Diplomacy & Crisis News

United Nations independent human rights experts on Tuesday demanded that the United Arab Emirates provide “meaningful information” on the fate of Sheikha Latifa Mohammed Al Maktoum as well as assurances regarding her safety and well-being, “without delay”.

Recent fighting between government forces and rebels in northern Central African Republic (CAR) has forced more than 2,000 refugees into neighboring Chad over the past week, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday. 

Although they represent the greater part of the world’s cultural diversity and speak the major share of its languages, indigenous people are three times more likely to live in extreme poverty, the UN chief told the opening session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Monday. 

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is marking its 75th anniversary this week and its current President has said that she is confident the institution and its highly-regarded rules and procedures “will continue to provide fertile ground for the peaceful settlement of inter-State disputes”.

The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has donated 100,000 Euros to boost global efforts to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to anyone, anywhere, who needs them, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday. 

Following a series of powerful eruptions from La Soufrière volcano on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, the UN chief on Monday expressed deep solidarity with the country’s people and Government.  

By Stanislav Aseyev and Andreas Umland

The Russia-controlled East Ukrainian separatists have been operating a small concentration camp in the city of Donetsk, Ukraine, for more than six years now. Outside any regular jurisdiction, men and women are being physically and psychologically tormented on a daily basis, in ways reminiscent of Europe’s darkest times.

Throughout the fateful year of 2014, the Russian state’s mass media, spokespersons, and friends abroad managed to impress upon large parts of the Western public a distorted interpretation of the violent conflict in the Donets Basin, commonly called the Donbas. In parallel to the annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, Moscow intervened with agents, special forces, volunteers, and mercenaries into an inner-Ukrainian civil conflict in the Donbas, thereby turning non-violent domestic tensions into a Russian pseudo-civil war against the new post-Euromaidan Ukrainian state. Influential observers in and outside Ukraine nevertheless adopted the Kremlin’s narrative that the Moscow-instigated, six-year long war in Eastern Ukraine resulted from the central government in Kyiv’s violations of human rights in the Donbas. According to Moscow’s story, in March 2014 Ukraine’s Russian-speakers stood up against a new Ukrainian allegedly “fascist” regime that had emerged from the Euromaidan revolution. As the Kremlin story continues, “anti-fascist” Donbas “rebels” (opolchentsy) rose to defend the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers to use their native language and enjoy Russophone culture.

Without much concern for the actual course of events on the ground, numerous politicians, activists, and journalists—especially in Western Europe—have since been reproducing Moscow’s narration of the sources and nature of the Donbas war. This has not only led to belated and, so far, ineffective sanction policies from Brussels vis-à-vis Moscow: it has led the European Union, Russia’s largest trading and investment partner, into an ethical no man’s land. While Western media has been continuously interested in Ukraine’s marginal right-wing groups and their attacks on minority groups, there has been far less public scrutiny of the worse and more frequent infringements of human rights in Crimea and in the Donbas. This concerns the penitentiary systems in occupied territories, among others, where even Russia’s deficient rule of law is not or, at best, partly functioning.

Since summer 2014, one of the most brutal prisons of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a Kremlin-installed pseudo-state in Eastern Ukraine, has been functioning in the city of Donetsk. Being a secret institution, this grim facility is unofficially called “Izoliatsiia” (Isolation). It was set up on the territory of a former plant producing insulation. Having seized the factory, the separatists led from Moscow created a military base there. The administrative premises of the former plant and a system of bomb shelters were turned into prison cells and torture chambers. The “Izoliatsiia” prison became quickly akin to a concentration camp where torture, humiliation, rape of both women and men, as well as forced hard physical labor are the rules of the day.

One of the authors of this article is a former inmate of “Izoliatsiia.” As a Ukrainian journalist, Stanislav Aseyev was arrested on espionage charges by the so-called Ministry of State Security of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” in May 2017. He spent 31 months in custody, including a 28-month term in the “Izoliatsiia” concentration camp and experienced various forms of torture there. Aseyev was freed within a Russian-Ukrainian prisoners exchange in late December 2019.

At that point in time, there were eight ordinary multi-prisoner cells in the “Izoliatsiia,” two disciplinary seclusion cells, one basement-bomb shelter for holding prisoners, and a single cell adjoining it, as well as several torture cellars. Three of the eight cells were women’s cells. The maximum number of inmates held simultaneously in the “Izoliatsiia” could reach approximately 80 people.

The prison has extremely strict rules of detention that are themselves a medium for torture. Outside the cells, prisoners are obliged to move only with bags or sacks on their heads. When the cell door is being opened, the prisoners have to turn around, face their cell’s wall, put bags on their heads, put their hands behind their backs, and stand silent until the door is closed. There was a period when, by order of the administration, the prisoners in the cellar were also obliged to kneel down and cross their legs. Lying on the bunk was strictly forbidden. This right could be obtained only after having served a longer term, i.e. six months or more, in the “Izoliatsiia.”

The prisoners are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The cells are constantly lit. It is strictly forbidden to turn off the light even during the day. This rule has a deep psychological impact on the prisoners.

However, “Izoliatsiia” is best known for its system of cruel physical torture which is applied to prisoners of all ages and genders. The most common method of torture is exposure to electricity. A newly arrived prisoner is immediately lowered into the basement, stripped naked, tightly taped to a metal table and connected to two wires from a field military phone. Then water is poured over the person and electric current is released. Among the prisoners of the concentration camp, one is considered to be lucky if the wires are tied to one’s fingers or ears. More often, one wire is connected to the genitals, and the second is inserted into the anus.

