Diplomacy & Crisis News

Preventing conflicts requires closing development gaps, shrinking inequality and bringing hope to people around the globe, senior UN officials told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Mark Episkopos

S-500, Russia

The first ten units of Russia's new S-500 were delivered earlier in 2021.

Here's What You Need to Know: Initially slated for completion in 2012, the S-500 project has faced a long procession of delays over the past decade.

Following years of anticipation, Russia’s next-generation S-500 missile defense system is being introduced into service. 

“The state trials have just completed, and the first supplies of this complex have started,” Russian deputy prime minister Yuri Borisov told reporters. “That is not yet the full range as the Almaz-Antey Concern requires. The configurations of the complex were discussed.” Borisov did not elaborate further and his somewhat hazy statement did not become clearer when interpreted in its original Russian. The implication appears to be that certain components are missing from the handful of S-500 units that are currently being delivered to Russia’s Armed Forces. These could be core components without which the system will not function as intended or additional loadout options like different interceptor missile types. Borisov’s statement potentially suggests something of a soft launch for the new missile system, though the details remain unclear as of the time of writing.

The S-500 “Triumfator-M” is Russia’s new flagship missile system, promising across-the-board performance improvements over the country’s current S-400 Triumf. With four radar vehicles per battery, the S-500 reportedly boasts an effective operating range of six hundred kilometers against ballistic missile threats and five hundred kilometers for area defense. The system is believed to be capable of detecting ballistic missiles at a range of up to two thousand kilometers and can track as many as ten ballistic missiles flying at speeds of around seven kilometers per second. Armed with the new, reportedly hypersonic family of 77N6 interceptor missiles, the S-500 is believed to be capable of intercepting hypersonic cruise missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as other aerial objects flying at a speed of over Mach five. It is widely reported that a naval variant of the S-500 will be featured on Russia’s upcoming Project 23560 Lider-class destroyer.

Initially slated for completion in 2012, the S-500 project has faced a long procession of delays over the past decade. The cause of these delays was never made clear, as the system’s development history is being kept tightly under wraps by Moscow. The first ten units entered serial production earlier in 2021, with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko announcing in December 2020 that the S-500 will be introduced into service by the end of 2021.

Despite being branded as a successor to the S-400, there is no indication that the S-500 will be mass-produced in sufficient numbers to widely replace its predecessor any time soon. The S-500 is meant not to substitute, but to complement, the S-400. Though there is a degree of role overlap between the two systems, the S-500 nevertheless fills a unique niche against advanced threats like hypersonic missiles and drones, as well as next-generation stealth fighters. The S-500 will serve alongside older and less capable systems like the S-400 and S-300 to form an additional layer on top of Russia’s echeloned missile defense network, offering what Moscow believes to be unprecedented capabilities against the latest and most dangerous threats.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. 

This article first appeared in September 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Hypersonic Missiles, North Korea

Pyongyang announced in late September 2021 that it had tested a hypersonic missile, but South Korean intelligence deemed the test a failure.

Here's What You Need to Know: The purported test would make North Korea one of four other countries—namely, China, Russia, India, and the United States—to be actively engaged in hypersonic weapons projects.

North Korea announced in September that it launched a hypersonic missile, potentially putting the Hermit Kingdom a hair’s breadth from fielding one of the world’s most advanced categories of strike weapons.

The new missile, dubbed the Hwasong-8, is a top priority under the country’s five-year military development program, state media outlet KCNA reported. North Korean sources used the term “strategic” to describe the new weapon, suggesting that the Hwasong-8 offers nuclear warhead compatibility. 

The missile’s specifications remain unclear. Analysts say that the single photo accompanying the tests suggests, but does not conclusively show, the Hwasong-8 to be a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle (HGV) system. HGVs are one of two primary categories of hypersonic missiles, the other being hypersonic cruise missiles. HGVs are launched from a regular rocket booster before separating to glide toward their target. Experts believe that the sheer speed of these weapons and their unpredictable flight path makes them exceedingly difficult to intercept.

North Korea’s hypersonic ambitions have been years in the making. “The push to develop a hypersonic glider isn't all too surprising given that Kim Jong-un had indicated this back in January,” said defense analyst Ankit Panda.

While the Hwasong-8 took the major headlines on Wednesday, the KCNA report revealed another, potentially no less consequential, “bombshell.” The report noted that the test “ascertained the stability of the engine as well as of missile fuel ampoule that has been introduced for the first time,” suggesting that the DPRK has attained the ability to fuel its missiles in the factory rather than after being deployed in the field. “If the DPRK fuels the missiles in the factory, military units don't have to spend time doing it in the field when the US Air Force is doing its level best to kill them. . . . Big step for the DPRK,” Middlebury Institute of International Studies professor Jeffrey Lewis said in a social media post on Twitter.

Experts have interpreted the test as an ominous development for Seoul and Tokyo. “If true, it means current South Korean and Japanese missile defense systems become close to impotent,” Lionel Fatton, an assistant professor at Webster University in Switzerland and researcher at Meiji University in Japan, told CNN. Others were less quick to jump to conclusions. “One flight test is far from enough to successfully develop this kind of technology,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Vann Van Diepen said. “For them, lauding the technical achievement this represents is a big part of what’s going on—at least at this stage.”

The purported test would make North Korea one of four other countries—namely, China, Russia, India, and the United States—to be actively engaged in hypersonic weapons projects. Two such weapons, the Avangard HGV and the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, are currently fielded by Russia’s military. China’s DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle achieved initial operating capability in 2019. 

It remains unclear whether the Hwasong-8 missile is being fully sourced through domestic expertise and supply chains or if the DPRK is benefitting from foreign technology transfers in the realm of hypersonics. 

The test was reportedly deemed a failure by a South Korean intelligence assessment that concluded the Hwasong-8 did not exceed Mach 2.5, allegedly falling well short of the Mach 5 threshold for hypersonic speed. South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a press statement that the missile remains in an early development stage and is still a ways off from entering service in the DPRK military. The statement added that the missile can be intercepted by current U.S. and South Korean missile defenses.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. 

This article first appeared in September 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

At a “critical conference” supporting the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Secretary-General António Guterres outlined on Tuesday, the “essential role” it continues to play in generations of lives.      

Kyle Mizokami

Iran, Middle East

Between the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran would pose a serious challenge to any of its neighbors.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The most important part of the IRGC, and possibly all of the Iranian Armed Forces, is the Quds Force. Consisting of fifteen to thirty thousand of the best IRGC troops, the Quds Force provides Tehran’s regime with an unconventional warfare capability.

One of the most powerful and influential countries in the Middle East is undoubtedly Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran sits astride several key strategic—and often volatile—regions, including the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Caucasus. Iran is primarily a land power, and has invaded and suffered invasion from other peoples and countries over the past several thousand years. As a result, Iran retains large ground forces, both in the Iranian Army itself and the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The commander in chief of the Iranian Armed Forces is the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Like many states, there are two armies: the Iranian Army, loyal to the country itself, and the IRGC and its Basij militia, which is loyal to the regime and the spirit of the revolution. Unlike most states with two armies, the Iranian Army and the IRGC suffer from less role and capability duplication, in large extent due to the Iranian Revolution.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 deposed the monarchy under the shah and imposed a theocratic revolutionary state. The new rulers of Iran, skeptical of long-standing institutions historically loyal to the shah, allowed the Army to survive as an organization but developed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a counterweight. While the Army would guard the country’s borders and defend against external threats, the IRGC would guard the regime itself. As a result, the Army was arrayed generally towards Iran’s primary enemies at the time—Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia—and placed mostly near the Iranian border. The IRGC, on the other hand, maintains significant garrisons in Iran’s major cities and towns.

