Diplomacy & Crisis News

North Korea has been on a different course in recent years than the path it seemed to follow in earlier decades. The transition from the Clinton-Bush administrations’ slow, drawn-out negotiations, interrupted by the North with bursts of provocation—sinking ships, shelling islands, shooting down helicopters, testing nuclear weapons—eventually evolved into something entirely different. Over the last three years, the North has shown no interest in protracted negotiations with the United States. Instead of provocations designed to draw attention and create bargaining chips, it has settled on steady, determined testing of long-range ballistic missiles to deter any attempt at regime change and acquiring fissile material for an expanded nuclear weapons arsenal to threaten “first use” of nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict.

The transition came after nearly a decade of a U.S. policy of “benign neglect” at the end of the Bush administration and over the Obama years. This was termed, at one point, “strategic patience,” but considered by many observers as just another version of containment: no negotiations, continued sanctions, and cultivation of our essential alliance relations. Then came the Trump administration, which started with a sharp rise in tensions, exchanges of threats and insults but rapidly evolved into summitry, marked by expressions of warm feelings that made it seem as though the two leaders could, indeed, “meet for lunch” and settle all that troubled relations between their two countries. That did not work out: the Trump administration was not up for “patient engagement,” and the North would eventually see that it was not. 

So, the Biden team faced a wary North Korean leadership and a rapidly changing international scene. Asia was widely perceived as marked by a rising China and a fading America. Europe was the scene of a resurgent Russia, with only Ukraine to hold it back—the rest of Europe and the United States apparently prepared to accept Russian aggression if military assistance was not enough to prevent it. In this new world, the third generation of Kim leadership in North Korea has chosen to maintain relations with Beijing, embracing its essential role as a Chinese buffer state while aggressively improving its relations with Moscow, becoming a sort of arsenal of dictatorship.

Before reaching the unhappy conclusion that, since the prerequisites for diplomacy seem absent, we should expect “more of the same” in the coming year, it might be prudent to consider the possibility that we may not be so lucky. We should at least entertain the thought that nuclear war could break out in Northeast Asia in 2024.

How could that happen? Let’s count the ways. First, there’s everybody’s favorite crisis, the Taiwan contingency. Imagine a Beijing-perceived Taiwanese provocation leading to Chinese moves and prompting U.S. countermoves, with neither side certain how far the other is prepared to go. Yet, both sides intend to signal their determination not to back down. This is, roughly, U.S. policy. In this scenario, North Korea, with or without encouragement from China, acts to support China by issuing nuclear threats against U.S. assets and allies in Northeast Asia, posing for the United States the prospect of facing two nuclear weapons states in one theater—unless Russia chooses to make it three. Japan and South Korea have no nuclear weapons. They would depend on U.S. extended deterrence in this scenario, even though Seoul, at least, has no interest in becoming involved in a Taiwan contingency. This scenario requires serious thought because nation-states can be as opportunistic as their leaders.

In a less complicated scenario, imagine the North Korean leadership decides to use its nuclear weapons arsenal and delivery vehicles to compel South Korean compliance with the North’s political and territorial directives and to assure deterrence of U.S. intervention to honor its alliance with Seoul. It is essential in this scenario—and any others one might think of—that we understand what the United States would actually do is not the critical calculation. It is rather what the North Korean leadership believes it would do. The North may think that its developing ICBM capability will serve to not only deter a U.S. attempt at regime change but also undercut the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence to its allies in Asia. That calculation might well determine whether or not nuclear war breaks out.

If we are truly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war, it is not enough to think through how deterrence might fail as North Korean and Chinese nuclear arsenals grow. One should consider the other ways a nuclear war might start, which have nothing to do with the failure of deterrence. Consider the possibility of an accidental or even an unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons by the North Korean military. They are, after all, relatively new to this “game” as compared to the other states with nuclear weapons. And North Korean rhetoric on its willingness to use its nuclear weapons should not give us confidence that this would be such a low-probability event.

Suffice it to say that the growing nuclear weapons arsenals in Northeast Asia, in the context of a competitive and even hostile political environment, should give us pause. At least, we should consider the risks we run when we make diplomacy a policy of last resort.

But suppose the United States wished to have another run at diplomacy with North Korea. Is there a way forward? Arguably, yes. However, in the last year of the Biden administration, with a seriously contested election in the offing, it is hard to argue that the timing is just right. 

That said, it is not wrong to consider what it would take to attract Pyongyang to discussions with Washington. The answer is simple but not easy. The United States must genuinely seek normalization of relations and keep denuclearization as a longer-term goal rather than a first step in the process. On the table for initial discussion would be sanctions relief, the character of military exercises with the ROK, and improvements in the North’s human rights policies— something in which Pyongyang has shown interest in the past and is essential to normalization. Simple, perhaps, but not easy.

Ambassador Robert Gallucci is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large and Special Envoy for the U.S. Department of State, focused on the non-proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. He served as the chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994, as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, and as Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission following the first Gulf War. Upon leaving public service, Ambassador Gallucci served as Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for thirteen years before he became president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The main image and intext images are from Shutterstock. 

India rents nuclear submarines from Russia - At the end of 2023, Russia and India took steps to expand their military cooperation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow a few days after Christmas, asserting that such a partnership would benefit both countries in addition to helping preserve security on the Eurasian continent. When the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies imposed heavy sanctions on Moscow following its Ukraine invasion, Russia had few allies to turn to for aid.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has notably the Kremlin via swaths of weapons transfers including lethal unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). India has also evolved to become one of Moscow’s primary economic partners since February 2022. In fact, according to Jaishankar, Indian-Russian trade is expected to top $50 billion this year.

New Delhi and Moscow’s military cooperation is not new. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union lent a nuclear-powered submarine when it granted India the Charlie-class nuclear cruise missile submarine.

New Delhi said the vessel was delivered to an Indian envoy in Vladivostok in 1988 for training purposes.

At the time, India possessed 10 diesel-powered submarines and two aircraft carriers. While the Soviet submarine was highly desired, its lease came with strict restrictions.

When the K-43 submarine entered service with the Indian Navy as the INS Chakra, it became subject to incessant Soviet inspections and maintenance sessions, was largely prevented from operating in offensive wartime missions, and could not be loaded with certain weapons.

Additionally, Indian crews were now even permitted to man certain areas of the INS Chakra, including the submarine’s reactor.

While New Delhi planned to lease the submarine for ten years, the INS Chakra was returned to the Soviet Union in 1990. Analysts assert that the Soviet’s strict restrictions associated with the lease were in part to blame for the shortened agreement.

According to former Russian Naval officer Alexander Ivanovich Terenov, other issues surrounding the K-43 surfaced. In his book ‘Under three flags- The saga of the submarine cruiser K-43/Chakra,’ Terenov explained that there were

"[M]any incidents of submarine malfunction. The outboard pipes and equipment corroded fast due to the high air temperature, humidity and salinity. The main suction line was not renewed during the last refit in the Soviet Union which caused flooding and fire. A major emergency at sea was experienced and it took 3 months to repair the submarine. Other issues included poor documentation, false data and poor discipline in the supply of spares from the Soviet Union. In one instance, the Indian navy refused to take supplies of the batteries due to their poor condition. The batteries had to be set right in India itself."

Initially designated as K-43 by the Soviet Union, the Charlie-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine entered service in the mid-1960s.

The vessel measured just over 300 feet with a beam of 10 feet and a draft of 26 feet long. Powered by a VM-5 pressurized water reactor and one five-blade propeller, the K-43 could reach up to 15 knots when surfaced and 23 knots when submerged.

Regarding armaments, the vessel was equipped with 8 SS-N-7 Starbright nuclear capable anti-ship missiles, in addition to six torpedo tubes that could carry 12 Starfish anti-submarine missiles or 12 torpedoes.

Although the K-43 submarine lease did not work out as intended, it would not mark the end of the Indian-Russia military partnership.

In 2010, Moscow leased one of its newest nuclear-powered submarines to New Delhi. In this new ten-year-long lease, the NATO-designated Akula-class submarine would elevate India’s underwater capabilities. The Nerpa (later renamed the INS Chakra) was constructed back in 1993, but was put on hold due to lack of funding. India then sponsored the completion of the submarine, which would later enter service with the Russian Navy as the N-152 Nerpa in 2009.

Notably, while the submarine was carrying out sea trials in the Sea of Japan, 20 civilian specialists were killed onboard when a fire suppression system was accidentally activated.

As part of the arrangement, India would pay roughly $670 million to sail the submarine over a 10-year-long period. By 2012, the ship was commissioned at Bolshoy Kamen where she commenced her home voyage under Indian control to its base at Visakhapatnam.

Like the K-43’s experience, the INS Chakra’s journey with the Indian Navy was cut short. The submarine was returned to Moscow in 2021 due to “increasingly unreliable power plant and maintenance issues.” 

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

Educational wargaming is underutilized and possesses the potential to teach warfighters intricate modern doctrine and force capabilities. Historically, analytical wargaming has functioned as a critical tool for military leadership, offering insights into force capabilities and aiding decision-making through experiential learning. Yet, within the US Navy and Marine Corps, the potential of digital or electronic wargaming as an educational platform for junior officers and Midshipmen remains largely untapped. Traditional tabletop wargames, once favored by older generations, fail to engage the younger, digitally-raised cohort and instead cater to a niche community. Statistics speak volumes— about 80 percent of Generation Z and Millennials play video games and average around seven hours of weekly gametime—highlighting the opportunity for a new generation of wargames. This data underscores a missed opportunity in leveraging simulator-based educational wargaming for the 21st-century Navy and USMC. The capacity to craft a sophisticated, educational, and enjoyable physics-based simulator exists, and it is incumbent upon the Navy and USMC to embrace this modern technology for Professional Military Education (PME) and junior officer training.

In the Fall of 2023, the University of Southern California’s Naval ROTC program embarked on a year-long initiative to introduce Midshipmen to the complexities of the Taiwan problem set. This scenario-focused education requires a significant understanding of naval and amphibious operations and is ideal for incorporating wargames. USC’s educational program blends discussions, lectures, and essential reading materials, such as James R. Holmes’ Red Star Over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy (2018), which enabled the students to have an in-depth discussion with Dr. Holmes via Zoom regarding Taiwan. However, it is worth noting that this initiative provides only an introductory-level education for Midshipmen and would benefit immensely from the addition of fleet-integrated educational wargaming.

Historical instances, such as the development of War Plan Orange prior to the Second World War, demonstrate how effective analytical wargaming can be when mixed into scenario decision-making. Yet, no standardized efforts were made to prepare junior officers similarly. The Naval War College and officer training pipelines did not see the value in educating junior officers like senior officers. However, even though junior officers do not require the same analytical gaming experience as fleet commanders, they can benefit enormously from exposure to educational wargaming to introduce them to various topics. As a learning tool, wargames can train the participants in force capability and doctrine, provide terrain familiarization, and offer opportunities for decision-making development. Additionally, they challenge the participants mentally, stimulating and driving sophisticated problem-solving and decision-making. As a tool, variables can be added or subtracted to increase/decrease game complexity, allowing for infinite theoretical scenarios.

Updating the naval officer training curriculum should not be difficult. The United States Naval Academy (USNA) and Naval Service Training Command (NSTC) promulgate curriculum guiding Professional Core Competencies (PCCs) roughly every three years that govern “the foundational standards of ‘officership’ by delineating core competencies required of all officer accession programs.” Whispers of a new competency for basic instructional wargaming exist, but even if included in the 2024 PCCs, this will require significant time and resources to train unit Officer Instructors to run educational games proficiently. Additionally, few ROTC courses have extra time, and an already burdened weekly schedule leaves little for adding extra training on top of current requirements for Midshipmen. To the collective groan of students and instructors alike, adding wargaming to officer training will necessitate a standalone time slot in weekly schedules, rather than shoehorning wargaming into existing time. Furthermore, Officer Instructors will need professional training to standardize implementation and enable cross-unit competition.

The Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfighting at Marine Corps University (MCU), who are pioneering educational gaming for MCU students, example one potential source of training for Officer Instructors. MCU could integrate with the biannual three-week Teaching in Higher Education (TiHE) course for incoming NROTC instructors, and allow them to reach the hundreds of Sailors and Marines who commission through NROTC each year. Moreover, standardization of training and the games played across ROTC programs is paramount to enable cross-unit integration and competition. Competition in wargaming events would incentivize performance and further stimulate Midshipmen education. The Government Accountability Office recently recommended that the Navy and Marine Corps “evaluate the costs and benefits of developing standard wargaming education and qualifications for wargaming personnel.” Consequently, the services must establish wargaming as an Officer Instructor (OI) qualification to standardize and enhance training pipelines through educational gaming. This qualification could mimic the newly introduced Warrior Toughness program, which has gradually become part of the Fleet through accession pipelines. After rotating through ROTC the cadre returning to the Fleet could broaden wargaming initiatives at the unit level, gradually fostering a culture shift towards embracing wargaming more extensively across the services.

However, if the Navy and Marines want to capture the attention of a new generation, they must develop an educational but entertaining multi-dimensional physics-based simulator to maximize the application of 21st-century technology. Tabletop wargaming, while valuable, is not sufficient. Tabletop gaming offers an immediate but temporary avenue for educational learning at a remarkably affordable investment. Straightforward tabletop problem-solving games can be completed within a brief timeframe, ranging from twenty to thirty minutes. An illustrative example is the microgame “Call Sign,” which concentrates on carrier combat and introduces singular variables, showcasing how these games can efficiently impart knowledge and skills, but these games are insufficient to meet the needs of the ROTC curriculum and lack the potential of digital games.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored a study on the value of video games, which concluded that “people who play video games are quicker at processing information” and that only “ten hours of video games can change the structure and organization of a person’s brain,” therefore tying informational learning to entertainment has a remarkable potential to increase retention. Most importantly, education must be balanced with entertainment, meaning accurate force capabilities and doctrine must coincide with quality graphical rendering of the action and include regular updates. Simulating forced decision-making with minimal time and minimal information provides invaluable experience for future military decision-makers. Furthermore, an in-depth military simulator would require knowledge of blue force design and doctrine, cultivate warrior skillsets, and increase tactical acumen. A competitive gaming culture amongst recruits and service members will ensure the longevity of such a program.

Effective strategy games blend a minimal initial learning curve but increase in depth and complexity while remaining re-playable due to variety. Like traditional board wargames, turn-based games necessitate a fundamental understanding of force design and doctrine. Conversely, real-time strategy (RTS) games demand swift decision-making, compelling players to act within a restricted timeframe. Modern games often integrate these two approaches, allowing players to oversee larger forces strategically in a turn-based mode while enabling detailed control over individual units during confrontations. This amalgamation of turn-based and RTS elements harnesses the educational advantages of understanding force dynamics while providing experiential learning through decision-making, offering a holistic approach to strategic gaming.

One potential commercially available wargame is Command: Modern Operations. However, this game suffers from being overly complex, detracting from the entertainment value of the equation as it requires many hours of instruction to play. Unfortunately, no commercially available modern strategic video game fits this balanced role, and most avoid contemporary conflict scenarios and instead focus on fictional Cold War scenarios. For example, naval-centric Cold Waters (2017) and land-centric WARNO (2022) display well-researched military simulators exhibiting the capabilities of Cold War-era forces. The success of Cold War-era simulators remains undeniable, as the developers of Cold Waters have showcased an upcoming impressively modeled new game, Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age. The cost of developing a modern video game ranges from $10,000 to millions. However, the DoD could drastically cut this cost by leveraging an already created modern simulator, such as WARNO, funding this successful team and providing experts to modify a pre-created simulator to reflect modern force capabilities.

Furthermore, the official Navy/USMC stamp on a military simulator would draw outsized attention from the private market, serve as a potent recruitment tool, and create a competitive outlet for Midshipmen and officers. The Navy has already worked to capitalize on the popularity of video games by creating an E-Sports team, which is run by the Navy Recruiting Command. Yet, an official strategy simulator would draw further interest through military recognition by connecting to modern youth in the popular video game dimension. In the US alone, the strategy game market revenue reached $14.88 billion in 2022, exhibiting a significant market share of overall games. Ultimately, the success of a military simulator hinges on player enjoyment and support; popular strategy games such as Starcraft II maintain over a five million monthly player count despite being a decade old. In comparison, WARNO only sold 213,000 copies so far, as it lacks competitive depth.

Unfortunately, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has outpaced the US in competitive digital wargaming, recognizing its potential for education since the early 2000s. Notably, since 2017, the PLA has organized national wargaming competitions, boasting more than 20,000 participants in 2019 alone. Emphasizing the educational aspect, the PLA actively encourages military simulator usage to instruct on force design changes and to promote military affairs to the civilian population. Initially, the PLA benefitted enormously from mimicking US civilian market military simulators, but has since shifted to domestic-made strategy games, such as Mozi Joint Operations Deduction System, which enables military members to fight simulated battles with Chinese equipment. Additionally, the PLA copied popular US titles, such as Call of Duty, to create their own first-person shooter, Glorious Mission, to “improve combat skills and technological understanding” in military members. Wargaming has evolved into an integral part of PME for the PLA, gaining widespread popularity even amongst the civilian population. This exemplifies a dimension where the PLA initially imitated the US military, strategically leveraged the US private sector, and ultimately leapfrogged US capabilities to outperform the US military in PME.

Damien O’Connell, the founder of the Warfighting Society, recently penned an article, “Progress and Perils: Educational Wargaming in the US Marine Corps,” on The Maneuverist blog, which delineated implementation issues for fleet-wide educational gaming. He outlines five obstacles to greater implementation of wargaming in the operating forces: “(1) confusion about what educational wargaming is and is not, (2) skepticism of its value, (3) ignorance of its successful use, (4) limited time, (5) aversion to nerd culture, and (6) ignorance of how to integrate wargames into training and education plans.” The Navy and USMC must not conflate educational gaming with analytical wargaming. Decision-making opportunities and force design instruction found in basic wargames will answer any confusion surrounding wargaming and its value and demonstrate its successful use to any observing critics. However, overcoming issues related to time and integration will demand a substantial initial investment and revised time requirements through curriculum standardization. Aversion to “nerd culture” stems from a historical stigma against board gaming, shared even by video gamers; this dislike can be easily solved by tapping into the voracious appetite for video games.

A secondary benefit of creating wargame literate junior officers would positively boost the ability of time-proven analytical gaming and thus improve force design and doctrine. The early introduction of wargames will create “a bigger pool of individuals who are exposed to the principles of wargaming, allowing the DOD to cast a wider net when looking for qualified individuals to build, run, and analyze games,” and in turn, increase the performance of future professional analytical wargaming. Furthermore, the over-reliance on civilian-run wargames has created a capability deficit among military personnel, because fewer are trained in how to run and manage wargames. This culture change could imitate the drastic success of the Prussian officer corps, which spawned avid wargamers such as General von Moltke—the Prussian army chief of staff—who expanded the use of wargaming under his leadership. As a result, the Prussian military dominated the European continent in the 19th century and forged a dominant military doctrine that lasted a century. Unsurprisingly, “many countries attributed the battlefield success of Moltke and the Prussians to the integration of wargaming in their army.”

Junior officer education needn’t be limited to monotonous PowerPoint displays or exclusive to PME. Wargaming presents a straightforward remedy for a complex educational challenge and should not be dismissed as an after-school activity. If the US military aims to regain the edge against the PLA in critical thinking and education, it must create a finely tuned educational military simulation video game. Furthermore, the potential for training will exponentially grow as technology such as virtual reality becomes more readily available. The Navy and USMC must stay ahead of the educational curve, set the foundation for a future sophisticated Ender’s Game-like military simulation or Star Trek’s morality-testing unwinnable game, the Kobayashi Maru, and turn science fiction into reality. Existing tabletop games may temporarily suffice but must be formally integrated into the curriculum and eventually replaced by digital simulations. The value of multi-domain educational learning from wargaming cannot be overstated. Moreover, increased interaction with younger generations through a popular Navy-endorsed video game could help draw in technology-oriented recruits. The Navy and USMC must embrace 21st-century technology and adapt it to benefit instruction for foreseeable near-peer threats. No military aviator argues against the extensive use of flight simulators in modern instruction; this attitude must be broadened to the entire Fleet.

LT Jack Tribolet flew the MH-60S Knighthawk with HSC-26 out of Norfolk. He currently serves as an Officer Instructor teaching at the University of Southern California and is the nationwide NROTC Course Coordinator for the class Seapower & Maritime Affairs.

This article was first published by CIMSEC.

Why Don't Wend Send the F-35 Stealth Fighter to Ukraine? Ukraine has defied expectations, staunchly holding off the Russian invaders for two years. And while the Ukrainians have fought doggedly, their resistance is dependent, in large part, upon the donation of Western cash, intelligence, and military equipment.

Frankly, the Ukrainians are unlikely to have been able to resist the Russian advances without the steady influx of military assistance from the NATO powers, most especially the United States.

To date, the West has provided Ukraine with vital equipment, including surface-to-air missile systems like the PATRIOT and anti-tank equipment like the FGM-148.

Ukraine is eagerly awaiting the donation of fourth-generation F-16 fighters, which would help mitigate the Russian advantage in the skies above Ukraine. But the donation of F-16s raises questions: why donate F-16s when superior, fifth-generation fighter technology, i.e., the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is available?

Answers may range from the practical to the abstract, but the simple fact is that the US is unlikely to donate F-35 to Ukraine.

Ukraine surprised the world in denying their airspace to the Russians. Yet, the Russians hold a distinct advantage in the skies, running their Su-35s and MiG-31s up against the Ukrainian’s Su-27s and MiG-29s.

The Russian aircraft is newer, with higher-powered radar and more sophisticated missiles. The advantage here is that the Russian aircraft can locate and engage with Ukrainian aircraft further away than the Ukrainian aircraft.

So, in effect, the Russians can engage the Ukrainians from beyond the range of the Ukrainian fighters. In contrast, the Ukrainians must sneak within the range of the Russians to engage – a dangerous place to be.

Ukraine has compensated their weaker aircraft with donated surface-to-air systems, like the IRIS-T, NASAMS, and PATRIOT – but the SAMs are just a stopgap until Ukraine can receive more capable fighters.

The inbound F-16s, with advanced radar and modern missiles like the AIM-120, would offer Ukraine a significant upgrade over their Su-27s and MiG-29s, allowing the Ukrainians to engage Russian aircraft from greater distances.

But the F-16 is a fourth-generation fighter, first built in the 1970s and no longer on par with today’s cutting-edge aircraft. So, why not give the Ukrainians today’s cutting-edge aircraft?

Amongst the NATO powers, only America has developed fifth-generation technology – the F-22 and the F-35.

The F-22 Raptor remains the world’s preeminent air superiority fighter – but America has never exported the F-22 and never will. Production has already ceased on the F-22 and the US will hold onto each of their remaining F-22s.

The F-35 Lightning II, on the other hand, has been exported to US allies around the world, including NATO nations. One might expect a US-backed Ukraine to receive a jet that the US has already exported to places like Singapore and Norway – especially given how helpful the F-35 would be to the Ukrainian’s cause.

Consider the effectiveness of the F-16: “Kyiv’s allies hope the [F-16] can push Russian aircraft farther from the frontlines, target radar transmitters more effectively and hunt down more cruise missiles,” Reuters reported. “But [the F-16s] will address a problem that has persisted from the start of the invasion I February 2022: Russia’s more modern combat aircraft have been difficult for Ukraine’s military to counter with its own aging fighters.”

