The National Interest

Ukraine is set to receive as many as ninety American-made F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole combat aircraft—while around two dozen of the fighters are now in service. Yet, even as more aircraft could arrive in the coming weeks, the Ukrainian Air Force may lack the pilots to fly the warbirds into action.

Last week, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense announced a bold plan to address the issue. Namely that it would cut the training time.

"The basic training program needs to be optimized. This will enable us to train more pilots to defend our country," Deputy Defence Minister Serhiy Melnkyk said in a briefing last week. "Ukrainian combat aviation must eventually gain air superiority, as this paves the way for the success of our actions on the front line."

Aviation experts have warned that training on the F-16 can't be rushed, and even experienced pilots trained on Soviet legacy aircraft could face a steep learning curve on the American fighter. Then there is the language barrier.

"One major concern from the very start has been the language barrier among Ukrainian candidates, many who have struggled to reach an adequate level of English proficiency to allow them to fully absorb the details of the complex systems of this fourth-generation fighter aircraft," the Kyiv Post reported. It added that "inexperienced pilots may struggle to adequately perform in high-pressure situations that could increase the risk of accidents and mission failure."

Just weeks after the F-16 entered service with the Ukrainian military in early August, Ukraine also lost its first Fighting Falcon reportedly due to pilot error.

Colonel Alex Mahon, United States Air Force (ret.), a fighter pilot with decades of instructor pilot (IP) experience, offered insight into the basics of F-16 training.

"The core training is done in the 'Conversion Phase,' learning how the basic systems work: engine, hydraulics, electronics, etc.; takeoff; landing; acrobatics; taking the airframe to its inner and outer limits of flyability; instrument flying; getting the 'feel' of the aircraft so you can hear it when it talks to you," Mahon explained in an email to The National Interest.

"Notwithstanding the very little I know about today's MiG/Su fighter aircraft, I am confident that a fighter pilot who can stick-and-rudder a Russian fighter can handle an F-16. It's akin to a guy who drives a 1992 Ford F-150. The 2024 Lincoln he rents at the airport may have more buttons and hidden comm features, but he'll figure it out and get where he needs to go," Mahon added.

Mahon further described that the United States Air Force focuses on the "procedures" (the "what") and the "techniques" (the "how"). These are important distinctions.

"Everyone flying a particular aircraft will follow the book procedures, e.g., flying down initial at 1,500 feet AGL/300 kts.; pull the power back, roll into a 60-degree bank turn, and pull 2 Gs for 180 degrees to downwind; lower the gear when abeam the intended touchdown point; descending turn to 'final' when the runway threshold is 45 degrees behind your shoulder; roll out on final 1 mile from the threshold; 2½ degree glideslope; slow to calculated airspeed/AOA bracketed; touchdown 1,000 feet from the threshold; aerobrake until 90 kts.; etc.," said Mahon.

"'Technique' is how any particular pilot controls the aircraft to meet those procedural parameters," the instructor continued. "The Ukrainian pilots were taught USAF F-16 'procedures.' Their individualized 'techniques,' learned/honed over time/experience in Russian fighters, should translate well and will inform them how to meet the procedural requirements."

Continuity is extremely important, Mahon further emphasized.

"I need to be able to fly at least three days per week to keep my head and hands in the game. An average training sortie takes almost five hours to complete—start pre-flight briefing two hours before takeoff time; fly about 1.5 hours/700 miles; land and regroup/take a pee/get a Coke—30 minutes; debrief the entire flight performance in great depth = 1 hour)," he noted while suggesting that even if the training can be abridged, it really can't be rushed.

"These missions are quite arduous—the average trainee can't handle more than one a day," warned Mahon. "The flying schedule would be built around the 'average' student—if I was a quick learner, flying four times a week could speed things up. Conversely, if performance was marginal, extra sorties/more time to reach the target competence level might be required."

Thank you to Col. Mahon for his insight.

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: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

Image: EvrenKalinbacak / Shutterstock.com

When one thinks of America’s baddest units to serve in the Vietnam War, chances are the U.S. Army Special Forces (SF, aka “Green Berets”) and Rangers, along with the U.S. Navy SEALs, come immediately to mind.

However, not so many people realize that even the “kinder, gentler” U.S. Air Force (USAF) had its own band of rough and ready ground-pounders who took the fight to the Communist enemy in Vietnam. We now recognize the USAF’s Combat Security Police (CSP) units.

Among other things, the Vietnam War ushered in a new type of threat to U.S. airbases in forward deployed locations. Clearly defined front lines and safe rear areas were absent. Thus, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) targeted air bases on a regular basis and destroyed a large number of aircraft early in the war. Ergo, the USAF was forced to redirect its attention from internal security to providing a well-trained, well-armed, and highly motivated combat security police force capable of repelling raids by experienced enemy sapper units.

Thus, it came to pass that the 1041st USAF Security Police Squadron (Test) was formed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Designated by the codename "Operation Safeside,” the 1041st USAF SPS (T) first arrived “in-country” at Phu Cat Air Base on January 13, 1967. A year later, it would be succeeded by the 82nd Combat Security Police Wing’s 821st Combat Security Police Squadron (CSPS) and 822nd CSPS (the 823rd CSPS would follow in 1969).

When I was a 1st Lieutenant attending the Security Forces Officer Course at Lackland AFB, Texas, back in 2004, one of the noncommissioned officers in my instructor cadre stated that these CSP units actually had the highest kill-to-loss ratio of any American military unit in the Vietnam War. Alas, I haven’t been able to find any independent corroboration of that lofty claim. Nonetheless, the CSPs definitely made an impact.  

This was most starkly demonstrated on January 21, 1968, during the Tet Offensive, more specifically during the concurrent defense of two key South Vietnamese airbases: Tan Son Nhut Airbase and Bien Hoa. The excellent 2014 book Sky-Cops and Peacekeepers: Uniforms and Equipment of the USAF Air Police and Security Police, tells the story better than I can, starting with Tan Son Nhut:

“The only thing between some 1500 VC and the flight line was bunker 051, manned by five Security Policeman [sic]; Sergeants Louis R. Fisher [actually, Louis Harold “Lou” Fischer], William J. Cyr, Charles E. Hebron, Roger B. Mills, and twenty-one-year-old Alonzo Coggins … Soon Fisher, Cyr, Hebron, and Mills were all killed. Coggins would survive but was badly wounded. He took cover among the bodies of his dead buddies … Before they stopped counting, Airmen from the 377 SPS noted 962 enemy bodies inside and immediately outside the TSN perimeter.”

Meanwhile, at Bien Hoa:

“At 0320 hours, CSC received notification that Bunker 10 was under a vicious attack by approximately 1,500 enemy troops. At Bein [sic] Hoa there were 350 SP’s and 75 augmentees to blunt the attack, a nearly five-to-one advantage for Charlie … Security Police casualties were two dead, including an augmentee and 10 wounded. Inside the base perimeter, 139 VC were killed and 25 taken prisoner.”

Multiple well-deserved decorations (sadly many of them posthumous) for heroism were awarded to SPs as a result of these two battles: twelve Silver Stars; twenty Bronze Stars with “V” for valor; one Legion of Merit, awarded to Col. Billy Jack Carter; and one Air Force Cross, the USAF’s second-highest decoration, and the first of its kind to be awarded to a non-aviator, Capt. Reginald V. “Reggie” Maisey (regrettably, his Medal of Honor nomination was disapproved).

Today, the Louis H. Fischer Award is awarded to the top graduate of the USAF Security Forces Academy Security Apprentice Course (i.e., the enlisted Air Force cops’ technical training course). Mind you, merely being the top graduate of the class doesn’t automatically guarantee a trainee the Fischer Award; you have to earn a 97 percent academic test score average, receive zero derogatory paperwork, pass all evaluations on the first attempt, qualify as an “Expert” with the M17 (SIG P320 9mm) service pistol and M4 carbine (back in my day it was the Beretta M9 pistol and full-size M16A2 rifle), and be recommended by a primary instructor cadre and military training leaders.

(A top graduate of a given class who doesn’t meet these stringent requirements instead receives the Top Performer Award, which is still a tremendous honor in its own right.)

I myself was a recipient of the Sgt. Louis H. Fischer Award back on February 4, 2000, when I graduated from the Security Forces Academy with the inaugural Team 11 of the 343rd Training Squadron. I was twenty-four years old at the time, and now, twenty-five years later, I still consider that one of the proudest achievements of my entire life.

As far as current units are concerned, the legacy was proudly revived at Moody AFB, Georgia, on March 27, 1997, in the manifestation of the 820th Security Forces Group, which was officially renamed the 820th Base Defense Group (BDG) on October 1, 2010. According to the Moody AFB 23rd Wing Public Affairs Office, the 820th BDG serves as “the Air Force's sole unit organized, trained and equipped to conduct integrated base defense in high-threat areas.”

(For anybody wondering about the semantics, the name of the Security Police career field was officially changed to Security Forces on Halloween Day 1997. Personally, I’m not fond of the newer moniker; in my opinion, “Security Forces” as opposed to “Security Police” makes us sound like the East German Stasi or Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, as “SF” makes us sound like wannabe Green Berets as opposed to the Blue Berets that we actually are. But I digress.)

To the old-school CSPs and present-day 820th BDG SF troops alike, a hearty “HOOAH!”

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He 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.

Canada finds itself in a sticky geopolitical situation. The incoming Trump administration seems to believe that it is going to at some point annex Canada. Meanwhile, the Russians are breathing down Canada’s neck in the Arctic, with the Russian military challenging Canada for dominance over key strategic points in the High North.

Ottawa also faces a territorial dispute with Washington over portions of the Northwest Passage, which is quickly evolving into a key strategic waterway.

To better combat these threats, the Canadian government has announced its intention to build twelve nuclear-powered submarines that will be dedicated to securing Canada’s vast interests in the Arctic. There’s only a small problem: Most experts I have spoken with are skeptical that the Canadian bid to build twelve Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarines will ever happen. And, even if it does, it is unlikely to occur in any meaningful timeframe. 

