Feed aggregator

Depuis septembre 2020, l'Azerbaïdjan multiplie offensives militaires et coups de force contre l'Arménie. Son objectif : la réintégration du Haut-Karabakh, une enclave arménienne enchâssée dans son territoire que Bakou a partiellement reconquise. À Erevan, on craint un nettoyage ethnique et la (...) / Arménie, Caucase, Azerbaïdjan, Conflit - 2023/05

Fast drei Wochen nach Beginn der politischen Krise, die zum Sturz von Michel Barnier als Premierminister führte, gibt es immer noch keine neue Regierung. Zweifel bestehen, ob eine künftige Regierung von längerer Dauer sein wird.

Am Sonntag (29. Dezember) findet in Kroatien die erste Runde der Präsidentschaftswahlen statt. Gleichzeitig richten EU-Beamte und Regulierungsbehörden ihr Augenmerk auf ein zentrales Thema: den Kampf gegen digitale Desinformation.

For some time, some western politicians and press have repeatedly hyped up the so-called Chinese "overcapacity", and extended such accusation from new energy to more sectors, claiming that China exports excess capacity and hits the global market. In fact, this argument is abusing the concept of "overcapacity" and goes against both the objective facts and rules of market economy.

The post The So-Called Chinese “Overcapacity” Is Completely Untenable appeared first on Euractiv.

Une cinquantaine de frontières terrestres dans le monde font l'objet de litiges entre voisins. Certains conflits donnent lieu à des affrontements, d'autres sont gelés, d'autres encore sont en voie de résolution, les gouvernements ayant décidé de négocier. Tels ceux de Hanoï et Phnom Penh, qui ont (...) / Asie du Sud-Est, Géographie, Conflit, Cambodge, Vietnam, Frontières - 2023/05

The United States cannot deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan nor win a long war without Indonesia. In conjunction with Australia, Indonesia could ensure a virtually impassable maritime blockade of Chinese commerce, enforced with only land-based aircraft and light patrol ships and backed up by the U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ships. Its collaboration would also be crucial for the protection of all convoys proceeding to friendly Asian littoral states routed through the Timor and Arafura Seas. 

Even on its own, democratic Indonesia, with a population of 280 million, a robust GDP of $1.3 trillion, an active military of over 400,000, and a historical suspicion of China, is a natural obstacle to Beijing’s aspirations in Southeast Asia. In January of 2018, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis described Indonesia as a “maritime fulcrum” in East Asia. In November of 2024, President-elect Donald Trump had a very positive conversation with Indonesia’s new President, Prabowo Subianto, who had received his staff officer training in the United States in the 1980s.   

U.S. aircraft carriers are the cornerstone of the blue water navy and guarantors of trans-oceanic commerce. Diverting these capital platforms to enforce a close blockade of the Chinese littoral in the event of a multi-year war over Taiwan is risking the United States’ preeminent great power status. A network of usable airbases already being constructed in the Philippines, such as at San Vincente Naval Airfield, are less than 600 kilometers from the Taiwan Strait and are a far more cost-effective staging area from which to interdict a Chinese amphibious crossing with combat aircraft and drones. At these distances, U.S. Air Force aircraft will be able to operate with maximum bomb load-outs and without the need for refueling. They will also benefit from the radar masking of their approach by Taiwan’s central mountainous ridgeline. 

China’s principal anti-carrier systems are its estimated thirty 1,800 km range DF-21D missiles and approximately 140 4,000 kilometer range DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles, plus an H-6 bomber carried DF-21 variant in development, with a reaction time of less than twenty-five minutes. China’s Type 055 Renhai destroyer can also deliver the 1,000-kilometer range YJ-21 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile. A 2,000-kilometer range system will cover Luzon, the Strait of Malacca, and all of the Bay of Bengal, problematizing the use of U.S. carriers there to enforce a blockade, and a 4,000-kilometer range system will encompass Guam, all of Indonesia, and the Central Indian Ocean. 

On September 25, 2024, China launched an 11,500-kilometer-range DF-31AG ICBM into the Pacific for the first time since 1980. This may have been a test of China’s space-based surveillance system to track surface ships. The low probability of a successful strike on a U.S. aircraft carrier increases substantially over the course of an entire blockade campaign, as weather, accidents, miscommunications, chance satellite observation, submarine interceptions, and electronic detection turn a possibility into a high aggregate cost probability of a disabling and subsequent sinking.

