Due to massive shortages in recruitment drives, the U.S. Army will have to reduce its size by 24,000 soldiers. The army stated, “While making these investments and adding formations, the Army must also reduce force structure to protect readiness in light of decreased end strength. The Army is currently significantly over-structured, meaning there are not enough soldiers to fill out existing units and organizations.”
Of the 24,000 troop reductions, 10,000 will come from counter-insurgency operations. Meanwhile, no plans have been announced to reduce the number of DEI (Destroy Every Individual, or Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) officers hired since the Mass Mailer President Joe Biden Committee took office.
The United States Army is reducing the size of its force by roughly 24,000 troops as the military service continues to struggle to meet recruitment goals.
According to a new document on the structural transformation of the U.S. Army, the decrease in the size of military service is intended to position the Army to be better equipped to fight future wars. While the document outlined multiple ways the Army is planning to invest in a restructuring of the force, it claimed that force reductions were necessary.
“While making these investments and adding formations, the Army must also reduce force
structure to protect readiness in light of decreased end strength,” the Army stated. “The Army is currently significantly over-structured, meaning there are not enough soldiers to fill out existing units and
organizations.”
Fox News reported that a considerable portion of the jobs that will be eliminated by the Army were counter-insurgency positions that increased during the Iraq War and Afghanistan War. The Army noted that most of the positions are already empty and that the Army “is not asking current soldiers to leave.”
The Army added, “As the Army builds back end strength over the next few years, most installations will likely see an increase in the number of soldiers actually stationed there.”
Almost a year ago, we briefly discussed the common hand grenades used by infantry and police around the world. These remain among the most common non-rifle weapons carried by soldiers around the world. While we have touched on this particular subject in passing in several articles, this week we are looking at the hand grenade’s ‘next level’: the Rifle Grenade.
Japanese troops training with rifle grenades, c.2003. Photo Credit: Norseman5614. CCA/3.0
Since grenades came into widespread use in the mid-17th century, the weapon’s greatest detraction was its range. Limited to the strength and coordination of the thrower, hand grenades can only be used at very short ranges, typically within 50 yards/45 meters, at the most extreme range. While it is technically possible to throw a hand grenade farther, outside factors – extreme fear, fatigue, enemy fire, etc. – severely limit the throw range.
Coupled to this, in the early days, fuses were generally a piece of rope that had been soaked in a solution of saltpeter (KNO3) or gunpowder. Obviously, this did not make for a very reliable timing system in the field, where it was openly exposed to rain and mud…and other fluids. As a result, grenades faded from use in 1760’s, their memory kept alive by the units of European armies specially selected for use – the Grenadiers – who, due to their size and strength (the better, it was believed, to throw grenades farther) were converted into assault units, designated to assault an enemy position.
Private grenadier of the L.Gv. Preobrazhensky Regiment, 1700 to 1732. Painted c.1840. Unknown artist. Public Domain.
As World War 1 dawned, technology had advanced to the point where reliable timing fuses, protected from the environment, finally made hand grenades reliable enough to use; tactics, however, still had to catch up, as in 1900 the term “rifle company” meant precisely that – 100-120 men, equipped with rifles and bayonets, with only officers carrying pistols. New, and very expensive weapons like machine guns were actually considered to be light artillery (as their size and weight placed them on light carriages based on those for light cannons and howitzers). They and their heavier counterparts had to be assigned to an infantry unit separately. The PBI’s (“Poor, Bloody Infantry”) had to make do, and figure it out, otherwise.
But, as the horrors of full-scale trench warfare closed in along the Western Front, armies needed a way for the infantry to attack an entrenched enemy. Grenades were ideal, but they could only be used at very close range, and while the opposing trenches could occasionally get to within 100 yards of each other, that was still too far for the hand-thrown grenade.
The British, German and Austrian solution to the problem was the “rod” grenade. This worked exactly how it sounds: a steel rod was attached to the bottom of a hand grenade that had been fitted with a longer fuse; the rod was inserted into the rifle’s muzzle and aimed, then the grenade’s safety ring was pulled out, and the grenadier pulled the trigger to fire a blank cartridge with no bullet in the case. The force of the gases from the firing shoved the grenade and its rod out of the rifle, and threw it 150-200 yards or so.