Ottawa is calling the program “Our North, Strong and Free,” and it is billed as a comprehensive strategy of deterrence. But Canada’s problems are much deeper than just being unable to field submarines. 

Currently, Canada's navy is in shambles. Last summer, for instance, a Canadian warship dispatched to the U.S.-organized RIMPAC military exercises at Hawaii had been sidelined from the Pacific exercise due to a major cooling water leak onboard. In fact, multiple headlines have proliferated since last summer about the massive flooding problems with Canada’s warships. What happened in Hawaii was not an isolated incident.

That’s to say nothing of the personnel crisis affecting the Canadian Navy. Basically, Canada’s navy is not attracting talent in any meaningful way. Canada’s military is, therefore, withering both in terms of platforms and personnel.

Oh, and the Canadian submarine force is especially laughable. Currently, the Royal Canadian Navy operates just four Victoria-class diesel-electric submarines. When these subs aren’t being repaired in port, they are deployed to distant locations in the Pacific, taking them far away from the far more important (for Canada, at least) strategic zone of the Arctic. 

That’s part of the reason behind the Canadian investment in the twelve new AIP-breathing submarines.

The new submarines for Canada’s Arctic strategy are specifically designed to stay under the ice for protracted periods. Meanwhile, the first submarines are to be deployed by the mid-2030s, around the same time that the Victoria-class subs are set to be decommissioned. Yet, given the aforementioned problems with Canada’s defense industrial base, the likelihood that this program will ever get moving beyond the conceptual phase—or that the twelve submarines will be built—is very low.

And the longer the Canadians wait, the greater the chance they will lose their claim on the Arctic—if not officially, then unofficially—as both the Russians and Americans move to dominate the region. 

At the same time, there are so many structural issues within Canada’s defense industrial base as well as its overall defense community that the idea the country could ever muster a real challenge to a true near-peer rival, such as China, is laughable. 

Bottom line: the Canadian Navy is broken. It will not be repaired any time soon. Expect more, not fewer, egregious problems as the Canadian Royal Navy continues its downward spiral. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Shutterstock.

Just days into the New Year, Kyiv launched a fresh offensive in the Russian Kursk Oblast, reportedly catching the Kremlin's forces off guard on Sunday. According to commentary from social media, columns of Ukrainian armored vehicles advanced toward the village of Bolshoe Soldatskoe, after clearing mines overnight.

Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute shared images of the Ukrainian forces on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, citing commentary from pro-Kremlin military bloggers. Lee posted, "Some Russian channels have been warning recently of a Ukrainian build up near Kursk and a potential offensive."

Fierce fighting had occurred throughout the weekend with dozens of engagements. However, the size of the operation remains unclear.

"Ukrainian and Western military analysts said that the attacks could be a deliberate attempt at misdirection, trying to force Russian troops to shore up defenses there in the hopes of weakening them on the front line in Ukrainian territory," The New York Times reported.

The paper of record added, "Although Ukraine now holds less than half of the territory it seized in the Kursk offensive last summer, it has managed in recent weeks to slow Russia's advances despite repeated waves of Russian counterattacks, including assaults bolstered by thousands of North Korean soldiers."

Kyiv's invasion of Kursk, which began last August, was the first ground invasion into Russia since World War II. It caught the Kremlin largely off guard, and despite repeated counteroffensives, Ukraine has managed to maintain a foothold in the Russian Oblast. The counteroffensive has been seen as a major embarrassment for Russia.

Throughout history, armies have often hunkered down during the winter—but that hasn't always been the case in Russia, where both sides have taken advantage of the frozen ground.

The current offensive serves as a reminder of the First Winter Campaign that the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) carried out against the Bolsheviks during the Ukrainian-Soviet War in late 1919 and early 1920. The campaign, which has earned comparisons to General George Washington's raid on Trenton on December 26, 1776, had a similar impact. It raised the spirit of the UPR's forces when it needed it most.

This new offensive could have a similar result.

"The Russians in Kursk are experiencing great anxiety because they were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them," Ukraine's top counter-disinformation official Andriy Kovalenko wrote on the Telegram social messaging app.

Kyiv may need to show that it isn't out of the fight and the rumors of its impending defeat are being greatly exaggerated.  As the BBC also reported, "Kyiv's forces are reportedly suffering from manpower shortages and have been losing ground in the east of Ukraine in recent months, as Russian troops advance."

Taking the fight to Russia won't deliver a knock-out blow, but it could show the Ukrainian people—and the West—that the Kremlin hasn't won yet. The timing of the attack came just over two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. He has vowed to end the war quickly, without explaining how he will do so but most believe it would involve pulling U.S. support while encouraging Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow.

It was in October that U.S. military analyst Michael Kofman suggested that Russia's numbers advantage could significantly diminish in 2025 —which helps explain why Moscow has had to turn to North Korea to bolster its numbers. Given that fact, Ukraine may be seeking to gain ground should it be forced to the peace table.

As previously reported, winter has long been one of the greatest allies of the Russian people. Known as "General Winter" or "General Frost," cold harsh weather has been credited with helping defeat foreign invaders.

The cold had played a significant role in the Swedish invasion of 1707, the French invasion under Napoleon in 1812, the Allied intervention in Russia in 1918-1919, and most notably, the German invasion in 1941. However, the cold also aided Kyiv in the late winter of 2022 after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion—and it may now be helping Ukraine in its current offensive operations in Kursk.

It is also likely that the attack was mounted before the spring and the arrival of the "Rasputitsa," the Russian term for the late fall and early spring seasons of the year when travel on unpaved roads across the vast open plains becomes difficult.

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: Seneline / Shutterstock.com

The consensus among historians, journalists, and analysts has long been that President Jimmy Carter’s four-year presidency was a low point in a decent man’s century-long life. In fact, the implicit rap on Carter was that he brought a naïvete to public office that, at best, required a certain moral flexibility. Now that Carter has passed at the age of 100, this simplistic and conventional narrative of his presidency should be reassessed. 

Let’s not forget that the voters chose Carter’s principled approach in the 1976 election because of the long national disillusionment surrounding the JFK and MLK assassinations, LBJ and Nixon’s dishonest debacle in Vietnam, Nixon’s criminal activities during Watergate, and Gerald Ford’s trashing the rule of law by pardoning his predecessor even before charges were filed. Voters yearned to bring back some semblance of morality and honesty to government. 

Upon arriving in office, Carter was so squeaky clean that he refused to intimidate lawmakers or horse-trade with Congress to adopt policies on his agenda. If Republican Richard Nixon is regarded as the last progressive president before Barack Obama, Democrat Carter was the first conservative president since Calvin Coolidge. Carter laid the basis for more conservative policies before Ronald Reagan perfected the sales pitch. In addition to opposing interest groups feeding at the public trough, Carter championed limiting the federal government, cutting the federal budget, deregulating industries, and greater local and personal responsibility. He believed welfare eroded the family and the work ethic. 

In a herculean effort, Carter fully or partially deregulated four sectors of the economy: finance, communication, energy, and transportation, making them more efficient. At first, Carter contributed to the inflation left over from the Vietnam War and Nixon’s permissive monetary policy. However, Carter then appointed inflation hawk Paul Volcker as Fed chairman, who slammed on the monetary brakes, which caused a soft economy and then a recession but made possible the economic growth during Reagan’s administration.

Analysts have rightly claimed that Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 election because of stagflation (a sluggish economy and inflation) and the Iran hostage crisis. In the long term, Carter helped solve both of those crises, but at election time, the results weren’t in yet. In the hostage crisis, he didn’t fall victim to the hawks’ criticism that he should attack Iran, which would have gotten the hostages killed. Of course, at election time, this made him look weak. Reagan apparently succeeded in delaying the release of the hostages until after he was elected president, but Carter had negotiated their release. 

Even Carter’s substantial domestic achievements were eclipsed by his foreign policy successes. His negotiation of the Camp David peace accords and Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty is one of the few lasting peace agreements in the Middle East (even the later Oslo accords have failed). Disregarding the hawks, Carter ended the embarrassing U.S. colonial presence in the Canal Zone in the middle of sovereign Panama. Furthermore, Richard Nixon’s opening to China got all the attention, but the improvement of relations between the United States and China languished until Carter formally recognized China. Finally, Carter signed the SALT II agreement with the Soviets, which limited nuclear arms but was never ratified by the Senate. Nonetheless, both countries abided by its terms.

In my book, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, which ranks the presidents on the end results of their policies, I found that no president was perfect. Carter was no exception. He overreacted to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, believing that the Soviets were making a play for Persian Gulf oil. In reality, Moscow was trying to support its client government in Kabul and prevent a potential Islamist revolution from spreading into the Soviet Union. Yet, Carter boycotted the Olympics in Moscow, instituted a grain embargo that merely hurt American farm exports, and proclaimed the “Carter Doctrine,” which stated the United States would use military force to secure its vital national interests (read: oil) in the Persian Gulf against an outside power trying to control it. 

In the end, although subsequent presidents could have disavowed the doctrine, especially after the Cold War ended, they unfortunately and eagerly embraced it by building up U.S. forces around the Gulf. This included the needless meddling in the Iran-Iraq War, including conducting the “tanker war” in the Gulf against Iran and two Gulf Wars later against Iraq. Yet Carter and subsequent presidents should have realized that the best and cheapest way to obtain oil is by paying the world market price. Finally, Carter was so scarred by the Iranian Revolution’s oil price hikes that he fully embraced the canard of the need for U.S. energy independence and attempted to popularize expensive synthetic fuels via the boondoggle of the failed Synfuels Corporation.

However, in sum, Carter can rightly be celebrated for his many heroic deeds after leaving the White House. Still, his presidential accomplishments in foreign and domestic policy should not be neglected—which they often are—because they vastly outstripped his more limited failures.

