Diplomacy & Crisis News

Where the conspiracy came from and what it means for politics at home—and abroad.

With nations striving to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impacts, efforts must focus on decarbonizing the global economy and building a more inclusive and resilient future, the UN Secretary-General said on Monday.

Elliott Broidy and others are connected to globe-spanning scandals.

Les entreprises affinent les techniques leur permettant de suivre les internautes à la trace. Elles y sont aidées par la multiplication des informations personnelles sur la Toile. / Entreprise, Industrie, Industrie culturelle, Informatique, Internet, Médias, Publicité, Technologies de (...) / Entreprise, Industrie, Industrie culturelle, Informatique, Internet, Médias, Publicité, Technologies de l'information, Technologie, Marketing - 2013/11

The first 20 years of this century have seen a “staggering” rise in climate disasters, UN researchers said on Monday, while also maintaining that “almost all nations” have failed to prevent a “wave of death and illness” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The United States is threatening to close its outpost in Baghdad. It should have done so yesterday.

From fish to Northern Ireland, major disagreements remain as Brexit negotiations enter their final week.

L'engouement que suscite à nouveau Ibsen signifie-t-il que nous serions, avec un certain décalage, ses contemporains ? / Culture, Idées, Société, Théâtre, Psychanalyse - 2013/10 / Culture, Idées, Société, Théâtre, Psychanalyse - 2013/10

For 30 years, right-wing parties and nativist leaders have whittled away refugees’ rights. In the wake of a global pandemic, seeking asylum will be nearly impossible unless the international community revises and modernizes its approach to people fleeing war.

More than 20 UN agencies in Myanmar have come together to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and staff are putting their lives on the line to support the Organization’s efforts to protect lives and boost livelihoods. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed agreement on a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone following talks held in Russia on Friday.

In the military parade celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling communist party, Pyongyang showed its claws and sought to bolster domestic support for the regime.

Peter Suciu

Security, Americas

A new $38 million center will allow Air Force pilots to practice advanced tactics that can replicate combat against near-peer nations and other adversaries. It will provide training for a range of aircraft including the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II and F-15E Strike Eagle.

The United States Air Force has taken a serious interest in utilizing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) as tools to aid in the training of pilots and other Airmen. In August the Air Force announced the inauguration of its new Virtual Test and Training Center (VTTC) at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), which will house the future of joint-aerial combat training.

The $38 million center will allow Air Force pilots to practice advanced tactics that can replicate combat against near-peer nations and other adversaries. It will provide training for a range of aircraft including the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II and F-15E Strike Eagle.

The Coronavirus Effect 

While the Air Force has been adopting VR/AR technology, it hasn't fully embraced the concept, but because of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic Air Force leaders could get the extra push to go all in.

“Despite some previous investment by the USAF and other federal agencies into virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), there has been limited practical uptake of these technologies,” explained William Davies, associate aerospace and defense analyst at analytics company GlobalData, via an email to The National Interest.

“However, the [coronavirus] pandemic has accelerated spending on the technology, as well as the amount of training that takes place using it,” Davies added. “An increase in U.S. defense spending on VR and AR, and contracts will help maintain training schedules and push pilot training.” 

Shifting the Focus 

The VTTC at Nellis AFB is just one new VR-based program being adopted by the Air Force. In July the Virtual Reality Procedures Trainer (VRPT) was introduced and could potentially transform the way B-52 Stratofortress student-pilots train for combat. The main advantages of the VRPT are in its potential to reduce human bias in instruction, provide better access to training for student pilots, and give students immediate feedback that lessens the chance they develop poor habits in the early phases of training.

“Along with technology developments in AR and VR, military forces are shifting their focus to flexible training solutions in the area of advanced distributed simulation, wherein live training is combined with constructive and virtual simulation by networking.” Noted GlobalData's Davies. “While these contracts will help promote aircraft familiarization, they will not have the capabilities to replace manual instruction completely, and the Air Force faces a balancing act in training for both maintenance and combat.” 

Increasing Pilot Production

The entire federal government has had to pivot to address the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic—and this has included the military. Keeping pilots healthy has been a priority for the Air Force, but social distancing efforts have slowed pilot production. The service had a shortfall of ten percent or roughly twenty-one hundred of the twenty-one thousand pilots needed to execute the National Defense Strategy, and all of these new initiatives have been aimed at addressing that challenge.

“Air Force officials have reported that social distancing measures have slowed the production of new pilots and that increased uptake of VR technology could address this slowdown,” said Davies. “Air Force leaders recently announced that they saw future virtual pilot training as a way to facilitate training in a way which is both cheaper and faster, and specifically cited the Covid-19 pandemic as enhancing their potential to innovate and utilize new technologies.”

Technologies such as VR and AR can help potentially increase production but also have the added benefit of bringing the costs down for traditional military flight training, which costs about $40,000 per hour. VR/AR can further be far less risky.

The technology isn't just for pilots, and VR has been used to transform the way C-130J Super Hercules aircraft maintainers learn and perfect their craft at the Dyess AFB, Texas, which this year developed the largest VR room in the Air Mobility Command.

It is possible that VR could be as much a part of the Air Force as traditional training.

“(A) five-year contract with Mass Virtual signals that the Air Force considers the uses of VR technology to go beyond the pandemic and are looking to integrate the technology into training long-term,” noted Davies. “This is a positive move as USAF can strongly benefit from using virtual training for military training purposes.”

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.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Senior Airman Clay Lancaster

James Holmes

Security, Asia

The Navy could blockade North Korea or help win a war if necessary.

Key point: America has the world's most powerful military, and that includes its Navy. What could these warships do in a fight with North Korea?

How can the U.S. Navy destroy North Korea should Washington give the word? It can’t. Or at least it stands little chance of doing so by its lonesome barring improbable circumstances. What the navy can do is contribute to a joint or multinational campaign that destroys the Northern regime or its armed forces. But even that would involve perils, hardships and steep costs.

It bears noting at the outset that destroy is a loaded term, connoting wholesale slaughter of a foe. It need not be so. For martial sage Carl von Clausewitz, destroying an opposing force means incapacitating it as a fighting force. “The fighting forces must be destroyed,” insists Clausewitz; “that is, they must be put in such a condition that they can no longer carry on the fight.” Disabling a hostile regime so it cannot resist our demands would likewise qualify.

Recommended: Stealth vs. North Korea’s Air Defenses: Who Wins?