In 2013, the Center for Strategic and International Studies assessed the Islamic Iranian Ground Forces as consisting of 350,000 active duty troops, including 130,000 professionals and 220,000 draftees. These troops are organized into four armored divisions, two mechanized infantry divisions, four light infantry divisions, six artillery groups, two special forces/commando divisions, an airborne brigade, three to four commando brigades, an unknown number of aviation units, and other separate armored and infantry brigades.

The ground forces have a number of armored vehicles at their disposal, including 1,663 main battle tanks, 725 reconnaissance and infantry fighting vehicles, 640 armored personnel carriers, 2,322 towed and self-propelled howitzers, and 1,476 multiple rocket launchers. While the sheer amount of equipment sounds impressive, and many pieces, such as the UK’s Chieftain tank, American Sea Cobra attack helicopter and M113 armored personnel carrier, were first-rate weapons for their time, much of it is very dated by 2017 standards. This equipment has been supplemented by Russian equipment purchased during the 1990s to rearm the battle-worn Ground Forces. In general, however, the Ground Forces remain chronically underequipped, crippled by sanctions and a lack of domestic military technology.

Western sanctions and arms embargoes directed against Iran created a vacuum that the country’s nascent arms industry struggled to fill. Today Iran has an enthusiastic, if not quite cutting-edge military-industrial complex. It manufactures a slew of small arms and support weapons for the infantry and offers domestic copies of vehicles such as the BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle and T-72 main battle tank. Not all of its stated achievements pan out, however; Iran claims to have designed and built the Karrar (“Striker”) main battle tank in just one year, which it says is in some ways superior to the Russian T-90MS it had been attempting to purchase. This is almost certainly untrue.

The IRGC, an equal service alongside the Ground Forces, maintains land forces of its own. The hundred-thousand-strong Ground Forces of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution protects the theocratic regime, and as such is more lightly armed than the regular Iranian Army. The Basij paramilitary militia is a lightly armed force also meant to protect the revolution and regime. The Basij infamously acted as poorly trained cannon fodder in the Iran-Iraq War, sending young boys and old men against prepared Iraqi defenses. Today, it is described as a “combination of political party and military organisation” of four to five million that keeps tabs on dissenters and guards the regime.

The most important part of the IRGC, and possibly all of the Iranian Armed Forces, is the Quds Force. Consisting of fifteen to thirty thousand of the best IRGC troops, the Quds Force provides Tehran’s regime with an unconventional warfare capability, broadly similar to the CIA and U.S. Special Forces circa 1967. The Quds Force typically operates alongside nonstate actors such as Hezbollah, providing training, weapons and support. Analysts believe that the Quds Force armed elements of the Iraqi insurgency with IEDs built around explosively forged penetrators, allowing them to penetrate armored vehicles. According to retired U.S. Army general Stanley McChrystal, “We knew where all the factories were in Iran. The E.F.P.s killed hundreds of Americans.”

Much like China’s army in the 1980s, the Iranian Army and other ground forces are large but poorly armed. Iran’s sheer size, both in geography and population, are a deterrent to invasion. With Iraq struggling for its own survival, Tehran’s ground forces generally exist to secure the borders and keep the existing system of government in place. That being said, like the People’s Liberation Army, an injection of funding—and purpose—could turn Iran into the dominant land power in the Middle East.

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

This first appeared a few years ago and is being reposted due to reader interest. 

Image: Reuters

A new Iranian law that raises the prospect of the death penalty for abortion has been condemned by independent human rights experts, who have declared that is in “clear contravention of international law”.

Kris Osborn

Russian Submarines, Eurasia

Russia thinks its Navy has matching capabilities to the US Navy. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: Should Russia succeed in launching a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile from beneath the surface, then that development might represent a substantial breakthrough sufficient to generate international attention.

Russia plans to be the first country to fire a hypersonic missile from a submarine, a new attack prospect likely to introduce new tactical options for commanders looking to attack from the sea. 

Submarines can fire high-speed cruise missiles—such as U.S. Tomahawks or Russian Kalibr—that are able to travel five hundred or more miles per hour. An attack weapon capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds introduces an entirely new dimension of surprise attack. 

Weapons such as the Tomahawk are often considered “first strike” possibilities in warfare engagements given their precision and range. They can destroy fixed land targets such as command and control centers, bunkers and other types of fortified enemy targets. Tomahawks were designed to fly parallel to the ground for the specific purpose of evading Soviet air defenses during the Cold War. Following the end of that war, the U.S. Navy has regularly made upgrades to it. The Tomahawk missiles of today can change course mid-flight to hit moving targets, rely upon a wider range of guidance systems and datalinks, and even leverage new kinds of explosives. 

A sea-launched weapon able to travel at five times the speed of sound would be much more likely to penetrate or evade enemy air defense systems. Some people might wonder how a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile, such as the Russian Tsirkon, could launch from beneath the surface. The weapon may need to be fired from a submarine that has surfaced given the level of heat and high-speed propulsion required to thrust a weapon forward at hypersonic speeds and sustain those speeds. This may be part of why Russia’s TASS news agency is reporting that a second launch from “undersea” is planned to follow the first surface launch. 

“The first launch of a Tsirkon from the Severodvinsk submarine within the framework of development flight tests will be carried out from the water surface position at the beginning of October,” according to the news agency. “Depending on its results, the second launch from underwater at sea targets is scheduled in November.”

It is possible that the Russians might fire the Tsirkon from a submarine that has surfaced given that they have already test-fired the missile from a surface ship several times. Should Russia succeed in launching a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile from beneath the surface, then that development might represent a substantial breakthrough sufficient to generate international attention.

It is notable that the TASS news agency is citing Russian scientists who are suggesting that Russia’s submarine technologies are “superior” to the West. Chief Scientist of the Russian State Research Center Vladimir Peshekhonov informed the news agency that periscope and fiber-optic networking technology built into Russian submarines are possibly superior to that of U.S. Navy submarines. 

“Today, the periscope equipment installed on the newest US Navy submarines is no better than the same gear that Russian submarines are equipped with. In this respect, the situational awareness levels of the submarine crews of the US Navy and the Russian Navy are approximately the same, including technical features such as resolution and color contrasts,” Peshekhonov told TASS.  

The reference to fiber-optics and periscope technology seems significant, as the U.S. Navy’s Block III Virginia-class attack submarines and the Navy’s nuclear-armed Columbia-class are both being engineered with fiber-optic connectivity. This is a networking breakthrough that enables periscope viewing from an entire range of locations throughout a submarine—without requiring viewing to take place just below the top of the submarine near the surface. 

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

This article is being reprinted for reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Sensitizing public opinion to the question of Palestine, and promoting a peaceful settlement to the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, are among the goals of the 2021 UN International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, which began on Tuesday. 

Mark Episkopos

Russian Navy, Black Sea

Russia and Ukraine each announced military exercises in the region in September 2021.