Ivan R. Eland is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty. Dr. Eland graduated from Iowa State University with an M.B.A. in applied economics and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University.

Image: Consolidated News Photos / Shutterstock.com.

President-elect Donald Trump’s recent lament that the United States ceded control of the Panama Canal to Panama under the Carter administration is both strategically sound and historically resonant. Trump, the most consequential conservative president since Ronald Reagan, shares with the Gipper both an instinctual understanding of U.S. national interests and, more specifically, a healthy skepticism about the logic of ceding the American-built canal.

Trump’s recent comments echo closely those of Reagan during the 1978 debate over the ratification of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties that ended U.S. sovereignty over the canal. Reagan, preparing to challenge Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, said he would “talk as long and as loud as I can against it” and warned presciently that “I think that basically the world is not going to see this [giving away the canal] as a magnanimous gesture on our part, as the White House would have us believe.”

Like many of Trump’s foreign policy initiatives, Reagan’s persistent opposition to the cession of the canal earned him the derision of the foreign policy cognoscenti of his day. Even William F. Buckley, Jr., the patron saint of the modern conservative movement, broke with Reagan and supported returning the canal to Panama. Yet Reagan, like Trump, understood the American interest in the canal went beyond U.S. relations with the Panamanians or the potential for gaining an amorphous quantum of “goodwill” from the Third World (today, often called the “Global South”) by granting local control.

First, as in Reagan’s time, the Panama Canal today serves essential military purposes for the United States, which alone justify continued American control. Moving the preponderance of U.S. naval power in a crisis from the East to West Coasts and eventually into the Pacific Theater itself will require unobstructed access to the canal. This was the early twentieth-century logic that compelled President Theodore Roosevelt to undertake its construction in the first place and that dictated the dimensions of U.S. naval ship construction well into this century to ensure naval vessels were capable of traversing the canal’s lock system. While today’s ships are larger and warfare more complex, the basic necessity of moving significant naval tonnage along the shortest route remains unchanged since the canal’s completion in 1914. 

Second, like during the Cold War, the canal is on the front lines of great power rivalry, this time between the United States and China. While Washington has been mired in forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Hong-Kong-based company acquired two of Panama’s five principal ports and is constructing a deep-water port, cruise terminal, and a fourth bridge across the canal. As is the case from Africa to the South Pacific, China uses such infrastructure to gain coercive economic and political control, as manifested in its pressure campaign to force Panama to cease recognizing Taiwan in 2017. It would be the height of naïveté to assume Beijing’s interest in Panama and the canal has nothing to do with the strategic significance of the waterway for U.S. national defense. 

Finally, Reagan saw U.S. control of the canal as directly related to American influence on the world stage and the seriousness with which Washington’s words were taken in foreign capitals. “What does this say to our allies around the world about our leadership intentions, our international role, about our own view of our national defense capability?” Reagan asked during the debate over the canal’s transfer. Like his predecessor, Trump appears to view the ability of the United States to influence and counter adversary influence over the canal as a test case for Washington’s global sway. If one of the great marvels of American engineering know-how and national grit can be recklessly handed away, in spite of all strategic logic, and placed under the perpetual threat of foreign interference, what message would be sent to adversaries from Tehran to Moscow to Pyongyang?

Trump’s comments suggesting a possible American reacquisition of the canal were met with predictable howls from Washington think tanks and even Chinese Communist Party propaganda rags. Yet our forty-fifth and forty-seventh president, much like the fortieth president before him, possesses an innate sense of America’s core national interests, which seems to elude Washington’s great and good. As Trump returns to the Oval Office, this discernment will find a world in desperate need of an American president willing to pursue controversial causes for the strategic advantage of his country and the safety of its citizens. 

Alexander Gray served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the White House National Security Council, 2019–21.

Image: Jose Mario Espinoza / Shutterstock.com.

Last February, images of Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the pilot’s seat of a Russian Tupolev Tu-160M long-range strategic bomber have gone viral across Russian social media. Putin was celebrating the fact that the legendary Soviet-era United Aircraft Corporation’s Tupolev Design Bureau was significantly upgrading its iconic “White Swan” bomber. Just a few weeks ago, the Russian Aerospace Forces received the first tranche of these upgraded birds. 

As the Ukraine War progresses and Russia’s strategic situation becomes more tenuous in the face of Western resistance, the Russian military has embraced a rapid modernization program that is nothing short of stunning (especially considering the, frankly, ridiculous claims from Western media sources that sanctions would break the back of Russia’s economy and defense industrial base).

Equipped with new NK-32-02 engines, with a reported maximum speed of over Mach 2.05, the swept-wing long-range strategic bomber has an entirely new lease on its storied life. Tupolev retained the variable-sweep wing design that its predecessor sported, allowing for the bird to adapt to subsonic or supersonic speeds. What’s more, the combination of its original variable-sweep wing design coupled with its NK-32-02 engines, the Tu-160M White Swans now have a wildly extended strike range and maneuverability, as well as an impressive speed.

In terms of her armaments, the Tu-160M is a highly formidable warbird, carrying up to twelve cruise missiles, including the nuclear-capable Kh-55 series and the newer Kh-101 and Kh-102 long-range air-launched cruise missiles. Each of these classes of cruise missiles has been modernized to incorporate enhanced stealth features, such as reduced radar cross-sections, allowing for these weapons to penetrate enemy air defense systems more reliably. Its progenitor was nuclear-capable, and Tupolev ensured that the Tu-160M had a versatile weapon capacity, meaning these birds could fly with both conventional and nuclear weapons in her bomb bays.

Advanced cruise missiles and gravity bombs allow for missions that are variegated and equally lethal to Russia’s enemies.

Tupolev’s advances for the Tu-160M involve multiple mechanical upgrades. More importantly, though, Tupolev has bettered the bird’s avionics, navigation, and electronic warfare (EW) systems. The aircraft now features a glass cockpit and unique technological accouterments, such as the Novella NV1.70 radar system as well as anti-jamming equipment, providing pilots with an insane amount of situational awareness and a greater ability to penetrate enemy air defenses to deliver killing blows with their robust onboard ordnance.

The Tu-160M’s role in Russia’s nuclear triad (which includes submarine-launched ballistic missiles and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs) is pivotal. The White Swan’s ability to launch a variety of weapons at standoff distances makes this bird a key element in Russia’s nuclear deterrence. It was a smart move by Moscow to authorize the modernization program that Tupolev wanted for their Tu-160s.

These birds can be traced all the way back to the heady days of the Cold War. When Soviet Russia collapsed, so too did the power of the Soviet military machine. The successor government of the Russian Federation tried to maintain as much of that legendary military prowess as possible.

Still, the Tu-160’s production line was halted in 1992 as a direct result of the USSR’s implosion. Moscow eventually restarted production on the birds in 2015, unveiling the Tu-160M (which ultimately flew in January 2022).

Tu-160Ms have been showcased across multiple Russian areas of operation, most notably in the Arctic, a region that Moscow has highlighted as their most strategically significant zone since 2008. Indeed, when I briefed the Air Force intelligence team three years ago at Joint Base McChord, I was informed of intercepts involving the Tu-160 off the coast of Alaska, marking a significant escalation by Russia in the Arctic.

Washington has erred significantly in antagonizing the post-Soviet regime in Russia. We were told that the Russians did not matter anymore geopolitically and that they could easily be ignored and pushed around.

Indeed, this assumption formed the basis of U.S. foreign policy in Eurasia for the last thirty years. The evolution of the mighty Tu-160M is but one more example of how wrong those assumptions were—and how Americans today have been made less safe because of it. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: FastTailWind / Shutterstock.com.

For the second time in just over a month, a United States Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has made a port-of-call visit to Port Klang Cruise Terminal, Malaysia. The Nimitz-class USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) arrived on Sunday. The visit follows that of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which arrived at the same terminal on November 23.

“Malaysia is a key partner for us in the Indo-Pacific. Our visit reinforces the importance of this partnership to the United States,” said Rear Adm. Michael Wosje, commander of Carrier Strike Group ONE (CSG-1). “Visiting Port Klang provides us with an important and unique opportunity to collaborate with our Royal Malaysian Navy counterparts, continuing to build upon our strategic and mutually beneficial partnership, while also providing our Sailors well-deserved downtime to explore the area and build connections within the community.”

“The back-to-back visits of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group and the USS Abraham Lincoln to Malaysia underscore the depth and strength of our security ties­an enduring cornerstone of the U.S.-Malaysia Comprehensive Partnership,” added U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Edgard D. Kagan. “Building on decades of close collaboration, we continue to bolster our security partnership and remain committed to working with Malaysia to advance our shared vision of a free, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.”

The back-to-back carrier visits could be a sign that the United States Navy is moving past the unfortunate scandal involving Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis, whose company Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), previously operated the Malaysian Port Klang facility when it was known as the Glenn Cruise Terminal.

The corruption scandal—described as the largest in U.S. Navy history—involved nine members of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, who were indicted in 2017 on charges of conspiracy and bribery. GDMA consistently overcharged the U.S. Navy for goods and services. Francis had been due for sentencing in 2022 after acknowledging that he masterminded a decade-long bribery scheme in which officials were given millions of dollars in bribes and other luxury gifts.

As previously reported, in November, Francis was sentenced to fifteen years for overcharging the U.S. Navy $35 million for his company’s services. However, he skipped that sentencing and fled the country. U.S. officials lured him to Venezuela last year, and he was brought back to the country. In addition to the fifteen-year prison sentence, his company was sentenced to five years of probation and was fined $36 million.

