlic.

The German air attacks was over in less than twenty minutes, with only a single bomber shot down by flak. It left the port an inferno. No less than five huge Liberty ships had been destroyed, as well as two Canadian Fort ships of equivalent size and more than a dozen smaller transports. The ships that had escaped destruction were damaged. 34,000 tons of war materiel had been lost. You can see a footage of the aftermath here.

Hundreds of wounded, oil-slicked sailors were left floundering for their lives in the waters of the harbor. A massive rescue effort was launched to recover the mariners, while other vessels towed burning hulks out of the way of surviving ships. Two damaged British Hunt-class destroyers, HMS Bicester and Zetland, managed to wend their way through an obstacle course of burning wrecks to escape, picking up dozens of survivors as they went. British motor torpedo boats cruised around the harbor, picking up survivors from the morass. Once removed from the water, the mariners were wrapped in blankets to treat for exposure.

The fires on some of the ships raged for weeks. Meanwhile, doctors treating survivors of the attacks began to notice strange chemical burns and blistering on the survivors, many of whom complained of lesion in their eyes and swelling blisters in bodily cavities. Many had developed violent coughs as well. Some burn victims seemed to fall ill and die without apparent cause. Hundreds of civilians in Bari poured into Allied hospitals as well—even those not exposed to bomb blasts.

Rescue crews unharmed by the attack began to fall ill. The command crew of HMS Bicester became so afflicted by blindness that none were able to pilot the ship; a replacement crew had to be shuttled in to bring the vessel into port at Taranto.

Responding to suspicions of a German poison gas attack, chemical warfare expert Lt. Col. Stewart Francis Alexander flew down to Bari and examined the survivor’s injuries. He concluded that they corresponded to mustard gas, but almost no one was left alive in Bari who knew about the gas bombs. He also observed that the majority of affected mariners came from ships berthed next to Harvey. He directed an inquiry up the chain of command, which finally uncovered the astounding truth.

The Allies’ Secret Stash

Prior to the attack, Allied intelligence had received word that German chemical weapons had been moved to the Italian theater. Though all major powers in World War II maintained chemical warfare stocks, they mostly refrained from deploying them in battle for fear of the retaliatory attacks. Fearing that the German policy might change, President Roosevelt secretly authorized the movement of chemical warfare assets to Italy.

This was why the Harvey’s hold contained more than 2000 bullet-shaped M47A2 bombs pumped full of ‘Agent H’—mustard gas. A thin steel shell, less than a millimeter thick, contained the liquid sulfur mustard in the notoriously leaky bombs. Despite its low lethality rate, mustard gas was one the most dreaded chemical weapons of World War I. Mere skin contact with the carcinogenic gas would eventually cause large, agonizing blisters full of yellow pus to form on the skin and blinding conjunctivitis in the eyes. If inhaled, bleeding ulcers could form in the lungs. The gas was so corrosive, the air-dropped M47 bombs had to be coated with a special oil to protect from being eaten from the inside out.

The secrecy around the munitions meant that even the Harvey’s captain, Eliot Knowles, was not supposed to be in the know. The Harvey’s cargomaster did know about the bombs, but he wasn’t supposed to reveal that to Allied authorities in Bari.

The explosion of the Harvey had vaporized some of the gas, causing to mix with the clouds of oily smoke pouring over the harbor, which was inhaled by numerous sailors. The mustard gas had also mixed with the oil slicking through the harbor into a fatal cocktail that adhered to the skin of shipwrecked sailors. The correct treatment for such mustard-gas exposure is to remove clothing and wash off the skin. By wrapping them in blankets while wearing their poison-drenched clothing, rescued sailors had been inadvertently super-exposed. Even before he received confirmation, Steward ordered medical personal to treat victims as victims of a mustard gas attack, saving lives.

Altogether, more than 628 Allied personnel and civilians were treated for exposure to mustard gas, of whom eighty-three did not survive. However, many additional civilians fled the city after the raid and may have succumbed to the poison. Altogether, in addition to 1000 dead allied personnel, it is estimated that at least another 1000 Italian civilians perished as a result of the raid and the chemical spill.

Winston Churchill fiercely asserted that the incident needed to be covered up. Churchill believed that if the Germans got the impression that an Allied chemical attack was imminent, they might respond with a chemical attack of their own. A Nazi chemical attack would have been deadly indeed, as the Germans had invented nerve gas—an agent many times more lethal than mustard gas. Documents were destroyed, and the incident was hushed up. Still, words somehow reached Axis intelligence, as radio propagandist Axis Sally taunted Allied troops over the radio waves about the chemical spell. Nonetheless, the chemical accident wasn’t declassified until 1959, and did not become widely known until Glen Infield published Disaster at Bari in 1967.

The Bari raid ranks among the most effective air strikes of the war. The harbor was closed for three weeks and not fully operational until February. The attack delayed both the advance of the British Eighth  Army and the operations of the Fifteenth Air Force for two entire months. However, the chemical disaster was a result of excessive secrecy and irresponsible management.

Still, the catastrophe did come with one consequence that would far outlast its impact on the Allied war effort. Colonel Alexander had noted that the mustard gas victims had exhibited decreased white blood cell counts, even though such cells divided very quickly. Alexander kept tissue samples of the victims and wrote in his report that mustard sulfur, or some other similar compound, might be effective in killing fast-replicating cancer cells. His idea and findings inspired researchers Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman to pioneer the use of mechlorethamine, which is a nitrogen-based analogue to mustard sulfur, as an effective treatment for lymphoma and leukemia.

Thus did a horrifying disaster helped spur the development of chemotherapy, which has saved countless lives in the last sixty years.

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

This article first appeared in 2018 and is reprinted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

John Chang

Public Health, World

Although there are many treatments for IBD, for as many as 75% of individuals with IBD there are no effective long-term treatments.

Between 6 and 8 million people worldwide suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, a group of chronic intestinal disorders that can cause belly pain, urgent and frequent bowel movements, bloody stools and weight loss. New research suggests that a malfunctioning member of the patient’s own immune system called a killer T cell may be one of the culprits. This discovery may provide a new target for IBD medicines.

The two main types of IBD are ulcerative colitis, which mainly affects the colon, and Crohn’s disease, which can affect the entire digestive tract. Researchers currently believe that IBD is triggered when an overactive immune system attacks harmless bacteria in the intestines. Although there are many treatments for IBD, for as many as 75% of individuals with IBD there are no effective long-term treatments. This leaves many patients without good options.

I am a physician-scientist conducting research in immunology and IBD and in a new study, my team and our colleagues specializing in immunology, gastroenterology and genomics examined immune cells from the blood and intestines of healthy individuals and compared them with those collected from patients with ulcerative colitis to gain a better understanding of how the immune system malfunctions in IBD. There are many reasons why current treatments aren’t permanent, but one reason is that scientists don’t fully understand how the immune system is involved in IBD. It is our hope that closing the current knowledge gap about how the immune system is involved in this disorder will eventually lead to new durable treatments for IBD that target the right immune cells.

Immunology 101

The immune system can be divided into innate and adaptive branches. The innate branch is our first line of defense and acts quickly – within minutes to hours. But this system senses changes caused by microbes generally. It does not mount a targeted response against a specific pathogen, which means that some invaders can be overlooked.

The adaptive branch is designed to detect specific threats, but is slower and takes a couple of days to get going. T cells are a part of the adaptive immune system and can be further subdivided into CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells.

CD4⁺ T cells are helpers that aid other immune cells by releasing soluble molecules called cytokines that can induce inflammation.

CD8⁺ T cells can also release cytokines, but their main function is to kill cells infected by microbial invaders. This is why CD8⁺ T cells are often referred to as serial killers.

After the infection is cleared and the pathogen has been destroyed, cells called memory T cells remain. These memory T cells “remember” the pathogen they’ve just encountered and if they see it again, they mount a stronger and faster response than the first time. They and their descendants can also live for a long time, even decades in the case of certain infections like measles.

The goal of a vaccine is to provide a preview of the microbe so that the immune system can build an army of memory cells against an infectious agent, such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. That way, if the virus attacks, the memory T cells will spring into action and activate an immune response including the production of antibodies from B cells.

Memory T Cells that Reside in Organs

Immunologists further subdivide memory T cells into different classes depending on if and where they travel in the body. Circulating memory T cells are scouts that look for signs of infection by patrolling the blood, lymph nodes and spleen.

Tissue-resident memory cells, abbreviated TRM, are sentries stationed at key ports of entry into the human body – including the skin, lungs, and intestines – and act rapidly to counter an infectious threat. Intestinal TRM also function as peacekeepers and do not tend to overreact against the many harmless microbes living in the intestines.

In the new study, our team analyzed blood and intestinal samples to discover that intestinal CD8⁺ TRM come in at least four different varieties, each with unique features and functions.

We noticed that individuals with ulcerative colitis had higher numbers and proportions of cells belonging to one of these four varieties. This particular variety, which we’ll call inflammatory TRM here, carried instructions to make very large amounts of cytokines and other protein factors that allow them to kill other cells. High levels of certain cytokines can cause inflammation and tissue damage in the body.

It seems that in individuals with ulcerative colitis, the balance of memory cells is shifted in favor of this rogue population of inflammatory TRM that may become part of the problem by causing persistent inflammation and tissue damage.

We also found evidence consistent with the possibility that these inflammatory TRM might be exiting the intestinal tissue and entering the blood. Other studies in mice and people have shown that TRM, despite being called “tissue-resident,” can leave tissues in certain circumstances.

By leaving the tissue and entering the blood, inflammatory TRM may be able to travel to other parts of the body and cause damage. This possibility may explain why autoimmune diseases that start in one organ, like IBD in the digestive tract or psoriasis in the skin, often affect other parts of the body.

IBD and Other Autoimmune Diseases as a Memory Problem

The very features that make memory T cells so desirable for vaccines – their capacity to live for such a long time and mount a stronger response when they encounter a microbial invader for the second time – may explain why autoimmune diseases are chronic and lifelong.

It is important to point out that none of the current drug treatments for IBD specifically target long-lived memory cells, which might be a reason why these therapies don’t work long-term in many individuals. One therapeutic approach might be to target inflammatory TRM for destruction, but this could result in side effects like suppression of the immune system and increased infections.

Our findings build on previous studies showing that different TRM varieties, like the CD4⁺ subtype, may also be involved in IBD, while other studies show that TRM play a role in autoimmune diseases affecting other organs like the skin and kidneys.

The possibility that T cell memory is co-opted in IBD is exciting, but there is much that we still don’t understand about TRM. Can we selectively target inflammatory TRM for destruction? Would this be an effective treatment for IBD? Can we do so without causing major side effects? Further research will be needed to answer these important questions and to strengthen the link between TRM and IBD.

John Chang, Professor of Medicine, University of California San Diego

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Kyle Mizokami

Security, North America

Beretta officials protested that the new pistol solved many of the problems with the older handgun.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The U.S. Army may have declined to adopt the M9A3, but the pistol is still available on the civilian market. Shooters can take advantage of the research and development that went into further developing the classic Beretta 92 design. The -A3 is sold commercially with three seventeen-round magazines, giving the user access to a total of fifty-one rounds when carrying a loaded pistol and two loaded spare magazines.

In 1985, the U.S. Army made an abrupt shift, aging fleet of World War II-era handguns for a foreign model. The Italian-made Beretta M92 was classified the M9 handgun and served with the U.S. Armed Forces for more than thirty years. The U.S. Army recently chose a new handgun, the M17 Modular Handgun System, and excluded a new, updated M9A3 from the competition. Although the proposed M9A3 failed to gain traction, it is still available on the civilian market and its improvements, adopted by Beretta for the twenty-first century battlefield, are worth examining.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army began searching for a replacement for the Colt M1911A1 handgun. Introduced after World War I, the bulk of the Army’s guns were built during World War II. The Army’s huge wartime inventory, plus their relatively infrequent use by officers, medics, vehicle crews allowed the M1911A1s to soldier on for nearly four decades. The U.S. Army held a competition and to the surprise of nearly everyone the Italian Beretta company won, and M9 handgun entered service with the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Over thirty years, the Pentagon purchased more than six hundred thousand Beretta pistols.

In the mid-2010s the Army started up a competition for a new handgun. Although Beretta had a newly redesigned M9A3 waiting in the wings the Army declined to evaluate it, citing a history of reliability and design problems with the original M9. Beretta officials protested that the new pistol solved many of the problems with the older handgun.

The M9A3 Beretta looks like a futuristic, high tech version of its Reagan-era ancestor—which of course it is. The A3 is finished in a three-tone black, coyote, and flat dark earth scheme, unlike the flat black of the M9, a bit of marketing that reflects the type of environment U.S. forces have been fighting in for the last seventeen years. It has harder lines than the original Beretta, with a flattened mainspring housing eliminating the bulge along the backstrap, creating a more angular grip reminiscent of the M1911A1.

The Beretta is largely unchanged underneath the hood. The A3 is still a hammer-fired single action/double action handgun, with an initial long double action trigger pull for the first shot the Army preferred for infrequent shooters. Subsequent shots are single action. One major change: the safety lever can act as a safety-decocker mode, or just a decocker mode depending on how the user wants it. This allows the shooter to lower the hammer without discharging the weapon.

The A3’s barrel is still partially visible along the top of the frame, and barrel has been increased slightly, to five inches. The barrel tip is threaded for use with a suppressor, and in the absence of a suppressor, a knurled knob can be screwed on to protect the barrel threads. The A3 also features tritium sights for low light shooting, and a three point Picatinny rail underneath the barrel for aiming lasers and flashlights.