Here's What You Need to Know: Military tensions in the Black Sea have become routine following the 2014 Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, bringing a cascade of aerial interceptions, high-profile military exercises, and increasingly risky naval altercations between Russian and NATO forces.

The Russian Navy is holding large-scale exercises in the Black Sea amid simmering military tensions with Ukraine.

“About 20 surface ships and support vessels of the Black Sea Fleet have deployed to the sea from their naval bases in Sevastopol and Novorossiysk to hold joint drills with missile and artillery firings,” according to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet press office in September 2021. “The warships have deployed to naval training ranges in accordance with a plan of the Black Sea Fleet’s combat training measures for the 2021 training year.”

These twenty surface vessels will perform joint operations with submarines, planes, helicopters, and minesweeping units that will likewise be present over the course of the drills. The precise makeup of the participating vessels and aircraft has not been revealed. The exercise will involve live-fire artillery and missile strikes against notional enemy targets, minesweeping operations, mock naval engagements, anti-submarine missions, and countermeasures against a hypothetical airborne assault.

This latest round of Russian exercises comes on the heels of mounting military tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Kiev will hold its own set of wide-ranging exercises, dubbed Joint Efforts 2021, from September 22–30. The Ukrainian exercises will be conducted on training grounds across the country, as well as the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. The drills are partly intended as a response to the massive Zapad 2021 exercises jointly organized by Russia and Belarus earlier this month, according to top Ukrainian military officials.

Military tensions in the Black Sea have become routine following the 2014 Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, bringing a cascade of aerial interceptions, high-profile military exercises, and increasingly risky naval altercations between Russian and NATO forces. Earlier this year, Russia and Britain were almost drawn into an active maritime conflict when the Black Sea Fleet and U.S. Coast Guard reportedly fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the British Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender to chase the warship out of Russia’s claimed territorial waters near the Crimean coast. The Fleet held a major live-fire exercise in the Black Sea in April, imposing what amounts to a transit ban on part of the surrounding area for the stated purpose of conducting the exercises safely. Those drills coincided with the U.S. Navy’s announcement that the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Hamilton entered the Black Sea “to support NATO allies and partners.” 

Russia has steadily built up its Black Sea Fleet in recent years, adding three modernized guided-missile corvettes from the Admiral Grigorovich-class. The fleet possesses the hulking Moskva guided-missile cruiser, as well as a slew of Kilo and Project 636.3 Improved Kilo diesel-electric attack submarines. The Crimean Peninsula has been fortified with a formidable arsenal of echeloned air and missile defenses, contributing to a growing Russian anti-access, area-denial network in the Black Sea region. Crimea has likewise become an established part of Russia’s domestic defense industry, with the Zaliv Shipyard in Kerch floating out two missile corvettes—Tsiklon and Askold—since 2020, both belonging to the new Karakurt-class. 

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest. 

This article first appeared earlier in 2021 and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Envahi par Israël en 1967 puis annexé en 1981, le Golan est considéré par les Nations unies comme un territoire occupé. Ce plateau culminant à plus de 2 000 mètres domine la Galilée et les plaines de Damas. C'est aussi un château d'eau dont les ressources sont captées par Tel-Aviv au détriment de la (...) / Israël, Proche-Orient, Syrie, Conflit israélo-arabe, Histoire, Droits des minorités, Colonisation, Frontières - Proche-Orient

Mark Episkopos

Barbel-class, United States

The Barbel line is perhaps best seen as a contingency class of advanced diesel-electric submarines, produced in case nuclear propulsion became a technological dead end.

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Barbel class boasted six torpedo tubes for a total of eighteen torpedoes, a range of 14,000-19,000 miles, and was capable of a respectable (though hardly record-shattering) top submerged speed of twenty-five knots.

The last of the U.S. Navy’s diesel-electric attack submarines, the Barbel-class submarines were among the most advanced boats of their time. But only three were ever built, as the Barbel-class was fast overshadowed by looming developments in nuclear propulsion technology.

When the USS Barbel—the lead ship in what would become a line of three Barbel-class submarines— was commissioned in 1959, it served as a showcase of some of the most advanced submarine technologies of its time. The Barbel boats were the first serially-produced submarines to feature the Albacore, or ‘teardrop’, hull design, which boasts an impressive range of hydrodynamic benefits: among them, higher speeds, a smaller acoustic signature, and potentially the more efficient use of internal space. The USS Barbel’s reinforced, double-steel hull is the serially produced product derived from the experimental USS Albacore, which was the first submarine to feature a teardrop hull design concept.

The Barbel came in at a displacement of 2,146 tons, with an 8.8-meter beam and 66 meters length. Its front bow housed a sonar, with the submarine being among the first to feature a centralized controls array, conning tower, and attack center layout. This forward-thinking design translated into a formidable performance package. The Barbel class boasted six torpedo tubes for a total of eighteen torpedoes, a range of 14,000-19,000 miles, and was capable of a respectable (though hardly record-shattering) top submerged speed of twenty-five knots.

The only red mark on what is otherwise the Barbel’s potent specifications sheet was its standard diesel-electric propulsion system. At the time, Diesel boat technology was a badge of honor— literally. The alternatives to diesel were so technologically ripe and unreliable in their early incarnations that many in the U.S. Navy’s submarine force came to vastly prefer diesel technology, spawning the famous DBF pin: “Diesel Boats Forever.”

But nostalgia and reluctance to reinvent the wheel could not stop the inexorable march of progress in submarine technology: even as the Barbel-class boats were being laid down, naval engineers were making massive strides in nuclear propulsion technology. Building on the preliminary success of the USS Nautilus— the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine— the Skipjack-class successfully combined the hydrodynamic benefits of a teardrop hull with a S5W nuclear-powered reactor. This made the Skipjack-class not only markedly faster at a top submerged speed of thirty-three knots but gave it the virtually unlimited operational range that is standard to nuclear submarines.

The decision was made not to pursue further Barbel-class models beyond the three that had already entered service: Barbel, Blueback, and Bonefish. The former two were decommissioned following a decades-long and relatively uneventful service life, while the Bonefish was taken out of service after a 1988 fire that led to the deaths of three crew members.

As aptly observed by submarine expert H I Sutton, the Barbel line is perhaps best seen as a contingency class of advanced diesel-electric submarines, produced in the off-chance that the development of nuclear propulsion became a technological dead end. That proved not to be the case, with the U.S. Navy going on to acquire an entirely nuclear submarine force by the turn of the twentieth-century.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for The National Interest. 

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Trevor Filseth

China,

Biden described the summit as conciliatory in nature, arguing that both countries had a moral imperative to ensure that tensions did not “veer into open conflict.”

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their long-awaited virtual summit meeting, following months of speculation and after a preliminary phone call between the two countries’ chief diplomats, on Monday evening in Washington, DC and Tuesday in Beijing.

The meeting was arranged after tensions had escalated over the status of Taiwan, the democratically-run island that Beijing has claimed it intends to integrate into the mainland—by force if necessary—and Washington has hinted it might defend.

Within this context, Biden described the summit as conciliatory in nature, arguing that both countries had a moral imperative to ensure that tensions did not “veer into open conflict.” The Chinese foreign ministry agreed, with spokeswoman Hua Chunying describing it as “constructive and productive” and a step toward greater “mutual understanding.”