Now, consider that the F-35 is more effective than the F-16. Indeed, concerning radar, situational awareness, data fusion, and interconnectivity, the F-35 is the world’s standard-bearer – offering an edge over Russian Su-35s and MiG-31s.

Ukraine should not expect F-35 donations. For one, the F-35 is expensive – almost twice as much per unit as an F-16 (about $100 million v. $63 million).

And the F-35 program, in total, is the most expensive weapons program in human history ($1.7 trillion).

American taxpayers, fatigued from bankrolling a foreign conflict that is entering its third year, are unlikely to support the donation of a $100 million dollar aircraft from a $1.7 trillion dollar program.

The US may be hesitant to send one of their preeminent weapons systems into combat, at the hands of relatively green, foreign pilots, against one of America’s primary rivals. A downed F-35 would be inevitable. And a downed F-35 could provide Russia with the chance to reverse engineer the fifth-generation jet.

Granted, Russia already has a fifth-generation fighter design (the Su-57, of which only ten or so exist), but any insights into the F-35 would be a win for Russia.

Lastly, consider that the longer Russia is engaged in a conflict, the weaker Russia becomes with respect to military resources and political capital.

A weaker Russia benefits the US. So, logically, it follows that the US would prefer for Russia to remain engaged in conflict indefinitely.

So, providing Ukraine with game-changing weapons systems may not ultimately be in the US’s best interest. Now, that’s a somewhat abstract, hypothetical, and cynical take – and may not reflect the strategy of the US war planners. But it’s something to think about.

Regardless, don’t expect the Ukrainians to receive any F-35s.      

When Henry Kissinger asked for his opinion about the influence of the French Revolution, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai purportedly replied that two hundred years on it was “too early to tell.” Something similar might be said about today’s key economic question. Was 2022’s burst of inflation to over 9 percent due to transitory factors like the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Or was it primarily due to the excessively expansive stance of budget and monetary policy?

The answer to the inflation question has considerable policy implications for the Federal Reserve.

If the burst in inflation was due to transitory factors, maybe the Fed did not need to slam on the monetary policy brakes as hard as it did last year to regain inflation control. Inflation would have slowed as the temporary supply disruptions wore off. If, on the other hand, 2022’s inflation was due to the Fed keeping interest rates too low for too long and allowing the money supply to balloon, maybe then the Fed’s current insistence on keeping interest rates high and allowing the money supply to contract will precipitate a recession and risk a bout of deflation.

Those arguing that 2022’s inflation was a transitory phenomenon can point to the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the spike in food and energy prices that occurred due to Russia’s war with Ukraine. They would note that a large part of inflation’s acceleration was due to gasoline prices increasing to well over $4 per gallon and to used car prices going through the roof as a result of disruptions to the automobile supply chain.

They would argue that inflation’s downward movement last year towards the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target was largely the result of supply chain repairs and international oil price decreases as the result of a slowing world economy. According to this view, the Fed was not responsible for 2022’s inflation surge, and the Fed should not now be taking undue credit for inflation’s recent sharp deceleration. They would also note that inflation is coming down even though unemployment remains close to its all-time post-war low. 

The alternative view of inflation’s recent gyrations takes Milton Friedman’s famous dictum as its starting point: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. According to this view, 2022’s inflation surge should have come as no surprise given the 40 percent cumulative increase in the broad money supply between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2021. That unprecedented money supply burst directly resulted from the Fed keeping interest rates too low for too long and expanding its balance sheet by over $4 trillion to finance the government’s substantial Covid-related budget deficits. 

According to this inflation view, the Fed is now risking both sending the economy into recession and inviting a bout of deflation. It is doing so partly by keeping inflation-adjusted interest rates too high in the context of a slowing economy. More importantly, it is doing so by allowing the broad money supply to contract for the first time since the Fed started publishing these numbers in 1959.

Fortunately, unlike Zhou Enlai, we will not need to wait two hundred years to get an answer to our inflation question. Rather, we should have an answer by the end of this year. By then, we will know whether or not the economy experienced a meaningful recession and whether or not the deflation worries resurface. If we do experience meaningful deflation, the monetarists will be entitled to take a victory lap. If, on the other hand, we get a soft economic landing, those in the transitory inflation camp will be vindicated.

Unfortunately for the Fed, it will have to conduct monetary policy without a clear answer to the inflation question. It will have to hope that the monetarists are proven wrong and that it would not have endangered the economy by keeping interest rates too high and ignoring money supply developments. 

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

Image: Shutterstock. 

The A-10 Warthog is not meant to be pretty or stealthy and does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: a plane designed to provide air cover and kill things like enemy armor.

And while many say this plane could not survive a war against a modern foe like China or Russia, the plane will not go away anytime soon. Why is that?

On 10 May 2022, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog (officially the Thunderbolt II, named for the original P-47 Thunderbolt of WWII, which was flown by America’s top two highest-scoring air aces of the European Theatre, Francis “Gabby” Gabreski and Robert S. “Bob” Johnson) celebrated her 50th birthday, or as its pilots & crew chiefs (such as the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing) and legions of fans prefer to say, its 50th “BRRRT-Day,” in humorous and reverent homage to this golden warbird’s most salient—not to mention deadliest—feature, its tank-busting 30mm cannon.

So then, let’s examine just what makes this particular warplane so special.

 To give readers a sense of historical perspective about the Warthog’s roots, as noted by Guns.Com columnist Chris Eger, “Nixon was in office, Roberta Flack’s ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ was on the top of the charts – which is a beautiful coincidence considering the love the public has for the A-10 – and a gallon of milk cost 52 cents.” 

Moreover, at this time, the Soviet Union possessed roughly 50,000 tanks, while the American M1 Abrams main battle tank (MBT) was still eight years away from debuting. Though Dick Nixon’s détente policy was already underway, the fear of the USSR sending its massed troop and tank formations through the Fulda Gap still weighed heavily on U.S. policymakers’ minds. Therefore, the need for a tank-killing close air support (CAS) platform like the A-10 was genuine.

With 20/20 hindsight, we know now that the dreaded WWIII scenario never happened, thanks to, among other things, Nixon’s aforementioned détente, the Reagan Doctrine of rollback, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika. However, even before the Cold War officially ended, the Warthog would still get her baptism of fire on a far different battlefield than its designers originally envisioned: the desert sands of Iraq and Kuwait.

The A-10 Warthog was officially “blooded” during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, destroying more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other military vehicles and 1,200 artillery pieces.  Two particular A-10A pilots, then-Captain Eric Solomonson and Lieutenant John Marks of the 76th Tactical Fighter Squadron/23rd Tactical Fighter Wing set a record of sorts by killing 23 of Saddam Hussein’s tanks in a single day!  Moreover, as I noted in my piece on the J-20 sometime back, during that same conflict, the Warthog laid claim to the last known air-to-air gun kill (as opposed to a missile kill) in aviation combat history. Thus the living legend of the Warthog was born and cemented.

What makes the Warthog so deadly?

Well, for starters, there are the AGM-65 Maverick missiles. Still, more significantly, there’s that aforementioned “BRRRT” factor, the GAU-8A Avenger cannon, a 30mm electric Gatling gun that delivers seven times the ballistic energy per round as the 20mm M61 Vulcans carried by other U.S. warplanes, doling out its deadly depleted uranium shells at a buzzsaw-like 4,200 rounds per minute.  Yes, the airplane is built around the gun.

Since then, the A-10 has served with distinction, from Bosnia to Kosovo to Afghanistan to Libya to Iraq Part Deux (Operation Iraqi Freedom). And while the Warthog drivers in these latter conflicts may not have racked up the MBT kill tally that their Desert Storm predecessors did, they certainly added to the other aspect that makes the beast so legendary: its incredible durability and survivability.

To cite just one example, then-Captain (now retired USAF Colonel) Kim “K(iller)C(hick)” Campbell, during a mission over downtown Baghdad on 07 April 2003, was hit by enemy ground fire that completely knocked out her airplane’s hydraulics and damaged one engine, in addition to disabling the flight controls, landing gear & breaks, and horizontal stabilizer, not to mention leaving hundreds of holes in the airframe. Amazingly enough, Campbell was able to put the plane into manual reversion and fly the crippled Hog safely back to base an hour away. For her heroic actions, she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Given this fantastic track record of being able to take punishment and dish it out, it is no wonder that many experts are decrying efforts to phase out the A-10. We can only hope that these voices of reason will be heeded by the senior decision-makers in the Pentagon.

Christian D. Orr is a former Air Force officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon).  Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU).  He has also been published in The Daily Torch and The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security. Email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

The F-14 Tomcat is clearly a fighter based on Cold War needs and designs. It is also clearly not stealth like the F-22, F-35, or upcoming NGAD platform. And yet, the public just can't get enough of this old fighter jet. Why is that exactly? Why are we so fascinated by it?

In my recent article on the SR-72 spy plane, I mentioned the mysterious plane’s Hollywood-embellished appearance in Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the original 1986 box office blockbuster.

Not surprisingly, the sequel has also regenerated interest in the venerable F-14 Tomcat, the warbird in which a then-young Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by Tom Cruise, earned his combat spurs and took our breath away.

Though not quite as impressive as the F-15 Eagle’s mind-blowing 104:0 air-to-air kill ratio, the Tomcat has a very respectable air-to-air combat performance history.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Tomcat’s kill tally is that the majority of its scores were achieved not by American pilots, nor even the pilots of a U.S. ally, but rather by the pilots of an adversary nation.

Not just any U.S. adversary, either, but one deemed by then-President George W. Bush to be a member of the “Axis of Evil:” Iran. (Granted, Iran’s F-14s are carryovers from when that nation was actually still a U.S. ally.)

No American Tomcat drivers attained ace status (5 or more aerial victories), but at least one Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force pilot did. IRIAF pilot Col. Mostafa Roustaie, who scored five kills against Iraqi opponents during the Iran-Iraq War, described his beloved plane as “the last word in the fighter business.”

All in all, IRIAF pilots claimed 130 victories versus only 4 losses. However, as noted by aviation expert Tom Cooper in Smithsonian Magazine, “It is impossible to tabulate, for example, how many air-to-air victories were scored by Iranian F-14s because air force records were repeatedly tampered with during and after the war for political, religious, or even personal reasons.”

As for those lucky few Iraqi pilots who managed to kill a Tomcat – rare birds, indeed – the admittedly scanty evidence indicates that two of them did so in a MiG-23 Flogger, while one kill apiece is credited to a Dassault Mirage F1 and a MiG-21 Fishbed.

Iran remains the only nation flying active F-14s. According to estimates in 2019, Iran’s air force maintains 24 F-14 Tomcats from the original batch of 79.

As for the total kills scored by U.S. Navy Tomcat fliers, that tally is 5: two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 Fitter jets downed during the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident; two Libyan MiG-23 Floggers killed during the 1989 Gulf of Sidra incident; and one Iraqi Mi-8 Hip helicopter downed during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

No U.S. Navy-flown F-14s have ever been lost in aerial combat, though one F-14 was lost to enemy ground fire during Desert Storm. Its pilot, Lt. Devon Jones, was rescued the next day, while his radar intercept officer, Lt. Lawrence Slade, ended up as a prisoner for the remainder of the war. (Unlike the ill-fated Goose from the original Top Gun film, Mr. Slade lived to tell the tale.)

The F-14 made her maiden flight on Dec. 21, 1970, and officially entered service on Sept. 22, 1974, with the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Enterprise. The aircraft was finally retired from service on the 32nd anniversary of its debut, Sept. 22, 2006.