The Beretta M9A3’s magazine has been increased to hold seventeen rounds of nine millimeter ammunition instead of the original fifteen, placing the newly redesigned handgun up there with the Glock 17 in terms of ammo capacity. However, the wide, double stack magazine that makes a seventeen-round magazine possible put it at odds with the Modular Handgun System’s goal of a pistol that could fit different hand sizes and types. In order to reduce grip width and accommodate smaller hands the Beretta comes stock with Vertec-style thin grips, and alternately wraparound grips for larger hands. The result is a very reasonable 1.3-inch grip width.

The U.S. Army may have declined to adopt the M9A3, but the pistol is still available on the civilian market. Shooters can take advantage of the research and development that went into further developing the classic Beretta 92 design. The -A3 is sold commercially with three seventeen-round magazines, giving the user access to a total of fifty-one rounds when carrying a loaded pistol and two loaded spare magazines. While the M9A3 was a long time coming, if you’re a Beretta fan it was likely worth the wait.

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

Image: Beretta

Michael Peck

Security, Middle East

A terryfying history.

Key Point: The 1973 Yom Kippur War could have become a nuclear Armageddon.

On the night of October 24, 1973, came the dreaded words: Assume Defcon 3.

On bases and ships around the world, U.S. forces went to Defense Condition 3. As paratroopers prepared to deploy, B-52 nuclear bombers on Guam returned to bases in the United States in preparation for launch. On another October day eleven years before, the United States had gone to the next highest alert, Defcon 2, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This time the catalyst of potential Armageddon wasn't the Caribbean, but the Middle East.

In fact, the flashpoint was Syria. And as tensions rise today between America and Russia over the Syrian Civil War, and U.S. and Russian troops and aircraft operate in uncomfortable proximity in support of rival factions in the conflict, it is worth remembering what happened forty-five years ago.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Cold War is what didn't happen: the United States and Soviet Union managed to avoid fighting each other directly, and instead waged their conflict through proxies.

But as usual, the Middle East upset the status quo. On October 6, 1973, on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on the Sinai and the Golan Heights. The stunned Israeli defenders held on desperately, even as their leaders and senior commanders feared this might be the end for their nation. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, followed by the United States, airlifted in massive amounts of military equipment and supplies.

By October 11, Israel had halted the Syrian offensive: Israeli armor and infantry had crossed into Syria, and would eventually advance to within artillery range of Damascus. In the Sinai, an Israeli force, led by the flamboyant and aggressive Gen. Ariel Sharon, had stealthily crossed the Suez Canal on October 15 and seized a bridgehead on the Egyptian side of the waterway. This time it was the Egyptians who were surprised as their Third Army found itself trapped in its positions on the Israeli side of the canal, its supply lines cut.

With attempts at working out a ceasefire failing, and with their Arab clients facing military defeat, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sent a message to Richard Nixon's White House: "I will say it straight that if you find it impossible to act jointly with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider taking appropriate steps unilaterally."

A crisis atmosphere gripped the White House as reports arrived that that Soviet airborne divisions and amphibious troops had been placed on alert, while Moscow nearly doubled its Mediterranean fleet to a hundred ships. The Minister of Defense, Marshal Andrei Grechko, "recommended in particular that an order be given to recruit 50,000-70,000 men in the Ukraine and in the northern Caucasus," recalled Soviet Foreign Ministry official Victor Israelian. "His view was that, in order to save Syria, Soviet troops should occupy the Golan Heights."

After having just extricated itself from Vietnam, America was in no mood for another war. Yet, the White House felt it could not risk the loss of prestige and influence—especially in the oil-rich Middle East. "We were determined to resist by force if necessary the introduction of Soviet forces into the Middle East regardless of the pretext under which they arrived," Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recounted in his memoir Years of Upheaval.

It may or may not have been coincidental—and cynics wondered—that the U.S. alert came as Nixon's presidency was beginning to crumble under the Watergate scandal. Nonetheless, Moscow appeared ready to cross a red line that Washington could not allow.

In the confined waters of the Mediterranean, the tension was palpable. "Nerves in both fleets frayed," wrote Abraham Rabinovich, an historian of the 1973 October War. "The solitary Soviet destroyers that normally shadowed the carriers—'tattle tales' the Americans called them—were reinforced by heavier warships armed with missiles. Although ranking officers had never before been noted on the tattle tales, the Americans now became aware of two admirals on the ships following them. The Americans, in turn, kept planes over the Soviet fleet prepared to attack missile launchers being readied for firing. Both sides were aware that their major vessels were being tracked by submarines."

Soviet leaders were shocked by the American response. "Who could have imagined the Americans would be so easily frightened?” asked Soviet premier Nikolai Podgorny, according to Rabinovich in his book The Yom Kippur War. Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin said "it is not reasonable to become engaged in a war with the United States because of Egypt and Syria,” while KGB chief Yuri Andropov vowed "we shall not unleash the Third World War.”

Whatever the reason, the Soviet kept their forces on alert, but agreed not to dispatch troops to the Middle East. By the end of October, a tenuous ceasefire put an end to that chapter of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In the forty-five years since that troubled autumn of 1973, the world has changed. The Soviet Union is no more, Egypt is a U.S. ally, and Syria...well, is not Syria anymore. But it not hard to imagine a scenario where the superpowers—or rather one current and one former superpower—find themselves at odds again. For example, Israel may strike Syria in order to drive out Iranian and Hezbollah forces that are edging toward the Israeli-Syrian border. Russia could choose to intervene to save its Cold War client, perhaps by providing air or air defense cover, which leads to a real or threatened clash between Israeli and Russian forces.

As in 1973, it is hard to imagine that Washington would allow the Russians to get away with attacking its Israeli ally.

But what was really different about the 1973 crisis? Nixon and Brezhnev weren't firing belligerent Tweets at each other (heck, tweets back then were something that birds did outside your window). There is little reason to be nostalgic for the cynical realpolitik game of the Cold War. But at least the game had rules, and the players were conscious that a false move could end in mutual annihilation. Cooler heads prevailed, and the crisis was resolved.

Imagine such a crisis now, with Trump's prickly belligerence and Putin's macho nationalism. This time, the world might not be so lucky.

For further reading:

- The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich

- Years of Upheaval by Henry Kissinger

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This article first appeared in 2018 and is reprinted here due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Terry Sunderland

Environment, World

We must harness the interconnected nature of our forests and food systems more effectively if we are to avoid future crises.

As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths of monocultures.

From cattle farming to oil palm plantations, industrial agriculture remains the greatest driver of deforestation, particularly in the tropics. And as agricultural activities expand and intensify, ecosystems lose plants, wildlife and other biodiversity.

The permanent transformation of forested landscapes for commodity crops currently drives more than a quarter of all global deforestation. This includes soy, palm oil, beef cattle, coffee, cocoa, sugar and other key ingredients of our increasingly simplified and highly processed diets.

The erosion of the forest frontier has also increased our exposure to infectious diseases, such as Ebola, malaria and other zoonotic diseases. Spillover incidents would be far less prevalent without human encroachment into the forest.

We need to examine our global food system: Is it doing its job, or is it contributing to forest destruction and biodiversity loss — and putting human life at risk?

What Are We Eating?

The food most associated with biodiversity loss also tends to also be connected to unhealthy diets across the globe. Fifty years after the Green Revolution — the transition to intensive, high yielding food production reliant on a limited number of crop and livestock species — nearly 800 million people still go to bed hungry; one in three is malnourished; and up to two billion people suffer some sort of micronutrient deficiency and associated health impacts, such as stunting or wasting.

The environmental impacts of our agricultural systems are also severe. The agricultural sector is responsible for up to 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, soil erosion, excessive water use, the loss of important pollinators and chemical pollution, among other impacts. It is pushing planetary boundaries even further.

In short, modern agriculture is failing to sustain the people and the ecological resources on which they rely. The incidence of infectious diseases correlates with the current loss of biodiversity.

Deforestation and Disease

Few viruses have generated more global response than the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the current pandemic. Yet in the past 20 years, humanity has also faced SARS, MERS, H1N1, Chikungunya, Zika and numerous local outbreaks of Ebola. All of them are zoonotic diseases and at least one, Ebola, has been linked to deforestation.

Farming large numbers of genetically similar livestock along the forest frontier may provide a route for pathogens to mutate and become transmissible to humans. Forest loss and landscape change bring humans and wildlife into ever-increasing proximity, heightening the risk of an infectious disease spillover.

An estimated 70 per cent of the global forest estate is now within just one kilometre of a forest edge — a statistic that starkly illustrates the problem. We are destroying that critical buffer that forests provide.

Zoonoses may be more prevalent in simplified systems with lower levels of biodiversity. In contrast, more diverse communities lower the risk of spillover into human populations. This form of natural control is known as the “dilution effect” and illustrates why biodiversity is an important regulatory mechanism.

The pandemic is further heightening pressures on forests. Increased unemployment, poverty and food insecurity in urban areas is forcing internal migration, as people return to their rural homes, particularly in the tropics. This trend will no doubt increase demands on remaining forest resources for fuel wood, timber and further conversion for small-scale agriculture.

Wet Markets Under Scrutiny

The links between zoonoses and wildlife has led to many calls during the current pandemic to ban the harvest and sale of wild meat and other forms of animal source foods. That might be too hasty a reaction: wild meat is an essential resource for millions of rural people, particularly in the absence of alternative animal food sources.

It is, however, not necessarily essential for urban dwellers who do have alternative sources of animal protein to purchase wild meat as a “luxury” item. Urban markets selling wild meat could increase the risk of zoonotic spillover but not all wet markets are the same. There are countless wet markets throughout the world that do not sell wildlife products and such markets are fundamental to the food security and nutrition as well as the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, international agencies, including the Committee on World Food Security, have been concerned about the long-term viability of our current food system: could it provide diverse and nutritious diets while maintaining environmental sustainability and landscape diversity? The current pandemic has highlighted major shortfalls in our environmental stewardship.

We must harness the interconnected nature of our forests and food systems more effectively if we are to avoid future crises. Better integration of forests, agroforests (the incorporation of trees into agricultural systems) at the broader landscape scale, breaking down the institutional, economic, political and spatial separation of forestry and agriculture, can provide the key to a more sustainable, food secure and healthier future.

Terry Sunderland, Professor in the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Warfare History Network

Security,

Of all the German surface warships, the British feared Bismarck the most.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Like a pack of lions, the chasing British battleships Rodney and King George V caught and engaged Bismarck at a range of 16,000 yards. The German gunners’ return fire was ineffective, and the helpless Bismarck was torn apart. At 10:40 am on May 27, 1941, the German battleship sank some 300 nautical miles west of Ushant, France.

The British Admiralty Board of Enquiry into the loss of the battlecruiser HMS Hood, presided over by Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, concluded, “The sinking of Hood was due to a hit from Bismarck’s 15-inch shell in or adjacent to Hood’s 4-inch or 15-inch magazines, causing them to explode and wreck the after part of the ship.”

Director of Naval Construction Sir Stanley Goodall, however, found this conclusion unsatisfactory and in his report pointed out the explosion was observed near the mainmast 65 feet further forward from the aft magazines. A second board of enquiry was convened under Rear Admiral H.T.C Walker. Even given eyewitness accounts that described fires on deck, that board still found a hit by Bismarck being the likely cause, although finishing with, “The probability is that the 4-inch magazines exploded first.”

Taking on the Feared Bismarck

In May 1941, Admiral Sir John C. Tovey, commander of the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands, was ordered to attack the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen that had just been spotted in the Denmark Strait. Tovey’s fleet consisted of two new battleships, King George V and Prince of Wales, the battlecruisers Hood and Repulse, and the aircraft carrier Victorious, plus many additional cruisers and destroyers. Also hurrying north to join him was the older battleship Rodney, mounting nine 16-inch guns, the largest caliber in the fleet.

Of all the German surface warships, the British feared Bismarck the most. Her size, speed, and firepower made her a definite threat to Allied shipping in the Atlantic, and it was imperative that she be neutralized.

On May 21, 1941, Hood and Prince of Wales left Scapa Flow with six destroyers under the command of Admiral Lancelot Holland flying his flag in Hood, their mission to provide heavy support to the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk covering the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland––one of the likely routes the German naval squadron would take to reach the North Atlantic. The rest of the fleet was gathering to cover the area between Iceland and the Orkney Islands.

Early on the evening May 23, Suffolk made contact with the enemy ships, quickly turning away toward the coast of Iceland and into a fog bank. Suffolk immediately transmitted a sighting report to the Admiralty and then came around astern of the German ships to shadow them on radar.

Norfolk came up as well, a little too boldly, for Bismarck opened fire on her; like Suffolk, she raced for the fog bank. The blast from Bismarck’s 15-inch guns disabled her own forward radar, and overall German commander Admiral Gunther Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to take the lead.

The Germans had picked up the sighting report from Suffolk and advised their own high command. Lütjens was shocked their presence had been discovered so easily and had little intelligence on what his two warships might face.

The Dwindling British Advantage

As the two forces moved toward each other, Holland had a marked two-to-one superiority in firepower. However, this was offset by the age of the Hood (commissioned in 1920) and the newness (commissioned in January 1941) and lack of combat readiness of Prince of Wales, which was still having trouble with her main armament.