The meeting was widely perceived as cordial. Biden and Xi described each other as friends and noted that they had always been candid with one another and openly expressed their aims. The two leaders agreed that “common sense guardrails,” in Biden’s terminology, were needed to prevent conflict in the two superpowers’ relationship.

In spite of Biden and Xi’s friendliness, the overall trend of the U.S.-China relationship has been negative over the past decade. Successive U.S. presidents have criticized Beijing for unethical economic practices, territorial claims against Taiwan and other nations bordering the South China Sea, and repression of its Muslim Uyghur population in its western Xinjiang province. For its part, Beijing has described Washington’s support for Taipei as an attempt to meddle in China’s internal affairs and has accused the United States of officially maintaining the “One China” policy while quietly continuing to offer political and military support to Taiwan.

Biden obliquely referenced these tensions in the two leaders’ meeting, arguing that “all countries have to play by the same rules of the road,” which he said was “why the United States is always going to stand up for our interest and values and those of our allies and partners.” In October, several weeks before the meeting, the president had made an apparent gaffe in which he pledged that the U.S. would defend the island militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion; the White House later confirmed that its policy had not changed.

Biden and Xi’s last face-to-face meeting took place in Washington, DC in 2015, during Biden’s tenure as Vice President in the Obama administration. However, it is the third time the two leaders have spoken since Biden’s inauguration.

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

Image: Reuters

Over the past week, mass arrests of people reportedly of Tigrayan origin have continued in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and elsewhere, the UN rights office said on Tuesday. 

Kyle Mizokami

Nuclear Weapons, Europe

The Scud short-range ballistic missile was developed as a nuclear asset for Soviet commanders during the Cold War, but can be found all around the globe today. 

Here's What You Need to Remember: The Scud missile, while never firing a shot in anger in the Cold War it was designed for, ironically went on to become a major military threat of the post–Cold War era. The missile has since spawned more dangerous missiles—and even worse, missile research programs—in the hands of rogue states. While the Scud itself will eventually go away, its legacy will continue to haunt the world for decades to come.

One of the most infamous missiles of the modern era, the Scud short-range ballistic missile was developed as a nuclear asset for Soviet commanders during the Cold War. Today, more than six decades later, the Scud’s DNA has been scattered worldwide, found in ballistic missiles from North Korea to Iran. The lumbering Scud is more visible than ever, with dozens fired in the ongoing Yemeni civil war.

The Scud missile is a direct product of captured wartime German missile technology. Soviet experiments with the Nazi-developed V-2 missile led to a ten-year development effort that culminated in the R-11M missile paraded through Red Square in November 1957. The R-11M was a liquid-fueled missile that rode on a tracked transporter erector launcher not dissimilar to North Korea’s Pukkuksong-2 tracked launcher. The R-11M could launch a conventional high-explosive warhead up to 167 miles and a heavier nuclear warhead up to ninety-three miles. The R-11M was eventually nicknamed “Scud” by NATO, and as subsequent versions emerged became known as Scud-A.

The Scud-A’s short range made it a tactical nuclear delivery system. The missile had poor accuracy, with a circular error probable—or the distance within which half of a missile’s warheads will fall—of 1.8 miles. This, and the primitive state of early nuclear-weapons development, meant that the Scud, despite being a tactical system, was still equipped with large warheads with a yield of twenty to a hundred kilotons.

The basic Scud design was updated several times during the Cold War. The R-17, also known as the Scud-B, was introduced in 1965. Scud-B moved to an 8×8 wheeled tracked erector launcher and a nuclear-payload range increase to from ninety-three to 167 miles. A new inertial guidance system shrank the -B model’s accuracy down to .6 miles, and while the new missile was by no means a “precision-guided weapon,” it was still exponentially more accurate.

Military analyst Steven Zaloga puts the total number of Scuds of all types at about ten thousand, with five thousand to six thousand remaining by 1997. Total launch-vehicle production was estimated at eight hundred. The Scud is out of production, and no longer in service with the Russian military.

The end of the Cold War did not mean the end of the Scud. The missiles had first been used in conflict during the Iran-Iraq War, when Iranian Scuds, purchased from Libya, were used against Iraqi cities. Iraq, unable to hit back at distant Iranian cities with its own Scuds, began a program to develop longer-range missiles. This resulted in the Al Hussein, a ballistic missile with a range of up to four hundred miles. Hundreds of Iranian Scuds and Iraqi Al Husseins were launched during the war, primarily at civilian targets, with Iraq alone firing 516 Scud-Bs and Al Hussein missiles at Iranian territory.

Iraq again used Al Hussein missiles again in 1991, launching an estimated ninety-three of them against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War. While the Iraq of Saddam Hussein no longer exists, Iran has continued developing ballistic missiles. The Nuclear Threat Initiative believes Iran has at least two hundred to three hundred Scud-type missiles, with twelve to eighteen mobile launchers, and twenty-five to a hundred Shahab-3 missiles identical to the North Korean Nodong medium-range ballistic missile, with six launchers. The Nodong, as we’ll cover later, is also a descendant of the Scud. NTI, which provided the numbers, warns, however, that those numbers reflect missiles imported from abroad and “do not account for Iranian domestic production.”

Meanwhile, Iran has managed to increase the range of the Shahab-3, resulting in the thousand-mile-capable Ghadr-1. The Ghadr-1 is also stage one of Iran’s Safir space launch vehicle. Recent Iranian progress in solid-fuel missiles has led the country to discontinue further development of Scud-based weapons, but Scuds were undoubtedly instrumental in giving regimes such as Iran a reliable platform for early research and development.

Another major user and developer of the Scud platform is North Korea. Pyongyang received two Scud-Bs from Egypt sometime between 1976 and 1981. The country’s budding missile-research enterprise went to work and by 1986 had developed a homemade copy, the Hwasong-5, with a 10 to 15 percent increase in range and payload.

A requirement to hit U.S. bases in Japan sent North Korean rocket scientists back to the drawing board, and by 1994 they had developed what became known as the Nodong. Nodong has a range of 932 miles, or enough to strike as far as Okinawa. Nodong is not an accurate missile: it has a circular error probable of 1.26 miles. Nodong technology was exported to Iran to create the Shahab-3. Nodongs were also used as the basis for the Taepodong-1 intermediate-range ballistic missile (no longer in service) and a combination of Nodong and Scud engines power the Unha-3 space launch vehicle.

Several Scud-based missiles have been launched during the ongoing Yemeni civil war. The missiles, taken from Yemeni Army stocks, were allegedly sold to the country by North Korea. These missiles have been launched at targets that include the Saudi capital of Riyadh as well as Mecca. A solid estimate of the number of ballistic missiles that have been fired in the conflict is hard to come by. One clue lies in a statement made earlier this year by Raytheon, manufacturer of the Patriot missile, claiming that since “January of 2015, Patriot has intercepted more than 100 ballistic missiles in combat operations around the world.”

The Scud missile, while never firing a shot in anger in the Cold War it was designed for, ironically went on to become a major military threat of the post–Cold War era. The missile has since spawned more dangerous missiles—and even worse, missile research programs—in the hands of rogue states. While the Scud itself will eventually go away, its legacy will continue to haunt the world for decades to come.

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

This article first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Trevor Filseth

Infrastructure Bill,

Biden claimed that the $1.2 trillion bill’s passage would result in tangible economic progress for the United States as it continued to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. “My message to the American people is, America is moving again,” the president said. “Your life is going to change for the better.”