Crew: 2 (Pilot and radar intercept officer)

Length: 62 ft 9 in (19.13 m)

Wingspan: 64 ft 1.5 in (19.545 m)

Swept wingspan: 38 ft 2.5 in (11.646 m) swept

Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)

Wing area: 565 sq ft (52.5 sq m) wings only

1,008 sq ft (94 sq m) effective area including fuselage

Maximum speed: Mach 2.34 (1,544 mph, 2,485 km/h) at altitude

Combat range: 500 nmi (580 mi, 930 km)

Service ceiling: 53,000 ft (16,000 m)-plus

Armament: 1× 20 mm (0.787 in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barreled Gatling cannon, with 675 rounds; AIM-54 Phoenix (the Tomcat’s most unique and exclusive feature) , AIM-7 Sparrow, AIM-9 Sidewinder

Christian D. Orr is a former Air Force officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon).  He has also been published in The Daily Torch and The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security.

Earlier this month, eight of the legendary U-2 "Dragon Lady" spy planes were lined up in an "Elephant Walk" at Beale Air Force Base (AFB), California as part of the United States Air Force's efforts to showcase the joint airpower of the multiple wings stationed at the facility. It may not have been the largest such "elephant walks," the term for taxiing numerous aircraft before takeoff – yet it was likely a sight to behold.

In addition to the close formation on the ground, it can involve a minimum interval takeoff.

The first elephant walks occurred during the Second World War when large fleets of allied bombers massed for attacks – and observers on the ground noted that as the aircraft lined up, it resembled the nose-to-tail formations of elephants walking to a watering hole.

Today, the U.S. Air Force employs elephant walks to show the capability of a unit as well as the teamwork that is required to conduct such an operation. It also can help pilots prepare for the launching of fully armed aircraft in a mass event if needed.

So what was the largest "Elephant Walk" ever conducted? The answer could be a bit tricky – as it could involve not only the number of aircraft but the size and capabilities as well.

It was last spring that 4,000 student Airmen from the 82nd Training Wing shared the runway with 80 training aircraft from the 80th Flying Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base (AFB), Texas, in possibly the largest and most unique "elephant walk" in Air Force history. It was conducted to shine a light on the importance of training and partnerships.

"The key to airpower is exceptional Airmen, and the key to exceptional Airmen is exceptional training," said Brig. Gen. Lyle K. Drew, 82nd TW commander. "That's what we do here at Sheppard [AFB], and this elephant walk was our message to the world that the U.S. and its international partners remain committed to delivering the best-trained Airmen in the world."

Sheppard AFB is home to three of the eight technical training groups in the Air Force as well as Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training, while it is also home to the service's largest Noncommissioned Officer Academy.

"No other base could bring this many training aircraft and student Airmen to bear like this," said Col. Brad Orgeron, 80th FTW commander. "The fundamental technical and pilot training missions that happen here every day affect literally every base and every combat sortie in the Air Force – not to mention the impact on our global partners."

Another contender for the largest elephant walk was one conducted at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., on April 16, 2012, involving nearly seventy F-15 Strike Eagles from the United States Air Force's 4th Fighter Wing – with aircrews assigned to the 4th Fighter Wing's 333rd, 334th, 335th, and 336th Fighter Squadrons.

The fourth-generation aircraft had lined up on the runway during a Turkey Shoot training mission, in which the more than five dozen aircraft successfully destroyed in excess of 1,000 targets on bombing ranges across the state to commemorate the 4th's victory over the Luftwaffe on April 16, 1945.

Another contender for the most impressive elephant walk occurred in January 2020, when the United States Air Force's Active Duty 388th and Reserve 419th Fighter Wings conducted the Combat Power Exercise at Hill AFB, Utah, with 52 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II 35As – the conventional takeoff and landing variant of the U.S. military's Joint Strike Fighter.

The elephant walk of the F-35 Lightning IIs was employed to demonstrate the "ability to employ a large force of F-35As" as well as to test the air wing's readiness for personnel accountability, aircraft generation, ground operations, flight operations, and combat capability, according to a Hill statement from the time.

Though the U.S. Air Force's press photos may have looked to many like little more than a number of aircraft lined up, the exercise had been planned for months. As TheDrive.com reported, "The amount of hardware on the runway in terms of billions of dollars is staggering."

It was also likely quite an expensive show of force. If each of the 52 F-35 fighters in the elephant walk flew for just a single hour, it was still a $2 million-plus exercise. Yet, it could be described as truly priceless.

The ability to launch 52 of the fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters was as much to send a message to detractors of the program within the United States as it was to reaffirm the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force to near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia.

While it may not have been the largest elephant walk in terms of the number of aircraft, last November eight Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirits lined up on the runway at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, at the culmination of the recent Spirit Vigilance 22 training exercise.

Aircraft from the 509th and 131st Bomb Wings took part in an “elephant walk” before a series of training and readiness drills. The Spirits lined up in close formation on the runway before taking off at short intervals. The routine showcased the availability of the aircraft and served as a demonstration of power.

Given that just twenty B-2s are in service, the display included about 40% of the total Spirit fleet. With eight bombers on the runway at roughly $2 Billion a piece, it drew approximately $16 Billion in stealth bombers to a single location.

That is might no other nation on earth could showcase.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. Email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

Mines have a long history of reshaping naval warfare, both by damaging individual ships and by countering the actions of entire fleets. Remarkably, though, one way to make them even more effective is to take a “back to the future” approach in which vintage mine technologies, even some dating a century or more, are employed alongside modern capabilities. 

Even relatively unsophisticated mines have been used to prevent ship movements from Vietnam to the English Channel, while also thwarting amphibious assaults from the gates of Istanbul to the coasts of Korea. From 1988 through 1991, mines damaged three U.S. warships and many civilian ones in the Persian Gulf.

Most recently, Ukraine has used naval mines to help invasion of Odesa. Mines can help to negate the superior power of enemy fleets not only by directly damaging their ships, but by inducing them to avoid key waters or to engage in mine-countermeasures efforts that delay and disrupt their plans. For example, naval mines could help to stymie a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, hindering China’s ability to rapidly deliver a massive force ashore. In locations across the globe, naval mines could also be used to trap hostile submarines in port. They can also be used to impose “sanctions with a bite” by precluding an aggressor from using specific waterways until certain conditions are met. 

The U.S. military is working to develop its currently vestigial naval mining capabilities. It has a handful of air-dropped bottom influence mines, which sit on the seafloor and detonate when they sense a ship’s characteristic sounds or magnetism overhead. The U.S. is working on mines that can be delivered clandestinely or can be released from aircraft at long ranges from the target area. In addition, the U.S. is developing mines that can launch torpedoes when they detect a ship’s presence, a capability that it first developed towards the end of the Cold War. 

Burnishing capabilities from the 1980s, though, could be only the beginning. A very effective way of complementing today’s advanced mines is by employing mine technology that dates back a century or even more. Moored contact mines that detonate on impact, like the “spiky balls” used in World War I, require different modalities of mine countermeasures (MCM) from bottom influence mines. Sonar searches for moored and bottom mines have to be conducted sequentially, while moored contact mines are immune to ship emulating MCM gear that attempts to prematurely detonate influence mines. 

For the U.S., scattering a few moored contact mines among a larger number of bottom influence mines would require additional MCM efforts to counteract both, protracting clearance timelines. If an adversary did not undertake MCM against moored contact mines, because it was not aware of their usage, it would likely lose ships and then have to belatedly address that secondary threat. Throughout these protracted and perhaps confused MCM operations, MCM forces and other ships would be vulnerable to U.S. targeting. 

Similarly, old-fashioned drifting mines can be tremendously disruptive to an adversary’s fleet actions or its MCM efforts against fixed mines. Under international law, drifting mines must neutralize themselves within one hour of release. However, under the right circumstances, they can do a lot of mischief within that single hour. Slightly submerged drifting mines could be released from uncrewed undersea vehicles or low-visibility uncrewed surface vehicles just up current from a fleet or from MCM forces tackling a fixed minefield. 

The technology involved is very old: the U.S. first used drifting mines that detonate on contact in 1777. Drifting mines could help to disrupt a fleet as it was trying to maintain formation or adhering to channels where MCM had previously been conducted. Available tactics against drifting mines are mostly risible, consisting of having people try to spot incoming mines, then trying to avoid and/or shoot them. The result is that ships would be continually damaged by an invisible threat, with no meaningful capacity to counter it. 

A third approach is to use remotely controlled mines that have a hard-wired connection to a facility on land. Controllers at that facility can decide whether to detonate a mine when a ship approaches one of them or could simply activate (or de-activate) a set of influence mines that respond to ship signatures. Again, the U.S. has been here before: at the turn of the 20th century it protected ports with remotely controlled minefields. Today, coastal nations such as Taiwan and the Baltic states could employ such minefields to better protect their shores from hostile fleets. Having numerous, distributed links between individual mines and various shore locations can reduce vulnerability to both the severing of cables and the targeting of the control facilities themselves. Remotely controlled mines are relatively impervious to typical MCM tactics, while any MCM assets would be highly vulnerable to various shore-based defenses. 

Overall, while naval mine warfare benefits from technological development, employing a few old-style mines can be a useful complement to modern capabilities. The low costs associated with naval mines may be further reduced by constructing some with century-old technology. Some other nations already use seemingly antiquated mines: Russia’s M08 moored contact mine is named for the year of its development—1908. By using moored contact, drifting, or remotely controlled naval mines in combination with advanced counterparts, the U.S. and other nations can inexpensively help to counter prospective aggressors as part of a range of naval defenses. 

Dr. Scott Savitz is a Senior Engineer at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This article was first published by RealClearDefense.

First Columbia-class Submarine Stern Delivered - Progress is moving forward on the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826), the lead boat of the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. This week HII's Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) announced that it had delivered the stern for the sub by barge from Newport News to Electric Boat's facility in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

"This is a major milestone in the ramp-up of Columbia-class module production here at NNS," said Brandi Smith, NNS vice president of Columbia -class submarine construction. "Our shipbuilders have worked with pride to accomplish this milestone, and we look forward to continuing our commitment to this important national security program."

NNS is a major shipbuilding partner in the Columbia-class program, constructing and delivering six module sections per submarine under contract to Electric Boat.

The U.S. Navy will spend around $132 billion for the procurement of the dozen submarines, while the total lifecycle cost for the entire class is estimated at $347 billion. That figure includes all projected costs to develop, buy, and operate the 12 submarines through 2042.

In its Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) request, U.S. Navy officials asked for $3.7 billion for the Columbia class program – a 97 percent increase over 2018, making it the second-most expensive program in the 2019 Pentagon budget request, next to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is operated by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.

The new SSBNs will be the largest submarines ever built by the United States. Each of the planned dozen boats will be 560 feet in length and have a beam of 43 feet.

The Columbia -class will be equipped with sixteen SLBM tubes, as opposed to twenty-four SLBM tubes on Ohio-class SSBNs. That will also reduce construction, operations, and maintenance costs. In addition, the new boats will utilize the joint American-British developed Common Missile Compartment (CMC), which will also be installed on the Royal Navy's new Dreadnought-class submarines. It was designed to launch the Trident II D5 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The joint effort has been reported to save each nation hundreds of millions of dollars.

The new submarines will be longer, heavier, and feature a complex electric drive propulsion system and associated technology.

Unlike the preceding Ohio-class, the new ballistic missile submarines are being constructed with a life-of-ship reactor, which will result in a shorter mid-life maintenance period, and each was designed to serve a forty-two-year service life.

This will further allow the dozen Columbia-class SSBNs to replace the existing fourteen Ohio-class boats – and reduce overall upfront procurement costs.

The program has also been utilizing techniques that were refined during the construction of the Virginia-class to maximize the efficiency of assembling the complex hulls while meeting a timeline with razor-thin margins.

The new Columbia-class is now being constructed by General Dynamic subsidiary Electric Boat for the U.S. Navy in collaboration with NNS.

