February 2, 2026

Michael Cessna

Michael Cessna is a former Active Duty United States Marine, a long-time personal protection specialist, security and defense analyst, military subjects instructor, general information researcher and amateur historian. He has been contributing security and defense writing since 2015.
The M60 Tank’s Surprising Second Act

The M60 Tank’s Surprising Second Act

Michael Cessna January 30, 2026 0

 

 

 

 

The war in Ukraine, once again, has revived the tired old saw about the armored combat tank being “obsolete” in warfare, because – drones…and, like every other time someone said something this silly, it has been proven categorically false. Not least, in the fact that older tanks – not simply older designs, but physical vehicles that are older than their crews…and sometimes, older than the entire crew, combined.

Both Russian and Ukrainian tank crews are driving the full panoply of ex-Soviet designs long considered not simply obsolescent, but absolutely obsolete. From T-54/55‘s, T-62‘s, T-72‘s and T-80‘s, these old warhorses still grind around the modern battlefields of Ukraine in large numbers, a function of the truly massive numbers of the vehicles produced during the Cold War.

But these vehicles also still fight in battles all over the world, as most of them were exported in large numbers to anyone aligning with Soviet ideology – honest or not – or, later, any state with very modest cash reserves.

In this, the 1990-1991 Gulf War – “Operation Desert Storm” – created some fundamental misunderstandings about old armor, “brain bugs” that have metastasized over the decades, creating truly insane levels of incompetence (but we’ll talk about “Force Design 2030” in a later article). Among those were the general idea that Soviet vehicles were grossly inferior to western designs, when the reality was abysmally poor training, logistics and leadership on the Iraqi side.

The M60A3 main battle tank was considered “old” during Desert Storm; only the US Marine Corps fielded them in that conflict, when the Marine Corps still had tank units (“Force Design 2030” Delenda Est). Even with hasty add-on “reactive armor“, the -60’s were viewed as being dangerously under-armored, going hand-in-hand with its 105mm main gun, which had been replaced in its successor, the 120mm cannon of the M1 Abrams.

Magach 6, an Israeli-upgraded M60A1 Patton with Blazer ERA in Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel. 2005 photo by Bukvoed. CCA/3.0

And yet – the United States still maintains M60A3’s in “deep storage”, in places like the Sierra and Anniston Army Depots, despite parking older-model M1’s in the same storage lots.

But – why?

When the United States retired its last M60 Patton tanks from front-line service in the 1990’s, conventional wisdom suggested this Cold War workhorse would fade into history alongside other relics of the Soviet-American standoff. Instead, something curious happened: nations around the world began investing serious money into modernizing their M60 fleets rather than replacing them with newer designs. From the deserts of the Middle East to the mountains of Taiwan, the M60 has been experiencing a quiet renaissance that tells us something important about practical defense economics.

The M60 entered American service in 1960 as a counter to Soviet tank development, eventually seeing production of over 15,000 units, in various models. It fought in multiple Middle Eastern conflicts, performed credibly in Desert Storm, and became one of the most widely exported tanks in history. By most measures, it should be obsolete — after all, its basic design is now 65 years old. The M1 Abrams replaced it in U.S. service decades ago, and even the Abrams is facing questions about its age in modern warfare.

Yet in 2023, Taiwan awarded a contract worth hundreds of millions to upgrade 460 M60A3 tanks with new fire control systems, improved armor packages, and 120mm main guns. Turkey has upgraded hundreds of M60s with indigenous modifications, creating the M60T “Sabra” variant, which have seen extensive combat in Syria. Egypt operates over 1,700 M60’s with ongoing modernization programs. Israel, which originally developed many of the upgrade packages now used worldwide, continues operating upgraded M60s alongside newer Merkava tanks. Even smaller nations like Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco maintain modernized M60 fleets.

Magach 7, an Israeli-upgraded M60A1 Patton with the “Sabra” package, in Yad la-Shiryon Museum, Israel. 2005 photo by Bukvoed. CCA/3.0

 

The economics tell the story. A new main battle tank costs anywhere from $6-9 million per unit — and that’s for Russian or Chinese models. Western tanks like the M1A2 Abrams, Leopard 2A7, or British Challenger 3 run $8-15 million each. Comprehensive M60 modernization packages, by contrast, typically cost $2-4 million per tank. For a nation maintaining a battalion of 58 tanks, that’s the difference between a $120 million upgrade program and a $400-600 million replacement program, not including the necessary retraining and new logistics chains. When you’re not facing adversaries equipped with the latest Russian or Chinese armor, that cost differential becomes compelling.

But the financial argument only explains part of the M60’s longevity. The platform offers practical advantages that newer designs sometimes sacrifice. At roughly 52 tons combat weight, the M60 can cross bridges and operate on terrain that won’t support the 70-ton M1 Abrams. Its fuel consumption, while substantial, doesn’t approach the gas-turbine Abrams’ notorious thirst. The mechanical simplicity of its diesel engine means maintenance doesn’t require the specialized expertise that more sophisticated platforms demand — a critical factor for smaller militaries with limited technical infrastructure.

Modern upgrade packages address the M60’s original shortcomings remarkably effectively. New fire control systems with thermal imaging, laser rangefinders, and digital ballistic computers bring targeting capabilities close to contemporary standards – in an environment where “close” still counts. Explosive reactive armor tiles, cage armor, and composite armor packages significantly improve survivability against modern anti-tank weapons. Some variants mount 120mm smoothbore guns — the same main armament found on current M1A2 Abrams tanks. Engine upgrades improve power-to-weight ratios. The result is a platform that, while not matching the latest MBT’s in every parameter, provides legitimate armored combat capability at a fraction of the cost.

The strategic calculus matters too. Many nations employing M60s face threats from irregular forces, not peer militaries with modern tank armies. In counterinsurgency, urban warfare, or defensive operations, an upgraded M60 provides mobile protected firepower that is perfectly adequate to the mission. Turkey’s experience in Syria against Kurdish forces demonstrated that properly supported and employed, modernized M60s remain effective in contemporary combat environments — though they also verified the main battle tank’s well-known vulnerabilities when employed without adequate infantry support or air cover.

There’s a broader lesson here about defense procurement. The endless pursuit of cutting-edge capability often produces systems too expensive to acquire in meaningful numbers, too complex to maintain, and too precious to risk in actual combat. The M60’s ongoing renaissance suggests an alternative approach: proven platforms, continuously modernized, maintained in sufficient numbers to matter operationally. It’s not glamorous, and it doesn’t win promotions for procurement officers, but it might represent more actual combat power per defense dollar than many more modern and “sexier”, alternatives.

As so-called “hybrid warfare“, drone technology, and precision fires force reconsiderations of armored combat tactics, questions about the main battle tank’s future persist. But for nations prioritizing practical capability over theoretical performance, the upgraded M60 offers a pragmatic answer: sometimes the best tank for your situation isn’t the newest one — it’s the one you can afford to field in useful numbers, while still paying your soldiers, that will continue to get the job done.

 

 

 

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The Emperor Who Quit

The Emperor Who Quit

Michael Cessna January 23, 2026 0

 

 

 

The Devil, they say, is in the details…and this is nowhere more true than with nation-states.

 

The Mists of Time

On August 6, 1806, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II performed an unprecedented act: he declared the Holy Roman Empire dissolved. Not abdicated — dissolved. In a single proclamation, he claimed to release all imperial estates from their obligations and declared the thousand-year-old state institution defunct.

But – did he actually have the legal authority to do so?

Map of the Holy Roman Empire in 1356. By Cameron Pauley, 2019. CCA/4.0 Int’l

The Holy Roman Empire had survived invasions, religious wars, and constitutional crises since its founding under Charlemagne. Its complex federal structure, codified most notably in the Golden Bull of 1356, distributed sovereignity among the Emperor and seven Electors who chose him. This wasn’t an absolute monarchy — it was a constitutional arrangement where the Emperor derived legitimacy from election, not divine right alone.

Francis faced genuine crisis in 1806. Napoleon’s war machine had crushed Austrian forces, and had forced most of the tiny German states into his Confederation of the Rhine, while threatening further action against the Empire if Francis maintained his imperial title. Francis, obviously, threw up his hands and simply quit, deciding to try and destory the empire he had inherited at the same time But duress doesn’t create constitutional authority. The question isn’t whether Francis felt compelled to act — it’s whether the act itself was legally valid.

Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor by Joseph Kreutzinger (1757–1829), c.1806. Public Domain.

Previous imperial abdications had followed a well established procedure. When Charles V abdicated in 1556, he transferred the crown to his brother Ferdinand, who was then elected by the Electors. The institution continued. Only the office transferred. Francis did something entirely different: he claimed the office itself ceased to exist.

But here’s the constitutional problem: nowhere in the HRE’s imperial law was there a mechanism for the Emperor to unilaterally “dissolve” the Empire. The Golden Bull and subsequent constitutional documents provided for succession, election, even deposition of inadequate emperors. But dissolution? That authority didn’t exist. The Empire was not the Emperor’s personal property to dispose of — it was a corporate entity with distributed sovereignty among hundreds of estates, seven Electors, and the Emperor himself.

Page from the Golden Bull manuscript of King Wenceslaus, c.1400. Austrian National Library. Public Domain.

Think of it this way: a modern Prime Minister can resign, but cannot abolish Parliament by their resignation. The institution exists independently of any single officeholder. Francis treated the Holy Roman Empire as if his abdication necessarily meant its termination, but the constitutional logic doesn’t support this.

The proper procedure would have been abdication, returning authority to the Electoral College. They could then either elect a successor, declare an interregnum while addressing the crisis, or — if they possessed such authority — negotiate formal dissolution. Francis bypassed this entirely. He acted ultra vires — far beyond his legal powers.

This is not merely an academic oddity. If Francis’s dissolution of the Empire was constitutionally defective, then the Empire was never properly terminated. It would still exist, in abeyance, awaiting constitutional resolution of the issue by competent authorities. The parallel to various royal restoration claims is direct: an improper termination of a state or ruling body does not create legitimacy through passage of time, if the original constitutional breach was fundamentally outside the scope of its parent document.

The Treaty of Westphalia and subsequent settlements treated the Empire’s constitutional arrangements as part of the international order. Francis’ unilateral action disrupted this without proper legal process. Yes, the Empire was functionally dead by 1806 — but “functionally dead” and “legally dissolved” are two very different things.

Okay, But…So What?

Why does this matter now? Europe is facing its own legitimacy crisis. The European Union struggles with democratic deficits, member state frustration, widespread Citizen anger and questions about sovereignty that echo the Empire’s earlier federal complexity. Recent events — Romania’s annulled election, chronic German governmental instability, and questions about republican/democratic institutional stability suggest arrangements once considered permanent might be more fragile than assumed, among many others — indicate that institutional arrangements once considered permanent might be more fragile than originally believed.

Germany’s security services are currently monitoring the various Reichsbürger movements intensely, precisely because these groups attract otherwise frighteningly competent people — elite military officers, civil servants, judges — seeking alternative frameworks to what they see as fundamentally failed institutions. To be clear, most Reichsbürger constitutional theories are deranged nonsense. But — a restoration claim based on Francis II’s procedural defect in dissolving the Empire would be constitutionally defensible in ways “sovereign citizen“-type arguments aren’t.

The Holy Roman Empire was multi-ethnic, federated, and legally complex — arguably a more functional proto-European union than what currently exists. Its constitutional traditions emphasized distributed sovereignty and limited central authority. For Europeans frustrated with Brussels’ centralized in insensitive bureaucracy, that historical model might seem increasingly attractive.

None of this requires believing that restoration is imminent, or even desirable. But it does require acknowledging that Francis II’s 1806 dissolution rested on questionable legal authority, and that constitutional irregularities — even centuries-old ones — don’t automatically become legitimate through time’s passage.

But – What would an attempt at legal restoration look like?

Any claimant would face immediate practical obstacles: no territory, no recognition, and likely harassment from modern German authorities nervous about monarchist movements. Yet the constitutional argument itself remains surprisingly robust. When Juan Carlos returned to Spain in 1975, he didn’t claim the throne by force — he accepted it through a constitutional process during institutional transition. A Holy Roman Empire restoration would require similar conditions: crisis’ severe enough to make a monarchical alternative attractive, yet orderly enough to permit constitutional rather than revolutionary change.

The most constitutionally defensible approach would mirror Francis II’s error in reverse: a claimant declaring themselves ‘Interim Emperor‘ pending the reconvening of the Electoral College. This acknowledges the procedural defect — no proper dissolution occurred — while avoiding claims to absolute authority. It’s restoration through constitutional humility, not monarchical assertion.

The Emperor dissolved his Empire. The question is whether he had the right to do so. And if he didn’t, what does that mean for the constitutional status of a thousand-year institution that may never have been properly put to rest?

 

 

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Iran: The Superpower the U.S. Built — and Couldn’t Control

Iran: The Superpower the U.S. Built — and Couldn’t Control

Michael Cessna January 16, 2026 0

 

 

 

Background

Iran is an almost unimaginably ancient culture. Only Egypt comes even close in age.

Iran – also known as “Persia“, from the Greeks – played pivotal roles in both Greek and Jewish history. Iran was, for good or ill, the external unifier of the fractious Greek city-staes. It was also the saviour of the Jews, when Cyrus the Great not only freed the Jews from their Babylonian Captivity, but helped them to build the Second Temple (Isaiah 44:28, Isaiah 45:1, Ezra 1, and 2 Chronicles 36). Sasanid Persia was the state that went to war with the Eastern Roman Empire after the assassination of the Roman Emperor Maurice, inadvertantly making room for the rise of Muhammad and Islam.

But, Iran was never happy under Islam, not simply because the form of Islam in Iran – Shia – was at odds with mainstream Sunni Islam, but because it was adamantly opposed to being dominated by the Ottoman Empire. This back-and-forth situation continued into the 20th Century, until Reza Pahlavi overthrew the ruling Qajar dynasty, and was made Shah (“King“, approximately) in 1921.

Reza Pahlavi, as Reza I, was removed from power in 1941 by an invasion by Britain and the Soviet Union, because they wanted to use Iran as a supply route to the Soviet state, and were afraid that Reza I would remain neutral, if not actually ally with Nazi Germany. The two Allied powers sent Reza I into exile, and placed his young son, Muhammad Reza II, onto the throne.

Reza Shah, emperor of Iran, c.1931 in uniform. Public Domain.

This situation continued for the next thirty years, as the new Shah worked carefully to first secure his throne, then begin the slow and painful process of bringing Iran into the modern age…a process which was well on its way to success by 1978, building up Iran’s oil, manufacturing and electronics sectors, and becoming the most solid ally of the United States in the region, far more so than Israel…when it all went off the rails.

 

Power Play

When the Iranian Revolution erupted in 1978, Washington’s response puzzled many observers. The Carter Administration seemed strangely passive as Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s grip on power began to crumble. While historians typically attribute this to Carter’s “naive and kindly nature”, human rights concerns over the Shah’s perceived increasingly brutal crackdowns on internal dissent and diplomatic fumbling, a closer look at the Shah’s military ambitions reveals a much more complex story — one where America’s most reliable Middle Eastern ally had become something Washington never quite intended: a genuine regional superpower with its own agenda…and an existential threat to the Soviet Union.

By the late 1970s, the Shah had transformed Iran into a regional military colossus. The ruler openly declared he wanted the Iranian armed forces to become “probably the best non-atomic” military in the world, and he was well on his way to achieving that goal. Iran became the only foreign customer ever for the F-14 Tomcat, America’s most sophisticated fighter jet at the time, ordering 80 of the aircraft along with 714 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles in what was then the largest single foreign military sale in U.S. history.

But the F-14’s were just the beginning. The Shah sought to transform the Imperial Iranian Navy into not only the predominant force in the Persian Gulf but a naval force capable of patrolling the Indian Ocean. His vision extended far beyond defending Iran’s borders. He wanted power projection capabilities that would establish Iranian dominance from the Mediterranean to South Asia.

This was not mere vanity. The Shah had positioned himself as the guardian of Western interests in the region, and initially, Washington welcomed this role. Following Britain’s 1971 withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, the Nixon administration embraced Iran as the primary pillar of regional security, offering the Shah what amounted to a blank check for military purchases. Any non-nuclear weapons system Iran wanted, America would sell them.

Underlying this buildup, however, was a very simple psychological perspective: the Shah was bitter over his father’s fate, and how he came to power as a puppet-king. His relentless rearmament program was his hedge against that happening again.