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Recommended: 5 Places World War III Could Start in 2018

So it’s possible to overcome an antagonist with minimal loss of life and treasure to both contenders. Indeed, it’s highly desirable, as China’s strategist Sun Tzu counsels. The “best policy,” advises Master Sun, “is to take a state intact,” and to do so without bankrupting your own treasury and wasting the flower of your military youth. Such forbearance is hard to pull off amid the clangor of combat, but it constitutes an ideal to strive toward. In 1940, for example, German legions destroyed the French Army as a fighting force along the Meuse while inflicting minimal destruction by physical measures. It can be done.

Onward. Let’s proceed down the scale of violence, beginning with strategic nuclear strikes and ending with interdiction of shipping and air traffic bound to or from the North. First, start with the trivial case, namely submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) disgorged from Ohio-class fleet ballistic-missile subs (SSBNs) or, someday, their Columbia-class successors. Full-scale atomic bombardment would end the North Korean military and government beyond question.

Trivial may seem like an odd word choice to describe firepower of end-of-times magnitude. Nevertheless, it’s a fitting choice as a matter of logic. We can discount this course of action altogether. Any president would order SLBMs unleashed to retaliate against an enemy first strike, but no sane president would order them used to execute a first strike. Such a rash course would vitiate nuclear deterrence, which has underwritten national security for seven decades.

After all, the keystone of strategic deterrence is an invulnerable second-strike force. That refers to an arsenal of nuclear weapons certain to survive an enemy first strike, thence to rain down fire and fury on the offender afterward. SSBNs represent the quintessential retaliatory force. Fleet boats rotate out on patrol all the time. Having ridden out the attack, U.S. SSBN skippers would fire their missiles—setting ablaze an inferno sure to consume the attacker. Any nonsuicidal foe would desist from aggression rather than roll the iron dice.

Using SLBMs or other strategic nuclear weapons for first strikes would gut the logic of deterrence—and set a grim precedent in future controversies involving major opponents like China or Russia. Therefore, no president would or should take that step. QED.

Second, there are tactical nuclear weapons, in the form of bombs dropped from aircraft and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles unleashed by surface ships or attack subs. With their lesser yields, tactical nukes could accomplish much the same as SLBMs if delivered in sufficient volume, and without such frightful risk of escalation.

But tactical strikes aren’t a near-term option for technical reasons. President George H. W. Bush ordered tactical nukes withdrawn from seagoing forces in 1991 (eliciting cheers from those of us who handled them). Now, the Trump administration may reverse Bush’s decision. Officialdom is putting the finishing touches on a new Nuclear Posture Review that may espouse new sea-launched tactical nukes. Leaked copies of the review indicate that a nuclear-tipped cruise missile may indeed be in the offing.

Still, decreeing that a weapon system should exist doesn’t bring that system into being overnight. Lawmakers have to debate and approve it—always a fractious process when it comes to doomsday weaponry. Contracts have to be negotiated with munitions makers. Hardware and software have to be developed. The system has to be built, tested under realistic conditions, refined afterward in keeping with the test results, and manufactured and deployed to the fleet.

That takes time. Back in 2009, for example, the U.S. Navy prevailed on industry to develop a new long-range antiship missile (LRASM). The new “bird” is a modified version of a working missile, yet only this year is it ready to be fitted aboard U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers (give ‘em the gun!). Only next year—ten years after the initial request—will it be deployed aboard navy warplanes. And that’s a sprightly pace by Pentagon standards. By the LRASM standard we might see nuclear-tipped cruise missiles in the fleet circa 2027–28 if the administration gets congressional assent and funding this election year. Kim Jong-un is not sweating at the prospect of tactical atomic strikes from the sea.

If not nuclear weapons, then what? Let’s ask the English sea-power scribe Julian Corbett. Corbett partitions naval warfare into three basic phases: disputing maritime command if you’re the weaker antagonist, winning command if you’re stronger and exploiting command after the battle is won. We can set aside the first two phases. America and its allies will command Northeast Asian waters against North Korea’s feeble navy and air force unless they botch things dreadfully. That leaves putting the sea to work as an offshore safe haven.

In Corbett’s scheme, thirdly, conventional shore bombardment constitutes an option. Carrier strike groups tote an array of bombs and cruise missiles suitable for peppering North Korean targets. Yet it’s doubtful in the extreme that conventional fire would compel Pyongyang to abandon its fledgling nuclear stockpile, let alone terminate the regime or its armed forces altogether. Denizens of the hive of scum and villainy learned a lesson from Desert Storm and the ensuing campaign to disarm Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Namely, dig. If you want to develop unconventional armaments, that is, dig in—hardening weapons laboratories and deployment sites against American air and missile power.

With its rough, rocky, mountainous terrain, North Korea enjoys ample places to tunnel—and to all appearances Kim’s army has done so. A mountain fastness will prove resilient even against precision firepower. Air and sea power alone couldn’t defeat North Korea and its Chinese patron during the Korean War. Nor is it likely that U.S. Navy carrier groups carry enough ordnance to subdue North Korea today. And even if they do, it would take preternatural operational and tactical dexterity to put ordnance on the right targets at the right times to defeat the North.

But fourth, navy task forces could do what dominant marine powers have always done. They could cordon off the Korean Peninsula from seaward while preventing an unlimited counterstroke against the American homeland. U.S. Navy air, surface, and subsurface forces would interdict all sea and air traffic around the peninsula, while Aegis cruisers and destroyers equipped for ballistic-missile defense would bring down any strike aimed at Guam, Hawaii or North America. Safeguarding South Korea and Japan, home to forward-deployed U.S. forces, would be a corollary to this defensive effort. Doing so would create favorable conditions for U.S. Army and Marine Corps forces to stage a ground offensive.

Corbett depicts Korea as the ideal theater for such an amphibious campaign, flanked as it is by water on three sides. Such a strategy could work if allies consent and if the United States values its cause enough to spend lavishly in lives, military hardware and national treasure for a substantial period of time. Newport’s own strategist, Admiral J. C. Wylie, warns that destroying things on the ground from aloft does not confer control of that ground—and control represents the paramount purpose of military strategy. Rather, says Wylie, the “man on the scene with a gun”—or in this case, enough soldiers on the scene with guns to outmatch the North Korean Army—represents the arbiter of victory. The soldier determines who wins and loses.

Wylie and Corbett, accordingly, would profess extreme skepticism that the U.S. Navy could incapacitate North Korea short of a concerted ground, air, and naval offensive—preferably in consort with Asian partners. And in fact, Corbett’s logic starts breaking down north of the narrow waist midway up the Korean Peninsula, roughly coinciding with the inter-Korean border. The peninsula widens as you proceed northward from the narrow waist—and geography demands that attacking warbirds operate across greater and greater ranges while exposed to ground fire and hostile aircraft.