Mills bomb N°23 Mk I, with launching rod attacked. Photo credit: Jean-Louis Dubois, 2007. CCA/3.0
I can hear the groans and shrieks of terror and horror from all the shooters reading this from here.
The rod grenade – while it did work – severely damaged rifle barrels, to the point where a rifle would quickly become useless for anything else, as the stress of repeated firings warped the rifle barrels to the point where they could no longer fire accurately…assuming that they did not blow up in the firer’s face on the next launch.
In response, the British swiftly developed the “cup discharger”. This was a steel cup, just large enough to fit a hand grenade inside, that was clamped onto the muzzle of the rifle. A blank cartridge was loaded, and a hand grenade with a “gas check” plate welded to its bottom was slipped into the cup, and fired. While this system still placed heavy stress on the barrel from gas over-pressure, it was nowhere near as bad as the rods had been. Great Britain would continue to use this system through World War 2. Both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would use a similar system, although both of those combatants used rifled dischargers to add range and accuracy.
A member of the Home Guard demonstrates a rifle equipped with a cup discharger to fire an anti-tank grenade, Dorking, 3 August 1942. Imperial War Museum. Public Domain.
The French tackled the problem in a very…well, ‘French’ manner, with the “VB” grenade, named for its designers, Messer’s Viven and Bessières. This also used a special cup – in this case more like a cylinder, which clamped to the rifle’s muzzle. A specially designed grenade (quite different from a standard hand grenade) was slipped into the cup and aimed. The grenadier did not have to use a special blank round, though – the VB was activated and launched with a conventional bullet: When fired, the bullet exited the muzzle, deftly striking a lever inside the grenade, which activated the percussion cap to ignite the fuse. The action of the lever’s bottom end swing closed trapped the propellant gases coming up behind the bullet, and used them to throw the grenade clear of the discharger cup.
Photographs of a French V-B rifle grenade, a bullet trap type. Top shows views and cutaway of the grenade, bottom shows the grenade and grenade launcher, which is affixed to the rifle. Cross-section shows that the grenade is a pass-through design, allowing the use of live ammunition. Arming tab, activated by the bullet’s passage, can also be seen. US Government, c.1917-1918. Public Domain.
The VB worked very well, and solved the only real problem of the cup discharger, in dispensing with the blank cartridge. When the United States entered the war it, too, adopted the VB design, although it had to manufacture its own weapons, as American and French system and calibers were significantly different. The US would retain the VB design until the early stages of World War 2, using them as late as the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal. In contrast, while the French military abandoned the VB after World War 2, their Gendarmerie would use the design to launch tear gas grenades into the 1990’s.
French riot police deploy tear gas, 2007. CCA/2.0
World War 2 Japan took a very different course, with their Type 100 Grenade Discharger. This device fired standard hand grenades from a cup fitted to the rifle muzzle, and that was launched using a standard rifle bullet. However, unlike the VB system, the Type 100 was offset from the muzzle, and used a gas tap from the firing to launch the grenade out to about 100 yards. This is not surprising, however, if one knows the history of Japan’s infamous “knee mortar”.
The United States led the way after World War 2, by adopting the “spigot” type of rifle grenade. This mounted a grenade on top of a tube with stabilizing fins, which slipped over the muzzle of the rifle, and was fired by a blank cartridge. This eliminated the need for a separate launcher, although still requiring a special cartridge. NATO would eventually standardize on a grenade with a mounting tube with an internal diameter of 22mm. This allows a common system for any standardized rifle to fire both blank cartridge, “shoot-through”/VB-type grenade and “bullet-trap” type grenades.
Advancements in materials technology would lead to the development of the “bullet-trap” design, allowing a rifle to fire a grenade with a regular cartridge; the rifle bullet would be captured by the bullet-trap on the grenade, using both the force of the cartridge’s gas and the physical force of the projectile’s impact to launch the grenade.
