Silent And Deadly: The Navy's Seawolf Submarine Is A Naval Monster So why weren't more built? by Kyle Mizokami

 The resulting submarine is according to the U.S. Navy ten times quieter over the full range of operating speeds than the Improved Los Angeles submarines, and an astonishing seventy times quieter than the original Los Angeles–class submarines. It can run quiet at twice the speed of previous boats.

The Seawolf-class submarines were envisioned as the best submarines ever built. Designed to succeed the Los Angeles–class attack submarines and maintain America’s edge in the underwater domain, the class suffered from cost overruns and the collapse of the Soviet Union. While still some of the best submarines ever built, they were built at reduced numbers. In many respects, they are the F-22 of submarines: widely considered the world's best, but costs made wide their wide usage a major challenge. 

In the late 1980s, the U.S. Navy was faced with a crisis. In 1980, the Soviet Union had received information from the Walker family spy ring that the Navy could track its submarines through excessive propeller noise. As a result, the Soviet Union went looking for advanced Western machinery to make better propellers. In 1981, the Japanese company Toshiba sold propeller milling machinery—now relatively common nine-axis CNC milling machines—to the Soviet Union via the Norwegian Kongsberg corporation.

By the mid 1980s, the Soviet Union’s new machinery began to make itself felt. The new Akula-class submarines had a “steep drop in broadband acoustic noise profiles”. One government source told the Los Angeles Times, “the submarines started to get silent only after the Toshiba stuff went in.” On top of running silent, the Akula class could dive to depths of up to two thousand feet—while the U.S. Navy’s frontline submarines, the Los Angeles class, could dive to only 650 feet.

To combat the threat of the Akula class, the U.S. Navy responded with the Seawolf class of nuclear attack submarines. The Seawolf submarines were designed with HY-100 steel alloy hulls two inches thick, the better to withstand the pressures of deep diving. HY-100 steel is roughly 20 percent stronger than the HY-80 used in the Los Angeles class. As a result, the submarines are capable of diving to depths of up to two thousand feet, and crush depth estimates run from 2,400 to 3,000 feet.

At 353 feet, Seawolf subs were designed to be slightly shorter than their predecessors, by just seven feet, but with a twenty percent wider beam, making them forty feet wide. This width made them substantially heavier than the subs before them, topping the scales at 12,158 tons submerged.

The Seawolf submarines are each powered by one Westinghouse S6W nuclear reactor, driving two steam turbines to a total of 52,000 shaft horsepower. The class was the first class of American submarine to utilize pump-jet propulsors over propellers, a feature that has carried over to the newest Virginia class. As a result, a Seawolf is capable of eighteen knots on the surface, a maximum speed of 35 knots underwater, and a silent running speed of about 20 knots.

The Seawolf class is equipped with the BQQ 5D sonar system, which features a twenty-four-foot-diameter bow-mounted spherical active and passive array as well as wide-aperture passive flank arrays. The submarines are being refitted with TB-29A thin-line towed array sonar systems. Rounding out sonar systems is the BQS 24, for detection of close-range objects such as mines.

The ship’s original combat data system was the Lockheed Martin BSY-2, which uses a network of seventy Motorola 68030 processors—the same processor that drove early Macintosh computers—and is now being replaced with the AN/BYG-1 Weapons Control System.

The submarines were designed to be true hunters, and as a result have eight torpedo tubes, double the number of earlier submarines. It has stores for up a combination of up to fifty Mark 48 heavyweight torpedoes, Sub-Harpoon antiship missiles, and Tomahawk missiles. Alternatively, it can substitute some of this ordnance for mines.

The resulting submarine is according to the U.S. Navy ten times quieter over the full range of operating speeds than the Improved Los Angeles submarines, and an astonishing seventy times quieter than the original Los Angeles–class submarines. It can run quiet at twice the speed of previous boats.

This formidable increase in performance came at formidable increase in cost. The total Seawolf program was estimated at $33 billion for twelve submarines, an unacceptable cost considering the Soviet Union—and the threat of the Akula and follow-on subs—ended in 1991. The program was trimmed to just three submarines that cost $7.3 billion.