And, of course, North Korea shares a long, distended frontier with China and Russia. That’s a frontier that must be sealed to isolate the battleground, yet can’t be sealed by naval aviation. The border can only be sealed by Beijing and Moscow—dubious partners at best in the Korean standoff. That grants Pyongyang an opportunity for mischief-making. In short, it will be hard to crush North Korea’s armed forces, even if Washington orders a joint offensive.

And lastly, to swerve back to purely saltwater campaigns, there’s the least violent option: a full-bore naval blockade of the peninsula. Enforced with vigor and sufficient assets, a blockade would deprive North Korea of imported fuel, foodstuffs, and other commodities the beleaguered country must have to survive and fight. It would also balk Pyongyang’s efforts to export weapons, the makings of weapons, and bomb-making expertise to earn hard currency.

Corbett observes that a navy can apply pressure on a foe’s “national life” from day one of a conflict. Over time, he writes, it could exhaust that foe gradually—laying him low. But again, naval forces can only perform their blocking function at sea. They have little way to obstruct overland transit across North Korea’s northern border unless Washington wants to risk tangling with Chinese or Russian forces, and escalating a local conflagration to great-power war. Few relish that prospect. It’s a safe bet, then, that any blockade would leak to one degree or another.

For such reasons Corbett and Wylie caution that purely naval action seldom wins wars; Wylie verges on saying they never win wars. Only groundpounders can. To quote T. R. Fehrenbach’s classic history of the Korean War:

You may fly over a nation forever, you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life. But if you desire to defend it, if you desire to protect it, if you desire to keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground the way the Roman legions did: by putting your young men in the mud.

As it was in the 1950s, so it is now. Sea power furnishes the Trump administration military options in its confrontation with North Korea, but none of them promises easy, quick, or painless results. Thankfully, this is not lost on high-ranking defense officials. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, to name one, is reportedly a fan of Fehrenbach’s treatise. Indeed, General Mattis recently quoted him while holding forth on how a second Korean War would unfold. That’s good. It betokens strategic sobriety and humility—virtues any commander should cultivate.

The greats of strategy are smiling.

James Holmes is the inaugural holder of the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and contributing coeditor of Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age. The views voiced here are his alone. This first appeared earlier and is being reposted due to reader interest.

This first appeared in January 2019.

Image: Reuters

Donald Brand

Politics, Americas

The Electoral College must cast its ballots on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December – this year, Dec. 14. If disputed state vote totals are not resolved by six days prior to that date, Congress can step in, under the 1887 Electoral Account Act. This could have happened in 2000, and it is an imaginable outcome in 2020.

If the the 2020 U.S. presidential election is contested, both campaigns are preparing to take the matter to court. But the Founding Fathers meant for Congress to be the backup plan if the Electoral College did not produce a winner.

Generally, the framers sought to avoid congressional involvement in presidential elections. They wanted an independent executive who could resist ill-considered legislation and would not care about currying favor with members of Congress, as James Ceaser explained in his definitive 1980 text, “Presidential Selection.”

That’s why they created the Electoral College, assigning to state legislatures the responsibility for choosing “electors” who then determine the president.

But the framers could foresee circumstances – namely, a fragmented race between little-known politicians – where no presidential candidate would secure an Electoral College majority. Reluctantly, they assigned the House of Representatives to step in if that happened – presumably because as the institution closest to the people, it could bestow some democratic legitimacy on a “contingent election.”

Tied or Contested Election

The founders proved prescient: The elections of 1800 and 1824 did not produce winners in the Electoral College and were decided by the House. Thomas Jefferson was chosen in 1800 and John Quincy Adams in 1824.

Over time, the development of a two-party system with national nominating conventions – which allows parties to broker coalitions and unite behind a single presidential candidate – has basically ensured that the Electoral College produces a winner. Though the Electoral College has changed significantly since the 18th century, it has mostly kept Congress out of presidential selection.

As a professor who has taught courses on presidential elections for two decades, however, I can see scenarios in which Congress gets involved in the 2020 election.

A tie in the Electoral College remains a possibility, however remote. There are 538 electors, so a minimum majority to win is 270. The website 270toWin lists 64 hypothetical scenarios in which both Joe Biden and Donald Trump could get 269 electors. That would throw the election to the House.

Though the House has a Democratic majority, such an outcome would almost certainly benefit Trump.

Here’s why: In a concession to small states concerned their voices would be marginalized if the House was called upon to choose the president, the founders gave only one vote to each state. House delegations from each state meet to decide how to cast their single vote.

That voting procedure gives equal representation to California – population 40 million – and Wyoming, population 600,000.

Currently, this arrangement favors the Republicans. The GOP dominates the delegations from 26 states – exactly the number required to reach a majority under the rules of House presidential selection. But it’s not the current House that would decide a contested 2020 election. It is the newly elected House that would choose the president. So the outcome depends on congressional races.

One more caveat: Split decisions are considered abstentions, so states that cannot reach an agreement would be counted out.

Congressional Commission

Another way Congress could become involved in the 2020 election is if there are disputes about the vote totals in various states. Given the spike in mail-in voting during the pandemic, threats of foreign interference and controversies over voter suppression, uncertainty after Nov. 3 seems likely.

Perhaps the most relevant precedent for that scenario is the 1876 election between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. That election saw disputed returns in four states – Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana and Oregon – with a total of 20 electoral votes.

Excluding those 20 disputed electors, Tilden had 184 pledged electors of the 185 needed for victory in the Electoral College; Hayes had 165. Tilden was clearly the front-runner – but Hayes would win if all the contested votes went for him.

Because of a post-Civil War rule allowing Congress – read, Northern Republicans worried about Black voter suppression – to dispute the vote count in Southern states and bypass local courts, Congress established a commission to resolve the disputed 1876 returns.

As Michael Holt writes in his examination of the 1876 election, the 15-member commission had five House representatives, five senators and five Supreme Court justices. Fourteen of the commissioners had identifiable partisan leanings: seven Democrats and seven Republicans. The 15th member was a justice known for his impartiality.

Hope of a nonpartisan outcome was dashed when the one impartial commissioner resigned and was replaced by a Republican judge. The commission voted along party lines to give all 20 disputed electors to Hayes.

To prevent the Democratic-dominated Senate from derailing Hayes’ single-vote triumph over Tilden by refusing to confirm its decision, Republicans were forced to make a deal: Abandon Reconstruction, their policy of Black political and economic inclusion in the post-Civil War South. This paved the way for Jim Crow segregation.