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, with the rise of the “intermediate cartridge”, the muzzle-launched rifle grenade began to fall out of favor, as the intermediate cartridges available lacked the energy to effectively launch the older grenades to the same ranges. The only solution was to shrink the size of the grenades. This led to rifle grenades being seen to be less effective than lightweight rocket launchers such as the M72 LAW. There was, however, a replacement that stepped in and took over: the 40mm Hi-Low Grenade.
First deployed by the United States in 1961 with the adoption of the M79 grenade launcher and the later M203 system that could be easily mounted under the barrel of most military rifles, this system was so revolutionary, no established state military’s land warfare units lack some system firing a variation of the Hi-Low system.
MSG Claude L. Yocum, HHC, 2nd Bn., 1st Inf., 196th Lt. Inf. Bde., Vietnam. 1960’s. US Army photo. Public Domain.
These weapons are able to launch grenades out to 200 to 400 yards (sometimes farther), which have a blast effect similar to a regular hand grenade, but that also fire a wider variety of grenades than the older models of rifle grenades.
A 40 mm practice round is loaded into an M203 grenade launcher mounted on an M16A1 rifle, 1988. US Air Force Photo. Public Domain.
Wars are always violent; expecting them to be “clean” or “surgical” is a fantasy. Weapons development is not evil, if the weapons make your forces more capable of ending a war faster, with as little destruction and savagery as possible.
As the legendary Chinese general Sun Tzu said in the opening lines of his military treatise, The Art of War, in c.500BC –
The art of war is of vital importance to the state.
It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
The United States Marine Corps has a world-renowned reputation as one of the most capable, and most elite, fighting forces on the planet. Many people are equally familiar with the lyrics of the Marine Corps Hymn. Frequently, however, little thought is given to the meaning behind those lyrics. This week, we’re going to talk about one of those lines, and how it relates to the present day.
After the United States gained its independence from England in 1783, the new nation suddenly found itself on its own in the wider world. While this did not too present much of a problem in most places, it quickly became a very serious problem along the coast of North Africa, past which, American-flagged merchantmen were carrying cargoes into Mediterranean ports, as they had done for decades.
The problem now, though, was that the ships were American – not British. Great Britain in the 18th Century had, like many of the countries of Western Europe, come to an agreement with the Muslim pirates of the so-called “Tripolitanian Coast” where the Europeans would pay the Barbary Pirates what their leader, Pasha Yusuf Karamanli grandiosely termed “tribute” – the Europeans termed it “bribes” – to not attack those nation’s vessels. Ever since the payments began, American-based ships had been able to sail freely, as they flew the British flag, and carried British papers. After 1783, however, that all changed.
The Barbary Pirates – a group of coastal city-states including Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis – under the nominal control of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, had been the naval scourge of the Mediterranean for nearly six hundred years. Their raids to capture Christian European vessels, and enslave their crews, were exceeded only their slave raids along European coasts – ranging as far north as Iceland – raids that were so frequent, a significant portion of the population actually fled coastal areas, moving father inland to get away from the raiders.
European states, embroiled in constant wars with each other, were unable to continuously focus their otherwise-considerable military power against the corsairs. In a time-honored tradition, those countries resorted to simply paying the pirates to leave their ships and coasts alone. In reply, the pirates toned down their raids, only attacking (mostly) when payments were delayed for some reason. When the United States became independent, it had no standing agreement with the Barbary pirates, making its ships and merchants vulnerable.
In response to this sudden turn of events, US President George Washington convinced the US Congress to pass the Naval Act of 1794, authorizing the creation of the US Navy and Marine Corps – both of which had been disestablished at the end the War of Independence – for the specific purpose of cruising against “Algerian corsairs”.
“An Act to Provide a Naval Armament”, 1794. US Congress. Public Domain.
Although it took a few years, the new ships of the US Navy were eventually launched, and their crew – including the newly restored US Marines – headed out to deal with the Barbary pirates.
It got off to a rocky start – pun intended.
Although scoring some early victories against the pirates, the frigateUSS Philadelphia ran aground outside the harbor of Tripoli on October 31 of 1803, and was captured. Her crew was imprisoned, the ship was re-floated, and towed into the harbor.
As a certain YouTuber has said multiple times, “Don’t touch America’s boats! We do not like that!”