The defense contractor cut the first steel for the lead boat in May 2019 – while construction of the submarine officially began in October 2020, while on June 4, 2022, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) declared the keel laid for the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826).

It was reported in May that the shipbuilder had not conducted a schedule risk analysis of the lead submarine's construction schedule, an issue that was first identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The D.C.-based watchdog laid out several recommendations to keep the program running on track.

However, another issue was noted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in October 2023 – which found that the program risks running at least 20 percent over budget, or about $20 billion.

"CBO estimates that total shipbuilding costs would average about $34 billion to $36 billion (in 2023 dollars) over the next 30 years, which is about 16 percent more than the Navy estimates. Compared with its estimates for the 2023 plan, CBO's estimates increased by between 5 percent and 10 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, depending on the alternative," the nonpartisan government watchdog group warned.

The United States Navy has designated the Columbia-class its top acquisition priority, as the boats will replace the fleet of again Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, and take over the role of the nation's sea-based strategic deterrent – seen as the most survivable leg of the nation's strategic triad.

Originally known as the Ohio Replacement Program (ORP) or SSBN(X), until 2016, the lead boat of the class (SSBN-826) will be named to honor the District of Columbia, while the second sub of the class will be named USS Wisconsin (SSBN-827).

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org 

Russia's Naval Chief Wants a New Aircraft Carrier – He's Not Dreaming, He's in Fantasy Land - The head of the Russian Navy has suggested that a new aircraft carrier could be in the works – yet, the Kremlin has struggled with the refit for its sole flattop. However, Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov told the state-run Krasnaya Zvezda daily news outlet that plans for a new aircraft carrier are underway.

"The issue of the expediency of creating a prospective naval aircraft carrying complex has been addressed. Its engagement will increase the effectiveness of various operational tasks," suggested Yevmenov, as reported by Tass.

He further suggested that the main "brown-water force" comprises warships that combine antisubmarine and attack capabilities. These include corvettes such as the Russian Navy's Steregushchy and the Gremyashchy and small missile ships like the Grad Sviyazhsk.

Blue-water warships comprise frigates, patrol ships, and universal amphibious assault ships that can provide over-the-horizon assault landing, the naval chief added. The development of minesweepers made of composite materials with modern mine searching and sweeping means will continue.

Yevmenov gave no timeline on when such a future carrier could enter service, or even where it could be built. Russia has struggled to refit the flagship Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov, and during it now odyssey-long time undergoing a modernization, which involved a crane falling on the flight deck, while it further suffered multiple fires, and seen its completion date pushed back on numerous occasions.

There has been increased scrutiny, and some Western observers have doubted the carrier will ever be returned to service. The problem-plagued warship was meant to be a symbol of pride for Moscow, but it has often been the butt of numerous jokes – often with good reason. At one point, the Kremlin did consider a replacement, yet likely, the warship will never sail.

Yevmenov's calls for a new carrier aren't the first time that such a project has figuratively been floated – even though no actual warship has moved past the decisions stage. As previously reported, in 2018, it was announced that the Russian Navy had begun to explore options for a new aircraft carrier.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, one option was focused on a conventionally powered vessel with a displacement of around 70,000 tons – slightly larger than the 58,600-67,500 tons full load Project 1143.5 Admiral Kuznetsov. Another option called for a nuclear-powered carrier, with a larger displacement. That would be bigger than the 42,000-ton French Navy flagship Charles de Gaulle – the only non-U.S. Navy nuclear-powered carrier – yet not likely as large as the 100,000-ton American supercarriers.

The new "Shtorm" aircraft carrier – a.k.a. Project 23000E – was to be included in Russia's armament program for the 2019 to 2025 period.

To say that little to no progress has been made on the Shtorm is a vast understatement, and there is little to no chance that Moscow will be launching a new carrier anytime in the next decade.

It was also just a year ago that some Russian lawmakers suggested that Moscow should turn to Beijing to buy back the unfinished Soviet-era flattop that Ukraine sold to China following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

While no official request has been made, it would also likely best be described as a dead in the water.

It seems that some in the Kremlin are like children with wish lists for Santa Claus that vastly exceed the means of their parents. They're likely to be as disappointed as those children when their dreams aren't fulfilled, but unlike children, they should understand the reality of the situation.

As it stands, Moscow will be hard-pressed to see Admiral Kuznetsov even return to service, at least as a capable warship. It is therefore simply a fantasy to believe that the Russian Navy will ever be a true blue water force with a capable aircraft carrier that isn't the mockery of the world.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

Image Credit: Shutterstock and Creative Commons. 

The future of commercial supersonic flight will be unveiled on Friday at the famed Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. Lockheed Martin and NASA executives, along with subject matter experts, and California and Federal Government officials will be present as the NASA X-59 is rolled out.

Designed and built by Lockheed Martin at its famed Skunk Works facility, the X-59 is specifically shaped to quiet the perceived sound of a sonic boom that reaches the ground to that of a gentle thump, similar to a car door shutting in the distance.

"This is the big reveal," said Catherine Bahm, manager of NASA's Low Boom Flight Demonstrator project, who is overseeing the development and build of the X-59. "The rollout is a huge milestone toward achieving the overarching goal of the Quesst mission to quiet the sonic boom."

The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA's Quesst mission, which has the goal of collecting community response data from flights over representative communities across the United States. NASA will employ that data to recommend an acceptable commercial supersonic noise standard to regulators to possibly repeal the current ban on supersonic flight over land and thereby change the future of commercial aviation, reducing flight times by half of what they are currently.

"Watch the unveiling of @NASAAero's X-59 aircraft, set to fly this year to test quieter supersonic flight technology. The Quesst mission could help bring a return to supersonic air travel over land. Livestream starts Friday, Jan. 12 at 4pm ET (2100 UTC)," @NASA announced on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this month.

Last year, the X-plane completed a series of ground tests at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, facility to ensure the aircraft's ability to withstand the loads and stresses of supersonic flight – or flight at speeds faster than Mach 1. During the tests, the X-59's fuel systems were also calibrated and tested at Lockheed Martin's Ft. Worth facilities. Since the airplane wasn't actually flying, tests were conducted with the aircraft sitting on hydraulic jacks that were connected directly to the structure.

In addition, structural and fuel calibration tests were completed on the aircraft in preparation for final integration and taxi testing back in Palmdale.

However, because the aircraft couldn't fly to the facilities, there had been logistical challenges to complete the tests. While the aircraft was built in California, it had to be shipped by truck to Texas in December 2022.

NASA's goal is to collect and provide data to U.S. regulators to help establish an acceptable commercial supersonic noise standard and to lift the ban on commercial supersonic travel over land, which could reduce cross-country flight times drastically.

The United States banned supersonic travel over land for non-military aircraft in 1973 due to public concern about sonic booms over populated areas, CBS News reported. NASA has continued to study transoceanic supersonic flight, which could in theory shuttle passengers from New York City to London in less than two hours.

"We're definitely ready to write a new chapter in the history of supersonic flight, making air travel over land twice as fast, but in a way that is safe, sustainable, and so much quieter than before," Peter Coen, NASA's Quesst Mission Integration Manager, said in a statement in April.

The advanced is scheduled to take flight this year. Once fully operational and tested, NASA plans to fly the aircraft over select U.S. cities in 2026 and gather feedback from the public on the sound it produces.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author at Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

Three months after a genocidal, anti-semitic terrorist group slaughtered 1,200 of its citizens in a barbaric fashion, Israel sits in the docket of the International Court of Justice, accused of committing genocide because it hasn’t defended itself from future attack as pristinely as the world demands.

The court is holding hearings this week on an application that South Africa filed in late December, asking the court to begin proceedings against Israel for committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

“Acts and omissions by Israel,” South Africa wrote, “... are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent... to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” putting Israel “in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

It is a quintessentially Orwellian affair, a spectacle of the victim as the perpetrator, and it fits within a longstanding pattern of the global community holding the singular Jewish state to a singular human rights standard. No one should buy it.

In its “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” the United Nations General Assembly defined genocide as action “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Ironically, it is Hamas, created in 1987 as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which has set out to commit that very crime—against Israel and the Jewish people.

In its covenant of 1988, Hamas states, “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious...  The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised [sic].”

“The Islamic Resistance Movement,” it continues, “is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders,” and it “aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise... The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.”

Some thirty-five years later, the group has lost none of its genocidal luster. After October 7, when Hamas’ terrorists beheaded men, slaughtered babies, raped women, desecrated bodies, and, in some cases, took videos of their deeds. The group's deputy foreign minister, Ghazi Hamad, vowed to repeat such attacks until Israel is destroyed.

Where does Israel fit into this maelstrom?

The Jewish State unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving it to the Palestinian Authority. Two years later, Hamas seized Gaza in a violent coup and ruled its two million residents with an iron fist, brooking no dissent and murdering those who work with or seek peace with Israel.

Israel responded to the barbarism of October 7 as one might expect, vowing to destroy the terrorist group so it could never again attack the Jewish state. What Israel is promising is nothing more than any responsible government would pursue in the aftermath of such an attack by such a group.

Israel’s military campaign is multi-faceted, arduous, and, yes, bloody. What began with heavy bombing has morphed into a harrowing firefight. But, notwithstanding the charge of genocide that Israel’s critics around the world are so quick to level, who’s really trying to boost civilian casualties?

While searching for Hamas operatives, Israel’s military has dropped leaflets, made phone calls, and sent texts, warning Palestinians to flee areas where it plans to mount operations. That is no different than what Israel has done for years during its multiple wars and skirmishes with Hamas.

Hamas, as usual, embeds its fighters and weaponry in schools, hospitals, and mosques, purposely boosting civilian casualties to swing global public opinion against Israel. Hamas has told Palestinians to ignore Israel’s warnings to flee or has prevented them from doing so. One Hamas official suggested that civilians serve as human shields, sacrificing themselves to protect Hamas’ assets.

This week’s spectacle in The Hague is part of a larger international picture, marked by an obsession with the Jewish state.

With war raging in Ukraine and elsewhere and autocrats brutalizing their people all over the world, the General Assembly last year condemned Israel fourteen times and the rest of the world just seven.

Meanwhile, the UN’s Human Rights Council remains a cesspool of anti-Israeli activity that has 1) made Israel its only permanent agenda item and 2) condemned and subjected it to more special sessions and commissions than any other country. The council has passed no resolutions to condemn human rights abuses in such nations as Algeria, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.

Are innocent Palestinians dying in Gaza? Yes. Is Israel seeking to wipe out the Palestinians, as per the charge of genocide? No. The allegation is either rooted in willful blindness or moral bankruptcy—or both.

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

Image: Creative Commons. 

Summary: This article discusses the Alaska-class battlecruisers, which the United States developed before World War II to counter German "pocket battleships." These ships were initially designed to be heavily armed cruisers powered by all-diesel propulsion. However, they faced a complex design process with numerous alterations. The Alaska-class battlecruisers did not fulfill their intended role due to changing military priorities, but their design would have been dominant in World War I.

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, the U.S. wanted to emulate Germany’s hybrid “pocket battleships.”

These heavily armed cruisers were innovative for the time, powered by all-diesel propulsion and constructed by welding.

The Deutschland, Admiral Scheer and Admiral Grad Spee were deployed to the Atlantic before World War II erupted and put in a position to attack Allied merchant traffic.

The U.S. desired its own warships that could better counter this German trio, which resulted in the development of the Alaska-class battlecruiser.

However, when these new ships entered service, they were rendered technologically obsolete.

Following World War I, the U.S., Britain, France, Japan and Italy all signed the Washington Naval Treaty along with other similar agreements.

These treaties dictated that the displacement of heavy cruisers was limited to 10,000 tons. In the late 1930s, it was rumored that Japan was beginning to design its copycat version of Germany’s pocket battleships.