Bush v. Gore

The 2000 election offers the only modern precedent for contested vote returns.

George W. Bush and Al Gore argued for a month over Bush’s slim, 327-vote advantage in Florida’s second machine recount. After a lawsuit in state courts, this political and legal battle was decided by the Supreme Court in December 2000, in Bush v. Gore.

But Bush v. Gore was never intended to set a precedent. In it, the justices explicitly stated “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances.” Indeed, the court could have concluded that the issues presented were political, not legal, and declined to hear the case.

In that case, the House would have decided the 2000 election. The Electoral College must cast its ballots on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December – this year, Dec. 14. If disputed state vote totals are not resolved by six days prior to that date, Congress can step in, under the 1887 Electoral Account Act. This could have happened in 2000, and it is an imaginable outcome in 2020.

The best bet for American democracy, history shows, is a clear and decisive victory in the Electoral College, as the framers intended.

Donald Brand, Professor, College of the Holy Cross

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

Image: Reuters.

Karlyn Bowman

Politics, Americas

The simple answer is that we don’t know.

This week, we’ve seen a handful of new polls on the presidential contest. Zogby gave Biden a two-point lead, and Investor’s Business Daily put him ahead by three. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Biden up by 14 points, and the CNN/SSRS poll has it at +16 for Biden. The Economist/YouGov poll has Biden up by eight. Who is right?

The simple answer is that we don’t know. Let’s look at some of the factors that might produce these different results. President Trump announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, October 2 at 1 a.m. The online Zogby Strategies/EMI Research Solutions interviewing of 1,006 likely voters began that Friday night, October 2. The CNN/SSRS poll was a telephone poll (landline and cell), conducted October 1–4, after the debate, but partly before the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis announcement. The results are based on 1,001 likely voters. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal reported results from 800 registered voters and was conducted by phone September 30–October 1. The Economist/YouGov poll interviewed 1,500 registered voters October 4–6. So, the different modes of interviewing (online vs. telephone) could contribute to the differing results, as could the times the polls were conducted or the types of samples the pollsters used (e.g. likely voters or registered voters). Some of these polls asked the vote intention question first, getting people’s instant reaction to the question; others had it after a series of questions about other aspects of the election.

One of the challenges the pollsters have in every election is to decide who will turn out. To account for this, pollsters weight their sample responses to their best projections of the real electorate. Census data provides benchmarks on basic demographic variables such as age and levels of education, and pollsters use the latest Census data which they adapt for actual voters. What the Census can’t tell us, however, is the partisan composition of the electorate. Will many more Democrats vote than usual? Or more Republicans than in the past? In the National Election Pool’s exit poll from the presidential election in 2016, 36 percent self-identified as Democrats, 33 percent as Republicans, and 31 percent as independents. In 2018, those responses were 37 percent Democrat, 33 percent Republican, and 30 percent independent. Using the 2016 benchmark, one could assume that the electorate has not changed its partisan stripes over four years. While the 2018 numbers are more recent, in off-year elections, the party out of power usually has an edge. This summer, Gallup found that Democrats had gained substantial ground. Republicans had a two-point advantage in January; Democrats had an 11-point lead in June. Gallup was surveying adults and not people who were registered to vote, but it does suggest that the ground may be shifting. 

Pollsters also work to correct problems they have had in the past. In some key Midwestern industrial states in 2016, more people with a college degree took pollsters’ surveys than those with no college, and adjustments were not made in some cases to match the state’s actual college-non-college population, throwing off the results. Pew Research Center research analyst Nick Hatley and director of survey research Courtney Kennedy have a thorough discussion of this issue here.

Each of the polls mentioned above was conducted a month before an election in which every day seems to bring some momentous new development. Voters seem very firm in their choices, and today’s hazy snapshots will clear up on Election Day.

This article first appeared at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters.

James Holmes

History, World

All militaries suffer defeats. The question whether they learn and get better.

Key Point: America has won many wars. However, it does not emerge victories from every conflict.

It’s crucial to remember and learn from defeat. People and the institutions they comprise commonly tout past triumphs while soft pedaling setbacks. That’s natural, isn’t it? Winning is the hallmark of a successful team, losing a hateful thing. And yet debacles oftentimes have their uses. They supply a better reality check than victories. Defeat clears the mind, putting the institution on “death ground”—in other words, compelling it to either adapt or die. Nimble institutions prosper.

Winning, on the other hand, can dull the mind—reaffirming habits and methods that may prove ill-suited when the world changes around us. As philosophers say, past success and the timber of humanity predispose individuals and groups to keep doing what worked last time. Or as the old adage goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Problem is, we have a habit of discovering it is broke at the worst possible time—when fixing things gets dicey.

Despite its record of victory, the America’s navy is far from exempt from the universal proclivity to celebrate success. Failure? Fuggedaboutit. Now, we shouldn’t wallow in long-ago defeats: strategist Bernard Brodie cautions that major fleet duels are “few and far between even as centuries are reckoned.” When sample size = small, it’s best not to read too much into the results of any individual encounter. Change a variable or two and you may get an entirely different outcome.

Nevertheless, it’s important to remain mindful of the low points—if only to ward off hubris while reminding seafarers that institutions must keep up with changing times or find themselves irrelevant. In that spirit, what follows is my list of America’s Five Worst Naval Defeats. These being the dog days of summer, with the Narragansett Bay bathed in hazy sunshine, I’m casual about what constitutes defeat. Strategic, operational, tactical: all losses are fair game.

Now, losing a war is worse than losing a tactical action. The former ranks higher, but both varieties of ignominy make the list. The tactical defeats presented here, however, meet Carl von Clausewitz’s standard for “operations that have direct political repercussions”—namely outsized, negative, self-defeating repercussions. Such thrashings brought disrepute on the navy or the flag, damaged America’s diplomatic standing vis-à-vis other nations, or biased the political scene toward future conflict.

Or all of the above. One defeat that’s conspicuously absent from this list is Pearl Harbor. The battle line was moored around Ford Island on December 7, not underway. Stationary fleets accomplish little in combat. Pearl Harbor qualifies as a naval victory for Japan. Indeed, it was a masterwork. From the American standpoint, though, it was less a naval defeat than a failure to mount a joint offshore defense of military installations on Oahu. Plenty of blame to share.

December 7 will live in infamy, to be sure. But it constituted an across-the-board collapse for the U.S. Navy … and Army, and Army Air Forces. These forces were all entrusted with holding Oahu. That puts Pearl Harbor in an altogether different category. With that proviso, onward.