A bipartisan bill negotiated between moderate Senate Democrats and Republicans and narrowly approved by the House of Representatives last week was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Monday afternoon.

In a signing ceremony on the White House South Lawn, Biden touted the bill as a major legislative accomplishment, appearing alongside a handful of Republican legislators who had voted for it—against the wishes of former president Donald Trump, who castigated them in successive statements as “RINOs,” or “Republicans in Name Only.”

Biden claimed that the $1.2 trillion bill’s passage would result in tangible economic progress for the United States as it continued to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. “My message to the American people is, America is moving again,” the president said. “Your life is going to change for the better.”

The bill had been overwhelmingly approved by the Senate in August, where it had enjoyed the support of both Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). On its own, it had also enjoyed total support among House Democrats, eliminating the danger of organized Republican opposition. However, its passage was halted by infighting over Biden’s far more ambitious “Build Back Better” bill, which has yet to pass the Senate over objections from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). The original bill, which provided for $3.5 trillion in spending, was cut in half to $1.75 trillion after Manchin objected, and Manchin has indicated that he is still unhappy with the new number.

In the run-up to the bill’s passage, progressive Democrats feared that some moderate members of the Democratic caucus could support the smaller bill before turning to oppose the larger one. For this reason, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) indicated that she would pass the infrastructure bill without waiting for the larger bill to receive the Senate’s approval, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), revolted, threatening to sink the smaller bill unless both bills were passed at the same time.

However, this delay was later cited as a factor in the loss of favored Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe to his Republican challenger, Glenn Youngkin, in Virginia’s gubernatorial election on November 2. In the aftermath of that election, Jayapal dropped her objections to the vote, and Pelosi successfully scheduled and held it. Thirteen Republican representatives voted in favor of the bill, while six Democrats, all members of the progressive wing, voted against it.

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

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

North Korea, North Korea, United States, China

In short, gatekeepers of the first nuclear age—the five nuclear-weapon states codified by the Nonproliferation Treaty—are struggling with how to cope with gatecrashers such as North Korea and Iran

Here's What You Need to Remember: Bottom line, atomic deterrence was a straightforward matter in yesteryear: the Soviet Union counterbalanced the NATO allies and vice versa, while the outlier nuclear-weapon state, China, maintained a humble arsenal while foreswearing first use of it.

It appears the fat kid in Pyongyang has backed off his threat to rain missiles on Guam. Still, one can only say: welcome to the second nuclear age. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave—no matter how many treaties nonnuclear states negotiate purporting to ban the ultimate weapon. Sage leaders must adjust policies and strategies to accommodate this brave new world—the world as it actually exists, in other words—rather than base their deliberations on fantasies of a nuclear-free world.

The first nuclear age was a terrifying time. Any erstwhile schoolkid who had to duck and cover will tell you that, as will any news consumer who saw nuclear blast radii blazoned on the map of his hometown on the front page of the daily newspaper—projecting likely casualties from an atomic strike. In retrospect, though, it was a time that had its upsides. Arsenals were colossal in numbers and destructive might relative to today’s modest forces. Yet the circle of nuclear-weapon states remained compact, capped at five by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970. That simplified the geometry of nuclear strategy and deterrence, especially since the nuclear club broke down into two roughly symmetrical caucuses hailing from European civilization and thus sharing similar assumptions about the worldwide. Yes, that Mao guy was a problem. That’s why both sides, including the Soviet Union, considered strangling the Chinese nuclear complex in its infancy. But whatever his legion of faults, the Great Helmsman hewed to nuclear minimalism. Only in recent years, decades after his passing, has China commenced a major upgrade to its deterrent forces.

Bottom line, atomic deterrence was a straightforward matter in yesteryear: the Soviet Union counterbalanced the NATO allies and vice versa, while the outlier nuclear-weapon state, China, maintained a humble arsenal while foreswearing first use of it. Now, there were some hairy times during the Cold War, to be sure. Folk of an age to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis shake their heads when that long-ago imbroglio comes up in conversation. In retrospect, though, the Caribbean crisis prodded the contestants to sort out rules for the deterrence game. East and West could compete without wrecking civilization. Nor was atomic competition quite that neat. Israel built an undeclared arsenal, India executed a “peaceful nuclear explosion” long before its 1998 nuclear breakout, and even apartheid South Africa constructed a few tactical nukes. A. Q. Khan trafficked the makings of nuclear weaponry on the gray market. Still, the logic of mutual assured destruction imparted a measure of predictability to Cold War strategy and policy.

No more. More and more countries have joined the atomic club for the second nuclear age. No longer are contestants symmetrical in worldviews or physical potential. New entrants come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and they hail mainly from non-Western civilizations. And they respond to different incentives. Some might see value in doomsday weaponry not just for deterrence but for battlefield use. All of this puts the assumption that states are rational actors under stress. Every time a new actor develops atomic weaponry, the international community debates whether it subscribes to the logic of mutual assured destruction or if that actor might actually use its bombs in combat. No one has to date, mercifully, but their forbearance might be one of those trends that holds until it doesn’t.

The rational-actor assumption underlying economic and international-relations theories is flimsy in any case. Philosophers maintain, rightly, that powerful passions impel human actions. Political and military leaders do not simply compile a ledger of costs and benefits, weigh the one against the other dispassionately, and reach a decision. Other forces are at work, and at times they overpower cost/benefit calculations. Thucydides points to fear and honor as well as seemingly objective reckoning of self-interest. Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume agrees that both rational and not-strictly-rational motives constitute prime movers for human thought and deeds. Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer goes Thucydides and Hume one further, contending that “extravagant hope” animates “true believers”—and that true believers draw strength and resolve precisely from disregarding objective reality. Couple powerful nonrational motives with nightmarish weapons and the outlook for the second nuclear age seems bleak indeed.

Nor should discomfiture stop with sizing up the gatecrashers to the current order. As newcomers fit out nuclear inventories and contemplate how to use them, oldtimers from the first nuclear age—gatekeepers, as it were—appear conflicted about their own stockpiles. NATO nuclear states France and Great Britain are undergoing partial nuclear disarmament, in part because of sincere commitment to disarmament, in part because of the sheer cost of replenishing aging weapons and delivery systems. Fielding adequate numbers of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) represents a particular worry. Russia is struggling to renew its own arsenal, fettered by economic distress. Even America is replacing large numbers of creaky older weapons with fewer—albeit better—ones. During the 1990s, for instance, the U.S. Navy converted four of its Cold War-vintage Ohio-class SSBNs to fire conventional cruise missiles. The leadership intends to replace the remaining fourteen boats with twelve newfangled Columbia-class SSBNs, each of which will carry fewer submarine-launched ballistic missiles than an Ohio.

In short, gatekeepers of the first nuclear age—the five nuclear-weapon states codified by the Nonproliferation Treaty—are struggling with how to cope with gatecrashers such as North Korea and Iran. Oldtimers are trying to manage new entrants at the same time they’re reducing their margin of atomic supremacy—and thus, potentially, their capacity to deter the Kim Jong-uns or Ayatollah Khameneis of the world. In the case of Northeast Asia, furthermore, the new normal has brought U.S. alliances under strain. America has hoisted its protective nuclear aegis over the region since the inception of the first nuclear age. But allies such as South Korea and Japan may come to question the durability of “extended deterrence.” If an erratic Kim can strike directly at American soil, would Washington trade, say, Honolulu for Seoul or Tokyo?