Yet the very success of this policy created an uncomfortable paradox. Iran’s conventional buildup was turning it into the primary military power between Israel and India, and the Shah’s ambitions increasingly diverged from American strategic interests. Pakistan was a developing country while Iran had the world’s fifth-largest military, a strong industrial base, and was the clear regional superpower.

The Shah’s regional behavior began to quietly raise eyebrows in some sectors of Washington, D.C. He openly supported Pakistan in both the 1965 and 1971 wars against India, providing free fuel and military equipment. In June 1974, when asked if Iran would develop nuclear weapons like India had just tested, the Shah declared: “Without any doubt, and sooner than one would think” — before walking back the comment to placate international concerns.

Perhaps most significantly, Iran’s geographic position adjacent to Soviet Azerbaijan, combined with its growing strike capabilities, meant the Shah commanded theoretical leverage over Soviet oil infrastructure at Baku. This was a double-edged sword: useful for deterring Soviet aggression, but also giving Iran independent strategic options that could complicate U.S.-Soviet relations during an era of détente.

 

Azerbaijani-Iranian border, 1995. Map from Central Intelligence Agency. Public Domain.

But for the Soviets, their battle-planners saw the threat immediately: a capable Imperial Iranian Air Force could threaten the Soviet’s oil jugular: the port city of Baku, on the Caspian Sea – which in the 1970’s supplied some 30% of the Soviet Union’s oil reserve. A successful Iranian strike on Baku, especially if it came during a war in Europe with NATO, would result in complete defeat and capitulation to the West. As long as the Shah had a “toy army”, he was no threat to the Communist state.

The question was: Just how capable was the Shah’s military in the mid-1970’s?

In 1973, the Soviet’s got their answer.

 

The Dhofar Intervention: Iran’s Dress Rehearsal

Perhaps the clearest demonstration of Iran’s emerging regional power — and the strategic dilemma it posed — came not in the Persian Gulf itself, but on the Arabian Peninsula. Between 1973 and 1976, the Shah deployed over 4,000 Iranian troops to Oman to help Sultan Qaboos crush a Marxist insurgency in the Dhofar region. The operation, conceived entirely by the Shah himself, included an Iranian infantry brigade, sixteen jet fighters, naval support, and critical helicopter transport capabilities that proved decisive in the counterinsurgency campaign.

It was not simply the hardware, however. It was that Imperial Iranian forces showed in Dhofar that they actually knew how to employ the weapons and tools they Shah had supplied them with. In the military sphere, that scope of training and capability is far more important that the mere tools themselves.

A pair of IIAF F-14’s, refueling in-flight from a USAF KC-135. Date c.1977. Imperial Iranian Air Force photo. Public Domain.

 

The Shah justified this intervention by claiming he needed to defend the Strait of Hormuz from the threat of communist control. But the operation demonstrated something more profound: Iran now possessed the capability and will to project military power across the region independently. Iranian forces operated far from their borders, coordinated multi-domain operations, and effectively determined the outcome of a neighboring country’s civil conflict — all without requiring American permission or direct U.S. involvement.

For Washington, Dhofar was simultaneously reassuring and alarming. The Shah had proven himself a capable regional policeman willing to contain Soviet-backed insurgencies. Yet, he had also demonstrated that Iran’s military reach now extended well beyond merely defensive operations. The same expeditionary capabilities deployed against Marxist rebels in Oman could theoretically be used to pursue Iranian interests elsewhere — including objectives that might not align with American strategic goals.

For the Soviet Union the fact that Dhofar was “limited”, in a technical sense, was irrelevant. The Imperial Armed Forces had proven that they were good enough, that Soviet battle calculus had to recognize that the Shah had built the equivalent of a NATO field army on its southern frontier, an army that was capable of striking a fatal blow at the Soviet Union in a full-scale war.

 

Endgame

By 1978, American officials increasingly realized that they were facing a critical dilemma they had helped create. The Shah’s military modernization had proceeded so rapidly that Iranian aircrew simply couldn’t be trained fast enough to operate all the aircraft, with hardware literally piling up on docks. A Senate committee estimated Iran could not go to war without U.S. support on a day-to-day basis, yet the Shah was increasingly asserting his independence…yet the Iranian’s were not deficient in their training and readiness, and had proven themselves to be a capable and dangerous armed force with a regional reach.

Thus, when a Soviet-aided “revolution” threatened the Pahlavi regime, Carter’s response was notably restrained. The administration pressured the Shah to implement political reforms rather than crack down decisively on protesters. By November 1978, U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan alerted Washington that the Shah was “doomed”, yet the administration actively discouraged the Iranian military from launching a coup to save the monarchy.

The conventional narrative on the US failure to support the Shah usually blames this on Carter’s human rights idealism and/or poor and naive intelligence. But there’s another possibility worth considering: that after a decade of arming the Shah to the teeth, many in Washington now saw that an independent, militarily powerful Iran — one capable of threatening fundamental Soviet interests without American permission or dominating regional neighbors — might not serve U.S. interests as reliably as previously assumed.

Official portrait of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 1973. Public Domain.

The Shah had done exactly what Nixon and Kissinger had asked: he’d built a militarily capable regional superpower. The question Carter faced was whether that superpower would remain aligned with American objectives — or become a force unto itself. When the moment came to save the Shah’s regime, Washington hesitated. Whether that hesitation stemmed from human rights concerns, fear of failure, or quiet recognition that the United States had created a monster it would not be able to fully control, remains one of the revolution’s enduring questions.

Whatever the case, the Carter administration’s actions regarding the Shah’s declining health in his exile indicate that far darker maneuvers may have been in play.

In the end, the failure of Western support to the Shah resulted in five decades of horror, around the world. Whether that is about to come to an end or not, remains to be seen.

 

 

 

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Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland May Have Just Killed the Post-War World Order…

Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland May Have Just Killed the Post-War World Order…

Michael Cessna January 9, 2026 0

 

 

 

 

Nation-states are odd things. They are not really “tribes”, and are “more” than cities. But, perhaps insensibly, the mass of people today self-identify with one nation or another. Things have been this way since long before the Egyptians duked it out with the Hittites at Kadesh.

But sometimes…things go sideways. Really sideways.

On December 26th, while most of the world was still digesting Christmas leftovers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did something that might prove to be the most consequential geopolitical act since 1945: Israel became the first nation to formally recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state.

Somaliland has been seeking international recognition since 1991 – and recently tried to entice the United States with a similar offer of basing rights as they offered to Israel – but has been rebuffed by the “international community” at every turn…until now.

Somaliland map. 2022 image by WikiUser Siirski. CCA/4.0 Int’l

This act by Israel immediately set off hysterical outcries throughout the United Nations (but not from Israel’s closest regional allies, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), note), with the Security Council calling an emergency session on the matter. However, complaints were short-circuited by Tammy Bruce, the United States’ Ambassador to the UN, who pointed out that Israel’s action in recognizing Somaliland was in no way different than the UN’s own actions in recognizing a state – Palestine, in 2012 – that has a far better claim to “legitimacy” than either Palestine or Somalia itself.

If your reaction is “So what? Some breakaway African territory got recognized by Israel — big deal,” then you’re missing what just happened. This isn’t about Somaliland. This is about the deliberate destruction of the international order that’s governed the planet since World War II ended…and may be the death-knell for the 400-year old Treaty of Westphalia – which matters a very great deal.

 

What Westphalia Is, and Why It Matters

The Peace of Westphalia (1648) established the principle that sovereign states have exclusive authority over their territory and that external powers shouldn’t interfere in their internal affairs. After 1945, this was modified: the United Nations system added the idea that existing borders are sacrosanct and territorial integrity must be preserved. In practice, this meant that no matter how artificial, dysfunctional, or oppressive a state might be, its borders were frozen in place by “international consensus.”

This system has a name in international law — the “constitutive theory” of statehood — which holds that you’re only a legitimate state when other states recognize you. It supposedly replaced the older Montevideo Convention standard (but see below…), which holds that you’re a state if you have: a permanent population, a defined territory, a functioning government, and the capacity to conduct foreign relations. “Recognition” just acknowledged an existing fact; it didn’t create statehood.

The problem with constitutive theory that should be obvious after about sixty seconds of thought is: who recognized the first state? The whole concept is circular logic masquerading as international law.