The prisoner may also be forced to “hold the wall.” This is a method of torture in which inmates have to stand against the wall, spread their legs widely, and put their hands on the wall above their heads—and must stand like this for several hours to several days. If the prisoner gets worse and puts their hands down slightly or tries to sit down, they are immediately hit with a pipe on their genitals, by the prison administrators.

Heavy forced labor and rape are further forms of torture practiced in the “Izoliatsiia.” At any time of the year, mostly male convicts with a long duty time are forced to work in the industrial part of the former factory or are taken to do construction work on a polygon. Apart from the prison administration’s torture, the “Izoliatsiia” inmates community is subject to a harsh and peculiar system of informal rules and notions (poniatiia), by which criminals organize themselves in the penitentiary systems of the post-Soviet space.

For instance, there is a caste of the so-called “omitted” or raped men. These are prisoners on whose lips or forehead a prison administrator or guard had put his penis, thereby “downgrading” the status of the convict to that of an “omitted.” These men then have to do the dirtiest and toughest work in the prison. They can also serve as “tools” to transfer other prisoners to this status.

Much of Western discourse, under the influence of Russian or pro-Russian spokespersons, still revolves around Kyiv’s infringement of human rights in Eastern Ukraine. Yet, as demonstrated, the reality on the ground is very different. Moreover, scandalous infringements such as the above-outlined in Donbas have been reported from annexed Crimea. Various human rights violations within the occupied territories happen not only in their harsh prison systems. They have become part of public life in the Russia-controlled regions of Ukraine since 2014. In Crimea, the peninsula’s largest indigenous group, the Crimean Tatars, and their political institutions have become targets of systematic terror by the Russian state. In spite of these and numerous other Russian infractions, Russia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was readmitted to the sessions and granted voting rights in summer 2019 after it had been banned from the organ in 2014.

First published in the Harvard International Review.

Stanislav Aseyev is a writer and journalist who worked in the Donbas, for leading Ukrainian media outlets including “Dzerkalo tyzhnia,” “Radio Svoboda,” “Ukrainska Pravda,” and “Tyzhden.” In 2017-2019, he was incarcerated in the Donetsk “Isolation” torture prison before being freed in a prisoners’ exchange. Since 2020, he has worked as an Expert on the occupied Donbas territories at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv.

Andreas Umland is general editor of the ibidem Press book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society,” a Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and a Research Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Program of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) in Stockholm. This article is part of a series of UI Stockholm articles related to Sweden’s 2021 Chairmanship in the OSCE.

The Earth’s temperature continues to rise unabated, with 2020 being one of the three warmest years on record, as extreme weather events combine with the COVID-19 pandemic, impacting millions. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Monday for leaders in Asia to bolster efforts towards finding a peaceful solution to the bloody crisis in Myanmar, sparked by the military coup in February. 

UN independent human rights experts on Monday denounced a government-backed report into racism in the United Kingdom, saying that it further distorted and falsified historical facts, and could even fuel racism and racial discrimination.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps 2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2021). Zéphyr Dessus propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Christine Ockrent, La guerre des récits. Xi, Trump, Poutine : la pandémie et le choc des empires (Les éditions de l’Observatoire, 2020, 192 pages).

Alors que les tensions internationales s’aggravent avec une pandémie qui met la planète à genoux, Christine Ockrent analyse la guerre que mènent les grandes puissances pour promouvoir leur version des faits. L’auteur examine comment la Chine, les États-Unis, la Russie et l’Europe tentent d’inscrire la crise du COVID-19 dans leurs récits nationaux, avec pour objectif de convaincre les populations, et aussi peut-être les historiens, de la supériorité de leur modèle. La journaliste décompose bloc par bloc cette guerre de propagande qui constitue la toile de fond de la géopolitique à l’ère du coronavirus.

À travers son examen critique du récit promu par le Parti communiste chinois, on comprend mieux sa dangerosité pour l’imaginaire collectif d’une société devenue orwelienne. Censurant initialement toute parole, citoyenne ou scientifique, sur l’épidémie de COVID-19, le pouvoir chinois a progressivement transformé la situation en outil de propagande : livraison de masques à l’international, construction expéditive d’hôpitaux à Wuhan, apologie de l’action du président Xi. La « guerre du peuple » – selon la formule des autorités – doit démontrer la ténacité de l’Empire du Milieu.

Sur le front américain, le récit est monopolisé par un président en campagne qui cherche à défendre son bilan économique coûte que coûte. Obnubilé par sa propre image, Donald Trump dicte son récit et alterne entre l’absurde – affirmant qu’il connaît ces sujets mieux que quiconque – et le dangereux – en politisant le port du masque et en incitant éventuellement ses concitoyens à ingurgiter du détergent. La faiblesse du système social américain éclate alors au grand jour : 30 millions d’Américains sans assurance maladie, l’obésité courante, et la crise des opiacés constituent pour la première puissance mondiale une recette mortifère, à la fois pour ses citoyens et pour son image.

En Russie, Vladimir Poutine « a perdu le contrôle du récit ». Alors que la situation empire, que la population gronde, que des médecins se suicident et que l’État ment sur les chiffres de l’épidémie, le président russe s’isole et délègue la responsabilité des décisions impopulaires. Forcé de reporter la cérémonie du 75e anniversaire de la victoire de l’armée soviétique et la tenue du référendum constitutionnel, le Kremlin a une difficulté croissante à maîtriser sa communication.