Such questions must haunt Asian minds. And there’s a conventional-warfare dimension to the nuclear problem. The U.S. force posture in Asia appears increasingly tenuous owing to Chinese, Russian and Iranian anti-access/area-denial strategies and weaponry. It remains to be seen how credible allies would find American nuclear security guarantees if U.S. conventional forces could no longer count on access to the region, and thus to the allied bases that comprise America’s strategic position in Asia. If the United States could no longer defend partners through nonnuclear means, what then? Allies might justifiably question whether Washington would protect them if the nuclear option were the only option open to U.S. political leaders. In short, anti-access could hollow out U.S. nuclear deterrence—and thus the longstanding U.S. alliance system that buoys American strategy in the region. Seoul or Tokyo might develop freestanding arsenals rather than rely on unreliable American guarantees. They might even bandwagon with the Chinas or Russias of the Far East if they saw no other recourse. The United States would lose either way.

Making strategy for an increasingly heterodox epoch—an epoch when more and more societies sport the ultimate weapon and think differently about how to brandish it—thus represents a trying task. Indeed, it could prove more trying than Cold War strategy-making from yesteryear. One hopes American and allied strategists are mulling these larger trends rather than stepping in the briar patch of obsessing over who has what weapon at the moment and who threatened whom today. Better to think about the unthinkable now than when the unthinkable takes place.

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

This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters.

Kris Osborn

F-35, Americas

The information dominance elements of the F-35 change the paradigm for pilots who used to look at multiple different screens to absorb critical mission information.

Why is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter so popular? Why have so many nations signed on to the program? The pilots who fly the plane seem to have the answer. 

The F-35 Alliance

The United States, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Norway, Denmark, and Canada have invested in the stealth jets. This group has in recent years been joined by Israel, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Belgium and Singapore.

More recently, Switzerland invested in the F-35 jets to fortify its “armed neutrality” deterrence posture and countries such as Japan are now making large, multibillion-dollar purchases of the jets. This is something likely to reframe the deterrence equation and power balance in the Pacific region, especially since the United States is likely interested in finding more basing opportunities in the Pacific for its growing fleet of F-35 jets.  

Pilots Love the F-35

There are likely many reasons for the fast-paced F-35 expansion, a primary one simply being pilot experience. For more than ten years, F-35 pilots training on the jet talk about how it is “easy to fly” and “smooth.” Advanced levels of computer automation enable a software technology called Delta Flight Path, which helps pilots descend into challenging landings on the deck of aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships. This technological application is particularly significant when it comes to a vertical landing of an F-35B on an amphibious ship.  

The Technological Edge

Networking breakthroughs continue to increase the threat posed by a collective, multinational F-35 force.

After all, the fifth-generation jets can easily share data with one another across dispersed formations using the Multifunction Advanced Data Link. 

Beyond this, recent innovations are increasingly enabling F-35 jets to connect in-flight with fourth-generation aircraft and other platforms in a way that reshapes the tactical equation by expanding the area that can be surveilled, the ability of the jets to share target information, and their ability to participate in coordinated attacks across a large geographical region.

An aircraft force consisting of NATO, European or even Pacific F-35 jets brings enormous improvements to the deterrence equation. 

Information Dominance 

The information dominance elements of the F-35 change the paradigm for pilots who used to look at multiple different screens to absorb critical mission information. 

Now, all of these otherwise disparate pools of data are gathered, organized, integrated and presented to pilots on a single, clear screen.

This phenomenon is often referred to as “easing the cognitive burden,” which simply means time-consuming procedural function and data analysis can mostly be done autonomously by advanced F-35 computers. This enables pilots to expend their energy elsewhere. 

Clearly, the F-35 jet was built to keep pace with the pace of breakthrough technologies.  

F-35 Training Is Vital 

Experienced F-35 pilots are continuing to train and prepare emerging pilots to fly an F-35 jet. This quickens the pace of the learning curve and expedites international deployments for the jet.  

“We engage in collaboration and cooperation to help them bring on their aircraft in a way that takes advantage of the lessons learned we’ve had,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsback, the Commander of Pacific Air Forces, previously told The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We have decades of operating fifth-gen aircraft but this is the first time when these nations have had a fifth-gen aircraft.”  

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

Image: Flickr / U.S. Air Force

Lillian Posner

Belarus, Europe

Already, thousands of migrants are shivering in the frigid forests on the Polish border, and if Europe can’t manage the migration and energy crises, Europeans, too, may be feeling the cold.   

Europe may have thought that with the Nord Stream II pipeline near completion and the resolution of the Moldovan gas crisis that its energy problems were over. Not a chance. Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s recent threats to shut down the Yamal-Europe pipeline suggest they are only beginning. Already, thousands of migrants are shivering in the frigid forests on the Polish border, and if Europe can’t manage these twin crises, Europeans, too, may be feeling the cold.   

The Yamal-Europe pipeline transits gas through Belarus to Poland and Germany, which makes it a prime lever for Lukashenka to extract concessions from the European Union. Brussels has just announced another round of sanctions against Belarus in response to its orchestration of the migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.   

Since June, Belarusian security personnel have steered thousands of migrants away from the border checkpoint where they can legally claim asylum and towards the now fortified border where they are being met by a force of seventeen thousand Polish border police. Two thousand migrants are now trapped in a freezing purgatory between two armed police forces, unable to enter Poland and unable to return to Belarus. In response to what Poland perceives as a “hybrid warfare attack,” it has threatened to shut down the border altogether. In turn, Lukashenka says he will pull the plug on the gas supply.    

"We are heating Europe, they are still threatening us that they will close the border. And if we shut off natural gas there? Therefore, I would recommend that the Polish leadership, Lithuanians and other headless people think before speaking," Lukashenkа said. 

Lukashenka’s particular ire for neighboring countries Poland and Lithuania stems from the contested Belarusian election of August 2020 which resulted in him beginning his sixth term, despite widespread claims that his victory was falsified. The election resulted in a year-long protest movement which was met by a brutal police crackdown, prompting much of the Belarusian opposition, including its leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskya to seek refuge in Poland and Lithuania. Now, as the crisis deepens, neighboring Latvia is also mobilizing to secure its border.  

Lukashenka’s decision to flood its neighbors with migrants and possibly cut off their gas supply serves two purposes. One is purely punitive, a means to exact revenge for harboring Belarusian activists and the imposing of EU sanctions. The other is more coercive. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that the EU stem the influx of migrants by paying Belarus to take them, as it pays Turkey to stem the influx of refugees from Syria. Such payments would run counter to existing EU sanctions on Belarus and help fund a government that is currently indebted to Russia to the tune of $8 billion.  

The EU is not likely to consider such payments. The flow of migrants is not organic but rather engineered by Lukashenka’s regime specifically to blackmail the EU. Migrants report being lured to Belarus from Iraq and Syria with promises of easy transit to Poland by Belarusian travel agencies tied to the Lukashenka regime. The migrants, who are charged €15,000-20,000 for the experience, report being marched to the border where they are pressed by Belarusian security forces to breach the heavily reinforced border.  