“Mr. Francis’ sentencing brings closure to an expansive fraud scheme that he perpetrated against the U.S. Navy with assistance from various Navy officials. This fraud conspiracy ultimately cost the American taxpayer millions of dollars and weakened the public’s trust in some of our Navy's senior leaders. Mr. Francis’ actions not only degraded the 7th Fleet’s readiness but shook the Fleet's trust in its leadership who furthered his corrupt practices,” said Kelly P. Mayo, director of the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the overarching fraud and bribery case had resulted in federal criminal charges against thirty-four U.S. Navy officials, defense contractors, and Francis’ company, GDMA. The felony convictions of four former U.S. Navy officers were vacated, however, following allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

Prior to the visit of CVN-72 in November, the last U.S. carrier to visit Port Klang was USS George Washington (CVN-73) in October 2012. It would seem that with Francis sentenced and heading to prison, the U.S. Navy is again looking to forge closer ties with Malaysia.

“On behalf of America’s Favorite Aircraft Carrier, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the people of Port Klang and Kuala Lumpur for welcoming the Sailors of USS Carl Vinson with such enthusiasm and warm hospitality,” said Capt. Matthew Thomas, commanding officer, USS Carl Vinson. “We are delighted to welcome Malaysian Navy and government officials aboard Vinson, and we are grateful for the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the rich history and culture of Malaysia.”

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: Shutterstock.com.

December 12, 2024, marked the end of an era of the proud history of the British Royal Navy’s submarine service. As noted by The Lochside Press:

HMS Triumph, the last of the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-Class attack submarines, sailed for the final time from Faslane this week…HMS Triumph sailed into Plymouth Sound today, to her home port of HM Naval Base Devonport…It was the final voyage by the nuclear-powered submarine and Triumph flew her decommissioning pennant as she was escorted by tugboats and vessels from the naval base…Commander Aaron Williams, HMS Triumph’s Commanding Officer, said: ‘As HMS Triumph prepares to decommission, we reflect on her legacy with immense pride…The submarine has served not just as a vessel, but as a symbol of commitment, courage, and camaraderie…And while this chapter of HMS Triumph’s story ends, her spirit will endure in the memories of all who served aboard her, and in the gratitude of the nation she helped protect.’

As my fellow naval history buffs are well aware, the word “Trafalgar” stirs much pride in the hearts of Royal Navy sailors past & present, as the Battle of Trafalgar is not only one of Great Britain’s greatest naval victories but indeed one of the most strategically decisive naval battles of all time. So, we at The National Interest reckon this is as good a time as any to tell the story of the submarine class that bore the Trafalgar name.

The Trafalgar-class boats were designed as successors to the Swiftsure class and designated as “hunter-killers” within the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine force. The lead ship of the class was (appropriately enough) the HMS Trafalgar (Pennant No. S107), which was laid down on April 15, 1979, launched on July 1, 1981, and commissioned on May 27, 1983. She was followed by six more ships in the class: HMS Turbulent (1984), HMS Tireless (1985), HMS Torbay (1987), HMS Trenchant (1989), HMS Talent (1990), and HMS Triumph (1991).

Built by Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering Ltd., Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, UK, the Trafalgar subs had the following technical specifications: a surface displacement of 4800 tons, a hull length of 85.4 meters, and a maximum speed of thirty-two knots. 

Three warships of this mighty class have fired their TLAMs at targets in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Indeed, HMS Trafalgar, in particular, made history as the first Royal Navy sub to launch Tomahawks against Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, doing so as part of Operation Veritas in 2001.

Regarding HMS Triumph specifically, she played a key role in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, firing her missiles at Muammar Qaddafi’s forces on three different occasions: March 19, March 20, and March 24, with her primary targets being the Libyan air defense installations around the city of Sabha.

Triumph also made history in a peacetime operation in 1993, whereupon she conducted a 41,000-mile (66,000 kilometers) submerged transit to Australia, the longest unsupported solo passage of any nuclear submarine.

Out with the old, in with the news: the Trafalgars are being replaced by the Astute-class undersea warships. Alas, there are no known plans to preserve any of the Trafalgar-class subs for posterity as museum ships. The first six ships of the class are a 3 Basin in Davenport, idly waiting the requisite decades for their reactors to fully cool before finally being dismantled.

HMS Triumph will eventually be sent to 3 Basin as well. In the meantime, officially remain in service with the Royal Navy until the official decommissioning ceremony, due to be held sometime this month. After that pomp and circumstance is concluded, the proud old vessel will be staffed by a skeleton crew for several more years as on-board systems are shut down and removed. Name plates will be removed from the submarine, at which point she will lose her HMS designation.

Fair winds and following seas, Trafalgar class. You served your King, Queen, and Country well.

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for the National Security Journal (NSJ). He 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 oftentimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Kev Gregory / Shutterstock.com.

For all the talk about how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is rising to dominate the Indo-Pacific not only economically but militarily, many often overlook China’s arch historical nemesis and neighbor, Japan.

Sure, China dwarfs Japan in terms of size and its overall economic output, but Japan is probably among the most advanced nations in the whole world. Indeed, the technology Japan possesses is likely (at least for now) far ahead of the technologies currently available either to Chinese citizens or the Chinese military (again, this is already changing and is likely to continue changing over time). 

One area where Japan is lightyears beyond China technically is in its navy. But all the technological advantages of Japan are being utterly wasted by Tokyo on things like its Izumo-class helicopter destroyer. 

That’s because the Izumo-class is really a light aircraft carrier. And, if America’s recent experiences against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen haven’t shown, aircraft carriers are to the modern maritime battlefield what the battleships of yore were to the naval battles of World War II. 

They’re obsolete, no matter how many whizbang technologies the Japanese incorporate into them. 

The Izumo-class “helicopter destroyer” is a miniature aircraft carrier. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) possesses two of these ships, the JS Izumo (DDH-183) and JS Kaga (DDH-184). They account for being the largest vessels that Japan has built since the end of World War II. These warships were originally intended for anti-submarine warfare and disaster relief. Tokyo, however, quickly refashioned them into secret aircraft carriers as the Japanese watched China becoming more belligerent at sea. 

Indeed, it is feared that China’s objective of conquering Taiwan is not the end goal of Chinese maritime revanchism, but only the start. Once Taiwan is captured by China’s military, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) would have a better chance of successfully blockading China’s major regional rival, Japan. Already, China is outproducing military equipment compared to the Japanese Self-Defense forces.

Ditto even for the militaries of the United States and its other allies.

Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter destroyers displace around 27,000 tons when fully loaded and are comparable in size to light aircraft carriers (that’s actually what they are). The Izumos can accommodate up to twenty-eight helicopters or fourteen larger aircraft. When the boats were primarily used as anti-submarine warfare ships, they had an initial complement of seven SH-60J/K anti-submarine warfare helos and two search-and-rescue helicopters. 

On the flight deck, they can accommodate the launch of up to five helicopters simultaneously. Originally, Japan’s war planners had not intended for fixed-wing aircraft to be deployed from these boats.

Yet, the Japanese designers of the Izumo-class helicopter destroyers included aircraft elevators and deck coatings that hinted at potential fixed-wing aircraft operations in the future. And wouldn’t you know it, with Japan’s purchase of Lockheed Martin’s F-35B Lightning II fifth-generation multirole warplanes, which have vertical-takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities, the Izumos are now aircraft carriers in all but name. 

Indeed, by bringing fifth-generation warplanes into their complement of aircraft onboard, the Izumo-class now punches well above its weight as a “helicopter destroyer” warship. 

Here’s the problem, though, that many cheerleaders in the West are missing. It’s the same problem that most Western navies are facing: a lack of reliable production quotas and little ability to overcome China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) advantages.  

Even with a complement of F-35Bs onboard, if the Izumo-class warships were ever deployed into areas of the Indo-Pacific that China covets, they would immediately run into the melee of China’s A2/AD systems that form protective “bubbles” over territories that China holds. 

So, while technically superior to most Chinese PLAN warships, the small number of these boats in Japan’s fleet and the fact that most surface warships are under extreme risk from China’s A2/AD bubbles in the contested Indo-Pacific, means that the JMSDF should seriously rethink its overall strategy involving these helicopter destroyers.

Further, Tokyo, like the other Western powers, has done little to address the Chinese A2/AD threat to its surface warfare fleet.

Even when deployed alongside U.S., British, Australian, or other allied naval powers, the Chinese A2/AD threat to surface warships is so profound and complex that whatever technological advantages the Izumo-class has over its Chinese rivals are less important than the advantages that Beijing’s forces have amassed in the region. A better use of Japanese resources and technological innovation would be developing systems to destroy those Chinese A2/AD systems and to threaten China’s mainland (such as hypersonic weapons). 

Alas, Japan has made the exact same mistakes that all Western navies have made. They are preparing for tomorrow’s wars today using yesterday’s best tactics and strategies. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: viper-zero / Shutterstock.com

For many years, the outlook for the world oil market has rested heavily on China, as it has been by far the most significant driver of demand growth in this century. But now, twenty years after the landmark 2004 surprise, when Chinese demand reached over 3 million barrels per day year-on-year, stoked fears of scarcity and drove up prices, there is a growing consensus that China’s oil demand will soon peak. That does not necessarily mean that global demand will peak shortly thereafter, as it reflects the specifics of the policy context in China. Still, it makes it a lot harder to envision a period of lasting market tightening in the future, which many oil bulls and OPEC+ producers had predicted would take place in the mid-to-late 2020s.

The two largest state-owned oil companies in China, CNPC and Sinopec, both issued studies in December that showed that the demand for transportation-sector goods has already peaked, with total demand set to peak soon. Both expect full-year data for 2024, when released, to show declines in gasoline and highway diesel usage, which has been accelerated by the faster-than-previously-expected gains in sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and the increasing use of natural gas as an alternative fuel for heavy trucks. The only oil-based transportation fuels that are still growing are jet fuel and kerosene. Sinopec forecasts diesel use to fall by 5.5 percent in 2025 from 2024 levels and gasoline use to fall by 2.4 percent. Fully 22 percent of new heavy trucks sold in the first three quarters of 2024 used natural gas as a fuel, and EVs are expected to displace 15 percent of gasoline consumption in 2025 relative to where it would have been otherwise. 