 

The Hidden Crowbar

One of the leading opponents of Israel’s move – Slovenia – complained that it was a violation of a member-state’s sovereign territorial integrity…which is a very rich and ironic take on the subject, given that the former Yugoslavian state’s existence as a sovereign nation was confirmed by the 1991 Badinter Arbitration Commission, which – by the UN’s own rules – openly and nakedly violated Yugoslavia’s sovereign territorial claims.

Why is this important? Because of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.

Signed in 1933, and ratified into law in the United States in 1934, this international legal agreement defines precisely what is required for a state to be a state, namely: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

But the Convention goes on to use significant specific language. It is worth quoting Article 3 in full:

“The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts. The exercise of these rights has no other limitation than the exercise of the rights of other states according to international law.”

This is seriously explosive stuff. Re-read that as many times as it takes, if there is an issue with understanding it.

Now, this might be seen as a simple artifact of political maneuvering, except that when Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991 – which created Slovenia from that state’s remains, among others – the United Nations formed the Badinter Arbitration Commission to determine the future of the region. And, in deciding that the components of the former Yugoslavia were in fact independent nations, the Commission – while not directly citing the Montevideo Convention, even though no state involved had attended or signed it, cited all of its core principles – thus confirmed the Convention as a valid component of international law.

This is the actual basis for the UN recognizing Palestine, because Palestine is as much a “breakaway” part of Israel as Somaliland is of Somalia.

Why Somalia Matters (And Doesn’t)

Somalia has been a failed state since 1991. Somaliland — the former British protectorate portion of the region — declared independence that same year and has maintained effective self-governance, relative stability, and functional institutions for the last 34 years. By any objective measure, including using Montevideo criteria, Somaliland is more of a “real state” than Somalia, itself, which can barely control its own capital.

But under the post-1945 system, Somalia’s non-existent territorial integrity trumps Somaliland’s actual effective and long-standing peaceful and successful governance. Why? Because the “international community” decided so, and because African nations fear that allowing ethnic self-determination will open a Pandora’s box. Nigeria’s strident condemnation of Israel’s move isn’t about solidarity with Somalia — it’s about Biafra and the nightmare that their own artificial borders might be questioned.

 

The Real Game: Netanyahu vs. The World

Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t stupid, and he’s not doing this for humanitarian reasons. Israel has spent decades being targeted by the UN system, the International Criminal Court, and the entire apparatus of “international law” being wielded as a weapon by nations that want to delegitimize the Jewish state’s existence. In a very real way, the only component missing is red white and black swastika armbands.

By recognizing Somaliland, Netanyahu is making a declarative statement, in effect:

Effective control and governance create legitimacy, not UN votes or ‘international consensus.’ We’re reverting to the Montevideo protocol, exclusively. Israel exists because we hold a defined territory and govern it effectively — in the same way as Somaliland. You don’t get to vote us out of existence.

 

This isn’t about Somaliland. It’s about destroying the gatekeeping power of international institutions that have become weapons against Israeli sovereignty. And Netanyahu is using the Trump administration’s transactional indifference to global norms as cover to reshape the fundamental rules.

 

Qaddafi Called It (And Paid For It)

In 2009, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi gave a rambling speech at the UN where he called the Security Council the “Terror Council,” tore up a page of the UN Charter, and accused the entire system of being neo-colonial power dressed up as international law. He was dismissed as a ranting dictator.

Muammar Qaddafi, 2009. US Navy photo. Public Domain.

Two years later, NATO — operating under a UN resolution — regime-changed him, turning Libya from Africa’s highest HDI state into a failed state with open-air slave markets. Qaddafi had correctly identified that the post-1945 system was “political feudalism” where five permanent Security Council members could do whatever they wanted while smaller nations faced “consequences” for trying the same actions.

Muammar Qaddafi was a vile individual…but he was not wrong. And they killed him for saying it out loud.

 

The Cascade Effect

If this precedent holds, the implications are explosive:

  • Catalonia’s independence movement gains legal ammunition against Spain and the EU
  • Taiwan’s status becomes purely about effective governance, not Beijing’s claims
  • Kurdistan becomes viable if they can maintain control and get recognition
  • Every artificial post-colonial border in Africa and the Middle East becomes reviseable
  • Texas…well, the Republic of Texas has serious historical precedent

The African Union, Egypt, Turkey, and Nigeria aren’t panicking because they care about Somalia’s feelings. They’re panicking because most of their borders are artificial lines drawn by European colonial powers that trapped rival ethnic groups together and split coherent peoples apart. Sykes-Picot and the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference created states, not nations. The post-1945 order then froze these arrangements and declared them permanent.

Netanyahu just said: No, they’re not.

 

Does This Actually Make Things Worse?

Ten years ago, I’d have predicted this would cause a global bloodbath. But would it really? Pre-1945 wars were generally frequent but bounded: limited objectives, clear territorial stakes. Post-1945, we’ve had continuous conflict: Korea, Vietnam, endless Middle East wars, proxy conflicts across Africa and Latin America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya. The UN system didn’t prevent wars; it just made them illegitimate, forcing them to become covert, proxy-based, or justified through elaborate legal fictions.

We traded occasional large wars for permanent medium-intensity conflict. That might actually be the worse deal.

If destroying the constitutive theory allows organic nations to form based on actual cultural and historical coherence rather than colonial mapmaking, the initial instability might be worth it for long-term viability.

 

The Bottom Line

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland isn’t about Red Sea access or Ethiopian port deals, although those certainly matter. It’s about one simple proposition: The post-World War II international order, as currently administered, is illegitimate and they’re not playing by those rules anymore.

And it’s the sole fault of the United Nations itself, as their 2012 recognition of the wholly non-existent and non-governed “state of Palestine” handed the United States and Israel all the excuse they needed to unilaterally recognize Somaliland.

Whether you think that’s catastrophic or overdue depends entirely on whether you believe the current system has been preventing conflict or perpetuating it (hint: it’s the latter). But either way, what happened on December 26th of 2025 in Jerusalem is going to reshape the world map in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

The post-1945 era might have just ended. Most people haven’t noticed yet.

But they will.

 

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

 

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2025 – A Year In Review

2025 – A Year In Review

Michael Cessna December 19, 2025 0

 

 

So. We have come to the end of 2025. To say the least, it’s been a wild ride.

 

In the United States

The year started off with a bang, with a pair of terror attacks: a truck-ramming assault in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the still-mysterious explosion of a Tesla Cyber Truck in the parking foyer of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, NV, both on January 1st.

Then, beginning on January 7, a series of massive fires began in the Los Angeles Basin, that would eventually destroy the town of Pacific Palisades. In this case, while the main fires began on January 7, an initial fire was intentionally started on January 1; the perpetrator was swiftly arrested, and his fire was thought to have been contained, before it reignited. The scale of the destruction – around 58,000 acres in total – and controversies about poor fire fighting infrastructure continue to simmer as the year closes.

Then, on the heels of the Tutsi M23 rebel group seizing the city of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on January 27, the aircraft world saw four major crashes in as many days (January 28 – 31), making for a total of twenty-six fatal accidents, as of December 18th, including a still bizarre collision of a US Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter with a Bombadier CRJ700 (operating as American Airlines Flight 5342, under the American Eagle brand) over the Potomac River, near the Kennedy Center. Questions remain, circling the exact chain of events.

Then – to cap off January – Asteroid 2024 YR4 became the first object to trigger planetary defense procedures on January 30, when it was initially determined to have a 1.3% chance of hitting the Earth in 2032. While it was later determined that the asteroid will not, in fact, hit the Earth, there remains a greater than zero percent chance (about 4%) of hittig the Moon in 2032. If this happens on the face of the Moon facing Earth, the debris blown towards us would very likely cause severe damage to the constellations of satellites in Low-Earth Orbit, that our communications and payment processing systems depend on. Any large-scale disruption to this network would effectively shut down commerce for months, at least.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariff war, and his relentless drive to secure ceasefire or outright peace agreements in several conflicts seem to be working, although with the caution that the agreements seem focused on securing the flow of rare-earth materials, more than securing actual “peace”.

And – an end to the war in Ukraine still eludes Trump’s continued efforts to get the two countries to at least start talking.

 

External events

Internationally, wars continue to simmer. While the Assad Family’s near-50 year reign over Syria ended at the end of 2024, fighting has continued, with Israeli intervention in southern Syria, and one of the largest bombing campaigns in recent memory; eventually, three US personnel were killed in December at a meeting in the Syrian city of Palmyra.