Holland soon realized he was in a favorable position to bring the enemy to action that evening, sailing northwesterly toward the Denmark Strait with the enemy on a southwesterly course. He hoped to catch the Germans just before sunset at around 2 am at 65 degrees north latitude. He also hoped to cross the German squadron’s “T,” which would give him a great advantage. “Crossing the T” is a tactic in naval warfare in which a line of warships crosses in front of a line of enemy ships, allowing them to bring all their guns to bear while receiving fire from only the forward guns of the enemy.

During the evening of May 23, the forces converged. Suffolk continued to shadow and update the Admiralty, Holland on Hood, and Tovey on King George V.

Around midnight, Suffolk lost contact because her radar was blinded by a snowstorm the German ships had entered. Holland waited an hour but, hearing no news, turned more northerly in case the enemy turned south. He could not afford a German breakout into the North Atlantic. At 2 am, still with no news, he turned southwesterly hoping to cut off the enemy before total darkness.

About an hour later, Suffolk regained radar contact and discovered the German ships were still on their original course. Holland must have cursed his luck, for his maneuvering had lost time and space, and the opportunity to cross the T was gone; this would prove critical in the coming battle.

Failing to Concentrate Fire on the Bismarck

Not wanting a night engagement, Holland brought his ships onto a course to intercept the German squadron at first light, keeping up a good speed but in the heavy seas dropping the escorting destroyers astern. By dawn, the destroyers were an hour behind.

Lookouts scanned the horizon for a glimpse of their quarry. At 5:37 am the two ships were spotted to the northwest, 30,000 yards (17 miles) away. The heavy guns could fire that far but the chance of a hit was remote; they needed to reduce the range to 25,000 yards or less––and quickly.

Prinz Eugen had already picked up the sound of ships with her underwater detection gear at some 20 miles to the southeast. At about the same time as the British lookouts spotted them, the Germans spotted smoke on the horizon. Lütjens believed that these were likely more cruisers, and he was under orders to avoid contact with British warships. He turned to starboard and headed almost due west, confident that he could outrun them.

Holland was soon aware the enemy had turned away, but he had to maintain his intercept course. Turning toward them would merely put his ships behind the Germans and make it a chase.

By 5:50 am, the range was down to 26,000 yards, and Holland would soon give the order to open fire. He was fully aware of Hood’s vulnerability to plunging fire at long range and wanted to pass through the critical zone as fast as possible. Therefore, he compromised by turning 20 degrees to starboard on a new course of 300 degrees toward the enemy. This would close with the enemy faster but make it impossible for the rear turrets of the British ships to bear on the Germans.

At 5:52 am, Holland designated the lead ship as the target and gave the order to open fire. This caused Captain John Leach of Prince of Wales a few anxious moments, for he was convinced that the rear ship was Bismarck, posing the greater threat. He ignored the orders from Holland and concentrated on Bismarck.

In seconds, huge columns of water erupted around Prinz Eugen, followed seconds later around Bismarck. Lütjens now had no doubt about what he faced. However, the British angle of approach still made identification difficult.

Marking the fall of shots, the British ships fired another salvo still firing at different targets. Leach had not informed Holland of his opinion and later had not been informed by his own gunners that Prince of Wales was firing at the second ship.

The Hood is Struck

The range was down to 24,000 yards when Lütjens ordered his ships to turn 65 degrees to port toward the British on a new course of 200 degrees and directed his ships to open fire as soon as they had turned. Lütjens was now on course to cross the British T and would be able to employ all his ships’ heavy guns.

Prinz Eugen opened fire first at 5:53 am, concentrating on the lead British ship, Hood, with her fast-firing 8-inch guns at four salvos per minute; she was firing high-explosive, not armor-piercing shells. After a few ranging salvos, Prinz Eugen hit Hood, her shells starting a large fire amidships among the ammunition lockers of the 4-inch antiaircraft guns, as well as ammunition for the unrifled projectile launchers used for defense against aircraft. Attempts to put out the fire were frustrated by the exploding ammunition.

Both British ships were still firing but at different targets. As yet, Bismarck had not opened fire. By now the range was down to 22,000 yards. After turning, Bismarck opened fire on Hood at 5:55 am with all eight 15-inch guns. Her first salvo fell close to Hood. At last Hood’s gunners realized they had been firing at the wrong ship. About this time, Holland ordered another 20 degree turn to port. This turn still would not allow the British ships to use their rear turrets.

At 5:59 am, Holland ordered another 20-degree turn to port, which would finally allow his ships to bring their full armament to bear. The range was now down to 18,000 yards. Bismarck fired three salvos in rapid succession about 30 seconds apart. The first, the fourth in total, again straddled Hood, but the fifth hit with devastating effect at about 6 am.

For the sailors aboard Hood, their worst nightmares were about to come true.

Explosion on the Hood

Ted Briggs had joined Hood as a signal boy on March 7, 1938, at just 15 years of age. Three years later he was an ordinary signalman on Hood’s compass platform, manning the voice pipe to the flag deck.

During the battle, Hood’s X Turret fired for the first time, but Y Turret was silent. Seconds later, Briggs saw a blinding flash sweep around the outside of the compass platform. However, he said there “was not a terrific explosion at all regards noise.” He felt the ship “jar” and begin listing to port. The “jar” was the ship breaking in two. The list got worse, and the men began leaving his area. By the time Briggs climbed down the ladder to the admiral’s bridge, the icy sea was already around his legs.

Eighteen-year-old Midshipman William Dundas had the duty of watching Prince of Wales to make sure she was keeping station; he was not far from Ted Briggs on the compass platform. He remembered bodies falling past his position from the higher spotting positions––the result, he felt, of Bismarck’s shells hitting without exploding. He recalled a mass of brown smoke just before the list to port began. Dundas escaped by kicking out a window on the starboard side of the compass platform. Even so, he was dragged under the water by the sinking ship but miraculously regained the surface.

Twenty-year-old Able Seaman Robert Tilburn was stationed at Hood’s aft-port 4-inch antiaircraft gun and witnessed the fire started by Prinz Eugen’s shells. The heat of the blaze made fire fighting impossible as the flames were being fanned by Hood’s 28-knot speed. Then he said, “The ship shook like mad” and began listing to port. Tilburn got onto the forecastle but was washed over the side by a great wave.

At the second board of enquiry, Tilburn told the admirals, “The Bismarck hit us. There was no doubt about that. She hit us at least three times before the final blow.”

Briggs, Dundas, and Tilburn were the only survivors from Hood; her 1,415 other crewmen were lost. But there were other witnesses, such as Lieutenant Esmond Knight. Aboard Prince of Walesobserving Hood, he remembered thinking, “It would be a most tremendous explosion, but I don’t remember hearing an explosion at all.” Chief Petty Officer French, also on Prince of Wales, said that the middle of the Hood’s boat deck appeared to rise before the mainmast.

Leading Sick-Berth Attendant Sam Wood, also on Prince of Wales, observed, “I was watching the orange flashes coming from Bismarck, so naturally I was on the starboard side. The leading seaman who was with me said, ‘Christ, look how close the firing is getting to Hood.’ As I looked out, suddenly Hood exploded. She was one pall of black smoke. Then she disappeared into a big orange flash and a huge pall of smoke which blacked us out…. The bows pointed out of the smoke, just the bows, tilted up, and then this whole apparition slid out of sight, all in slow motion, just slid away.” Within three minutes Hood was gone.

What Destroyed the Hood?

So what did happen to Hood? Were the boards of enquiry right that a 15-inch shell from Bismarck had hit close to her 4-inch and/or 15-inch magazines, causing an explosion that wrecked the after part of the ship?

What evidence we have would seem to shed some doubt on this. First, Hood was about 17,000 yards from Bismarck by 6 am. By that time, the heavy shells from both sides were travelling on a fairly low trajectory. As the range decreased, the guns would have been progressively depressed. Therefore, any hit would have been more likely to strike the belt. Hood’s belt armor was 12-inches thick and superior to any ship in the fleet; it was also inclined at 12 degrees.

It is still possible a shell could have hit the deck with its thin armor of three inches, but not with the plunging effect Holland had feared at long range. The shell likely fell at a rather oblique angle, which would make penetration of four decks to the main magazine under X Turret unlikely.

Also, it was witnessed aboard Hood and Prince of Wales that Bismarck’s 15-inch shells were likely defective, that most failed to explode.

Could there have been some sort of cordite flash explosion similar to those that destroyed three British battle cruisers during the battle of Jutland in May 1916?

This again seems highly unlikely as Hood’s shell-handling rooms were situated well below the X and Y Turrets’ magazine and the engine room thanks to lessons learned from that tragic Jutland episode. Also at Jutland, all three battlecruisers were destroyed by massive explosions, and there was none audible on Hood. One question about the magazine theory is why Y Turret did not fire like X had. Was something already happening there?

Then there is the fire started by Prinz Eugen’s 8-inch shells. Captain Leach of Prince of Wales described the fire as “a vast blowlamp.” The fire consumed much combustible material on the deck and upper superstructure, but the two- and three-inch deck armor and forecastle armor prevented this fire from penetrating below. The ventilation systems were fitted with gas-tight flaps and, at action stations, all should have been closed. Thus, it is fairly certain that the deck fires could not have resulted in Hood breaking in two or could even have contributed to this significantly.

The second board of enquiry did look at the possibility of Hood’s own above-deck torpedoes causing her to sink. Sir Stanley Goodall, who had supervised Hood’s design, believed an enemy shell could have detonated the torpedo warheads in their  tubes.

Four 21-inch MK IV torpedoes were kept in tubes, two on either side of the mainmast, and four reloads were nearby in a three-inch armored box. These torpedoes were certainly capable of breaking Hood’s back and could have been set off either by a direct hit from an enemy shell or by an intense fire. the TNT in the warheads would ignite at around 250 degrees Fahrenheit and explode at around 280 degrees. Again, however, there was no explosion. It is worth noting that similar torpedo tubes on the battlecruisers Repulse and Renown were later removed.

Was there some sort of underwater penetration? This seems even more unlikely. Hood was outside torpedo range of the German ships. One of Bismarck’s 15-inch shells could have penetrated the side and exploded in or near Hood’s shell-handling rooms––again unlikely without evidence of a massive explosion.

A Lucky Shot

The final theory or possibility is that Prinz Eugen’s 8-inch guns, firing at over half their maximum range, would have been falling on the target at a much steeper trajectory than Bismarck’s 15-inch guns and that one of her high-explosive 8-inch shells might have gone down Hood’s after funnel. If this did happen, it would have been just before Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to shift her fire to Prince of Wales, about the time Hood was engulfed.

The wire cage that covered the top of the funnel would not stop a shell and would be unlikely to explode it. The next obstacle on a shell’s journey would have been a steel grating positioned in vents at the level of the lower deck to protect the boiler room. If an 8-inch shell exploded here, it would have detonated in the boiler room. A high-explosive shell bursting in one of the boiler rooms or nearby might have resulted in an enormous buildup of pressure, resulting in an explosion inside the ship. The line of least resistance to this would have been up through Hood’s thin decks, not through the heavily armored sides or bottom.

Was this the result, a muffled explosion within the ship only heard below decks, the flash seen above decks near the mainmast with the propellers still turning driving the rear into the severely weakened midsection and breaking Hood in two parts? Could it have been a fatal combination of two of these theories?

In July 2001, the wreck of the Hood was found 9,334 feet below the surface of the  Denmark Straight. She lies in three sections  with the bow on its side, the mid section upside down, and the stern speared into the seabed. In 2013, the wreck was more fully explored with a remote-control vehicle. The exploration appears to confirm a massive explosion had taken place in the magazine feeding Y Turret and breaking the back of the ship. However, it remains a mystery, given the low trajectory of any shell, how one could have passed through four decks and the magazine armor. It must have been a lucky shot, indeed.

Prince of Wales Escapes

After the loss of the Hood, the battle continued. Prince of Wales was about 1,000 yards astern of Hood. Seeing the flagship explode, Captain Leach ordered a hard turn to starboard to avoid the wreckage. Hood was engulfed in smoke, but the stern was still above the water. The forward section still had some momentum but was listing to port and sinking rapidly. After clearing the wreckage, Leach swung Prince of Wales back onto 260 degrees, bringing his full broadside to bear.

The turn of Prince of Wales disrupted the gunners on Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, but they soon found the range again. With the range down to 15,000 yards, the fire from both sides was finding its mark.

A 15-inch shell from Bismarck hit the bridge of Prince of Wales. Although it did not explode, it killed several key personnel, and for a short period disrupted command of the ship. Direction was transferred to the aft position. She was also hit by an 8-inch shell from Prinz Eugen, knocking out fire control of several 5.25-inch guns, and two more hits caused minor flooding. At 6:03 am, Bismarck passed the port beam of Prinz Eugen, causing that ship to temporarily cease fire. The heavy cruiser had turned away because of suspected torpedoes.

Leach did not close the range. Prince of Wales had managed to hit Bismarck three times, although no explosions had been observed. Bismarck struck back, hitting the starboard crane of Prince of Wales, causing much splinter damage. Another shell hit amidships below the rear funnel under the waterline but failed to explode. It did cause some flooding and required the ship to counter flood to maintain trim.

Leach felt his ship was taking heavy damage––it had been hit four times by Bismarck and three times by Prinz Eugen. His own ship’s main armament was still not working properly, and his crew lacked the experience to adjust for this. Believing his ship might suffer serious damage, Leach ordered Prince of Wales to withdraw behind a smoke screen at 6:05. Also, Bismarck had completed passing Prinz Eugen so that ship’s guns would soon be back in action. Whether this influenced Leach is unknown.