The decline in oil use as a transportation fuel is being more than offset in the short-term by gains in demand for industrial consumption, which Sinopec shows increasing by 55 percent from 2023 to 2035. Still, total demand in their forecast tops out in 2027 and begins a gradual decline as the fall in transportation demand accelerates. CNPC has a slightly more bullish forecast but still shows the peak for total demand being reached in 2060.

Global oil demand forecasts from major agencies like the IEA and OPEC have diverged sharply in recent years, driven in large part by differing assumptions about how much government policies will shift in response to the desire to mitigate climate change. Both have been accused of being influenced by politics and wishful thinking, with the IEA’s baseline scenario envisioning rapid adoption of mitigation measures and OPEC foreseeing a world in which demand growth is adequate to keep most participants in OPEC+ financially comfortable. 

The IEA baseline has global demand peaking by 2030, with the much less realistic “Announced Policies Scenario,” in which all countries meet their stated climate change mitigation goals, showing a peak in 2025. OPEC shows slow growth after 2035 but has no peak. In my opinion, the OPEC forecast is the less credible of the two. The IEA’s baseline is probably still too optimistic (from their perspective) about the impact of mitigation measures on demand. Still, the impact of Chinese policies on demand is now not open to disagreement.

We are still likely to see a wide range of demand outcomes, which will see demand continuing to grow elsewhere after China peaks. In the United States, the incoming Trump administration is set to undo much of what Biden put in place. This may include ending the $7,500 tax credit that subsidizes EV purchases and rolling back Biden’s automobile emissions standards, which would have effectively forced EVs to contribute to half of U.S. passenger vehicle sales by the mid-2030s. 

As India takes China’s place as the largest source of demand growth, government policy remains aimed in a protectionist “make in India” direction with no major incentives to decarbonize transportation. New Delhi is, however, trying to lure Tesla into investing in the country, aiming for its high-end market segment with lower tariffs for expensive cars. One big question at the moment is how the rest of the world will treat lower-end Chinese EVs, given that they have been able to produce some models with prices as low as $12,000. If others do not raise protectionist barriers to Chinese EVs, they could start replacing the inexpensive Japanese and Korean gasoline cars and light trucks that have dominated most developing automotive markets—a move that could bring global peak demand closer.

It is still true that aviation and petrochemical demand for oil in the developing world has a lot of room for growth, which will probably take peak global demand out past 2030, if only for a few years. However, it is much more difficult to envision a future period of renewed concerns about the scarcity of oil without continued demand growth from China. Countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, which had planned to be able to replenish their coffers with one last period of scarcity and high prices, are likely to be disappointed.

Greg Priddy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest and does consulting work related to political risk for the energy sector and financial clients. Previously, he was director of global oil at Eurasia Group and worked at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Image: Humphery / Shutterstock.com.

Before Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, few would have expected the role that small drones and other unmanned aerial systems (UAS) would play on the modern battlefield. However, another popular civilian product of the twenty-first century is now being employed in an unexpected way.

Enter the charge of the electric shooter!

According to a report from Interesting Engineering, "Russian soldiers were filmed using off-road electric scooters to maneuver through the damaged roads during an assault on Toretsk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine."

The soldiers were able to use the scooters to move rapidly to the front, dodging caters and debris in the roadway. While not exactly "mechanized infantry," the reports suggest the troops were able to move more quickly over a short distance than if they ran.

It is unclear if the scooters were provided to the Russian troops or obtained by the individual soldiers in a nearby city. Electric scooters, which have been a bane or a blessing for many Americans in urban centers, have surged in popularity in Russia.

As many as 245,000 were sold last year, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg, e-scooter rentals have seen remarkable growth—with many residents using them for daily transport instead of cars and taxis in the summer months. However, the quick uptick has resulted in a marked increase in accidents, which led to calls for a ban last year.

Other European cities—with Paris taking the lead in September 2023—have pushed for bans on electric scooters on roads and sidewalks.

The use of scooters by the Russian soldiers comes just weeks after one was used to kill a top Russian military officer outside his apartment in Moscow.

In mid-December, as Russian Lt. Gen Igor Kirillov, head of the Radiation, Biological, and Chemical Defence Forces, was leaving the building, a scooter packed with explosives exploded, killing the high-ranking officer. So common is the sight of electric scooters on the streets and sidewalks of Moscow that Kirillov likely never gave the seemingly abandoned item outside his apartment building's entryway a second thought—if he noticed it at all.

Ukraine's SBU security service described the general as a " legitimate target," and accused him of carrying out war crimes. That may increase the calls for scooters to be banned, and perhaps Moscow will then send the devices to the front.

It is doubtful that commercially-made scooters will become as common as drones in the war in Ukraine or even in other conflicts. For one thing, even the current rugged "off-road" scooters require a well-traveled, reasonably level path to travel on—and second, charging stations aren't readily available at the front.

However, necessity remains the mother of invention, and soldiers need a way to get to the front quickly. That explains why last summer, another video circulated online that showed around half a dozen golf carts rushing Russian infantry to the front!

It is a reminder that more than a century ago, rumors circulated that French soldiers were "rushed to the front" at the Battle of the Marne in Parisian taxicabs. The story quickly took on legendary status, and in 2014, the French government even honored the centennial of the "Taxis of the Marne" with a parade of ten taxis from the era. The truth is that only about 4,000 of the French 6th Army's 150,000 men rode in taxis—the bulk arrived at the Marne by train.

Yet, less than two years later, 5,000 American troops under the command of General John J. Pershing were sent across the Mexican border in pursuit of Mexican bandit/revolutionary Pancho Villa. Ford trucks carried many of the men on the expedition.

"It was the first time that trucks and aircraft were used in American combat operations," Curbside Classic reported. It wasn't the last, and trucks continue to play a vital role in moving men and materiel. A shortage of Russian trucks has been seen as a problem on par with Russia's shortage of tanks and aircraft.

Later the same year that Pershing used trucks in Mexico, the first tanks rolled into action at the Battle of Somme in September 2016, so maybe in the future we could see some form of militarized scooter take shape. If ordered into action, riding a scooter might beat taking the "shoe leather express."

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: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

Image:  YuryKara / Shutterstock.com

After nearly three years of heavy fighting in Ukraine, the countryside has become a graveyard of military hardware, notably main battle tanks (MBTs). What is unique about the conflict is how the armored behemoths from essentially different "eras" are now rolling over the same ground, often meeting the same fate.

Platforms that might have been considered obsolete are also used alongside cutting-edge technology—and the newest hardware clearly has the advantage.

That fact was noted as drone operators from the Rarog Battalion of the 24th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine released a video that allegedly showed four Russian tanks being destroyed by unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the Bakhmut sector earlier this week.

The tanks were T-62s, a model likely older than some of the parents of the current tank crews!

Before launching its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, the Russian military had the world's largest tank force—at least on paper. However, even then, military analysts saw Russia's tank force as a "paper tiger" as many of the vehicles dated back decades and were kept in storage with little to no ongoing maintenance. Questions were raised as to how many of those antiquated vehicles were operational and how effective tanks from the 1960s would fare on the modern battlefield.

The answers came after Russia was unable to deliver a swift victory in Ukraine, and saw hundreds of its modern MBTs destroyed. As the war dragged on, and losses outpaced the production of new tanks, the Kremlin refurbished those old tanks from the Cold War, returning them to service.

It is apparent that Russia was desperate.

Some of the tanks sent to the front lines would seem better suited in a museum or in a historical reenactment than in modern combat. That certainly included the T-62, a platform that was first introduced more than six decades ago.

Developed from the T-54/55 series Soviet tanks, the T-62 was actually considered a very good tank in its day—and it did introduce many design features that became standard in future Soviet and Russian mass-produced tanks, including the T-72, T-84, and T-90. It has been touted as being easier to operate and easier to maintain, but those are hardly selling points given how outclassed the T-62 is compared to modern platforms—not to mention drones.

To put it in historical perspective, the medium tank was introduced before the United States military even adopted the AR-15/M16 as its standard rifle!

Production of the T-62 ended in 1975, with more than 22,000 units being produced. Instead of selling off its old stocks of tanks as newer and more capable models were introduced during the Cold War, the Soviet Union often kept older platforms in reserve.

Yet, those tanks sat for years, and then decades, in storage. Instead of ever cleaning out the arsenals, the stockpile built up, and that's how Russia ended up with a massive number of tanks.

Of the 22,000 produced, Moscow inherited around 2,000, and most remained in open-air storage depots. While the Kremlin did refurbish some in the past decade for service with the Syrian military, as many as 1,200 were still held in reserve.

Those "vintage" tanks have been steadily making their way to Ukraine to bolster Russia's forces and replace the losses of more modern and capable vehicles.

"They're not great tanks­—and they're definitely inferior to Ukraine's most numerous T-64s and vulnerable to its mines, drones, artillery and missiles. Analyst Andrew Perpetua described the T-62s as 'vaguely useful.' But only by '1980s standards,'" David Axe wrote for Forbes last summer, adding, "But vaguely useful old tanks are the best Russia can get as long as its losses in Ukraine greatly outpace the manufacture of new tanks."

What is surprising, too, is which units have been supplied with the T-62s. It was reported early last year that the 1st Guards Tank Army (1 GTA), ­purported to be Russia's premier tank force, was even equipped with the T-62s to make up for previous losses. The unit had previously been due to receive the next-generation T-14 Armata MBT but instead received the T-62.

This speaks to the desperate situation Russia finds itself in.

However, given that at least four T-62 tanks were lost in recent days should give Russia pause about whether the T-62 is even worse than "vaguely useless." Getting trained crews killed in the latest offensive seems to be an ineffective strategy.

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:  vaalaa / Shutterstock.com

As the world concerns itself with the fate of Ukraine, the turmoil in the Mideast, and rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, there’s a conflict that is simmering much closer to home. At the tip of South America, the tropical socialist dystopia of Venezuela has been engaged in two years of hostilities with its much smaller, oil-rich neighbor of Guyana.