Bainbridge at Algiers:

Minor tactical failures can beget major humiliations for the individual, the service, and the flag. Take for instance the strange case of Captain William Bainbridge. In 1800 the skipper of the frigate George Washington neglected a time-honored axiom of naval warfare, namely that a ship’s a fool to fight a fort. Fortresses have lots of space, and thus heavier guns, greater striking range, and bigger ammunition magazines. Seldom do ships match up well.

Ordered to carry tribute to the dey of Algiers, George Washington stood in under the guns of the fort. Outgunned, Bainbridge was ordered to carry gifts, an ambassador, slaves, harem women, and a menagerie of animals to the Ottoman Porte in Constantinople—and to do all of this while flying the flag of Algiers. Otherwise, the dey’s emissaries let it be known, the frigate would be smashed to splinters, its crew enslaved.

The upside to this outrage: President Thomas Jefferson resolved to act against the Barbary States by naval force rather than pay tribute for temporary maritime freedom. Lesson: minor tactical miscues can spawn major diplomatic headaches. Mariners, then, must think of themselves as naval diplomats as well as sea warriors—and try to foresee the strategic and political import of their actions, missteps, and foibles.

Ironbottom Sound:

The Battle of Savo Island (August 9, 1942) was—as Samuel Eliot Morison puts it—“probably the worst defeat ever inflicted on the United States Navy in a fair fight.” In brief, U.S. Marine expeditionary forces had landed safely on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, in the Solomon Islands, in order to evict Japanese forces that were constructing an airfield from which warbirds could cut the sea and air lanes connecting North America with Australia.

Unlike the U.S. Navy of 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) excelled at nighttime fighting. Admiral Gunichi Mikawa brought a surface task group down the “Slot” from Rabaul, at the far end of the Solomons chain, on the night of August 8 to attack the American ships unloading on Guadalcanal. U.S. commanders had dispersed their cruisers and destroyers into four detachments in an effort to guard the entryways into the Sound that lay between Guadalcanal, Savo, and Florida islands.

Though perhaps strong in the aggregate, fragmenting a force along a picket line leaves it weak at any given point along the line. Accordingly, Mikawa’s concentrated squadron rampaged through the Allied fleet that night, leaving the wreckage of four heavy cruisers (of six present) strewn across the seafloor, not to mention two destroyers damaged and 1,077 sailors dead. Hence the nickname Ironbottom Sound.

Morison observes that Savo Island had a silver lining. Fate intervened. The transports remained unscathed after Mikawa failed to press his attack, for fear of suffering a daytime air attack from U.S. carriers. The IJN fleet hightailed it for home after pummeling the Allied combatants. The U.S. Navy learned to take its opponent seriously, especially at night; reformed its communications and air-surveillance methods to supply early warning of future assaults; and refined its firefighting equipment and techniques to keep battle damage in check.

Still, losing that many ships and lives—and placing the U.S. Marines’ mission in jeopardy—constituted a painful way to learn to respect a serious enemy while remaining cognizant of the surroundings.

Confederate Raiding in Civil War:

Yes, the Union Navy imposed a stifling blockade on the Confederacy, and yes, wresting control of rivers from the Confederates helped slice-and-dice the breakaway republic. As Alfred Thayer Mahan notes, Southerners “admitted their enemies to their hearts” by allowing the Union to wrest away control of internal waterways like the Mississippi. “Never,” adds Mahan, “did sea power play a greater or a more decisive part” than in the struggle for North America.

That doesn’t mean the Confederacy was impotent at sea. Raiders fitted out in Great Britain and armed in the Azores wrought enormous damage to the Union merchant and whaling fleets. Raiders like CSS Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah burned or captured and ransomed 225 merchantmen and whalers during the war, along with another 27 dispatched by privateers. Their exploits diverted Union men-of-war from blockade duty, drove up insurance rates, and prompted shippers to move most American-flagged vessels into foreign registry to escape the Southern predators.

In short, Florida, Alabama, and their sisters did lasting damage to U.S. commercial shipping—and thus to one of Mahan’s three “pillars” of sea power. The havoc they sowed vindicates Mahan’s observation that guerre de course constitutes “a most important secondary operation” in sea warfare. Raiding enemy shipping may not decide the outcomes of wars, but it contributes at the margins. And as the Civil War shows, the weak can impose frightful costs on the strong—even in a losing cause.

The damage to the U.S. marine industry, one of the lineaments of American sea power, entitles Civil War guerre de course to a place in the United States’ annals of naval defeat.

War of Independence:

If Savo Island was America’s worst pasting in a fair fight, the Revolutionary War was its worst loss in an unfair fight. That it was unfair is excusable. After all, the Continental armed forces were invented under fire—stressful circumstances for raising, training, and equipping any institution. The struggle for independence demonstrates that a combatant needs a navy of its own to beat an enemy that possesses a great fleet. It also demonstrates that it’s easier to improvise an army than a navy.

Sure, Continental seamen had their moments. John Paul Jones remains a folk hero to the U.S. Navy, interred beneath the Naval Academy chapel. Jones, furthermore, is celebrated in such oddball locales as the battleship Mikasa museum in Yokosuka, whose curators style him the equal of Lord Horatio Nelson and Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō, Japan’s greatest naval hero. But individual derring-do shouldn’t obscure the fact that the American colonies had to borrow a fleet, that of France, to prevail in the endgame at Yorktown—and thus achieve their independence.

That’s why no less an authority than George Washington testified to the importance of decisive naval superiority when fighting an amphibian power like Great Britain. Deft alliance diplomacy made the difference for Washington & Co. Still, the lesson of the War of Independence must be that a power that wants to pursue an independent foreign policy must maintain a navy commensurate with its national purposes. You can’t always count on a loaner fleet—or an alliance of strange bedfellows—to make up the deficit. Self-sufficiency is prudent.

War of 1812—Oceanic Theater:

Which leads to America’s worst naval defeat, an unfair fight that should’ve been fairer than it was. Flouting the wisdom of Washington and the entreaties of navy-minded Founders like John Adams, Congress declined to fund a U.S. Navy adequate to its purposes—notably shielding American coasts from seaborne attack, fending off enemy blockades, and amassing diplomatic capital for U.S. policymakers and diplomats. Lawmakers chose the false economy of low naval expenditures over the insurance policy furnished by a vibrant fleet—and were taken to task by posterity for it.

A shameful tactical defeat—of frigate USS Chesapeake at the hands of HMS Leopard, in 1807—helped bring about the War of 1812. Captain James Barron surrendered to Leopard after firing a single shot when apprehended off Norfolk, Virginia—and the ensuing popular outcry helped precipitate an American embargo on British trade. So much for the battle cry of a subsequent skipper of Chesapeake, James Lawrence: don’t give up the ship! Indeed, the Chesapeake-Leopard affair could merit its own entry on this list.