The extreme quietness of the Seawolf class gave the Navy the idea of modifying the last submarine, USS Jimmy Carter, to support clandestine operations. An extra one hundred feet was added to the hull, a section known as the Multi-Mission Platform (MMP). The MMP gives Carter the ability to send and recover Remotely Operated Vehicles/Unmanned Underwater Vehicles and SEALs and diving teams while submerged. It includes berthing for up to fifty SEALs or other attached personnel. Carter also features auxiliary maneuvering devices fore and aft for precise maneuvering in situations such as undersea cable tapping and other acts of espionage.

The Seawolf-class submarines are outstanding submarines, but the Cold War mindset at the time of development accepted high performance and consequently high costs to meet a high-level threat. The post–Cold War Virginia class forced the Navy to reign in costs while still producing a progressively better submarine. While unsuccessful as a class, the tiny Seawolf fleet is still a very useful part of the U.S. Navy submarine force, giving it capabilities not even the Virginia class can match.

The Fast and Easy Fix to Coronavirus Testing Problems: Antigen Tests Antibodies are incredibly good at finding the coronavirus. Antigen tests put them to work. by Eugene Wu

In late February, I fell ill with a fever and a cough. As a biochemist who teaches a class on viruses, I’d been tracking the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Inevitably I wondered: Did I have COVID-19, or did I have the flu?  

At the time, COVID-19 testing was very restricted but I knew I could get quickly tested for the flu. I drove myself to an urgent care clinic, the nurse easily checked my temperature and took a throat swab and 30 minutes later I got the results: positive for influenza.

The flu test I took is a type of viral screening called a rapid antigen test that looks for viral proteins. For the flu, these antigen tests are easy to administer, decently accurate and give results almost immediately.

Widespread testing for SARS–CoV–2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is critical to knowing if, when and how people can start to return to their normal lives. An antigen test for the coronavirus could be a huge help in expanding testing.

On May 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first antigen test for emergency use in the U.S. These tests are starting to be available across the country and could dramatically change the COVID-19 testing landscape when they become widely available.

What is an antigen?

The human immune system, and in fact the immune systems of most vertebrates, work on a simple idea: Any protein in your body that isn’t encoded by your own genes is probably from a pathogen and should be captured and destroyed. 

When the immune system detects a foreign protein, your white blood cells, specifically your B-cells, create antibodies to trap and destroy these proteins. Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that use their arms as grabbers for foreign proteins. The first round of antibodies aren’t particularly well matched to the shape of a new invading protein, but every time white blood cells make new antibodies, they tweak the shape of the antibody grabber until it fits the protein very well.

The foreign protein that triggers this process is referred to as an “anti–gen” because it is an antibody generator. 

How does an antigen test work?

Antigen tests are well named: They look for antigens. To identify these antigens, antigen tests use antibodies.

You may have performed one yourself if you’ve ever used a home pregnancy test, which uses tests for an antigen called human chorionic gonadotropin in urine that is produced by the cells that surround a fetus when a woman becomes pregnant. 

Like the test that diagnoses influenza, the SARS–CoV–2 antigen test uses antibodies that are produced in animals to hunt for proteins embedded in the coronavirus’s surface. If the antibodies detect viral proteins in a sample, the person most likely has the coronavirus. 

An antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 starts with a medical professional collecting a sample of mucus from the back of a persons throat or nose using a swab. They then dip the swab into a liquid to dissolve the mucus and release the virus. 

The liquid is then applied to the surface of the test slide that is coated with antibodies. These antibodies are stuck to the slide and “grab onto” any coronavirus proteins that are in the sample. 

A second mixture of antibodies is then applied to the slide. These antibodies have been chemically modified with a dye that makes them visible to the naked eye or detectable by fluorescent light.

If the sample contains viral antigen proteins, those antigens are now sandwiched by two antibodies: one that attaches them to the test kit and another that makes them visible. The more coronavirus antigen there is, the more dye will be visible, indicating that the patient is infected with SARS-CoV-2.

If there is no detectable dye, this would mean the person does not have SARS-CoV-2 or that the sample did not have enough viral proteins.

What are the strengths of antigen tests?

The main selling points of antigen tests are that they are far faster and easier to perform than reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. PCR tests – the swab tests that look for viral RNA – are currently the most common way to test for an active SARS-CoV-2 infection and can take up to four days to perform.

By contrast, the most time-consuming part of the antigen test process is waiting for the antibody mixtures and the sample to mix completely. This process takes mere minutes, given the small volumes typically used in an antigen test. A COVID-19 antigen test might take only 15-30 minutes to complete and requires very little expertise. 