While unlikely to be decisive, like any form of sanctioning or interruption of trade, a complete naval blockade of China will contribute significantly to war termination by disrupting China’s export trade, which has grown from $2.2 trillion in 2013 to $3.3 trillion in 2023. Most of China’s imports of $2.16 trillion, 80 percent of its oil, and 90 percent of its overall trade are moved by ships. China is aware of its vulnerability to a blockade and has taken measures to achieve energy and food self-sufficiency. Beijing plans to double its fleet of nuclear reactors to 150 by 2035. 

By cultivating trade and connecting infrastructure to Russia through its overland route, Moscow will be able to provide oil, gas, grain, and key military technologies, even if Washington has the political will to bar the Bering Strait passage to Moscow’s tanker fleet. Beijing has passed legislation requiring local authorities to take responsibility for food reserves, as well as other measures promoting greater domestic productivity. China projects a further 16 to 30 percent increase in caloric demand by 2050 from the growth of its middle class. Of China’s $235 billion in food imports, its three principal suppliers of its largest commodity, soybeans, are Brazil, the United States, and Argentina.

The closure of Indonesia’s Strait of Malacca, through which passes $3.5 trillion in trade aboard 80,000 ships annually, like the 1967 closure of the Suez Canal, would impose an extra monthly re-routing of shipping cost of $2.8 billion, not including the increased cost of insurance. One-third of the world’s shipping, including 23.7 million barrels of oil per day and a substantial portion of the trade of the littoral Asian democracies, transit through the adjacent South China Sea. Needless to say, a war over Taiwan will severely disrupt global supply chains.

Indonesia’s four main straits are easily interdicted by boarding teams carrying patrol ships and helicopters and mobile land-based anti-ship missile platforms. The Strait of Malacca is only 2.7 kilometers wide at its narrowest choke point. The other three principal straits, from west to east, are the ten kilometers wide Sunda, the twenty kilometers wide Lombok, both of which were blocked by Indonesia in 1988, and the ninety kilometers wide Makassar. Other straits further east are the ninety-kilometer-wide Lifamatola, the thirty-five-kilometer-wide Wetar, the thirty-kilometer-wide Ombai, and the 20-kilometer-wide Dampier. 

According to the 2024 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance, excluding frigates and coast guard equivalents (Bakamla and KPLP), Indonesia’s available strait policing forces consist of eight Exocet and sixteen torpedo-armed corvettes, fifteen missile-armed patrol craft (out of 159 patrol vessels), eight mine countermeasure ships, drone-ships, eleven Panther and eight AH-64 Apache helicopters, and about thirty maritime patrol aircraft. Given the narrowness of most of the straits, even an instrument as extreme as the use of nuclear weapons could not undo a land-based Indonesian blockade. 

Beijing’s option of directly seizing the Strait of Malacca would be possible but complex. Unlike Japan’s sweep through Southeast Asia in 1941, the major powers, including the United States, have been careful not to become irretrievably committed to conflicts elsewhere in Ukraine and the Middle East. China has six Marine Brigades, a Naval Special Forces Brigade, and six Army Marine brigades, totaling some 40,000 troops. This presumes China would then train new substitute army formations for an amphibious assault on Taiwan. 

Because China’s supply line through the South China Sea would be so precariously exposed to aerial interdiction, even supposing a neutral Vietnam, it would be necessary to seize the airfields of Western Taiwan, Luzon, Palawan, Natuna Island, and several hundred kilometers of Sumatra’s east coast. China would only need to land at Lingayen Gulf and defeat the Philippines’ under-armored 5th and 7th Divisions to neutralize the airbases in northern Luzon and push to Manila. 

Any prospect of securing the 800-kilometer Malacca Strait would require a diplomatic victory to obtain Malaysia and Singapore as bandwagoning allies of a Chinese attack against U.S. interests. A PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) landing would still confront three Indonesian maneuver brigades and four brigade equivalents of battalions, backed up by two Kostrad strategic reserve divisions in Java. 

The United States, Australia, and Japan have anticipated this possibility and have since conducted joint exercises with Indonesia on Sumatra. In November 2023, the United States and Indonesia announced a Joint Comprehensive Strategic Partnership aimed at improving maritime cooperation and as a lead-in to the signing of a future Defense Cooperation Arrangement. Accordingly, Jakarta is in negotiations for the purchase of 24 F-15EXs and additional F-16s. 

At the same time, Jakarta’s relations with Beijing have worsened since China extended its territorial claims to the Exclusive Economic Zone of Indonesia’s Natuna Island. To comply with U.S. investment tax incentives, Indonesia has further imposed high tariffs on a number of Chinese imports and decreased Chinese shareholding in Indonesian nickel-mining concerns (the world’s largest reserves) related to electric vehicles. 