More generally, Venezuela has been committed to undermining the power and reach of the United States throughout Latin America wherever—and however—it can. 

Venezuela’s government has embraced a series of alliances to help Caracas intimidate its U.S.-backed neighbors and crush American power in the wider region. For instance, Venezuela’s regime has made common cause not only with a variety of drug cartels in the region but with the Islamic Republic of Iran. That’s especially odd, considering that the Chavismo regime in Caracas styles itself as atheistic and socialist.

Nevertheless, Venezuela and Iran are dangerously close to each other. This relationship has extended far beyond diplomatic friendship and has transmogrified into a full-blown military alliance, replete with arms sales. More to the point, Venezuela has striven to emulate Iranian unconventional warfare tactics of the kind that both Iran and its terrorist proxies, such as the Yemeni Houthis, have employed throughout the Middle East over the last decade. 

Specifically, there is real concern on the part of some U.S. strategists that Venezuela is planning to disrupt key shipping on the Panama Canal in much the same way that the Houthis have been disrupting international shipping in both the Red Sea or the Strait of Bab El-Mandeb or the way in which the Iranian Navy plans to shut down the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a direct conflict with the United States.

This further explains the incoming Trump administration’s seemingly random fixation on restoring direct U.S. control over the Panama Canal Zone, even at the risk of violating international agreements made with Panama. 

A key system that the Venezuelans have procured from their Iranian partners has been the Peykaap-III-class missile boat (known in Iran as the Zolfaghar-class), which was designed as a fast patrol craft meant to conduct quick, agile strikes. Interestingly, the Iranian boats that the Peykaap-IIIs are based on are themselves derived from the North Korean IPS-16 fast-attack boats. 

Coming in at almost 57 feet in length with a beam of 12 feet and a draft of a little more than two feet, this fast and tiny boat is meant for conducting attacks in the shallowest of waters. Powered by two diesel engines, these boats can cruise at a top speed of almost 60 miles per hour. 

These boats carry two single anti-ship missile launchers, which can pop off either Kowsar or Nasr, Iranian-built, missiles. The Kowsar missiles have a range of around 12 miles while the Nasr goes out until about 21 miles. These two missiles rely on internal guidance and active terminal homing.

Peykaap-IIIs carry lightweight anti-ship torpedoes, compatible with Chinese (another close Venezuelan ally) C-701/FL-10 models. These boats come with heavy-caliber machine guns for close combat. Thus, the Peykaap-III boats are perfect for hit-and-run tactics, particularly against less maneuverable ships. Venezuela’s acquisition of the Peykaap-III-class missile boats began in 2023 and mean only one thing: at some point, Caracas will seek to do to international shipping in the Panama Canal Zone what both the Houthis and Iranians have done in the Red Sea and the Strait of Bab El-Mandeb. 

For the last two years, U.S. intelligence surveillance has spotted Peykaap-IIIs in Venezuelan waters around strategic areas like the Gulf of Paria near Trinidad and Tobago, suggesting an intent to dominate (or at least monitor) key maritime routes near Venezuela. The deployment of these boats so close to Guyana adds a layer of tension to overall regional maritime security. 

Venezuela is a revanchist power in Latin America that is intent on rolling back U.S. power and influence in the region. It has aligned with Iran and other rivals of the United States to achieve this goal. The recent acquisition of Peykaap-III-class missile boats from Iran highlights this fact. 

And if the United States does not pay close heed to what Venezuela is up to in its own geostrategic backyard, then it might discover that the Venezuelans are doing to the Panama Canal that which Iranian-backed militias in the Mideast are doing to global shipping in that region. 

The Peykaaps are in Venezuela’s possession for one reason: to increase Venezuela’s power projection capacity and to complicate America’s. Sure, the United States Navy has infinitely more powerful, larger warships to enhance its power projection in the region. But the Peykaap-IIIs are specifically designed to stunt and stymie the larger powers of the world while still allowing the Venezuelans to run roughshod over international shipping and their neighbors.

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Shutterstock. 

America’s iconic B-52 Stratofortress first took wing during the halcyon days of the Truman administration. A long-range nuclear bomber that was designed to counter what was then the immense and growing nuclear threat that the Soviet Union posed to the United States, it has transitioned over the decades to a multirole platform capable of both conventional and nuclear missions. These behemoths have seen action in basically every post-World War II confrontation the United States has engaged in. 

The current variant, the B-52H, has been in service since 1961—meaning it has seen combat in every war or campaign from the Vietnam War to Desert Storm to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A new variant is in the offing, one which will totally knock the proverbial socks off the Air Force’s bomber jockeys and strategists alike. That’s the B-52J. Three key elements undergird the B-52J project. The B-52 is getting a new lease on life that will extend its service to our country until the middle of the century, effectively ensuring that the warplane will have served for a century.

That is truly incredible (and a shot across the bow at the fantasists who currently control U.S. defense policy, who seem to think that the newer, more complex, and costlier the plane, the better).

But the Stratofortress will continue proving its worth with the Air Force’s three major upgrades to the bird’s engines, its avionics and sensors, and enhancements to its overall structure to make it more relevant to the modern (and evolving) battlefield. 

As for the most important upgrade for the B-52J variant, its new engines, these things are really the crux of the entire enhancement. The old engines were the Pratt & Whitney TF33s. These aging engines have been replaced by brand, sparkling new (and powerful) Rolls-Royce F130 engines. 

With these engines come greater fuel efficiency, reduced maintenance requirements, and overall better performance over the older Pratt & Whitneys. Of note, the engines grant the B-52J better takeoff and climb capacity, which are crucial in the kind of contested battlespaces these birds will be operating in over the next several decades.

The B-52J will feature a new Raytheon AN/APG-79B4 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, replacing the older mechanically scanned arrays, thereby increasing the aircraft’s situational awareness and targeting capabilities. Upgrades also include brilliant new communication systems, glittering cockpit displays, and an overall streamlining of onboard functions (one of the crew stations has been removed for the new B-52s).

All the aforementioned upgrades prioritize data networking and cross-integration with friendly combat platforms in any engagement. In other words, network-centric warfare comes to the B-52 with a vengeance.

Structural modifications were made to the airframe of the new B-52J to make it more relevant in modern combat scenarios. For instance, the Air Force removed some of the sensor pods to reduce drag and improve flight performance. The Pentagon then doubled down on its investment in defensive systems for these flying juggernauts, making it possible for them to avoid grisly fates at the hands of the vastly improved anti-aircraft systems of near-peer rivals, like those of China and Russia (should direct conflict with either of those powers ever occur).

Sadly, there is no program the Pentagon can take on today that won’t be met with abysmal delays, complications, and ghastly cost overruns. The B-52J is no different. Initial engine testing of the Rolls-Royce F130s was supposed to take place at the end of 2023. But these were delayed. Not only have there been delays with the engines, but there were serious complications with the fancy new software upgrades on the bird.

John A. Tirpak of the Air & Space Forces Magazine, reported last month that on December 13, “the Rolls Royce F130, has cleared its critical design review, meaning it can enter final development, test, and production on time.” Although, Tirpak assesses that the overall program is “still three years behind.” So, rather than starting ground and flight tests around 2028, the B-52J is unlikely to start real testing until around 2033.

Of course, these developments will only complicate America’s already flagging air warfare abilities as we enter into a period of severe great power competition that may result in another world war. The jury is still out as to whether the Air Force will even be able to meet the expected number and deployment timeline for this most important system. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Andrew Harker / Shutterstock.com

It was not shocking that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States sought to defer a decision on Nippon Steel’s $14 billion offer to acquire Pennsylvania’s U.S. Steel until after the November 5 presidential election. What is shocking is President Joe Biden’s decision to block the transaction over concerns about foreign ownership.

In a White House statement, Biden asserted that blocking the takeover promotes U.S. national security and “resilient supply chains” by maintaining a “strong domestically owned and operated steel industry.” This would be considerably more persuasive if a Russian steel company, NLMK, did not already own three sites in Indiana and Pennsylvania at a time when Russian officials assert that Washington is “in a state of indirect war” with Russia.

Indeed, even as the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on thousands of Russian companies and individuals, the White House has avoided imposing sanctions on the Russian steelmaker. As a point of comparison, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration cut off exports of steel, scrap iron, and various other metals and metal products in an escalating wave of sanctions on Imperial Japan during World War II in the summer and fall of 1941; these policies, together with a U.S. oil embargo, aimed to punish Tokyo for its war in mainland China—not dissimilar to the current effort to impose costs on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. This is not to say that an export ban of that time should be applied today, but it is striking that sanctions were used in an analogous situation but have not been used now.

The administration has not offered a public explanation for its restraint. Or, for that matter, for how its insistence that projects funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act use domestically produced steel. The administration’s formal guidance, which the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget issued two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, did not make a distinction between steel produced domestically by American companies and that produced domestically by foreign-owned firms like NLMK USA, the Russian company’s U.S. subsidiary.

An earlier failed bidder for U.S. Steel, the American company Cleveland-Cliffs, apparently still hopes to buy all or part of the company, something that one analyst suggested could prompt antitrust objections, and to buy NLMK’s American facilities. Cleveland-Cliffs praised Biden’s September action to block the U.S. Steel takeover before the election.

One could make a case that a successful Cleveland-Cliffs acquisition of most or all of U.S. Steel, and NLMK USA, would strengthen the American steel industry. Moreover, this would usefully ease the Russian firm out of the U.S. market, in a manner respectful of the law and of property rights, unlike Russia’s approach to some U.S. and European companies. Considering American concerns about a potential future conflict with China, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the endurance of twentieth-century industrial war, there are significant national security reasons to increase domestic steel production capacity. In 2023, America’s total steel production was only about one-tenth of China’s. U.S., Japanese, South Korean, and German steel production combined reached only one-third of China’s.

Yet this is not the case that the Biden administration is making. Instead, U.S. officials appear to be facilitating that outcome without acknowledging it.