As Mahan and Theodore Roosevelt contended in their histories of the conflict, the early republic erred grievously by failing to construct a battle fleet of, say, twenty 74-gun capital ships able to command America’s near seas. Though inferior in numbers to the Royal Navy in overall numbers, such a fleet could have cut ties between the British Isles and the Caribbean—imperiling British interests there, and thus perhaps deterring war altogether. Globally inferior—locally superior.

At a minimum, moreover, a muscular U.S. Navy could have precluded the sort of smothering British blockade that shut down American seagoing and coastwise trade by 1814. Forget the single-ship victories on the high seas during the war’s early going, and forget the navy’s exploits on the Great Lakes. For eminent Americans the War of 1812 constituted a woeful strategic defeat on the open sea. It was an example of what not to do in the realm of maritime strategy.

And that earns it top—or bottom, depending on how you look at it—billing on this list. The worst of the worst.

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College. The views voiced here are his alone.

This first appeared in 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Richard Douglas

Technology,

The idea of the ARAK-21 XRS sounds gimmicky. Combining two very different gun design philosophies into a single system seems like a surefire way of making a bad gun. Nevertheless, the result is impressive.

The AR-15 and the AK-47 are the two most iconic rifles of the last fifty years. Both represent two systems of thought with gun design philosophy. The ARAK-21 XRS seeks to combine the benefits of both weapon systems into one gun. The original ARAK was an upper receiver, bolt system, and barrel that allowed a shooter to fire the AK-47’s iconic 7.62x39 millimeter ammunition with any standard AR-15 lower receiver. Faxon has released a lower to go with its nifty upper. Let’s break down the specifics of this complete weapon system.

Accuracy 

The ARAK-21 XRS demonstrates remarkable accuracy. When firing 5.56 ammunition, the ARAK-21 shoots better than the average AR-15. Depending on the ammunition, the ARAK shot around one-inch groups at 100 yards. The ARAK-21 performed well with 7.62 x 39 millimeter, though not as impressively as with the 5.56-millimeter ammunition. Using 7.62 ammunition, I hit five-shot groups at 100 yards with 1.68-inch groups with commercial ammunition and 2.73-inches with military surplus ammunition. The ARAK-21 can also shoot .300 AAC Blackout rounds, and hit a 1.5-inch 5 shot group at 100 yards. And if you want to increase the accuracy further, I’d recommend attaching an LPVO optic. The ARAK definitely takes and improves on the accuracy of the AR-15.

Reliability 

During my testing with the XRS complete rifle, I encountered no jams or weapon malfunctions with any ammunition or magazines. Some other reviewers encountered jams when switching ammunition types. These issues were resolved by using the adjustable gas block. You’ll want to see which gas configuration works best with each type of ammunition. The ARAK-21 is sturdily constructed, with a 6061-T6 aluminum upper receiver and a bolt made out of hardened 4140 steel. After a few months of testing with several hundred rounds put through it, I observed lots of carbon build-up in the bore. Fortunately, I could clean the carbon. The ARAK-21’s demonstrated solid reliability.

Handling 

The ARAK-21 boasts a wide variety of features that offer lots of options for customization. The ARAK-21 comes with a quad rail forend, allowing attachments on all sides. The side and bottom rails are easily removable, and I found the naked forend more comfortable to grip. A Picatinny rail runs the full length of the top of the gun. Because the recoil system is different from a traditional AR-15, you can use almost any stock you want with this gun. The ARAK-21 comes with a dual ejector, allowing you to eject your spent shell casings to the left or right. This feature is a godsend for lefty shooters who often have to contend with casings being ejected to the right. The ARAK’s safety is also ambidextrous. The ARAK also comes with an adjustable gas block with four positions. Each position is good for different kinds of ammunition. If you’re used to an AR-15, you may find that the sight sits a little higher on the gun than you’re used to. This means you’ll have to rest your cheek on the buttstock a little differently from what you’re used to. The many features of the ARAK-21 make it great to handle for every kind of shooter.

Trigger 

The trigger is a mil-spec trigger. It’s not match-grade, but not terrible either. Faxon recommends HiperFire triggers for an improved trigger pull that will still reliably ignite military surplus 7.62 ammunition. Getting super light triggers designed for an AR-15 can cause problems with cheaper 7.62 ammunition.

Magazine & Reloading 

The ARAK-21 can be converted to fire 5.56 x 223 Rem., .300 AAC Blackout, and 7.62 x 39 millimeter. You’re not going to find a weapon able to shoot bullets more suited to self-defense and combat scenarios than this one. The gun can be switched in three minutes from 7.62 millimeters to 5.56 or .300 Blackout. It takes less than two to switch from .300 Blackout to 5.56 or vice versa. It also accepts a wide variety of magazines, including Generation 1 and 3 Magpul PMAG’s, Thermold 20 round magazine, Troy Battlemags, and US GI magazines. While some prefer the mobility of pistols for home defense, many prefer the larger ammunition capacity and drop-your-target rounds of a rifle. If you want to specialize in the ammunition you shoot, this is the gun for you.

Length & Weight 

The gun comes with both 16- and 20-inch barrels and weighs in at a light 5.5 pounds. The gun was light and easy to hold, even one-handed.

Recoil Management 

The muzzle brake did a great job at reducing recoil and barrel rise when shooting. The recoil was much less than a typical AK, and felt more like a .22 LR when shooting 5.56. 

Ammo Recommendations 

I recommend using commercial .223 Remington and M855 surplus ammunition. I also used Wolf military surplus for my 7.62x39-millimeter rounds.

Price 

The gun comes at $1,899. This is not a cheap gun, but it allows you to shoot rounds that normally require you to own separate weapons. Combine that with the wide variety of features (adjustable gas block, ambidextrous ejector and safety, rails, accuracy), and this is a great value for a gun.

ARAK-21 XRS Complete Rifle Review: Is It Worth It?  

The idea of the ARAK-21 XRS sounds gimmicky. Combining two very different gun design philosophies into a single system seems like a surefire way of making a bad gun. Nevertheless, the result is impressive. The ARAK is modular, ambidextrous, accurate, and boasts an adjustable gas block. It shoots automatic, suppressed, un-suppressed, supersonic, and subsonic ammunition. If you want to change barrels quickly and shoot lots of ammunition types, this is a great weapon system. Here are some of the features that made this such a special gun:

-Accurate 

-Ambidextrous 

-Adjustable gas block makes shooting diff ammunition safe and easy 

If you’re looking for the ultimate combination of power, accuracy, and fun, check out the ARAK-21 XRS Complete Rifle. 