Indonesia, after General Suharto’s 1965 counter-coup against the Communist-influenced Sukarno regime, was a key Cold War ally, securing East Timor from Soviet domination, which had befallen other newly independent Portuguese colonies. Indonesia also plays a useful counter-balancing role against the influence of China, primarily because of its size, in Malaysia and Singapore. Current Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has criticized Western hostility to the rise of China, tilting Kuala Lumpur towards Beijing as it seeks its economic investment. 

In a 2022 poll, 39 percent percent of Malaysians viewed China favorably. Singapore, whose 75 percent Chinese population is deeply sympathetic with China, was 67 percent favorable towards Beijing in a 2022 Pew Research Center poll. Although Singapore has shared a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States since 2015, providing basing for U.S. LCSs and P-8s, its principal strategy of hedging makes it liable to shift its support to Beijing if the United States appears weak.

Washington’s influence is, however, limited by Jakarta’s policy of non-alignment. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have all resisted U.S. efforts to subject the Strait of Malacca to international administration. China remains the largest trading partner with all of ASEAN as well as Indonesia and is a major contributor to a $132 billion industrial project and hydropower plant in Kalimantan. Indonesia is also torn between coordinating its response to China with India and privileging its historical alliance with Pakistan, an ally of Beijing.

Furthermore, most Indonesians and the Jakarta government see U.S. support for Israeli military action in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran through the prism of anti-colonialism and Islamic solidarity. Southeast Asia is about 40 percent Muslim. In Indonesia, 87 percent of the population practices Islam. Malaysia is 61 percent Muslim. In all of the first and second Trump administrations and the Biden administration, Washington’s diplomatic priority was to secure the normalization of relations between Israel and Indonesia as an extension of the Abraham Accords. There is little prospect of success at the moment, given Indonesian sympathy for the Palestinians. 

The best substitute for an extraordinarily inexpensive and low-risk blockade conducted from the shores of Indonesia would be for the U.S. Navy to retreat its cordon to the west of the Strait of Malacca and leverage access to bases near the Indian coast. In so doing, it would sacrifice the easy reach of coastal Indonesian airbases to interfere with the inshore shipping of the Gulf of Siam and South China Sea. Furthermore, Indian and U.S. ships operating anywhere in the Bay of Bengal and even the central Indian Ocean would be vulnerable to strikes by China’s DF-21/26 anti-ship ballistic missiles, guided by PLAN submarines operating out of Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, or possibly even South Africa. 

In the event that China secured the Malacca Strait with the help of Malaysia or obtained a land bridge from Thailand through the Kra Isthmus, shipping could still be interfered with from India’s bases on the Nicobar and Andaman Islands. If China’s naval expansion permitted it to deploy a permanent flotilla of two aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean by 2035–2040, it would still be hard-pressed to shepherd convoys against the littoral threat from Indian ships, aircraft, or submarines. 

Similar attempts to establish a permanent station, as the PLAN has practiced in the South Atlantic for the last decade, are unsustainable in wartime without being replenished in a well-protected allied safe harbor. In the further absence of support from Delhi in the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Navy could operate further west from Oman’s Masirah Island near the Straits of Hormuz, Socotra Island at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, or from the Diego Garcia anchorage in the Chagos Archipelago.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University and the author of Militarization and War (2007) and Strategic Nuclear Sharing (2014). He has published extensively on Pakistan security issues and arms control and completed research contracts at the Office of Treaty Verification at the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and the then Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO). He has also conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Egypt and is a consultant. He is a former Operations Officer of the 3rd Field Engineer Regiment from the latter end of the Cold War to shortly after 9/11. He tweets at @Ju_Sp_Churchill.

Image: Muratart / Shutterstock.com. 

Chaque jour, le bilan humain à Gaza s’alourdit sous les bombardements intensifs. Des milliers de personnes restent piégées sous les décombres, tandis que d’autres succombent à des conditions de vie désastreuses, faute de nourriture, de soins ou d’eau potable.
Peut-on parler de génocide pour qualifier les actions israéliennes dans la bande de Gaza ? Certains affirment que ce terme ne doit pas être utilisé « à la légère » et qu’il nécessite une réflexion approfondie. Pourtant, il est essentiel de rappeler que la Convention de 1948 sur la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide existe précisément pour éviter de telles tragédies.
Depuis novembre 2023, des institutions spécialisées et des experts des Nations Unies alertent sur un risque de génocide Cette année, la Cour Internationale de Justice a reconnu un risque plausible de génocide à Gaza. Au cours des dernières semaines, des ONG comme Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch et Médecins sans Frontières ont publié plusieurs rapports documentant des nettoyages ethniques et des crimes de génocide contre les Palestiniens de Gaza.
La mise en place d’un cessez le feu ainsi qu’une prise de conscience de la communauté internationale sont plus pressantes que jamais, alors que les voix dissidentes qui dénoncent les agissements de l’armée israéliennes sont toujours censurées.