Then-25 year old US Navy Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a party of 80 volunteers (mostly US Marines) in a covert night raid on the port of Tripoli, approaching on a captured Tripolitanian craft, crewed by Sicilian volunteers who spoke Arabic. Sailing up the hulk of the Philadelphia, Decatur then led the Marines in a surprise boarding action that retook the ship in a wild sword-and-pistol fight in the tight quarters of the ship. Finding that the Philadelphia was too damaged to cruise as a ship again, Decatur and his party set fire to the ship and escaped, leaving the vessel to burn within the view of Pasha Yusuf’s palace.
Stephen Decatur, by Charles Bird King (1785–1862), 1815-1825. Oil on canvas. Public Domain.
Determined to put a stop to the Barbary pirates once and for all, US Army Captain and US Consul to Tunis, William Eaton traveled to the ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt late in 1804. Under the orders of Commodore James Barron, Eaton was commissioned as a lieutenant in the US Navy, and went to Alexandria to find Hamet Karamanli – the brother of Yusuf, Pasha of Tripoli, who had ousted Hamet (the rightful heir), to entice him into leading a revolt against his brother.
Encouraging Hamet was not a difficult task, only requiring enough money to purchase weapons and supplies. Hamet had about 500 supporters willing to follow him; Eaton (who Hamet had made a “General”) was able to hire about fifty Greek mercenaries from Alexandria’s waterfront district. The task of maintaining some semblance of order in the fractious little army fell to US Marine Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, and his seven US Marines.
Battle of Derna: Route of William Eaton’s army from Alexandria to Derna, 8 March to 25 April 1805. Map created in 1944, as a US Government document. Public Domain.
The plan was to take Hamet’s force and march them along the coast to the Tripoli-controlled town of Derna. The army would capture it, and send out word for more loyalists to gather to Hamet’s banner. For the United States, the mission was rather different: the idea was to frighten Yusuf into negotiation under threat of being replaced at gunpoint.
If this is starting to sound like a familiar story, pat yourself on the back.
After a terrible march through the North African desert – as the Italians, Germans and British would discover some 130 years later – the force finally reached Derna on April 26th. Although outnumbered by an enemy entrenched behind castle walls, the force attacked suddenly in the afternoon of the 27th. Hamet and his loyalists quickly captured that part of the town containing the palace and government offices.
The main attack, however, was by O’Bannon, his Marines and the Greek mercenaries. They fired one shot from their field gun (borrowed from USS Argus, that was supporting the attack with naval gunfire) then charged the walls, overrunning the defenses and either killing, capturing or driving off the defenders. O’Bannon raised the US flag over the fort, marking the first time US forces had captured a fortress outside the Western Hemisphere.
The victory was short-lived, however. US State Department diplomat Tobias Lear managed to negotiate an end to the First Barbary War and the release of the crew of the USS Philadelphia and other Americans being held in Tripoli. Figuratively and literally “hung out to dry”, Eaton and O’Bannon had no choice but to withdraw from Derna, taking Hamet Karmanli and the Greek mercenaries with them as they left; Hamet’s Muslim supporters were left on the beach…literally.
Hamet returned to Alexandria, and eventually settled in Sicily. He gifted a Mameluke Sword to O’Bannon for his bravery and leadership; this lives on today as the model for the officer’s sword of the Marine Corps, adopted in 1825.
Presley O’Bannon resigned from the Marine Corps in 1807, and settled in Logan County, Kentucky, where he went on to serve in the Kentucky legislature, dying in 1850. The US Navy would name a few ships for the Marine officer, including the Fletcher-class destroyer USS O’Bannon (DD-450)…which became the most decorated US Navy warship of World War 2, that also captured a Japanese submarine…with potatoes.
William Eaton was left embittered over how the Derna affair ended, and left government service in the aftermath. He became involved in the treason trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr in 1807, presenting evidence that the former Vice president had attempted to recruit him for an attempt to overthrow the US Government. Eaton retired to his hometown of Brimfield, MA, where he passed away in 1811.
…So, while the above historical look is interesting (hopefully), how does it relate today?