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

Image: Creative Commons.

Christian Whiton

Politics,

It may well turn out that Trump will be on hand to continue a trade-reform process that looks chaotic on the surface, but which amounts to significant, measured evolution in practice.   

A conventional analysis of the U.S. presidential race would predict challenger Joe Biden will defeat incumbent Donald Trump. Most polls have Joe Biden far ahead, and a much-cited recent survey showed him fourteen points ahead of Trump. However, the same poll in 2016 showed Hillary Clinton with the same lead.

Furthermore, Trump is once again connecting energetically with the disaffected voters who gave him an electoral college victory four years ago. In contrast, Biden has run a mostly virtual campaign, relying primarily on the media to challenge Trump.

The possibility of an upset second victory for Trump raises the question of what his administration would do with trade policy following his first-term replacement of NAFTA with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum, negotiation of a trade deal with Beijing that left in place higher tariffs on more than half of Chinese imports, and completion of modest deals with Japan and South Korea.

It is usually a safe bet that second presidential terms are lackluster when it comes to bold new initiatives. Often, administrations focus on consolidating and touting the accomplishments of the first term.

With Trump, it may be different. A Trump reelection would demonstrate further to Congress that the public supports his tougher approach to trade.

The most immediate second-term development would likely be the continued expansion of export controls targeting China. What started as a U.S. effort to ban the use of Huawei equipment in U.S. telecom networks has grown to a global effort to prevent the sale of topline semiconductors and other components to Huawei, its subsidiaries, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. This White House-led effort would continue with worldwide measures to deny China advanced inputs for telecom, semiconductor, and artificial intelligence applications. The Phase One trade deal with China will likely last only as long as Beijing needs to buy significant quantities of U.S. agriculture.

A trade agreement with the United Kingdom could land early in a second Trump term. American and British negotiators have already completed some thirty chapters of an agreement.

Pacts with India and Vietnam would also be likely in a second Trump term, despite the recent opening of a “Section 301” investigation of Vietnam for currency manipulation and illegal timber harvesting. The same tough approach preceded Trump’s deal with China.

A Taiwan deal is also a possibility. Signing these pacts would be seen as encircling China economically. Washington would seek to limit agreements to easier-to-accomplish topics like the intellectual property and digital trade elements of USMCA. 

Despite pro forma talking points to the contrary, Washington likely would not press Japan seriously for a second, more comprehensive trade deal than the one the administration secured in 2019. That is actually good news for overall relations between Tokyo and Washington and an alliance that remains the world’s most important in deterring China.  

East Asia may also benefit from the likelihood that Trump will focus his ire on Europe. Trump remains irritated at the European Union’s 10 percent tariff on U.S. cars since the reciprocal American tariff is 2.5 percent. Like other presidents before him, he is also disappointed by French agricultural protectionism, which hurts American farmers.  

Trump was close to imposing 25 percent tariffs on German cars in 2019 but decided to wait until after the election. He may either impose these early in a second term or try again to use the threat of them to get Germany to apply pressure on Paris and Brussels to reform. While some voices in the administration would counsel caution, few expect Robert Lighthizer, the seventy-three-year-old U.S. trade representative, to stay more than a year into a second term. Higher tariffs on Europe are more likely than not. 

Trump’s approach contrasts with that proposed by his opponent. Biden supported NAFTA, China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His advisors have suggested he would rejoin the latter with some modest adjustments. Biden also opposed the tariffs on China that brought Beijing to the negotiating table. The safe bet is that he would likely ease those levies in exchange for a climate change deal from Chinese leader Xi Jinping—which Xi would sign and then ignore. Biden’s likely trade representative, Jennifer Hillman, favors ending U.S. steps that have disabled the World Trade Organization’s dispute-resolution mechanism, which many analysts believe ruled against the United States too often. She is a standard Clinton-Obama era globalist. Biden’s vow “to work more closely with allies” is a euphemism for acceding to European wishes in Geneva.  

While some might welcome Biden’s efforts to turn back the clock to before the disputes and trade wars of recent years, implementing his plans could further convince average Americans that the international trading system works against them, leading to even greater disruption in the future. It may well turn out that Trump will be on hand to continue a trade-reform process that looks chaotic on the surface, but which amounts to significant, measured evolution in practice.   

Christian Whiton was a senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest. 

Image: Reuters

James Holmes

Security, Middle East

The whole idea is a stupid one.

Key point: Iran does not have a capacity to inflict major damage, let alone conquer the Middle East. Therefore, fighting Iran does not make much sense.

When pondering some strategic quandary you can get oriented by postulating what the greats in the field would say about it. What they said or wrote about roughly similar circumstances furnishes clues to what they might say about today’s strategic conundrums. This is the beginning of wisdom. The classics seldom furnish ready-made solutions. They almost always furnish a platform for launching into original thought.

Yes, you have to be humble when extrapolating from someone else’s words. Time, technology, and human society march on, and it’s hard to say for sure what some figure from the past would make of material and social trends since then. And yes, avoid treating their writings as gospel. To be great is not to be infallible. Sometimes sages get things wrong—even in their own time.

Still, situations rhyme between ages while principles endure. Ideas from the strategic canon retain their power to help posterity make sense of today’s controversies. Case in point: Iran is much in the headlines of late. What would the legendary geopolitics scholar, Yale professor Nicholas Spykman, say about the sputtering confrontation between the United States and Iran?

He would have plenty to say about the feud, first and foremost that Washington should continue trying to blunt Iranian ambitions. Not for him the passive approach. He was no proponent of “offshore balancing,” the conceit that America should stay mostly aloof from foreign entanglements, sending armadas and armies across the broad main only if inhabitants of the Far East or Western Europe proved unable to withstand a domineering power—an imperial Japan, a Nazi Germany, or a Soviet Union—on their own.

Spykman faulted administrations from both political parties for remaining diplomatically and militarily quiescent during the interwar years. They had allowed dangers to fester, and through neglect had compelled the United States to fight a second world war scant decades after the first. He found this unacceptable. Spykman harbored little desire to go abroad in search of monsters to slay. He wanted to go abroad to confine monsters to their lairs.

Or, better yet, he believed proactive U.S. involvement would keep predators from gestating in the first place. Acting early and forcefully would prevent would-be hegemons from conquering the “rimlands” of Western Europe and East Asia. They would find it hard to lash out at the Americas across the Atlantic or Pacific without the resources from those rich regions. No brute would need slaying if the United States made common cause with opponents of aggression ahead of time.