Antiaircraft guns (also known as “flak guns”) have been the been the bane of combat aviators’ existence since the advent of air combat itself during World War I.

For example, during World War II, the German FLAK 36 88mm multi-purpose gun made life a living hell for Allied bomber crews in the skies over Western Europe, such as the U.S. Army Air Force's 8th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses participating in “Black Thursday,”  the October 14, 1943, bombing raid against the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt. (Incidentally, “FLAK” was a shortened form of Flugabwehrkanone, meaning “aircraft defense cannon”, and this was how the word entered the military lexicon in the first place.)

Fast-forward to the Cold War, and you had Soviet designs such as the 23mm ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" and ZU-23, along with the 14.5mm ZPU-4 that made their presence felt during the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But of all the world’s great anti-aircraft guns, nothing can compare to two particular guns that were coincidentally made in Western European countries and whose names begin with “Sw,” namely Sweden’s 40mm Bofors and Switzerland’s 20mm Oerlikon guns.

40mm Bofors Initial History and Specifications

The inspiration for the 40mm Bofors gun traces back to the 1920s when the Swedish Navy expressed a desire for a more capable replacement for their Vickers Pom-Pom anti-aircraft guns. The Swedish Navy brass handed this request over to AB Bofors (founded in 1646 and headquartered in Karlskoga, Sweden; now part of British arms manufacturer BAE Systems) who entered into a contract in 1928 and had their product ready for the production range by 1933.

The gun operated on a gravity-assisted feeding mechanism that was manually loaded with 4-round clips. Specifications and vital status include:

-Crew: four

-Barrel Length: 7 feet 5 inches (2.25 meters)

-Gun Carriage Weight: 1,151 pounds (522 kilograms)

-Projectile Weight: 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms)

-Muzzle Velocity: 2,800-2,900 feet per second (850-880 meters per second)

-Maximum Range (theoretical): 23,600 feet (7,010 meters)

-Max Effective Range (practical): 12,500 feet (3,810 meters)

-Rate of Fire: 120 rounds per minute (cyclic/theoretical); 90 rpm (practical)

The gun ended up being used by the armed forces of a whopping eighty-four different countries at one time or another!

20mm Oerlikon Initial History and Specifications

The ordnance for this weapon actually dates back to 1918, when German arms engineer Reinhold Becker came up with a 20x80mm round that fired using primer ignition blowback in a very large machine gun to fire 300 rounds per minute. Fast-forward to 1934 and the Swiss-based company Oerlikon Contraves (Oerlikon for the eponymous town the factory called home and contra-aves being Latin for “against birds”; now known as Rheinmetall Air Defence AG) resurrected Becker’s design and upsized it to more effectively engage the modern monoplane fighters of the 1930s.

Production began in 1937. Specifications and vital status include:

-Crew: four

-Barrel Length: 55 inches (1,400 millimeters)

-Gun Carriage Weight: 150 pounds (68.04 kilograms)

-Projectile Weight: 4.3 ounces (123 grams)

-Muzzle Velocity: 2,700 feet per second (820 meters per second)

-Maximum Range (theoretical): 14,400 feet (4,389 meters)

-Max Effective Range (practical): 4.921 feet (1,500 meters,)

-Rate of Fire: 4,80 rpm (cyclic/theoretical); 320 rpm (practical)

The U.S. Navy adopted the gun in November 1940. Multiple countries obtained manufacturing rights, thus resulting in the weapon being utilized by both Allied and Axis forces during the war.

Operational History/Combat Performance

The Bofors and the Oerlikon proved to be a terrific tandem for nearly the entire gamut of Allied naval vessels during World War II, spanning the size spectrum of itty-bitty destroyer escorts (DEs) and slender submarines all the way up to the big boy battleships and aircraft carriers. For example, at the end of the scale, the U.S. Navy Gato-class subs had one Bofors and Oerlikon each to back up the 5-inch (127mm) main deck gun, and DEs like the valiant USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) wielded two twin-mount Bofors and ten single-mount Oerlikons. At the opposite end of the scale, the Essex-class “flattops” packed anywhere from thirty-two to seventy-two of the 40mm guns and fifty-five to seventy-six of the 20 “mike-mikes” … and then there were the Iowa-class battlewagons which absolutely bristled with no less than eighty of the 40mm guns and forty-nine of the 20s.