U.S. intelligence on the matter suggested that the new vessels would be way more potent than America’s heavy cruisers.

In 1940, the U.S. passed the Vinson-Walsh Act- also known as the Two-Ocean Treaty, which immediately increased the size of the Navy by 70%.

Around this time, the General Board requested that the Bureau of Construction and Repair carry out a study involving the types of naval vessels up for consideration in an expanded building program.

While building a new cruiser class was expensive, costing $74 million per vessel in 1941 dollars, the Navy required new boats to fight a two-front war.

A litany of alterations and modifications made to the initial Alaska-class design made the whole process “torturous,” according to historians. The CA2-D cruiser was the first Alaska design to surface.

As detailed by Naval General Board, “It was also the largest. At 850′ in length at the waterline and with a waterline beam of 99′ (Overall beam was 104′ 6″). This resulted in a standard displacement of 38,700 tons, greater than that allowed for treaty battleships (Though at the time of the CA2-D design the “Escalator Clause” was in effect, allowing for battleships of up to 45,000 tons).”

The Alaska ships’ larger size enabled for a more formidable armament. Her primary firepower would have been a dozen guns in four triple turrets. The CA2-D cruiser featured two mounts on the centerline that fired over primary turrets. Additionally, dual-purpose guns were fitted to give them enhanced firing arcs to cover targets forward and aft of the vessel.

Four-shaft General Electric steam turbines, eight Babcock & Wilcox boilers, and double-reduction gearing powered the battlecruiser. This propulsion system was good for roughly 150,000 horsepower, a maximum speed of 33 knots, and a range between 12 and 14,000 nautical miles.

The Navy completed its first two Alaska-class cruisers in late 1944.

The Alaska and Guam did not receive their first mission until 1945, when the two boats were used for shore bombardment and escort duty.

By the time the few Alaska-class ships entered service in the Pacific Theatre, Japan was largely already defeated thanks to the Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarines.

A planned third ship- the Hawaii- was never completed. The Alaska supported the landings on Okinawa and the Alaska was deployed to protect the Essex-class aircraft carrier.

Ultimately, these ships never filled the role they were designed to fulfill. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. military shifted its focus to prioritize the construction of aircraft carriers instead of hefty battleships and cruisers. Carrier-borne aviation had become the leading tenant of warfare at the time, rendering the Alaska-class cruisers as dated.

By 1947, the ships were decommissioned after only serving for less than two years. While the ship’s record is short, analysts and military experts still debate the right designation for the Alaska-class.

As explained by the National World War II museum, “Due to the uniqueness of the Alaska-class design, these ships were not classified “CA” as typical for heavy cruisers, but instead “CB” for large cruiser. Also, as a nod to their not-quite-battleship, not-quite-cruiser roots, instead of being named after US states or cities, the ships were named after US territories with the USS Alaska (CB-1) being the first. The rest of the class would be the USS Guam (CB-2), USS Hawaii (CB-3), USS Philippines (CB-4), USS Puerto Rico (CB-5), and USS Samoa (CB-6).”

Although the Alaska-class tragically did not live up to expectations, if these vessels had been introduced in World War I they indeed would have dominated the seas.

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

“I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park, Listening to the wind of change, An August summer night, soldiers passing by, Listening to the wind of change.”

In 1990, the German rock band “Scorpions” released their single “Winds of Change.” An instant worldwide hit, the song called for the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. 

Soon after its release, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Europe let out a long sigh of relief. The specter of nuclear warfare a distant memory, the Continent focused on its economy to enter the future. 

More than 30 years later, trouble once more came from the east. Russia fully invaded Ukraine, casting cold shadows over Europe and prompting action among its countries.

The latest proposal to come out from Brussels is to allocate almost $110 billion for the creation of a common defense fund. 

This week, European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton revealed a plan to create a massive defense fund for the members of the European Union. Funds from the €100 billion fund would boost joint weapons procurement program and ramp up domestic arms and ammunition production. 

“I believe we have to have a huge defense fund to help to accelerate, even probably in the amount of €100 billion,” Breton, who also leads the European Union’s defense policy, said on Tuesday. 

For the European official’s proposal to go forward, the member states would first have to agree, and then the European Council would have to greenlight the final course of action. 

However, the European Union official’s proposal has been getting some flak from the defense ministers of individual member states. 

“I’m not happy when I see some defense ministers saying we will not be able to deliver, this is not the kind of information you give when there is a war on your Continent,” the European Union official added. 

Perhaps the most sought-after piece of ammunition right now are 155mm artillery shells. The Ukrainian military depends on its Western partners for a steady flow of such munitions for both its offensive and defensive operations against the Russian forces.

At certain points during the fighting, especially around its counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military was expending more than 7,000 artillery shells on a single day.

To be sure, that number is lower during defensive operations, but still, the Ukrainian forces need thousands of artillery shells every day. 

The European Union has promised to deliver 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by the spring of 2024. However, with the deadline looming, the European defense industry is struggling to meet the gargantuan demands of the Ukrainian conflict. 

The war in Ukraine has shown how fragile is the ammunition production chain in the West. The United States, NATO, and the European Union are “suffering” from prolonged periods of relative peace and haven’t had to create the necessary infrastructure to produce large numbers of quality ammunition quickly. 

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense and national security journalist specializing in special operations. A Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), he holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

Although it is still early, the Ukrainian military should already be working on its new counteroffensive. 

Right now, the conflict in Ukraine resembles a soccer match that has gone on to extra time. Both sides are tired and have made most of their substitutions. But there is no winner yet, and the prospect of a penalty shootout doesn’t really appeal to either side. So, both sides will try to score that golden goal in extra time and claim the prize. 

In military terms, that goal is an operational breakthrough. Both sides failed to achieve that in the latest round of operations. The Ukrainian counteroffensive faltered, opening the way for the Russian military to launch its own large-scale offensive, forcing the Ukrainians to abandon their operation and focus men and resources on the defense. Thus, 2023 came to an end. 

Last June, the Ukrainian military launched its long-awaited large-scale counteroffensive in southern Ukraine and the Donbas. 

The Ukrainian military, in close cooperation with NATO, spent months preparing several heavy brigades for the operation.

A renewed flow of Western military aid equipped the Ukrainian formations with advanced heavy weapon systems, including Challenger 2, Leopard 2, and Leopard 1 main battle tanks, AMX-10 RC tank-killers, M2 Bradley and CV90 infantry fighting vehicles, and many artillery pieces. 

In addition, thousands of Ukrainian troops underwent basic and combined arms training by NATO instructors. With Russian morale and discipline in shambles, hopes for the Ukrainian counteroffensive were high. Its goal was to punch through the Russian defenses and sprint to the coast of the Sea of Azov, thus severing the land bridge that connects Russia with the occupied Crimea and preparing the stage for the liberation of the Peninsula. 

And yet, the Ukrainians failed. 

Miles upon miles of dense Russian minefields, trenches, anti-tank obstacles, heavy artillery fire, drones, and even tactical airstrikes stopped the Ukrainians in their tracks, allowing only for some tactical gains in the south and around Bakhmut, in the Donbas. 

But the extensive Russian defensive efforts—the most comprehensive Europe has seen since the end of World War Two—weren’t the only reason the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve its goals. In many ways, the Ukrainian field grade level didn’t perform as needed.

Tactically, the Ukrainians fought bravely and with skill, clearing minefields and capturing Russian trench systems.

But without an adequately trained command system to coordinate and take advantage of such tactical success, there is no operational breakthrough. 

Moving forward, the Ukrainian military should spend more time and resources training not only its ground troops but also the senior leaders who lead them. Combined arms operations—connecting mechanized units, long-range fires, electronic warfare, and air power—are difficult. But it can also be highly rewarding and break an enemy. 

Proficiency in combined arms operations is one of the great advantages of the U.S military and NATO. So, they should be more open in training their Ukrainian counterparts and prepare them for the next round of counteroffensive.

The Ukrainian conflict has a long way to go. However, a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive could shorten the war significantly. Kyiv needs to sit down with its Western partners and plan the conditions to achieve that result and win. 

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense and national security journalist specializing in special operations. A Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), he holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org. 

Image Credit: Shutterstock. 

Despite setbacks related to ongoing hardware and software upgrades, Lockheed Martin recently completed production on the 1,000th F-35 Lightning II, solidifying its position as the most successful stealth aircraft production line in the history of aviation. In fact, there are more F-35s flying today than all other stealth aircraft throughout history, combined.

While Lockheed Martin announced plans to deliver its 1,000th jet by the end of 2023, delays related to Tech Refresh 3 – a hardware and software upgrade meant to pave the way for even more sweeping improvements to come – prevented the company from achieving that delivery milestone.

However, acclaimed aviation journalist Tyler Rogoway, who runs The Warzone, confirmed its completion with Lockheed Martin via e-mail on Wednesday.

“We continue to produce F-35s at rate and have jets in various stages of the final production process. Once these jets receive the necessary TR-3 hardware and final TR-3 software is available, they will continue through the production process, including parking, until they are delivered,” Lockheed Martin told Rogoway.

Despite a troubled development cycle that led to a series of high-profile production delays and significant cost overruns, the broadly capable stealth fighter that emerged from that acquisition debacle has been lauded by pilots and Defense officials alike as the most technologically advanced tactical aircraft ever to see service.

The jet was designed to prioritize the attack (or air-to-ground) mission set. Yet, its combination of stealth and data-fusing-onboard-computer power has made it a stand-out performer in air-to-air combat as well, racking up a 20:1 kill-to-loss ratio in its first appearance in the Air Force’s Red Flag air combat exercises in 2017.

To date, F-35s have accumulated over 773,000 hours in the air spread out across 469,000 total sorties.

And while the F-35 program certainly still has its critics, a long line of countries have chosen to shell out billions of dollars to secure their own stealth fleets. Nine countries were initially involved in the development of the fighter and today, the list of countries operating or purchasing the F-35 has expanded to 17.

The completion of the 1,000th F-35 places the fighter in elite company, as few fighter designs have ever reached four-figure production runs.

According to Aerotime, the F-35 is the seventh most widely operated fighter in service on the planet today, only trailing behind far older 4th generation jets like the F-15 and Su-27 families of fighters and a few even older 3rd generation platforms like the MiG-21.

But as advanced as the F-35 may be, it is on the cusp of yet another major upgrade that has, once again, produced cost overruns and technical delays.

Tech Refresh 3 (TR-3), now underway, aims to dramatically increase onboard processing power and onboard memory, paving the way for greater sensor fusion and a laundry list of upgrades to come, including new sensors, a variety of new weapons and electronic warfare capabilities, increased power production and more.

The first F-35 to fly with Tech Refresh 3 installed took off on January 6, seemingly paving the way for TR-3 aircraft to start making their way to fleets around the world.

For now, the US Air Force has made it clear that it won’t take delivery on any new fighters until Tech Refresh 3 has been incorporated and is functioning properly, which may take months.

But even with a little pragmatic financial rain on Lockheed Martin’s parade, achieving the milestone of building the 1,000th fighter remains significant for military aviation history.

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

This article was first published by Real Clear Defense.

There are two prevailing interpretations of the recent Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

The first interpretation is that these are proxy attacks, sponsored by Iran, aimed at undermining freedom of the seas and the American-led international rules-based order. By disrupting shipping and trade flows, Iran gets to extract a price from the West for supporting Israel against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their proxies in Gaza. Certainly, the relevant weapons are being provided by Iran, which suggests that Iran sees strategic benefits in these attacks.