Similar tests are done routinely in clinics for influenza all the time. In contrast, PCR tests swabs must be sent to diagnostic laboratories to be performed by experienced technicians as of right now. 

What are the weaknesses?

What antigen tests gain in speed and ease of use, they lose in accuracy. 

Because they look directly for evidence of the virus, there need to be a lot virus proteins available to stick to the antibodies to produce a detectable result. Depending on the virus, qualitative antigen tests likely need a sample to contain many thousands of viral proteins in order to produce a positive test. If a sample doesn’t have enough virus or a person has a low-grade infection, the test might give a false negative result – and a sick person would get told they are uninfected.

The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency useauthorization to a SARS–CoV–2 antigen test made by the pharmaceutical company Quidel Corporation. Quidel reports that their antigen test produces about a 20% false negative rate. That means that 1 in 5 people who actually are infected will receive a result saying they are not. At a large scale, this may result in missing many infected individuals.

Can I get one?

The Quidel test is not currently widely available due to production capacity. As production ramps up and other companies begin to produce antigen tests, they will become more available. Once laboratories around the country begin processing the antigen tests, public health officials will also get a better sense of the real-world false negative rate. 

A COVID-19 antigen test can fill an important gap in the testing landscape by providing fast diagnoses in the clinic, but they’re not perfect. Because of the somewhat high false negative rate, individual patients should be careful with how they interpret the results. But when combined with more accurate PCR tests and blood tests that look for antibodies, antigen testing has a large role to play in helping public health officials better understand and fight the spread of the coronavirus. 

How the Coronavirus Is Making Chinese-American Rivalry Even Worse How bad could it get?

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified awareness of U.S.-China strategic competition, and refocused international attention on the expression of Chinese power. In a reinvigorated battle for the rimlands, it will be increasingly difficult for countries to maintain a "neutral" balance between the two powers.

COVID-19's impact on global health and economics has heightened international attention toward China's security and economic strategies, altering the calculus of countries that once preferred balancing engagement between China and other bilateral and multilateral relationships. Now, countries from Western Europe to Australia, and even the Philippines, appear to be rethinking their assessment of China's capabilities and intent. 

COVID-19 and the Chinese Response

The human impact of the pandemic in Europe and the United States appeared far more severe than the comparable official statistics from China, and given Beijing's history of manipulated numbers and information control, this raised questions about Chinese information sharing. This began shifting the global narrative from one focused on China's containment measures to one of China's hiding the truth. China may not have created the virus, nor intentionally spread it, but the bungling of information flows early on, and China's apparent strong-arming of the World Health Organization to downplay the significance of the initial outbreak, left many nations claiming they could have been better prepared if China had told the truth. 

Whether this is an accurate assessment, a way to cover for domestic missteps or some combination of the two, perceptions of Chinese culpability were heightened over the supply of personal protective equipment. When COVID-19 began spreading rapidly in China early in the year, there was a rush on PPE supplies across the developed world to ship to China to help contain the virus and protect health workers. This strained supply lines when the virus began spreading beyond Chinese borders, and Chinese shipments of PPE and COVID-19 test kits to select countries were quickly labeled politically motivated. When faulty test kits and counterfeit PPE began arriving amid public health crises, ire against China swelled further no matter what Beijing may have intended. Western nations from the United Kingdom to Australia rallied behind calls for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, something China saw as part of a propaganda campaign to assert the Chinese government was behind the virus. 

As China came under increasing negative public and political opinion, it began an aggressive countercampaign, trying to highlight China's victory over the virus and its cooperation with international organizations. But Chinese diplomats also took a much harsher line toward anything they thought was critical of China, the so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy, a name drawn from a nationalistic Chinese movie. Beijing even began using economic tools against critics, the most notable being threats against Australian barley and shutting down imports from four Australian meat processing facilities, unofficially in retaliation for Australia's calls for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. These may be common elements of Chinese diplomacy, but amid the COVID-19 crisis, they have taken on more significance. Rather than change the views of world leaders, several countries have protested Chinese diplomat's threats of economic boycotts and sanctions, accusing China of bullying. 