Paul J. Saunders is President of the Center for the National Interest and a member of its board of directors. His expertise spans U.S. foreign and security policy, energy security and climate change, U.S.-Russia relations and Russian foreign policy, and U.S. relations with Japan and South Korea. Saunders is a Senior Advisor at the Energy Innovation Reform Project, where he served as president from 2019 to 2024. He has been a member of EIRP’s board of directors since 2013 and served as chairman from 2014 to 2019. At EIRP, Saunders has focused on the collision between great power competition and the energy transition, including such issues as energy security, energy technology competition, and climate policy in a divided world. In this context, he has engaged deeply in energy and climate issues in the Indo-Pacific region, especially U.S. relations with Japan and South Korea. His most recent project at EIRP is an assessment of Russia’s evolving role in the global energy system.

Image: Shutterstock.

Shortly after assuming office, the new Trump administration will undertake a comprehensive review of the missile threats confronting the United States. Geopolitical and technical developments are undermining the longstanding foundations of U.S. missile defense policy. Potential adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are deploying an expanding portfolio of ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles—supplemented by large fleets of reconnaissance and strike drones. These countries are pooling their resources in the missile domain. Both Iran and North Korea give Moscow missiles and drones to use against Ukraine, while Russia is assisting these partners’ aerospace programs. Meanwhile, technology is transcending delineations between regional and homeland missile systems.

Some beneficial changes have already occurred. The Pentagon is deploying a Next-Generation Interceptor before the end of this decade. The new interceptor will make the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system protecting North America from intercontinental ballistic missiles more effective. The Missile Defense Agency has launched a new Transformation Task Force to evaluate options for realigning missions and responsibilities, integrating cross-domain capabilities, modernizing digital technologies, improving internal agency processes, and enhancing cooperation with operational forces and other partners.

Advances in U.S. missile defense capabilities have been evident in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The United States can leverage these technologies to build a more comprehensive missile shield. However, budget constraints and competing priorities could degrade capabilities and increase risks.     

In particular, U.S. defenses against hypersonic missiles are lagging. The Chinese and Russian militaries are constructing several types of hypersonic conventional and nuclear delivery systems capable of traveling at many times the speed of sound. The Defense Department’s latest China military power report assesses that “The PRC has the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal.” Russia has employed several hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, including its new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in December.

Chinese and Russian leaders perceive hypersonic weapons as providing their countries with critical strategic and operational capabilities. At the strategic level, long-range hypersonic glide vehicles flying unpredictable trajectories in the upper atmosphere can circumvent existing U.S. national missile defenses. At the regional level, hypersonic cruise and ballistic can quickly destroy high-value targets such as U.S. command centers, military bases, and forward-deployed forces.

The United States needs a well-constructed plan to parry these hypersonic threats. The Defense Department is developing constellations of Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor satellites to provide continuous coverage of hypersonic vehicles in flight. The Pentagon is further assessing a software program to upgrade the Long-Range Discrimination Radar under construction to identify hypersonic targets. 

But seeing and tracking fast maneuvering gliders in the upper atmosphere is only half the problem. The United States also needs to shoot them down. Congress has established a deadline for the United States to field an initial hypersonic interceptor capability by the end of this decade. The Pentagon is accordingly building the first system optimized to attack hypersonic gliders. Though a novel capability, this Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) leverages proven technologies that the Navy has used to shoot down hundreds of missiles and drones in the Middle East. 

Unlike U.S. offensive hypersonic missile programs, which have experienced repeated technical setbacks, defensive efforts have been primarily budgetary rather than technologically constrained. The Pentagon spends less annually on hypersonic interceptors than it does on a pair of new F-35 fighters. Funding limits have compelled the Pentagon to curtail R&D contacts for engaging hypersonic gliders.

Meanwhile, proposals to divert the limited funding to build a “gap-filler” terminal interceptor with constrained capabilities have arisen to provide patchwork protection until the GPI is deployed. Though terminal interceptors shielding a few critical sites could help build a layered defense, funding for any gap filler should supplement rather than divide the budget for the GPI, which will protect a much wider area.

The GPI program also has built-in burden sharing. The Japanese government is allocating $368 million to support its development through a Cooperative Development agreement with the United States and other means. The president and Congress should leverage these matching funds to support a rigorous GPI development, testing, and deployment program.

Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia, as well as U.S. foreign and defense policies. Before joining Hudson in 2005, Dr. Weitz worked for several other academic and professional research institutions and the U.S. Department of Defense, where he received an Award for Excellence from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Image: Andrea Izzotti / Shutterstock.com.

For the people of Vanuatu, climate change is not a distant threat—it’s here now. Rising seas swallow shorelines, storms batter homes, and entire villages face relocation. Desperate to hold the world’s biggest polluters accountable, this small Pacific island nation has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to define countries’ legal obligations around climate justice. They point out that carbon emissions from major polluting nations have led to a crisis for their people and argue this injustice constitutes a violation of international human rights law. The ICJ will advise on whether or not existing human rights treaties cover climate and, if so, what comes next.

The United States, in its oral argument before the court earlier this month, defended the efficacy of the Paris Agreement, the existing global framework where countries set their own climate targets and cooperate to meet them, and argued that the court should not put climate under the purview of other treaties not designed to address climate. Activists quickly derided this position as “disheartening” and “morally bankrupt.” But practically speaking, the United States is right. The Paris Agreement—though far from perfect—is working: global warming projections have dropped significantly in the last decade, and large nations are cutting emissions. If the ICJ now takes human rights treaties not written with climate in mind and uses them to accuse historical emitters of human rights violations, they would risk alienating countries and muddying the global cooperation needed to continue tackling climate change.

While Vanuatu’s pursuit of climate justice is compelling, the ICJ can only offer symbolism and fresh rhetoric for “America bad” rallying cries that undermine productive climate efforts. To achieve real progress on climate change and true justice for low-lying nations like Vanuatu, diplomacy and cooperation remain the best path forward. 

Signed by 195 countries in 2015, the Paris Agreement is an international treaty intended to keep global warming to under 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and ideally under 1.5°C. Prior to its signing, the world was on pace to warm by nearly 4°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, a truly devastating scenario. Today, scientists project about 2.7°C of warming—an improvement of over a degree. While far from sufficient, this new trajectory would likely avert several climate tipping points, including the abrupt greening of the Sahara, the collapse of East Antarctica’s ice shelves, and the Amazon rainforest reaching a dieback tipping point that would have released massive amounts of stored carbon and devastated biodiversity. While several tripping point threats remain on a 2.7°C pathway, the Paris Agreement has unquestionably steered the world away from some of the most dire outcomes.

Though the Paris Agreement is often criticized for lacking an enforcement mechanism, many top polluters are still taking major strides within its framework. China’s carbon emissions are set to fall for the first time in 2024, marking the beginning of a downward trajectory. The European Union has slashed emissions by 37 percent since 1990, including a staggering 8 percent reduction from 2022 to 2023. The United States has slashed emissions by 20 percent since 2005, and with help from the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, projects to reach 40 percent by the end of the decade. Much of this progress is simply economics—clean energy is now often cheaper than fossil fuels—but the Paris Agreement likely spurred some of the investor confidence needed to push the sector to its current heights.

This progress needs to be accelerated to prevent a still-catastrophic 2.7°C warming scenario, but that’s not something the ICJ can achieve. Its ruling in Vanuatu’s case will be merely an advisory opinion clarifying existing international law. The opinion will be non-binding and unenforceable, and increasingly, countries like China and the United States ignore the ICJ’s authority. They may assert that certain human rights laws apply to climate change and demand additional action from major emitters, or they may assert that there is nothing outside the Paris Agreement. Either way, the ICJ will upset someone, which risks driving division when the cooperative approach has proven to work.

Some might point out that the Paris Agreement, even if it slows emissions, can’t deliver justice for Vanuatu and other low-lying nations who did the least to cause climate change but face the most severe consequences—and they would be correct. But in its current state, the ICJ can’t either. The ICJ president, Nawaf Salam, has a troubling record that undermines his court’s credibility on human rights matters. Prior to his current position, Salam (then Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN) defended Assad’s government in Syria on multiple occasions despite its use of chemical weapons and systemic violence against civilians. 

He also consistently shielded Iran’s regime from scrutiny while supporting policies that advanced its regional influence, even in the face of documented human rights violations. Furthermore, his 210 votes to condemn Israel—mostly tied to one-sided resolutions that ignored violations by other parties—compound concerns about his impartiality, especially as he now refuses to recuse himself from cases involving Israel as ICJ president. Considering this past, no one should value Salam’s opinion on any justice or human rights question, even on the off-chance that the broken clock is right twice a day.

Facing an existential threat from climate change, it’s admirable that Vanuatu is exploring every option. Their quest for justice is rooted in scientific reality, and their years of inspiring climate diplomacy have no doubt helped spur some of the aforementioned progress. However, when activists use this case to vilify the Paris Agreement, sow division between countries, and promote hopelessness by downplaying existing climate progress, that only hurts Vanuatu’s cause.

As an American, I can’t say what justice for Vanuatu and other vulnerable nations looks like. Yet, bilateral diplomacy seems a more credible and attainable path. The United States opened an embassy in Vanuatu this year and seems interested in improving relations with Pacific nations to counterbalance China’s influence in the region. This development makes Vanuatu’s future not just a moral imperative but a matter of national interest. The U.S. could consider providing direct foreign aid outside of the UN framework, sharing climate adaptation technologies, and sponsoring visits between the countries to promote mutual understanding. This would be a lasting investment in American leadership and global stability.

To put these investments into a justice framework, the United States could also offer a formal apology for its outsized contribution to global climate change. There is precedent: Reagan apologized in 1988 for the U.S. government’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, Clinton apologized in 1993 for the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, and Biden apologized two months ago for the federal government’s role in running Native American boarding schools, which caused generational harm to Indigenous communities. An apology doesn’t change the realities on the ground and would face its share of cynics. Still, I have to imagine the apology—coupled with collaborative climate initiatives that actually help people—would carry more weight than an authoritarian-sympathizing ICJ president’s non-binding opinion and hopefully inspire other countries to take similar action.