Admiral Lütjens was surprised to see Prince of Wales turn away, but he dismissed calls from some of his men to pursue the British ship. It was doubtful they would be able to catch her. Also, Bismarckherself had been hit. Two shells had caused minor damage. However, one 14-inch shell had struck below the waterline causing some flooding and reduction in speed. Worse, some fuel tanks had been ruptured causing the loss of several hundred tons of precious fuel oil.

Lütjens soon realized he could not continue with the mission to attack British convoys due to the loss of fuel. Prinz Eugen was therefore detached to proceed with raiding while Bismarck turned back. The battleship headed for the nearest port with a drydock big enough to take Bismarck, at St. Nazaire, France.

Sinking the Bismarck

On May 26, a British aircraft spotted the battleship and radioed her position to other warships in the area. A force of 15 Fairey Swordfish torpedo planes from the carrier Ark Royal converged on Lütjens’ ship, and one torpedo damaged Bismarck’s rudder so badly that all the giant ship could do was sail helplessly in a circle.

Like a pack of lions, the chasing British battleships Rodney and King George V caught and engaged Bismarck at a range of 16,000 yards. The German gunners’ return fire was ineffective, and the helpless Bismarck was torn apart. At 10:40 am on May 27, 1941, the German battleship sank some 300 nautical miles west of Ushant, France. Only 110 of her crew of 2,222 survived the sinking. Admiral Lütjens went down with the ship.

This article By Mark Simmons originally appeared on Warfare History Network. This first appeared in 2018.

Image: Wikipedia.

Jill Johnston, Lara Cushing

economy, Americas

Low-income communities and communities of color here bear the brunt of the energy industry’s pollution.

Through the southern reaches of Texas, communities are scattered across a flat landscape of dry brush lands, ranches and agricultural fields. This large rural region near the U.S.-Mexico border is known for its persistent poverty. Over 25% of the families here live in poverty, and many lack access to basic services like water, sewer and primary health care.

This is also home to the Eagle Ford shale, where domestic oil and gas production has boomed. The Eagle Ford is widely considered the most profitable U.S. shale play, producing more than 1.2 million barrels of oil daily in 2019, up from fewer than 350,000 barrels per day just a decade earlier.

The rapid production growth here has not led to substantial shared economic benefits at the local level, however.

Low-income communities and communities of color here bear the brunt of the energy industry’s pollution, our research shows. And we now know those risks also extend to the unborn. Our latest study documents how women living near gas flaring sites have significantly higher risks of giving birth prematurely than others, and that this risk falls mainly on Latina women.

Gas Flaring and Health Risks

Many low-income residents and seniors living in the Eagle Ford shale believe the wastes from energy production – including disposal wells for oil production wastewater and gas flaring – are harming their communities.

In our research in the region as professors of environmental health and preventive medicine, we have shown how poor communities and communities of color bear more of the burden of these wastes.

It happens with fracking wastewater disposal wells, where “flowback” water from fracked wells containing toxic chemicals is injected back into the ground. Disposal wells bring new truck traffic to neighborhoods and may contaminate groundwater. In a study in 2016, we found these disposal wells were disproportionately in high-poverty areas in the region. They were also more than twice as common in areas where the population was more than 80% people of color than in majority-white areas.

These communities also bear more of the burden of gas flaring, the highly visible practice of burning off waste gas during oil production. Flaring releases greenhouse gases and hazardous air pollutants, including particulate matter, black carbon, benzene and hydrogen sulfide, pollutants that have been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular problems. We found areas with majority Hispanic populations were exposed to twice as many nightly flares as those with few Hispanics.

Flares are so common in the Eagle Ford shale that they are visible from space.

In our latest study, we used satellite observations and Texas birth records for more than 23,000 births in the region to study connections between flaring and health in pregnant women. We found that women who lived in areas where flaring is common had 50% higher odds of giving birth prematurely than those with no flaring within three miles of their homes.

Preterm birth can be life-threatening, especially for babies born very early, who typically have difficulty feeding and breathing and require special medical care. Being born prematurely can also cause long-term health problems, including hearing loss, neurological disorders and asthma.

The increased risk we found associated with flaring was similar to the increased risk others have seen for women who smoke during pregnancy. This risk fell almost entirely on Latina women, who were exposed to more flaring than white women. In all, about 14% of babies whose mothers lived within three miles of flaring and were exposed to at least 10 flares were born prematurely.

While women in the region also face other stressors related to poverty, health and racism, we think flaring may impact preterm birth for those living closest by exposing them to air pollutants, which research has shown are associated with preterm births.

Together, our work points to longstanding issues of environmental racism in rural energy extraction communities in the U.S.

Environmental Justice and the Urban-Rural Divide

Rural America is often singled out by locally unwanted industries. The rural policy scholar Celia Carroll Jones put it this way: “For the majority of Americans who live in metropolitan areas, rural dumping becomes a logical choice: Undeveloped land is inexpensive and available, fewer residents will be harmed should containment measures fail, and, most importantly, nuisances and dangers are removed from their own neighborhoods.”

It isn’t just the energy industry. Urban human and industrial solid waste, a byproduct of wastewater treatment plants, is frequently disposed of on rural land. Touted as fertilizer, this sewage sludge contains mixtures of chemical and biological contaminants. Residents complain of symptoms like mucous membrane irritation, respiratory distress, headaches and skin rashes when sewage sludge is being applied to land.

In Decatur, Alabama, where about 20% of the population lives in poverty, contaminated sludge was applied to land used for cattle grazing and crops. This resulted in detectable levels of toxic perflourinated compounds in soil, grass, beef and groundwater in the area.

This pattern extends to our food production systems. For example, the industrialization of hog production has led to the concentration of numerous biological and chemical pollutants that threaten environmental quality. The health impacts are concentrated disproportionately in Black communities in rural eastern North Carolina. Industrial hog operations have been linked to asthma, higher blood pressure and greater risk of premature death.

These examples illustrate a larger pattern of environmental injustice that characterizes relationships between urban areas that create waste and rural areas that receive that waste.

This undermines health in communities that are already at higher risk, as our research has shown. Ultimately, it also undermines progress toward more sustainable energy and food supplies, because the people who use the most energy and agriculture products don’t experience the health impacts of their production and waste.

Jill Johnston, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California and Lara Cushing, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Adam Linehan

Security, Americas

Is there a possible solution?

Key Point: New helmet designs could improve protection for soldiers.

Service members risk brain damage when operating shoulder-fired heavy weapons like the AT4, LAW, and Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, according to report by the Center for a New American Security.

- “[Department of Defense] studies have demonstrated that some service members experience cognitive deficits in delayed verbal memory, visual-spatial memory, and executive function after firing heavy weapons,” CNAS reports.

- Whether those symptoms can become permanent is unclear. However, DoD studies have also “found higher rates of confusion and post-concussion associated symptoms among individuals with a history of prolonged exposure to low-level blasts,” according to CNAS.

- “When you fire [heavy weapons], the pressure wave feels like getting hit in the face,” Paul Scharre, a co-author of the report, told National Public Radio on Monday.

- CNAS found that helmets currently worn by U.S. Army soldiers provide “modest protection” against blast-waves produced by shoulder-fired weapons. The report advises the Army to begin researching “new helmet materials, shapes, and designs that might dramatically improve protection from primary blast injury.”

- Additionally, the report recommends that the Army better “protect soldiers against blast-induced brain injury” by increasing the use of sub-caliber rounds in training and enforcing limits of firing heavy weapons.

- To better assess how “blast pressure exposure” impacts the brain, the report urges the Army to expand the use of small devices that measure the intensity of blast waves. So-called “blast gauges” can be attached to the helmet or shoulder.

- “Every service member who is in a position where he or she might be exposed to blast waves should be wearing these devices,” Sharre told NPR. “And we need to be recording that data, putting it in their record and then putting it in a database for medical studies.”

- CNAS also recommends that “blast exposure history”  be included in soldiers’ service records so medical issues that later arise as a result of operating heavy weapons can be treated as service-connected injuries.

Adam Linehan is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. Between 2006-2012, he served as a combat medic in the U.S. Army, and is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. Follow Adam Linehan on Twitter @adam_linehan.

This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter.

Image: U.S. Army / Flickr

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Europe

How was the Gotland able to evade the U.S. Navy's elaborate antisubmarine defense?

Key Point: The advent of cheap, stealthy and long-enduring diesel submarines is yet another factor placing carriers at greater risk when operating close to defended coastlines.

In 2005, USS Ronald Reagan, a newly constructed $6.2 billion dollar aircraft carrier, sank after being hit by multiple torpedoes.

Fortunately, this did not occur in actual combat, but was simulated as part of a war game pitting a carrier task force including numerous antisubmarine escorts against HSMS Gotland, a small Swedish diesel-powered submarine displacing 1,600 tons. Yet despite making multiple attacks runs on the Reagan, the Gotland was never detected.

This outcome was replicated time and time again over two years of war games, with opposing destroyers and nuclear attack submarines succumbing to the stealthy Swedish sub. Naval analyst Norman Polmar said the Gotland “ran rings” around the American carrier task force. Another source claimed U.S. antisubmarine specialists were “demoralized” by the experience.

How was the Gotland able to evade the Reagan’s elaborate antisubmarine defenses involving multiple ships and aircraft employing a multitude of sensors? And even more importantly, how was a relatively cheap submarine costing around $100 million—roughly the cost of a single F-35 stealth fighter today—able to accomplish that? After all, the U.S. Navy decommissioned its last diesel submarine in 1990.

Diesel submarines in the past were limited by the need to operate noisy, air-consuming engines that meant they could remain underwater for only a few days before needing to surface. Naturally, a submarine is most vulnerable, and can be most easily tracked, when surfaced, even when using a snorkel. Submarines powered by nuclear reactors, on the other hand, do not require large air supplies to operate, and can run much more quietly for months at a time underwater—and they can swim faster while at it.

However, the two-hundred-foot-long Swedish Gotland-class submarines, introduced in 1996, were the first to employ an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system—in this case, the Stirling engine. A Stirling engine charges the submarine’s seventy-five-kilowatt battery using liquid oxygen.

With the Stirling, a Gotland-class submarine can remain undersea for up to two weeks sustaining an average speed of six miles per hour—or it can expend its battery power to surge up to twenty-three miles per hour. A conventional diesel engine is used for operation on the surface or while employing the snorkel. The Stirling-powered Gotland runs more quietly than even a nuclear-powered sub, which must employ noise-producing coolant pumps in their reactors.

The Gotland class does possess many other features that make it adept at evading detection. It mounts twenty-seven electromagnets designed to counteract its magnetic signature to Magnetic Anomaly Detectors. Its hull benefits from sonar-resistant coatings, while the tower is made of radar-absorbent materials. Machinery on the interior is coated with rubber acoustic-deadening buffers to minimize detectability by sonar. The Gotland is also exceedingly maneuverable thanks to the combined six maneuvering surfaces on its X-shaped rudder and sail, allowing it to operate close to the sea floor and pull off tight turns.

Because the stealthy boat proved the ultimate challenge to U.S. antisubmarine ships in international exercises, the U.S. Navy leased the Gotland and its crew for two entire years to conduct antisubmarine exercises. The results convinced the U.S. Navy its undersea sensors simply were not up to dealing with the stealthy AIP boats.

However, the Gotland was merely the first of many AIP-powered submarine designs—some with twice the underwater endurance. And Sweden is by no means the only country to be fielding them.

China has two diesel submarine types using Stirling engines. Fifteen of the earlier Type 039A Yuan class have been built in four different variants, with more than twenty more planned or already under construction. Beijing also has a single Type 032 Qing-class vessel that can remain underwater for thirty days. It believed to be the largest operational diesel submarine in the world, and boasts seven Vertical Launch System cells capable of firing off cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

Russia debuted with the experimental Lada-class Sankt Peterburg, which uses hydrogen fuel cells for power. It is an evolution of its widely produced Kilo-class submarine. However, sea trials found that the cells provided only half of the expected output, and the type was not approved for production. However, in 2013 the Russian Navy announced it would produce two heavily redesigned Ladas, the Kronstadt and Velikiye Luki, expected by the end of the decade.

Other producers of AIP diesel submarines include Spain, France, Japan and Germany. These countries have in turn sold them to navies across the world, including to India, Israel, Pakistan and South Korea. Submarines using AIP systems have evolved into larger, more heavily armed and more expensive types, including the German Dolphin-class and the French Scorpene-class submarines.

The U.S. Navy has no intention to field diesel submarines again, however, preferring to stick to nuclear submarines that cost multiple billions of dollars. It’s tempting to see that as the Pentagon choosing once again a more expensive weapon system over a vastly more cost-efficient alternative. It’s not quite that simple, however.

Diesel submarines are ideal for patrolling close to friendly shores. But U.S. subs off Asia and Europe need to travel thousands of miles just to get there, and then remain deployed for months at a time. A diesel submarine may be able to traverse that distance—but it would then require frequent refueling at sea to complete a long deployment.

Remember the Gotland? It was shipped back to Sweden on a mobile dry dock rather than making the journey on its own power.

Though the new AIP-equipped diesel subs may be able to go weeks without surfacing, that’s still not as good as going months without having to do so. And furthermore, a diesel submarine—with or without AIP—can’t sustain high underwater speeds for very long, unlike a nuclear submarine. A diesel sub will be most effective when ambushing a hostile fleet whose position has already been “cued” by friendly intelligence assets. However, the slow, sustainable underwater speed of AIP-powered diesel submarines make them less than ideal for stalking prey over vast expanses of water.