Tensions involving migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border are not new. A wave of Tajik and Chechen refugees attempting to flee Russia and Central Asia via Polish-Belarusian border crossings prompted Warsaw in 2016 to begin systematically denying asylum claims to Muslim refugees. In 2017 then-Polish Minister of the Interior Mariusz Blaszczak openly stated that Poland perceives Muslim immigrants as a threat, asserting that asylum seekers from Chechnya and Central Asia would be treated as economic migrants with false intentions, rather than refugees fleeing political repression. By channeling Muslim refugees to the Polish border, Lukashenka may be attempting to exacerbate tensions between Poland and the EU and attempting to highlight contradictions between Poland’s hostility to immigration and the EU’s professed commitment to human rights.  

Poland has demanded that the EU take “concrete steps” to aid it in the conflict, requesting the EU co-fund its planned border wall. It has also dangled the possibility of invoking Article 4 of NATO, which would trigger consultations with other NATO allies to discuss threats to Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian security. Neither of these is particularly appealing for the EU. However, it has largely taken Poland’s side, condemning Belarus’s actions and enacting sanctions.  

The sanctions announced by the EU today primarily target the airlines and travel agencies bringing migrants into Belarus, as well as thirty Belarusian officials tied to the Lukashenka regime. Several Middle Eastern countries have suspended flights to Belarus. Iraq has already begun the process of repatriating its citizens from Minsk.  

For his part, Lukashenka has called the accusation that Belarus has engineered this imbroglio “absurd.” He’s threatening retaliation for new sanctions. Cutting the gas supply is a likely option. When asked about the possibility on Russia’s state-owned Channel One news, Russian president Vladimir Putin replied that Lukashenka hadn’t mentioned the notion to him, but that he was certainly capable of carrying it out.  

Lillian Posner is the assistant managing editor at the National Interest.  

Image: Reuters

Kyle Mizokami

North Korea, Asia

They have evolved from a nuisance force designed to stage attacks in the enemy’s rear into something far more dangerous.

Here's What You Need to Remember: In the event of war, North Korea would likely launch dozens of separate attacks throughout South Korea, from the DMZ to the southern port of Busan. Whether or not these forces can make their way through Seoul’s considerable air and sea defenses is another question.

One of the most vital parts of North Korea’s war machine is one that relies the most on so-called “soldier power” skills. North Korea has likely the largest special-forces organization in the world, numbering two hundred thousand men—and women—trained in unconventional warfare. Pyongyang’s commandos are trained to operate throughout the Korean Peninsula, and possibly beyond, to present an asymmetric threat to its enemies.

For decades North Korea maintained an impressive all-arms force of everything from tanks to mechanized infantry, artillery, airborne forces and special forces. The country’s conventional forces, facing a long slide after the end of the Cold War, have faced equipment obsolescence and supply shortages—for example, North Korea has very few tanks based on the 1970s Soviet T-72, and most are still derivatives of the 1960s-era T-62. The rest of Pyongyang’s armored corps are in a similar predicament, making them decidedly inferior to U.S. and South Korean forces.

In response, North Korea has upped the importance of its special forces. The country maintains twenty-five special-forces and special-purpose brigades, and five special-forces battalions, designed to undertake missions from frontline DMZ assault to parachute and assassination missions. The Light Infantry Training Guidance Bureau, part of the Korean People’s Army, functions as a kind of analog to U.S. Special Operations Command, coordinating the special forces of the Army, Army Air Force and Korean People’s Navy.

Of North Korea’s two hundred thousand “commandos,” approximately 150,000 belong to light infantry units. Foot mobile, their frontline mission is to infiltrate or flank enemy lines to envelop or mount rear attacks on enemy forces. North Korea’s hilly terrain lends itself to such tactics, as does the network of tunnels that the country has dug that cross the DMZ in a number of places. Eleven of North Korea’s special forces brigades are light-infantry brigades, and there are smaller light-infantry units embedded within individual NK combat divisions.

A further three brigades are special-purpose airborne infantry. The Thirty-Eighth, Forty-Eighth and Fifty-Eighth Airborne Brigades operate much like the Eighty-Second Airborne Division, conducting strategic operations including airborne drops to seize critical terrain and infrastructure. NKPA airborne forces would likely target enemy airfields, South Korean government buildings, and key roads and highways to prevent their sabotage. Each brigade is organized into six airborne infantry battalions with a total strength of 3,500. Unlike the Eighty-Second, however, NKPA airborne brigades are unlikely to operate at the battalion level or higher, and due to a lack of long-range transport cannot operate beyond the Korean Peninsula.

In addition, North Korea has an estimated eight “sniper brigades,” three for the People’s Army (Seventeenth, Sixtieth and Sixty-First Brigades), three for the Army Air Force (Eleventh, Sixteenth and Twenty-First Brigades), and two for the People’s Navy (Twenty-Ninth, 291st). Each consists of approximately 3,500 men, organized into seven to ten sniper “battalions.”  These units fulfill a broad variety of roles and are roughly analogous to U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Special Forces and Navy SEALs. Unlike their American counterparts, it appears some these units are capable of fighting as conventional airborne, air assault, or naval infantry.

Sniper brigades are trained in strategic reconnaissance and so-called “direct action” missions including assassination missions, raids against high-level targets military and economic targets, sabotage, disruption of South Korea’s reserve system, covert delivery of weapons of mass disruption (including possibly radiological weapons), and organizing antigovernment guerrilla campaigns in South Korea. They will frequently be dressed in civilian, South Korean military, or U.S. military uniforms. One platoon of thirty to forty troops per Army sniper brigade consists solely of women, trained to conduct combat operations dressed as civilians.

Finally, the Reconnaissance Bureau maintains four separate reconnaissance battalions. Highly trained and organized, these five-hundred-man battalions are trained to lead an army corps through the hazardous DMZ. They likely have intimate—and highly classified—knowledge of both friendly and enemy defenses in the demilitarized zone. A fifth battalion is reportedly organized for out-of-country operations.

Special forces are generally meant to operate behind enemy lines, and North Korea employs considerable, though often obsolete, means of getting them there. For ground forces, one obvious means of infiltrating South Korea is through the 160-mile-long and 2.5-mile-wide DMZ. Undiscovered cross-border tunnels are another means. By sea, Pyongyang has the ability to deliver an estimated five thousand troops in a single lift, using everything from commercial vessels to Nampo-class landing craft, it's fleet of 130 Kongbang-class hovercraft and Sang-O coastal submarines and Yeono midget submarines.

By air, North Korea has a notional fleet of two hundred elderly An-2 Colt short-takeoff and -landing transports. Capable of flying low and slow to avoid radar, each An-2 can carry up to twelve commandos, landing on unimproved surfaces or parachuting them on their targets. The regime also has a fleet of about 250 transport helicopters, mostly Soviet-bloc in origin (and age) but also including illicitly acquired Hughes 500MD series helicopters similar to those flown by the Republic of Korea. Pyongyang also appears bent to acquire modern, long-distance transports such as this aircraft, manufactured in New Zealand. Aircraft such as the P-750 XSTOL would allow North Korean special forces to reach as far as Japan and Okinawa, both of which would serve as forward bases for U.S. forces in wartime.

In the event of war, North Korea would likely launch dozens of separate attacks throughout South Korea, from the DMZ to the southern port of Busan. Whether or not these forces can make their way through Seoul’s considerable air and sea defenses is another question. Valleys, passes and waterways that could be used by low-flying aircraft and watercraft are already covered with everything from air-defense guns to antitank guided missiles. Given proper warning, South Korean defenders would inflict heavy losses on North Korean commandos on the way to their objectives.