Of course, the Bofors wasn’t just mounted on warships, but on a variety of ground-based weapons platforms, both stationary gun mounts and mobile (tanks, trucks, etc.).

So, just how effective was the 40mm gun? According to Jesse Beckett in a January 24, 2022, article for War History Online titled “The Bofors 40MM Revolutionized Anti-Aircraft Combat”:

“The British held the gun in extremely high regard and put a massive emphasis on its production during the war. In fact, Commonwealth factories produced over 19,000 Bofors 40 mm guns … During D-Day, Bofors guns were vital in protecting newly captured areas, with crews from the Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery shooting down 17 enemy aircraft over the Orne River in France … The weapon also holds the title of being the first ground-based anti-aircraft weapon to shoot down a jet aircraft – in this case, it was a German Me 262.”

As for the Oerlikon, its kill record was certainly nothing to sneeze at either; Daniel Garas of Naval History and Heritage Command cites an anti-aircraft summary published on October 8, 1945, that credits the 20mm cannon with 617.5 enemy aircraft shot down between 1941 and 1945.

The 40mm Bofors continues to make a literal and figurative impact today, ironically now with the proverbial script being flipped, i.e., being used from an airplane against targets down below rather than vice versa, as part of the arsenal of the AC-130 Spectre gunship. Meanwhile, the 20mm Oerlikon still arms some naval units, nominally as a last-recourse anti-air weapon (somewhat akin to the Phalanx CIWS, albeit with nowhere near the impressive buzzsaw-like rate of fire of the Phalanx), but mainly used for firing warning shots or incapacitating small vessels.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a former Air Force Security Forces 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, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

 Image: Shutterstock.

Pris dans la tourmente de deux affaires de corruption, le Premier ministre socialiste Pedro Sánchez doit également composer avec les pressions du Partido popular et du parti Vox sur sa coalition de gauche avec Sumar, ainsi qu’avec les exigences des indépendantistes catalans.

Die EU-Technologiepolitik steht 2025 vor einer umfangreichen Agenda: Umsetzung eines komplexen Pakets digitaler Gesetze, Wiederbelebung der Wirtschaft und Verteidigung des EU-Demokratiemodells gegen wachsende interne und externe Bedrohungen.

Budapest, 2024. december 23. – A magyar kutatási és innovációs ökoszisztéma fejlesztésének stratégiai célja, hogy minél több, a hazai egyetemeken és kutatóintézetekben zajló kutatás eredményéből jöjjön létre releváns társadalmi kihívásokat kezelő, jelentős gazdasági hasznosítást biztosító új termék, technológia, szolgáltatás.

Three weeks in, and still no white smoke.

The post Bayrou struggles to secure new government, let alone one with staying power appeared first on Euractiv.

Au Parlement européen, le groupe Renew Europe et son parti membre l'Alliance des libéraux et des démocrates pour l'Europe (ALDE), ont chacun décidé d'exclure le Mouvement des droits et des libertés (DPS) bulgare après une décision de justice du tribunal de Sofia.

Lebo M, who played a key role in the original movie, reflects on his career and contribution to Mufasa.

Alors que les Croates se rendront aux urnes pour le premier tour de l’élection présidentielle ce dimanche 29 décembre, les fonctionnaires et les autorités de régulation de l’Union européenne (UE) travaillent d’arrache-pied pour garantir le bon déroulement du scrutin.

Deux pêcheurs expliquent à la BBC pourquoi ils ont décidé de devenir des pirates à la recherche de grosses rançons.

Spanische Mandelbauern kritisieren die millionenschweren Turrón-Hersteller für den Import von Nüssen aus Kalifornien. Stattdessen fordern sie, dass die Unternehmen lokale Produkte für die Herstellung der ikonischen Wintersüßigkeit verwenden.

Lawyers and activists are concerned that the wider use of the drastic security measures put in place during the Paris Olympics could become the norm for other major public events.

The post France boosts security for Christmas, rights defenders cry foul appeared first on Euractiv.

Die bulgarische Bewegung für Rechte und Freiheiten (DPS) wird wegen Bedenken hinsichtlich ihrer Führung aus der ALDE-Partei und der Renew-Fraktion im EU-Parlament ausgeschlossen. Diese Entscheidung geht aus zwei getrennten Beschlüssen der Liberalen hervor.