Diplomacy & Crisis News

Comment apparaît la femme dans ces cinémas arabes ? Elle y est représentée sous deux aspects : traditionnelle, ainsi que l'a définie le Coran ; ou moderniste, comme elle s'assume aujourd'hui. Deux représentations contradictoires,. mais étroitement liées à l'histoire de l'Islam arabe. Sa situation est (...) / Algérie, Égypte, Liban, Monde arabe, Cinéma, Femmes, Islam, Société - 1977/08

The factors that led to the country’s collapse find many parallels in Latin America.

Small but defiant demonstrations have emerged in Kabul and other cities, even as thousands of Afghans have sought to flee.

As the Kabul situation worsens, the White House stares into the abyss.

There’s good news on international terrorism—and bad news on plenty else.

Two decades after the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York, terror networks Al-Qaida and Islamic State – also known as Da’esh – continue to pose a grave threat to peace and security, adapting to new technologies and moving into some of the world’s most fragile regions, the top UN counter-terrorism official told the Security Council on Thursday. 

From Kabul to Kolkata, South Asian heirs of partition can draw inspiration from their history to chart a sustainable future.

Speaking outside the Security Council chamber on Thursday, UN chief António Guterres told journalists that he is gravely concerned about the situation in Ethiopia, particularly the “unspeakable violence” against women and others in Tigray.  

Last year was the deadliest on record for Rohingya refugees journeying through the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a new report on Thursday, highlighting that some two-thirds of those attempting the perilous voyages were women and children – risking even further abuse by smugglers.

Along one part of the Turkish border, hundreds of new Afghan migrants show up every day.

The parallels are easy to list.

Why the special immigration system is broken.

With the withdrawal completed, Washington’s strategic shift can commence.

Blue helmets from Thailand working with the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) are not only doing their bit to repair and rehabilitate critical infrastructure but are also helping support the mission’s COVID-19 response and training local communities about growing their own food.

Democratic principles were largely irrelevant to the EU’s founding—but are at the center of the project today.

AfCFTA was supposed to usher in a new era of continental trade and economic growth—but Beijing’s not letting that happen.

Edouard Manet incarne la révolution esthétique qui, à la fin du XIXe siècle, vit le renversement de l'art académique au profit de formes et de règles nouvelles. Le sociologue Pierre Bourdieu a consacré à cette transformation deux années de cours au Collège de France. Extraits exclusifs. / France, Art, (...) / France, Art, Culture, Histoire, Idées, Peinture - 2013/11

As the global aid community marked World Humanitarian Day on Thursday, UN chief António Guterres paid tribute to all those who help people in need and urged support for the day’s #TheHumanRace campaign, which aims to protect the most vulnerable people from the climate emergency.  

Legislation passed in the wake of the Vietnam War could provide a blueprint for today’s policymakers.

Michael Peck

Japan, East Asia

The U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B—its version of a fighter being fielded by the Air Force and Navy—has vertical landing capabilities, but those may have compromised some aspects of the Lightning II’s performance.

Here's What You Need To Know: If Chinese ships and aircraft can isolate the Senkakus, then it will be easy for Chinese troops to occupy them. And very difficult to Japan to recapture them: the special amphibious brigade created by Japan would be a sitting duck. But even a few F-35Bs operating from rough airstrips—and perhaps armed with hypersonic anti-ship missiles—could disrupt a Chinese amphibious landing.

Japan may deploy its new F-35 stealth jet fighters to an airbase in southwestern Japan.

The location is not coincidental: Nyutabaru Air Base, in Miyazaki Prefecture, is situated nearer to Japanese islands and waters claimed by China.

“The envisioned deployment of the aircraft to Nyutabaru Air Base is aimed at keeping in check China’s maritime assertiveness around the area, including the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea,” according to an article in the Japan Times. China claims the islands, which are located near China and Taiwan, as its own, and has repeatedly sent ships and aircraft into the area.

“With Beijing’s increasing maritime activities in mind, Japan is stepping up its capabilities to protect the Nansei Islands covering Okinawa and the Senkakus,” the newspaper said.

Government sources told Japan Times that “the F-35Bs are expected, after being deployed to the Nyutabaru base, to conduct joint exercises with other F-35Bs already deployed at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It is also envisaged that eventually upgraded Izumo-class flat-top helicopter carriers will transport and launch fighter jets such as F-35Bs, the U.S. Marines variant of the F-35 stealth plane made by Lockheed Martin Corp.”

However, local opposition could derail the planned deployment, the newspaper noted.

Japan is buying two versions of the F-35: 105 F-35A land-based fighters for the Japanese air force. The first batch are already deployed at Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, watching Japan’s other main security threat, North Korea.

Japan also plans to acquire forty-three F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) jets by 2023, with the first models arriving by 2023. Some would be stationed at Nyutabaru.

How Japan is deploying the two different F-35 models reveals the multiple—and vastly different—security challenges confronting the Japanese military. The more powerful F-35As are stationed in northern Japan, facing North Korea. While North Korea’s conventional military is no particular threat to Japan, North Korea’s ballistic missiles—which could carry nuclear warheads—do worry Tokyo. The F-35s—which the United States has already tested in a missile defense role—could be used to shoot down ballistic missiles or use its stealth capabilities to destroy North Korean missile and nuclear weapons sites.

China presents a different threat. Though Beijing has ballistic missiles aplenty, China has a large air force and navy that is rapidly growing in sophistication, including aircraft carriers and hypersonic missiles that could damage U.S. and Japanese airbases. During a wargame conducted by the Washington-based Center For a New American Security thinktank last year, the Chinese team used ballistic missiles to devastate Okinawan airfields packed with U.S. and Japanese aircraft.

If airfields on Okinawa are vulnerable, then how about the Senkakus, small, barren and uninhabited pieces of rock that lack infrastructure, are uncomfortably close to mainland China, and would be extremely difficult to defend?

All of which suggests that conventional fixed-aircraft—the F-35As and F-15s that are the backbone of U.S. and Japanese air arms—may find themselves trying to operate from bombed-out airbases and cratered runways on Okinawa and other Japanese islands. Which is exactly the kind of predicament that the F-35B is designed for.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B—its version of a fighter being fielded by the Air Force and Navy—has vertical landing capabilities, but those may have compromised some aspects of the Lightning II’s performance. On the other hand, such landing capabilities does allow the F-35B to operate from rough airfields. For the U.S. Marines, who prefer their own in-house air support rather than relying on the Air Force and Navy, the F-35B could operate from crude airstrips on a newly-seized amphibious beachhead.

Whether this is actually true is a different matter: just because the F-35B can land on any bare patch of ground, that doesn’t mean that fuel, ammunition, spare parts and trained mechanics will be there. Nonetheless, if Japanese planners have to reckon on the possibility that permanent airfields could easily be devastated by Chinese missiles, then Tokyo has a problem.

As Japan discovered in World War II, the only real defense against amphibious invasion is for air and naval defenses—and mostly airpower—to stop the invasion. If Chinese ships and aircraft can isolate the Senkakus, then it will be easy for Chinese troops to occupy them. And very difficult to Japan to recapture them: the special amphibious brigade created by Japan would be a sitting duck. But even a few F-35Bs operating from rough airstrips—and perhaps armed with hypersonic anti-ship missiles—could disrupt a Chinese amphibious landing.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

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

Image: Flickr.