Et l’Europe dans tout ça ? L’Union européenne, qui ne compte pas la santé au nombre de ses compétences, vacille, dépassée par la férocité des événements et le retour du chacun pour soi. Sa lenteur bureaucratique et la faiblesse de sa communication ne font que contribuer à un sentiment d’abandon. L’auteur relève cependant que les Européens ont su progressivement reprendre leur récit en main, confrontés à une crise existentielle. Accord de relance budgétaire, renforcement du contrôle des investissements étrangers, coordination pour la commande des vaccins… : les circonstances pourraient constituer une opportunité pour le continent.

En décrivant la guerre psychologique que se mènent les puissances, Christine Ockrent propose une grille de lecture inédite et pourtant essentielle pour mieux comprendre les rapports de force internationaux à l’ère de la pandémie.

Zéphyr Dessus

>> S’abonner à Politique étrangère <<

The international community has a responsibility to protect the people of Myanmar, under attack from their own military, the UN independent human rights expert on the country argues, in the second part of our in-depth interview, calling also for refuge to be given to those who have fled for their lives to neighbouring countries.

The United States can withdraw from Afghanistan without walking away.

Peter Suciu

B-52 Bomber,

The capabilities of the United States Air Force's B-52 Stratofortress have expanded greatly since the aircraft first took flight in the 1950s.

Here's What You Need to Remember: It isn't entirely clear how the warship was targeted or how and even if it fought back, but according to reports it was score one for the B-52s. That mock sinking of a destroyer highlighted the B-52's capabilities in ASuW today.

The capabilities of the United States Air Force's B-52 Stratofortress have expanded greatly since the aircraft first took flight in the 1950s. The Cold War-era heavy bombers have received regular updates, which could keep the venerable B-52 flying high for decades to come.

In recent months, the B-52s have been deployed around the world from Guam to Europe, and earlier this week two subsonic B-52s – call-signs "Bush 11" and "Bush 12" – flew from the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Fairford and conducted joint exercises with Moroccan Air Force F-16s in a drill to find and "sink" a U.S. Navy destroyer, Forbes.com reported on Tuesday.

The exercise was conducted to demonstrate the bomber's latent anti-ship capabilities. This isn't exactly a new role or function for the B-52 however. Since the 1970s, the Stratofortress has been utilized in ocean surveillance missions in the Atlantic and Pacific and its aircrews have routinely trained with the U.S. Navy in these missions.

Moreover, in the 1980s the B-52 bombers stationed in Maine and Guam were armed with AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles to counter Soviet naval forces. The bombers could descend to low altitude, approach from different directions and launch salvos of Harpoons to saturate defenses from upwards of 100 miles away, reported AirForceMag.com.

The use of the B-52 in such situations was notable in that the bombers could carry a large complement of missiles, but could also be replenished in a few hours versus the days or weeks that most warships required. Most importantly, the bomber had the range to strike at the enemy's warships well before those vessels came within range of targeting U.S. Navy ships.

Given that Russia and China are "upping" the game with more advanced anti-ship weapons it is easy to see why the U.S. military would want to utilize the B-52 in anti-service warfare (ASuW) capacity.

Destroyer Destroyed

In Monday's exercise, two B-52s took off from Fairford and flew south to "hunt" the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG-80), which was one of four of the class of warships that operate from Spain in missile-defense patrols.

It isn't entirely clear how the warship was targeted or how and even if it fought back, but according to reports it was score one for the B-52s. That mock sinking of a destroyer highlighted the B-52's capabilities in ASuW today.

"Conducting these missions alongside our African partners shows the strategic reach of our joint force and our collective commitment to preventing malign influence in Africa," said Maj. Gen. Joel Tyler, U.S. Africa Command director of operations, as reported by Forbes.com.

SURFREM 15

The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy further showed inter-service cooperation last month when Airmen and Sailors worked together during the Aug. 12 SURFREM 15 naval exercises at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The two services came together for a day-long test called "Clutch Shot," in which the objective was to shoot a missile from a Navy P-8 Poseidon and from the USS Fitzgerald at a free-floating target at the same time.

A B-52 aircrew helped with nontraditional intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance.

"The harpoon shot support by the B-52 in SURFREM 15 just shows how no matter the service we are all one team capable and aware of how other services can integrate in a joint environment to accomplish a mission," said Capt. Matt Spinelli, 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron team chief. "Building on the relationship between the services, educating the crew forces, and building better ways to effectively and efficiently work together is always a goal that we strive for." 

High and Long Flying

Last month in a single-day mission dubbed Allied Sky, six B-52 bombers flew across 30 NATO countries to highlight solidarity with U.S. partners and allies. Four of the Cold War-era U.S. Air Force bombers were deployed from Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford in the UK and flew over Europe, while two bombers from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota flew over the U.S. and Canada.

Allied Sky was meant to be the latest iteration of Bomber Task Force (BTF) missions that have been conducted in the European theater of operations since 2018.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Peter Suciu

T-14 Armata, Eurasia

The T-15 was designed primarily as a transport and could carry a dozen soldiers including three crewmembers.