These limitations don’t pose a problem to diesel subs operating relatively close to friendly bases, defending littoral waters. But while diesel submarines may be great while operating close to home—the U.S. Navy usually doesn’t.

Still, the fact that one could build or acquire three or four diesel submarines costing $500 to $800 million each for the price of a single nuclear submarine gives them undeniable appeal. Proponents argue that the United States could forward deploy diesel subs to bases in allied nations, without facing the political constraints posed by nuclear submarines. Furthermore, advanced diesel submarines might serve as a good counter to an adversary’s stealthy sub fleet.

However, the U.S. Navy is more interested in pursuing the development of unmanned drone submarines. Meanwhile, China is working on long-enduring AIP systems using lithium-ion batteries, and France is developing a new large AIP-equipped diesel submarine version of its Barracuda-class nuclear attack submarine.

The advent of cheap, stealthy and long-enduring diesel submarines is yet another factor placing carriers and other expensive surface warships at greater risk when operating close to defended coastlines. Diesel submarines benefitting from AIP will serve as a deadly and cost-effective means of defending littoral waters, though whether they will can carve out a role for themselves in blue water naval forces operating far from home is less clear.

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

This article originally ran in November of 2016.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Rory Horner

Public Health, Asia

Thanks to its vast manufacturing capacity, India will undoubtedly export vaccines, continuing its role as the “pharmacy of the developing world”.

The great COVID-19 vaccine race is on. Pharmaceutical companies around the world are going head to head, while governments scramble to get priority access to the most promising candidates.

But a richest-takes-all approach in the fight against the deadliest pandemic in living memory is bound to be counter productive, especially for the recovery of low and middle income countries. If governments cannot come together to agree a global strategy, then the global south may need to pin its hopes on the manufacturing might of India.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, has warned that a nationalist approach “will not help” and will slow down the world’s recovery. Yet vaccine nationalism looms large over the search for vaccines, with the US, the UK and the European Commission all signing various advance purchase agreements with manufacturers to secure privileged access to doses of the most promising candidates. The US alone has paid over US$10 billion (£7.6 billion) for such access.

The ideal global distribution of a successful COVID-19 vaccine would look beyond which countries have the deepest pockets and instead prioritise health workers, followed by countries with major outbreaks and then those people who are particularly at risk.

India has the potential to play a key role in overcoming vaccine nationalism because it is the major supplier of medicines to the global south. Médecins Sans Frontières once dubbed the country the “pharmacy of the world”. India also has, by far, the largest capacity to produce COVID-19 vaccines. Its role in manufacturing a vaccine could come in two different ways – mass-producing one developed elsewhere (likely) or developing a new vaccine as well as manufacturing it (less likely, though not impossible).

Scaling Up Existing Vaccines

India’s Serum Institute has already started manufacturing the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine candidate before clinical trials have even been completed. This is to avoid any subsequent delay if the vaccine is approved. It is seen by many, including the WHO’s chief scientist, as the world’s leading prospect.

Serum Institute, based in the western city of Pune, is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world and has a deal to supply 400 million doses by the end of 2020 (1 billion in total). It has also inked a deal for the manufacturing and commercialisation of American firm Novavax’s COVID-19 candidate.

Another Indian pharma company, Biological E (BE), has agreed to manufacture the vaccine candidate of Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV. The Hyderabad-based firm has since announced its acquisition of Akorn India in order to boost its manufacturing capacity.

Despite India’s success in mass manufacturing, the transition to innovation and new product development has been more of a struggle. Nevertheless the Serum Institute, Aurobindo Pharma, Bharat Biotech, BE, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax, Panacea Biotech and Zydus Cadila are all attempting to develop their own vaccines.

Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has attracted the most attention and controversy. The Indian Council of Medical Research wrote to a number of hospitals seeking their help in fast-tracking the clinical trials of the drug, which was developed in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology. The aim had been to launch it by August 15 (Indian Independence Day). Despite the feasibility of that timeline being widely questioned, trials of Covaxin did begin in Delhi on July 15.

Who Gets the Vaccines?

Uncertainty reigns over who will get these vaccines manufactured in India – and there have been very mixed messages. Regarding the much-hyped Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Adar Poonawalla, the Serum Institute’s CEO, said, “a majority of the vaccine, at least initially, would have to go to our countrymen before it goes abroad”.

He added that the Indian government would decide how much other countries get, and when. In a later interview the CEO went further, adding: “Out of whatever I produce, 50% to India and 50% to the rest of the world”. He also said the Indian government had not objected to this idea.

Vaccine diplomacy may come into play, as indicated by India’s foreign minister, Harsh Shringla, on a visit to Dhaka. He promised that India would supply vaccines to Bangladesh on “priority basis”, stating that India’s “closest neighbours, friends, partners and other countries” will receive privileged access.

Meanwhile, a recent agreement provided a firmer guarantee of Serum-Institute-produced vaccines being supplied outside of the country – at least in 2021. On August 7, Gavi (the global vaccine alliance) announced a collaboration with the Serum Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The deal provides US$150m of financial support for the Serum Institute to manufacture and supply 100 million doses of vaccines to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) for distribution in low and middle-income countries in 2021.

The deal will support the company’s manufacture of both the AstraZeneca and Novavax candidates and guarantees a price of US$3 per dose. AstraZeneca’s candidate will be available to 57 Gavi-eligible countries, while the Novavax treatment will be available to 92.

With almost 18% of the world’s population, India has strong demand for COVID-19 vaccines. Export bans on some personal protective equipment and key medicines in March set a precedent for prioritising supply to India first. But the bans were short lived and exports continued.

Thanks to its vast manufacturing capacity, India will undoubtedly export vaccines, continuing its role as the “pharmacy of the developing world”. Vinod Paul, chair of India’s National COVID-19 Task Force, has spoken openly of his desire to see India play a global role, saying: “The vaccine is not just for India and Indians but for the world and humanity.” The question is when. Many in low and middle-income countries will undoubtedly be hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

Rory Horner, Senior Lecturer, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Middle East

By one count, there have been over 150 Israeli strikes in Syria stretching all the way back to 2012.

Here's What You Need To Remember: Now that Assad’s hold on power is secure, it’s becoming clear that growing infrastructure of Iranian bases in Syria is likely there to stay—and that Iran intends to use them to funnel drones, artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to Hezbollah to challenge Israeli military dominance. This has elicited an intensifying Israeli bombardment campaign to knock out the buildup, both through preemptive strikes and reactive counterattacks.

At midnight on the Syrian-Israeli border on May 8–9, 2018 a multiple-rocket launcher system operated by the Quds force—an expeditionary special forces unit of the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps—fired a salvo of twenty unguided 333mm Fajr-5 rockets towards Israel. (You can see the apparent rocket launch here.) Four of the rockets were shot down by Israeli Iron Dome air defense system and the rest missed and landed in Syrian territory.

A few hours later, around ten Israeli surface-to-surface missile launchers and twenty-eight F-15I and F-16I jets unleashed seventy cruise missiles and precision-guided glide bombs that struck Iranian logistical bases and outposts throughout Syria. The Iranian rocket launcher was destroyed, and when Syrian air defenses attempted to engage the Israeli fighters, five batteries were knocked out.

The May 9 clash is considered the first direct clash between Iranian and Israeli forces, an event likely linked to the Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal the day before the attack. However, observers of the region might recall that Israeli warplanes had struck an Iranian convoy in Syria earlier that same day. There were additional strikes on May 6 and April 29 that killed scores of Syrian and Iranian troops—possibly including an Iranian general—and knocked out an S-200 surface-to-air missile battery.

By one count, there have been over 150 Israeli strikes in Syria stretching all the way back to 2012. Many of the raids have targeted transfers of advanced weapon systems to Hezbollah, or been made in response to cross-border attacks.

If you connect the dots, it becomes clear that the May 9 exchange was the most overt flare-up of a long-running proxy war. Iranian and Hezbollah troops—having effectively secured the government of Bashar al-Assad from possible overthrow—are busily establishing a long-term presence and transferring advanced weapons into Syria and Hezbollah, including drones, surface-to-air missile systems and rocket artillery. At the same time, Israeli warplanes are attempting to destroy these sites and weapon systems before they get deeply entrenched. The U.S. exit from the nuclear deal appears to have prompted Tehran to finally authorize a direct retaliatory attack on Israel—even if it was an ineffective one.

It’s unusual for two regional powers without a common a border to be at each other’s throats. However, a series of historical circumstances have brought them to more more open military conflict than ever before.

Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah

Under the regime of the Shah, Iran developed relatively close economic and military ties to Israel. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 brought hardline clerics to power and a formal end to diplomatic ties, but Israel continued to supply Iran with over $500 million in desperately needed weapons during the bloody Iran-Iraq War. At the time, the Israeli government saw Iraq as a more proximate threat—mainly due to its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

However, the seeds of a deeper Iranian-Israeli conflict were sown in the civil war in Lebanon. The creation of Israel in 1948—and its conquest of additional territories in 1967—displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. Unable to return home, the Palestinian refugees became a permanent, nationless population in neighboring Arab countries. Their presence in the small, multicultural state of Lebanon eventually destabilized a precarious balance of power between diverse factions divided by ethnicity, religion and ideology, contributing to the outbreak of a civil war in 1975.

Seven years later, Israeli troops entered Lebanon in Operation Peace for Galilee, an effort to tilt the war in the favor of Christian factions in Lebanon. Syria—which had fought multiple wars with Israel for control of the Golan Heights—had already deployed troops in Lebanon in support of Palestinian factions, so Syrian tanks and jet fighters clashed with Israeli forces in massive battles. President Ronald Reagan also dispatched troops to Lebanon in an attempt to influence the conflict, but withdrawn them in October 1983 after a truck bombing killed 241 Americans.

Meanwhile, religious divisions facilitated Iran’s involvement in the conflict. The most important schisms in the Islamic faith lies between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, comparable to the Catholic-Protestant divide of Christianity. Iran—the chief Shia country in the Islamic world—organized and armed a coalition of Shia fighters called Hezbollah to fight the Israelis.

Though Hezbollah initially opposed Syrian influence in Lebanon, Damascus would eventually become a junior-partner in the management of Hezbollah. While Syria has a majority Sunni population, the ruling Assad family were Alawites—a minority associated with Shia Islam—which may have contributed to warm Iranian-Syrian ties.

Israel eventually withdrew from the Lebanese quagmire, and the war ground to its conclusion in 1990 with the defeat of the Maronite Christian faction, and the restoration of a tenuous multiparty democratic system—in which Hezbollah was entrenched as a key player. The Shia group became an odd combination of political party, de facto regional government in southern Lebanon, standing army and international terrorist group (with its sights set on the Israeli forces on the Lebanese border).

Tehran and Damascus also used Hezbollah as a lever to influence Lebanese politics. For example, Syria and Hezbollah are generally believed to be culpable in the assassinations of two-time Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2006 using a 4,000-pound truck bomb.

Washington Clears the Way for Tehran’s Rise as Regional Power

During the 1990s, Iran ramped up anti-Israel rhetoric to cultivate political support in the wider Muslim world. However, in 2003, the moderate government of Mohammad Khatami transmitted a wide-ranging peace offer to restore relations with the United States and Israel. However, the Bush administration did not bother replying to a members of the ‘Axis of Evil.’

In April of the same year, U.S. forces invaded Iran’s old enemy, Iraq. It may be difficult to recall today, but in the weeks following the fall of Baghdad, many in Washington openly speculated that Tehran or Damascus might be the next to fall.

However, Iraq had been a Shia-majority nation ruled by a Sunni dictator. With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Shia politicians and clerics ascended to power and soon shifted the nation towards warmer relations with Tehran. Ironically, the United States had removed one of the chief geographic barriers to Iranian influence. Shia repression of their erstwhile Sunni persecutors would also inspire radical Sunni groups (such as ISIS), prompting the formation of violent, Iran-backed Shia militias to deal with them in a vicious sectarian cycle.

In 2005, the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran. A zealous ideologue, Ahmadinejad combined demagogic anti-Israel rhetoric and pageantry—for example, he sponsored an international Holocaust-denial conference—with increased military support and training for Hezbollah. Tehran also began sponsoring Hamas, a Sunni Islamist group that eventually secured control of the Palestinian Gaza Strip territory in 2007.

In the summer of 2006, this dynamic escalated into the 2006 Lebanon War, when Israel—in response to an ambush in which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped—began a large-scale bombing campaign targeting Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, later escalating into an invasion.

The sheer scale of the bombardment reportedly stunned Hezbollah’s leadership—as well as Lebanese civilians. (The Israel Defense Forces estimates it killed 600 to 700 Hezbollah fighters in the war, while most sources put the death toll in both combatants and noncombatants in Lebanon at around 1,100.) However, Russian-built Kornet-E and Metis anti-tank missiles and a dense network of defensive positions allowed Hezbollah fighters—backed up by Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel—to inflict unexpectedly heavy losses on Israeli tanks and infantry.

The war ended in a ceasefire and clashes diminished in frequency, in part due to a successful surge in from UN peacekeeping forces. Hezbollah and Israel licked their wounds and were soon were engaged in other conflicts.