The collapse of the Assad regime triggered a sudden and startling collapse of Iranian influence in the region, as Iranian proxy forces like Hezbollah saw their support infrastructure critically damaged as a part of the phase of their war against Israel in support of Hamas, that began on October of 2023.

That particularly brutal conflict – beginning with the Hamas raids of October 7, 2023 – also sparked the Red Sea Crisis with the Houthi religious faction in Yemen launching relentless attacks on any commercial vessel with even the faintest connection to Israel – effectively, all commercial shipping in the world. In addition, the Houthis began firing Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles at anyone and anything within range.

Map of the of the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, 2023-present. 2023 image by Wikipedia Users Veggies and Ecrusized. CC0/4.0 International

 

These attacks resulted in a somewhat lackluster allied naval campaign to try and escort commercial vessels through the Red Sea, and ultimately to the Trump Administration launching a series of massive airstrikes throughout the region – sometimes support by, or in support of, Israeli strikes against the radical Islamic regime in Iran.

As the year closes, the region seems to be taking a breather. That won’t last.

Elsewhere, the civil war in Sudan continues to rage, with continued massacres conducted by both sides. And in Nigeria, religious massacres by Muslims against Christians suddenly elevated to the point where the Trump Administration openly called for a designation of “genocide”, and even hinted at possible military intervention.

In southern Africa, the persistent Islamic State-aligned insurgency in Mozambique continues on, threatening to turn the country into another Somalia.

In Asia, the civil war in Burma/Myanmar grinds on, with the ruling junta banking on continued massive support from Communist China…which may be a bad bet, as the Chinese economy continues to falter.

And finally, the Trump Administration continues with its”saber-rattling” at Venezuela, in an effort to force long-time dictator Nicolas Maduro from power. Whether this turns into an actual shooting war or a stunt, remains to be seen.

 

The Wrap

Overall, 2025 has seen some remarkable swings in the world situation…but there remains little indication of a true end to many of the persistent conflicts that remain ongoing. Economies are still adjusting to the reality of heavy US tariffs being imposed for the first time in decades, and wars continue apace.

Here’s to hoping things improve in 2026.

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

 

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Yemen’s Inevitable Divorce

Yemen’s Inevitable Divorce

Michael Cessna December 12, 2025 0

 

 

 

Nations are odd things. They are difficult to found and internally fractious, but resist splitting up again when irreconcilable differences happen. Moreover, international “clubs” – like the United Nations – are loathe to accept new nations, unless those nations navigate the wholly articial, Twister-like rules which those clubs set. Conversely, said clubs steadfastly refuse to accept any new nation declaring its existance, whether they have effective control and administration over their territory or not.

And, this is especially true when the state in question has absolutely no collective identity, but was artificially constructed by former European colonial masters who drew lines on a map in a smoking room in some European capital, ignoring what people lived where, caring solely for natural terrain features like rivers, lakes and mountains that required little effort to delineate, because those doing the drawing had a croquet match to attend at the lawn party outside.

The question isn’t whether Yemen will split into two countries again — it’s whether the international community will finally acknowledge what’s already happened on the ground. The entity we call “Yemen” exists primarily on maps and in UN resolutions, while the actual territory operates as separate political systems with different governments, currencies, and security forces. The reunification experiment that began in 1990 is effectively over. What remains for the “international community” is deciding how to make it official without looking like complete morons.

And it isn’t as though precedents do not exist for this sort of thing: The most successful modern national partition remains Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Divorce” in 1993. Unlike Yugoslavia’s violent disintegration, Czech and Slovak leaders negotiated a peaceful split despite polls showing most citizens preferred staying united. The separation was orderly: assets divided, treaties apportioned, borders established without dispute. Both successor states joined NATO and the EU, maintaining close economic ties and visa-free travel. The key difference? Political leaders committed to negotiated settlement rather than violence, no external powers had strong interests in preventing partition, and both populations were relatively homogeneous within their territories. It remains the gold standard for how national separations should work — and how rarely they actually do.

Understanding why requires looking back at how these “two Yemens” came to exist in the first place, and why their marriage was probably doomed from the start.

 

The Original Split

Modern North Yemen emerged from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, becoming an independent kingdom in 1918 under Imam Yahya. It remained a conservative, tribally-organized monarchy until a 1962 military coup sparked an eight-year civil war that eventually established the Yemen Arab Republic — backed by Egypt and the Soviet Union against Saudi-supported royalists. The north was predominantly Zaydi Shia in religious orientation, though more moderate than Iranian Twelver Shiism, with a strong tribal structure and conservative social organization.

Ahmad bin Yahya Hamidaddin (1891 – 18 September 1962) was the penultimate king of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen from 1948 to 1962. Public Domain.

South Yemen followed a completely different trajectory. After the British withdrawal from Aden in 1967, Marxist revolutionaries established the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen — the only officially Marxist state in the Arab world. It was militantly secular, Soviet-aligned, and attempted rapid socialist transformation. The South’s population was more Sunni, more urbanized – centered around the port city of Aden – and ideologically committed to state-directed modernization. The two countries even fought a brief war in 1979.

These weren’t minor cultural differences. They represented fundamentally incompatible visions of governance, society, and Yemen’s place in the world.

 

The Unlikely Marriage

Reunification in 1990 was driven more by desperation than genuine reconciliation. The Soviet Union was collapsing, cutting off South Yemen’s economic lifeline. North Yemen’s economy was struggling. Both governments faced internal dissent and saw unification as a solution to their separate crises. President Ali Abdullah Saleh from the north and Ali Salim al-Beidh from the south negotiated a merger that papered over fundamental incompatibilities with promises of power-sharing and federal governance.

It lasted exactly four years before armed conflict erupted. The 1994 civil war saw northern forces, backed by Saudi Arabia and conservative tribal militias, defeat southern separatists decisively. What followed wasn’t genuine reunification but northern domination. Saleh’s government systematically marginalized southern politicians, appropriated southern oil revenues, and installed northern military commanders in southern territories. Resentment festered for two decades.

Yemen’s government army entering Aden Goveronate during the civil war, July 1994. Public Domain.

 

 

The Breaking Point

The “Arab Spring” reached Yemen in 2011, forcing Saleh from power but leaving underlying tensions unresolved. The Houthi movement — a Zaydi revivalist group from northern Yemen with Iranian backing — capitalized on the chaos. By 2014, they had seized the capital of Sanaa. When they pushed south toward Aden in 2015, Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention that continues today.

The conflict crystallized existing divisions. The Houthis control most of the north, operating what is effectively a separate state with its own governance, military, and foreign policy — as demonstrated by their attacks on Red Sea shipping in solidarity with Hamas. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), formed in 2017, controls much of the south including Aden, with UAE backing. They issue their own currency, operate separate security forces, and openly advocate for southern independence.

The internationally recognized government, meanwhile, barely controls anything and operates primarily from Saudi Arabia. This is a government in name only.

The October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbor — killing 17 American sailors — illustrated Yemen’s role as a base for transnational extremism long before the current crisis. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) thrived in the ungoverned spaces created by weak central authority and competing factions. The current fragmentation has only worsened this problem, with AQAP and ISIS affiliates operating in territories neither Houthis nor STC fully control.

 

Why This Matters Beyond Yemen

The Houthi campaign against Red Sea shipping has demonstrated that a Yemeni faction can significantly disrupt global commerce even without international recognition. Their anti-ship and ballistic missiles, as well as “kamaikaze” drones, supplied by the Islamic of Iran, have forced naval deployments by the United States and European powers. A formally partitioned Yemen wouldn’t change these capabilities — it would simply acknowledge political reality.

A map of the Houthi engagements with commercial ships from various countries during the Gaza War. 2023 Map by WikiUser Ecrusized. CC0/1.0

More intriguingly, international recognition of a southern Yemeni state could establish precedent for other de facto separations. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has maintained stable governance for over three decades, has long sought international recognition. If the international community accepts Yemeni partition based on historical precedent (the pre-1990 states) and effective governance, Somaliland’s case becomes significantly stronger, creating a range of possible fallout scenarios. Both represent functional states with historical legitimacy denied recognition due to international community inertia and fear of encouraging separatism.