Here's What You Need to Remember: As a troop transport, the T-15 is unusually heavy, and at forty-eight tons it is actually heavier than any serving Russian tank other than the T-14. It even weighs slightly more than the T-90 tank, which remains the frontline armored vehicle of the Russian Army.

While both are based on the same Armata chassis, the T-14 main battle tank has routinely been in the spotlight whether for its latest improvements that could allow it to be remotely operated or if one was even destroyed in Syria. However, far less has been noted about the T-15 armored fighting vehicle, which could be a significant component to the Russian Army.

It could even have as much effect on the Russian military as its heavier sister platform.

The T-15 was designed primarily as a transport and could carry a dozen soldiers including three crewmembers. However, it was not quite an armored personnel carrier (APC)—such as the U.S. military’s Cold War-era M113 (APC) or newer Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV)—but not exactly an update to its BMP-3M infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), which is the latest update to a platform dating back to the early 1960s.

This vehicle exists somewhere between an APC and IFV. There is no NATO vehicle that is comparable to the T-15 and the closest equivalent could arguably be the Israeli-built Merkava, which is essentially a heavy tank that can also carry troops. In the case of the T-15 however, it is far more of a heavily armed and armored troop carrier.

The keyword could be heavy—in both cases. 

As a troop transport, the T-15 is unusually heavy, and at forty-eight tons it is actually heavier than any serving Russian tank other than the T-14. It even weighs slightly more than the T-90 tank, which remains the frontline armored vehicle of the Russian Army. This is because the T-15 shares the same Armata chassis as the T-14, which is about as beefy as they come today.

Unlike the true tank version of the Armata platform, the T-15 features a remote-controlled Bumerang-EM/Empoch turret that is placed at the back of the tank, while the engine is situated at the front of the vehicle. This has the added benefit of allowing the engine to shield the passengers from hits to the front.

The platform’s primary armament is a Shipunov 2A42 30-millimeter autocannon, while secondary armament consists of a dual bank of Kornet anti-tank missiles and a 7.62 PKMT machine gun. The “fire and forget” missiles are capable of defeating reactive armor and active protection systems. These use technical vision with an automatic target tracker, which makes it five times more likely to accurately hit a target at ranges from 150 to 10,000 meters.

This mix of weapons, along with the fire and forget ability, actually allows the T-15 to fire at multiple targets simultaneously. The T-15 can carry a total of 500 rounds of ammunition including 160 armor-piercing and 340 high-explosive fragmentation rounds.  

Latest Updates 

Russian deputy defense minister Alexei Krivoruchko announced in August 2018 that a contract on 132 T-14 tanks and T-15 infantry fighting vehicles based on the Armata combat platform had been signed—but how many of each was unclear, but deliveries of both have been repeatedly delayed and according to state media troops wouldn’t even get the first tanks until 2021. It isn’t known when deliveries of the T-15 would begin.

However, both platforms were demonstrated to potential foreign buyers at Army-2020 international arms show last month.

This past winter, Georgy Zakamennykh, CEO of the Burevestnik Central Research Institute, which is part of Uralvagonzavod manufacturer within the state hi-tech corporation Rostec, also told Tass that the T-15 Armata heavy infantry fighting vehicle with the latest AU-220M combat module. 

According to information from the Uralvagonzavod press office, the AU-220M is an unmanned cannon and machine-gun module. It was designed to serve as the armament for various combat vehicles infantry fighting vehicles already in operation as well as new platforms such as the T-15.

The AU-220M has a firing range of up to 14.5 kilometers with a maximum rate of fire of eighty rounds per minute. Ammunition load typically includes eighty unitary fifty-seven-millimeter munitions including multifunctional remote-controlled, armor-piercing and guided projectiles, which allows effectively striking small-size unmanned aerial vehicles, low-flying aircraft and helicopters, and also land-based light-armored hardware and field fortifications.

However, it remains unclear when the first T-15s to feature the AU-220M combat module will be deployed or for that matter if the hybrid APC/IFV will be rolling out even next year.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This article is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

Peter Suciu

U.S. Navy, Americas

Modern weapons are threatening to send the aircraft carrier into the dustbin of history.

Key point: The aircraft carrier needs longer range aircraft and drones in order to strike safely from a distance. Here is how America is aiming to do that.

Since their creation a century ago the goal of the aircraft carrier was to extend the range of naval forces beyond the horizon, and now U.S. Navy carriers could extend that range significantly further. Speaking at last Friday’s Virtual Hook convention webinar of the Tailhook Association, Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, director of Air Warfare in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, offer his thoughts on the future air wing that will launch from flight decks by the end of this decade.

This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

The future air wing will still consist of the forty-four strike fighters but it will include a mix of Block 4 F-35C fighter jets along with Block III F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets changing from ten and thirty-four respectively, to sixteen and twenty-eight. The strike fighters will further equip one sixteen-aircraft F-35C squadron and three ten-aircraft F/A-18E/F Super Hornet squadrons.

The balance of the aircraft in the wing will be filled by configurations including five to seven EA-18G Growler electronic combat aircraft, five E-2D Advanced Hawkeye command-and-control aircraft, six to ten MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, three CMV-22B Osprey carrier-onboard delivery aircraft, and five to nine MQ-9 Stingray aerial tanker unmanned aircraft.

The addition of the MQ-25 Stingray, which was developed by Boeing, could be a crucial component of the air wing of the future.