Israel was also concerned with Iran and Syria’s covert nuclear weapons program, and Iran’s growing ballistic missile capabilities in particular. In Syria, Iranian, Syrian and North Korean engineers had been collaborating on a nuclear reactor facility and a new chemical weapons plant. However, in July 2007 the al-Safir chemical plant suffered a ‘mysterious’ explosion, while Israeli warplanes destroyed the reactor in Deir-ez-Zor that September, effectively bringing an end to Syria’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran, however, lies beyond the easy striking distance of Israeli jets, with several intervening international borders. Israel therefore began lobbying Washington to launch a preventive war to knock out the Iranian research program. Though this idea was popular with neoconservatives in the Bush administration, the Iraq War by then had proven such a debacle that political support was lacking.

Instead, the Israeli military employed clandestine means to strike at Tehran’s nuclear program. Starting in 2010, Israeli assassination attempts killed at least five and wounded one Iranian nuclear scientist. Iranian attempts to retaliate—via international terror attacks—were mostly unsuccessful.

Iran, Hezbollah and Russia Team Up to Save Assad

In 2011, the Arab Spring caused a wave of political unrest to sweep across the Middle East, igniting a civil war in a drought-stricken Syria. By 2012, the Damascus had lost control of vast swathes of the country to a disunited Sunni Arab and Kurdish rebel groups.

Tehran did everything it could to save Assad, dispatching teams of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps soldiers and officers to train and lead Syrian government troops into battle. However, the fragmenting Syrian military required more manpower as the rebellion spread—so in 2012, around 3,000 Hezbollah fighters poured over the Lebanese border to join the fight on behalf of Assad.

In truth, even the support of Iran and Hezbollah was not enough for Assad to win the war—but they kept his regime on life support. It was the intervention of Russian military and mercenary forces starting in the fall of 2015 that finally turned the tide.

Syria remained the last major outpost of Russian influence in the Middle East, notably in the form of a naval base at Latakia. Moscow calculated that not only would intervention in the war preserve Syria as an asset, but also afford it a chance to test numerous weapons system which had never been used in combat before, thereby advertising their capabilities to potential export clients.

Now that Assad’s hold on power is secure, it’s becoming clear that growing infrastructure of Iranian bases in Syria is likely there to stay—and that Iran intends to use them to funnel drones, artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to Hezbollah to challenge Israeli military dominance. This has elicited an intensifying Israeli bombardment campaign to knock out the buildup, both through preemptive strikes and reactive counterattacks.

So far, the exchange has been a lopsided one, with only a single Israeli warplane shot down by Syrian air defense over seven years, in exchange for dozens of targets hit by Israeli guided munitions and numerous facilities and advanced weapons destroyed. Iranian and Hezbollah forces, however, have continued to test Israeli defenses with drones and artillery, so the proxy war could potentially continue escalating for some time.

Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Reuters.

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Middle East

It became obvious that both the F-5E and the MiG-21 lacked the advanced sensors, weapons and electronic countermeasures necessary for survival over a battlefield saturated with massive volumes of anti-aircraft weaponry.

Here's What You Need To Remember: As far as is currently known, the Iran-Iraq War thus ended without a clear winner in this duel. Four each F-5Es and MiG-21s were destroyed.

There have been countless discussions over which is the better fighter jet— the U.S.-made Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Soviet MiG-21 Fishbed.

That can be a hard argument to settle. The Iran-Iraq war was probably a draw for the two types.

More than 15,000 of these two cheap, lightweight, simple-to-maintain and -operate fighters were produced and, over the time, they’ve served in more than 60 different air forces — some of which operated both of them.

The usual story is that they never met in combat and thus the ultimate question about their mutual superiority remains unanswered. But actually, they did clash — and not only once.

Their first air battles — fought in the course of the long-forgotten conflict over the Horn of Africa in summer 1977 — ended with a rather one-sided victory for F-5Es of the Ethiopian Air Force. These shot down nine MiG-21s — not to mention two MiG-17s — of the Somali Air Force while suffering zero losses in air combat.

Slightly more than three years later, the two types clashed again in the course of the Iran-Iraq War. Iraq had opportunistically exploited internal chaos resulting from the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1978 and ’79. The Revolution toppled the U.S.-allied Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and installed a regime that nearly disbanded the Iranian military.

The former Imperial Iranian Air Force became the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, or IRIAF. The air arm lost nearly two-thirds of its officers and other ranks to arrests, executions or forced early retirements. By the time Iraq invaded Iran on Sept. 22, 1980, the IRIAF was a shadow of its former self.

Nevertheless, the IRIAF still had five squadrons equipped with around 115 F-5E/Fs, and one squadron flying reconnaissance-optimized RF-5As. Some 40 additional Tiger IIs were in storage. Their primary air-to-air weapon was the AIM-9J variant of the U.S.-made Sidewinder missile, and two 20-millimeter Colt M39 cannons installed internally. But in Iran the type was primarily deployed as a fighter-bomber, armed with different bombs.

Operated by nine squadrons, the MiG-21 was the backbone of the Iraqi Air Force, or IrAF. The best units were equipped with the ultimate MiG-21bis-variant and the latest Soviet-made air-to-air missiles such as the AA-2C Advanced Atoll and the AA-8 Aphid.

A few MiG-21s were locally modified to carry French-made R.500 Magic air-to-air missiles, a small batch of which was delivered to Iraq in summer 1980 pending the first deliveries of Dassault Mirage F.1EQ interceptors.

Training of Iraqi and Iranian pilots was of similar quality. All the Iranians underwent extensive training in the United States and some in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Iraqis developed their own tactical procedures informed by the Arab experience in the October 1973 war with Israel. Indian, French and Soviet input also shaped Iraqi training.

Iranian F-5Es and Iraqi MiG-21s clashed for the first time on Sept. 24, 1980, two days after Iraq invaded Iran. Two MiGs sneaked up unobserved on a four-ship of Tigers that was approaching Hurrya Air Base loaded with Mk.82 bombs.

One of the Iraqi’s missiles detonated harmlessly under the aircraft flown by Capt. Yadollah Sharifi-Ra’ad, alerting him to the enemy’s presence. Sharifi-Ra’ad then splashed one of the Iraqis with a single Sidewinder.

In attempt to destroy the main Iraqi source of income, the IRIAF began bombing the Iraqi oil industry starting on Sept. 26, 1980. This operation resulted in most of the clashes between the two fighter types.

The first of these occurred on the same day and developed when a pair of Tiger IIs was intercepted by a pair of MiG-21s while approaching the Qanaqin oil refinery. While Iraqis claimed to have shot down an aircraft flown by famous Iranian pilot Capt. Zarif-Khadem — formerly a member of the Taj-Talee Acrojet team, an Iranian equivalent of the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds — the Iranians insisted he hit the ground while attempting to evade one of the MiGs.

On Nov. 14, 1980, a pair of MiG-21bis from №47 Squadron, led by a captain we’ll call “Zaki,” caught an F-5E that had separated from its formation after striking an oil refinery in Mosul. Wrongly describing his target as an F-4 Phantom, the Iraqi described what happened next.

“Our order was to patrol an area we thought was used as a waypoint by the enemy. We carefully scanned the skies and few minutes later saw a lonesome Phantom [sic]. I dove and accelerated while cutting the corner, got a good tone and pressed the trigger.”

“I never fired a Magic before, but heard of the first kill scored with it nearly a month before,” the Iraqi MiG-21 pilot continued. “The missile guided and everything looked fine — until it passed harmlessly by the tail of my target! My first reaction was that of a shock, but friction of second later the Magic detonated near the cockpit, causing a big fireball.”

The biggest air battle between the two types in this war took place on Nov. 26, 1980, when eight IRIAF F-5Es entered Iraqi air space with intention of simultaneously striking a power plant in Dukan, a radar station outside Halabcheh, an observation post outside Suleimaniyah and Al Hurrya Air Base.

By that time, Iraqi MiG-21s were regularly patrolling the northern section of Iraq’s border with Iran. A pair of MiGs led by Capt. Nawfal from №47 Squadron intercepted two F-5Es that approached Dukan and, launching an AA-8, shot down the aircraft flown by 1st Lt. Abul-Hassan, killing him.

The other Iraqi pair intercepted the formation led by Capt. Sharifi-Ra’ad, tasked with bombing a target outside Suleimaniyah. Once again, however, the experienced Iranian outsmarted his opponents.

“I found our target not occupied and decided to re-route towards the telecommunication facility outside Suleimaniyah instead,” Sharifi-Ra’ad recalled. “Once there, my plane shook and I warned my wingman about enemy flak. Then I glanced to the left and sighted a MiG-21: that was the reason for my aircraft shaking.”

“I released my bombs and prepared for air combat while decreasing my altitude to a very low level and then turning hard to force the MiG to overshoot. The Iraqi pilot did a mistake and reduced his speed, while I did another mistake by firing an AIM-9J at him much too early. The Sidewinder failed to lock-on and missed its target.”

“I switched to guns and fired a burst at his right wing from short range,” Sharifi-Ra’ad added. “He was watching me as we descended very low, and then his left wing touched the ground — and his aircraft exploded.”

Both sides agree that an F-5E and a MiG-21 collided during this dogfight, and both pilots perished, but the Iraqis insist that 1st Lt. Abdullah Lau’aybi intentionally rammed his MiG into Zanjani’s Tiger II — an act that made him a sort of local legend.

The most intensive period of aerial warfare between Iran and Iraq came to an end in late 1980. Both sides were physically and materially exhausted by four months of intensive operations and heavy losses.

Furthermore, it became obvious that both the F-5E and the MiG-21 lacked the advanced sensors, weapons and electronic countermeasures necessary for survival over a battlefield saturated with massive volumes of anti-aircraft weaponry.

Unsurprisingly, both types were increasingly relegated to secondary duties, and their mutual clashes became outright rarities. The last known air combat between Iranian F-5Es and Iraqi MiG-21s took place on Nov. 13, 1983, when Capt. Ibrahim Bazargan shot down an Iraqi involved in air strike on Ahwaz International Airport.

As far as is currently known, the Iran-Iraq War thus ended without a clear winner in this duel. Four each F-5Es and MiG-21s were destroyed.

This article first appeared in 2018.

Image: Wikipedia.

Jonti Horner

Astronomy, World

Even if Earth is in the crosshairs, though, there’s nothing to worry about.

Social media around the world lit up over the weekend, discussing the possibility that an asteroid (known as 2018 VP₁) could crash into Earth on November 2.

It seemed only fitting. What better way to round off a year that has seen catastrophic floods, explosions, fires, and storms – and, of course, a global pandemic?

But you can rest easy. The asteroid does not pose a threat to life on Earth. Most likely, it will sail harmlessly past our planet. At worst, it will burn up harmlessly in our atmosphere and create a firework show for some lucky Earthlings.

So, What’s the Story?

Our story begins a couple of years ago, on November 3, 2018. That night, the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in Southern California discovered a faint new “near-Earth asteroid” – an object whose orbit can approach, or cross, that of our planet.

At the time of its discovery, 2018 VP₁ was roughly 450,000 kilometres from Earth – a little farther than the average distance between Earth and the Moon (around 384,000km).

The asteroid was very faint, and hard to spot against the background stars. Astronomers were only able to watch it for 13 days, before it was too far from Earth to see.

Based on that short series of observations, it became clear the asteroid is a kind of near-Earth object called an “Apollo asteroid”.

Apollo asteroids spend most of their time beyond Earth’s orbit, but swing inward across our planet’s orbit at the innermost part of their journey around the Sun. 2018 VP₁ takes two years to go around the Sun, swinging just inside Earth’s orbit every time it reaches “perihelion” (its closest approach to our star).

Because 2018 VP₁’s orbit takes almost exactly two years, in 2020 (two years after discovery), it will once again pass close to Earth.

But how close will it come? Well, that’s the million-dollar question.

Anything from a Collision to a Very Distant Miss …

To work out an object’s exact path through the Solar system, and to predict where it will be in the future (or where it was in the past), astronomers need to gather observations.

We need at least three data points to estimate an object’s orbit – but that will only give us a very rough guess. The more observations we can get, and the longer the time period they span, the better we can tie down the orbit.

And that’s why the future of 2018 VP₁ is uncertain. It was observed 21 times over 13 days, which allows its orbit to be calculated fairly precisely. We know it takes 2 years (plus or minus 0.001314 years) to go around the Sun. In other words, our uncertainty in the asteroid’s orbital period is about 12 hours either way.

That’s actually pretty good, given how few observations were made – but it means we can’t be certain exactly where the asteroid will be on November 2 this year.

However, we can work out the volume of space within which we can be confident that the asteroid will lie at a given time. Imagine a huge bubble in space, perhaps 4 million km across at its largest. We can be very confident the asteroid will be somewhere in the bubble – but that’s about it.

What does that mean for Earth? Well, it turns out the closest approach between the two this year will be somewhere between a direct hit and an enormous miss – with the asteroid coming no closer than 3.7 million km!

We can also work out the likelihood the asteroid will hit Earth during this close approach. The odds are 0.41%, or roughly 1 in 240. In other words, by far the most likely outcome on November 2 is the asteroid will sail straight past us.

But What If It Did Hit Us?

As the great Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten”. But have you ever heard someone say “It’s a 240-to-1 chance, but it might just work?”

So should we be worried?

Well, the answer here goes back to how hard it was to spot 2018 VP₁ in the first place. Based on how faint it was, astronomers estimate it’s only about 2 metres across. Objects that size hit Earth all the time.