In other words, Spykman was an onshore balancer. But does his forward strategy apply to the Persian Gulf region today? For it to do so the Islamic Republic must be a Middle Eastern counterpart to Germany, Japan, or the Soviet Union—a powerhouse driven to unite the Gulf region or South Asian rimland under its yoke, harvest the resources it acquired to build up martial might, and hence constitute a menace to the New World.

Yet Iran falls woefully short of hegemonic status. Iranians certainly long for the glory days when the Persian Empire bestrode the Middle East and South Asia and, for a time, even threatened to bring Europe under the Great Kings’ suzerainty. Contemporary Iran is no Persia. It lacks the economic and military resources for enterprises of such sweep. And without that overbearing power, it stands little chance of overawing others into bandwagoning with Tehran and doing the mullahs’ bidding.

In other words, the prospects for an imperial Iran appear dim. Survey the region through Iranian eyes. To the west, you will espy the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. None of these Sunni Arab states could stand up to Iran in a one-on-one scrap. Collectively, though, they field serious military power funded by oil wealth that—unlike Iran’s—is unencumbered by economic sanctions. The GCC promises to remain a formidable contender so long as its members stand together.

Even if all sanctions disappeared today, it would take the Islamic Republic decades to rejuvenate the economy, amassing national wealth and transmuting it into military prowess and diplomatic clout sufficient to coerce this standing Arab coalition. Tehran’s capacity to steamroller the Gulf region or intimidate the GCC states into submission seems doubtful.

To Iran’s northeast lies Central Asia, while to its southeast lie Pakistan and India. Afghanistan and its neighbors are strategically inert at best. If Tehran covets an alliance with them, let’s cheer it on. Such allies would be dead weight rather than an asset to Iranian strategy. Pakistan fronts on the Arabian Sea, along the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, and boasts a nuclear arsenal. Geography and the military factor make it a more viable partner for Iran. Still, that’s pretty weak adhesive to cement an alliance between Shia Iran and Sunni Pakistan.

Most importantly, India is the resident hegemon of South Asia and overshadows Iran by diplomatic, economic, and military measures. The idea that New Delhi would submit to Tehran’s will or join it at the head of an anti-Western alliance verges on whimsy.

In short, it’s tough to posit any realistic scenario whereby the Islamic Republic overruns its near abroad or attracts a serious alliance—staging a Middle Eastern equivalent to the German or Japanese conquests that spurred Nicholas Spykman to enunciate his forward strategy. And even if Tehran did manage such an improbable feat, would success empower it to reach out and smite the New World? Color me skeptical.

Look at the map again. Gazing out from American seacoasts, the Indian Ocean region is a faraway and inaccessible theater by contrast with Western Europe and East Asia—rimlands from which a hostile power would enjoy direct and uncluttered routes to American rimlands. Iranian forces would have to travel much farther than forces based in Europe or the Far East. Furthermore, maritime geography would force them to transit nautical chokepoints to exit or reenter the Indian Ocean—and it’s a straightforward matter for some foe to contest passage through straits and kindred narrow waterways.

The verdict? Iran clearly boasts enormous capacity for mischief-making, it clearly relishes tweaking the Great Satan, and it has options. For example, Tehran will probably develop a modest nuclear arsenal over time. Doomsday weaponry would give U.S. rimlands strategy in South Asia a twist that Spykman—who perished before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—could never have foreseen.

Alliance making and breaking represent another option. Tehran can court fellow opponents of American dominance, chiefly China and Russia, and bog down U.S. forces at a time when Washington prefers to apply itself to great-power competition in the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic rather than some Middle Eastern bywater. It can try to divide the West against itself, as it has sought to do for many years. And on and on.

All the same, the ghost of Spykman can rest easy with regard to the southerly rimlands. Iran is a troublemaker for sure. But it is neither 1914 nor 1939 in the Gulf region.

Now, it’s possible this relatively upbeat strategic diagnosis and prognosis would leave Spykman feeling conflicted. If he accented the imperative to manage events in intermediate zones joining the sea to the heartland, he also acknowledged that a distant maritime power must command the sea in order to execute a balancing strategy in Eurasia. Maritime command is a necessary enabler. Lose command, you lose access; lose access, you lose your ability to project armed might; lose your military say-so, your rimlands strategy fails.

History amply demonstrates the importance of access. Spykman observes that Great Britain basked in an empire on which the sun never set precisely because its Royal Navy ruled the “girdle of marginal seas,” semi-enclosed bodies of water that lap against the Eurasian periphery. These seas gave Britannia conduits for projecting influence and control onto remote shores. Expanses such as the Mediterranean Sea, the South China Sea, and, yes, the Persian Gulf are inlets into the Eurasian landmass. From their confines, a dominant navy can radiate military and thus political power deep inland.

Today they are American conduits, and central to any Spykmanesque balancing strategy. But if coastal states could bar the U.S. Navy—today’s answer to the world-straddling Royal Navy of yore—from the marginal seas, they could vitiate Spykman’s maritime geostrategic vision. Or even if local defenders failed to deny access altogether, they could make it costly and treacherous for American task forces to venture into near-shore waters. U.S. officials would think twice before paying a heavy price in lives, ships, and planes. They might blanch unless the need was truly dire.

Even partial success at access denial, then, would work to Iranian strategic advantage. If Washington did balk at dispatching naval forces to the Gulf region or its approaches, Tehran would have deflected U.S. efforts to project power; discredited U.S. alliance commitments to neighbors Iranian magnates wanted to cow; and in the process won the freedom to pursue power and influence by such means as clerical leaders saw fit to deploy. Turns out mischief-making advances larger purposes.

What sort of strategy would Spykman prescribe to cope with a troublesome but less than overbearing Iran? He might counsel Washington to continue taking an active part in managing events in South Asia and the Gulf region, in keeping with his onshore leanings. He would urge America to keep its alliances in the region strong, helping allies help U.S. naval forces gain access to the rimlands in times of strife. But at the same time he would exhort officialdom to keep its priorities in order. Iran poses no direct or immediate threat to the Western Hemisphere, but there are aspiring hegemons out there that warrant renewing his resource-intensive rimlands strategy. They must take precedence.

Strategy is the art and science of setting and enforcing priorities. The Pentagon has rightly designated great-power competition as its top priority. It would make little sense to commit heavy resources to offset a secondary worry such as Iran—especially if the opportunity costs were losing out in the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, or elsewhere around the Eurasian periphery. Let’s keep things in perspective.

Sound about right, Professor Spykman?

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

Image: Reuters