“The MQ-25 adds range, which adds lethality to the carrier strike group,” said Harris as reported by Defense News. “When you add that additional range to 4th and 5th Gen[eration] fighters; when you add that range to the range we’re looking at for F/A-XX or next-generation air dominance family of systems; if you add that to the long-range weapons that we are currently procuring and look to procure in the future: we have an ability to strike at range and with volume and tempo.”

As Defense News also noted, Harris made his comments just weeks after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy staged high profile tests of its DF-26B and DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, which were fired into the South China Sea. The so-called “carrier killer” missiles were fired as an apparent warning to the United States Navy, which has operated carriers including the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan among other warships in the waters of the disputed region. 

Harris downplayed the threat the anti-ship ballistic missiles present to the U.S. Navy’s carriers. 

“We just finished a future naval force structure study that looked very specifically at the carrier air wing, and throughout that study the folks who were working with us challenged us to operate farther and farther away from the threat, with the assumption that threat systems were going to prevent us from being able to operate from inside certain ranges,” Harris added.

“I’ll never stop saying it: the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is one of the 11 most survivable airfields in the world,” Harris reaffirmed. “You put on top of that a flexible carrier air wing and supported by a carrier strike group and all the capabilities that are resident with our flight III DDGs and the rest of our systems, you have an amazing capability that is able to strike at range, at depth and with volume.”

Next year, the Navy’s carrier USS Carl Vinson will be deployed with a ten-aircraft F-35C squadron (Strike Fighter Squadron 147) on the aircraft’s first carrier deployment. In addition, the warship will carry two ten-aircraft F/A-18E squadrons and one fourteen-aircraft F/A-18F squadron. The second carrier deployment of the F-35C jets is scheduled in 2022 by Marine Fighter Attack 314.

In addition, members of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 (VMFA-211), Marine Aircraft Group 13, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and ten of the U.S. Marine Corps fifth-generation multirole fighter jets arrived at RAF Station Mahram, home to the British F-35 jets to begin training for a deployment on the new Royal Navy carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. This first appeared earlier this year and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Emanuele Ottolenghi

Security, Americas

Asunción’s financial system is compromised: terror finance, cigarette contraband, the trade of counterfeited goods, smuggling, and tax evasion fuel fraud and draw organized crime like a magnet.

On April 8, after a three-year judicial ordeal, Paraguay sentenced Hezbollah financier Assad Ahmad Barakat to two years and six months for passport forgery and immigration fraud. Barakat already served his time while awaiting trial, and Paraguayan authorities swiftly expelled him to Brazil. For a country that for decades hosted Hezbollah’s terror finance networks with impunity, sentencing Barakat, whom the United States Department of Treasury sanctioned in 2004, looks like a welcome change. It is not. Barakat’s expulsion changes nothing. The Hezbollah networks in the area are unaffected and his supporters are already hailing his return home as a victory.

The Biden administration—which just last week sanctioned Ulises Quintana, a member of Paraguay’s National Assembly, for corruption and aiding transnational organized crime—should recognize that Paraguay remains a haven for organized crime and terror finance thanks to its corrupt political elites. Unless Washington keeps its attention and pressure on Paraguayan leaders, Asunción will only put up a show, much like the expulsion of Barakat, but do little else to address the systemic corruption abetting crime within its own borders.

For decades since the 1989 overthrow of Paraguay’s fascist dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, the country’s old elites have embraced democracy while benefiting from Stroessner’s legacy—a largely corrupt power structure, heavily compromised by a black economy of contraband and illicit trafficking. The twin engines of that economy remain vast, porous frontiers and thriving money-laundering centers along the country’s borderlands, especially in the notorious Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay (TBA). Since the 1980s, Hezbollah has built a sophisticated trade-based money laundering center in the heart of a retail commerce-free zone in Ciudad Del Este, on the Paraguayan side of the TBA.

The TBA’s illicit economy poses a serious threat to the integrity of the U.S. financial system. A large quantity of merchandise shipped to the TBA to fuel illicit schemes transits through the United States. So do payments, which, as a growing number of cases currently being tried in America show, are exposing the U.S. financial system to money laundering and terror finance.

Paraguay’s financial system is compromised: terror finance, cigarette contraband, the trade of counterfeited goods, smuggling, and tax evasion fuel fraud and draw organized crime like a magnet. Numerous criminal syndicates have established their presence there in recent years, where they grease the public sector to ensure complicity in their criminal activities. Growing international concern has put pressure on Asunción to change course, but to little effect so far. Even as Paraguay’s legislature passed new laws to improve its anti-money laundering and terror finance regulations, the gap between stated intents and actual results remains.

To be sure, Paraguayan prosecutors, at least those who are not in the pay of politicians and criminal networks, continue to doggedly investigate crime. The prosecutions of Barakat and Quintana are proof that even a country ranking 137 in Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index for 2020 can still find integrity among its public servants. Under increased pressure and scrutiny, Paraguay also cooperated with the United States in the arrest and extradition of three suspected Hezbollah traffickers and financiers: Ali Issa Chamas in 2017, Mahmoud Ali Barakat in 2018, and Nader Mohamad Farhat in 2019. And in 2019, Paraguay designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Yet with some exceptions, investigations rarely yield convictions, which is something that is regularly lamented in the annual State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report to Congress. Corruption sabotages the course of justice more often than not, with politicians taking money from criminal networks to fund their electoral campaigns in exchange for political cover and immunity from prosecution.