 

The Path Forward

The question facing policymakers isn’t whether Yemen should split — it already has. The question is whether maintaining the fiction of Yemeni “national unity” serves any useful purpose, or whether acknowledging reality might actually enable better governance, clearer accountability, and more effective international engagement with whoever actually controls Yemeni territory.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE already deal with separate Yemeni entities. The Houthis negotiate independently with international actors. The Southern Transitional Council administers its territory with minimal reference to the “official” government. At what point does pretending these are temporary arrangements become more destabilizing than simply accepting the divorce?

Yemen’s reunification was an experiment that failed. Acknowledging that failure might be the first step toward actually addressing Yemen’s crises rather than pretending a unified government will somehow reassert control over territories it never effectively governed.

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

 

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Venezuela: On the Brink, or Just for Show?

Venezuela: On the Brink, or Just for Show?

Michael Cessna December 5, 2025 0

 

 

 

President Trump’s recent comments about potential military action against Venezuela have sent ripples through diplomatic channels and defense planning offices alike, including Congress hysterically trying to invoke the “War Powers Act“. The question isn’t whether the United States could conduct military operations against the Maduro regime — the answer to that is obviously yes. The real questions are whether we should, what it would actually cost, and whether anyone in Washington has seriously thought through what happens on Day Two.

Venezuela presents a deceptively complex military problem wrapped in what looks like a simple regime-change operation. On paper, the Venezuelan military is a sad joke. The Bolivarian National Armed Force fields Soviet-era equipment in various states of disrepair, struggles with spare parts due to sanctions, and has been hollowed out by corruption and political purges. Their Russian Su-30 fighters are mostly grounded. Their navy is a coastal defense force at best. The country’s air defense systems are…”dated”…is a charitable term. In a conventional fight, U.S. forces would achieve air superiority within hours and could strike any target in the country with impunity.

But that’s where the easy part ends.

Venezuela isn’t Iraq in 2003. It’s a country of 28 million people with a long history of guerrilla warfare, sitting on top of the world’s largest proven oil reserves — an estimated 303 billion barrels, more than Saudi Arabia. The terrain ranges from Caribbean coastline to Amazonian jungle to urban sprawl. Caracas alone has a metropolitan population of 5 million packed into a valley surrounded by mountains and barrios — sprawling hillside slums that would make Sadr City look manageable especially compared to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

The military operation itself would be straightforward enough: establish air superiority, conduct precision strikes on regime leadership and military infrastructure, land forces to secure key facilities. The U.S. Southern Command has surely war-gamed this scenario dozens of times. We could decapitate the Maduro regime in a matter of days, possibly hours if we caught them by surprise.

But then what?

Venezuela’s economy has been in free-fall for a decade. Hyperinflation reached 130,000 percent in 2018. Basic services are collapsing. Over 7 million Venezuelans have already fled the country — the largest refugee crisis in Latin American history. The infrastructure is crumbling, the healthcare system barely functions, and the electrical grid fails regularly. This isn’t a country where you can remove the dictator, install a friendly government, and expect things to stabilize.

More problematically, Maduro isn’t universally despised. He’s incompetent and brutal, but he’s also built a patronage network through Colombian guerrilla groups, narco-trafficking operations, and the military officer corps. The colectivos — pro-government paramilitary groups — number in the tens of thousands and are heavily armed. Unlike Iraq’s Republican Guard, which evaporated when confronted with U.S. armor, these groups would likely melt into the population and wage an extended insurgency. They know the terrain, they have local support in certain areas, and they’ve got nothing to lose.

The logistics alone should give Pentagon planners nightmares. Venezuela shares borders with Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana. Securing those borders to prevent weapons flow and insurgent safe havens would require tens of thousands of troops and cooperation from neighbors who have no interest in hosting a U.S. occupation next door. Brazil, in particular, would likely oppose military intervention strongly — they’ve got their own political complexities and don’t want American forces operating on their northern border.

Then there’s the oil question. Venezuela’s petroleum infrastructure is a disaster after years of mismanagement and underinvestment. The heavy crude requires specialized refining. Simply occupying the oil fields doesn’t mean production magically resumes. You’d need to secure the various facilities, bring in real expertise, negotiate contracts, establish security for workers — all while dealing with potential sabotage and insurgent attacks. Iraq’s oil infrastructure, which was in far better shape, took years to fully restore after 2003.

The regional implications are equally messy. Every Latin American country remembers the history of U.S. military interventions — Guatemala (1954), Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada (1983), and Panama (1989). Even governments that despise Maduro would face domestic political pressure to condemn American military action. The Organization of American States would fracture. China and Russia, both of which have significant investments in Venezuela, would use the intervention as proof of American imperialism and work to undermine any post-conflict stabilization.

And here’s the fundamental question nobody seems to want to answer: what’s the actual U.S. national security interest that justifies the cost? Yes, Maduro is a thug. Yes, Venezuelan refugees are destabilizing neighboring countries. Yes, the humanitarian crisis is real. But none of that constitutes a direct threat to American security that requires military intervention. The oil? We don’t need it — the U.S. is now a net energy exporter.

Trump’s “Crazy Gaijin” act on the world stage has genuine strategic value—keeping adversaries uncertain about American responses can deter aggression. But there’s a difference between strategic unpredictability and backing yourself into a corner where you either have to act or lose credibility. If the rhetoric about Venezuela escalates much further, Trump may find himself facing exactly that choice.

And if Trump is anything, “unpredictable” fits the descriptive bill.

 

The question then becomes: is this administration prepared for what an actual shooting war with Venezuela would require? Not the easy part — the invasion. The hard part — the occupation, stabilization, and reconstruction that would consume American resources and attention for a decade or more.

Based on our track record in Iraq and Afghanistan, foolish optimism about anyone’s ability to honestly answer that question before the first shots are fired is not something that we should trust in.

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

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The South China Sea Gambit

The South China Sea Gambit

Michael Cessna November 21, 2025 0

 

 

 

 

What’s old is new, apparently. Everyone wants more land…even if the have to build it themselves.

While American attention remains fixated on Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, as well as on Venezuela, a different story is unfolding beneath the surface in the Far East. Vietnam has been building artificial islands at a pace that should make Beijing envious, and the most remarkable aspect isn’t the construction — it’s China’s silence.

Since October of 2021, Vietnamese dredgers have created over 930 hectares of new land across the Spratly Islands, transforming 21 previously marginal outposts into fortified positions complete with ports, helipads, munitions depots, and the infrastructure for military runways. That’s roughly 70 percent of what Communist China built during its infamous “Great Wall of Sand” island-building campaign from 2013 to 2017. At the current pace, Vietnam will match China’s total reclaimed area within two years.

Map of the South China Sea, 1988. CIA image. Public Domain.

The scale is impressive, but the strategic implications are much more so. Take Bark Canada Reef — once barely above water, it now hosts 2.8 kilometers of reclaimed land with foundations laid for a 2,400-meter runway capable of handling military transport aircraft and bombers. Pearson Reef has expanded to nearly 1.3 square kilometers. Tennent Reef, Ladd Reef, South Reef — the pattern repeats across the archipelago: dredge through lagoons, pile sediment into sandbars, build infrastructure.

The construction follows a clear, “cookie-cutter” military logic: Each reef features identical clusters of buildings arranged around central courtyards, munitions depots surrounded by blast walls, and ports capable of servicing Vietnam’s Gepard-class frigates. These aren’t research stations or fishing outposts. They are naval forward operating bases, designed to extend Hanoi’s ability to sustain naval deployments far from the mainland. Ships can now resupply, refuel, and rotate crews without returning to the coast, dramatically extending patrol durations in contested waters.

Espiritu Santo base boat repair dock in World War 2, 1943. US Navy photo. Public Domain.

What makes this particularly interesting is China’s muted response. Beijing, which has spent years aggressively confronting the Philippines over far smaller provocations, has issued only perfunctory diplomatic statements about Vietnam’s construction. No coast guard harassment. No water cannon attacks. No military posturing. The contrast is stark: the Philippines controls just nine land formations in the Spratlys and faces constant Chinese pressure, while Vietnam fortifies 29 positions and Beijing mostly looks the other way.

Three factors explain this disparity. First: bandwidth — China is fixated on the Philippines, which has strengthened its defense ties with the United States, opened additional bases to American forces, and conducted recent joint exercises with Washington’s Pacific allies. Beijing opening a second front against Vietnam risks unifying ASEAN against Beijing, something Chinese strategists would rather avoid.