U.S.-China Strategic Competition in the Rimlands

Changing global perceptions of China will shift the context of the ongoing U.S.-China strategic competition. Many U.S. allies and partners have sought to straddle the U.S.-China divide given China's economic importance. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the United Kingdom (along with much of Western Europe) bucked U.S. calls to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei, South Korea signed on as an early member of the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Philippines announced its intent to terminate its Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, and India has struggled to maintain its appearance of nonalignment while increasing defense ties with the United States. While countries will still seek to preserve some balance in relations, there is growing consensus that if left unchecked, China will force changes on the international system that will undermine their security. 

It is in the Eurasian periphery where U.S.-China strategic competition will intensify; Nicholas Spykman's rimlands, the "amphibious" crescent stretching from Europe through the Middle East and South Asia to Southeast Asia and the Chinese coast. As China solidifies its connections to Russia and Central Asia through economic and military cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative, it secures the Eurasian heartland and puts pressure on the rimland. For China, the rimlands are an outlet to the sea, areas of economic connectivity, and the buffer space to counter any U.S. attempt at a containment strategy.

The rimlands are the space where continental China and the maritime United States meet. As China is pushing outward through the rimland, the United States and its maritime partners Japan and Australia will accelerate their economic, political and military cooperation to press inward on the rimland. While the United States has recently pursued an independent path, it is likely over the next decade to reinvigorate a more cooperative strategy, or at least to encourage more action from partners outside and along the rimland. 

Australia and Japan are already expanding their areas of operation and taking proactive steps to strengthen Southeast Asian states. In Europe, there are growing calls for reassessing Chinese investments at least to avoid letting Chinese firms bargain shop among COVID-damaged European corporations. Where the United States may find the fewest partners in countering China will be in the Middle East, where China is not perceived as a threat, and has even proved adept at straddling regional rivalries. 

With awareness of China's rising power heightened amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the United States forging ahead with bipartisan backing to counterbalance Chinese influence, the rimlands of Eurasia will once again find themselves caught between competing poles of power. While the extreme fragmentation of the globe into two Cold War-type blocs is unlikely, the ability of countries to profess neutrality will wane. China-U.S. competition is manifest not merely in bilateral terms, but in the shape of global norms and institutions, trade patterns and economic models — something will make a widening chasm increasingly difficult to bridge.

What Are the Odds of a Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan? This is what the research shows. by Annie Waqar

Of the numerous areas of global tension, arguably the most perilous is that between India and Pakistan. And recent events in Kashmir have made the situation even more dangerous. The reason is straightforward: India and Pakistan are in a long-running and incendiary dispute, they are both nuclear powers, and crossing a confrontational threshold could ignite a nuclear war between them. Indeed, arms control investigators have long identified the subcontinent as one of the world’s likeliest nuclear flashpoints.

India and Pakistan share a long and complicated history, and they have been in conflict over the disputed territory of Kashmir since 1947. The Himalayan region is one of the most militarised regions on Earth – former US president Bill Clinton has called Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world”.

Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir with its Muslim majority was free to accede to either India or Pakistan. But the local ruler, Hari Singh, decided against giving the population a choice, leaving the region in a geopolitical limbo and with a disputed border. A two-year war erupted between India and Pakistan in 1947 and another broke out in 1965. In 1999, the Kargil crisis, when the two countries again came to blows, may have been the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the end of World War II.

Diplomatic interventions have previously helped to defuse the military tensions, but an enduring peace has remained elusive. Both sides have dug in along the disputed border and military skirmishes are commonplace.

The nuclear question

It has long been argued in international security circles that having nuclear weapons deters countries from using them in warfare. Indeed, in the post-World War II era, no state has used them – despite there still being around 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. But horizontal nuclear proliferation has made the world a dangerous place; the more countries that have them, the more likely they are to be used at some stage.

And while the presence of nuclear weapons may forestall a nuclear exchange, they don’t discourage nuclear states from using conventional military power against one another. And, as conventional conflicts can quickly escalate, the possibility of a nuclear exchange remains a real, if remote, possibility.

So what are the chances of India and Pakistan (which both have between 130 and 150 warheads) engaging in a nuclear war?

The most recent escalation is just another example of the ongoing tensions between these nuclear neighbours. It was triggered by a Kashmiri militant suicide bombing of an Indian paramilitary convoy in mid February. In that attack, more than 40 people were killed, mostly Indian military personnel – and Jaish-e-Mohammed, an Islamist terrorist group situated in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, currently caught up in election fever, warned of a “crushing response”, and launched air strikes on targets in the Pakistan-controlled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was not long before both sides were exchanging artillery fire across the line of control and the conflict quickly escalated.