Barakat has operated with impunity for more than two decades in this corrupt environment, despite the occasional run-ins with local justice and the U.S. Treasury designation in 2004. In 2018, the Argentinian government, under then-President Mauricio Macri, took the unprecedented step investigating a TBA money laundering network linked to the Barakat family, which was moving cash into Argentina and using a local casino to launder it.

Going after the most prominent member of the Barakat clan seemed a good way to respond to mounting U.S. pressure and international attention and show that Paraguay too was ready to rein in local terror finance networks. In August 2018, Paraguayan authorities accused Barakat of passport fraud and issued an international arrest warrant for his capture. Brazilian authorities arrested him soon after in Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian city in the TBA that sits across the river from Ciudad Del Este, the main site of Hezbollah’s terror finance activities in the area.

Brazil eventually extradited Barakat to Paraguay. A swift trial followed, leading to expulsion. Yet expelling Barakat to Brazil, where he is a permanent resident, is meaningless. Brazil has no open case against him. He served his time. And while technically Barakat cannot return to Paraguay ever again, the border crossing in the TBA is not exactly an insurmountable barrier.

Besides, most business owners operating in Ciudad Del Este live on the Brazilian side. Hezbollah-controlled communal institutions for the thirty thousand strong Shiite community in the area are on the Brazilian side. Even in “exile,” Barakat can continue to engage in his corrupt activities.

Nothing illustrates this better than the case of Ulises Quintana, who is currently under investigation and has spent time in jail, for facilitating, through his position as an elected official, a drug trafficking scheme. Quintana tried every trick in the book to derail the investigation, and after his release from jail in 2020, has resumed official duties as a parliamentarian inside the National Assembly.

Quintana is now running for mayor of Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city and the main hub of its illicit economy. He remains the candidate for the ruling party—an alliance of two movements, headed by the current president, Marito Abdo, and his predecessor, Horacio Cartes, who is wanted in Brazil for money laundering.

The Biden administration has made the global fight against corruption a keystone of its foreign policy. Last week’s U.S. announcement that Quintana and his wife are henceforth barred from entering America on grounds of corruption and aiding transnational organized crime is a clear signal that Paraguay needs to do more. Yet that applies to Washington as well. Paraguay’s sporadic actions so far have failed to disrupt the intricate web of organized crime and terror finance exploiting its porous borders and corrupt governance. Yet, these actions also show that its governing elites respond to pressure from Washington. That is why U.S. sanctions against Quintana should not be the endgame, but the beginning of a sustained campaign where no corrupt politician or criminal figure should be beyond reach.

In the great Italian novel, The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi Prince of Lampedusa, the young Sicilian aristocrat Tancredi famously quipped, “Everything must change, for everything to remain the same.” Tancredi and Sicilian aristocracy faced radical changes, as Italy’s unification swept away their feudal old world. To preserve the old power structure, they had to embrace the new and, like a leopard, they changed their spots. Paraguay is doing the same thing. Its ruling cupola manages to pretend it is changing course so that everything can stay the same. It is up to Washington to make sure change will be real.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank focused on national security and foreign policy. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi

Image: Reuters

James Jay Carafano

Military History, Americas

From “traditional” war to “gray zone” tactics, the levels of war continue to demonstrate relevance.

Decades ago, the U.S. military adopted the concept of the “three levels of war” as part of their doctrine. Developed from a historical appreciation of conflict, this framework for understanding war remains relevant, a reminder that even as technology and geopolitics march on, sometimes the past marches with them. 

“Seeing the elephant,” was a popular nineteenth-century catchphrase. It meant investing a lot of effort to see or do something and then concluding it hadn’t been worth it. The term was usually applied to the experience of war.

The phrase was often paired with the ancient Hindu parable of the blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time. Each described the animal differently, according to which part of the elephant they touched. This aptly explained the challenge of analyzing and describing war, so much was shaped by perspective and experience. 

In practice, nineteenth-century military histories reflected the elephant parable. In the West, Napoleon Bonaparte was the historian’s elephant in the room, the dominant topic. What complicated understanding the Napoleonic way of war was that Bonaparte did pretty much everything there was to do in fighting a war. He commanded troops in battle. He directed protracted operations over vast distances. He was his empire’s strategist making all the big decisions about how the ways, means and ends of France’s way of war would be employed.  

Distinguishing Bonaparte’s role and influence as a military leader across decades of campaigning across multiple continents could be bewildering. Consider the two most renowned and influential interpreters of Bonaparte, Antoine-Henri, baron de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz. In analyzing the Little Corporal’s influence, they bounce all over the place. Clausewitz’s seminal On War, for example, though often thought of as the classic text for understanding military strategy, actually dedicates many of its pages to describing tactics and military campaigning. 

Military writings often drifted towards the “sexy” part of the elephant, focusing on the conduct and outcome of battles. One of the most popular and influential books was The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy, published in 1851. This battle-centric approach to military history dovetailed well with Clausewitz’s notion, from the study of Napoleonic warfare, that the proper focus of effort was on the decisive military engagement. This really popularized the notion that winning wars was about annihilating the enemy in a climactic battle. 

Of course, wars don’t follow a script, least of all one that was written by Clausewitz or Edward Shepherd Creasy.  Even in their own times, not all wars looked like a classic Napoleonic campaign. Clausewitz, for instance, never showed much interest in the protracted French campaigns in Iberia (1808–1814), which featured guerilla warfare and interminable skirmishing rather than big Armageddon-like engagements a la Waterloo.  Similarly, the Crimean War (1856) looked nothing like a page out of Cressey’s book.  