Bigger asteroids do more damage, as we were spectacularly reminded back in February 2013, when an asteroid around 20 metres across exploded in the atmosphere above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.

The Chelyabinsk airburst was spectacular, and the shockwave damaged buildings and injured more than 1,500 people. But that was an object ten times the diameter of 2018 VP₁ – which means it was probably at least 1,000 times heavier, and could penetrate far further into the atmosphere before meeting its fiery end.

2018 VP₁ is so small it poses no threat. It would almost certainly burn up harmlessly in our atmosphere before it reached the ground. Most likely, it would detonate in an “airburst”, tens of kilometres above the ground – leaving only tiny fragments to drift down to the surface.

If 2018 VP₁ is particularly robust (a chunk of a metal asteroid, rather than a stony or icy one), it could make it to the ground – but even then, it is way too small to cause significant damage.

Having said that, the fireball as the asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere would be spectacular. If we were really lucky, it might be captured on camera by the Global Fireball network (led by Curtin University).

With images of the fireball from several cameras, researchers could work out where any debris might fall and head out to recover it. A freshly fallen meteorite is a pristine fragment from which we can learn a great deal about the Solar system’s history.

The Bottom Line

It’s no wonder in a year like this that 2018 VP₁ has generated some excitement and media buzz.

But, most likely, November 3 will come around and nothing will have happened. 2018 VP₁ will have passed by, likely unseen, back to the depths of space.

Even if Earth is in the crosshairs, though, there’s nothing to worry about. At worst, someone, somewhere on the globe, will see a spectacular fireball – and people in the US might just get to see some spectacular pre-election fireworks.

Or to put it another way: “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”.

Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

Security,

What makes a battleship "great?"

Here's What You Need To Remember: A battleship's name becomes legend if it helps win a grand victory, loses in dramatic fashion, or perhaps accomplishes some landmark diplomatic feat. A vessel favored (or damned) by fortune, furthermore, becomes a strategic compass rose. It becomes part of the intellectual fund on which future generations draw when making maritime strategy.

Ranking the greatest battleships of all time is a tad easier than ranking naval battles. Both involve comparing apples with oranges. But at least taking the measure of individual men-of-war involves comparing one apple with one orange. That's a compact endeavor relative to sorting through history to discern how seesaw interactions shaped the destinies of peoples and civilizations.

Still, we need some standard for distinguishing between battlewagons. What makes a ship great? It makes sense, first of all, to exclude any ship before the reign of Henry VIII. There was no line-of-battle ship in the modern sense before England's "great sea-king" founded the sail-driven Royal Navy in the 16th century. Galley warfare was quite a different affair from lining up capital ships and pounding away with naval gunnery.

One inescapable chore is to compare ships' technical characteristics. A recent piece over at War Is Boring revisits an old debate among battleship and World War II enthusiasts. Namely, who would've prevailed in a tilt between a U.S. Navy Iowa-class dreadnought and the Imperial Japanese Navy's Yamato? Author Michael Peck restates the common wisdom from when I served in mighty Wisconsin, last of the battleships: it depends on who landed the first blow. Iowas commanded edges in speed and fire control, while Yamato and her sister Musashi outranged us and boasted heavier weight of shot. We would've made out fine had we closed the range before the enemy scored a lucky hit from afar. If not, things may have turned ugly.

Though not in so many words, Peck walks through the basic design features that help qualify a battleship for history's elite -- namely guns, armor, and speed. Makes sense, doesn't it? Offensive punch, defensive resiliency, and speed remain the hallmarks of any surface combatant even in this missile age. Note, however, that asymmetries among combat vessels result in large part from the tradeoffs naval architects must make among desirable attributes.

Only sci-fi lets shipwrights escape such choices. A Death Star of the sea would sport irresistible weaponry, impenetrable armor, and engines able to drive the vessel at breakneck speed. But again, you can't have everything in the real world. Weight is a huge challenge. A battleship loaded down with the biggest guns and thickest armor would waddle from place to place. It would make itself an easy target for nimbler opponents or let them run away. On the other hand, assigning guns and speed top priority works against rugged sides. A ship that's fleet of foot but lightly armored exposes its innards and crew to enemy gunfire. And so forth. Different navies have different philosophies about tradeoffs. Hence the mismatches between Yamato and Iowa along certain parameters. Thus has it always been when fighting ships square off.

But a battleship is more than a machine. Machines neither rule the waves nor lose out in contests for mastery. People do. People ply the seas, and ideas about shiphandling and tactics guide their combat endeavors. Great Britain's Royal Navy triumphed repeatedly during the age of sail. Its success owed less to superior materiel -- adversaries such as France and the United States sometimes fielded better ships -- than to prolonged voyages that raised seamanship and gunnery to a high art. Indeed, a friend likes to joke that the 18th century's finest warship was a French 74-gun ship captured -- and crewed -- by Royal Navy mariners. The best hardware meets the best software.

That's why in the end, debating Jane's Fighting Ships entries -- lists of statistics -- for Iowa, Yamato, and their brethren from other times and places fails to satisfy. What looks like the best ship on paper may not win. A ship need not outmatch its opponents by every technical measure. It needs to be good enough. That is, it must match up well enough to give an entrepreneurial crew, mindful of the tactical surroundings, a reasonable chance to win. The greatest battleship thus numbers among the foremost vessels of its age by material measures, and is handled by masterful seamen.

But adding the human factor to the mix still isn't enough. There's an element of opportunity, of sheer chance. True greatness comes when ship and crew find themselves in the right place at the right time to make history. A battleship's name becomes legend if it helps win a grand victory, loses in dramatic fashion, or perhaps accomplishes some landmark diplomatic feat. A vessel favored (or damned) by fortune, furthermore, becomes a strategic compass rose. It becomes part of the intellectual fund on which future generations draw when making maritime strategy. It's an artifact of history that helps make history.

So we arrive at one guy's gauge for a vessel's worth: strong ship, iron men, historical consequence. In effect, then, I define greatest as most iconic. Herewith, my list of history's five most iconic battleships, in ascending order:

Bismarck:

The German Navy's Bismarck lived a short life that supplies the stuff of literature to this day. Widely considered the most capable battleship in the Atlantic during World War II, Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, with a single round from her main battery. On the other hand, the leadership's martial spirit proved brittle when the going got tough. In fact, it shattered at the first sharp rap. As commanders' resolve went, so went the crew's.

Notes Bernard Brodie, the dreadnought underwent an "extreme oscillation" in mood. Exaltation stoked by the encounter with Hood gave way to despair following a minor torpedo strike from a British warplane. Admiral Günther Lütjens, the senior officer on board, gathered Bismarck crewmen after the air attack and "implored them to meet death in a fashion becoming to good Nazis." A great coach Lütjens was not. The result? An "abysmally poor showing" in the final showdown with HMS Rodney, King George V, and their entourage. One turret crew fled their guns. Turret officers reportedly kept another on station only at gunpoint. Marksmanship and the guns' rate of fire -- key determinants of victory in gunnery duels -- suffered badly.

In short, Bismarck turned out to be a bologna flask (hat tip: Clausewitz), an outwardly tough vessel that shatters at the slightest tap from within. In 1939 Grand Admiral Erich Raeder lamented that the German surface fleet, flung into battle long before it matured, could do little more than "die with honor." Raeder was righter than he knew. Bismarck's death furnishes a parable that captivates navalists decades hence. How would things have turned out had the battlewagon's human factor proved less fragile? We'll never know. Doubtless her measure of honor would be bigger.

Yamato:

As noted at the outset, Yamato was an imposing craft by any standard. She displaced more than any battleship in history, as much as an early supercarrier, and bore the heaviest armament. Her mammoth 18-inch guns could sling 3,200-lb. projectiles some 25 nautical miles. Armor was over two feet thick in places. Among the three attributes of warship design, then, Yamato's designers clearly prized offensive and defensive strength over speed. The dreadnought could steam at 27 knots, not bad for a vessel of her proportions. But that was markedly slower than the 33 knots attainable by U.S. fast battleships.

Like Bismarck, Yamato is remembered mainly for falling short of her promise. She provides another cautionary tale about human fallibility. At Leyte Gulf in October 1944, a task force centered on Yamato bore down on the transports that had ferried General Douglas MacArthur's landing force ashore on Leyte, and on the sparse force of light aircraft carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts guarding the transports from seaward assault.

Next ensued the immortal charge of the tin-can sailors. The outclassed American ships charged Yamato and her retinue. Like Lütjens, Admiral Takeo Kurita, the task-force commander, appeared to wilt under less-than-dire circumstances. Historians still argue about whether he mistook Taffy 3, the U.S. Navy contingent, for a far stronger force; lost his nerve; or simply saw little point in sacrificing his ships and men. Whatever the case, Kurita ordered his fleet to turn back -- leaving MacArthur's expeditionary force mostly unmolested from the sea.

Yamato met a quixotic fate, though less ignominious than Bismarck's. In April 1945 the superbattleship was ordered to steam toward Okinawain company with remnants of the surface fleet, there to contest the Allied landings. The vessel would deliberately beach itself offshore, becoming an unsinkable gun emplacement until it was destroyed or its ammunition was exhausted. U.S. naval intelligence got wind of the scheme, however, and aerial bombardment dispatched Yamato before she could reach her destination. A lackluster end for history's most fearsome battlewagon.

Missouri:

Iowa and New Jersey were the first of the Iowa class and compiled the most enviable fighting records in the class, mostly in the Pacific War. Missouri was no slouch as a warrior, but -- alone on this list -- she's celebrated mainly for diplomatic achievements rather than feats of arms. General MacArthur accepted Japan's surrender on her weatherdecks in Tokyo Bay, leaving behind some of the most enduring images from 20th-century warfare. Missouri has been a metaphor for how to terminate big, open-ended conflicts ever since. For instance, President Bush the Elder invoked the surrender in his memoir. Missouri supplied a measuring stick for how Desert Storm might unfold. (And as it happens, a modernized Missouri was in Desert Storm.)

 

Missouri remained a diplomatic emissary after World War II. The battlewagon cruised to Turkey in the early months after the war, as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe and communist insurgencies menaced Greece and Turkey. Observers interpreted the voyage as a token of President Harry Truman's, and America's, commitment to keeping the Soviet bloc from subverting friendly countries. Message: the United States was in Europe to stay. Missouri thus played a part in the development of containment strategy while easing anxieties about American abandonment. Naval diplomacy doesn't get much better than that.

Mikasa:

Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō's flagship is an emblem for maritime command. The British-built Mikasa was arguably the finest battleship afloat during the fin de siècle years, striking the best balance among speed, protection, and armament. The human factor was strong as well. Imperial Japanese Navy seamen were known for their proficiency and élan, while Tōgō was renowned for combining shrewdness with derring-do. Mikasa was central to fleet actions in the Yellow Sea in 1904 and the Tsushima Strait in 1905 -- battles that left the wreckage of two Russian fleets strewn across the seafloor. The likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan considered Tsushima a near-perfect fleet encounter.

Like the other battleships listed here, Mikasa molded how subsequent generations thought about diplomacy and warfare. IJN commanders of the interwar years planned to replicate Tsushima Strait should Japan fall out with the United States. More broadly, Mikasa and the rest of the IJN electrified peoples throughout Asia and beyond. Japan, that is, proved that Western imperial powers could be beaten in battle and ultimately expelled from lands they had subjugated. Figures ranging from Sun Yat-sen to Mohandas Gandhi to W. E. B. Du Bois paid homage to Tsushima, crediting Japan with firing their enthusiasm for overthrowing colonial rule.

Mikasa, then, was more than the victor in a sea fight of modest scope. And her reputation outlived her strange fate. The vessel returned home in triumph following the Russo-Japanese War, only to suffer a magazine explosion and sink. For the Japanese people, the disaster confirmed that they had gotten a raw deal at the Portsmouth Peace Conference. Nevertheless, it did little to dim foreign observers' enthusiasm for Japan's accomplishments.Mikasa remained a talisman.

Victory:

Topping this list is the only battleship from the age of sail. HMS Victory was a formidable first-rate man-of-war, cannon bristling from its three gun decks. But her fame comes mainly from her association with Lord Horatio Nelson, whom Mahan styles "the embodiment of the sea power of Great Britain." In 1805 Nelson led his outnumbered fleet into combat against a combined Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar, near Gibraltar. Nelson and right-hand man Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood led columns of ships that punctured the enemy line of battle. The Royal Navy crushed its opponent in the ensuing melee, putting paid to Napoleon's dreams of invading the British Isles.

Felled on board his flagship that day, Nelson remains a synonym for decisive battle. Indeed, replicating Trafalgar became a Holy Grail for naval strategists across the globe. Permanently drydocked at Portsmouth, Victory is a shrine to Nelson and his exploits -- and the standard of excellence for seafarers everywhere. That entitles her to the laurels of history's greatest battleship.

Surveying this list of icons, two battleships made the cut because of defeats stemming from slipshod leadership, two for triumphs owing to good leadership, and one for becoming a diplomatic paragon. That's not a bad reminder that human virtues and frailties -- not wood, or metal, or shot -- are what make the difference in nautical enterprises.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific (second edition forthcoming this October). The views voiced here are his alone.

This was posted on December 2013 and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Wikipedia.

Ben Bramble

Health, World

To answer that question, ethicists must consider an equation involving risk, knowledge and need.

The world urgently needs a vaccine for COVID-19. Only when a vaccine is approved and people are safe can countries fully end their lockdowns and resume normal life. The trouble is that such vaccines usually take years to develop and test for efficacy and safety.