Vanuatu’s fight for justice should not have to be so onerous, and climate progress should happen fast enough to keep the world safe. But the answer isn’t for activists to attack what’s working. The Paris Agreement, while imperfect, has brought the world closer to averting disaster than any other global effort. What’s needed now is to build on that foundation, accelerate emission reductions, and find common goals with affected nations like Vanuatu that can lead to support and mutual understanding. Climate advocates must focus on building bridges, not burning them, to uplift Vanuatu’s determination and turn progress into justice.

Ethan Brown is an award-winning climate journalist and a Writer and Commentator for Young Voices. He has a B.A. in Environmental Analysis & Policy from Boston University. Follow him on X @ethanbrown5151.

Image: Menno Van Der Haven / Shutterstock.com.

There are two main approaches to the future: prediction and planning. Prediction often falters in the face of an increasingly complex and interconnected world, where countless variables elude full comprehension. Planning, while not without flaws, offers a chance to achieve desirable outcomes through proactive policy. As we are now at the midpoint of the 2020s (and the quarter-point of the twenty-first century), it is clear that the legacy of this decade will be shaped by the lessons we learn and the actions we take. Here are five key insights that can be gleaned from the first half of the decade.

Not since the Munich Agreement of 1938 has it been so evident that fundamental values cannot be negotiated. Attempts to appease dictators rather than confront illegal actions have repeatedly failed to bring peace. History shows that such concessions only embolden aggressors. The conflicts in Georgia (2008), Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine (2014) were precursors to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The West’s timid responses encouraged Moscow to grasp for more territorial gains. Compromising on core principles and obligations leads to outcomes far more devastating than a proactive and decisive intervention.

For years, many in the West believed that economic ties with Russia would deter it from violating international norms. The concept of Wandel durch Handel (“Change Through Trade”), a legacy of post-Cold-War-era diplomacy, encapsulated this belief. For several generations of politicians, it seemed almost undisputable that mutual commercial interests bear a higher priority for the Kremlin than imperialistic ambitions. Yet, on February 24, 2022, the images of Russian missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities shattered that illusion. Russia viewed the West’s dependence on its hydrocarbons, which emerged through the gas and oil trade, as a weakness to exploit.

In the years preceding World War I, similar faith in economic enlightened self-interest proved futile. In the years preceding the current war, European nations indirectly funded Russia’s military ambitions by purchasing its fossil fuels. It took Europe three years to reduce its dependence on Russian energy—a painful yet necessary step. In October 2024, the EU  Commissioner for Energy declared that the EU could now survive without Russian gas and that importation of it was no longer necessary.

Despite global trade and international agreements, authoritarian regimes remain undeterred. Democracies value peace; autocracies respect power. These opposing worldviews create a persistent clash. The 2023 Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit reported the average global score is the lowest since the index’s inception in 2006. Today, only 8 percent of the world’s population lives in “full democracies,” while nearly 40 percent live under authoritarian rule.

Each year sheds more light on the grim reality: when authoritarian regimes see opportunities to expand their power, they seize them. Frozen conflicts and political pauses are not deterrents; they are opportunities for autocrats to regroup and reassert dominance.

The rise of far-right movements in Europe’s core democracies, evidenced by Germany’s and France’s 2024 elections, shows that democracy is under siege even at “home.” Rapid technological advancements, particularly in artificial intelligence, exacerbate the problem. Disinformation and deepfakes are rapidly proliferating, corroding trust in institutions and making societies vulnerable to conspiracy theories.

Once hailed as friends of democratic engagement and freedom, new digital technologies are now tools for authoritarian regimes to undermine those very values. Russia’s disinformation campaigns on platforms like YouTube, Telegram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok illustrate this. The 2024 Romanian presidential election, marred by Russian interference, demonstrates the scale and sophistication of these efforts.

Without a concerted democratic “counter-offensive,” the 2030s could mirror the 1930s—an era defined by democratic collapse.

In 2024, violent crackdowns on protests in Tbilisi, Georgia, echoing the brutal suppression of demonstrations in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2014. The patterns of authoritarian repression are unmistakable. Ten years ago, Ukraine withstood owing to its well-elaborated horizontal connections. Today, Ukraine’s resilience in the face of war also owes much to its strong civil society. Organizations like the East Europe Foundation, International Renaissance Foundation, ISAR Ednannia, and others have cultivated a capable ecosystem of grassroots NGOs that bolster national resilience. Thus, only the EEF’s network now includes over 600 local entities.

Unfortunately, emerging democracies are not the only ones at risk. The resurgence of the populist Far Right in older democratic political systems reminds us of the need for a vigilant and empowered civil society. In an age of relentless propaganda, civil society serves as a critical circuit breaker, preventing democratic backsliding.

The year 2025 might be pivotal for the West and for Europe. Have we learned from past mistakes? Can we avoid the traps that lie ahead? The lessons of history remind us that peace cannot be purchased through concessions—it must be secured.

In an interconnected world, no nation is an island. A single fracture risks the collapse of the entire structure. These five insights are not exhaustive, but they offer a framework for decision-makers navigating this critical juncture. The future is still ours to shape—if we act decisively.

Victor Liakh is the CEO of East Europe Foundation. From 2005 to 2008, he was executive director of the Child Well-Being Fund Ukraine. Previously, he worked at the Ukrainian State Center for Social Services for Youth (1996–2001) and for UNICEF (2000–2001). Follow him on X @LiakhVictor or LinkedIn.

Image: Timon Goertz / Shutterstock.com.

Close Air Support (CAS) is a seriously underrated task that the United States military has a very finite number of systems capable of performing. Warplanes like the A-10 Warthog and the A-29 Tuscano are about the only two systems that can reliably perform this function. The Air Force, however, would have you believe that fifth-generation warplanes, such as the F-35 Lightning II, are more than up to the task of conducting CAS (from over the horizon, which, of course, negates CAS entirely). Of those two aforementioned CAS platforms, though, only one is truly iconic. That is the A-10 Warthog.

And the Air Force has been trying to kill the A-10 for years. 

It’s a stunning move by the Pentagon, because of all the warplanes in its fleet, the A-10 may be the most combat-effective modern warplane ever built by the Americans. Sure, it lacks the panache of the F-35, and it’s more expensive than the propeller-driven A-29. Yeah, fourth-generation warplanes, like the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18s all have an impressive track record. But there are countless American (and allies) servicemen and women who can reliably attest to the fact that they are only alive today because the A-10 Warthog was hovering overhead, providing air cover for them.

Very often, we conflate systems that are increasingly complex and expensive as being superior to those that are relatively simple and affordable. But this is a mistaken belief. After all, what other modern American warplane has successfully managed to have the kill ratio across multiple wars that the A-10 has and has saved the extraordinary number of U.S. troops in combat that the A-10 has saved by providing CAS? 

The answer is no other plane can or has done what the A-10 has achieved in its service. 

The Eggheads at the Pentagon and at Air War College argue that we’ve moved beyond the age of CAS because modern air defenses are so potent and complex that the slow-moving, loitering A-10 is a sitting duck today. Interestingly, the Pentagon’s Eggheads don’t share this assessment when it comes to U.S. aircraft carriers.

Because, in the age of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD), it isn’t just the A-10 that would theoretically be rendered combat ineffective, but the far more expensive aircraft carrier. It’s almost as though the Pentagon just wants the systems that will cost the most amount of money to taxpayers (F-35s and aircraft carriers).

Alas, I digress.

In fact, there is a key difference between the A-10 and aircraft carriers when it comes to overcoming A2/AD threats. If the CAS mission set was as dead and the A-10 as obsolete as the Pentagon argues, then why is it that the U.S. Special Forces community continues to swear by the A-10? What’s more, why is it that the Special Forces community has invested so heavily in the A-29 in recent years? 

That’s because they require CAS for their missions to succeed and, with the future of the A-10 being uncertain, they are still trying to keep the CAS mission alive with the far less impressive A-29.

The idea that CAS can be conducted from over the horizon is one of those fanciful notions that only someone deeply ensconced in the Pentagon could believe. Sure, relying on an F-35 to provide the kind of cover for U.S. ground forces engaged in close combat with enemy units is better than nothing. But the F-35 lacks the endurance, firepower, and armor that the A-10 has when it comes to conducting CAS.

A far better use of resources would be to deploy A-10s in a mixed formation of warplanes. The F-35s, F-15s, etc., can operate in tandem with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and even long-range missiles to knock out enemy A2/AD systems. 

Once the A2/AD networks have been breached, then the A-10s can be deployed to hover over battlefields and provide the kind of loitering CAS mission sets that they’ve proven ad nauseam they are the best at doing.

Trust me, American servicemen and women (and those of our allies) engaged in ground combat will be eternally grateful for the A-10s being overhead.

There’s one last bit of thinking when it comes to deploying the A-10. 

Given that the Americans and their NATO allies have (over) committed themselves to the Ukrainian cause against Russia’s invasion, it never made much sense as to why all the older A-10 Warthogs that had been sent to the Air Force’s boneyard were not re-tasked and handed over to the Ukrainians.

Now, of course, it’s too late for the A-10s (or any system) to make a difference.

Had the Americans, though, listened to the likes of Erik Prince, and handed over some of those A-10s along with the blessed Main Battle Tanks, it might have made a difference at the tactical level for the Ukrainians.

Alas, the refusal to hand those systems over and instead to give a handful of old F-16s has done little to help the Ukrainians in their cause. Here again, the A-10 could have proven itself to be the most useful, successful modern warplane the West has ever produced. The institutional bias against the A-10 prevented that. Indeed, the institutional bias against the A-10 is going to get many Americans killed when the next big war erupts and U.S. forces find themselves on foreign battlefields without adequate CAS.

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Image: Charles T. Peden / Shutterstock.com