Understanding military history and operations required a more sophisticated framework than just focusing on one part of war and ignoring others. The U.S. military realized this when it struggled to come to terms with America’s failure to dominate in the Vietnam War.  

For his part, Army Col. Harry Summers, tried to shift the focus of analysis on Vietnam from body counts and helicopter raids to the strategic component of the war. In 1982, he produced a study for the Army War College which became a best-selling book, On Strategy: the Vietnam War in Context. That started people thinking.  

The 1980s saw a dramatic revival of interest in the U.S. military history, spearheaded by a newly established military command called TRADOC. One of the command’s efforts was to revitalize warfighting doctrine, drawing from the broad sweep of history rather than just refighting the last war.

One doctrinal initiative was to break out conflict into its component parts—the levels of war. The tactical level of war comprised activities on the battlefield including battles and engagements, like Waterloo. The larger activities that compromised the campaign, sequences of moving and positioning forces are the battlefield—was called the operational level of war (such Wellington’s peninsular campaigns during the Iberian War). The strategy was the capstone level, including how leaders brought together all the instruments of power—political, diplomatic and economic, as well as a military force—to achieve their ends. It was, for example, Bonaparte’s Continental Strategy to isolate Great Britain that eventually led to his final downfall at Waterloo. 

Like organizing parts of an orchestra so they all make sense as a whole, understanding how the parts of the war come together helps leaders, “design and synchronize operations, allocate resources, and assign tasks to the appropriate command.” They also remain the best tool for dissecting wars and understanding what went right and what went wrong.  

Take, for example, the Korean War, Vietnam and current operations in Afghanistan. The inability to decisively bring the enemy to heal—different tactics and campaigns, victories and defeats aside—was the strategic challenge that couldn’t be easily solved. In each case, the enemy had a sanctuary to which it could withdraw and where, for geopolitical reasons, the United States could not pursue the enemy and defeat them in detail.  

From “traditional” war to “gray zone” tactics, the levels of war continue to demonstrate relevance. Of course, like any construct, they should not be approached dogmatically. As Australian military analyst Martin Dunn observes:  

The concept of levels of war is useful teaching and learning tool. They help us explain the past, and develop our ideas for the future. But we need to remember that they provide us with just a tool. Clausewitz observed, “Only the rankest pedant would expect theoretical distinctions to show direct results on the battlefield. The primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become, as it were, confused and entangled.”  

Well said.   

A Heritage vice president, James Jay Carafano directs the think tank’s research on matters of national security and foreign relations.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Peter Suciu

AK-47 and M16,

But aside from the fact that they were gun designers who served their respective nations, the two men shared little in common.

Here's What You Need to Remember: While Kalashnikov lived in near poverty, Stoner was reportedly paid $1 for every single M16 produced.

The Soviet-designed AK-47 and the American-built AR-15/M16 are arguably the most iconic firearms in the modern world. Even people who don't actually "know guns" have at least heard of these. Both were developed and introduced in the Cold War, and millions were produced and used by the respective allies of the Soviet Union and the United States. Arguments on which rifle is better rage on to this day, in this publication and elsewhere.

AK-47 and M16: Legendary Rifles

Each was part of a new class of weapons – the "assault rifle" – and fired an intermediate cartridge that was smaller than the traditional rounds used in a main battle rifle, but larger than the pistol rounds employed in submachine guns.

Each weapon was designed by men who served in the Second World War, and who each had a talent for tinkering. The AK-47 was the creation of Red Army tank mechanic Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919-2013), while the AR-15 was developed by Eugene Morrison Stoner (1922-1997) who served in the United States Marine Corps.

Apart from the fact that they were gun designers who served their respective nations, the two men shared little in common.

The Soviet Peasant

Kalashnikov was a loyal citizen, a self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school and yet created a truly revolutionary weapon that would be used by countless revolutionaries. Chambered in the 7.62x39mm cartridge it was a weapon that was rugged, reasonably accurate, and easy to maintain.

For his efforts, he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest decoration his nation could bestow – yet he lived a modest life in a small apartment. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Kalashnikov never received royalties for his design, and yet today, the Russian military company that produces small arms for its military bears his name. The weapon he designed has also been on the flags of Mozambique and Hezbollah and the coat of arms of East Timor and Zimbabwe.

In a visit to Germany in 2002, Kalashnikov also admitted that he regretted creating the weapon that was used in innumerable conflicts around the world. "I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example, a lawnmower," The Guardian Newspaper quoted him as stating.

The American Engineer

Stoner by contrast was a trained engineer and worked at ArmaLite, a division of Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corporation. By the time he finally found limited success with his AR-5 survival rifle, the Kalashnikov-designed AK-47 was already in widespread use throughout the world.

Stoner then worked on his equally revolutionary ArmaLite AR-10, a select-fire infantry rifle that was chambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. It showed promise, but not enough at the time to interest the military. He was given a chance to refine it, and that resulted in the AR-15 – a firearm that has become as infamous as the AK-47 even if few people even know the name Eugene Stoner.

Even among shooting aficionados, Stoner isn't even that well known. Yet, while Kalashnikov lived in near poverty, Stoner was reportedly paid $1 for every single M16 produced. He wasn't awarded any medals, but he made enough money that he could afford his own plane. He later went to work at the Colt Firearms Company, which also happened to buy the rights to his AR-15 from ArmaLite.