North Korean special forces have evolved from a nuisance force designed to stage attacks in the enemy’s rear into something far more dangerous. Their ability to distribute nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological weapons could, if successful, kill thousands of civilians. They have even trained to attack and destroy a replica of the Blue House, the official resident of the South Korean president. Although many would undoubtedly die en route to their destination, once on the ground their training, toughness and political indoctrination make them formidable adversaries.

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

This piece first appeared several years ago. It is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters. 

Hollie McKay

Afghanistan,

The Taliban is in over its head—and it is all coming at a time when the nation is on the brink of a harrowing economic collapse.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Three months ago, a band-aid was ripped for a bullet wound. President Ashraf Ghani fled the Presidential Palace on the searing Sunday afternoon of August 15, paving the way for the encroaching Taliban to storm right in without a crescendo of bullets. Two weeks later, the last U.S. evacuation aircraft rose into Kabul’s night sky from the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), dramatically drawing to a close a bitter and bloody twenty-year war.

So what has become of life under the Taliban three months into their iron-clad rule over Afghanistan?

Indeed, it marks a bizarre and brash maneuver from insurgency and into forming a government in charge of 38 million people. Much of the leadership has little experience running formal procedures, a far cry from wielding an AK-47 as a mountain militia. Those in top positions typically prefer to conduct business inside a mosque or away from the confines of an office. If they do show up, it is usually only for a few hours—with ministries and directorates effectively shutting shop after 2 pm.

The Taliban is in over its head—and it is all coming at a time when the nation is on the brink of a harrowing economic collapse.

In the streets—from Kabul to Kandahar to Khost and beyond—life on the surface has resumed; only Afghans are becoming hungrier, poorer, and more desperate and afraid by the day. In less than twelve weeks, the Afghani currency has devalued from around 73 AFG to one U.S. dollar to 92 AFG.

It is expected only to get worse.

 “We rely purely on Allah,” Ghaws-u-deen, thirty-five, who sells Afghan fried food on the street, tells me with a brave smile.

Almost every retailer I speak to on the dusty streets tells me that business has dropped from anywhere between 50 to 90 percent since the Taliban takeover. On top of it, the price of staple goods from bread to petrol to meat to cooking oil is ascending.

The latter, one street burger vendor named Amir Mohammad explains, has more than doubled in recent months from the equivalent of $9.80 a container to $22.

Some streets are stuffed with the starving and scared, selling their household items to fill their growling stomachs. At the same time, other areas that once bristled with vibrancy are boarded up skeletons—their owners having fled and left their livelihoods behind.

Sadly, the financial meltdown—driven in large part by Washington immediately freezing $9.5 billion in aid marked for Afghanistan followed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspension on funds—has meant much of the budding young generation have had to stop their studies.

Waheed Ullah Wafa, twenty-five, who was studying toward a Bachelor of Computer Science at Kardan University until the Taliban came, took a job as a travel agent two weeks ago.

“It costs too much money to keep studying,” one Afghan, Waheed—who took a job two weeks ago as a travel agent instead—tells me.

Twenty years of war created a somewhat “artificial economy,” meaning that the vast portion of Afghans' employment relied on the foreign footprint through the military, government, contractors, NGO sector, or even just as the primary customer base. Since that bubble abruptly burst, Afghans in overwhelming numbers have been rendered jobless and impoverished. The once middle class has folded into poverty.

The economic downfall has led to a humanitarian disaster of mass proportions. Levels of malnutrition are horrifying, government hospitals are overwhelmed and underpaid, and the few internationally-funded clinics that remain are hurting to keep up with the influx.

“Mothers can’t feed their children,” laments Muhibullah Ahmadzai, medical director of the Germany-sponsored Irene Salimi Children’s Hospital in Kabul. “That causes all sorts of congenital disabilities. And family violence is rising.”

Image Credit: Holly McKay.

The unspoken reality on the ground is also the drastic rise in mental illness. After decades of endless conflict and combat, along with their lives being yanked from beneath them in an instant, girls and women are hardest hit by bouts of extreme depression and anxiety.

Anzoorat Wali, a budding nineteen-year-old martial arts star who was in her final year of high school, has been unable to complete her studies since the Taliban came to power. The outfit has also prohibited the thing she loves most in the world—taekwondo. 

“There is nothing left here. Under the government of the Taliban, we cannot do anything for ourselves or our country,” she says softly. “All we can do is stay at home.”

Secondary education for girls in most provinces is still suspended, sports and music are outlawed, many have lost their jobs and fear stepping foot outside the home.

On top of it all is the growing threat of ISIS-K, colloquially termed Daesh. Barely a day goes by that the operatives don’t blow up a building or dispatch shooters to open fire. Yet the Taliban top brass, in a bid to portray a cloak of security and stability, refuse to acknowledge that the terrorist organization even exists on their soil. Instead, the Nangahar-based intelligence director, who goes by Dr. Basheer, assures me that “Daesh is a myth” and that they (the Taliban) don’t even call them by such a term. To the Taliban, they are “Baghyan,” meaning “rebels” in Pashto and grouped in with any anti-government clans.

But there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the Taliban, and it is impossible to paint the group with one broad brush. Many speak fluent English, come from affluent and educated backgrounds, and will look me (as a woman) in the eye when speaking. However, just as many are illiterate, took up arms for the outfit after being groomed at a madrassa as a child, and could at any moment switch to the even darker side of Daesh.

Nonetheless, despite much of the hysteria and anxiety puncturing Afghanistan, there is plenty of reason to believe that the Taliban of 2021 progressed significantly compared to its first reign a quarter of a century ago. As a female foreign journalist who has traveled by road to a vast portion of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces since August, I am generally treated with respect and considered a “guest” in the blood-spilled nation (which I understand the same politeness is not always applied to local Afghan journalists who report with extreme bravery).

Cases of individuals being targeted and retaliated against by the Taliban exist, but they are by far the exception, not the norm. There are no mass slaughters into the streets or people being dragged en masse in the dead of night, as much of the hype on social media would have you believe.

Afghans are resilient people, and life goes on—even without the buzz of music and foreign cash flow. Cafes and restaurants are still open (and many can be spotted smoking cigarettes or the popular waterpipe known as Hookah), commercial airplanes have resumed transits across the country and to some international destinations such as Islamabad and Abu Dhabi, hotels lure tourists, and cars continue to clog the narrow and ancient Kabul streets.

Yet the doom and gloom of a humanitarian catastrophe cling as the winter winds roll in and snow glazes the serrated mountains of the beautiful, bleeding country. It is a dilemma that the United States and much of the international community will be forced to painfully reconcile with—either recognize the new Taliban regime and release the funds that could stop innocent Afghans from starving to death or pariah the country and hold out for a longer game in the hopes the regime eliminates terrorism and values human rights.

Let’s not be tone-deaf here. Before 2001, there was no government as isolated as the Taliban. Nations refused to recognize them, and refused to give them money. But you know who did provide them with a couple of million to marginally stay afloat? Osama bin Laden.

Holly McKay is the author of “Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield”. McKay is a journalist and war crimes investigator currently based in Afghanistan.

Images from Holly McKay.