As of mid-February of 2024, there is a new pirate menace in the general vicinity of the long-ago conflict outlined above…in fact, there have been a number of “pirate menaces” in the last couple of decades. The specific details might be different, but the ancient rule still holds true: Nihil Novi Sub Sole
There’s nothing new under the Sun.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
Everyone has seen some form of disaster. Whether that disaster was a war, civil unrest or rioting, an earthquake, volcanic eruption, or some sort of sudden climatic disaster like a flood, almost everyone with an internet connection has experienced a disaster, even if they do so vicariously. But, unless the viewer is physically present in the disaster area, few people have any idea how “the authorities” are able to handle the disaster of the day, at any level of competence.
Originally developed at a meeting of fire chiefs in Southern California, the ICS idea began as a development of command processes from the United States Navy. It was not, however, a smooth process. The failures in response management during the massive Laguna Fire of 1970 showed that methods of coordination and control were near-completely divorced from reality, and that a great deal of more work was required to develop a coherent and standardized response to emergencies. Beginning in 1973, with the creation of the FIRESCOPE program, what would evolve into the modern form of ICS began with the Tactical Field Control Operations section of FIRESCOPE, ICS quickly matured as Federal, State and local agencies adopted the idea as a standard system.
Seeing the utility of the idea, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) eventually created a 20-hour long standard training course that would allow the creation of emergency management teams in any area that could assemble the requisite personnel and assets. Coupled to a much more basic training program for civilians to act in disaster operations, this combination has significantly helped bring order out of chaos in many real-world disaster situations.
In doing so, it is a shining example of what government can do when it gets something right.
However, lurking in the background was ICS’s genesis as a military-based command structure. In the US military of the 21st century, this is known as either “Battle Tracking” or “Command Post Operations”.
Because the situation in combat can completely change in a matter of minutes – or less – the idea of having a detailed, yet flexible, set of command protocols has been a very important feature of military operations for decades…And yet, the vast majority of civilians know little or nothing about the process of emergency management.
This is not really surprising, because despite their frequency, natural disasters and wars are very rare occurrences in the lives of most people. But, those dangers can present themselves at any time…and knowing at least something of the process – even if the reader never signs up for a course – will prove helpful should you ever find yourself in a disaster situation, by at least helping to understand at some level what is happening.
FEMA Incident Command organizational chart. 2008. By FEMA. Public Domain.
The above image depicts the standard notional organization of an Incident Command organization. It is a rather bland, “vanilla” organization, because it is intended to scale to any region, from a small town to the nation as a whole. It outlines the basic departments that would have to function in most emergencies. At the same time, it allows for expansion by adding specialist groups, should the situation call for it. This also allows for “on the spot” recruiting of survivors and volunteers to fill in holes.
A good overview of the process comes from the West Virginia Department of Education, which shows how a specific organization might use the basic ICS format to create its own specialized structure, based on what it deems are its unique needs.
But…How does this apply in any real depth to the individual – in a word, why should you actually care about this process?
To echo the beginning of this article, there are any numbers of dangers, natural and man-made, that can happen suddenly and without warning. There is a greater that 0% chance that you, the Reader, may find yourself in a sudden disaster situation – and help may not be on the immediate horizon. It may come down to you, to start getting things organized.
This is no encouragement to “Walter Mitty” fantasies. The fact that you may have never found yourself in such a desperate situation does not mean that you never will…and with the apparent trajectory of the world, as described by the news every day, the chances that you, personally, may have to either apply the ideas outlined above or step up to take part, is becoming a rapidly increasing possibility.
An article such as this is far too brief to do more than touch on the idea as a general concept. There are videos available that can give you a basic run-down, and the S2 Underground is a great place to start. But, while your author is usually loathe to recommend any government website for any practical purpose, in this case, the Reader should refer to the FEMA links provided above. Most counties in the United States offer some form of emergency management and response classes. Take at least a basic CERT course, to understand the tasks and challenges in responding to disasters – of whatever type – and to become better prepared for whatever might roll in your direction.
The world can be a scary place. But, it becomes significantly less scary if you understand the potential situations, and your options in those situations. You will not be able to learn these skills, nor establish connections with your friends, neighbors and fellow citizens through osmosis – you have to go out and acquire the necessary skills and contacts.