While the AK-47 was nearly "perfect" when it was introduced because of its simplicity, the M16 had a difficult beginning when it was used in Vietnam. It was more complicated to maintain and required more cleaning than soldiers expected. Yet, it proved a success when refined, and it remains the basis of American infantry small arms to this day.

Beyond the AK-47 and M16: Other Guns By the Greats

Kalashnikov proved to be a successful designer who later worked on the AKM, a modernized variant of the AK-47; as well as the PKM and AK-74 among other firearms. Even today his legacy is seen in the latest Kalashnikov firearms used by the Russian military.

Stoner may have gotten rich from the AR-15, but he never really had another successful design. The Stoner 63 Weapons System was a forward-thinking modular platform that could be configured as an automatic rifle, light machine gun, medium machine gun or even solenoid-fired fixed machine gun. While it saw limited use in the Vietnam War, it was too complicated a design.

In the end, Kalashnikov has had statues erected in his honor, and he has been commemorated on stamps, while he was also awarded the Order of St. Andrew, Hero of Socialist Labour, Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and Hero of the Federation.

Stoner simply made money, a lot of it. The differences of the firearms can also be seen in the differences of the men and the systems under which they worked.

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

Image: Reuters

TNI Staff

Su-35, Eurofighter, Europe

The Eurofighter is likely able to more than hold its own against late generation Flanker variants like the Sukhoi Su-35S.

Here's What You Need to Remember: There is no question that Russian jets have come a long way technologically since the end of the Cold War. The Su-30 and especially the Su-35 are excellent fighters—and they’ll be a handful for any Western fourth-generation fighter in the event of a war.

With heightened tensions in Europe over Russia’s actions Ukraine, NATO countries have stepped up their air patrols over the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. While the U.S. Air Force often deploys aircraft to help police the air space over those former Soviet republics, often the task falls to European air arms to keep Moscow in check.

For many of those European forces, including Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, their aircraft of choice is the Eurofighter Typhoon. Developed originally as a purebred air superiority fighter, the Typhoon excels in the air-to-air arena. In the unlikely event of a conflict, the Eurofighter is likely able to more than hold its own against late generation Flanker variants like the Sukhoi Su-35S.  While the Russian and European machines each have their advantages, the jets are very comparable overall.

Indeed, Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoons recently trained with their Indian Air Force (IAF) Su-30MKI Flanker-H counterparts and found that to be true. “First impressions of the Flanker are very positive,” Wing Commander Chris Moon, commander of 3(F) Squadron said in a statement. “It is a superb aeroplane and it’s a privilege to operate our Typhoon alongside it.”

The Indians were also fairly impressed with the Typhoon—noting that the two machines are more or less evenly matched. “Both are fourth generation aircraft and so are matched evenly, so the learning value comes from the person to person contact,” said IAF Squadron Leader Avi Arya in a statement to the RAF. “It’s the man behind the machine which matters.”

As Arya noted, most fourth-generation fighters like the Su-35 or Typhoon offer comparable performance. Pilots of each type of aircraft have to learn how to operate their aircraft to the limits of their capabilities. That means exploiting the strengths of your aircraft and avoiding its weaknesses.

In the case of the Flanker, that means using its excellent low speed handling—thanks to its thrust vectoring capability—to offset the Typhoon’s very, very high turn rate and excellent energy addition while exploiting its poor high angle of attack capability. That’s similar to how U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force pilots flying the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-15 Eagle fight the Typhoon in a visual range engagement. It pretty much comes down to the individual—and luck.

Beyond visual range, technology plays a greater role, but tactics, training and procedures are key. Groups of fighters have to coordinate with each other and their AWACS or ground controllers. As an example, one senior U.S. Air Force instructor pilot explained that if there were a four-ship of F-15s versus another four-ship of F-15s using standard “blue” tactics—unless someone makes a mistake—the each engagement would end in a draw. Moreover, those tactics are generally held close to the vest. For example, U.S. Air Force units don’t generally employ their cutting edge tactics during international exercises since that might compromise those techniques.

Technology wise, neither the Su-35 Flanker nor the Typhoon is currently equipped with an active electronically scanned array radar, but both have good beyond visual range capability. Both jets are designed for high speed, high altitude beyond visual range engagements, and as such, can impart an enormous amount of launch energy to their beyond visual range weapons. But it is not known how effective Russian combat identification systems are—you have to know what you’re shooting at. Further, the Typhoon’s cockpit and pilot vehicle interface are excellent—much better than anything found on the current Flanker variants.

The Typhoon also has one other advantage. In the coming years, the RAF will start to deploy the MBDA Meteor missile. The Meteor, which is a long-range ramjet powered weapon, is quite possibly the best beyond visual air-to-air missile developed to date. It has excellent end-game performance and could be the Typhoon pilots’ trump card—at least until the Russians develop an equivalent.  

There is no question that Russian jets have come a long way technologically since the end of the Cold War. The Su-30 and especially the Su-35 are excellent fighters—and they’ll be a handful for any Western fourth-generation fighter in the event of a war. But at the end of the day, the Russian machines still lag behind on in terms of sensors and pilot vehicle interfaces. As such, the smart money is on the Typhoon.

This article first appeared several years ago.

Image: Wikipedia.