Second: historical precedent — Vietnam has been expanding in the Spratlys since the 1970s, even seizing a few formations from China itself during a bloody 1988 skirmish that killed 64 Vietnamese sailors. From Beijing’s perspective, Vietnam’s current expansion, while larger in scale, isn’t fundamentally new behavior. The Philippines’ recent pushback, by contrast, represents a more pressing challenge to Chinese dominance.

Third: strategic ambiguity — Vietnam maintains partner status in BRICS, attended Beijing’s Victory Day ceremony, and recently finalized an $8 billion arms deal with Russia. When the Trump administration imposed reciprocal tariffs on Vietnam, President Xi visited Hanoi and signed dozens of economic agreements. China remains Vietnam’s largest trading partner with $25 billion in bilateral trade and over $31 billion in cumulative foreign direct investment. Beijing calculates that Hanoi can be managed through economic incentives rather than confrontation.

But, there is obviously a lot of recent history behind this.

The 1988 incident was hardly the first time Vietnam and China had come to blows, however. In February 1979, China launched a punitive invasion of northern Vietnam with 200,000 troops, ostensibly to “teach Vietnam a lesson” for its invasion of Cambodia and alignment with the Soviet Union. The month-long war proved costly for both sides — China claimed 6,900 killed while Vietnam reported 10,000 casualties, though actual figures were likely higher on both sides. Chinese forces captured several provincial capitals before withdrawing, but the operation exposed serious deficiencies in the People’s Liberation Army, which hadn’t fought a major conflict since the Korean War. Importantly, it is vital to remember that in the 1979 conflict, Vietnam fought on two fronts, with c.150,000 troops in Cambodia, while holding off a c.200,000 man Comminust Chinese army — no mean feat, on its own.

More importantly, it established a pattern: Vietnam demonstrated it wouldn’t be intimidated by Chinese military pressure, while Beijing learned that forcibly changing Vietnamese behavior carried steep costs. This historical context helps explain today’s dynamic — China remembers that Vietnam, unlike the Philippines, has proven willing and able to inflict significant casualties in defense of what it considers its territory.

The difference in Beijing’s reaction is telling. While the Philippines has proven that it can certainly fight invaders defensively, it has never actually fought a large-scale war on its own. The largest battle Filipino forces have fought on their own was the five month long siege of Marawi in 2017 – an urban warfare, COIN operation against Islamic State-affiliated guerillas.

Vietnam’s island-building is only part of a broader military transformation. In April 2025, Hanoi finalized a $700 million deal with India to acquire BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles — both ground-based launchers and air-launched versions for its Su-30 fighter jets. The BrahMos represents a significant capability upgrade: it flies at Mach 2.8, carries a 300-kilogram warhead, and can strike targets up to 290 kilometers away, with precision guidance that makes it extremely difficult to intercept. The missile’s sea-skimming trajectory — flying just 3-4 meters above the water’s surface—and terminal maneuvering make it particularly lethal against naval targets. Former BrahMos Aerospace CEO A. Sivathanu Pillai noted that the missile’s high speed combined with its heavy weight makes it about 15 times more lethal than conventional anti-ship missiles: “Any other anti-ship missile will only leave a hole in the hull of the attacked ship, but the Brahmos missile will completely obliterate the target.” Combined with Vietnam’s reported acquisition of 40 Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, including advanced electronic warfare systems, these weapons transform Vietnam’s fortified islands into what military planners call “unsinkable aircraft carriers.”

Extended Range Version of BrahMos missile successfully launched from a Su-30 MKI. 2022 photo from the Government of India. GODL.

The strategy is clear: create facts on the water faster than China can react, hoping to shape a reality too costly for Beijing to reverse. Whether Beijing’s restraint holds, or whether Vietnam’s bet on “hard power” over diplomacy eventually triggers the confrontation both sides claim to want to avoid, remains to be seen.

So — Why should you care? You should care, because approximately $5.3 Trillion dollars worth of global trade — about 24% — flows through this area. If you are one of the few people who can legitimately say that you have nothing in your home that cam from overseas…this still impacts you, because the systems you rely on come off of trans-ocianic ships. And, a major disruption of trade in this area will up-end the carefully curated global system of trade that all nations — including the United States — now depend on. And if you don’t believe that, just refresh yourself about the global impact of the grounding of the container ship EVER GIVEN in 2021…and that was one ship.

For now, the South China Sea is being remade one dredger-load at a time…and not by the country everyone’s watching.

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

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Dead in the Water

Dead in the Water

Michael Cessna November 14, 2025 0

 

 

 

The United States relies on overseas trade. That is a fundamental underpinning of the national economy, because as wide an array of resources that North America possesses, there is not enough to satisfy our needs here. In order to ensure that type of trade, the United States has relied on a strong military naval establishment for nearly 150 years.

Navies, however, are expensive. Eye-wateringly expensive. But, spending money is better than spending lives…at least, that is the calculus of rational people, and the elected public servants in Washington, DC are rarely categorized as “rational”.

President Trump recently made headlines discussing a return to building battleships, sparking debate about naval strategy and ship types. But that conversation missed a more fundamental problem: it doesn’t matter what kinds of ships we want to build if we’ve lost the ability to build them at all. And the cold and brutal truth is that America’s shipbuilding industry — once the “arsenal of democracy“, that launched thousands of ships in World War II — has collapsed to the point where China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than ours.

Let that sink in. Not twice as large. Not ten times. Two hundred and thirty-two times. According to leaked Office of Naval Intelligence briefing slides, Chinese shipyards have a manufacturing capacity of roughly 23.25 million tons, while U.S. shipyards manage less than 100,000 tons. One Chinese state-owned company — China State Shipbuilding Corporation — built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has produced since the end of World War II.

Josef Stalin’s supposed quip about “quantity has a quality all its own”, whether he actually said that or not, does in fact apply here.

 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The Navy’s FY2025 budget tells a grim story. The fleet will shrink from 296 ships to 287 ships during the fiscal year — a net loss of nine vessels. Only six new ships will be procured while nineteen are to be retired. The fleet is projected to hit its smallest size since 1917 in 2027 at just 283 ships before beginning to grow again, and won’t exceed 300 ships until 2032 – a far cry from Ronald Reagan’s desire for a 600-ship Navy. If there is any “bright light” in this, it is that the US Army is in the same boat, figuratively speaking.

Meanwhile, Communist China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy currently operates approximately 370 warships — the largest navy in the world. The Pentagon projects China’s fleet will grow to 395 ships by 2025 and 435 ships by 2030. That’s an increase of 65 ships in just five years, while America’s fleet shrinks. (How good those Chinese ships really are, of course, is still a matter of debate.)

The Navy has a goal of reaching 381 manned ships plus 134 unmanned vessels by the early 2040s. But the Congressional Budget Office estimates achieving this will cost roughly $40 billion per year — about 46% more than historical averages, and double what Congress has actually appropriated over the past five years. The total price tag: $1 trillion. At least.

 

Why We Can’t Build Ships

The problem isn’t just money. America’s shipbuilding industrial base has been gutted. We currently have only four active public shipyards compared to China’s 35 major sites. The United States accounts for just 0.11% of global commercial shipbuilding. In terms of gross tonnage, China, South Korea, and Japan build over 90% of the world’s ships. America builds 0.2%.

It really does seem that there is a quiet war going on against US shipbuilding.

APL Post-Panamax container ships PRESIDENT TRUMAN and PRESIDENT KENNEDY near San Francisco, CA. NOAA Image ID: line0534. Public Domain.

The Government Accountability Office recently testified that despite nearly doubling the shipbuilding budget over the past two decades, the Navy has failed to increase its fleet size as planned. Ships are consistently delivered late, over budget, and with reduced capabilities. The Navy’s new Constellation-class frigates, for example, started construction before completing ship design — violating basic shipbuilding practices — and are now expected to be at least three years late.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has made 90 recommendations since 2015 to improve Navy shipbuilding. The Navy has fully or partially addressed only 30. Sixty recommendations remain unaddressed.

The workforce crisis compounds the problem. Shipyards rely on decades-old physical infrastructure. Skilled workers are retiring faster than they can be replaced. Finding enough qualified workers remains the biggest barrier to expanding production, even if Congress appropriated more money tomorrow.