Meanwhile, in a national televised speech, Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, stated that any further escalation between the nations would be beyond the leaders’ control, warning:

With the weapons you have and the weapons we have, can we afford miscalculation? Shouldn’t we think that if this escalates, what will it lead to?

 The ball is now in India’s court. Modi has the choice of escalating the conflict by deploying more jets into Pakistani territory, which could lead to a flurry of “tit-for-tat” retaliations. So what could be next?

Since 1974, when India stunned the world with its unexpected atomic trial of the “Smiling Buddha” weapon, South Asia has been viewed as a global nuclear problem. Nevertheless, to date, India, like China, has maintained a “No First Use” doctrine. This advocates that India will only use its nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack. The policy was proclaimed in 1999, a year after Pakistan effectively exploded five of its own nuclear weapons. But Pakistan has so far refused to issue any clear doctrine governing its own use of nuclear weapons.

The stakes are high

The combined arsenals of Pakistan and India are small compared to those of the US, Russia or China. Nevertheless, they are more powerful than those dropped on Japan in 1945 and could unleash staggering destruction if deployed on civilian targets. Indeed, even a constrained exchange of warheads between the two nations would, in a split second, be among the most calamitous ever, notwithstanding the risk of the radioactive aftermath and the long-term impact on the environment.

India’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, INS Arihant, became operational in 2018, giving the country a “nuclear triad” – the ability to launch nuclear strikes by land, air and sea. Its other ground-based ballistic missile, the Agni III, has a range of approximately 3,000km.

While Pakistan has a slightly larger nuclear arsenal – estimated to be 140-150 warheads in 2017 – it is less capable of delivering them to targets. Although Pakistan is developing new ballistic missiles, its current ballistic missile range is 2,000km and the country has no nuclear-armed submarines. Either way, it currently would take less than four minutes for a nuclear missile launched from Pakistan to reach India, and vice versa.

The worst case scenario is that, either through mishap or error, what began with a terrorist attack grows into a nuclear exchange aimed at one another’s civilian populations. Technological advances might also exacerbate the already incendiary situation. India’s arsenal now includes the BrahMos, a cruise missile developed jointly with Russia, which can be fired from land, sea or air and used as a counterforce weapon. Counterforce doctrine, in nuclear strategy, means the targeting of an opponent’s military infrastructure with a nuclear strike.

Discontent in the Kashmir valley could also intensify and lead to further crises. No Indian government has thus far shown the political will to solve the Kashmir crisis, to demilitarise it, or to apply the diplomatic deftness needed to negotiate a solution with Pakistan. Nor has Modi been able to control and prevent hardline Hindus from forming vigilante squads in the region and threatening and killing those they think are defiling their religious convictions. And so, on a day-to-day basis, ordinary people continue to suffer.

In the past, during episodes of global tension, the US has taken the lead in crisis management. But it seems unlikely that Islamabad or New Delhi would now turn to the Trump administration for assistance in deescalating the conflict. Indeed, leaders from both countries must also consider the reaction of Asia’s third nuclear power, China, which has always been the primary focus of India’s nuclear program.

For now, India and Pakistan are showing some vital restraint. But they must also work towards a long-term fix. The last thing either government, or the world, needs is a mushroom cloud.

Why Leaving the Open Skies Treaty Is a Mistake At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, the United States should be leading the international community, cooperating with allies, and avoiding actions that could further destabilize the international environment. The decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty does the opposite. by Lawrence J. Korb

In the week prior to Memorial Day, the Trump administration made several decisions that bring the United States and the world closer to the situation nearly as dangerous as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. On May 21, 2020, it gave six months’ notice of its intent to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, a step retired Air Force general and former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden called insane.

This treaty, first proposed by Republican president General Dwight Eisenhower in 1955 and signed in 1992 by Republican President George H. W. Bush was signed not only by Russia and the United States but also by thirty-one European countries and Canada. It entered into force in 2002, during the administration of another Republican president George W. Bush.

The treaty allows each of the member states to conduct unarmed surveillance flights over each other’s territory to collect information on military activities, provide information that no one is planning a major offensive, and to share information with other members. Since the treaty came in to force, state parties have flown more than fourteen hundred flights over each other’s territory.

Like any treaty, the Open Skies Treaty has not worked perfectly. Officials in the United States have alleged that Russia has violated it. For example, Moscow has limited the distance of some flights over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to a maximum of five hundred kilometers since 2014 and blocked all flyovers near the border between Russia and Georgia since 2010. 

However, while it is true that these restrictions are violations of the treaty, they have had little real effect on our monitoring ability. Further, the United States has responded by blocking proposed Russian flights over the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii and missile defense interceptor sites in Alaska. Still working to identify and resolve violations is part of enforcing any treaty, and, in the past, the United States and Russia were able to successfully resolve issues that came up.

But overall, the treaty has benefited the United States, which is a much more open society than many of the other signatories, especially Russia. 

For example, four Democratic members of the U.S. Congress noted in a letter to the Trump administration, under the treaty, the United States was able to conduct flights in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine and in 2018 when the Russians seized three Ukrainian ships and their crews in the Black Sea. Ironically, the United States has overflown Russia three times more often than Russia has overflown the United States. Moreover, the other partners to the treaty have conducted more than five hundred additional flights over Russia since 2002 and they believe that the treaty remains functional and useful.

Most important, however, withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty will continue the process of undermining the arms control regime between the United States and Soviet Russia that has been built up over the decades, starting in 1972 under President Richard Nixon. President George W. Bush began the process of undercutting this arms control regime in 2002 when he unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Trump accelerated the decline by unilaterally withdrawing from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and refusing to take Russian president Vladimir Putin up on his offer to extend New START, which expires in February 2021, for an additional five years.

In short, there is no sound basis for pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty. Rather than withdrawing, the United States should be upgrading it on aging observation planes to match Russia’s more advanced aircraft and discussing ways to modify and revive the now-defunct INF treaty and extend New START.

Unfortunately, rather than doing that the Trump administration has made the situation worse by actually considering whether to conduct the first U.S. nuclear test explosion since 1992 as a way to pressure Russia and China into making a new trilateral strategic nuclear arms deal. Such a step would doom the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and would likely spark a new arms race.

Moreover, on the day the United States announced it was withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, Trump’s new arms control negotiator, Marshal Billingslea said the United States is prepared to spend Russia and China into oblivion in order to win a new nuclear arms race with them.

As former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and former Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn point out, “Comprehensive, verifiable arms control agreements have enhanced U.S. national security over the past fifty years, through Republican and Democratic administration’s alike. Tearing them up without viable alternatives threatens U.S. and allied security today and for years to come.

At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, the United States should be leading the international community, cooperating with allies, and avoiding actions that could further destabilize the international environment. The decision to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty does the opposite. Hopefully, during the next six months, the Trump administration will reconsider its plans to withdraw.

China's Hong Kong Hustle Is Another Blow to Global Security America must improve the resiliency of its institutions, alliances, and partnerships to prevail against the challenges that China presents. by Wallace C. Gregson

Xi Jinping is making his move on Hong Kong.

And why not? The timing is propitious. The White House had just released a new document titled: United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China. Xi needed a lifeline, a way to regain his omnipotence in the wake of coronavirus carnage and internal unrest. What better way than to crush the “one-country, two-systems” framework documented in the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, and to deliver a sharp response to the new U.S. declaration? The 1984 agreement stipulated that upon Hong Kong’s reversion to China from Great Britain in 1997 the city would retain its capitalist economic system, currency, legal system, independent judiciary, legislature, human rights, and the freedoms of assembly and demonstration until 2047. That will all be gone, along with Hong Kong’s strength as a global economic, investment and trade center. Hopefully, the new document won’t become yet another dusty, forgotten archival document. 

Xi likely calculates that any U.S. reaction will be bearable. We posed no substantive objection to China’s massive dredging operation to build more than three thousand new acres on top of semi-submerged features in the Spratly Islands in 2013. Xi himself declared then that China held “undisputed historical sovereignty” to the waters of the South China Sea, an area half-again larger than the Mediterranean. In 2015 Xi told President Obama that the new features would not be militarized. Now they include three-thousand-meter runways, deepwater ports, and defensive installations. Elsewhere in the South China Sea Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels harass the drilling and fishing operations of other countries, challenging our vision of a “free and open” region. 

Sanctions on Chinese entities are likely, but if they are no more effective at convincing autocratic leaders to change course than our sanctions on North Korea and Iran, they pose no obstacle. We should certainly impose sanctions if only to indicate our displeasure. But they are a short-term political expedient. We can say we did something, especially if we add a mean-sounding modifier, such as “crippling.” Xi gains a short-term political expedient too. He will cite any sanctions to generate support against our “unjust action.” 

Japan will certainly note Hong Kong’s subjugation as another blow to regional and global security. Korea’s restive electorate will develop more questions about our alliance. Other Asian nations, lacking comparable security institutions, will carefully calibrate their policies to avoid offense. In an earlier Cold War, it was called “Finlandization.” Democracy is in the decline in the region and globally for more than twelve years now. This will be another democracy, this one with a Chinese face, taken off the board.

Taiwan is most urgently at risk. The message of Hong Kong is obvious and chilling. Our reaction, and that of our allies, will be carefully watched and lessons will be drawn. Taiwan is like the Fulda Gap or West Berlin in an earlier era: key terrain that must be held.

The United States must ensure Xi bears more than rhetorical opprobrium and assorted sanctions. We must respond in a way that reverses China’s growing advantage in force and political coercion. The quickest, most effective response to China’s campaign is a strong setback to further expansion. We must renew our role as ardent advocate and defender of democracy and human rights, and strengthen our conventional deterrent. There are several components to this. 

Get a message.

We are losing the information wars. It is not just the corruption of our elections, as bad as that is. Or Taiwan’s 2018 local elections and 2020 presidential election. It is the weaponization of social media, and we are nearly defenseless. Autocrats from China through Russia to the Islamic State and Iran flood the zone with destructive narratives and disinformation. The result is a well-documented decline of democracy around the globe over the last twelve years. We certainly have the technical ability to compete, but we lack a coherent message and a fact-based, ideals-based vaccination against disinformation. 

This is fixable. In a doubly ironic twist, our deputy national security advisor recently delivered—on May 4—a powerful message to China and our own citizens. He spoke in Mandarin and eloquently described the Chinese May Fourth Movement of 1919 that supported democratic ideals and contributed substantially to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. 

Human rights are the most powerful component of our “brand.” It is a feature of our nation, not a bug. From 1950 through 1990 we were an enthusiastic advocate and defender of democracy and human rights. Our message was powerful and spoke eloquently to political prisoners and captive populations, discomfiting authoritarian leaders. Josef Stalin once asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Poland’s Cardinal Wojtyła, known as Pope John Paul II from 1978, helped lead the Solidarity Movement of some 9.4 million people to gain Poland’s freedom from the Soviet Union. Stalin would have envied the Pope’s “divisions.”

Close the range gap 

China invests heavily in precision strike systems to hold our bases and ships in Asia at risk. China has long been building systems that exceed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty range restrictions on short and intermediate-range missiles. China was never a party to that treaty, but we were. That treaty is no longer a governing directive. We need to quickly reduce China’s range advantage.

The United States grew comfortable over recent decades with our unchallenged control of the sea and the airspace over it. We could sail where we wanted and refuel our strike aircraft as often as we wished as they flew to and from their missions. As a result, we largely abandoned strike missiles and the range was not a design priority for our combat aircraft.

Brad Roberts, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, now currently director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research, was recently asked how he assessed the current missile capabilities of China and North Korea. His answer in part: “But when it comes to (land-launched) short- and intermediate-range missiles capable of striking Japan and U.S. bases elsewhere in the region, and U.S. forces at sea, the approximate current ratio is that China has approximately 1,900 such missiles and the U.S. has zero.”

Our bases and ships in the region are all within range. We need to enhance air and missile defense and we—and our ally Japan—need our own strike weapons to hold enemy launch positions at risk. No long development process is needed, we can purchase systems quickly from allies.

Implement Commander INDOPACOM’s “Regain The Advantage” plan 

Adm. Phillip Davidson was recently charged to report directly to Congress on the needs of his command to fulfill the National Defense Strategy and maintain an edge over China. His report was titled “Regain the Advantage,” a more active verb and a more accurate description of our challenge. 

He concluded that “The greatest danger for the United States is the erosion of conventional deterrence.” His proposal includes a Pacific version of the European Deterrence Initiative, serving the same purpose: discouraging China from aggression in Asia.

His report is detailed, logical, and realistic, with cost figures included. For a reasonable investment, perhaps shared with Japan, we can quickly realize powerful improvements in five integrated areas: 

Joint Force Lethality 

Force Design and Posture 

Strengthen Allies and Partners 

Exercises, Experimentation, and Innovation 

Logistics and Security Enablers 

Even a pandemic-affected budget can afford to fulfill this urgently needed request. 

Support Joint and Combined Warfighting with Mission-Level Simulations 

Many respected voices charge that American military supremacy is no longer assured. New domains of conflict have been added to the more familiar air, land, and sea, with the count now reaching six or seven depending on viewpoint. The number and complexity of interactions across all of this increases exponentially. 

Much of our current simulation efforts focus on relatively narrow objectives. What is needed, for us in company with our allies, is a concerted effort to develop mission—and campaign—level simulations across all services and all domains. This can generate valuable learning experiences without the associated butchers’ bill we endured at the beginning of past conflicts. Vulnerabilities of doctrine and weapons systems can be detected and remedied without the time and expense of flying, sailing, and marching. 

Perhaps even more important, with proper simulation and an electronic linking of all our training facilities in the Indo-Pacific region, we and our allies can train high-level commanders and their staffs in the art and science of combined warfare, efficiently and effectively integrating the fires and maneuver of our forces to allow us to prevail despite adverse numerical odds.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, according to one of Xi’s predecessors (Mao Zedong). Coercion and intimidation grow there too. Fulfilling our two objectives detailed in our most recent strategy document—to improve the resiliency of our institutions, alliances, and partnerships to prevail against the challenges the PRC presents; and to compel Beijing to cease or reduce actions harmful to the United States’ vital, national interests and those of its allies and partners—requires action this day.

George Floyd's Death Must Be a Wake-Up Call For America He is the latest victim of our near‐​zero‐​accountability policy for law enforcement. by Clark Neily

The scene is horrifying, yet all too familiar. In a viral video from Minneapolis on Monday, a white police officer presses his knee against the neck of a handcuffed, unresisting black man who begs him to get off, then loses consciousness and later dies. Meanwhile, another officer stands guard between his partner and protesting onlookers, ensuring that no one can come to the aid of the dying man. The man’s name is George Floyd, and he is the latest victim of our near‐​zero‐​accountability policy for law enforcement.

On Thursday, May 28, the Supreme Court can decide whether to take the first step towards eliminating the cornerstone of that policy, a judicially invented legal doctrine called “qualified immunity.” Mr. Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police provides a grim reminder that for some people, it is literally a matter of life and death. 

Enacted in 1871 and referred to as Section 1983 after its placement in the U.S. Code, America’s primary civil rights law provides that police and other state actors “shall be liable” to the person injured for “the deprivation of any rights.” On its face, Section 1983 creates a standard of strict liability for police and other public officials who violate people’s constitutional rights, including the right to be free from the unreasonable use of force. But in a tragic and legally baseless act of judicial policymaking, the Supreme Court radically altered that standard by holding that the right in question must be “clearly established.” And thus was born the doctrine of qualified immunity. 

In practice, what the “clearly established” gloss on Section 1983 requires is for would‐​be civil rights plaintiffs to identify a relevant case in the same jurisdiction with nearly identical facts. Thus, if Mr. Floyd’s family wants to sue the officer who took his life, they will need to find an existing case from the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals holding that a police officer may not kneel on a unresisting suspect’s neck, ignoring his pleas for help, until he passes out. If no such case happens to be on the books, their case will be summarily tossed out of court. Such is the perversity of the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity doctrine.

Among qualified immunity’s most pernicious effects is the way it appears to provide a judicial imprimatur for indisputably wrongful conduct, like bringing the full weight of one’s body to bear on the neck of a prone and helpless human being. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently let stand an Eighth Circuit decision dismissing, on qualified immunity grounds, a Section 1983 case against a Nebraska officer who picked up a five‐​foot‐​tall, unarmed woman clad only in a bathing suit and drove her head‐​first into the ground, knocking her unconscious and breaking her collarbone—not because it was lawful for him to do so, but rather because there happened to be no case on point with precisely those facts. 

This is madness. Fresh from the horrors of the Civil War, Congress was well aware of how indifferent and even hostile many government officials were to the rights of African Americans when it enacted Section 1983. There are ten qualified‐​immunity cases pending before the Supreme Court, which may decide Thursday whether to accept any of those cases for review and ensure that judicial interpretation of Section 1983 remains faithful to congressional intent. The senseless brutalization of George Floyd, along with countless others, reminds us that this is not just a legal but a moral imperative.