Iran’s autocratic allies and sponsors also benefit: The Chinese, who originated much of this missile technology, certainly cannot be unhappy to see American and allied naval resources tied up in the Red Sea, when they might otherwise be in the Taiwan straits and the South China Sea. They’ll also be delighted to have an opportunity to test missile and drone technology in a live-fire scenario against American convoy defenses. And Russia, of course, benefits both from American resources being diverted from the Ukraine conflict and from the increased oil prices that emerge from chaos in the shipping lanes. But here Chinese and Russian interests diverge: The Chinese are highly dependent on hydrocarbons from Iran and other Persian Gulf states. This Chinese reliance on maritime commerce goes a long way toward explaining why Iranian missiles are being used to shut down the Bab al-Mandeb, but not the Straits of Hormuz.

The second interpretation of these attacks rests on the desire to harm Israel by disrupting shipping to and from Israeli ports. While the Houthis may well desire to attack Israel as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, their local fight for territory and influence in Yemen, against Saudi proxies, is surely their first priority. Firing missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, and at international shipping invites reprisals from powerful Western enemies.

There is a third interpretation that brings the situation into clearer focus: Prior to the events of October 7th, 2023, an alliance between Israel and the Arab states, against Iran, was emerging. The Gulf states desperately need Israeli technology, expertise, and capital in order to move their economies off of a hydrocarbon base. Israel is potentially a significant exporter of LNG, following discoveries in the Leviathan natural gas oil field, which aligns Israeli economic interests with other energy exporters. Hamas, an Iranian proxy, shattered that emerging alliance.

The attacks on shipping in the Red Sea are, more than anything, a direct assault on the Egyptian economy, and thus on the government of Egypt, which has been at peace with Israel since 1979. Canal revenues last year were $9.4B; the total budget of the Egyptian government is around $97B. Given the ongoing budget deficit and inflation crisis in Egypt, a prolonged disruption of canal traffic could easily destabilize the government. This action by Iranian proxies gives the Iranians enormous leverage against the current Egyptian government, at relatively modest cost. By contrast, the Israeli economy is far less dependent on trade through the Bab al-Mandeb.

In addition, these attacks offer the possibility of doing significant harm to the Saudis. Starting in the 1980s, a pipeline was built from the oil fields in Eastern Saudi Arabia to the port at Yanbu, located on the Red Sea, to allow exports to bypass the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb. This pipeline was attacked in 2019 by the Houthis, and could be attacked again. The combination of attacks on this pipeline and attacks on shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb opens the possibility of closing the Red Sea entirely to the export of Saudi oil and natural gas. The same logic plays out with regard to the Straits of Hormuz and the possibility of attacking the pipeline in Abu Dhabi that was constructed to bypass this maritime chokepoint.

Given this pattern of establishing proxies near maritime chokepoints, it is not surprising that Iran is sponsoring terrorist and insurgent activities in Morocco, with the intention of establishing a capability to close the Straits of Gibraltar. 

In point of fact, the Iranians seek to dominate the Persian Gulf, at the Strait of Hormuz, and the Red Sea and Suez Canal, at the Bab al-Mandeb. In addition, Iranian geostrategic influence has extended across the Fertile Crescent, via Shi’ite militias in Iraq; through Syria by virtue of support for the Alawite Baathist regime during the recent civil war; and into Lebanon and to the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, thanks to support for Hezbollah. Prior to October 7, the Iranian war in Yemen was fought primarily, but not exclusively, by Iranian proxies against Saudi proxies, with some incidents of direct attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. However, since mid-October, Iranian proxies have launched a campaign of repeated attacks on American outposts in Iraq and Syria. Iran is using the occasion of the Hamas-Israel war to attempt to dislodge the U.S. military presence from the area.

Overall, the Iranian strategy appears to be one of encirclement of Jordan, Kuwait, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. In addition, Iran seeks to destabilize Jordan and the West Bank in Israel – given their large Palestinian populations – through a continuation and intensification of the war in Gaza. For Iran, the attack on Egypt’s economy by shutting down revenue from the Suez Canal opens the possibility of undermining Egypt’s relationship with Israel. A glance at a map of the region reveals that breaking the Egypt-Israel detente is a grand prize in this strategy of encirclement.

Meanwhile, Israel faces its own Iranian effort at encirclement. The war on Hamas in Gaza, the strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Syria are all aimed to break this localized Iranian strategy. Obviously, Israel’s military efforts serve the objective interests of the Saudi and Gulf State elite, though they cannot publicly admit it.

To the north of the Fertile Crescent, Turkey reaps as many benefits as possible by being an economic middleman for Putin’s Russia. Erdogan’s anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism remain, for the moment, largely performative; other than making provocative comments about Israeli genocide directed at the Palestinians, Erdoğan has kept Turkey out of the recent conflict in Israel.

Now the Arab Gulf states are in an incredible bind: Their leaders know that they need Western support against an Iran that is likely to go nuclear in the near future, and some of them can see the value in at least a quiet alliance with Israel. But their people – and many of their leaders – hate the Jews and have been indoctrinated over generations to seek the genocide not just of the Jews in Israel, but also worldwide. Any overt alliance with Israel is out for the foreseeable future, since any such move would endanger their regimes. Iran has successfully driven a wedge between their adversaries.

One thing is clear: While the West must support Israel to achieve a decisive victory in Gaza, by securing the death or unconditional surrender of both Hamas’ leadership and their supporters, this is only one small piece of a much broader war. Israel will need strong Western support against an all-out attack from the north by Hezbollah. How this may be accomplished is open to question. The United States just announced the withdrawal of the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group from the Eastern Mediterranean, thereby reducing the American presence once again in the Middle East. By withdrawing this naval presence from the Eastern Mediterranean, the current administration in Washington is inviting Iran to intensify its proxy wars against Israel while signaling to the Saudis a fecklessness that endangers American interests throughout the region.

Furthermore, stopping the attacks in the Red Sea will require an ongoing naval and airborne commitment to protect shipping, combined with both direct attacks on the Houthi forces and renewed support for Saudi proxies in Yemen. And most importantly, if the United States and its European allies want to see an end to these proxy attacks on freedom of the seas, Western interests, and Western allies, it will be necessary to show the leaders of Iran that the kinetic consequences will not be limited to their proxies and catspaws.

So far, deterrence has failed with regard to Iran; this needs to be remedied. Reestablishing deterrence is an existential issue for the allies of the United States in the Middle East. The only practical way for this to occur is through punishment – not just for Iranian proxies, which we presume are operating to advance Iran’s geostrategy of encirclement, but also for the source of these many attacks: There need to be direct and dire consequences for Iran.

These consequences should start with strong Western sponsorship for insurgencies, within Iran, by ethnic minorities including (but not limited to) the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, and other disaffected religious and ethnic groups. In addition, a serious economic price needs to be extracted through attacks on the oil terminals that the Iranians are using to dodge international sanctions. Punitive strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities, as well as critical infrastructure and missile production hubs, are certainly called for. Such punishments are beyond the capacity of the Israelis and will require resources from the United States. If the Iranians can use proxies to attack Western interests and allies, surely the United States can facilitate attacks by proxies of our own.

Michael Hochberg earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech and is currently the President at Luminous Computing, a company building supercomputers for machine learning. He founded four companies, representing an exit value over a billion dollars in aggregate, spent some time as a tenured professor, and started the world’s first silicon photonics foundry service. He co-authored a widely used textbook on silicon photonics, and has published work in Science, Nature, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Fast Company, etc.

Leonard Hochberg taught at Stanford University (among other institutions), was appointed a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (i.e., STRATFOR). He has published work in Social Science History, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Orbis, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, etc. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and serves as the Coordinator of the Mackinder Forum-U.S. (www.mackinderforum.org).

This article was first published by RealClearDefense.

In domestic politics, economics, and international clout, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed a successful 2023. At home, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won most state elections. Regionally, India passed China to become the most populous country — and India’s GDP growth rate underscored her aspiration to replace China as the world’s factory. Globally, Modi was courted by all sides. Even space cooperated when India landed a craft on the moon.

Foreign affairs took center stage. In 2022, India refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increased purchases of Russian oil. In 2023, India seemed more adept at balancing its competing alignments. In May, Modi met with fellow leaders of the Quad while at the G7, where he was an invited guest. In June, India signed a landmark defense cooperation agreement with the United States, and Modi received red-carpet treatment at a state dinner in Washington.

But in July, India hosted the ‘other side’ at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — which includes Russia and China and just added Iran. In August, Modi attended the landmark BRICS summit in South Africa. Here, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) grew to include many states unfriendly to the United States, and discussed reducing their dependence on the US dollar.

In September, the G20 summit in Delhi came full circle. In the absence of Russia or China, India’s relationship with the United States took center stage. The event, which India billed as a meeting focused on the Global South, produced three notable pronouncements.

Unlike 2022, references to Ukraine in the joint declaration were more limited and buried in a long list of climate and developmental goals. US President Joe Biden announced funding to develop a new trade route connecting India to Europe via the Middle East. Finally, in a boost to India’s leadership aspirations, the African Union was made a member.

The afterglow of the G20 was short. Weeks later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged that Indian officials were complicit in the murder of a Canadian naturalized citizen active in the Khalistan movement, which seeks an independent Sikh state in India’s Punjab. India responded with indignation and diplomatic retaliation, while Indians largely attributed the charge to Trudeau’s ostensible political dependence on the Canadian Sikh community.

Then in December, the United States charged an Indian official with attempting to hire an assassin to kill another Khalistan activist, a US citizen. With CIA director William Burns heading to Delhi to discuss the matter, the charge that India kills Sikh activists overseas had the potential to upend the Modi government’s diplomatic progress. Notably, India’s loud protests at the Canadian charges have been replaced with muted assurances that the actions were not government policy, reflecting the much higher costs of conflict with the United States.

Domestic politics intruded on foreign policy in other ways. India jeopardised its bid for soft power by banning rice exports over political concerns about food price increases at home.

Even more brazenly, India scheduled a G20 working session on tourism in Kashmir — a region claimed by Pakistan, with an active insurgency and whose special autonomy the Modi government controversially revoked. Official invitations to the G20 used ‘Bharat’ — the Sanskrit-derived Hindi name preferred by Hindu nationalists — rather than ‘India’. This sparked speculation the BJP was getting ready to drop the name ‘India’, though both names are recognized in the Constitution.

If Indian agents are assassinating Khalistan activists, it speaks to something larger. Even if operations were not sanctioned by political leaders, they suggest an out-of-control security apparatus empowered by the arrogance and paranoia that characterizes the Modi government at its worst. The Khalistan movement has no real support in India today, so a campaign of assassinating diasporic activists is a vast overreaction.

This arrogance and paranoia continue to target dissenting voices and inconvenient news. Through official and unofficial means, film icons, novelists, internet users, civil society organizations, and even opposition politicians felt the pressure.

In May, a horrific gang rape committed during ethnic violence in the BJP-ruled border state of Manipur was covered up by local police and an internet blackout until a video of the crime went viral worldwide. In 2023, Reporters Without Borders downgraded India’s ranking on press freedom again, from 150 to 161 of 180 countries.

In March, Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was expelled from Parliament after his conviction on spurious defamation charges, a conviction later suspended by the Supreme Court.

Gandhi’s expulsion galvanized the fractured opposition into a new alliance. But this alliance failed to hold in November’s state elections, a reminder of the obstacles to forging a united front against Modi in 2024. Congress did beat a regional party to take power in the southern state of Telangana and had earlier defeated the BJP to recapture neighbouring Karnataka, but the party lost power in three northern Hindi-speaking states, arguably because of its refusal to share seats with its putative allies.

The odds strongly favor Modi’s reelection to a third consecutive five-year term, which no one since the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, has achieved. But it is not a foregone conclusion. In India’s fractured party landscape, elections are won and lost as much by party alliances as by shifts in popular sentiment.

Popular sentiment is more closely tied to food prices and other domestic issues than international triumphs. And hubris could yet lead the Modi government to commit a fatal error. But unless Modi flies too close to the sun, it is difficult to see him falling in 2024.

Arun Swamy is Professor of Political Science at the University of Guam.

This article is part of an EAF special feature series on 2023 in review and the year ahead.

This article was first published by the East Asia Forum.

Today, America prizes air superiority in its approach to warfare, but there’s a growing sentiment among many within the defense apparatus that dogfights, or close-quarters air-to-air combat, is a thing of the past. Advanced sensors and highly effective air-to-air weapons that can reach beyond visual ranges suggest air combat will now take place at longer distances than ever, making the need for aerobatic air superiority jets a thing of the past.

This sentiment can be found in statements made by many modern fighter pilots, but might be best reflected in this post from an F-16 pilot that went viral in aviation circles shortly after it went up:

The Raptor is about as cool as it gets, and it is the greatest air superiority fighter the world has ever seen, but like the F-15C that it was originally designed to replace it is an airplane without a real mission in modern conflict,” Air Force F-16 pilot Rick Scheff famously explained in an online discussion.

“When was the last time an American fighter killed another fighter in an air-to-air engagement? Go look it up, I’ll wait.”

Objectively speaking, there’s some real truth to Scheff’s statement. It seems inevitable that dogfights of a sort will break out any time two nations put a large volume of tactical aircraft into the same airspace, but it is hard to deny that there have been no fights between global powers for the better part of 80 years.

But those who disagree with the idea that close-quarters air battles are a thing of the past would posit that this period of relative peace and stability in our world is an exception. They would argue that Vietnam is a good example of how dogfights occur when airpowers tussle, and that we should be careful not to assume that the days of airpowers going to war are over, simply because it hasn’t happened lately.

To be clear, there are valid points to argue on either side of this debate, but it’s important not to lose sight of the complexity of the air war over Vietnam when using it as the foundation for an argument about dogfights. The truth is, America’s difficulties over Vietnam can’t be summed up in a single sentence about a lack of guns in the F-4 or the failures of a certain missile platform.

America’s troubles in the skies over Vietnam began well before the first shots of the conflict were fired, and continued well into the fighting. Some of the issues were technological, while others were bureaucratic and even political. The truth is, America lost aircraft and pilots over Vietnam not because of a single incorrect conclusion (“dogfights are over”), but rather because of a litany of errors that were – largely – made with the best of intentions.

There are lessons to be learned from the dogfights of Vietnam. We must look at them with clear eyes, to ensure we’re learning the right ones.

Tactical Figther Wing, on June 3, 1967. The F-105 was “a very poor plane in a dogfight” but it packed a fast-shooting 20mm cannon — early models of the F-4 did not have a gun. (US Air Force photo via National Archives)

During the Vietnam War, American fighter pilots saw a significant downturn in kill-to-loss ratios as compared to figures from the Korean War. Some argue US pilots over Korea came home with a 10:1 kill ratio (or 10 enemy fighters shot down for every U.S. fighter lost). However, that figure was originally meant to be specific to the F-86 Sabre, and nevertheless, modern historians believe it to be inflated. Real figures were likely closer to a still-impressive 8:1.

At times during the Vietnam War, on the other hand, that ratio had diminished to less than 1:1. That means that during some periods, the North Vietnamese were shooting down more American fighters than they were losing. While the overall ratio was significantly better, likely closer to 5.5:1 across the total force, the harsh reality of air combat over Southeast Asia can perhaps best be appreciated when looking at the hard numbers.

Between February 1962 and October 1973, the United States lost 1,737 fixed-wing aircraft in combat, with another 517 going down due to other issues in Vietnam. Throughout the entirety of the war, it was exceedingly rare for a week to pass without an American aircraft being lost in the fight, and at times, it happened daily.

The U.S. Air Force lost 40 percent of its entire fleet of F-105 Thunderchiefs over Vietnam. Additionally, a bit more than 12 percent (about one out of every eight) of F-4s built for all services met their end over Vietnam’s jungles. It’s very important to note, however, that the Air Force and Navy weren’t taking these losses lying down. In fact, the Air Force improved its tactics so dramatically over the course of the war that in the final five months of it, its fighter pilots were downing the enemy at a rate of 15:1.

This sort of picking nits is important for the sake of an accurate historical record. However, it doesn’t erase the fact that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, America seemed to incorrectly believe that close-quarters dogfighting was a thing of the past thanks in large part to the advent of (this will sound familiar) improved sensors and highly capable air-to-air weapons.

Such was the belief that new air-to-air missiles like the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-7 Sparrow would render previous forms of dogfighting obsolete that America’s Mach 2-capable F-4 Phantom II came through production without so much as an onboard cannon, which was considered standard equipment for fighters until that time.

“That was the biggest mistake on the F-4,” John Chesire, who flew 197 combat missions in the Phantom during two tours in Vietnam, told Air & Space Magazine.

“Bullets are cheap and tend to go where you aim them. I needed a gun, and I really wished I had one.”

It wasn’t long before this line of thinking put American pilots into some pretty tough situations, as they tried to do battle with the notably slower and less advanced MiG 15, 17s, 19s, and 21s swarming the skies over Vietnam. Their ability to take tight turns and orient their noses at the faster-moving American fighters before they could swing around gave them opportunities to score gun kills. And to make matters worse, America’s new missiles didn’t always quite work as advertised, costing pilots valuable opportunities to down their opponents when they could.

While a lack of guns didn’t do the F-4 any favors, that was just one of many variables that eventually conspired against American pilots in dogfights over Vietnam. As explained by Benjamin Lambeth in his book, The Transformation of American Air Power (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs), America’s emphasis on winning the nuclear fight – fielding fast-moving fighters designed to intercept Soviet aircraft at long distances or carry heavy nuclear payloads – left its pilots at a disadvantage against harder-cornering platforms like the MiG-17 and 21. But the disadvantage extended well beyond turn performance.

The F-4 Phantom II offered poor visibility to the rear from inside the cockpit, making it tough to keep an eye on slower-moving opponents as they passed by. To make matters worse, the J-79 engines that could propel the F-4 past Mach 2 were known to produce a heavy smoke trail when not flying under afterburner. Contemporary reports suggest the smoke trail left by American F-4s would remain visible for as far as 30 miles, giving Vietnamese fighters, and crews on the ground, ample opportunity to spot and track the American jets as they flew through contested airspace.

Once the fight was on, American F-4s had a very narrow window of opportunity to leverage any advantage they might have. According to one declassified performance comparison between American and North Vietnamese aircraft, “only in range and first-shot capability does the F-4C enjoy a substantial advantage over the MiG-21 throughout the envelope.”

In other words, if the F-4 didn’t win a fight with its first shot, it was likely flying at a disadvantage from then on. Of course, that’s where problems with America’s air-to-air missiles became even more evident.

Between 1965 and March of 1968, of the 224 AIM-7s fired at enemy aircraft during air combat, only 20 resulted in kills for a success rate of just 8.9 percent. Other missiles faired better, but not much, with the AIM-4 recording a success rate of 10.7 percent and the AIM-9B coming in at 16 percent. The common perception that American air-to-air missiles failed to function as well as expected is entirely accurate. Yet, it’s certainly worth noting that the AIM-9 matured as a result, and eventually the AIM-9L provided an 80 percent success rate for the Brits in the Falklands War.

Not all of the blame can be placed on the hardware, however: Aircrew failures (like not keeping the target illuminated by radar until impact) were faulted for about 33 percent of the AIM-7’s misses. It’s also important to note that these weapons weren’t designed for this sort of combat. They were primarily intended to engage Soviet bombers at long ranges, not win dogfights over the jungles of Vietnam.

The AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile was capable of engaging enemy fighters at ranges as far as 12 miles when intercepting head-on, which could have given the F-4 the “first shot” opportunity it needed to win more fights. However, the rules of engagement American pilots were given required that they make visual identification of targets before launching a weapon. Visual identification, of course, can only occur within visual range.

So, while America’s pilots had beyond-visual-range weapons at their disposal, they were effectively barred from using them. Once pilots had closed to within visual range of their opponents, they were now at a disadvantage to the MiG’s tight turn radius and guns.

But this limitation wasn’t just an issue when it came to weapons employment. It also eliminated the American opportunity for surprise in its air attacks. American fighters needed to be close enough to see their enemies before they could fire, but that inevitably meant their Vietnamese opponents could see them too. The F-4 was faster and had a longer reach than its opponents, but policy forced the pilots to surrender those advantages to their less advanced opponents.

The North Vietnamese famously produced far more flying Aces – pilots with at least five kills – than America’s Air Force or Navy, but that fact dismisses an important difference between these two aviator groups: American pilots were rotated into and out of the fight, often after 100 missions, whereas their opponents continued to fly combat sorties over their home turf throughout the conflict’s entirety. It’s sort of like comparing football stats between one player’s rookie season and another player’s entire career.

When the war began, America sent its most highly experienced aviators into the fight. But by 1966, the Air Force was sending pilots home after either 100 missions over North Vietnam or one year of combat over South. While this rotation was valuable to combat burnout and maintain morale, it also produced a pressing need for new pilots in the cockpit at frequent intervals. As a result, many pilots arriving in-country didn’t have any real tactical experience behind the stick before they were thrust into the thick of it.

Air Force F-4s were further hampered by tactics, as they often flew in a World War II-era formation referred to as a “fluid four.” This formation resulted in wingmen being too close (between 1,500 and 2,000 feet away at a 45-degree angle) to provide any real protection for the other aircraft and effectively limited the “attacking” portion of the formation to just the flight leader.

Using four aircraft to deliver one jet’s worth of ordnance was a stark contrast to the Navy’s “fluid-two” formations of two aircraft both leveraging their full loadouts.

“The wingman was always just another airplane in the air. I would have preferred to have gone into Route Package VI, under the conditions [in which] we were operating, with two highly qualified crews [flying Navy fluid two] rather than four… I had to spend 90 percent of my time keeping somebody in the flight from getting shot down [and] could not go about the business of MiG-CAP,” One Air Force flight leader later recounted.

Before the Vietnam War, the United States had placed a huge emphasis on safety during training; so much so that it all but forbade the realistic training pilots needed to win dogfights over Vietnam. Further, most of the training F-4 pilots had for air combat was done against other F-4s, which flew nothing like the MiGs they were squaring off against in Vietnam.

This lack of realistic training meant many American fighter pilots were sent into the fight with very little dogfighting experience in general, and next to none against aircraft like the ones they’d be flying against.

Addressing this serious shortcoming eventually led to the establishment of the Air Force’s first-ever aggressor squadron – a group of pilots flying jets like the T-38 and later the F-5E Tiger, tasked with mirroring opponent tactics to provide a more realistic idea of what air combat would be like. Soon thereafter, the Air Force’s first-ever Red Flag training exercise, a massive operation meant to simulate complex air combat, was born to help rectify the lack of experience Air Force pilots had before heading into combat.

Likewise, the Navy made significant changes to how it prepared pilots for air warfare. In 1969, the US Navy created the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which later became the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, but is known to many simply as Top Gun.

While there’s room for debate as to what will come of dogfights in the next great conflict, the establishment and continued investment into both Red Flag and Top Gun following the Vietnam War prove without a doubt that the U.S. learned some valuable lessons from the fight that went on to help make America the most dominant air power in the world today.

Dogfights may seem like a thing of the past, but without any large-scale conflict to draw new data from, we’re left to rely on the hard-earned lessons of the past. Can America afford to come into the next big air fight using the same unfounded certainty we brought with us into Vietnam? Maybe the next large-scale war won’t see dogfights happen at all, but an aircraft that’s capable of scrapping with the best of them when a scrap arises.

This is a lot like the flak jacket I strapped on each day during my deployment to Mozambique, Africa. It was something I probably wouldn’t need that day… but still preferred to have it, just in case.

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

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.