Recently, some bioethicists have proposed a way of speeding up this testing process by several months. Researchers would put volunteers in quarantine with access to the best medical care, give these volunteers one of the trial vaccines and then directly expose them to the coronavirus. This type of intentional exposure is called a challenge trial, and since researchers would not have to wait for subjects to encounter the virus in the normal course of their daily lives, it could result in a vaccine much faster than a normal trial. Researchers need to know if the vaccine they are testing actually produces some sort of immunity, so people have to come in contact with the coronavirus. The question is whether to produce that contact intentionally, or let random chance do it.

I am a philosopher and bioethicist who has been researching and writing a book on the ethics of the pandemic. Challenge trials are not a new idea, and have always faced a major ethical question: Do they exploit test subjects even if the subjects volunteer?

To answer that question, ethicists must consider an equation involving risk, knowledge and need. Given the current state of the pandemic, there is only one rare situation in which I believe a challenge trial would be ethical. In most cases, it would unfairly exploit those who volunteer.

Risk Minimization

The first question is risk. Some proponents of challenge trials say that they might be ethical if you only select volunteers who already have a high risk of catching the virus – for example, people who live in high transmission areas, or who are essential workers like doctors, nurses, bus drivers, cleaners, food workers and so on. People who support this argue that since these people are already at great risk, being purposefully exposed to the virus isn’t that much riskier for them than normal life.

But I see a big problem with this idea. These people are at such high risk of catching COVID-19 in large part due to failures of governments to properly lock down, test and contact-trace. In asking these people to volunteer, I see governments as saying to them: “Due to our repeated blunders, you’re still at a very high risk of something really, really terrible. Sorry about that. But now, seeing as you are already so very imperiled, would you mind terribly if we increased your risk even further, to help us all get out of this giant pickle?” I believe that there is something deeply wrong with asking people this.

Full Information

OK, risk is bad, but what if volunteers fully understand the risks they face? Would that make challenge trials ethical?

Unfortunately, it is unclear whether this is possible. The medical community’s knowledge of the full health impacts of COVID-19 is simply too incomplete right now. For example, recent studies suggest the virus might cause long-term heart damage in patients who do not even require hospitalization during their initial infection.

Moreover, in order to reduce the risks of volunteers becoming severely ill or dying, they would likely have to be young and healthy people. But such people have, by definition, never experienced severe illness before. Even if they have a good theoretical grasp of the health risks, that is a far cry from firsthand experience of severe, long-term illness. This is a substantial problem.

Analogies with Other Professions

The final point that people make is that there are many other contexts in which it is ethical to allow people to take on big health risks for the sake of the community – firefighters, police officers, soldiers and many other people who work dangerous jobs do this daily. And of course, millions of essential workers are still going to work in the morning despite the risks involved.

The difference between firefighting and a challenge trial has to do with need. While there is robust debate going on over just how essential many of these jobs are, if every essential worker stopped going to work, society would grind to a halt. The country needs grocery store workers and firefighters to do their jobs.

By contrast, if the U.S. prevents people from volunteering for challenge trials, society will not collapse. It is true that the country needs a vaccine, but challenge trials are not the only way to get one. Researchers can simply run vaccine trials in the normal way.

When Challenge Trials are Ethical

If a normal vaccine trial can be run, I don’t believe challenge trials can be justified.

But imagine some point in the future before a vaccine is approved. Efforts to contain the virus have proven so effective that there is no longer enough of the virus still circulating in communities for a normal vaccine testing process to produce a result, but there is enough virus around to pose a significant risk of outbreaks if lockdowns were relaxed. In this specific scenario, countries could face a choice between staying in various states of lockdown indefinitely or conducting human challenge trials.

Here, it would be not only morally permissible, but arguably morally required to let people volunteer for challenge trials. The alternative to doing so would be a permanent and substantial diminishment of society and quality of life. Trial volunteers would then become truly analogous to essential workers, needed to prevent a kind of societal collapse.

If countries immediately commit to the effective interventions – mask wearing, locking down, testing and contact-tracing – and then actually do them, the virus could be contained. In that case, challenge trials could be justified.

Whether a country ends up facing the decision between indefinite lockdowns and a challenge trial remains to be seen, as there are a lot of unknowns with this virus. Until that decision is upon us, the equation involving risk, knowledge and need does not add up to a sufficient justification for challenge trials.

Ben Bramble, Visiting Fellow, Princeton University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Robert Beckhusen

Security, Europe

Slovakia has some of the world's best.

Here's What You Need To Remember: The reason this machine is appearing now has to do with Slovakia’s goal of equipping a modern mechanized brigade with an artillery battalion that can respond rapidly to crises — whether affecting Slovakia itself or the NATO alliance, which is all the more salient given Slovakia’s proximity to Ukraine. The Slovak armored corps is still largely comprised of Warsaw Pact-era T-72s and BMP-1 and -2 armored fighting vehicles, although Slovakia is acquiring dozens of Finnish Patria armored vehicles to replace the BMPs.

When the DANA began rolling off Czechoslovakian assembly lines in the late 1970s, there wasn’t much else like it. The enormous, 152-millimeter self-propelled howitzer had eight road wheels instead of tracks. Most mobile artillery pieces at that time were tracked, like tanks, and the DANA was the first gun its of its size to roll on wheels — while carrying an innovative auto-reloading mechanism for the cannon.

The Czechoslovak People’s Army wanted the DANA so it wouldn’t have to rely as much on the Soviet industry for its needs — and the wheels made for a speedy and rapidly-deployable artillery piece, the most significant downside being less off-road maneuverability.

It worked well enough. The self-propelled gun is now battle-tested, with more than 670 built in total and exports to Poland, Libya and the Soviet Union — which were handed down to the successor states of Georgia and Azerbaijan, which still have them in service.

Most recently, the Czech military used them in Afghanistan.

The DANA is more precisely a Slovak weapon. In the 1990s, the recently-independent Slovakia — with its DANA-producing factories — produced the Zuzana, a successor to the Dana which is similar except for its 155-millimeter cannon designed to accommodate standard NATO ammunition. The only other country to ever adopt Zuzana is the Republic of Cyprus.

Now the Slovak company Konstrukta has a very interesting successor to the DANA and Zuzana known as the Zuzana 2. On May 23, 2018, the Slovak army announced it would be the first to acquire 25 Zuzana 2s, which have been in testing since 2014.

The machine is enormous at more than 46 feet long — and rather unique looking.

It looks like construction equipment, and it is quite heavy at 37.5 tons, which is 10 tons heavier than the U.S. Army’s self-propelled, tracked M-109 Paladin howitzer. Befitting the wheeled configuration and using the M-109 as a comparison, the Zuzana 2 can travel 15 miles faster — at 50 miles per hour — and has 156 more miles of unserviced range at 372 miles in total.

Like the first Zuzuana, the Zuzana 2 has a 155-millimeter howitzer servicing NATO ammunition. The crew has been reduced to three, from the Zuzana 1’s four, due to increased automation.

The reason this machine is appearing now has to do with Slovakia’s goal of equipping a modern mechanized brigade with an artillery battalion that can respond rapidly to crises — whether affecting Slovakia itself or the NATO alliance, which is all the more salient given Slovakia’s proximity to Ukraine. The Slovak armored corps is still largely comprised of Warsaw Pact-era T-72s and BMP-1 and -2 armored fighting vehicles, although Slovakia is acquiring dozens of Finnish Patria armored vehicles to replace the BMPs.

The most important upgrade to the Zuzana 2 is its “MRSI” capability — or multiple-round simultaneous impact — where the fire-control computer crunches the numbers for multiple rounds to fire at different trajectories in short succession, causing each high-explosive shell to land in the same place at the same time.

This makes the Zuzana 2 one of the most advanced artillery systems in the world.

Image: Reuters.

Jody Ralph, Dana Menard, Kendall Soucie, Laurie A. Freeman

Public Health, Americas

As a community, we need solutions that go beyond a pat on the back and “hero” label, and instead address unsafe working conditions and offer practical effective support.

The Year of the Nurse brought increased attention to the “heroes of health care”: nurses working on the front lines of COVID-19. However, despite public displays of thanks, it’s becoming clear that many nurses are not getting the support they need to feel safe on the job and to maintain their own health and well-being.

As researchers in psychology and nursing at the University of Windsor, we sought an in-depth understanding of how nurses in a border city felt about working during the pandemic.

Evidence from SARS in 2003 indicated that nurses may experience significant, long-term mental health effects from working during the pandemic. Early research from China and Italy found that nurses working during the surge of COVID-19 cases in those countries reported high rates of depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances.

Commuting in a Border City

As a border city, Windsor, Ont., is home to nurses who reside and work locally, but also a significant number who commute daily to hospitals in Detroit, Mich. Early in the pandemic, Detroit emerged as a “hot spot” partly due to significant racial inequalities and health disparities in the city’s population.

Detroit hospitals depend on their Canadian nurse employees. In 2016, 20 per cent of the nurses working at Henry Ford Hospital were Canadian, and a total of 1,600 Windsor residents reported working in health-care settings in Detroit. The continued ability of these hospitals to operate during and after the pandemic depends on the retention of Canadian personnel.

In May and June 2020, our team interviewed 32 female and five male nurses living in Windsor and working in health-care settings in Windsor (20 nurses) or Detroit (17 nurses). They worked on intensive care units, COVID-specific units, labour and delivery units, in emergency departments and field hospitals, with experience in nursing ranging from 1.5 to 36 years.

Concerns About Family and Mental Health

Nurses consistently reported increased mental health concerns, difficulties coping and substantial dissatisfaction with the level of support provided by their hospitals.

The support that nurses felt from their organization and managers varied from workplace to workplace and unit to unit. A few felt well supported, but many reported they were not valued, citing organizations that furloughed them, stopped employer contributions to retirement funds or did not provide adequate PPE. One participant noted:

“I didn’t sign up for not having myself protected, you know, I think I deserve as a nurse to at least have that.”

Despite increasing levels of depression and anxiety, there was a strong sense that referrals to employee assistance plans (EAPs) were not sufficient. Overall, we found that nurses were surprisingly resistant to the idea of formal mental health supports. They felt more comfortable seeking support from their coworkers or “work family” than non-nurse family/friends or organizational supports. Many expressed fears that seeking help from hospital administration would be perceived as a sign of weakness. One participant stated:

“Heaven forbid, you say mental health or stress … because then they’ll take you from your unit, and say, put you at the front door as a greeter.”

Nurses also expressed concerns about their own health and the health of family members. They described difficulties balancing quality patient care with “cluster care,” which limited their time in patient rooms, and the emotional toll of “death over Facetime” as one participant called it: holding electronic tablets as dying patients said their goodbyes to family.

They experienced difficulties navigating rapidly changing hospital policies (sometimes during a single shift), discrepancies between governmental and hospital recommendations, do not resuscitate orders that were either avoided or forced, and inadequate access to PPE.

Many reported sleep issues, nightmares, fatigue, increased irritability, increased alcohol consumption, unhealthy eating habits and use of sleep aids and cannabis. Many self-isolated from their families and missed out on the day-to-day moments and key developmental milestones of their children. One participant recounted:

“I missed my kid’s entire crawling stage.”

Many nurses spoke of inequity and moral injury. They expressed frustration about doctors and men with facial hair receiving better PPE, temporary employees (that is, travel nurses) getting better pay and/or hours, being reassigned to multiple units and doing non-nursing tasks like cleaning COVID-19 positive rooms. Nurses felt better prepared to be reassigned if they volunteered, but not if it was forced (and some were).

Some nurses were encouraged to purchase their own PPE to use at work, for example, face shields from Amazon or even dollar store raincoats. Almost everyone we interviewed expressed concern about second and third waves and whether the hospitals would be prepared.

Heroes … But Stigmatized

Nurses expressed appreciation regarding the community responses (for example, clapping, food donations, skipping lines at businesses) but also felt a lot of stigma as potential “disease carriers.” One participant shared:

“[The public] keep saying: ‘Oh, nurses are heroes. Doctors are heroes. They’re doing so much for us.’ You’re out in scrubs and they’re like, ‘They’re contaminated, get them away, they’re infectious.’”

There were some differences in responses between nurses employed in Detroit and those working in Windsor. Overall, nurses working on the Michigan side of the border reported greater patient mortality, PPE shortages, community stigma and dissatisfaction with hospital administration. However, these findings are complicated by the much more rapid onset and greater intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Detroit compared to Windsor, and therefore can’t be interpreted with confidence.

Most nurses said that they were not planning on leaving nursing, but several are considering changing units or looking to a career change if the pandemic continues for many months or even years. Nurses also highlighted issues that the public may not be aware of: a moratorium on organ donation, decreased quality of care or risk of family-patient online meetings getting hacked.

Rapid intervention and availability of supports are needed to quickly address symptoms of mental health issues and reduce loss in the nursing workforce that has been observed after previous outbreaks, such as SARS, which could exacerbate a pre-pandemic shortage of nurses in Canada.

Nursing is a profession with a reputation for trustworthiness and dedication to quality care. As a community, we need solutions that go beyond a pat on the back and “hero” label, and instead address unsafe working conditions and offer practical effective support.

Jody Ralph, Associate Professor, Nursing, University of Windsor; Dana Ménard, Assistant professor of clinical psychology, University of Windsor; Kendall Soucie, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Windsor, and Laurie A. Freeman, Associate Professor, Nursing, University of Windsor

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters