tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/pentagon-998/articlesPentagon – The Conversation2023-07-27T18:18:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104352023-07-27T18:18:33Z2023-07-27T18:18:33ZWhistleblower calls for government transparency as Congress digs for the truth about UFOs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539676/original/file-20230727-29-h44roy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C35%2C5845%2C3884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A congressional subcommittee on unidentified anomalous phenomena met to hear testimony from military officers. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-u-s-capitol-building-royalty-free-image/1409850965?phrase=congress">Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/subcommittee/national-security/">congressional subcommittee</a> <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?529499-1/hearing-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-uap">met on July 26, 2023, to hear testimony</a> from several military officers who allege the government is concealing evidence of UFOs. By holding a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-implications-on-national-security-public-safety-and-government-transparency/">hearing</a> on UFOs – <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-07-24/congress-ufos-hearing-uap">now called</a> “unidentified anomalous phenomena” by government agencies – the subcommittee sought to understand whether these UAPs pose a threat to national security.</p>
<p>I’m an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OrRLRQ4AAAAJ&hl=en">astronomer</a> who studies and has written about <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393343861">cosmology</a>, <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357509">black holes</a>, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/718149/worlds-without-end-by-chris-impey/">exoplanets</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/living-cosmos/11D69005D09D25581AE4E6684EC8A3C1">life in the universe</a>. I’m also on the <a href="http://meti.org/en/advisors">advisory council</a> for an international group that strategizes how to communicate with an extraterrestrial civilization should the need ever arise.</p>
<p>While the hearings brought attention to UAPs and could lead to more reporting from people who work in the military and aviation, the testimonies did not produce evidence to fundamentally change the understanding of UAPs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up shot of a blue striped suit and pink tie with a rectangular pin that has a UFO on it and the words 'I still want to believe'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539775/original/file-20230727-15-yzt55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An audience member at the hearing wears an ‘X-Files’ UFO pin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nathan Howard</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>UFO oversight so far</h2>
<p>The House subcommittee hearing follows a flurry of activity over the past few years. Public interest in UAPs surged in 2017 after three Navy videos were leaked and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">The New York Times reported</a> on a shadowy UAP program run by the Pentagon. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-intelligence-report-on-ufos-no-aliens-but-government-transparency-and-desire-for-better-data-might-bring-science-to-the-ufo-world-163059">June 2021</a>, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">report</a> on the phenomena. In November 2021, the Pentagon <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2853121/dod-announces-the-establishment-of-the-airborne-object-identification-and-manag/">formed a new group</a> to coordinate efforts to detect and identify objects in restricted airspace.</p>
<p>Then in May 2022, a House Intelligence subcommittee held the first congressional hearing in over half a century on military reports of UAPs. Little new light was shed on the true nature of the sightings, but the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ufo-senate-hearing-congress-live-pentagon-b2080711.html">officials tried to clarify the situation</a> by ruling things out.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYfxwBQL69A&t=4s">officials noted</a> 18 occasions in which aerial objects had moved at considerable speed without visible means of propulsion, nobody had found unexplained wreckage or records of the military having either received communications from or having fired shots at UAPs. As such, the subcommittee decided that there was not yet enough evidence to claim UAPs are extraterrestrial.</p>
<p>Most recently, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-set-up-independent-study-on-unidentified-aerial-phenomena/">NASA convened</a> a panel in June 2022, which held its first public hearing in May this year. The panel will help NASA advise intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense on how to evaluate mysterious sightings. The panel is considering <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/world/nasa-uap-study-public-meeting-scn/index.html">800 sightings</a> accumulated over 27 years, with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/world/nasa-uap-study-public-meeting-scn/index.html">50 to 100 new reports</a> coming in each month. Sean Kirkpatrick from the Department of Defense said that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/world/nasa-uap-study-public-meeting-scn/index.html">only 2% to 5% of these are anomalous</a>, and the meeting drew no firm conclusions.</p>
<p>Which brings us to this week’s hearing. Congress is <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/national-security-subcommittee-to-hold-hearing-on-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena">getting frustrated</a> with the lack of transparency over UAP sightings. So the subcommittee is using its <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/about/">overall charge</a> of oversight and accountability to get some answers.</p>
<h2>Eyebrow-raising testimony</h2>
<p>Three witnesses, all ex-military officers, gave <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-implications-on-national-security-public-safety-and-government-transparency/">sworn testimony</a> to the subcommittee. </p>
<p>David Fravor was a commander in the U.S. Navy in 2004, stationed on the USS Nimitz, when he and another pilot <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-05-16/">saw an object behaving inexplicably</a>. Video of the encounter was released by the Department of Defense in 2017 and publicized by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html">The New York Times</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/David-Fravor-Statement-for-House-Oversight-Committee.pdf">Fravor testified</a> that the technology he witnessed was far superior to anything human beings have. He described objects with no visible means of propulsion carrying out sudden maneuvers that no known technology could achieve.</p>
<p>“What concerns me is that there is no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated with our government possessing or working on craft that we believe are not of this world,” Fravor said. </p>
<p>The second witness, Ryan Graves, was an F-18 pilot for over a decade. While stationed at Virginia Beach in 2014, he says, UAP sightings were so frequent among his crew that they became part of daily briefs. <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ryan-HOC-Testimony.pdf">He recounted</a> a situation in which two jets had to take evasive action as they encountered a UAP. The description was striking – a dark gray cube inside a clear sphere – quite different from the classic “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/13/is-the-flying-saucer-the-best-shape-for-a-spaceship">flying saucer</a>.”</p>
<p>Graves founded <a href="https://www.safeaerospace.org/">Americans for Safe Aerospace</a> to create a center of support and education for aircrew affected by UAP encounters. He testified that the group has 5,000 members and has taken information from 30 witnesses. Most are commercial pilots at major airlines. He alleged that all UAP videos since 2021 are classified by the Pentagon as secret or higher. Graves also said that only 5% of UAP sightings by military and commercial pilots are reported by the pilots that spot them. </p>
<p>“If everyone could see the sensor and video data that I have, there is no doubt that UAP would be a top priority for our defense, intelligence and scientific communities,” Graves said. </p>
<p>The real bombshell came from David Grusch, an Air Force intelligence officer who retired with the rank of major. His high level of security clearance meant he saw reports that were unknown to the public. He sought whistleblower protection after claiming that the U.S. government was <a href="https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/">operating with secrecy</a> and above congressional oversight with regards to UAP – even claiming that crashed UAPs had yielded biological material of nonhuman origin. The <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-oversight-plans-ufo-hearing-after-unconfirmed-claims/story?id=99899883">Pentagon has denied</a> this claim. He also said he’d suffered retaliation after reporting this information to his superiors and to multiple inspectors general.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0w5T2skzNI4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Grusch testifies that the U.S. government has recovered ‘nonhuman biologics.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multidecade UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program to which I was denied access,” Grusch said in <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Dave_G_HOC_Speech_FINAL_For_Trans.pdf">his opening statement</a> to the subcommittee. The Pentagon has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-oversight-plans-ufo-hearing-after-unconfirmed-claims/story?id=99899883">denied the existence of such a program</a> now or in the past. </p>
<h2>Calls for transparency</h2>
<p>While none of this testimony brought forward viable evidence of a broad government conspiracy, most UAP data is <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/pentagon-blocks-lawmakers-ufo-data-uap-hearing/">not made public</a> and is held by intelligence agencies or the Pentagon. Lawmakers from both parties called for more government transparency. When questioned, all three witnesses said that UAPs represented a clear threat to national security. </p>
<p>If these testimonies are truthful, UAPs of advanced technology – whether they originate from a foreign adversary or not – that make routine incursions into U.S. airspace are a cause for concern.</p>
<p>For now, the subcommittee will continue its work. A tangible outcome will probably be an <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/whistle/">anonymous reporting mechanism</a> to overcome the stigma commercial and military pilots feel when they witness a UAP. The push for government transparency will likely intensify, and subcommittee members hope to have a classified briefing to evaluate the claims made by Grusch.</p>
<p>As a scientist, I’m trained to be skeptical, and I know that <a href="http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/astroufo1.html">most UFO sightings</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-tend-to-believe-ufos-are-extraterrestrial-208403">have mundane explanations</a>. Visual evidence is also notoriously difficult to interpret, and even the dramatic Navy videos have been <a href="https://www.leonarddavid.com/debunking-navy-ufo-videos/">debunked</a>. More and better data will help resolve the issue, but the gold standard is physical evidence. If Grusch’s claims of crashed UAPs are ever verified, that will be the first UAP hearing with a truly dramatic outcome.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on August 2, 2023 to correct the date of the Congressional hearing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Impey receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>All who testified before a congressional subcommittee claimed that UFOs pose a threat to national security, though there’s still no public evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial.Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098472023-07-20T12:29:59Z2023-07-20T12:29:59ZThis year’s debate over defense spending threatens to disrupt a tradition of bipartisan consensus-building over funding the military<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538105/original/file-20230718-27-y980og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C34%2C5710%2C3752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the House Freedom Caucus speak to reporters on July 14, 2023, hours before the House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-lauren-boebert-speaks-during-a-press-conference-on-the-news-photo/1543094372?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images News/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each year for the past six decades, congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle have come together to pass the National Defense Authorization Act. Because the bill involves the military – <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx">a traditionally popular institution</a> – it has historically received bipartisan support. </p>
<p>But that record was threatened in the Republican-led House of Representatives on July 14, 2023, when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/14/house-passes-defense-bill-despite-controversial-abortion-transgender-policies-00106373">members passed the US$886 billion bill by a 219-210 mostly party-line vote</a>. Reflecting the current polarized politics of the U.S., the bill stands virtually no chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Senate without major modifications. </p>
<p>The measure lacked full support in the House not because of differences over military funding itself, but because it included Republican amendments that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/politics/house-ndaa-vote-amendments/index.html">put restrictions on diversity training</a>, abortion access and medical care for transgender troops.</p>
<p>Just after the bill’s passage, <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1679890062148874241">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted</a>, “We don’t want Disneyland to train our military,” and “House Republicans just passed the bill that ENDS the wokism in the military and gives our troops the biggest pay raise in decades.”</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=6P3QreQAAAAJ">scholars of American politics</a>, we study Congress and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lQycyuAAAAAJ">believe that this unusual politicization of the defense budget</a> could affect other important legislation in Washington.</p>
<h2>A look at the National Defense Authorization Act and what’s happening in 2023</h2>
<p>Since 1961, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10515">Congress has approved defense spending</a> annually using a two-step process. The first and current step, the National Defense Authorization Act, sets defense policies and provides guidance on how money can be spent. In the second step, which will come after the Senate votes on its version of the bill and the two chambers reach a compromise version, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees approve the spending. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">Congress has become increasingly polarized</a> over the years. Congressional Republicans have grown more conservative, congressional Democrats have become more liberal, and <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/03/17/polarization-congress-democrats-republicans-house-senate-data">members of the two parties agree on less and less</a>. </p>
<p>In the first year of the Biden administration, <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/09/23/house-nears-vote-on-final-passage-of-defense-policy-bill/">the House approved the National Defense Authorization Act</a> by a 316-113 margin. In 2022, the act <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/12/08/house-passes-defense-bill-with-more-taiwan-ukraine-security-aid/">passed the House by a 350-80 margin</a>. As points of comparison, the <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2002158">2002 version of the bill passed 359-58 in the House</a>, and the <a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2003221">2003 version passed 361-68 in the House</a>. The reauthorization process happens the year before the act goes into effect.</p>
<p>During the 2023 reauthorization process, the bill included amendments from the most conservative members of the Republican Party, many of them from the House Freedom Caucus, who, according to their Twitter profile, support, in part, <a href="https://twitter.com/freedomcaucus?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">open, accountable and limited government</a>. The amendments seek to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passage-defense-bill-question-gop-abortion-transgender-surgery-a-rcna94196">ban the Department of Defense from paying</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4100215-mccaul-very-confident-ndaa-will-be-a-bipartisan-bill/">travel expense reimbursements</a> for service members getting an abortion or transgender surgeries and hormone treatments. </p>
<p>The debates over the amendments were particularly heated. As just one example, <a href="https://twitter.com/RepRosendale/status/1679603332732669952">House Freedom Caucus member Matt Rosendale tweeted</a>, “If someone does not know if they are a man or a woman, they should not be having their hand on a missile launch button.” </p>
<p>Democrats like Rep. Jim McGovern decried House Freedom Caucus tactics: “It’s outrageous that a small <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mccarthy-working-satisfy-gop-hard-liners-demanding-culture/story?id=101170953">minority of MAGA extremists is dictating</a> how we’ll proceed.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A suited man holds his hands parallel and chest-height as speaks from behind a lectern. American flags stand behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538170/original/file-20230719-23-drknta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks about amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act during a July 14, 2023, news conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/5WSzd8tLIECJ7OsnBsq1Mg">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images News/Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/legislative-hardball/37488C1E94117DFBFF924E5B67188E07">House Freedom Caucus</a>, this was an opportunity to advance its conservative agenda and try to reverse the policies of the Democratic administration. At the same time, these types of amendments decreased the odds that the bill would receive bipartisan support. </p>
<h2>Previous defense spending bills have addressed social policy, too</h2>
<p>This is not the first version of the defense authorization bill that included language about social issues. One reporter wrote in 2022 that the National Defense Authorization Act’s record of bipartisan support “has also made the bill a popular vehicle <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/national-defense-authorization-act-5113289">for tacking on legislation that</a> has little to do with defense.”</p>
<p>In one notable example, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-bill/5006/text">1993 National Defense Authorization Act</a> included the infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise, which allowed gay and lesbian citizens to serve in the military if they did not make their sexual orientation public. The measure <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg1056osd.10?seq=4">stemmed from President Bill Clinton’s campaign pledge</a> to lift the ban on gay people serving in the military. But once in office, Clinton met substantial opposition to his proposal from military leaders and their congressional allies. </p>
<p>The stalemate could have been resolved only by an executive order, which Congress opposed, or legislation, which Clinton opposed. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” <a href="https://time.com/5339634/dont-ask-dont-tell-25-year-anniversary/">was middle ground</a>. Seventeen years later, Democratic President Barack Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2010/12/22/president-signs-repeal-dont-ask-dont-tell-out-many-we-are-one">signed a bill ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell</a>. </p>
<p>Another example of social policy’s being embedded in the National Defense Authorization Act occurred in 2009, when Senate Democrats attached <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/matthew-shepard-and-james-byrd-jr-hate-crimes-prevention-act-2009-0">the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act</a>, which strengthened federal protections against crimes based on race, religion or nationality and added protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation, to the annual defense authorization bill. It <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/senate-passes-hate-crimes-bill-028640">passed by a 68-29 vote in the Senate</a>, but since the House and Senate had different versions of the bill, a conference committee reconciled the differences. The hate crimes provision remained, and the legislation <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/28/hate.crimes/">was signed by President Obama</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A smiling man speaks while standing at a lectern in a room full of smiling people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538354/original/file-20230719-17-ijicx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Obama speaks in 2009 about the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/surrounded-by-human-rights-supporters-u-s-president-barack-news-photo/92430581?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act included several provisions added by the Democratic-controlled Senate addressing the equitable treatment of women in the military. Among them: <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2012/12/women-military-defense-authorization-bill/">insurance coverage for abortions in cases of rape and incest</a>; mandatory discharge of convicted sex offenders; and mandatory sexual assault prevention training. The Senate version of the bill <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/136164-senate-passes-631b-defense-policy-bill-98-0/">passed 98-0</a>. The provisions remained after the House and Senate reconciled their versions and were <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/4310/text">part of the bill President Obama signed</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/05/pentagon-confederate-name-bases-455180">2021 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision to remove</a> Confederate names, symbols and monuments from Department of Defense property. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/senate-defense-bill-ndaa-bases-trump-380362">Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren sponsored</a> the measure in the Senate, and <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/11/congress-could-force-name-change-at-military-bases-honoring-confederate-generals/">Rep. Anthony Brown, Democrat from Maryland, and Rep. Don Bacon, Republican from Nebraska</a>, sponsored it in the House. There was enough bipartisan support for that legislation that the House and Senate <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/01/952450018/congress-overturns-trump-veto-on-defense-bill-after-political-detour">overrode President Donald Trump’s veto</a>.</p>
<h2>What each party stands to gain or lose from this fight</h2>
<p>The narrow House victory will represent a policy win for the House Freedom Caucus, help members raise money for future election cycles and lessen the likelihood that members will be <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried">challenged in a primary</a> from the right flank of their party. </p>
<p>At the same time, these tactics may make it easier for Democrats to win in crucial <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2023-partisan-voting-index/118-district-map-and-list">swing districts</a> during the 2024 election cycle. Likely providing a preview of talking points Democrats will use against Republicans in swing districts, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187660777/house-passes-defense-bill-mostly-along-party-lines-with-culture-war-measures-att">Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said</a>, “Extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming the right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.” </p>
<p>Defense reauthorization was once considered a rare policy issue on which the parties could agree. But, the Republican-led House’s passage of a bill with little Democratic support most likely renders the bill dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democrats are in the majority. </p>
<p>It’s an important sign that there’s no longer an issue that’s immune from the hyperpolarization that defines today’s American politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The National Defense Authorization Act has long had bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. But that died in the House this year.Gibbs Knotts, Professor of Political Science, College of CharlestonChristopher A. Cooper, Professor of Political Science, Western Carolina UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042942023-04-25T16:55:09Z2023-04-25T16:55:09ZPentagon leaks suggest China developing ways to attack satellites – here’s how they might work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522567/original/file-20230424-16-9v9f84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C4195%2C2784&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Space communications satellite in low orbit around the Earth. Elements of this image furnished by NASA</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">aappp via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent leak of Pentagon documents included the suggestion that China is developing sophisticated cyber attacks for the purpose of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/881c941a-c46f-4a40-b8d8-9e5c8a6775ba">disrupting military communication satellites</a>. While this is unconfirmed, it is certainly possible, as many sovereign nations and <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-au/products/defence-satellite-communications.html">private companies</a> have considered how to protect from signal interference.</p>
<p>Nearly every aspect of our lives is enabled by satellite communication, from <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/sites/public_policy_redesign/files/pp_insights_research_briefing_-_space_weather_jul2016.pdf">financial transactions</a>, <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Navigation/Galileo/What_is_Galileo">navigation</a>, <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/noaa%E2%80%99s-eyes-sky-after-five-decades-of-weather-forecasting-environmental">weather prediction</a>, and <a href="https://www.starlink.com/?referral=RC-1002-98582-6&utm_source=google%20paid%20search&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5rfF-Ni7_gIVkcvtCh2L9gY6EAAYASAAEgIZ9fD_BwE">internet services</a> to more remote locations. Yet given how many satellites are in orbit, while the effect might be felt on some of the population, if a satellite or two were lost there would not be any major problems. </p>
<p>But when we consider the military benefits of satellites, immediate communication is vital for early warning systems and tracking. So how easy would it be to disrupt these services? </p>
<p>The Chinese space programme has been <a href="https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/11/22/china-space-tech-rapidly-catching-up-with-us">advancing at a faster rate</a> than that of any other country. China’s first successful launch was in 1970, but in 1999 its space programme leapt forward with the <a href="http://zhuanti.spacechina.com/n429412/n429423/c430714/content.html">Shenzhou-1 launch</a> which was the first in a series of unmanned, then manned, space missions of increasing sophistication. </p>
<p>China conducted just over 200 launches between 2010 and 2019. In 2022, it set a record with <a href="https://www.space.com/china-earth-observation-gaofen-satellite-launch-november-16">53 rocket launches in a year</a> – with an incredible 100% success rate.</p>
<p>As such, the Chinese National Space Administration (<a href="http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/">CNSA</a>) has become a major player in global space activity and has a lot of experience with satellite communications. The leaked document suggests that the Chinese are looking for the capability to “seize control of a satellite, rendering it ineffective to support communications, weapons, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems”. </p>
<p>It’s also quite possible that the US and other nations might also be developing such capabilities.</p>
<p>Satellites orbit our planet at a <a href="https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Types_of_orbits">range of altitudes</a>. The lowest stable orbits are around 300km, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope sit at 500km altitude, and geostationary satellites are around 36,000km up (about six times the radius of the Earth). </p>
<p>The idea of physically capturing or taking over a satellite has been considered a largely impossible task, although it has featured, famously, in the film such as “<a href="https://filmfreedonia.com/2020/04/06/you-only-live-twice-1967/">You Only Live Twice</a>” where a large orbiting cylinder swallowed manned spacecraft. </p>
<p>Smaller craft designed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/harpoons-robots-and-lasers-how-to-capture-defunct-satellites-and-other-space-junk-and-bring-it-back-to-earth-189698">remove space debris</a> from orbit have been launched in the past few years. But the practical challenges of capturing a fully working and operating satellite are far greater (particularly due to the recoil of <a href="https://www.space.com/space-junk-harpoon-removedebris-satellite-video.html">firing harpoons</a>).</p>
<p>However, there are methods of disrupting and even taking over <a href="https://www.inmarsat.com/en/insights/corporate/2023/a-straightforward-introduction-to-satellite-communications.html">satellite communication</a>?</p>
<h2>Three ways to disrupt satellite communications</h2>
<p><strong>1. Saturation</strong> </p>
<p>This is the easiest method. Satellites communicate by broadcasting on a specific set of radio or microwave frequencies. By bombarding the receiving station or the satellite itself you can effectively drown out the signal. <a href="https://geo-matching.com/content/how-to-overcome-gnss-signal-denial">It is particularly effective with positioning information.</a></p>
<p><strong>2. Jamming</strong> </p>
<p>This is a method of <a href="https://ontheradar.csis.org/issue-briefs/satellite-jamming/">diverting the communication signal</a> from reaching the satellite or the ground control station. This requires high-power signals to fool one or the other that the jamming signal is the main transmitting station as a communication will lock onto the strongest source. </p>
<p>This method of interference works best when the jamming signal contains no information, so the receiver assumes there is no data transmission (a human would hear silence or just a tone).</p>
<p><strong>3. Command sending</strong> </p>
<p>This is an infinitely more <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.11324&ved=2ahUKEwjK8uKL-8P-AhUkNX0KHffaD4Q4ChAWegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3NfWdbJEOvNAdazsSx-7uO">tricky procedure</a>. The original signal needs to be silenced or overpowered and the replacement signal must be able to accurately communicate and fool a satellite. </p>
<p>This usually requires knowing an encryption key that would be used as well as the correct commands and syntax. This sort of information cannot be easily guessed, meaning knowledge of the launch systems and companies is required.</p>
<p>To make these three techniques easier to understand, imagine you are at a restaurant and your partner is sitting opposite you. You are talking to them normally and then the background music gets turned up really loud. You may be able to make out some words but not everything – this would be saturation. </p>
<p>Now the waiter comes past and starts talking loudly at you taking your attention away – this would be jamming. </p>
<p>Now your partner goes to the toilet and you receive a call that appears to be from them but is actually from somebody who has taken their phone and is impersonating them – this would be command sending. </p>
<p>This final example is infinitely more difficult to achieve but has the most potential for disruption. If you can trick a satellite into thinking you are the true command source, then not only are <a href="https://universemagazine.com/en/usage-of-satellites-by-the-army-communication-and-navigation/">communications blocked</a> but false information and images can be sent to the ground stations.</p>
<h2>Zombie satellites</h2>
<p>When a satellite does go out of communication, we refer to it as a zombie satellite. Essentially it cannot do any of its intended tasks and just orbits with <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/zombie-satellites-return-from-the-graveyard">little chance of recovery</a>. </p>
<p>This can happen naturally during coronal mass ejections, when the Sun releases large amounts of energetic charged particles that can interact with satellites causing electrical surges. In some cases this results in untrustworthy data, but can also result in communication loss. </p>
<p>The most famous of these cases was the <a href="https://www.space.com/8344-attempt-shut-zombie-satellite-galaxy-15-fails.html">Galaxy 15 telecommunications satellite</a>, which lost ground station communication in 2010 but continued to broadcast communications to customers.</p>
<p>While the military cannot replicate coronal mass ejections, the hijacking of signals is possible. The leaked document does not provide any proof of China’s capabilities, or indeed the United States’ current advancement in this field. </p>
<p>All we can say is that our understanding of atmospheric physics and wave propagation in the upper atmosphere is likely to increase rapidly as this becomes more and more important.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China is reportedly developing technology to allow it to take control of other ocuntries’ satellites.Ian Whittaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037992023-04-13T16:05:45Z2023-04-13T16:05:45ZUkraine recap: downbeat US intelligence leak suggests no end in sight for the misery of this war<p>What we know – or think we know – about the progress of the war in Ukraine over the past few days has come courtesy of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65238951">leaked Pentagon documents</a> which appear to cover, in some detail, a wide range of issues around the conflict. As you’d expect, among the main areas of discussion is the likelihood of a Ukrainian spring counter-offensive being launched sometime soon. </p>
<p>But there are also what appear to be revelations about the presence of British special forces in Ukraine and discussions of Russian infighting over the number of their casualties among other things. </p>
<p>As ever with leaked material, it’s important to add the caveat that, while the Pentagon has apparently confirmed that the documents appear genuine, any conclusions that are being reached by commentators must be read bearing in mind the maxim that “truth is the first casualty of war”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510322/original/file-20230215-22-dna0kj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ukraine-12-months-at-war-134215?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">understand the big issues</a>. You can also <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">subscribe to our fortnightly recap</a> of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.</em></p>
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<p>But, if genuine, the Pentagon’s assessment of the much-anticipated counter-offensive is far from upbeat. Stefan Wolff, an international security expert at the University of Birmingham, notes an air of pessimism on the part of US intelligence that Ukraine’s spring push will yield any major breakthroughs. </p>
<p>The problem, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-pentagon-leaks-paint-gloomy-picture-of-long-war-that-cant-be-won-but-must-not-be-lost-203698">writes Wolff</a>, is a rapidly diminishing stockpile of arms. Ukraine remains heavily dependent on Soviet-era armour and artillery and is running short on ammunition (it should be noted here that the same can be said of Russia). The munitions promised by Ukraine’s allies in the west have been slow in arriving and the Ukrainian military has yet to be fully trained to use them. </p>
<p>Since neither side is backing down from its preferred outcomes from the conflict, it looks set to be a long war.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-pentagon-leaks-paint-gloomy-picture-of-long-war-that-cant-be-won-but-must-not-be-lost-203698">Ukraine war: Pentagon leaks paint gloomy picture of long war that can’t be won but must not be lost</a>
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<p>All of which inevitably means more tragedy for the people of Ukraine. As of March 20, according to the UN’s Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the conflict has <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/03/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-20-march-2023#:%7E:text=Related&text=From%2024%20February%202022%2C%20which,8%2C317%20killed%20and%2013%2C892%20injured.">killed 8,317 civilians and injured a further 13,892</a> since the war began at the end of February last year. </p>
<p>A particular disgrace is the report, from the World Health Organization, that it had recorded more than 850 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine. One such attack was on Maternity Hospital 3 in Mariupol during the siege of that port city in the Donetsk region last March. Three people were killed, including a small child.</p>
<p>Rodwan Abouharb, an expert in international relations at UCL, has published research on the effects of war on the infant mortality rate (IMR) and found that while wars push up IMRs by more than 10%, the really insidious thing is that by destroying a country’s health infrastructure, an aggressor country ensures that people will continue to die unnecessarily for years after the fighting stops. </p>
<p>Here <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-the-devastating-effects-of-conflict-on-infant-mortality-rates-new-research-203187">he tracks IMRs</a> from wars as diverse as Iraq (where the first Gulf War pushed the IMR up by a grotesque 47.9% between 1990 and 1991) to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between 1991 and 1994, where the IMR continued to rise until 1997. As he notes: “It’s hard to imagine war crimes more heinous than those committed against infant children who have not yet reached their first birthday.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="ISW map showing Ukraine and the main areas of fighting and control." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The state of the conflict as of April 12 2023 according to the Institute for the Study of War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute for the Study of War</span></span>
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<p>To attack a country’s infants is to steal its future. But there is also evidence that Russia has literally been stealing Ukrainian children. According to the Ukrainian government, 19,384 children have been deported to Russia since the start of the war. As covered in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-iccs-putin-arrest-warrant-may-be-symbolic-but-must-be-the-beginning-of-holding-the-russian-leader-accountable-201907">previous reports here</a>, arrest warrants have been issued for both the Russian president, Vladkmir Putin, and his children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova.</p>
<p>Finding those children and reuniting them with their families will be a daunting challenge. Francesca Lessa of the University of Oxford and Svitlana Chernykh of the Australian National University have researched the history of child kidnappings during dictatorships and <a href="https://theconversation.com/finding-ukraines-stolen-children-and-bringing-perpetrators-to-justice-lessons-from-argentina-202577">offer a case study</a> from Argentina in the 1970s. During this period child kidnappings were a deliberate policy to remove children from activist parents and bring them up with a different ideological slant. Compounding the problem of identifying the stolen children was the fact that the regime had murdered many of their parents.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finding-ukraines-stolen-children-and-bringing-perpetrators-to-justice-lessons-from-argentina-202577">Finding Ukraine's stolen children and bringing perpetrators to justice: lessons from Argentina</a>
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<h2>Geopolitics</h2>
<p>It was difficult not to appreciate the irony of Finland’s decision to join Nato on April 4. One of the most oft-repeated justifications for Putin’s aggression against Ukraine was his fear that Nato was deliberately provoking Moscow by expanding eastwards since the breakup of the Soviet Union. But the addition of Finland as Nato’s 31st member effectively doubles the alliance’s land border with Russia.</p>
<p>Simon Smith, an expert in international relations and security at Staffordshire University, traces <a href="https://theconversation.com/finland-joins-nato-in-a-major-blow-to-putin-which-doubles-the-length-of-the-alliances-border-with-russia-203217">Helsinki’s changing security stance</a> since the days when “Finlandisation” was used by scholars to describe any country that was forced to endure the interference of a bigger neighbour (as the Soviet Union had interfered by forcing Finnish neutrality). Finland’s accession also adds a country with an already robust defence policy and a well-funded military to the alliance. It’s hard not to see its decision to join as something of an own goal for Putin.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finland-joins-nato-in-a-major-blow-to-putin-which-doubles-the-length-of-the-alliances-border-with-russia-203217">Finland joins Nato in a major blow to Putin which doubles the length of the alliance's border with Russia</a>
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<p>But if Finland (and possibly soon, Sweden as well) have joined Nato, swelling the ranks of countries that are in direct opposition to Russian aggression, they aren’t necessarily on the same page as the rest of the world. Russia may have the direct support of very few countries (only seven voted with Russia in February against a UN resolution calling for an end to the fighting), but – as Jose Caballero at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) notes – Moscow appears to have the tacit support of a growing number of countries. </p>
<p>This trend, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-democratic-countries-around-the-world-are-not-prepared-to-support-ukraine-and-some-are-shifting-closer-to-russia-203699">writes Caballero</a>, is particularly marked in Africa, Latin America and Asia – where, of course, China’s Xi Jinping has declared his country’s “limitless” friendship for Russia.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-democratic-countries-around-the-world-are-not-prepared-to-support-ukraine-and-some-are-shifting-closer-to-russia-203699">Why democratic countries around the world are not prepared to support Ukraine – and some are shifting closer to Russia</a>
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</em>
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<p>Spare a thought for Mongolia, sitting landlocked between Russia and China. Just recently the country’s prime minister, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, voiced his fears that the world would yet again sink into a polarised world order – a new cold war. Mongolia’s geography means it is heavily dependent on both Russia, from which it gets most of its energy, and China, which is its main export market. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of Asia showing position of Mongolia, Russia and China." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Landlocked: Mongolia is squeezed between Russia to the north and China to the south.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Hermes Furian via Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>But, as the University of Bradford’s international security expert <a href="https://theconversation.com/mongolia-squeezed-between-china-and-russia-fears-new-cold-war-202086">Christoph Bluth writes</a>, since independence it has pursued a multipolar foreign policy, looking for economic, cultural and political partnerships wherever they are available. A new cold war, said Oyun-Erdene, would be “like a divorce … When the parents divorce, the children are the ones who get hurt the most.” </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mongolia-squeezed-between-china-and-russia-fears-new-cold-war-202086">Mongolia: squeezed between China and Russia fears 'new cold war'</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>Narratives (and the fate of those who tell them)</h2>
<p>Given that Putin has always insisted that Russia and Ukraine are essentially the same country, it’s fascinating to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fairy-tales-shape-fighting-spirit-ukraines-children-hear-bedtime-stories-of-underdog-heroes-while-russian-children-hear-tales-of-magical-success-179630">read this piece</a> about the differing bedtime stories told to the children in the two countries. Sophia Moskalenko, who is an expert on the psychology of fairy tales and Mia Bloom, who studies children’s mobilisation into violent extremism – both of them at Georgia State University – acknowledge the power of folklore in shaping the worldview of children and, ultimately, of the adults they grow up to be.</p>
<p>Traditional Ukrainian bedtime stories tend to favour the underdog fighting and prevailing against the odds: typical Ukrainian protagonists start out as unlikely heroes, but their courage, cleverness and grit help them succeed against the odds (remind you of anyone?) Many Russian tales, meanwhile, feature a character known as “Ivan the Stupid”. Ivan – portrayed as a good-hearted but simple fellow, tends to prevail through no particular virtue of his own, but generally through the intervention of a magical character, the moral being trust to luck and everything will come out well in the end.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fairy-tales-shape-fighting-spirit-ukraines-children-hear-bedtime-stories-of-underdog-heroes-while-russian-children-hear-tales-of-magical-success-179630">How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine's children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Something most Russian children seem unlikely to be hearing, at least from their political leadership, is the truth. And its depressing to report that one US journalist who was in Russia trying to get at the truth, has been detained and faces charges of espionage. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, faces a 20-year prison sentence if convicted. </p>
<p>Tim Luckhurst, a former BBC correspondent who now researches the history of journalism at Durham University, writes that Gershkovich is just the latest in a depressingly long list of reporters <a href="https://theconversation.com/evan-gershkovich-wall-street-journal-reporter-latest-in-long-line-of-journalists-punished-for-doing-their-job-203584">who have faced jail</a> – or worse – for simply doing their job too well.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/evan-gershkovich-wall-street-journal-reporter-latest-in-long-line-of-journalists-punished-for-doing-their-job-203584">Evan Gershkovich: Wall Street Journal reporter latest in long line of journalists punished for doing their job</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Ukraine Recap is available as a fortnightly email newsletter. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Newsletter+Ukraine+Recap+2022+Mar&utm_content=WeeklyRecapBottom">Click here to get our recaps directly in your inbox.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A selection of the best of our coverage of the conflict from the past fortnight.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2006182023-02-27T13:24:07Z2023-02-27T13:24:07ZCan eating poppy seeds affect drug test results? An addiction and pain medicine specialist explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512239/original/file-20230224-1769-g9ij77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eating culinary poppy seeds won’t get you high, but they could lead to a failed drug test.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/midsection-of-woman-holding-bagels-in-plate-royalty-free-image/691138209">Linda Caldwell/EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The U.S. Defense Department <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2023/Feb/21/2003164614/-1/-1/1/POPPY-SEEDS-WARNING-MEMO-SIGNED-CONTACT-REDACTED.PDF">issued a memo</a> on Feb. 17, 2023, warning service members to avoid eating poppy seeds because doing so may result in a positive urine test for the opiate codeine. Addiction and pain medicine specialist <a href="https://psychiatry.ufl.edu/profile/reisfield-gary/">Gary Reisfield</a> explains what affects the opiate content of poppy seeds and how they could influence drug tests.</em></p>
<h2>What are poppy seeds?</h2>
<p>Poppy seeds come from a species of poppy plant called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/opium-poppy"><em>Papaver somniferum</em></a>. “Somniferum” is Latin for “<a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/drugs-health-history-quirky-science/what-drug-may-have-been-detected-had-dorothys-and-cowardly-lions-urine-been-tested-they-entered">sleep-bringing</a>,” which hints that it might contain opiates – powerful compounds that depress the central nervous system and can induce drowsiness and sleep.</p>
<p>There are two main uses for the opium poppy. It is a source of the opiates used in painkillers, the most biologically active of which are morphine and codeine. Its seeds are also used for cooking and baking.</p>
<p>Poppy seeds themselves don’t contain opiates. But during harvesting, the seeds can <a href="https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/unwashed_poppy_seed.pdf">become contaminated</a> with opiates contained in the milky latex of the seed pod covering them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close-up of opium poppy heads with drops of opium milk latex leaking from the pod." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512234/original/file-20230224-1815-nrztn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The milky latex of poppy seed pods contains opiates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/opium-poppy-heads-papaver-somniferum-drops-milk-royalty-free-image/1445043432">Daniel Prudek/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>What affects opiate content in poppy seeds?</h2>
<p>Many factors determine the opiate concentrations and ratios of poppies. As with wine grapes, the opiate profile of the poppy plant – and thus its seeds – is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1042/bj0140618">affected by its terroir</a>: climate, soil, amount of sunshine, topography and time of harvest.</p>
<p>Another factor is the variety or cultivar of the plant. For example, there are genetically engineered opium poppies that produce no <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/09/23/1203133.htm">morphine or codeine</a> and others that produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.12086">no opium latex</a> at all.</p>
<h2>Can you get high from eating poppy seeds?</h2>
<p>Practically speaking, you cannot eat enough poppy seeds to get you high. Furthermore, processing dramatically decreases opiate content – for example, by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.0c01681">washing</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2020.00737">cooking or baking</a> the seeds.</p>
<h2>Do poppy seeds affect drug tests?</h2>
<p>Poppy seeds don’t have nearly enough opiates to intoxicate you. But because drug tests are exquisitely sensitive, consuming certain poppy seed food products can lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2014.04.042">positive urine drug test results for opiates</a> – specifically for morphine, codeine or both. </p>
<p>Under most circumstances, opiate concentrations in the urine are too low to produce a positive test result. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jat/bkac079">certain food products</a> – and it’s generally impossible to know which ones, because opiate content does not appear on food labels – contain enough opiates to produce positive test results. Moreover, because of overlap in opiate concentrations and morphine-to-codeine ratios, it can sometimes be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jat/bkac079">challenging to distinguish</a> test results that are due to the consumption of poppy seeds from those that are due to the use of opiate drugs. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bowl and scoop of poppy seeds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512229/original/file-20230224-1687-j2ktnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Processing poppy seeds decreases the opiate content that may be on the seed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/poppy-seeds-royalty-free-image/1257842791">Burcu Atalay Tankut/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>This is not a problem with most <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-A/part-40#40.137">workplace drug testing</a>. Test results are reviewed by a specially trained physician called a medical review officer. Unless the physician finds evidence of unauthorized opiate use, such as needle marks or signs of opiate intoxication or withdrawal, even relatively high concentrations of opiates in the urine that produce positive test results are generally ruled to be negative.</p>
<p>It turns out, though, that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/22/poppy-seeds-drug-test-military/">drug testing in the military</a> is different, and poppy seeds pose potential problems. One such problem, as highlighted in recent news reports, concerns service members who test positive for codeine and assert a “poppy seed defense.” They are still regarded as having taken codeine, sometimes with <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3306336/service-members-should-avoid-foods-with-poppy-seeds/">serious consequences</a>, such as a disciplinary action or discharge from the service.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Reisfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poppy seeds can become contaminated with opiates during harvesting. For the US Defense Department, invoking a ‘poppy seed defense’ may not be enough to rule out a positive drug test result.Gary Reisfield, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830852022-05-19T17:36:02Z2022-05-19T17:36:02ZWhat you need to know about the Defense Production Act – the 1950s law Biden invoked to try to end the baby formula shortage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464308/original/file-20220519-15-2p9dzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=96%2C66%2C4836%2C3216&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to help end the shortage of baby formula. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BabyFormulaShortage/cbffe3810313405ca11283cdc7531bf3/photo?Query=baby%20formula&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=265&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/David J. Phillip</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. President Joe Biden on May 18, 2022, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/05/18/memorandum-on-the-delegation-of-authority-under-the-defense-production-act-to-ensure-an-adequate-supply-of-infant-formula/">announced he is invoking</a> the Defense Production Act to help end the <a href="https://theconversation.com/baby-formula-industry-was-primed-for-disaster-long-before-key-factory-closed-down-183016">shortage of baby formula</a> stressing out parents nationwide.</p>
<p>He said he will direct suppliers of baby formula ingredients to prioritize delivery to formula manufacturers and control their distribution as necessary.</p>
<p>You might well wonder what babies going without formula has to do with defense production, which calls to mind big warships and weapons systems. While using the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/disaster/defense-production-act">Defense Production Act</a> to force companies to make baby formula would certainly be a novel use of the act, it would hardly be the first time the postwar law has been used beyond its originally intended purpose to support national defense.</p>
<p>And in fact, the law is used a lot more frequently than you might think. But as a <a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/erik-gordon">business professor</a> who studies strategies to maximize efficient allocation of resources, I believe when presidents invoke the act it’s often more about political theater – showing the public you’re doing something – than addressing the problem in the most effective way.</p>
<h2>Sweeping authority</h2>
<p>The Defense Production Act was passed in 1950 and modeled on the War Powers acts of <a href="https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/hr-6233-bill-expedite-prosecution-war-effort-first-war-powers-act-december-15">1941</a> and <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2009-title50/USCODE-2009-title50-app-secondwar">1942</a>. </p>
<p>The War Powers acts <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-defense-production-act">gave the president sweeping authority</a> to control domestic manufacturing. For example, it helped the U.S. <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/wwii-aircraft">increase production of warplanes</a> from 2,500 a year to over 300,000 by the end of the war.</p>
<p>In 1950, America faced war in Korea, and Congress feared that growing postwar demand for consumer goods would crowd out defense production needed to face China and the Soviet Union, which both backed North Korea in the conflict. There were also concerns <a href="https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1913-">about inflation</a> during that postwar period.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R43767.pdf">Defense Production Act gave the president</a> – who later delegated this authority to Cabinet officials like the secretary of defense – broad powers to force manufacturers to make goods and supply services to support the national defense, as well as to set wages and prices and even ration consumer goods. </p>
<p>“We cannot get all the military supplies we need now from expanded production alone,” President Harry Truman <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/radio-and-television-address-the-american-people-following-the-signing-the-defense">told Americans in a radio address after signing the act</a> into law. “This expansion cannot take place fast enough. Therefore, to the extent necessary, workers and plants will have to stop making some civilian goods and begin turning out military equipment.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R43767.pdf">original law focused on</a> “shaping U.S. military preparedness and capabilities,” which limited the scope of the president’s authority. </p>
<h2>Routinely invoked</h2>
<p>Although the Defense Production Act makes news only when the president dramatically invokes it, the government uses the law – or just the threat of using it – routinely to force private companies to prioritize government orders. The Department of Defense, for example, <a href="https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema-dpac-report-to-congress_2019.pdf">uses it to make</a> an estimated 300,000 contracts with private companies a year.</p>
<p>Congress <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/defense-production-act-dpa-5187806">has to reauthorize</a> the act every several years and has amended it frequently to expand or limit its scope. Over time, <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R43767.pdf">this has significantly broadened</a> the definition of national defense to include supporting “domestic preparedness, response, and recovery from hazards, terrorist attacks, and other national emergencies.” </p>
<p>The Department of Homeland Security invoked it about 400 times in 2019, mostly to help prepare for and respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters, such as by providing resources to house and feed survivors. And Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, for example, <a href="https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/bioethics/article/view/8678">both used it to divert electricity</a> and natural gas to California during the 2000-2001 energy crisis. </p>
<p>The act has also been used extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump used it to <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-prioritizing-allocating-health-medical-resources-respond-spread-covid-19/">prioritize the allocation of medical resources</a>, prevent hoarding of personal protective equipment and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-defense-production-act-wartime-general-motors/">require General Motors</a> to build ventilators. He also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/defense-production-act-executive-order-food-supply/index.html">ordered beef, pork and poultry processing facilities</a> to stay open during the lockdowns to ensure a supply of protein for the American population. </p>
<p>Biden, for his part, has also already used the act a number of times, mainly to fight the pandemic. For example, in March 2021, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/13/976531488/defense-production-act-speeds-up-vaccine-production">he invoked it</a> to speed up vaccine production by ensuring extra facilities were up to snuff, as well as to expedite the production of critical materials, equipment, machinery and supplies. In March 2022, <a href="https://electrek.co/2022/03/31/biden-invokes-defense-production-act-to-boost-ev-storage-battery-minerals/">he issued</a> a directive to increase the supply of materials for large-capacity batteries that are used mainly in civilian electric vehicles.</p>
<p>Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act to address the baby formula problem illustrates a limitation of it. It can be used to set priorities for ingredients and manufacturing capacity, but it’s not a magic wand. A president can’t by decree make capacity that doesn’t exist instantly appear. And it isn’t clear how much it will do to quickly end the formula shortage – given the <a href="https://abbott.mediaroom.com/2022-05-16-Abbott-Enters-into-Consent-Decree-with-U-S-Food-and-Drug-Administration-for-its-Sturgis,-Mich-,-Plant-Agreement-Creates-Pathway-to-Reopen-Facility">main problem is manufacturing issues</a> that closed production at a key plant, not just a shortage of ingredients. </p>
<p>The act is widely used and has been widely useful, but it is no substitute for advance planning and preparedness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Gordon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Biden said the Defense Production Act would help end the shortage by directing suppliers of baby formula to prioritize delivery to formula manufacturers.Erik Gordon, Professor of Business, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1805522022-04-07T20:56:00Z2022-04-07T20:56:00ZFederal budget 2022: More defence funding in wake of Canada’s F-35 about-face<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456610/original/file-20220406-15-a7h8e8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C236%2C1604%2C1113&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this 2006 photo, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is unveiled in a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/LM Ottero)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/federal-budget-2022--despite-more-defence-funding--canada-s-f-35-about-face-is-troubling" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Canadian government <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/f-35-negotiations-1.6399978">recently announced</a> its decision to enter negotiations with American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets. </p>
<p>The $19-billion contract is separate from <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/defence-department-military-canada-norad-ukraine-nato-1.6410530">$8 billion</a> in additional funding for defence that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled as part of the 2022 federal budget. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with grey hair and glasses speaks into a microphone with a photo of a fighter jet in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456613/original/file-20220406-22-aap83i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks following a tour of F-35 fighter jet contractor in Waterloo, Ont., in March 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Geoff Robins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2011.638199">second time</a> Ottawa has chosen the stealthy aircraft. In 2010, the governing Conservatives said the F-35 was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/002070201306800109">the only choice</a> for the Royal Canadian Air Force. The opposition disagreed, and the warplane <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702015609360">became an issue</a> in successive federal elections.</p>
<p>This history is what makes the recent announcement <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/government-communications-strategy-designed-two-years-ago-to-justify-f-35-purchase">so embarrassing</a> for the Liberal government. </p>
<p>Campaigning to unseat the Conservatives in 2015, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/20/liberals-would-scrap-f-35-jet-purchase.html">the Liberals criticized the sole-sourcing of the F-35</a> as both unfair and misguided. They were wrong.</p>
<p>In 1997, the United States government asked a few of its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09700161.2013.821277">allies to participate</a> in co-developing and co-producing a fighter jet that would become the F-35, and Canada agreed. </p>
<p>The deal was unusual, but its logic made sense, especially to the Canadian government. Why not work with its biggest economic and security partner while also giving Canadian aerospace firms opportunities to win contracts in what is sometimes referred to as the “<a href="https://fmep.org/media/reading/top-news-from-palestine-israel-november-10-2020/">the arms deal of the century</a>?”</p>
<p>The current lifetime cost estimate of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/air-force-admits-f-35-fighter-jet-costs-too-much-ncna1259781">$1.6 trillion</a> makes it the most expensive weapon system ever built and puts it on equal footing with the entire outstanding U.S. <a href="https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics">federal student loan debt</a> and President Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/build-back-better/">Build Back Better plan</a>. </p>
<h2>Fighter jet competition</h2>
<p>In 2017, the Trudeau government launched what it called an “<a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2017/12/government_launchesopenandtransparentcompetitiontoreplacecanadas.html">open and transparent</a>” competition for fighter jets. Designed to rigorously assess bids on elements of capability, cost and economic benefits, this process eventually came down to just two warplanes — the F-35 and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/swedens-jas39-gripen-may-be-worlds-best-nonstealth-fighter-jet-2021-11">Sweden’s Saab Gripen</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fighter jet in a greyish sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456616/original/file-20220406-7184-9emya2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Saab Gripen from the Hungarian Air Force performs during an airshow in Austria in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ronald Zak)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This all but guaranteed the F-35’s win. The last non-American fighter to enter the Royal Canadian Air Force was <a href="https://www.warplane.com/aircraft/collection/details.aspx?aircraftId=15">the Vampire</a> in 1948, manufactured by the British company de Havilland. </p>
<p>As a general rule, Canada’s military wants platforms that offer seamless or advanced interoperability with U.S. forces — not merely compatibility or basic interoperability that would have been the case with the Swedish jet.</p>
<p>The fact that the F-35 is yet to lose a competition is due both to <a href="https://thedisorderofthings.com/2014/05/16/aircraft-stories-the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-part-i/">the size of the program</a> and <a href="https://thedisorderofthings.com/2014/05/17/aircraft-stories-the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-part-ii/">U.S. influence</a>.</p>
<p>The more air forces that buy it — Canada’s decision brings that number to 18 — the lower its operational and other costs. That’s because <a href="https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-are-network-effects">network effects</a>, as economists call them, generate not only profits for contractors but also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423914001103">international power and influence</a>. </p>
<p>Citing security concerns about the aircraft’s design details, the U.S. government is requesting <a href="https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/5g/2022/01/27/f-35-fighters-5g-networks-and-how-the-uae-is-trying-to-balance-relations-between-the-us-and-china/">every F-35 customer</a> remove all 5G equipment made by China’s Huawei from their networks in the coming years. Those failing to comply will likely be removed from the program. </p>
<p>Something similar <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2019/07/turkey-is-cozying-up-to-china-after-f-35-expulsion-israelis-warn/">happened to Turkey in 2019</a> after its government decided to buy a Russian missile defence system. U.S. officials said that posed risks to the F-35s, including the possibility that Russia could covertly use the system to obtain classified details on the jet.</p>
<h2>Strings attached</h2>
<p>The strings attached to F-35 purchases have prompted some to call the fighter jet program “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/12/f-35-sales-are-americas-belt-and-road/">America’s One Belt, One Road</a>” — a tongue-in-cheek reference to China’s major foreign policy initiative and the Chinese tendency to strong-arm smaller states into participating. In Canadian politics, however, those strings are largely immaterial because dependence on the U.S. and its military power has long been a huge net benefit. </p>
<p>But what about today, with <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2022/02/25/what-the-ukraine-invasion-is-really-about-and-what-comes-next.html">the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/mu8hg">a rising China</a> and a <a href="https://blogs.city.ac.uk/internationalsystemofpower/2021/08/30/white-supremacy-in-hegemonic-contestations/">radicalized U.S. Republican Party</a>? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An elderly woman with a white wool scarf on her head and carrying a yellow plastic bag walks past a destroyed apartment building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456618/original/file-20220406-5430-m4xe2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An elderly woman walks by an apartment building destroyed by Russian shelling in Borodyanka, Ukraine, on April 6, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These developments are troubling and disorienting, but the fundamentals of Canada’s defence are not necessarily shifting dramatically. Whatever happens in Ukraine and in future American elections, the U.S. will almost certainly prioritize the North American homeland, keeping a close eye on both Russia and China.</p>
<p>Accordingly, Ottawa will be expected to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-this-election-canadians-cant-afford-to-ignore-parties-defence/">add capacity</a> to Canada’s NORAD and NATO commitments, and that means investing in the new aircraft. The new defence budget measures announced by Freeland are in fact designed to strengthen these commitments. </p>
<p>But Trudeau’s topsy-turvy relationship with the F-35 will continue to be mocked. Had the Conservative plan survived the end of the Harper government, RCAF pilots would now be much closer to flying the new jet. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1508615120410365954"}"></div></p>
<p>Instead, until at least 2025 — when the first new F-35s are expected to arrive — they will have to rely on an aging CF-18 fighter force, plus the equally aging, used <a href="https://www.military.com/equipment/f-18c-d-hornet">F/A-18s</a> the Liberals acquired in 2019 <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/procurement/fighter-jets/supplementing-cf-18-fleet.html">from Australia</a> as a stop-gap measure. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/2022/03/29/assessing-the-costs-and-benefits-of-canadas-12-year-f-35-odyssey.html">taxpayer money</a> might have been saved, too, had the government bought the F-35s 12 years ago.</p>
<h2>Standing on its own</h2>
<p>Given the assorted risks and threats Canada could face — including from authoritarian powers, cyber warfare, another pandemic, natural disasters and the accelerating effects of climate change — military procurement is only a small piece of the overall puzzle. </p>
<p>The principal challenge for the federal government is assessing problems in their totality and improving Canada’s own ability to tackle these issues on its own, without being overly affected or reliant on the U.S.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-shows-why-canada-must-reduce-its-dependence-on-the-u-s-136357">Coronavirus shows why Canada must reduce its dependence on the U.S.</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>This requires aligning goals and commitments with necessarily limited resources. A far-reaching, comprehensive review of the defence, security, diplomatic and development issues facing Canada would be a step in <a href="https://www.cips-cepi.ca/2017/02/12/national-interest-in-the-age-of-trump/">the right direction</a>. </p>
<p>One way for the Liberals to atone for their contributions to Canada’s fighter jet replacement farce would be to put forth a strategic vision for the country — and do so sooner rather than later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Srdjan Vucetic received funding in 2011-2014 from Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a research project on U.S. arms transfers.</span></em></p>Canada’s F-35 flip-flop amid the Ukraine war underscores the need for a far-reaching, comprehensive review of the defence, security, diplomatic and development issues facing the country.Srdjan Vucetic, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755952022-01-25T13:28:35Z2022-01-25T13:28:35ZThe US military presence in Europe has been declining for 30 years – the current crisis in Ukraine may reverse that trend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442393/original/file-20220124-27-1hu64zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C4493%2C2957&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Over there, over there (again).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/troops-from-the-u-s-army-2nd-battalion-12th-cavalry-news-photo/1265514528?adppopup=true">Omar Marques/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Up to 8,500 U.S. troops could <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/politics/biden-troops-europe/index.html">soon be heading to Eastern Europe</a> – bolstering an American military presence in the continent that has been in decline since the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>News of the possible deployment, announced on Jan. 24, 2022, by the Pentagon, comes as Russia and the United States continue to maneuver in the face of an escalating crisis in Ukraine.</p>
<p>We are a team of researchers who study U.S. troop deployments and how they affect the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-us-pay-so-much-for-the-defense-of-its-allies-5-questions-answered-127683">security</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/outside-the-wire-us-military-deployments-and-public-opinion-in-host-states/BEC8A7BA48C9CF5B82B100CCC4CFA56E">perceptions</a>, economy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-afghanistan-us-military-presence-abroad-faces-domestic-and-foreign-opposition-in-2022-172360">social sphere</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/13/red-hill-fuel-water-contamination-activism/">environment</a> of host countries. Understanding the changing U.S. military commitment to European countries helps us understand what is at stake in Europe and U.S. credibility in the region. </p>
<p>President Joe Biden <a href="https://youtu.be/G4s3WabDJ9I">signaled during a press conference</a> on Jan. 19 that the U.S. would increase its troop presence in NATO countries in Eastern Europe if Russia invades Ukraine as it seems poised to do. Just days later, he directed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to place thousands of U.S. troops on heightened alert for deployment to Eastern Europe.</p>
<p>The decision was framed by the Pentagon as the U.S. carrying through with its obligations to protect the security of NATO allies.</p>
<p>While Biden acknowledges that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, he emphasized that neighboring countries <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">Poland and Romania are</a>, and that the U.S. has an obligation to protect them. A <a href="https://tnsr.org/2021/06/the-truth-about-tripwires-why-small-force-deployments-do-not-deter-aggression/">large troop deployment</a> – potentially to bolster NATO’s existing presence in those two countries – would meet that obligation. </p>
<p>The U.S. and Russia have historically been cautious in not placing troops in places that would be considered a provocation. They generally <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/711716">avoid each other’s sphere of influence</a>, even when responding to the other’s deployments. Yet the NATO allies in Eastern Europe, many of which were once Soviet satellite states, provide a gray area that both the U.S. and Russia may view as within their own sphere of influence.</p>
<figure>
<div class="placeholder-container" style="--aspect-ratio-percent:75.06631299734748%;--background-color:#a1665e"><img alt="" class=" ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=754&fit=clip" data-srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442365/original/file-20220124-27-1x6ja1g.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&w=754&fit=clip"></div>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US military deployments to European states, 1989-2021.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The US military’s history in Europe</h2>
<p>Since the end of World War II, the United States has deployed <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-afghanistan-us-military-presence-abroad-faces-domestic-and-foreign-opposition-in-2022-172360">hundreds of thousands of service members</a> to Europe. These deployments were vital in not only stabilizing Western Europe following the war, but also in exerting U.S. influence in the postwar environment. </p>
<p>Interactions between the U.S. and European countries during this period involved the creation of a series of institutions to help structure the rules and norms of international relations. These organizations have persisted in part because the United States provides security commitments to countries that accept and promote them. The <a href="https://www.nato.int/">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a> (NATO), a military alliance established in 1949 as a bulwark to Soviet expansionism, was central to these efforts.</p>
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<p>At its height in the late 1950s, U.S. presence in Europe consisted of about 430,000 troops, stationed in places like West Germany and the U.K.</p>
<p>After the end of the Cold War, <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_139339.htm">NATO sought to redefine its mission from one that checked Russian aggression to European stability more generally</a>. This change in mission came with the expansion of NATO membership to Central and Eastern European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. With NATO membership came new deployments of U.S. service members to these countries.</p>
<p>NATO has also sought to expand its relationships with non-member states throughout Eastern and Central Europe through the <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_37356.htm">Membership Action Plan</a>, which provides advice and assistance to countries wishing to join NATO.</p>
<p>This eastward push came with <a href="https://transatlanticrelations.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20-Zagorski.pdf">objections from Russia in the 1990s</a>, which has long worried about the security of its western borders with Europe. Russia’s concern about NATO expanding to its border continues today, as seen in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/14/russia-demands-us-nato-response-next-week-on-ukraine">President Vladimir Putin’s demand</a> that NATO forces pull back from deploying in former Soviet states.</p>
<h2>A shift away from Europe?</h2>
<p>If the U.S. follows through with beefing up its military presence in Eastern Europe, it would reverse a trend that has seen American troop numbers dwindle in Europe significantly since the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p>The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in particular marked a dramatic shift in where the U.S. focused its troop deployments and security concerns. The beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq brought massive changes in the United States’ military position globally as it shifted focus to Central Asia and the Middle East.</p>
<p>In 1989, the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/07388942211030885">United States had 248,621 permanent troops stationed</a> in West Germany, 27,639 in the United Kingdom, 15,706 in Italy and 3,382 in Greece. By September 2021, U.S. troop numbers had fallen to 35,457 in Germany, 9,563 in the United Kingdom, 12,434 in Italy and 429 in Greece.</p>
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<p>While the size of U.S. deployments to Europe have declined dramatically since their Cold War heights, they are still very large relative to most other U.S. deployments. </p>
<p>Without the threat of the Soviet Union, though, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/03/09/americans-and-germans-differ-in-their-views-of-each-other-and-the-world/">public opposition</a> to foreign deployments has also <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/31/majority-of-u-s-public-favors-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-biden-criticized-for-his-handling-of-situation/">increased</a> in the post-Cold War era.</p>
<p>However, rising tensions with Russia have in the recent past prompted U.S. presidents to dedicate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-announces-1-billion-program-to-boost-military-presence-in-eastern-europe/2014/06/03/414c0240-eb00-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html">additional military aid and deployments to Poland and the Baltic States</a>.</p>
<p>This trend looks set to continue if the Pentagon does indeed deploy thousands of troops to Eastern Europe in the face of a threatened invasion by Russia of Ukraine.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175595/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael A. Allen has received funding from the Department of Defense's Minerva Initiative, the US Army Research Laboratory, and the US Army Research Office.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Martinez Carla Martinez Machain has received funding from the Department of Defense's Minerva Initiative, the US Army Research Laboratory, and the US Army Research Office.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael E. Flynn has received funding from the Department of Defense's Minerva Initiative, the US Army Research Laboratory, and the US Army Research Office.</span></em></p>The Pentagon has announced that as many as 8,500 troops have been put on standby to be deployed in Europe as a counter to the threat of the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border.Michael A. Allen, Associate Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityCarla Martinez Machain, Professor of Political Science, Kansas State UniversityMichael E. Flynn, Associate Professor of Political Science, Kansas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1701212021-10-18T14:16:32Z2021-10-18T14:16:32ZThe Battle of Algiers: an iconic film whose message of hope still resonates today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426899/original/file-20211018-20-10uc2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yacef Saadi (R), military leader of the FLN National Liberation Front networks of the autonomous zone of Algiers, poses after being captured at the end of the "Battle of Algiers".</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Saadi Yacef, the Algerian revolutionary leader who fought for his country’s liberation from French colonial rule, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/movies/saadi-yacef-dead.html">died on 10 September 2021</a>. Yacef is perhaps one of the better known of Algeria’s resistance fighters because of the role he played in the creation of the film <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/248-the-battle-of-algiers">The Battle of Algiers</a>, directed by the renowned Italian film maker <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0690597/">Gillo Pontecorvo</a>. </p>
<p>The Battle of Algiers was filmed in 1965 as a co-production between an Italian creative team and the new Algerian FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) government, whose representative Yacef produced the film and stars as the character of Jaffar.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426939/original/file-20211018-83508-1vdqq9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Battle Of Algiers, lobby card, Jean Martin, 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by LMPC via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most extraordinary films ever made, The Battle of Algiers is an emotionally devastating account of the anticolonial struggle of the Algerian people and a brutally candid exposé of the French colonial mindset. Many French people were unhappy with the representation of their army and country in the film. It was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13698010701618596?queryID=%24%7BresultBean.queryID%7D">not officially censored in France</a>, but the general public and all cinemas boycotted it. It was seen as anti-French propaganda.</p>
<p>In later years, the film was screened to groups classed as revolutionaries and terrorists, apparently becoming a “<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/battle-of-algiers-transposed-into-palestinian-key/">documentary guidebook</a>” in the Palestinian struggle, and for organisations such as <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/342-the-battle-of-algiers-bombs-and-boomerangs">the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers</a>, who examined its detailed representation of guerrilla tactics.</p>
<p>It was also shown in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/weekinreview/the-world-film-studies-what-does-the-pentagon-see-in-battle-of-algiers.html">the Pentagon in 2003</a>, in the middle of the Iraq War. US Counterterrorism experts <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/248-the-battle-of-algiers">Richard Clarke and Mike Sheehan</a> suggest that the film showed how a country can win militarily, but still lose the battle for “hearts and minds”.</p>
<p>What relevance does The Battle of Algiers hold today, 55 years after it was first released?</p>
<p>The message of the film is ultimately one of hope: the oppressed multitude will eventually triumph because their cause is just. The images of revolutionary crowds in the film recall the jerky, grainy footage that has emerged from a wave of recent protests in the last decade, from the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement to <a href="https://rebellion.global/">Extinction Rebellion</a>. Pontecorvo thrillingly captures the power and possibility of large gatherings of citizens, who come together to demand rights, putting their bodies at risk to create social and political change.</p>
<p>Additionally, the film refuses to condemn any of the agents in this conflict. As Pontecorvo has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWwI3WxU4Dk">stated</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>in a war, even if from a historical standpoint, one side is proven right, and the other wrong, both do horrendous things when they are in battle.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A film of contrasts</h2>
<p>Shot in black and white, the film is difficult to classify in terms of style. Its military action sequences and tactical montages remind us of films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790885/">Zero Dark Thirty</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057392/">The Eye in the Sky</a>; indeed, it is almost impossible to film a scene of politically-motivated <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/723807/summary">torture</a> without having The Battle of Algiers as an implicit or explicit point of reference.</p>
<p>The collective aspect of the film’s creation, and the socialist ideals that inspired it, link it to what’s called <a href="https://thirdcinema.blueskylimit.com/thirdcinema.html">Third Cinema</a>. This was a kind of revolutionary cinema, a cinema of the “Third World”, that was designed to overthrow the systems of colonialism and capitalism. </p>
<p>The Battle of Algiers is also an example of Italian neorealism, a major film movement coming out of mid-twentieth century Italy. The neorealists made films that opposed Mussolini’s fascist regime, and they focused on the hardships of the working class in Italy. Neorealism was a moral and aesthetic system: it brought art and politics together to expose the ills of society and bring about social change.</p>
<p>The Battle of Algiers was shot entirely on location in Algiers, and Colonel Mathieu was the only professional on set. Pontocorvo selected the other actors from the local population based on their faces and expressions.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426926/original/file-20211018-28-12w4yqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Algerian rebel Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag) is set upon by the Europeans in a scene from the movie</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other elements of the neorealist style was the use of techniques that create a documentary aesthetic such as the hand-held camera. Pontecorvo also uses extracts from real-life FLN and police communiqués, letters, and title cards. And he used newsreel stock, which was cheaper, but also added to the sense of verisimilitude in the film.</p>
<p>Although he believed the Algerians cause to be just, Pontecorvo wanted to create a nuanced and fair account of the war. Therefore, he sets up a series of contrasts to reflect this opposition between French and Algerian. This is present in the original musical score by <a href="http://www.enniomorricone.org/">Ennio Morricone</a>: while groups of French soldiers rampage through the Casbah to the sound of jaunty military drums and horns, a haunting flute theme accompanies sequences which feature Algerian civilians. </p>
<p>Contrast is also evident in the use of light and shadow: there are strong chiaroscuro effects, perhaps reflecting the themes of right and wrong in the film. Pontecorvo also uses shadow to highlight the covert operations of the Algerians: Ali La Pointe’s face is filmed with deep shadows, and the face of Colonel Mathieu is always brightly lit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426932/original/file-20211018-26-vgl9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French paratroop Colonel Mathieu (Jean Martin) walks past a cheering throng in a scene from the movie</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Space provides another important contrast in the film. Frantz Fanon, a famous theorist of the Algerian revolution, describes the colonial world as a world “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/719495">cut in two</a>” because of the stark divide between the coloniser and the colonised. In The Battle of Algiers, the wide boulevards of the European quarter are juxtaposed to the narrow, winding, labyrinthine alleyways of the Casbah. Space is also divided vertically and horizontally – the European quarter is flat, while the Casbah is steep and sloping. </p>
<p>This opposition of space highlights the gap between rich and poor, coloniser and colonised.</p>
<h2>The question of bias</h2>
<p>The biggest contrast in the film is of course between the French and Algerians. The embodiment of French and European values in the film is Colonel Mathieu. He is a suave figure, confident and controlled in army fatigues, stylish sunglasses and slick speech – he has more dialogue than other characters in the film. A number of critics have argued that Mathieu is far ‘too cool’, given that he is a practitioner and a proponent of torture.</p>
<p>Yet Colonel Mathieu is not depicted as an ogre: above all, he embodies reason. We see this in his statements about the use of torture, when he uses solid rhetorical devices to justify it. He says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…do you think France should stay in Algeria? If you do, you have to accept the necessary consequences. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is persuasive as a logical argument – if you want French Algeria, you have to accept the actions that result in this outcome – torture.</p>
<p>If Mathieu and the French have reason, what do the Algerians have? </p>
<p>Firstly, they have raw, visceral emotion and the power of the group. The victory at the end of the film is a victory of the masses, embodied in two figures – the martyr Ali La Pointe, the illiterate everyman who becomes a hero for the revolution, and the gyrating, anonymous Algerian women, whose gaze outwards to the future closes the film.</p>
<p>This takes me to the final point about what the Algerians have on their side – the power of historical right. We see this through Pontecorvo’s use of chronology – the narrative proceeds as a flashback, until we leap forward in time to the euphoria and mania of the end of the war and the triumph of the revolutionaries. Pontecorvo here glosses over the fact that the real Battle of Algiers was lost by the Algerians, and jumps into a future of eventual victory in the war. </p>
<p>This is how he views the process of history – the masses, with moral right on their side, will eventually win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Flood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film showed how a country can win militarily, but still lose the battle for ‘hearts and minds’.Maria Flood, Lecturer in Film Studies, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662462021-09-02T18:23:15Z2021-09-02T18:23:15Z‘Get out now’ – inside the White House on 9/11, according to the staffers who were there<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419073/original/file-20210902-16-h9j2i0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C4%2C3053%2C2037&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Staff members were rushed into the White House Mess – then rushed out when they were told a plane was heading for the White House. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tina Hager/George W. Bush Presidential Center </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I anticipated a busy but relatively calm day at the White House. </p>
<p>I was the <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/mcbride-bio.html">special assistant to the president for management and administration</a>, and President <a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/sarasota-county/19-years-ago-bush-learned-of-9-11-attacks-during-visit-to-sarasota-school/">George W. Bush was in Sarasota, Florida</a>, promoting the No Child Left Behind legislation. The senior official in the White House was Vice President Dick Cheney. First lady <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/126555926">Laura Bush was scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill</a> to brief senators on early childhood education. On the South Lawn, tables were being set up for that evening’s congressional barbecue.</p>
<p>With the president away, I arrived later than usual that morning and headed to a breakfast in the small senior staff dining room known as the White House Mess, on the ground floor of the West Wing.</p>
<p>I was sitting at a table eating my toast and drinking coffee when a colleague came over and told us about news reports of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City. We thought it had to be a terrible accident. We left the Mess shortly thereafter, unaware of the impact of the second plane.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people outside of the White House, on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419077/original/file-20210902-19-1hnpzlp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Secret Service agents, weapons drawn, ordered everyone on staff, and visitors, to ‘Get out now.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George W. Bush Presidential Center</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Get out now’</h2>
<p>This story began as an assignment from the White House Historical Association to write about that day for its <a href="https://issuu.com/whhapubl/docs/pdf_july_18?fr=sZjMwNDc5MDEw">9/11 20th-anniversary edition of the White House History Quarterly</a>. I interviewed a range of White House staffers, from Cabinet officials and aides assisting the vice president and the National Security Council to the interns from around the country who had begun their service at the White House that momentous day.</p>
<p>In the minutes after we heard about the plane crashing, there was a rush of activity in the ground-floor hallway. I was directed by the Secret Service to get West Wing staff out of their offices and into the windowless Mess, which was thought to be the safest place at the time. </p>
<p>But then, the agents, weapons drawn, ordered everyone to “get out now,” sending staffers racing through the iron gates that had been opened at both ends of West Executive Avenue outside the West Wing. Women were advised to kick off their heels and run for their lives. Tourists at the White House ran from the building, leaving strollers on the lawn.</p>
<p>Across the White House complex, the Secret Service ordered staff to evacuate as quickly as possible. In the five-story Old Executive Office Building next door, however, many staffers learned about these orders only by watching TV and seeing the chyron: “White House being evacuated.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women outside the White House." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419086/original/file-20210902-20-1aytwji.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women staffers were advised to kick off their heels to get out of the White House faster. Here, Anita McBride, left, and Mary Matalin, right, on Pennsylvania Avenue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George W. Bush Presidential Center</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The frantic evacuation was a response to the <a href="https://www.adn.com/uncategorized/article/white-house-situation-room-tension/2011/09/11/">urgent call the Secret Service had received from air traffic control at Ronald Reagan National Airport</a> – in which Secret Service staffers were told, “There is an aircraft coming at you” and “What I am telling you, buddy, is that if you’ve got people, you better get them out of there. And I mean right goddamned now.” </p>
<p>Moments later, hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The vice president had been evacuated from his West Wing office to the president’s emergency operations center, also called “The Bunker.” An agent later said, “We had 56 seconds to move him.” </p>
<h2>The ‘Dead List’</h2>
<p>In the White House Situation Room, which served as the vital link for secure communications and information for the president, staff were told by their senior duty officer that “we have been ordered to evacuate … If you want to go, go now.”</p>
<p>But no one moved. </p>
<p>The communications technician transmitted the list of personnel who remained to the CIA Operations Center. The duty officers there called it the “Dead List.” Thankfully, their description was ultimately wrong.</p>
<p>I left the White House and joined staffers across the street in Lafayette Park. I instinctively sought to find a safer place to congregate and thought of the DaimlerChrysler office on H Street, a short walk away. My husband, <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/timothy-j-mcbride-oral-history">Tim McBride, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush</a>, was serving as director of government affairs for DaimlerChrysler in its Washington office. </p>
<p>I called Tim and asked if I could bring White House staff members there. Tim had already begun to send his staff home, and thought quickly to ask them to leave their computers on with their passwords written down, so that White House staffers would be able to work in the office.</p>
<p>Ultimately, more than 70 White House personnel from offices including speechwriting, scheduling, communications, Oval Office operations and legislative affairs worked from DaimlerChrysler on 9/11. I asked one of the first staff members to arrive to sit at the front desk and record everyone’s name and contact number and fax that list to the White House Situation Room, notifying them who was at this location. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people working in an office together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419079/original/file-20210902-17-y1cp0h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White House staffers working on 9/11 in the DaimlerChrysler building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George W. Bush Presidential Center</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Bond deepened’</h2>
<p>Speechwriters began researching for presidential remarks, communications staff were monitoring reports from around the country and keeping contact with the media, and senior staff took charge, giving directions to create a schedule of events for the president’s next few days, including going to New York and the Pentagon. </p>
<p>In horror and grief, we watched the news of the hijacked plane that went down in a field in Pennsylvania, but the mood in the DaimlerChrysler office was focused and determined. As one colleague said, “the culture of the White House stuck with people in the face of an emergency.”</p>
<p>Word reached us around 5 p.m. that West Wing staff should head back to the White House. The president was returning. Going room by room at the DaimlerChrysler office, I collected any documents that were left behind. These materials were now presidential records to be preserved at the National Archives.</p>
<p>Making my way back to the White House to get my car, I walked through Lafayette Park. The country was now at war, and everyone knew it was the start of a new chapter in our nation’s history. As one former colleague told me, “Working at the White House is a binding experience in itself, but the strengthening of that bond deepened after an experience like this.”</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita McBride does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A top White House aide to President George W. Bush recounts what 9/11 was like for White House staffers.Anita McBride, Fellow in Residence, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, Department of Government, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667302021-08-25T02:43:50Z2021-08-25T02:43:50ZThe plight of Afghan security contractors highlights the legal and moral risks of outsourcing war<p>By <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-22/australian-government-denies-visas-to-afghan-contracted-guards/100397454">first denying and then granting visas</a> to more than 100 Afghan contractors who guarded its embassy in Kabul, Australia has shone a light on the murky world of the private security industry.</p>
<p>According to the lawyer and former army officer representing the security guards, his clients had yet to receive the humanitarian visas and the about-face was merely <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-22/australian-government-denies-visas-to-afghan-contracted-guards/100397454">an attempt by Australian officials</a> “to look like they have done their job when they sat on their hands for so long”.</p>
<p>The Australian case mirrors the British government’s policy reversal concerning 125 Afghan security guards at its Kabul embassy.</p>
<p>They, too, were initially <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/afghanistan-uk-embassy-guards-employer-disputes-minister-claim-of-kabul-evacuation">informed</a> they were ineligible for emergency evacuation due to being employed by Canadian private security firm GardaWorld, only for the decision to be overruled late last week.</p>
<p>In both cases, these Afghan contractors have fallen into the shady legal gap between the private security company that employed them locally and the governments that contracted their employers.</p>
<p>As one <a href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2345965283726/guards-at-kabul-embassy-told-they-are-ineligible-for-uk-protection">GardaWorld employee said</a> when he was told his contract would be terminated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No one asked whether we are safe or not. No one asked whether our lives are in danger or not.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Privatising and outsourcing war</h2>
<p>Afghanistan, famously known as “the graveyard of empires”, has been a gravy train for the global private security industry for the past two decades, as the war was increasingly privatised and outsourced.</p>
<p>Under the Trump administration, private security companies with Pentagon contracts numbered <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-07-21/number-of-private-military-contractors-in-afghanistan-drops-precipitously-as-biden-pushes-withdrawal-plan">nearly 6,000</a>, costing <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2021-07-21/number-of-private-military-contractors-in-afghanistan-drops-precipitously-as-biden-pushes-withdrawal-plan">US$2.3 billion</a> (A$3.1 billion) in 2019. When the US military withdrawal began, these private contractors dropped to about 1,400 by July.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-talibans-grip-on-afghanistan-tightens-new-zealand-must-commit-to-taking-more-refugees-166411">As the Taliban's grip on Afghanistan tightens, New Zealand must commit to taking more refugees</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Until now, however, private security firms were such a critical element of the war effort that their departure was considered <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-military-collapse-private-contractors/">a key factor</a> in the collapse of the Afghan army.</p>
<p>The appeal of these private security contractors lies in their arms-length advantage — they are relatively disposable and carry little political cost. This allows the industry to operate opaquely, with little oversight and even less accountability.</p>
<p>In the case of the Australian embassy guards, it would appear their direct employers have done little to secure their safety. How, then, can these companies and the governments that employ them be held accountable?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1430225385778786311"}"></div></p>
<h2>Little binding protection</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.montreuxdocument.org/about/montreux-document.html">Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies</a> – which reflects inter-governmental consensus that international law applies to private security companies in war zones – requires private security companies “to respect and ensure the welfare of their personnel”. Unfortunately, this is not a binding agreement.</p>
<p>The International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (<a href="https://icoca.ch/the-code/">ICoCA</a>) – known as “the code” — lays out the responsibilities of private security under international law. It requires signatory companies to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…]provide a safe and healthy working environment, recognising the possible inherent dangers and limitations presented by the local environment [and to] ensure that reasonable precautions are taken to protect relevant staff in high-risk or life-threatening operations.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-may-have-access-to-the-biometric-data-of-civilians-who-helped-the-u-s-military-166475">The Taliban may have access to the biometric data of civilians who helped the U.S. military</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Australia is a signatory to the ICoCA, as are private security companies Gardaworld, Hart International Australia and Hart Security Limited, all of which operate in Afghanistan and have at various times been contracted by the Australian government.</p>
<p>But again, like the Montreux Document, the ICoC is non-binding. However, ICoC Executive Director Jamie Williamson has said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The situation in Afghanistan is shining a spotlight on the duty of care clients of private security companies have towards local staff and their families […] We expect to see both our government and corporate members ensure the safety and well-being of all private security personnel working on government and other contracts, whatever their nationality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1430276989026451460"}"></div></p>
<h2>Still no guarantee of safety</h2>
<p>This duty of care now appears to have been extended to those guards who worked for the Australian and British governments in Afghanistan — albeit at the last minute. As one contractor told Australian media, he and his colleagues <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/afghan-locals-working-at-australia-s-embassy-in-kabul-fear-for-their-lives-after-announcement-of-closure">first applied</a> for protection visas in 2012.</p>
<p>But their safety remains uncertain. The visas do not guarantee safe passage to Kabul’s international airport where evacuation efforts are chaotic. In the past weekend alone, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0bcb4a2b-6447-47d0-8fed-1703338e63ee">14 civilians were killed</a> trying to flee the Taliban takeover.</p>
<p>There are also concerns about safe passage through Taliban checkpoints <a href="https://news.usni.org/2021/08/20/limited-coordination-between-u-s-nato-allies-in-getting-afghanistan-evacuees-to-airport">not being properly coordinated</a> by US and NATO
allies, leaving dangerous alternative routes the only option.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-do-afghanistans-refugees-go-166316">Where do Afghanistan's refugees go?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Sheltering until they can safely travel to the airport is also fraught. As <a href="https://eminetra.com.au/australia-backflips-on-decision-to-reject-visas-for-former-kabul-embassy-guards/219554/">one guard explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every day there is news that the Taliban will start a search for each house […] looking for people who have served the army and those who have served the foreign army.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia has made a legal and moral commitment to provide refuge to these people. But with the Taliban’s so-called <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/23/will-not-extend-afghanistan-withdrawal-say-taliban/">red line</a> of August 31 looming, the window to evacuate them and their families is closing.</p>
<p>And while the global private security companies may have shut up shop in Afghanistan for now, the consequences and human costs associated with outsourcing war linger on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Anna Powles has consulted on security sector reform and private security sector governance with the United Nations Development Programme and co-leads a research project on private security companies in the Pacific. </span></em></p>Afghanistan has been a gravy train for private security companies, but their local employees now find themselves in a dangerous no-man’s-land.Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1636752021-07-01T10:10:28Z2021-07-01T10:10:28ZUS government UFO report: from shrouded history to a data–driven future – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409129/original/file-20210630-17-1x5syyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=178%2C146%2C1218%2C805&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screenshot from a Depart of Defense video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/sites/g/files/jejdrs566/files/2020-04/1%20-%20FLIR.mp4">US Department of Defense/US Navy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> we look at the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s report on unidentified aerial phenomena and explore the cultural history and scientific taboo around UFOs. And three months after rebels killed the president of Chad in central Africa, we talk to experts about the balance of power there.</p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/60dc8ee702a6470012b996d6?cover=true" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" width="100%" height="110"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>When it finally dropped on June 25, the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">report on unidentified aerial phenomena</a> didn’t mention the word extraterrestrial. And nobody had expected it to. Still, ufologists were excited that this official US government report might give them a signal or evidence of other-worldly explanations for mysterious sightings by navy pilots over the past few decades.</p>
<p>In this episode, Chris Impey, university distinguished professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, talks us through what the government report actually reveals. And he explains why doing serious research into UFOs has been such a taboo for scientists fighting against the link between UFOs and conspiracy theories. “Guilt by association for a lot of scientists is just enough that they won’t want to go there,” Impey says. The report may move the needle a bit, he tells us, “but not substantially.” </p>
<p>Greg Eghigian, professor of history at Penn State University, gives us a cultural history of UFOs. He explains how the American obsession with them began in the late 1940s in the US and then spread around the world. “It’s always been global,” says Eghigian. “Different governments across the world have at different periods of time investigated this or had dedicated UFO desks.”</p>
<p>And in our second story (27m54s), we head to Chad in central Africa. When the country’s long-serving president, Idriss Déby was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56815708">killed suddenly</a> by rebels in April, his son, a general, took charge of a transitional military council promising to hold new elections within 18 months. </p>
<p>Line Engbo Gissel, associate professor of global political sociology at Roskilde University in Denmark and Troels Burchall Henningsen, assistant professor at the Royal Danish Defence College recently <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09557571.2020.1828281?journalCode=ccam20">published research</a> on how Chad’s political elite have retained their grip on power. They talk to us about why the legacy of this “gatekeeper politics” will <a href="https://theconversation.com/legacy-of-chads-gatekeeper-politics-lives-on-beyond-deby-and-carries-grave-risks-160295">live on beyond Déby</a>.</p>
<p>And Naomi Joseph, arts and culture editor at The Conversation in London, gives us some recommended reading (40m10s). </p>
<p>This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/?hl=en">theconversationdotcom</a>. or via email on podcast@theconversation.com. You can also sign up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter?utm_campaign=PodcastTCWeekly&utm_content=newsletter&utm_source=podcast">The Conversation’s free daily email here</a>.</p>
<p>News clips in this episode are from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO_M0hLlJ-Q">CNBC News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ZeKQ6tSMc">NBC News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XPt0Kck21Y">CBS News,</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI1m98uGNd8">Channel 4</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWuS_7FL6cA">Channels Television</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWuS_7FL6cA">Network Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAMvgX_pMyE">Reu</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5-r-hj8xQA">ters</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VipeVp1PTCc">France 24</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNQNVu3efZw">English</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzaq7Sr_qYA">RT</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wl9AtpxHXQ">France 24</a>. </p>
<p><em>You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out how else to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">listen here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify that the report was produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Plus, what’s happening in Chad, three months after rebels killed the president, Idriss Déby.Gemma Ware, Head of AudioDaniel Merino, Associate Breaking News Editor and Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly PodcastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1630592021-06-30T12:14:27Z2021-06-30T12:14:27ZUS intelligence report on UFOs: No aliens, but government transparency and desire for better data might bring science to the UFO world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408956/original/file-20210629-23-49zsqh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=66%2C35%2C602%2C596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new government report describes 144 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/documents">U.S. Navy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a much-anticipated <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">report on UFOs to Congress</a>. The military has rebranded unidentified flying objects as unidentified aerial phenomena – UAPs – in part to avoid the stigma that has been attached to claims of aliens visiting the Earth since the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/roswell-ufo-crash-what-really-happened.html">Roswell incident in 1947</a>. The report presents no convincing evidence that alien spacecraft have been spotted, but some of the data defy easy interpretation. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.as.arizona.edu/people/faculty/chris-impey">professor of astronomy</a> who has written extensively on the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/talking-about-life/696F47F802931AE9021CA72083313579">search for life</a> in the universe. I also teach a <a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/astrobiology-exploring-other-worlds">free online class on astrobiology</a>. I do not believe that the new government report or any other sightings of UFOs in the past are proof of aliens visiting Earth. But the report is important because it opens the door for a serious look at UFOs. Specifically, it encourages the U.S. government to collect better data on UFOs, and I think the release of the report increases the chances that scientists will try to interpret that data. Historically, UFOs have felt off limits to mainstream science, but perhaps no more.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rO_M0hLlJ-Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Three videos from the U.S. military sparked a recent surge in interest in UFOs.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-government-ufo-report-from-shrouded-history-to-a-data-driven-future-podcast-163675">US government UFO report: from shrouded history to a data–driven future – podcast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s in the UFO report?</h2>
<p>The No. 1 thing the report focuses on is the lack of high-quality data. Here are the highlights from the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">slender nine-page report</a>, covering a total of 144 UAP sightings from U.S. government sources between 2004 and 2021:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“Limited data and inconsistent reporting are key challenges to evaluating UAP.” </p></li>
<li><p>Some observations “could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception.”</p></li>
<li><p>“UAP clearly pose a safety of flight issue and may pose a challenge to U.S. national security.”</p></li>
<li><p>Of the 144 sightings, the task force was “able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.”</p></li>
<li><p>“Some UAP many be technologies deployed by China, Russia, another nation, or non-governmental entity.”</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The front page of the report with a U.S. government logo and 'unclassified' listed at the top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408950/original/file-20210629-11592-6d5ji7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=656&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Office of the Director of National Intelligence prepared the report for the Congressional Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">Office of the Director of National Intelligence</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>UFOs are taboo among scientists</h2>
<p>UFO means unidentified flying object. Nothing more, nothing less. You’d think scientists would enjoy the challenge of solving this puzzle. Instead, UFOs have been taboo for academic scientists to investigate, and so unexplained reports have not received the scrutiny they deserve.</p>
<p>One reason is that most scientists think there is <a href="http://www.fraknoi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Responding-to-Claims-about-Alien-UFOs-2.pdf">less to most reports than meets the eye</a>, and the few who have dug deeply have mostly <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005r2h">debunked the phenomenon</a>. <a href="http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/astroufo1.htm">Over half of sightings can be attributed</a> to meteors, fireballs and the planet Venus. </p>
<p>Another reason for the scientific hesitance is that UFOs have been co-opted by popular culture. They are part of a landscape of conspiracy theories that includes accounts of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01463370600878545">abduction by aliens</a> and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/">crop circles</a>. Scientists worry about their professional reputations, and the association of UFOs with these supernatural stories causes most researchers to avoid the topic.</p>
<p>But some scientists have looked. In 1968, Edward U. Condon at the University of Colorado published the <a href="https://files.ncas.org/condon/">first major academic study of UFO sightings</a>. The Condon Report put a damper on further research when it found that “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1725090">nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years</a> that has added to scientific knowledge.”</p>
<p>However, a <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/pr/98/980629ufostudy.html">review in 1998</a> by a panel led by Peter Sturrock, a professor of applied physics at Stanford University, concluded that some sightings are accompanied by physical evidence that deserves scientific study. Sturrock also <a href="https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/8/jse_08_2_sturrock.pdf">surveyed professional astronomers</a> and found that nearly half thought UFOs were worthy of scientific study, with higher interest among younger and more well-informed astronomers.</p>
<p>If astronomers are intrigued by UFOs – and believe some cases deserve study with academic rigor – what’s holding them back? A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515617706">history of mistrust</a> between ufologists and scientists hasn’t helped. And while UFO research has employed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/B:QUAS.0000015542.28438.41">some of the tools of the scientific method</a>, it has not had the core of skeptical, evidence-based reasoning that demarcates science from <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-pseudoscience/">pseudoscience</a>.</p>
<p>A search of 90,000 recent and current <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/">grants awarded</a> by the National Science Foundation finds none addressing UFOs or related phenomena. I’ve served on review panels for 35 years, and can imagine the reaction if such a proposal came up for peer review: raised eyebrows and a quick vote not to fund.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of satellite dishes pointing in various directions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408955/original/file-20210629-28-ro64v4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radio telescopes like the Allen Telescope Array seen here scan the sky looking for signs of intelligent life in the universe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allen_Telescope_Array_-_Flickr_-_brewbooks_(11).jpg#/media/File:Allen_Telescope_Array_-_Flickr_-_brewbooks_(11).jpg">Brewbooks/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A decadeslong search for aliens</h2>
<p>While the scientific community has almost entirely avoided engaging with UFOs, a much more mainstream search for intelligent aliens and their technology has been going on for decades.</p>
<p>The search is motivated by the fact that astronomers have, to date, discovered <a href="https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/">over 4,400 planets orbiting other stars</a>. Called exoplanets, some are close to the Earth’s mass and at just the right distance from their stars to potentially have water on their surfaces – meaning they might be habitable.</p>
<p>Astronomers estimate that there are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/world/nasa-300-million-habitable-planets-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html">300 million habitable worlds</a> in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and each one is a <a href="https://www.seti.org/drake-equation-index">potential opportunity</a> for life to develop and for intelligence and technology to emerge. Indeed, most astronomers think it very unlikely that <a href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1350/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-revisiting-the-drake-equation/">humans are the only or the first advanced civilization</a>. </p>
<p>This confidence has fueled an active <a href="https://www.seti.org/">search for extraterrestrial intelligence</a>, known as SETI. It has been unsuccessful so far. As a result, researchers have recast the question “Are we alone?” to “Where are the aliens?” The absence of evidence for intelligent aliens is called the <a href="https://www.seti.org/fermi-paradox-0">Fermi paradox</a>. First articulated by the physicist Enrico Fermi, it’s a paradox because advanced civilizations should be spread throughout the galaxy, yet we see no sign of their existence. </p>
<p>The SETI activity has not been immune from scientists’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/461316a">criticism</a>. It was starved of federal funding for decades and recently has gotten most of its support from <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/how-big-money-powering-massive-hunt-alien-intelligence">private sources</a>. However, in 2020, NASA <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/20/nasa-funds-research-alien-technological-civilizations/3224063001/">resumed funding for SETI</a>, and the new NASA administrator wants researchers to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/04/tech/ufos-nasa-study-scn/index.html">pursue the topic of UFOs</a>. </p>
<p>In this context, the intelligence report is welcome. The report draws <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-government-and-politics-f5f24502d97072fd4bef34b6fe36c81d">few concrete conclusions</a> about UFOs and avoids any reference to aliens or extraterrestrial spacecraft. However, it notes the importance of destigmatizing UFOs so that more pilots report what they see. It also sets a goal of moving from anecdotal observations to standardized and scientific data collection. Time will tell if this is enough to draw scientists into the effort, but the transparency to publish the report at all reverses a long history of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">secrecy surrounding U.S. government reports on UFOs</a>.</p>
<p>I don’t see any convincing evidence of alien spacecraft, but as a curious scientist, I hope the subset of UFO sightings that are truly unexplained gets closer study. Scientists are unlikely to weigh in if their skepticism generates attacks from “true believers” or they get ostracized by their colleagues. Meanwhile, the truth is still out there.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify that the report was produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Impey receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>A new nine-page report, requested by Congress, doesn’t say what the 144 UFO sightings from 2004 to 2021 are, but does say that the government wants to learn more.Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1631852021-06-29T13:53:43Z2021-06-29T13:53:43ZThe truth is still out there: why the current UFO craze may be a problem of intelligence failings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408865/original/file-20210629-16-1g8c4h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2041%2C1152&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unidentified aerial phenomena remain a mystery.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Department of Defense/US Navy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s safe to say that UFOs, now branded UAPs, are back. In recent years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pentagon-report-says-ufos-cant-be-explained-and-this-admission-is-a-big-deal-161806">concerns have grown</a> that supposed physics-defying craft are penetrating US airspace. This could represent a technological breakthrough by foreign competitors or something else entirely. But many people will no doubt have found the recent release of the Pentagon’s <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">highly anticipated UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) report</a> to be underwhelming. </p>
<p>Its results are inconclusive, despite the fact that it is the alleged weight of the data that led Congress to request the report <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/senators-ufo-government-reports-336021">in the first place</a>. This raises serious questions as to how the intelligence process became so muddied, and why UFOs have rocketed up Washington’s agenda. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pentagon-report-says-ufos-cant-be-explained-and-this-admission-is-a-big-deal-161806">Pentagon report says UFOs can't be explained, and this admission is a big deal</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While it puts many hypotheses forward, <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2021/item/2223-preliminary-assessment-unidentified-aerial-phenomena">the report</a> concedes that analysts cannot explain at least 143 out of 144 reported sightings. The problem, as they acknowledge, is that they lack the data to draw firm conclusions. The issue is not simply about whether the extraordinary things that have been reported belong to Russia, China or the Klingons, but more about whether anything extraordinary is even happening at all.</p>
<p>To an extent, this is unsurprising. In practically every UAP incident reported, nobody can agree whether something extraordinary – a physics-bending craft, for example – was actually witnessed. <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/559433-the-worlds-most-passionate-ufo-skeptic-versus-the-government">Sceptics argue</a> that factors such as misreporting, technical and human error, or optical illusions, can explain much of what is happening in the skies.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to experts talk about the cultural history and scientific taboo around UFOs in The Conversation Weekly podcast.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/60dc8ee702a6470012b996d6?cover=true" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" width="100%" height="110"></iframe>
<p><em>Find other ways to listen to <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-government-ufo-report-from-shrouded-history-to-a-data-driven-future-podcast-163675">The Conversation Weekly podcast here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Nimitz encounter</h2>
<p>This is personified in the <a href="https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?t=4266">2004 Nimitz encounter</a> where two pilots spotted a white object shaped like a “Tic Tac”. The erratic craft reportedly responded to the pilots’ movements, before disappearing in a blink of an eye. It reappeared sometime later, where a third pilot recorded footage that would eventually make its way to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html">New York Times</a> in 2017.</p>
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<p>The encounter was <a href="https://youtu.be/bub_FjxsGQk?t=690">allegedly</a> investigated by the Pentagon’s AATIP (<a href="https://qz.com/1158998/the-pentagon-confirms-its-22-million-ufo-investigation-program/">Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program</a>), which has since been renamed the <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/">UAP Task Force</a> – the body now responsible for the UAP report. And it gained traction thanks to the openness of one of its star witnesses, pilot Commander David Fravor, who told ABC News that the Tic Tac seemed <a href="https://time.com/5070962/navy-pilot-ufo-california-not-from-this-world/">“not from this world”</a>. </p>
<p>The case, however, seems riddled with issues of reporting and human testimony. Fravor has dismissed claims by other crew from the Nimitz carrier group, <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a29771548/navy-ufo-witnesses-tell-truth/">including allegations that mysterious officials</a> requisitioned crucial data. And the other pilot at the time of the first encounter, Alex Dietrich, claimed that her visual on the Tic Tac lasted around <a href="https://twitter.com/DietrichVFA41/status/1404527229636382722">ten seconds</a> – a stark comparison to Fravor’s claim of five minutes. </p>
<p>The point is that memory and misperception affect even the best-trained pilots. Notable sceptic, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/11/i-study-ufos-and-i-dont-believe-the-alien-hype-heres-why">Mick West</a>, argues that optical illusions can explain away much of the pilot and video testimony, and the report itself concedes that “observer misperception” cannot be ruled out in some sightings.</p>
<p>The Nimitz case, as with other UAP incidents, was supported by radar and sensor data – but this is yet to be revealed to the public. And it bears consideration that even the most expensive technical systems are not infallible. As the report acknowledges, cases where UAP’s exhibited “unusual flight characteristics” may also be the result of sensor errors or “<a href="https://www.emsopedia.org/entries/spoofing-in-radar-ecm/">spoofing</a>” – a known technical countermeasure that <a href="https://blog.bliley.com/radar-jamming-deception-electronic-warfare">tricks radar systems</a> into displaying inaccurate information.</p>
<h2>Need to know</h2>
<p>These challenges filter down to analysts, who face an overwhelming task. In fact, UAP analysts are relying on intelligence collection systems to answer what is essentially a scientific problem. As the report notes, US military sensors are “designed to fulfill a specific mission”, and are not “generally suited for identifying UAP”. </p>
<p>It’s more likely that understanding the problem will require a myriad of technical instruments supported by scientific collaboration and peer review, which runs to the contrary of intelligence’s “need to know”. If there are any extraordinary answers to be had, they are more likely to come from the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/04/tech/ufos-nasa-study-scn/index.html">recent involvement of Nasa</a>, than the closed-door world of the UAP task force. </p>
<p>What’s more, faced with limited data, analysts are vulnerable to their own cognitive biases. AATIP was originally contracted to a company whose founder, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">Robert Bigelow</a>, is well known for his paranormal enthusiasm. And AATIP’s former director, Luis Elizondo, continues to push the narrative that UAPs are real craft and possibly of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/81412dca-98be-409b-8f73-cbb81881145f">non-human origin</a>.</p>
<p>And then there’s the issue of inflation. The official, Christopher Mellon, who first set events in motion by leaking the 2017 footage to the New York Times, admits that he and Elizondo wanted to put UAPs on the <a href="https://youtu.be/ZBtMbBPzqHY?t=697">“national security agenda”</a>. Policymakers should be led by refined intelligence assessments, not the personal hunches of analysts and officials whose opinions are shaped by mediocre data.</p>
<h2>Bomber gap</h2>
<p>Indeed, current events are not dissimilar to the <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/bomber-gap.htm">cold war’s “bomber gap”</a>, when Air Force analysts vastly inflated Soviet nuclear bomber estimates to secure greater Congressional funding. As a result of Elizondo and Mellon’s efforts, UAPs are now on the agenda, whether they exist or not. Even the report calls for “analytical, collection, and resource investment”.</p>
<p>But as Congress demands further investigation, it should also demand greater accountability. Authenticated (albeit mundane) military footage of UAPs continues to be <a href="https://thedebrief.org/pentagon-confirms-leaked-video-showing-transmedium-ufo-is-authentic/">leaked to UFO film makers</a>. These ongoing efforts by military insiders to influence policy, without proper context or analysis, reflect a worrying breakdown of the intelligence cycle.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s the issue of politicisation. AATIP was originally established by the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/28/politics/harry-reid-ufos-pentagon/index.html">under advice from his close friend Bigelow</a>. Reid’s enthusiasm for UFOs is well documented, but it suggests that the process was muddied from the start. If the UAP Task Force is expanded, a healthy distance will need to be maintained between policymakers and the people who draw up their assessments.</p>
<p>As it stands, the UAP issue seems like a microcosm of everything that can go wrong with intelligence. If the UAP report suggests anything, it’s that pilots are struggling to make sense of increasingly noisy skies, that military sensors cannot always be relied upon, and that the Pentagon’s analysts are out of their depth. </p>
<p>It also shows that unless the Department of Defense obtains clear evidence of an undeniable craft operating in undeniably extraordinary ways, Congress, and the public, should remain sceptical of UAP proponents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Cunliffe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent Pentagon report has more questions than answers when it comes to UFOs. Here’s why that’s not surprising.Kyle Cunliffe, Fixed-term lecturer, School of Arts and Media, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1618062021-06-28T02:23:17Z2021-06-28T02:23:17ZPentagon report says UFOs can’t be explained, and this admission is a big deal<p>A report from the US task force dedicated to investigating UFOs — or, in the official jargon, UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) — has neither confirmed nor rejected the idea such sightings could indicate alien visits to Earth.</p>
<p>On Friday June 25, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its eagerly awaited <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2021/item/2223">unclassified intelligence report</a>, titled “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”.</p>
<p>The document is a brief nine-page version of a larger classified report provided to the Congressional Services and Armed Services Committees. It assesses “the threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and the progress the Department of Defence <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/">Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force</a> has made in understanding this threat”.</p>
<p>The report certainly does not, as many were hoping, conclude UFOs are alien spacecraft. Rather, it shows the task force hasn’t made much progress since first being set up ten months ago. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given its task. </p>
<p>However, the task force’s very existence would have been unthinkable to many people just one year ago. It’s unprecedented to see the broader policy shift towards the acknowledgement of UFOs as real, anomalous physical phenomena that are worthy of extended scientific and military analysis.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408564/original/file-20210628-15-10iuecm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In April of last year, the US Department of Defense released three ‘UFO’ videos taken by Navy pilots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Defense/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seemingly advanced technologies</h2>
<p>The report withholds specific details of its data sample, which consists of 144 UFO reports made mostly by military aviators between 2004 and 2021. Its bombshell finding is that “a handful of UAP appear to demonstrate advanced technology”.</p>
<p>This “handful” — 21 of the 144 reports — represents classic UFO enigmas. These objects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, manoeuvre abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These characteristics indicate some UAP may be intelligently controlled (because they aren’t blown around by the wind) and electromagnetic (as they emit radio frequencies). </p>
<p>In March, Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told Fox News some reports describe objects “<a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a35904670/pentagon-ufo-reports-objects-breaking-sound-barrier-without-sonic-boom/">travelling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom</a>”. Sonic booms are sound waves generated by objects breaking the sound barrier.</p>
<p>No <em>known</em> aircraft can travel faster than sound without creating a sonic boom. NASA is currently developing “<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/ames/nasa-supercomputers-visualize-quieter-supersonic-flight">quiet supersonic technology</a>”, which may allow planes to break the sound barrier while issuing a subdued “sonic thump”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/do-aliens-exist-we-asked-five-experts-161811">Do aliens exist? We asked five experts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/25/ufo-report-pentagon-security-experts-reaction">Some</a> have claimed the objects are probably secret, advanced Russian or Chinese aircraft. However, global aerospace development has failed to match the flight characteristics of objects reported since the late 1940s. And it seems counterproductive to repeatedly fly secret aircraft into an adversary’s airspace where they can be documented.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a9Jli0D1uEM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>The report’s release is a profoundly important moment in the history of the UFO mystery, largely because of its institutional context. To fully appreciate what this moment might mean for the future of UFO studies, we have to understand how the UFO problem has been historically “institutionalised”.</p>
<p>In 1966, the US Air Force was facing increasing public pressure to resolve the UFO problem. Its effort to do so, then known as Project Blue Book, had become an organisational burden and a public relations problem.</p>
<p>It funded a two-year scientific study of UFOs based at the University of Colorado, headed by prominent physicist Edward Condon. The findings, published in 1969 as the Final Report on the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, allowed the Air Force to end its UFO investigations. </p>
<p>Condon concluded nothing had come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that added to scientific knowledge. He also said “further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/221899a0">Nature</a>, one of the world’s most reputable scientific journals, described the Condon Report as a “sledgehammer for nuts”. But by then the Air Force had collected 12,618 reports as part of Project Blue Book, of which 701 sightings were categorised as “unidentified”.</p>
<p>Unlike the new Pentagon report, the Condon Report didn’t find any UFOs that appeared to demonstrate advanced technology. The most problematic cases were resolved by being categorised ambiguously. Here’s one example: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This unusual sighting should therefore be assigned to the category of some almost certainly natural phenomenon which is so rare that it apparently has never been reported before or since.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With this strategic category in the toolkit, there was no need to acknowledge seemingly advanced technology exhibited by UAPs. Indeed, they were deliberately filtered from institutional knowledge.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-military-has-officially-published-three-ufo-videos-why-doesnt-anybody-seem-to-care-137498">The US military has officially published three UFO videos. Why doesn't anybody seem to care?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Recovering from ‘institutional forgetting’</h2>
<p>For most of their postwar history, UFO reports have been regarded by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0090591708317902">state institutions</a> as knowledge out of place, or “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085147.2011.637335?casa_token=Pnh6UEBjAjYAAAAA%3Aip-biUlRCq6M7P-dt83F7AQpso78Wgb_0cVoLPLWJYhujSpl4MaS3kz3MTEaW8DMyl6FH-yUbocLRqg">information pollution</a>” — something to be excluded, ignored or forgotten.</p>
<p>The Pentagon’s UAP task force represents an abrupt reversal of this longstanding organisational policy. UFO reports, made primarily by military personnel, are no longer pollutants. They are now important data with national security implications.</p>
<p>That said, they do still represent “uncomfortable knowledge”. As the late Oxford University anthropologist Steve Rayner <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085147.2011.637335?casa_token=KX72WiCiY3kAAAAA%3ASedfoQoBaB2ob1gBOEZ5rSPOunl9aJL_DUR2v48ul8VlBy_KU0yEiC5QnhEWrDSYVclteGJoQ4L_">observed</a>, knowledge can be “uncomfortable” for institutions in two ways.</p>
<p>First, Rayner said, “acknowledging potential information by admitting it to the realm of what is ‘known’ may undermine the organisational principles of a society or organisation”.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, he said “not admitting such information may also have serious deleterious effects on institutions, either directly or by making them prone to criticism from other parts of society that they ‘ought’ to have known”. Both aspects describe the institutional context of UFO information.</p>
<p>The US Department of Defence has confirmed UFOs threaten flight safety, and potentially, national security. In doing so, it has exposed a weakness in its organisational principles. It has admitted it’s not very good at knowing what UFOs are. </p>
<p>It also faces the criticism that <a href="https://www.osapublishing.org/josa/abstract.cfm?uri=josa-43-4-311">seven decades</a> after UFOs first appeared on the radar, it <em>ought</em> to know what they are. The new Pentagon report doesn’t compel us to accept the reality of alien visitation. But it does compel us to take UFOs seriously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161806/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some UFO sightings appear to demonstrate ‘advanced technology’. The Pentagon has confirmed some threaten flight safety, and potentially national security.Adam Dodd, Tutor, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1296172020-02-04T13:32:58Z2020-02-04T13:32:58ZThe Iraq War has cost the US nearly $2 trillion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310550/original/file-20200116-181598-1vq9ftr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C49%2C5406%2C2916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Packed and ready to leave? Perhaps not quite yet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-handout-picture-released-by-the-us-army-shows-u-s-army-news-photo/1191159403?adppopup=true">Capt. Robyn Haake/US Army/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/">Costs of Wars project</a> was started in 2011 to assess the long-term consequences of the post-9/11 wars. Project co-director <a href="https://www.bu.edu/polisci/people/faculty/crawford/">Neta C. Crawford</a>, professor and chair of political science at Boston University, explains the major implications of the Iraq War for the federal budget.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312721/original/file-20200130-41476-3w82x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Even if the U.S. administration <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/06/pentagon-says-no-decision-iraq-withdrawal-after-qasem-soleimani-backlash/2827126001/">decided to leave</a> — or <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/05/iraq-parliament-calls-for-expulsion-military/UrIXb0TChbusBl08SV1CkI/story.html">was evicted from</a> — Iraq immediately, the bill of war to the U.S. to date would be an estimated US$1,922 billion in current dollars.</p>
<p>This figure includes not only funding appropriated to the Pentagon explicitly for the war, but spending on Iraq by the State Department, the care of Iraq War veterans and interest on debt incurred to fund 16 years of U.S. military involvement in the country.</p>
<p>Since 2003, the Department of Defense has received about $838 billion in “emergency” and “overseas contingency operation” <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2020/fy2020_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf">funding</a> for operations in Iraq through fiscal year 2019. This includes, from 2014 on, money dedicated to the <a href="https://www.inherentresolve.mil/">fight against the Islamic State group</a>, also known as ISIS or IS, in a region including both Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>The Pentagon “base” budget — money needed to keep the department running on an ongoing basis — has also ballooned while the U.S. has been at war. War-related <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2018-10/54219-oco_spending.pdf">increases to the base budget</a> include heightened security at bases, enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, increased military pay, and the healthcare costs of soldiers. I estimate nearly $800 billion in such increases since 9/11, with Iraq’s share about $382 billion.</p>
<p>Add to this approximately $59 billion spent by the State Department and USAID on <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2013/sigir-learning-from-iraq.pdf">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2019/Aug/09/2002169448/-1/-1/1/Q3FY2019_LEADIG_OIR_REPORT.PDF">Syria</a> for democracy promotion, reconstruction, training, and removing unexploded bombs.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, about 4.1 million post-9/11 war veterans are receiving <a href="https://www.va.gov/budget/docs/summary/fy2020VAbudgetVolumeIImedicalProgramsAndInformationTechnology.pdf">medical care</a> and <a href="https://www.va.gov/budget/docs/summary/fy2020VAbudgetvolumeIIIbenefitsBurialProgramsAndDeptmentalAdministration.pdf">disability and other compensation</a>. Roughly half the spending for those veterans is Iraq related, with the total nearing $199 billion.</p>
<p>And since there have been no Iraq War taxes and very few <a href="https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ebonds/res_e_bonds_eepatriotbond.htm">war bonds</a> issued to finance the post-9/11 wars, we should add another $444 billion in <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2020/Peltier%202020%20-%20The%20Cost%20of%20Debt-financed%20War.pdf">interest</a> on borrowing to pay for Pentagon and State Department spending. </p>
<p>Department of Defense spending on Iraq has tailed off in the past decade <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Crawford_Costs%20of%20War%20Estimates%20Through%20FY2019.pdf">after peaking at around $140 billion</a> in 2008. </p>
<p>In December 2019, Congress <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/national-defense-authorization-act-fiscal-year-2020">appropriated</a> about <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/21/trump-signs-738-billion-defense-bill.html">$70 billion for the post-9/11 wars</a> as part of the $738 billion National Defense Authorization Act.</p>
<p>The Pentagon originally <a href="https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2020/fy2020_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf">requested</a> less than $10 billion of that amount for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>But that budget may already be blown. Earlier this month, the US sent <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/u-s-sending-thousands-more-troops-mideast-after-baghdad-attack-n1110081">more troops</a> into a war zone that was supposed to be winding down.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neta C. Crawford receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. </span></em></p>The Pentagon has spent more than $800 billion on military operations in Iraq. But that doesn’t include money needed to care for veterans, rebuild the country or pay interest on war debt.Neta C. Crawford, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1249692019-10-29T12:58:14Z2019-10-29T12:58:14ZIs the US losing the artificial intelligence arms race?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299025/original/file-20191028-113944-s8hm0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C1920%2C1894&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S.-China rivalry extends to digital weapons.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/cybersecurity-visuals/top-ideas">Khanh Tran</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. government, long a proponent of <a href="https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/darpa-history-and-timeline">advancing technology for military purposes</a>, sees artificial intelligence as key to the next generation of fighting tools. </p>
<p>Several recent investments and Pentagon initiatives show that <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1949362/lt-gen-jack-shanahan-media-briefing-on-ai-related-initiatives-within-the-depart/">military leaders are concerned about keeping up with</a> – and ahead of – China and Russia, two countries that have made big gains in developing artificial-intelligence systems. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14751798.2019.1600800">AI-powered weapons</a> include target recognition systems, weapons guided by AI, and cyberattack and cyberdefense software that runs without human intervention.</p>
<p>The U.S. defense community is coming to understand that AI will significantly transform, if not completely reinvent, the world’s military power balance. The concern is more than military. As Chinese and Russian technologies become more sophisticated, they <a href="https://theconversation.com/high-tech-china-us-arms-race-threatens-to-destabilise-east-asia-75560">threaten U.S. domination</a> of technological innovation and development, as well as global economic power and influence.</p>
<p>Military leaders see the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1676299">threat to U.S. technological leadership</a> coming from two main sources: a rising and <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/02/2002127082/-1/-1/1/2019_CHINA_MILITARY_POWER_REPORT.pdf">ambitious China</a> and a mischievous and declining Russia. Taken together, these forces challenge global stability. </p>
<h2>The nature of the threat</h2>
<p>A 2018 Pentagon report noted that <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF">technological developments could change the types of threats</a> facing the U.S., which might include space-based weapons, long-range ballistic missiles and cyberweapons.</p>
<p>A February 2019 <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/12/2002088963/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-DOD-AI-STRATEGY.PDF">analysis warned</a> that China’s investments in its military’s AI systems – in particular, those supporting robotics, autonomy, precision munitions and cyber warfare – <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/08/ai-could-be-in-military-operations-as-soon-as-next-year/">threaten to overtake the United States</a>. Chinese <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/civil-military-fusion-missing-link-between-chinas-technological-and-military-rise">government agencies are working closely with the country’s civilian businesses</a> to keep on top of <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-and-the-us-are-racing-to-develop-ai-weapons-97427">fast-changing technological developments</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, some Chinese and Russian projects have developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1676299">military AI systems specifically aimed</a> at what they perceive as U.S. technological weaknesses. For instance, <a href="https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/774728/flight-plan-outlines-next-20-years-for-rpa/">swarms of armed AI-enhanced drones</a> might locate and attack the secure computer systems countries rely on to control and launch their <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/field/field_document/20140428TooCloseforComfortNuclearUseLewisWilliamsPelopidasAghlani.pdf">nuclear weapons</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qW77hVqux10?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A swarm of drones can cause real problems for an adversary.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pentagon’s response</h2>
<p>So far the Pentagon’s actions have been largely bureaucratic, rather than concrete. It has released a Defense Department-wide <a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/News/Article/Article/1755942/dod-unveils-its-artificial-intelligence-strategy/">strategy document</a> that articulates broad principles for the development and use of AI in future warfare. The military has
established a <a href="https://dodcio.defense.gov/About-DoD-CIO/Organization/JAIC/">Joint Artificial Intelligence Center</a>, which is tasked with accelerating the delivery and adoption of AI. </p>
<p>But projects with names like “<a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/assessing-third-offset-strategy">the Third Offset</a>,” “<a href="https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/News/Article/Article/1254719/project-maven-to-deploy-computer-algorithms-to-war-zone-by-years-end/">Project Maven</a>” and the “<a href="https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/ai-next-campaign">AI Next Campaign</a>” have minimal funding. Leaders have released few details about what they will actually do.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.dvidshub.net/video/embed/504622" width="100%" height="360" frameborder="0" caption="A U.S. Defense Department drone swarm demonstration." allowtransparency="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h2>Working with Silicon Valley</h2>
<p>The Pentagon has also established the <a href="https://www.diu.mil/">Defense Innovation Unit</a>, with permission to circumvent the cumbersome military purchasing process, to <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603084/the-pentagons-innovation-experiment/">coordinate with Silicon Valley</a> and bring new technologies into military use relatively quickly.</p>
<p>That unit has sparked discussions about the potential for the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/china-displays-a-military-show-of-strength-at-70th-anniversary-parade.html">Chinese military</a> to acquire and use U.S.-designed technologies, which led to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/expanded-u-s-trade-blacklist-hits-beijings-artificial-intelligence-ambitions-11570541277">U.S. bans on doing business</a> with many Chinese technology firms. </p>
<p>Many experts consider it possible for <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/AI-Superpowers/9781328546395">China to surpass the U.S.</a> in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2016.1239129">development and use of AI</a>. However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1676299">China trails the U.S.</a> in several ways. The United States has the world’s largest intelligence budget; the most popular hardware, software and technology companies; and the most advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, both offensive and defensive. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2019.1676299">I and other experts expect</a> these advantages to preserve U.S. technological leadership for now, at least – but perhaps not forever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US defense community is coming to understand that AI will significantly transform, if not completely reinvent, the world’s military power balance.James Johnson, Lecturer, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/989242018-07-10T10:40:55Z2018-07-10T10:40:55ZGreen-baiting lawmakers are accusing environmentalists of doubling as ‘foreign agents’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226360/original/file-20180705-122247-vm50vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some U.S. nonprofits are praising China's anti-pollution efforts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/China-Suing-for-Better-Air/2168bb6bb9d7405db77f3f41e629fa5f/8/0">AP Photo/Andy Wong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two congressional committees led by prominent Republicans are looking into whether some U.S. <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/394303-republicans-target-green-groups-over-foreign-ties">environmental groups are acting on behalf of foreign countries</a>. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NMtmNV0AAAAJ&hl=en">environmental lawyer and professor</a> with ample international experience, this probe troubles me. I’m concerned that these efforts may mark the start of an attack on free speech that discourages efforts to improve American environmental policies.</p>
<h2>The probe</h2>
<p>News of this investigation broke when Rep. Rob Bishop, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Rep. Bruce Westerman, who leads the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, formally notified the Natural Resources Defense Council of their concerns in early June.</p>
<p><a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bishop-westerman_to_nrdc_06.05.18.pdf">Their letter</a> accused the NRDC, one of the nation’s biggest environmental groups, of criticizing U.S. environmental policies while engaging in “self-censorship” regarding China and the “ruling Chinese Communist Party.” If it is acting as an agent for Chinese interests, the lawmakers said, the group should register as such as <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-2062-foreign-agents-registration-act-enforcement">required by law</a>.</p>
<p>Their letter also requested information related to the group’s disclosure policies.</p>
<p>Bishop and Westerman sent the <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/house-republican-targets-second-environmental-group-for-its-work-overseas-15a37e505261/">Center for Biological Diversity</a> a similar query pertaining to that environmentalist group’s advocacy regarding the U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.</p>
<p>And the two Republicans have asked the Pentagon for details and documents regarding the <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1N1TF2EQ">nonprofits suing the military</a> on environmental grounds. The lawmakers acknowledged that these lawsuits may “represent sincere and justified concerns about the effect of federal actions on the environment.” But they also speculated that “foreign adversaries” can perhaps leverage these legal actions to “reduce U.S. defense capabilities.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2018/180605-1">Bob Deans</a>, the NRDC’s director of strategic engagement, denied that it was doing a foreign country’s bidding. Instead, “we work on behalf of every American to protect our people against dangerous pollution and leave our children a livable world,” he said.</p>
<p>Rather than just refute the allegations, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director <a href="https://twitter.com/KieranSuckling/status/1009500062735478784">Kierán Suckling</a> questioned the motives for this investigation. He called on Bishop “to release all communications between himself and industry groups seeking to destroy America’s natural heritage” and suggested that the Utah Republican was attacking conservation groups at the behest of fossil fuel companies.</p>
<p>The probe <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/394303-republicans-target-green-groups-over-foreign-ties">could spread to other environmental groups</a>, The Hill reported.</p>
<h2>Chinese activities</h2>
<p>The NRDC is a U.S.-based nonprofit with offices around the globe with an <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/">official mission</a> “to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nrdc.org/china">The group’s priorities in China</a> are generally the same as what it calls for in America and elsewhere: boosting energy efficiency, cutting coal consumption, and cleaning up ports and waterways.</p>
<p>I am somewhat familiar with the NRDC’s work in China because I <a href="http://acoel.org/post/2014/04/18/Winds-of-Change-in-China%E2%80%99s-National-People%E2%80%99s-Congress.aspx">traveled there in 2014</a> with two other U.S. environmental lawyers at the NRDC’s request. The group had asked us to meet on an informal basis with Chinese government officials. The purpose of these meetings in Beijng was to explain how the U.S. government handles violations of environmental laws and damages to natural resources. In light of China’s own “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/china-pollution-economic-reform-growth-target">war on pollution</a>,” their government was looking for good models and guidance.</p>
<p>The National People’s Congress subsequently <a href="http://acoel.org/post/2014/09/12/Observations-on-China%E2%80%99s-New-Environmental-Protection-Law.aspx">amended Chinese environmental laws</a>, incorporating some of the concepts we discussed – all of which were modeled on the U.S. legal system. </p>
<p>There was no hint or suggestion during those meetings that our access to Chinese officials was conditioned on anyone speaking favorably of China’s environmental efforts. Nor was there any reason to expect the NRDC to take any particular political stance back home in the U.S. because of those interactions.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2016/160315-0">NRDC has complimented China</a> for strengthening its environmental laws. But the NRDC has also criticized China’s <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/barbara-finamore/air-pollution-crisis-gives-new-momentum-environmental-regulation-china">staggeringly dirty air and water</a> and its vast greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>At the same time, the NRDC has gone out of its way <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/7-things-you-can-do-help-nrdc-fight-trumps-agenda">to oppose the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation policies</a> – like <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/01/10/more-50-organizations-launch-united-resistance-campaign-trumps-cabinet-hearings">most of the nation’s big green groups</a>.</p>
<h2>Okinawa dugongs</h2>
<p>The Center for Biological Diversity allegedly inappropriate overseas activities have to do with dugongs. The <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Okinawa_dugong/">endangered marine mammals</a>, which resemble manatees, inhabit the waters surrounding the Okinawa Islands.</p>
<p>The center, which opposes U.S. military plans to build a new American airbase in Henoko Bay, has been leading coalitions of U.S. and Japanese environmental groups that have filed lawsuits that have <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/22/national/crime-legal/9th-u-s-circuit-court-appeals-revives-suit-protect-dugong-habitat-okinawa-base-site/">delayed and could prevent the planned airbase construction</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese protesters objecting to American military construction in Okinawa are concerned about the potential impact on dugongs, marine mammals that resemble manatees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Japan-US-Military/d9c46925d102460987ea95e555353867/11/0">AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The letters to both green groups call on them to comply with the <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title22/pdf/USCODE-2009-title22-chap11-subchapII.pdf">Foreign Agents Registration Act</a>. That law requires all people and organizations acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries to register with the Justice Department as foreign agents.</p>
<p>Failing to do this is a crime, but <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-2062-foreign-agents-registration-act-enforcement">prosecutions have been rare since 1966</a>. The case against former Trump presidential campaign chairman <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/how-the-manafort-indictment-gave-bite-to-a-toothless-law/544448/">Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates</a>, who are accused of violating this act, is the biggest in years.</p>
<p>I believe that requiring these groups to register as foreign agents might hamper their work within the U.S. for two reasons. First, policymakers and lawmakers might suspect that they were more interested in working on behalf of foreign governments and interests than protecting the environment. Second, there could be repercussions in terms of <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/01/06/10-ways-to-kill-your-nonprofit/">these nonprofits’ funding</a>, <a href="http://catalystlawllc.com/2017/09/18/legal-considerations-u-s-based-non-profits-operating-overseas/">finances</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/shell-companies-foreign-election-spending/">reputation</a>. </p>
<p>This new GOP strategy can be compared <a href="http://socialsciences.ucdavis.edu/iss-journal/features/red-baiting-and-the-birth-of-modern-conservatism">to red-baiting</a>, the practice of persecuting and undermining people by accusing them of being communists, socialists or anarchists, that began in the Cold War. I believe these Republicans are “<a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anti-environmentalism">green-baiting</a>” environmental groups to persecute them. At the same time, they are casting doubt on the real goals of these groups’ advocacy, thereby undermining it.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the most dangerous thing about this probe may have to do with free speech rights. Because praising a foreign country’s environmental record while criticizing U.S. policy is possible without committing treason, the only rationale I can find for this investigation is that it might stifle environmentalists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James A. Holtkamp is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. The College's members advise nonprofits and governments throughout the world, serving as neutral, objective consultants. In 2014, Holtkamp participated in discussions with the Chinese government under an agreement between the College and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He serves in a similar role on behalf of the College for EnvisionUtah, a U.S. nonprofit.</span></em></p>Just like with Cold War-era red-baiting, there’s an apparent effort to discredit and undermine critics of the US government.James A. Holtkamp, Adjunct Professor, College of Law, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836822017-09-15T20:12:58Z2017-09-15T20:12:58ZHow the Pentagon tried to cure America of its ‘Vietnam syndrome’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186097/original/file-20170914-9021-1w45zl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A couple watch film footage of the Vietnam war on a television in their living room.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2011661230/">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August 1965, Morley Safer, a reporter for “CBS News,” accompanied a unit of U.S. marines on a search-and-destroy mission to the Vietnamese village of Cam Ne. Using cigarette lighters and a flamethrower, the troops proceeded to burn down 150 houses, wound three women, kill one child and take four men prisoner. Safer and his crew <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD-RlWdhAIc">caught it all on film</a>. The military command later claimed that the unit had received enemy fire. But according to Safer, no pitched battle had taken place. The only death had been the boy, and not a single weapon had been uncovered.</p>
<p>In describing the reaction, Safer would later say that the public, the media and the military all began to realize that the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/safer/camne.html">rules of war reporting had changed</a>.</p>
<p>The New Yorker’s Michael Arlen <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Living_room_War.html?id=NIXK7RkTgncC&source=kp_cover">dubbed</a> Vietnam the “living room war.” The images of the war – viewed on evening news shows on the country’s three networks – enabled the public to understand the war’s human costs. In this sense, media coverage contributed to the flow of information that’s vital to any functioning democracy, and pushed Americans to either support or oppose U.S. involvement in the conflict. </p>
<p>However, in the country’s myriad military conflicts since Vietnam, this flow of information has been largely transformed, and it is now more difficult to see the human consequences of military operations. Despite a digital revolution that’s created even more opportunities to transmit images, voices and stories, the public finds itself further removed from what’s really happening on the front lines. </p>
<h2>A false narrative exposed</h2>
<p>Issues of truth, representation, interpretation and distortion lie at the core of the media’s presentation of war. So do power and control. </p>
<p>Governments aren’t always afraid to show the public what war looks like. During World War II, journalists <a href="http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_communication_news_censorship.htm">were subject to censorship</a>. Yet in September 1943, President Roosevelt and the War Department allowed Life magazine to publish George Strock’s <a href="https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/wwii-buna-beach-george-strock-01.jpg?quality=85">moving photograph of three dead American soldiers</a> sprawled on Buna Beach in the Pacific. </p>
<p>That decision pointed to the administration’s confidence that the public would continue to support the military, even after being brought – as the accompanying Life editorial <a href="http://time.com/3524493/the-photo-that-won-world-war-ii-dead-americans-at-buna-beach-1943/">noted</a> – “into the presence of their own dead.”</p>
<p>But Vietnam destroyed the assumption that the public would always support their government’s military policies, and the images accompanying the conflict were partly responsible.</p>
<p>In Safer’s case, after a heated debate among CBS officials, the footage of American troops setting fire to a Vietnamese village was shown on “The CBS Evening News” with Walter Cronkite. </p>
<p>The government seemed to recognize the power of this footage: It reacted swiftly – and from the top.</p>
<p>The next morning, President Lyndon B. Johnson called CBS president Frank Stanton to berate the network for airing the footage. </p>
<p>“You know what you did to me last night?” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/controversial-report-changed-war-coverage-in-america/">Johnson asked</a>. </p>
<p>“What?” Stanton replied. </p>
<p>“You shat on the American flag.”</p>
<p>The Pentagon was also furious because the story challenged their own narrative – that enemy troops had died, and that American troops were able to distinguish the Viet Cong from the local population.</p>
<p>Safer’s images would resonate in American culture. Torching a village or field <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171404/Zippo-lighters-U-S-troops-fighting-Vietnam-unique-insight-war-life.html">came to be called</a> a “Zippo mission,” while scenes of setting villages on fire appeared in many Vietnam War films.</p>
<p>More dramatic images emerged from the war, many of which remain familiar today. There’s Nick Ut’s <a href="http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150512085932-31-seventies-timeline-0512-restricted-super-169.jpg">photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phoc</a> fleeing her napalmed village; <a href="https://www.worldpressphoto.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_main_image/public/1968001.jpg?itok=afH6hnEE">Eddie Adams’s shot</a> of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executing a Viet Cong on a Saigon street; and <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/plain-dealer-library/index.ssf/2009/11/plain_dealer_exclusive_my_lai_massacre_photos_by_ronald_haeberle.html">Ronald Haeberle’s devastating pictures</a> of the 1968 My Lai massacre. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186083/original/file-20170914-8984-5amuqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eddie Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-NYOTK-Vietnam-War-Saigon-Execution/b49e001a13424d62a117e02fb640823f/1/0">Eddie Adams/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They didn’t automatically create public backlash. But viewers couldn’t ignore the chaos that seemed to be emerging from the battlefield. And this had the net effect of debunking the government’s claim that the military was making significant progress in Vietnam. A growing number of critics outside – and, significantly, inside – the administration argued the war could not be won.</p>
<h2>A new media strategy emerges</h2>
<p>On balance it would seem that more skepticism when it comes to judging the need to go to war is a good thing.</p>
<p>Not everyone, however, would agree. In the years after Vietnam, some members of the political and military establishment wanted to be able to use military force without feeling hamstrung by the possibility of public opposition. </p>
<p>To them, public exposure to bloodshed and the resulting aversion to going to war had become a major problem. They even <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2013/01/22/its-called-the-vietnam-syndrome-and-its-back/">had a name for it</a> – the “Vietnam syndrome” – and it required a new media strategy.</p>
<p>One solution involved imposing strict control over the movements of journalists. The government could no longer afford to allow – as it had in Vietnam – enterprising reporters to run around the battlefield, going wherever they wanted and speaking with whomever they pleased.</p>
<p>During Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War, they organized journalists <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03064229108535103?journalCode=ioca">into small “pools”</a> that had tightly controlled access to the battlefield (if at all).</p>
<p>Even with these restrictions in place, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CagFseu-p1wC&lpg=PP1&dq=Live%20from%20the%20Battlefield%3A%20From%20Vietnam%20to%20Baghdad%2C%2035%20Years%20in%20the%20World's%20War%20Zones&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">the Pentagon bristled</a> at CNN’s dramatic broadcasts of the bombing of Baghdad during Operation Desert Storm. It’s not as if the cable network was even criticizing the attacks; it was the very images of U.S. aircraft bombing a major city that defense officials found so unsettling. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NktsxucDvNI">The soundtrack alone</a> – the thump of high-yield explosions, the sirens of emergency vehicles, the staccato of anti-aircraft fire – ran counter to the administration’s preference for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V30vSPFLeoE">their own soundless footage</a> of smart bombs being smoothly guided to their military targets.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Qq3L6EY3zg?wmode=transparent&start=75" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CNN broadcast live footage of coalition forces bombing Baghdad in 1991.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Entertain – but don’t inform</h2>
<p>Some journalists started to complain about the pool system and tried to strike out on their own. By the 1990s, the most astute media managers within the Pentagon realized that censorship and other efforts to directly control the media were likely to incite criticism and public backlash.</p>
<p>So other strategies emerged. Instead of denying access to the battlefield, they hoped to shift what journalists would report from the battlefield. The war would become localized through human interest stories, told by “embedded reporters” attached to units. Behind this was a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Are-Americans-Becoming-More-Peaceful/dp/159451299X">communication strategy</a> to make reporters more inclined to describe the daily lives of soldiers, rather than the broader military and political objectives. Quiet heroism would replace loss; hometown celebrations would replace critical reviews of policy and strategy. </p>
<p>At first glance, the Pentagon’s preference for “embedded reporting” evokes the Vietnam-era practice of allowing journalists to work among combat soldiers. But in Afghanistan and Iraq there was a key difference. Vietnam provided an approximate window to the consequences of combat. In Iraq, journalists were close to the fighting but provided a very different type of drama.</p>
<p>Viewers back home were treated to green-hued images from night scopes and the shaky footage from hand-held cameras. The jumpy videos created tension, but didn’t bring the audience any closer to the pain of war. Viewers understood war through powerful but distracting footage, rather than through the visceral images of destruction, chaos and tragedy that the media was able to capture during the Vietnam era.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186079/original/file-20170914-9021-1kd22sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Embedded Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson, right, eats at a temporary camp about 100 miles south of Baghdad in March 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Iraq-Advanc-/195a77ebdee6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/177/0">John Moore/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, government officials <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20030617.pdf">discovered that they could enjoy more sympathetic reporting</a> from those who became an accepted member of a “band of brothers.” At the same time embedded reporters offered a kind of credibility that government spokespeople didn’t possess. Pictures and stories of troops providing food, medical aid, and other forms of assistance to Iraqi civilians – and even to wounded Iraqi soldiers – emerged easily. </p>
<p>But the pain of the battlefield – the physical and psychological repercussions – remained remote. It wasn’t even possible to see pictures of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/americas/27iht-photos.1.20479953.html?mcubz=3">returning body containers</a> until the Obama administration reversed the policy in 2009. </p>
<p>There are exceptions. Some excellent journalists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/world/asia/afghanistan-doctors-without-borders-hospital-strike.html?mcubz=3">did manage to communicate the costs</a> to America’s military and to the local population. In some cases, revelations emerged from the proliferation of new media outlets.</p>
<p>Today, “the living room war” is now a distant memory. The public no longer receives all of its information from the same three channels. Instead, there are thousands of media outlets all covering the same conflicts, from different perspectives – with some war coverage <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Militainment-Inc-Media-Popular-Culture/dp/0415999782">veering into entertainment</a> and even celebration. </p>
<p>“Let the atrocious images haunt us,” Susan Sontag <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/books/books-of-the-times-a-writer-who-begs-to-differ-with-herself.html">once wrote</a>. </p>
<p>It’s an invocation to not turn away from the dramatic images of battle, no matter how painful or disturbing. Going to war is arguably one of the most important decisions a country can make; for this reason, access to the true sacrifices, costs and horrors should not be restricted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After footage from America’s first ‘living room war’ shocked the public, the government would clamp down on media coverage of future military conflicts.Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/817962017-08-08T01:07:15Z2017-08-08T01:07:15ZThe military, minorities and social engineering: A long history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181256/original/file-20170807-25556-1vddnfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">LGBT veterans march in a Boston parade. Contrary to what some may say, the military has a long history of embracing socially marginalized groups.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steven Senne</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 25 President Trump signed a directive reinstating a previous ban on transgender persons serving in the U.S. military, thereby continuing the perennial debate about the relationship between military service and social policy. </p>
<p>In an interview with the BBC after the president tweeted his intention to reverse Obama policy, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/28/trump-aide-transgender-troops-obama-era-social-engineering/520296001/">then White House adviser Sebastian Gorka</a> said the military “is there to kill people and blow stuff up. They’re not there to be socially-engineered.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ash Carter, who as Barack Obama’s secretary of defense <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/30/pentagon-lifts-ban-transgender-troops/86551686/">lifted the ban</a> on transgender individuals in 2016, used similar terms <a href="http://poststar.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/the-latest-ash-carter-criticizes-trump-transgender-ban/article_1302525d-04c7-576c-a14c-efef31c42759.html">to condemn President’s Trump’s tweets</a>: “To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications…is social policy and has no place in our military.”</p>
<p>In fact, as I found while researching the story of African-American soldiers and of immigrant recruits during World War I for my book <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/lostbattalions/richardslotkin/9780805081381">“Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality</a>,” the armed forces have played a vital role in shaping American social policy toward the country’s minorities. </p>
<h2>Race and the right to serve</h2>
<p>The right to serve in the common defense has always been a fundamental civil right in the U.S. and a hallmark of full citizenship. </p>
<p>Originally, the prerogative to serve in the militia was restricted to “freemen” or citizens. A few blacks had served in state and federal units in the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. But it was not until the Civil War that blacks were generally allowed to enlist in the federal Army. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181258/original/file-20170807-3406-mjup89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">African-American soldiers serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DutchGapb.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between the end of Reconstruction and the start of World War I, the U.S. underwent a demographic revolution. Cities and industrial towns were transformed by <a href="https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/immigration-timeline">massive waves of immigration</a>. The arrival of large numbers of ethnic groups from hitherto untapped parts of Europe and Asia – groups whose language, culture and religion were strikingly alien – seemed to threaten existing cultural norms and social structures. </p>
<p>At the same time, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, the “<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/long-lasting-legacy-great-migration-180960118/">Great Migration</a>” carried large numbers of black people out of the South. African-Americans became a national rather than regional minority. </p>
<p>Fear and resentment of these newcomers generated a political backlash. </p>
<p>Already in the period between 1890 and 1915, the South had established a new regime of <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Folly-of-Jim-Crow,6978.aspx">oppressive racial laws known as Jim Crow.</a> In response to the Great Migration, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Sweet_Land_of_Liberty.html?id=NA_UPxK6jroC">racial animus grew in the North</a>. In parallel to this, there was <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269910">an anti-immigration movement</a> backed by both Populists and Republican “progressives.” Harvard President Lawrence Lowell stated <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=untfy7pCwWgC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=%E2%80%9CIndians,+Negroes,+Chinese,+Jews+and+Americans+cannot+all+be+free+in+the+same+society.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=sc111A9B4C&sig=WuOS2gAsv61x-uC6wkiq7tjD9gs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7oc_NsL7VAhXGSyYKHa9OCy0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CIndians%2C%20Negroes%2C%20Chinese%2C%20Jews%20and%20Americans%20cannot%20all%20be%20free%20in%20the%20same%20society.%E2%80%9D&f=false">the core belief of these movements</a>: that “Indians, Negroes, Chinese, Jews and Americans cannot all be free in the same society.” </p>
<p>The crisis produced by American entry into World War I brought these movements up short. Suddenly the nation had to raise an army of millions from scratch, with the utmost speed. </p>
<h2>The Great War and a new social bargain</h2>
<p>There was no way to achieve that goal without enlisting large numbers of African-Americans and immigrants or “hyphenated Americans,” a derogatory term for immigrants first used at the turn of the century. It was in this crisis that American leaders rediscovered the ideals of civil equality that late 19th-century <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethnonationalism">ethno-nationalism</a> had called into question. </p>
<p>A wave of official publications produced by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-woodrow-wilsons-propaganda-machine-changed-american-journalism-76270">Committee on Public Information</a> now described the U.S. as a “vast, polyglot community,” whose <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_ideals_of_our_war.html?id=1QZFAAAAIAAJ">democratic ideal</a> was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“higher than race loyalty, transcend[ing] mere ethnic prejudices, more binding than the call of a common ancestry … [an ideal] to which every citizen, of whatever race, may rally, without losing hold upon the best traditions of … his race, and the land of his nativity.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The official ideologists of America’s Great War offered minorities a new <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/lostbattalions/richardslotkin/9780805081381">social bargain</a>: recognition as Americans in exchange for loyal service in wartime. </p>
<p>Through the special <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Americans-All,3082.aspx">Foreign Soldier Service</a>, a military agency organized to provide language and civics classes for the foreign-born, the Army would become a school for citizenship. Organizations representing minority communities – the Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus (for Italians) and various black church groups – were invited to provide support services in the training camps. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/immigrants-in-the-military-during-wwi.htm">Half a million immigrants</a> from more than 40 different nations would serve during the war. The 77th Division, initially recruited in greater New York, was noted for the high percentage of immigrants, especially Jews and Italians. But immigrants served in every division. Sergeant Alvin York of the 82nd Division, for example, the Tennessee mountain man and later war hero, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Over-There/">found himself</a> “throwed in with a lot of Greeks, Italians and New York Jews.” </p>
<p>Over 350,000 African-Americans would serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Units of the 93rd Division (including the “Harlem Hell Fighters” of the 369th Infantry) won distinction fighting as part of the French army. But most blacks were used as labor and support troops, and the combat units faced discrimination and mistreatment serving with the American Army. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181260/original/file-20170807-2667-1fmjcru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 369th Infantry, better known as the ‘Harlem Hellfighters,’ challenged assumptions about the capability of African-Americans to serve in the military during World War I.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonel_Hayward%27s_%22Hell_Fighters%22_in_parade._The_famous_369th_Infantry_of_(African_American)_fighte_._._._-_NARA_-_533518.jpg">Public domain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From racial backlash to renewed liberalism</h2>
<p>Once the war ended, racial and ethnic fears and resentments reasserted themselves. </p>
<p>Jim Crow was violently reaffirmed by <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/redsummer/cameronmcwhirter/9781250009067/">lynchings and racial pogroms</a>, and in 1925 an <a href="http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16635coll14/id/56025">Army report</a> distorted the combat record of its black units to justify policies limiting the role of black troops in future conflicts. </p>
<p>New policies of “race”-based exclusion were aimed against white ethnics too. The tone was set by Congress’ passage of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act">Reed-Johnson Act</a>, restricting immigration by ethnic groups deemed undesirable – Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans. Most Ivy League colleges <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12">adopted formal quotas</a> limiting the number of Jewish students, and informal rules affecting Italian applicants. <a href="https://www.mappingprejudice.org/what-are-covenants/">Real estate “covenants”</a> barred Jews and other ethnic groups from purchasing or renting homes in certain towns or districts.</p>
<p>However, the war experience had roused the political consciousness of racial and ethnic minorities. Black civil rights organizations <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Freedom_Struggles.html?id=OrfLRKS4OloC">cited</a> their people’s record of military service in demanding an end to Jim Crow. New ethnic veterans organizations, most notably the <a href="http://example.com/">Jewish War Veterans</a>, were prominent in fighting for veterans’ benefits and civil rights. Blacks, Jews and other working-class ethnic groups gained influence <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/the-american-franchise">as part of the New Deal coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The crisis of mobilization for World War II recreated the opportunity for social change that had been squandered after World War I.</p>
<p>Once again the large-scale enlistment of black and ethnic minority soldiers was a necessity. And this time the conflict pitted Americans against the explicitly racist ideology of Nazism. The resemblance of Nazi race laws to the segregation and exclusion enforced by Jim Crow helped <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Double-Victory-Multicultural-History-America/dp/0316831565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501884588&sr=1-1&keywords=double+victory+a+multicultural+history+of+america+in+world+war+ii">discredit</a> the South’s racial regime with a broad public. And Hollywood played a critical role in transforming public opinion, through its production of war films, later known as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4Y_nBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=richard+rorty+platoon+movie&source=bl&ots=jMzU4PP5dl&sig=O8Kp4ajApHTVRg0fqxIrPOSTnrs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwia1pLorrvVAhXi7YMKHYMpD7sQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=richard%20rorty%20platoon%20movie&f=false">“platoon movies.” </a></p>
<p>The pattern was set by “Bataan” in 1943, which symbolizes America in a small unit whose members include (in addition to some white regional types) a Jew, a Pole, an Irishman, two Filipinos and – most extraordinarily – an African-American. The U.S. Army was still racially segregated, but Hollywood deliberately set reality aside to create an ideal <a href="http://img.youtube.com/vi/EuO-zwORDJg/hqdefault.jpg">vision</a> of an integrated America. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I1r_Q2HAstA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The new vision: A diverse military for a diverse society</h2>
<p>It was this integrated vision that would shape post-war social change. White minorities were the first to benefit, pushing back against the patterns of discrimination that had barred Jews and Italians from employment, elite college admissions and housing. A new federal commitment to civil rights for African-Americans was signaled by <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2008/02/truman-desegregates-armed-forces-on-feb-2-1948-008258">President Truman’s 1948 decision</a> to racially integrate all military units. </p>
<p>As new laws (like the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-act-of-1964.html">Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964-65</a> and <a href="https://www.si.com/vault/2012/05/07/106189983/title-ix-timeline">Title IX</a> in 1972) have mandated the increased inclusion of hitherto marginalized or excluded groups in the mainstream of economic and political life, those steps have registered in the makeup of our armed forces.</p>
<p>In a representation of today’s Army, a symbolic “platoon” would have to include many more African-Americans and Latinos, Asians of different national origins – and also women, and gays and lesbians.</p>
<p>Each act of inclusion has raised concerns about the effect on unit cohesion and military effectiveness. In 1948, for example, Army Secretary Kenneth Royall <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/01/most-americans-opposed-integrating-the-military-in-1948-most-americans-support-transgender-military-service-today/?utm_term=.99fcfc26c30c">declared</a> Truman’s order would lower the morale of the many white Southerners in the service, and that the Army should not be “an instrument for social evolution.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181261/original/file-20170807-25548-kcl2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">LGBT soldiers, many serving openly, are an essential part of today’s military.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.fairchild.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001756535/">U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Senior Airman Michael Smith</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/01/would-transgender-troops-harm-military-effectiveness-heres-what-the-research-says/?utm_term=.5bb8a745a560">Similar objections</a> were raised to the integration of women, gays and lesbians into the military. Nevertheless, in these cases military leaders <a href="http://archive.palmcenter.org/publications/dadt/a_history_of_the_service_of_ethnic_minorites_in_the_u_s_armed_forces">achieved integration without loss – and indeed, generally with an enhancement of military effectiveness.</a></p>
<p>In the mass armies of the two World Wars, inclusion was mandated by the sheer size of the force. Now that we have an all-volunteer military, the requirement of inclusiveness is, if anything, greater, because force size and the mix of specialists cannot be augmented by mass conscription.</p>
<p>As Senator John McCain <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/congress-reaction-transgender-military-policy/">recently said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so – and should be treated as the patriots they are.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Editor’s note: this is an updated version of an article originally published August 7, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard S. Slotkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whether it be African-Americans, Catholics or transgender people, the armed forces have played a vital role in shaping US social policy toward the country’s minorities.Richard S. Slotkin, Olin Professor of English and American Studies, Emeritus, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609052017-06-14T02:22:57Z2017-06-14T02:22:57ZWhat went wrong with the F-35, Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171516/original/file-20170530-23718-wvqgj1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=175%2C462%2C2824%2C1805&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Everything to everyone – or is the F-35 a big expense for not much benefit?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/502787/hill-afb-in-midst-of-robust-f-35-preparation/">U.S. Air Force/Alex R. Lloyd</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired, serving the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy – and even <a href="https://www.f35.com/global/participation/united-kingdom">Britain’s Royal Air Force and Royal Navy</a> – all in one aircraft design. It’s supposed to replace and improve upon several current – and aging – aircraft types with widely different missions. It’s <a href="https://www.f35.com/">marketed as a cost-effective, powerful multi-role fighter airplane</a> significantly better than anything potential adversaries could build in the next two decades. But it’s turned out to be none of those things.</p>
<p>Officially begun in 2001, with roots extending back to the late 1980s, the F-35 program is nearly a decade behind schedule, and has <a href="http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2015/pdf/dod/2015f35jsf.pdf">failed to meet many of its original design requirements</a>. It’s also become the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/12/investing/donald-trump-lockheed-martin-f-35-tweet/index.html">most expensive defense program in world history</a>, at <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.html">around US$1.5 trillion</a> before the fighter is <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/2016/03/24/f-35-fly-until-2070-six-years-longer-than-planned/82224282/">phased out in 2070</a>.</p>
<p>The unit cost per airplane, above $100 million, is <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-donald-trump-was-right-the-f-35s-costs-are-out-control-18826">roughly twice what was promised early on</a>. Even after President Trump lambasted the cost of the program in February, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/politics/f-35-lockheed-martin-cost-reduction/">price per plane dropped just $7 million</a> – less than 7 percent.</p>
<p>And yet, the U.S. is still throwing huge sums of money at the project. Essentially, the Pentagon has declared the F-35 “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/f-35-60-minutes-david-martin/">too big to fail</a>.” As a retired member of the U.S. Air Force and current university professor of finance who has been involved in and studied military aviation and acquisitions, I find the F-35 to be one of the greatest boondoggles in recent military purchasing history.</p>
<h2>Forget what’s already spent</h2>
<p>The Pentagon is trying to argue that just because taxpayers have flushed <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-18/f-35-s-grotesque-overruns-are-now-past-pentagon-s-chief-says">more than $100 billion down the proverbial toilet so far</a>, we must continue to throw billions more down that same toilet. That violates the most elementary financial principles of capital budgeting, which is the method companies and governments use to decide on investments. So-called sunk costs, the money already paid on a project, should never be a factor in investment decisions. Rather, spending should be based on <a href="http://leepublish.typepad.com/strategicthinking/2015/03/sunk-cost-fallacy.html">how it will add value in the future</a>.</p>
<p>Keeping the F-35 program alive is not only a gross waste in itself: Its funding could be spent on defense programs that are really useful and needed for national defense, such as <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/07/08/pentagon-needs-more-money-counter-islamic-state-drones/86867452/">anti-drone systems to defend U.S. troops</a>.</p>
<p>Part of the enormous cost has come as a result of an effort to share aircraft design and replacement parts across different branches of the military. In 2013, a study by the RAND Corporation found that it would have been cheaper if the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy had simply <a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG1200/MG1225/RAND_MG1225.pdf">designed and developed separate and more specialized aircraft</a> to meet their specific operational requirements.</p>
<h2>Not living up to top billing</h2>
<p>The company building the F-35 has made grand claims. Lockheed Martin said the plane would be <a href="http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/66855/lockheed-touts-f_22%2C-jsf-at-s%27pore-show-%28feb-22%29.html">far better than current aircraft</a> – “four times more effective” in air-to-air combat, “eight times more effective” in air-to-ground combat and “three times more effective” in recognizing and suppressing an enemy’s air defenses. It would, in fact, be “<a href="http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Lockheed_Martin_F22_and_F35_5th_Gen_Revolution_In_Military_Aviation.html">second only to the F-22 in air superiority</a>.” In addition, the F-35 was to have better range and require less logistics support than current military aircraft. The Pentagon is still calling the F-35 “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170530194416/http://www.jsf.mil/">the most affordable, lethal, supportable, and survivable aircraft ever to be used</a>.”</p>
<p>But that’s not how the plane has turned out. In January 2015, mock combat testing pitted the F-35 against an F-16, one of the fighters it is slated to replace. The F-35A was flown “clean” with empty weapon bays and without any drag-inducing and heavy externally mounted weapons or fuel tanks. The F-16D, a heavier and somewhat less capable training version of the mainstay F-16C, was further encumbered with two 370-gallon external wing-mounted fuel tanks. </p>
<p>In spite of its significant advantages, the F-35A’s test pilot noted that the F-35A was <a href="https://medium.com/war-is-boring/read-for-yourself-the-f-35-s-damning-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb">less maneuverable and markedly inferior to the F-16D in a visual-range dogfight</a>.</p>
<h2>Stealth over power</h2>
<p>One key reason the F-35 doesn’t possess the world-beating air-to-air prowess promised, and is likely <a href="http://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/f-16-vs-f-35-in-a-dogfight-jpo-air-force-weigh-in-on-whos-best/">not even adequate when compared with its current potential adversaries</a>, is that it was designed first and foremost to be a stealthy airplane. This requirement has taken precedence over maneuverability, and likely above its overall air-to-air lethality. The Pentagon and especially the Air Force seem to be <a href="http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/613385/us-marine-corps-moves-forward-with-f-35-transition/">relying almost exclusively</a> on the F-35’s stealth capabilities to succeed at its missions.</p>
<p>Like the F-117 and F-22, the F-35’s stealth capability <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/stealth-aircraft-rcs.htm">greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, its radar cross-section</a>, the signal that radar receivers see bouncing back off an airplane. The plane looks smaller on radar – perhaps like a bird rather than a plane – but is not invisible. The F-35 is designed to be stealthy primarily in the X-band, the radar frequency range most commonly used for targeting in air-to-air combat.</p>
<p>In other radar frequencies, the F-35 is not so stealthy, making it vulnerable to being tracked and shot down using current – and even obsolete – weapons. As far back as 1999 the same type of stealth technology was not able to prevent a U.S. Air Force F-117 flying over Kosovo from being located, tracked and <a href="http://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/02/how-was-f-117-shot-down-part-1.html">shot down using an out-of-date Soviet radar and surface-to-air missile system</a>. In the nearly two decades since, that incident has been studied in depth not only by the U.S., but also by potential adversaries seeking weaknesses in passive radar stealth aircraft.</p>
<p>Of course, radar is not the only way to locate and target an aircraft. One can also use an aircraft’s infrared emissions, which are created by friction-generated heat as it flies through the air, along with its hot engines. Several nations, particularly the Russians, have excellent passive <a href="http://aviationweek.com/technology/new-radars-irst-strengthen-stealth-detection-claims">infrared search and tracking systems</a>, that can locate and target enemy aircraft with great precision – sometimes using lasers to measure exact distances, but without needing radar.</p>
<p>It’s also very common in air-to-air battles for opposing planes to come close enough that their pilots can see each other. The F-35 is as visible as any other aircraft its size.</p>
<h2>Analysts weigh in</h2>
<p>Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon say the F-35’s superiority over its rivals lies in its ability to remain undetected, giving it “<a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-f-35-tri-service-jet-must-outfly-critics-2012dec01-story.html">first look, first shot, first kill</a>.” Hugh Harkins, a highly respected author on military combat aircraft, called that claim “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sukhoi-Su-35S-Flanker-Generation-Super-Manoeuvrability/dp/1903630169/ref=asap_bc">a marketing and publicity gimmick</a>” in his book on Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35S, a potential opponent of the F-35. He also wrote, “In real terms an aircraft in the class of the F-35 cannot compete with the Su-35S for out and out performance such as speed, climb, altitude, and maneuverability.”</p>
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<p>Other critics have been even harsher. Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called “<a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/40-years-of-the-fighter-mafia/">fighter mafia</a>” at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an “<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/extended-interview-pierre-sprey">inherently a terrible airplane</a>” that is the product of “an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.” He has said <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/extended-interview-pierre-sprey">the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21</a>, a 1950s Soviet fighter design. Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran, career diplomat and military air combat historian, wrote in his book “Air Power Abandoned,” “The F-35 demonstrates repeatedly that it can’t live up to promises made for it. … <a href="https://robertfdorr.blogspot.com/2015/08/hitler-hillary-time-travel-and-f-22.html">It’s that bad</a>.”</p>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>How did the F-35 go from its conception as the most technologically advanced, do-it-all military aircraft in the world to a virtual turkey? Over the decades-long effort to meet a real military need for better aircraft, the F-35 program is the result of the merging or combination of several other separate and diverse projects into a set of requirements for an airplane that is trying to be everything to everybody. </p>
<p>In combat the difference between winning and losing is often not very great. With second place all too often meaning death, the Pentagon seeks to provide warriors with the best possible equipment. The best tools are those that are tailor-made to address specific missions and types of combat. Seeking to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/08/28/defense-spending-in-the-u-s-in-four-charts/">accomplish more tasks with less money</a>, defense planners looked for ways to economize.</p>
<p>For a fighter airplane, funding decisions become a balancing act of procuring not just the best aircraft possible, but enough of them to make an effective force. This has lead to the creation of so-called “multi-role” fighter aircraft, capable both in air-to-air combat and against ground targets. Where trade-offs have to happen, designers of most multi-role fighters emphasize aerial combat strength, reducing air-to-ground capabilities. With the F-35, it appears designers created an airplane that doesn’t do either mission exceptionally well. They have made the plane an inelegant jack-of-all-trades, but master of none – at great expense, both in the past and, apparently, <a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article151096902.html">well into the future</a>.</p>
<p>I believe the F-35 program should be immediately cancelled; the technologies and systems developed for it should be used in more up-to-date and cost-effective aircraft designs. Specifically, the F-35 should be replaced with a series of new designs targeted toward the specific mission requirements of the individual branches of the armed forces, in lieu of a single aircraft design trying to be everything to everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael P. Hughes owns shares of an exchange traded fund that includes shares of Lockheed Martin along with many other aerospace and defense companies. </span></em></p>The most expensive defense program in world history has yielded a multi-role fighter plane that is an inelegant jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.Michael P. Hughes, Professor of Finance, Francis Marion UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/738832017-03-16T12:26:28Z2017-03-16T12:26:28ZTrump’s planned military buildup is based on faulty claims, not good strategy<p>President Donald Trump just released a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf">budget plan</a> intended to fulfill a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/donald-trump-congress-speech/">promise</a> to rebuild the military with “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.”</p>
<p>Specifically, Trump wants to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-16/trump-seeks-639-billion-for-defense-department-a-10-increase">boost “base” military spending</a> by US$52.3 billion to $574 billion, an increase of 10 percent over <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/0217_budget">fiscal year 2016</a>. Separately, he’s requesting $65 billion for ongoing wars. </p>
<p>Trump’s rhetoric aside, a 10 percent increase would not actually rank among the nation’s largest, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/01/donald-trump/trump-wrongly-claims-historic-defense-increase/">as many quickly pointed out</a>. But that exaggeration should not be the central concern for Americans as they monitor how Trump and Congress debate how to spend their hard-earned dollars. The real problem is whether any increase is justified. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-skinny-budget-is-already-dead-73824">President Trump</a> is arguing for a military buildup before producing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-purpose-of-president-trumps-navy-74016">strategic vision</a> or laying out priorities to guide the new spending. Instead he has justified it, so far, on two misleading premises: that President Barack Obama slashed the defense budget and that as a result the military is depleted and needs to be rebuilt. </p>
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<h2>Paying for two wars</h2>
<p>Since 2001, Congress has funded the Pentagon in two separate ways.</p>
<p>The first is through the base budget for the Department of Defense. The second is in the form of emergency supplemental appropriations bills that cover, in effect, the extra or net costs created by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and related military actions elsewhere. These “emergency” appropriations are called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds.</p>
<p>From 2001 to 2012 the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/budget/Historicals">Pentagon’s base budget</a> increased 85 percent, from $287 billion to $530 billion. That 85 percent does not include the OCO funds, which totaled $1.36 trillion over the same 12 years, for an average of an additional $113 billion per year on top of the base budget. War funding alone was more than what China – the world’s second-biggest military spender – spent on its entire defense budget during those same years. </p>
<p>Adjusted for inflation, U.S. military budgets reached the highest levels since World War II, significantly exceeding expenditures during Korea, Vietnam and the Reagan years. </p>
<p>It is also important to note that the entirely separate <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/budget/Historicals">budget for Veterans Affairs</a> increased by 162 percent over this same period, from nearly $48 billion to just under $125 billion (and last year it was over $160 billion).</p>
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<h2>Claim #1: Obama slashed military spending</h2>
<p>This brief overview of American military spending since 9/11 provides context for the misleading and widespread implication that the defense budget was significantly reduced under President Obama. </p>
<p>While on board the U.S.’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/03/02/remarks-president-trump-aboard-uss-gerald-r-ford">President Trump described</a> “years of endless budget cuts that have impaired our defenses.”</p>
<p>During his two terms, President Obama ended combat operations in Iraq and, after a relatively brief surge, did the same in Afghanistan. So naturally as two expensive wars were ending, military spending fell. The cuts came mostly in contingency spending. The Pentagon’s base budget remained at near record levels. </p>
<p>Under Obama, OCO spending fell from $163 billion in 2010 to $59 billion in 2016, as combat operations ceased in Iraq and wound down in Afghanistan after the surge.</p>
<p>The base budget declined from a peak of $530 billion in 2012 to $495 billion in 2013 after a budget agreement between Congress and Obama led to across-the-board spending cuts – known as the sequester – but climbed back to a planned $524 billion for the current fiscal year. </p>
<p>Even without the $85 billion in war spending, the 2014 base budget of $496 billion – the lowest in recent years – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/11/chart-u-s-defense-spending-still-dwarfs-the-rest-of-the-world/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.5da14a49dd7d">equaled the total spent by the next seven biggest military spenders combined</a>, including our close allies Great Britain, Japan and France. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that base defense spending remains, from a historical and comparative perspective, at a very high levels. </p>
<h2>Claim #2: Military is in desperate need of rebuilding</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural-address">inaugural address</a>, and echoing a regular theme from his 2016 campaign, President Trump lamented “the very sad depletion of our military” which he has vowed to “rebuild.” The truth is, we haven’t stopped building the military since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. </p>
<p>As the budget numbers cited above show, the U.S. just had an enormous military buildup, which I refer to as the <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/irrational-security">buildup hidden in plain sight</a>, because everyone was paying attention to the wars. The post-9/11 buildup did not go away, only the wars did. </p>
<p>In many respects the “hidden in plain sight” buildup has been a do-it-all, no-priorities affair, with significant increases in funding for research and development, pay, benefits, <a href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/">intelligence</a> and weapons procurement. The key “investment” portions of the base military budget (procurement and R&D) <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/budget/Historicals">increased 147 percent and 107 percent, respectively</a>, from 2000 to 2010.</p>
<p>As one example, the Air Force procured 187 F-22 Raptors – the world’s most advanced fighter – for around $67 billion in the 2000s. But at the same time, it started production of what has since become the most expensive weapons program in world history, the Joint Strike Fighter (aka F-35 Lightning II), which is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-22/lockheed-s-f-35-stealth-fighter-is-here-to-stay">estimated to cost</a> around $380 billion. </p>
<p>In addition, whole new weapons programs, most notably the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/27/world/la-fg-afghanistan-armor-20131227">MRAP armored vehicle</a> (nearly $50 billion for over 26,000 MRAPS in about five years), were developed and produced just for the wars.</p>
<p>If Trump’s plans for greater spending are implemented, we would be adding a buildup right on top of another. Military spending adjusted for inflation was comparable to that under President Reagan, without including war appropriations. And OCO spending has been used, <a href="http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/defense-budget/2016/pentagon-admits-half-of-war.html">as is well-documented</a>, not just to pay for the wars but also for equipment, such as F-35s and V-22 Osprey transport planes, to be used beyond or even separate from the conflict zones. In the core years of the wars, for example, <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/irrational-security">procurement and R&D comprised 20 percent to 30 percent of OCO spending</a>.</p>
<p>What presidents, Congress and the Pentagon did not make over this period were tough decisions about what to fund and what could be cut. The U.S. military vaulted forward in military technology, propelled by the urgency of the wars on terror and the flood of spending, making what was already the best trained and equipped military in the world even better in both categories.</p>
<p>This immense and sustained buildup also highlighted the extent to which the Pentagon – which still has not completed a congressionally mandated audit – <a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part1">could not account</a> for how hundreds of billions of dollars of its budget has been spent.</p>
<h2>Wasteful spending</h2>
<p>Consequently, I would argue the military’s problem is not that it has too little money. The Pentagon has had more than enough. Instead, the problem is how that money has been spent. </p>
<p>Before the president and Congress send the military budget once again skyward, they should account for how the Pentagon has used the trillions of dollars it has spent since 9/11 and a plan that balances U.S. strategy and resources.</p>
<p>Beyond some <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-military-20170303-story.html">simplistic and at times contradictory statements</a>, the Trump administration has nothing like a grand strategy to guide its desired buildup. In other words, it’s putting the cart before the horse. </p>
<p>In lieu of this, President Trump has so far leaned heavily on the slippery concept of “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-foreign-policy">peace through strength</a>,” even though all these years of unrivaled U.S. power – and our repeated use of it – have not produced peace. The president seems to see military strength almost as an end in itself, or “performative,” as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/americas/donald-trump-us-military.html">military analyst Erin Simpson put it</a>, a kind of show or performance, regardless of whether the capabilities are matched to the threats we face. </p>
<p>It is, if nothing else, a very expensive performance, but one that at least will be “made in America” befitting Trump’s stand on economics and trade. Standing on the deck of the $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, Trump reminded his audience that “American workers will build our fleets.” Whatever else it may be, an increase in military spending is one economic stimulus program that will sail through a Republican Congress.</p>
<p>Trump has been critical of the recent wars and their consequences. Yet, if he launches another unchecked military spending spree, he and Congress will compound rather than fix the problems of priorities and waste created by and amid those wars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Wirls is affiliated with Council for a Livable World. I am a member of its Board. It is a PAC focused on lower the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. </span></em></p>Trump’s first budget proposal would boost defense spending by US$52 billion, but his desired military buildup is premised on misleading claims and lacks a strategic vision.Daniel Wirls, Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa CruzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/740162017-03-13T19:52:39Z2017-03-13T19:52:39ZWhat’s the purpose of President Trump’s Navy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160361/original/image-20170310-19266-1baq8bj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The USS Gerald Ford in Newport News, Virginia, cost nearly $13 billion to build. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Trump visited Newport News at the beginning of March to deliver a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/donald-trump-navy-speech-virginia/">speech</a> aboard the soon-to-be commissioned USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. It provided a timely reminder of his campaign <a href="http://conservativetribune.com/what-trump-promised-navy/">pledge</a> that he would increase the size of the fleet from the current figure of 272 to 350 ships over the next three decades. This is significantly more than the Obama-era plans to increase the fleet to <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article107782747.html">308 ships.</a></p>