 

What This Means for War at Sea

Communist China’s shipbuilding advantage isn’t just about peacetime fleet size. In a sustained conflict—the kind of war we’d face in defending Taiwan — China could repair damaged vessels and construct replacements far faster than the United States, at least in theory. The Navy faces a significant maintenance backlog and would struggle to quickly repair battle-damaged ships, let alone build new ones.

Former Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told Congress in 2023 that a single Mainland Chinese shipyard had more construction capacity than the entire U.S. industry. This isn’t a matter of China having marginally better capabilities — they’ve achieved total dominance in an industry that’s fundamental to naval power.

 

No Quick Fixes

Trump’s “Make Shipbuilding Great Again” initiative proposes tax incentives, a Maritime Security Trust Fund, and new maritime opportunity zones. But as Senator Roger Wicker noted in a February 2025 hearing, simply pouring money into shipbuilding won’t work because the U.S. doesn’t have the industrial base to support a surge. You can’t conjure skilled welders, modern shipyards, and supply chains out of thin air.

The Navy is exploring alternatives: unmanned vessels, utilizing allied shipyards in Japan and South Korea, and smaller surface combatants. These might help, as a band-aide. But they are merely workarounds for a fundamental problem — America destroyed its shipbuilding industry through decades of deindustrialization and offshoring, and China methodically built theirs up.

So much for “guns into butter” and “plowshares into swords“.

The hard reality is that naval supremacy requires industrial capacity, and we’ve ceded that capacity to our primary strategic competitor. All the strategy papers and fleet architecture studies in the world don’t matter if we can’t actually build the ships those plans require. China understands this. We’re still figuring it out…And by the time we do, China’s 435-ship navy may already control the Western Pacific.

The one bright spot, is that Chinese ships might be the “TEMU” version of fighting ships…Hopefully.

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

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The Battleship Question

The Battleship Question

Michael Cessna November 7, 2025 0

 

 

 

Everyone thinks battleships are cool, right? Certain movies not withstanding…

When President Trump floated the idea of bringing battleships back into service, the response from the defense establishment was immediate and predictable: eye-rolling dismissal, lectures about “modern warfare,” and knowing smirks about nostalgia trumping strategy. The think tanks and defense journals lined up to explain why this was obviously impossible, impractical, and frankly embarrassing.

There’s just one problem: The more you examine the actual arguments, the less absurd it looks.

Starting with what Trump actually said, stripped of the mockery:

  • Modern aluminum-hulled ships are vulnerable
  • Guns deliver cost-effective firepower compared to missiles
  • Battleships demonstrated effectiveness in the Gulf War
  • China’s naval expansion requires a response that doesn’t bankrupt us

 

The “experts” immediately attacked the metallurgy comment. Aluminum doesn’t just “melt,” they said. Trump doesn’t understand materials science. Except…the U.S. Navy already agrees with him. That’s why the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers went back to steel construction in the 1980’s. The Falklands War demonstrated aluminum’s vulnerability to fire and battle damage. The 1975 USS Belknap fire drove the lesson home. The Navy’s own design decisions validate exactly what Trump said—they just said it in engineering reports instead of campaign speeches.

 

USS Belknap (CG 26) after her collision with USS John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1975. US Navy photo. Public Domain.

Now consider the actual strategic problem Western – and American – navies face: magazine depth. The Red Sea operations against Houthi drones and missiles – consuming an estimated 30 years of firing in 15 months – exposed a critical vulnerability. Modern warships carry perhaps 90-100 missiles in their Vertical Launch Systems. Once those are expended, you’re done. You’ve got a $2 billion ship that has to withdraw from the fight and spend weeks getting rearmed for anything beyond self-defense. Each Standard missile costs between $2 and 4 million. Each Tomahawk missile runs $1 and 2 million. Between October 2023 and January 2025, Navy ships fired more defensive missiles than they used in the three decades following Desert Storm. You can burn through a quarter-billion dollars in magazine capacity in a single extended engagement.

A Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile launches from the forward missile deck aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Farragut (DDG 99) during a 2009 training exercise. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class L. Stiles. Public Domain.

Compare that to a 16-inch gun. Modern rocket-assisted projectiles could reach 100+ miles. Each round costs perhaps $25,000-50,000 in current dollars — less if produced at scale. An Iowa-class battleship could fire continuously for days, delivering devastating effects on shore targets, surface vessels, and even providing anti-air support with proximity-fused rounds. The math isn’t even close: sustained and accurate fires at a fraction of the cost.

But what about vulnerability to modern anti-ship missiles? This is where the analysis gets interesting. An Iowa’s belt armor is 12 inches of hardened steel, backed by layers of structural protection. Modern anti-ship missiles — whether subsonic Harpoons or supersonic weapons — typically carry 500-1,000 pound warheads designed to penetrate thin aluminum hulls and detonate inside the ship. Against 12 inches of armor backed by compartmentalized protection? The penetration physics are completely different. Modern warheads might crater the armor, but achieving a “mission kill” (rendering a vehicle or craft unable to continue fighting, without destroying it) becomes vastly more difficult.

 

Survivability

Three cases are instructive in the vulnerability argument:

  • When HMS Sheffield was sunk during the Falklands War in 1982, the warhead of the French EXOCET missile that struck it failed to detonate, or at least did not detonate properly. Instead, the Sheffield was irreparably damaged by fires started by the missile’s still-running engine
  • In 1987, the USS Stark was attacked and struck by a pair of Iraqi-fired EXOCET missles. Prompt damage control prevented the ship sinking. After extensive repairs, the Stark returned to service, before being decommissioned in 1999, and scrapped in 2006.
  • Later, in early 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian naval mine while escorting a civilian oil tanker. The severely damaged ship required around a full year off repairs, before being returned to service.
  • In 2000, the USS Cole was mined in the harbor of Aden, Yemen (although framed as a “bombing”, the actual attack counts as a ‘mining’ in naval terminology) by Al Qaeda terrorists using a massive IED. Following extensive repairs, the Cole remains in naval service.
  •  In contrast, there is the USS Nevada (BB-36), the only battleship on the list. Severely damaged by relentless air attack at Pearl Harbor, the Nevada was repaired and returned to service, serving throughout World War 2. At that war’s end, however, the ship was worn out, and thoroughly outdated, as it had originally been laid down in 1914…So, it was decided to use the old battleship as a nuclear target during Operation Crossroads, the first atomic tests at Bikini Atoll. The Nevada survived not one, but two, close range detonations, to such an extent that she had to be scuttled in 1948 by naval gunfire from the USS Iowa. That, however, was still insufficient to sink her, so she was finished off by an aerial torpedo.

Battleships, it would seem, are remarkably resilient.

 

Battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) painted in orange as target ship for the Operation Crossroads Able Nuclear weapons test. 1946 photo by US Navy. Public Domain.

 

Drones

The drone threat is real, but consider the defensive advantage: modern close-in weapon systems, electronic warfare, and updated radar married to a platform that can absorb damage and keep fighting. A kamikaze drone that could cripple an aluminum-hulled destroyer might barely scratch an Iowa’s main deck.

And, as operations in the Red Sea have shown, against actual warships – properly manned with trained crews – drones simply don’t present the threat that many believe to be real.

 

Manning – The Real Problem

The manning argument deserves serious consideration. Yes, the original crew was 1,500-1,800 sailors. But that was 1940’s technology with manual systems throughout. Selective modernization — updated damage control, automated fire control, modern propulsion plant controls — could potentially reduce crew requirements by 30-40 percent while maintaining the core advantages of proven mechanical systems over fragile digital networks.

Currently, while all services saw an increase in recruiting in the aftermath of Trump’s 2024 election victory, it remains to be seen if this increase will continue. The fact that the only real restriction on a “big-gun” battleship revival is whether the Navy can recruit enough personnel, is telling.

 

Conclusion

The real question isn’t whether battleships make technical sense. The real question is why the defense establishment is so hostile to the idea. And here’s where it gets interesting: battleships represent everything the current procurement system hates. Simple, proven technology. Conventional construction. Multiple potential suppliers. Long service life. Low-margin, high-volume ammunition. No proprietary software requiring endless updates. No justification for $100 million unit costs or trillion-dollar development programs.

Trump’s idea threatens a very lucrative business model. That’s why it sounds “crazy” to people with consulting contracts and board positions. To people actually concerned with sustainable naval power?

It starts looking remarkably sane.

 

 

 

The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To

 

 

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