<p>How this decision fits with any broader grand strategy is <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-navys-great-magic-numbers-challenge-18771">unclear</a>. Critics have debated whether Trump has <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck/">one.</a> Indeed, a recent New York Times story suggested the growth of the military may simply be for the purpose of possessing raw military power rather than part of any serious <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/americas/donald-trump-us-military.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0">strategizing.</a> </p>
<p>Trump’s decision to focus on building a more powerful global Navy, however, fits with a longstanding American strategic tradition. It dates back to naval officer and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan’s classic <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Influence-History-1660-1783-Military-Weapons/dp/0486255093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488581457&sr=8-1&keywords=Alfred+Thayer+Mahan">“The Influence of Seapower on History</a>,” which was written on the cusp of America’s emergence as a global power at the end of the 19th century. In Mahan’s vision, a great Navy would promote America’s commercial interests at home and abroad. It was, and for many still <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820">is</a>, the foundation of any “grand strategy.” </p>
<p>But a key question remains: Does Trump’s specified goal of 350 ships meet the needs of the nation in the 21st century? How does this fit into a strategic vision for U.S. security? </p>
<h2>Why 350 ships?</h2>
<p>The new budget proposal reportedly calls for increasing the 2018 Defense Budget <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/trump-budget-military.html?_r=0">by US$54 billion.</a> This won’t itself pay for an ambitious expansion of the Navy. The USS Gerald R. Ford alone cost about <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-navys-new-13-billion-aircraft-carrier-will-dominate-the-seas-2016-03-09">$13 billion</a>. It will, therefore, take many years of spending to move building projects forward. But as the Trump administration’s plans, if enacted, make clear, buying more ships will mean cuts to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/politics/trump-budget-proposal/">foreign aid, environmental protection and a series of regulatory agencies.</a> These are choices that have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/28/us/politics/ap-us-trump-diplomatic-cutbacks.html?_r=0">roundly criticized</a> by former military officials and senior policymakers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160362/original/image-20170310-19247-j659pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump visiting the Newport News Shipbuilding in early March to announce his plans for the Navy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, there are few civilian officials available to answer the question of what purpose the Navy’s growth serves. That is because there is currently a dearth of administrative appointments to key leadership positions in the Navy and the Department of Defense. So there is no evident strategy to justify this new target.</p>
<p>The man <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/314491-why-theres-only-one-choice-for-trumps-navy-secretary">initially anointed by the Washington rumor mill</a> as the next secretary of the Navy was ex-congressman Randy Forbes, formerly of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Arms Services Committee and a vocal supporter of American naval power. </p>
<p>Forbes was passed over in favor of Phillip Bilden, a businessmen with ties to both the Army and the Navy. Bilden, however, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navy-secretary-nominee-withdraws_us_58b36fa7e4b0a8a9b7833b52?whi9ajh5kuj6ob6gvi&">withdrew from consideration</a> when it became clear that ethics rules would require him to disentangle himself from his extensive business holdings. The vacuum remains unfilled. Now, in a strange turn of events, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-trump-considers-two-candidates-for-navy-secretary-1488928814">Forbes is once again in the running</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the preferences of the new Secretary of Defense General Mattis and National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster regarding the size, shape and purposes of the Navy are unknown. </p>
<p>Both are well-read, broadly educated, deep thinkers on U.S. and global security. But both participated in ground wars in the Middle East. They are therefore assumed to be advocates of land forces, not naval power. In the past, they have focused on conventional wars, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, rather than maritime challenges. </p>
<h2>The Navy’s view</h2>
<p>Even in normal periods, fleet design is a complicated bureaucratic dance with budgets, internal procedures and external interventions from Congress to be negotiated. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160557/original/image-20170313-9637-s5dxjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan was a big Navy fan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ron Edmonds/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In times of crisis or great political change, the strong preferences of presidents, their advisers and the civilian leaders or the military services can play a decisive role. Most famously, <a href="http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/1990/1990%20mearsheimer.pdf">Secretary of the Navy John Lehman,</a> at the behest of President Reagan, championed a 600-ship Navy to counter the rapidly growing Soviet fleet and threats to Europe, the Far East and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Even before candidate Trump shined the spotlight on the Navy, the service was, of course, planning for the future. </p>
<p>The Navy released its latest vision statement, <a href="http://www.navy.mil/cno/docs/cno_stg.pdf">“A Design for Maritime Superiority,”</a> in January 2016. It resoundingly defended the ideal that the United States is a maritime nation and a premier naval power, specifically naming China and Russia as potential aggressors on the high seas. It didn’t specify a target fleet size although the documents could be construed as justifying the sort of overall budget growth proposed by Trump. </p>
<p>Still Congress, forcefully egged on by Representative Forbes, who felt the Obama administration and the Navy itself were <a href="https://news.usni.org/2014/10/01/randy-forbes-cno-greenert-navy-desperately-needs-strategy">neglecting</a> naval strategy, mandated three independent studies to examine the future fleet. Interestingly, when completed, none of the three alternatives proposes anything like a 350-ship fleet by 2030, despite errant reports to the contrary. </p>
<p>Recent news reports suggesting that the alternative fleet architecture proposed by the think tank <a href="https://www.mitre.org/publications">the MITRE Corp.</a> called for <a href="http://breakingdefense.com/2017/02/414-ships-no-lcs-mitres-alternative-navy/">over 400 ships</a> misinterpreted the study. In fact, the MITRE authors recommend a far smaller fleet because they explicitly recognize the costs of building up to such a large number.</p>
<p>All three studies focus on new war-fighting concepts such as <a href="https://news.usni.org/2016/09/13/navy-fleet-embracing-distributed-operations-as-a-way-to-regain-sea-control">distributed maritime operations</a>, new types of platforms including unmanned systems and new technologies including rail guns (that can repeatedly launch a projectile <a href="http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/navy-wants-fire-its-ridiculously-strong-railgun-ocean">at more than 5,000 miles per hour</a>). Capacity and fleet size are obviously not the same thing, despite the current focus on numbers of ships.</p>
<p>The point is that analysis underpinning the Navy’s own vision for the future is different from that of the new president. </p>
<p>To date, the president has concentrated on the overall number of ships while the Navy and the congressionally mandated studies focused on war-fighting capabilities and war-fighting concepts. What is missing from the president’s target of a 350-ship Navy is an underlying strategy – one that links what is proverbially called the “ways, means and ends” necessary to defend American interests on the high seas. </p>
<p>Working outward, the national security community, the public and indeed America’s allies and adversaries need to understand the logic underlying any historic naval buildup. A clear statement regarding the primary threats facing the U.S., the types of adversaries it will face and the nature of future conflict would help explain why the American taxpayer is investing so much national treasure in the military services. </p>
<p>After all, if Russia is not the enemy, and we don’t need a big Navy to defeat the Islamic State, then why spend so much? </p>
<h2>‘Military operations other than war’</h2>
<p>So far, Trump has not offered an answer for the nation to rally behind and to reassure his critics. </p>
<p>In its absence, experts have sought reassurance in the president’s fragmentary and sporadic pronouncements to support their own vision. Neo-isolationists have <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-02-24/nigel-farage-at-cpac-brexit-trump-show-isolationism-is-winning">cheered his efforts</a> to close American borders. Others have warmed to the notion that he has suggested our allies assume <a href="http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/03/europes-security-dilemma/">more responsibility</a> for their own defense. Even proponents of old-fashioned primacy have sought luster by interpreting the president’s defense buildup as <a href="http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/01/detached-primacy-musings-trump-doctrine/">a return to the unilateralist days</a> of American military prowess through intervention. </p>
<p>Our own research suggests that the truth is that none of these grand visions may apply. The Navy, and indeed the other military services, face a growing demand for their services. They are now being asked to perform an increasing number of functions that are <a href="http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Monographs/Other_Than_War.pdf">not associated with fighting wars</a>. </p>
<p>The military even has a term for it: “MOOTW” (<a href="http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/jp-doctrine/jp3_07.pdf">military operations other than war</a>). And the U.S. Navy’s MOOTW ranges from conventional war-fighting against other countries’ navies to policing the globe against pirates, drug flows and the smuggling of nuclear materials, humanitarian assistance and even fighting Ebola in Africa. These activities consume much of the Navy’s time. And their increasing demands require increased resources. Military budgets therefore often reflect the requirements entailed in providing these services as much as the need to conform to any one image.</p>
<p>Of course, congressional democrats may yet scuttle plans for an enlarged Navy. Alternatively, the president may move beyond discussing discrete missions to a more coherent grand strategy – perhaps tutored by his new senior military appointments – that justifies acquisition decisions. </p>
<p>The types of ships (and aircraft, and unmanned systems and equipment) purchased in the coming years will make sense only if they are employed in an operationally coherent manner. Only then will the American public be able to judge if the trade-offs made to fund such an enterprise were worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Reich receives funding from The Gerda Henkel Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Dombrowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does the president’s specified goal of 350 ships meet the needs of the nation in the 21st century? The answer is not yet clear.Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkPeter Dombrowski, Professor, Strategic Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, US Naval War CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711062017-02-15T13:44:54Z2017-02-15T13:44:54ZPropaganda in Portugal’s colonies: lessons for the West today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156631/original/image-20170213-15806-16ecpl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The official Angolan broadcaster, or Emissora Oficial de Angola, under construction between 1963-67.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fernão Simões de Carvalho</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Revolt begins where the road ends.” This sums up the thoughts of a Portuguese general on the counterinsurgency strategy in the 1960s against nationalist movements in the country’s former African colonies of Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique. </p>
<p>When most other African countries had liberated themselves from Europe’s colonial yoke, Portugal, one of the earliest colonisers and the poor man of Europe, insisted on retaining its empire. Drawing on research for my <a href="https://history.indiana.edu/news-events/news/news_2016_11_04.html">upcoming book</a> “Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931-2002”, this article looks at the relationship between military radio propaganda of counterinsurgency to draw some lessons for today’s wars.</p>
<p>Counterinsurgency has garnered renewed attention in the wake of ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Invading Western powers desperately need the cooperation of local populations to fight Iraqi guerrilla insurgents resisting US occupation and Afghani Taliban (along with a congeries of tribal allies and opium traders). </p>
<p>Western military brass and policy wonks repeatedly appeal to the historical, anti-colonial struggles and the counterinsurgency strategies European and US imperialists deployed against local populations as relevant case studies for contemporary wars. Recall, for example, that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/weekinreview/the-world-film-studies-what-does-the-pentagon-see-in-battle-of-algiers.html">the Pentagon screened</a> Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” in 2003 to raise the issues of infiltration, interrogation and torture of insurrectionary forces in Iraq. </p>
<p>At the core of all these strategies, old and new, is the blurring of civilian and military practices. Put differently, under these circumstances development is just another word for counterinsurgency. Reform (for civilians) and repression (for rebels), the twin prongs of this strategy, are more intertwined than they are parallel tines. </p>
<p>Bromides about the future are aimed at dulling the violence of forced removals, spying on one’s neighbours and family, and the militarisation of everyday life. Indeed the vaunted progress – roads constructed, homes built, fields tilled – are built on and through big and small acts of violence. The <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo5748917.html">US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual</a>, (2006), the first to be published in 20 years, offers a tidy dyad in its foreword: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Soldiers and marines are expected to be nation builders as well as warriors. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Anti-colonial radio and the state</h2>
<p>In late colonial Angola, radio (the object and the institution), blared the contradictions of this kind of counterinsurgency programme and sounded out the fragmented nature of the colonial state. </p>
<p>One plank of counterinsurgency was what the Portuguese military referred to as <a href="http://www.guerracolonial.org/index.php?content=234">“psychological action”</a>. Crafted in the information trenches, psychological action had three targets:</p>
<ol>
<li>Civilians – win their hearts and minds;</li>
<li>Rebel combatants – demoralise them and encourage desertion; and</li>
<li>Colonial soldiers – maintain their morale and loyalty. </li>
</ol>
<p>Plainly put, this was propaganda. Both sides used it. The Portuguese almost always played catch up. Military <a href="http://psimg.jstor.org/fsi/img/pdf/t0/10.5555/al.sff.document.ufbmp1004_final.pdf">reports</a> from a Counterinsurgency Commission held in 1968-1969 point to the effective histories and radio broadcasts of guerrilla movements. They refer in particular to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) based in Brazzaville and the need to counteract their transmissions.</p>
<p>The MPLA had been broadcasting guerrilla radio from the mid-1960s via the state radios of the Congo Republic in Brazzaville. Brazzaville, once the site of Charles DeGaulle’s <a href="https://global.britannica.com/topic/Free-French">Free French</a> government-in-exile during the Second World War, had the largest transmitter on the continent. The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) did much less from their Kinshasa base in Zaire.</p>
<p>MPLA cadres received some training in Algeria. This, with their already Marxist and anti-colonial orientation, meant the programming on Angola Combatente (Fighting Angola) broadcast critiques of colonial occupation and its capitalist ends. It also sent secret messages to movement militants working clandestinely and appealed to Portuguese soldiers to desert. </p>
<p>The FNLA’s Voz Livre de Angola (The Free Voice of Angola) served primarily as a community station for the many African exiles from Angola in the area. The Portuguese secret police (PIDE) faithfully listened and transcribed. Only later, after the Counterinsurgency Commission, did the military develop its own radio propaganda. </p>
<p>The colonial state played a reactive game. They employed various media: radio, newspapers, pamphlets and posters. In Mozambique for example, loudspeakers mounted in aeroplanes as part of Operation Gordian Knot, was the largest and most successful Portuguese counterinsurgency effort. It was based on US counterinsurgency in Vietnam. </p>
<p>The Military Information Secretariat produced news that local papers printed. It was also relayed on civilian radio stations and was loosely coordinated through the official Angolan broadcaster, the EOA or Emissora Oficial de Angola. </p>
<h2>Broadcasting in Angola - the longer view</h2>
<p>A vast network of radio broadcasters, largely member based radio clubs, developed in Angola from the 1930s. By the 1950s each region of Angola had a least one radio club. This meant a total of 10 broadcasters for a white settler population that reached nearly half a million by the early 1970s. They were also served by a commercial station, another belonging to the diamond mining company Diamang, and the EOA.</p>
<p>Member based groups drew from radio enthusiasts, the local business elite, and, increasingly, young folks. Every club was different in structure and size. While they broadcast in Portuguese, their main focus was local events: football games, car races and radio plays. Many also organised live musical events. </p>
<p>They often implored the colonial state for financial support and strategically lauded Portuguese Prime Minister António Salazar and the work of empire. Yet, radio club broadcasters were largely (though not entirely) deaf to the nationalist cause. Still, these young men and women created a dynamic network and vibrant modernity. If clubs found their broadcasters pressed into broadcasting counterinsurgency messages, it seemed a small price to pay. </p>
<p>The official EOA opened in the early 1950s (then too a settler initiative). But <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Portuguese_Colonial_War">the war</a> made it more of a priority. The Plan for Radio Broadcasting in Angola, established in 1961 a few short months after the war erupted, attempted to fortify broadcasting structures. The plan was a long term, shifting set of goals. It was grounded in infrastructure and targeted at increasing the state’s broadcasting range. </p>
<p>It put broadcasting in the hands of the Centre for Information and Tourism and the Post Office. But archival files show a jumble of voices and interests. Broadcasters, military and secret police varied in their ideas about how and what radio should do.</p>
<h2>We’re jamming</h2>
<p>Despite the largely discredited practice of jamming, some military and police figures continued to advocate it well into the late 1960s. Blocking the signal of the guerrilla radios was inefficient and expensive. </p>
<p>But broadcasters from the national broadcaster – Emissora Nacional – in Lisbon, rich in expertise but poor in structural authority, argued for propaganda produced by an autonomous body, not the EOA. Propaganda required nimble structures, free of the state’s imprimatur and staid sound.</p>
<p>In the end, broadcasting policy came down on the side of technological solutions to political problems. Even as the military and secret police argued for responsive forms of counterinsurgency, state policy around broadcasting opted for concrete solutions.</p>
<h2>Fast forward to today</h2>
<p>The lesson for today is the obvious one. But the one still not learned. No matter how slick the Field Manuals sound and how well they shill the idea that occupying militaries can purvey both violence and the building of a state, the contradictions and complications ultimately undo the best of intentions. You cannot introduce development surrounded by concertina wire or democracy with drones buzzing overhead. And neither will technology fix political problems, which are essentially human.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marissa J. Moorman receives funding from Fulbright Hayes Faculty Fellowship and the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in 2010-2011 for research.</span></em></p>Portugal used radio propaganda in its colonies in the 1960s against local liberation movements. Decades later there are still lessons to be learned for occupying armies from their failed strategies.Marissa J. Moorman, Associate Professor of History, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/563382016-05-02T10:07:11Z2016-05-02T10:07:11ZHas the American military fallen behind?<p>One of the prominent themes in this year’s presidential primaries is the state of the American military. </p>
<p>In his April 27 foreign policy speech, Republican front-runner Donald Trump <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.html?action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article">summed up</a> the majority view of the GOP: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[W]e have to rebuild our military and our economy. The Russians and Chinese have rapidly expanded their military capability, but look at what’s happened to us. … Our military dominance must be unquestioned, and I mean unquestioned, by anybody and everybody.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trump speaks on foreign policy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, by contrast, sees little need to rebuild. She <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/">pledges</a> to “ensure the United States maintains the best-trained, best-equipped and strongest military the world has ever known.” </p>
<p>Bernie Sanders argues that the military should be reduced: Sanders <a href="http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-military-and-veterans/">expresses frank concern</a> over the size of the American military budget, which in 2015 was “greater than the spending of the next seven largest defense budgets combined.”</p>
<p>Hearing these contradictory statements may confuse voters. Is our military overfunded or falling behind? </p>
<p>To answer this question, it helps to examine three perspectives on military capabilities: readiness, relative strength and efficacy.</p>
<h2>How ready are we?</h2>
<p>The military itself, as well as many think-tank scholars, tends to focus on one or more of <a href="http://www.gao.gov/products/NSIAD-85-75">four major dimensions</a> of military capacity.</p>
<p>One is force structure, or the raw numbers of tanks, ships, divisions and so on that make up our armed forces. The second is modernization, or the level of technical sophistication. The third is sustainability, or the ability to maintain operations once underway. The last is combat readiness.</p>
<p>Such measures gauge the current military capability of the United States relative to what our own military says it needs in order to be fully operational. Based on these criteria, the conservative Heritage Foundation ranks America’s overall military capability as “<a href="http://index.heritage.org/military/2015/chapter/us-power/overall/">marginal</a>, [as] a consequence of the cumulative effect of many years of simultaneous underinvestment and extensive operations.”</p>
<p>Readiness measures like this one can help the military and Congress set budget priorities. But they don’t tell us anything about whether we are falling behind other countries.</p>
<h2>What is our relative strength?</h2>
<p>When academics who study international relations measure military strength, we focus on metrics that directly compare the military capabilities of one country to those of another. </p>
<p>The most venerable <a href="http://cow.dss.ucdavis.edu/data-sets/national-material-capabilities/national-material-capabilities-v4-0">index</a> is the Correlates of War project’s Composite Index of National Capability (CINC). The index measures the average of a country’s share of systemwide resources across six dimensions: total population, urban population, iron and steel production, energy consumption, military personnel and military expenditures. </p>
<p>One shortcoming of this measure is that it cannot be used for comparisons across time. A country with 10 percent of the world’s military capacity in 2016 is vastly more powerful than a country with 10 percent of the world’s military capacity in 1815. Another is that it can significantly overstate the capabilities of countries that dominate any one dimension. China’s immense population, for example, gives its military unwarranted heft in the CINC index.</p>
<p>Other measures that do not suffer from these shortcomings have been proposed, each with a somewhat different approach. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo5955354.html">“The War Ledger,”</a> Professors A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler argue that a major power’s capacity to win an all-out conventional military conflict in which both sides can fully mobilize their resources depends both on the wealth that it can bring to bear in producing sophisticated military hardware and on the size of the population that it can call upon to fight. </p>
<p>Professors Organski and Kugler measure wealth as GDP per capita, or gross domestic product divided by population. Their formula poetically captures the idea that both elements are necessary, but only work together. Of course, when you divide by population and then multiply by the same number, you end up with GDP. </p>
<p>Our GDP is 168 percent of that of China, our nearest competitor. Under Organski and Kugler’s measure, the U.S. handily wins on relative strength.</p>
<p>Military budgets are another way to answer the question. Budgets can be used as a rough measure of one country’s capacity to defeat another using existing forces – rather than the forces that could be brought to bear in a more sustained national effort. Direct comparisons can be challenging because technological sophistication brings disproportionate returns on the battlefield. Professor Phil Arena has <a href="http://fparena.blogspot.com/2012/06/measuring-military-capabilities.html">recently proposed</a> a new measure: M – total military personnel, weighted by spending per soldier – to make military-to-military comparisons more meaningful. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120440/original/image-20160428-30950-ub63qr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The military spending of the United States in 2015 exceeded that of the next 11 countries combined, seven of which are our allies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Data source: World Military Balance 2016, International Institute for Strategic Studies.)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our M score is on average about 150 percent of that of each of the next six countries on the list, all of whom are our allies. Our military spending, despite the self-inflicted wound of the 2013 budget sequestration, is still four times that of our nearest competitor and 38 percent of all military spending worldwide. </p>
<p>It turns out that Senator Sanders’ assessment was actually somewhat conservative. America’s military expenditures are greater than the next 11 largest defense budgets combined. Seven of those 11 countries are our allies.</p>
<h2>Can we get the job done?</h2>
<p>A final measure of the state of America’s military is its ability to achieve foreign policy objectives. </p>
<p>Traditionally, military forces are used to achieve military victories, which in turn lay the groundwork for a political settlement. </p>
<p>America’s military is exceptionally good at doing this. Baghdad fell to coalition forces in 2003 after only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq">21 days</a> of fighting. The multilateral intervention in Libya to prevent genocide in the city of Benghazi <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/world/africa/29diplo.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">was heralded by The New York Times</a> as “a model for how the United States wields force in other countries where its interests are threatened.” </p>
<p>In recent years, however, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/war-from-the-ground-up-9780199327881?cc=us&lang=en&">armed forces have increasingly been tasked</a> with the imposition and maintenance of political solutions after victory. This could include, for example, nation-building or the elimination of terrorism. Here, traditional metrics of military power count for little. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Eaw2951/">Andreas Wimmer</a> argues in <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Eaw2951/nationbuilding.pdf">new research</a> on nation-building, political success hinges on slow-moving, generational processes like the growth of civil society and the establishment of political legitimacy. These processes are far more difficult to influence over the course of months or years than purely military outcomes – and far more difficult to influence via military means.</p>
<p>Similarly, the terrorist organizations that are increasingly our enemies typically avoid the battlefield. When they do attempt to take and hold territory, as ISIS has done in northern Iraq and Syria, military force can be brought to bear with considerable effect. To date, ISIS <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/iraqi-forces-see-string-of-victories-against-isis/">has lost about 40 percent of the territory</a> that it once held in Iraq. But the military can do little to prevent attacks like the recent ones in Paris and Brussels. The inability of the military to engage in nation-building and prevent terrorist attacks can create the impression that we are losing the war. What we are actually losing is the peace that follows.</p>
<h2>The big picture</h2>
<p>Candidates tend to focus on whichever metric best suits their preferred policy. By looking at the military from all three perspectives at once, though, we can get a more nuanced view of American military capabilities.</p>
<p>Thanks largely to the effects of waging simultaneous wars for over a decade, the American military is not at peak readiness. Even so, it remains the premier fighting force in the world. </p>
<p>If the trend of using military forces to achieve political ends like nation-building continues and military efficacy is judged by the results, however, America will continue to struggle to achieve its foreign policy aims. More spending on bombs and bullets will do little to change this outcome. </p>
<p>A better, and cheaper, investment would be in the skills, knowledge and resources needed to follow up military victories with durable political settlements, to anticipate terrorist attacks and to dry up support for terrorist organizations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bear F. Braumoeller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump and Cruz certainly think so. Clinton promises to maintain the “strongest military the world has ever known.” An OSU professor examines the issue through three different lens.Bear F. Braumoeller, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.