You and your family will appreciate it later.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
As we head into February of 2024, the “wars and rumors of wars” have plateaued, for the moment: Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terror group is still grinding on; the Russian offensives against Ukraine continue to make progress, albeit slowly and painfully; the Chinese Communists are engaging in the time-honored Communist tradition of gutting their military leadership at the most inopportune times; United States and British naval forces continue to sporadically pound Houthi terrorist outposts in Yemen, although their effectiveness is somewhat in question, as the Indian Navy is engaging the occasional Somali pirate boat. Iranian mullahs continue to attempt to foment trouble around the world – no doubt helped by the $6 billion US Dollars sent to them by the Biden administration – even as the US flexes its bomber muscles in the region…And, speaking of that increasingly criminal organization, it seems to have blinked in its standoff with the US State of Texas over its criminal failure to execute the most basic of its duties under the United States Constitution – i.e., securing the US border against a literal invasion – even as it exposed itself, yet again, as holding the United States’ populace hostage to its desire to fund even more openly-criminal groups throughout the world.
In a word – things are on a low roar, at the moment. As a result, we’re going to take a look at something interesting and informative, as Freedomist/MIA doesn’t engage in the “fear-porn” popular in current media. When something develops in the arena of conflicts, we will cover it then, rather than keep terrifying you with spammy updates. That said…
Boomsticks
I usually make a conscious effort to avoid arguing for a “best rifle” (handguns are even more of a no-go in my recommendation department). Usually, I prefer to simply present you, the Reader, with a brief historical overview of a particular firearm that most people may not be familiar with, especially if the Reader might find themselves “going downrange”, in the modern vernacular.
In this case, however, I will make an exception. What follows, is strictly my own opinion – you can, of course, disagree with me…but you’ll still be wrong.
If I were forced to have only one, single “long gun” – either a rifle or a shotgun – what would that be? My answer, which has not changed in over twenty years, is the Simonov SKS rifle, and specifically, the Yugoslavian M59/66, made by Zavasta.
Yugoslavian M59/66 SKS variant, with folded bayonet and grenade launcher on the muzzle. CCA/4.0
…..‘Wut’?
The SKS rifle was designed in 1945 by Soviet weapons designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. Chambered in the M43 cartridge designed in 1944, the SKS and its derivatives are semi-automatic rifles, firing from a fixed, ten-round magazine. The M43 cartridge – despite its similar appearance – has no ‘shared history’ with the German 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge, used in the “first assault rifle”, the Sturmgewehr-44; the M43 is measurably more powerful than the German cartridge, being functionally equal, ballistically speaking, to the venerable .30-30 Winchester cartridge (pronounced “thirty-thirty”), which dates from 1895, and remains one of the most popular hunting cartridges in the world, often in the guise of the Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle. However, the M43 is much more space-efficient, being both shorter, overall, than the .30-30, but also in that it is a rimless cartridge, as opposed to the .30-30’s rimmed case, which makes loading into a vertical magazine not impossible, but it is problematic.
The SKS magazine usually feeds from a 10-round stripper clip, but – unlike the US-designed M1 Garand – stripper clips are not required to load the magazine; loading the magazine with loose rounds is certainly slower than with a strip-clip, but is far better than the M1’s en bloc system, since without an en bloc clip in place, the M1 rifle is simply a single shot rifle.
8-round en bloc clip for the M1 Garand rifle (left) and an SKS 10-round stripper clip. 2009. Public Domain.
An obvious question at this juncture would be the SKS’s relationship to the much better known AK-47 rifle. The answer is: not much. Aside from using the same cartridge, the two weapons are very different: the SKS uses a fixed (meaning, “non-detachable”) 10-shot magazine, while the AK uses detachable, 30-round box magazines. The only similarity is that the gas tubes look alike, although they function differently.
As a military weapon, originally, the SKS came with some features not usually found in civilian hunting weapons. In addition to its one-piece cleaning rod slotted under the barrel, the SKS was issued with a cleaning kit stored in its butt-stock. While this was a relatively common feature in military rifles, the SKS also featured an integral bayonet that folded around and under the barrel. While there has been a rash – yet again – of certain quarters declaring the bayonet to be dead (much like the tank), it is not, even though they are rare in the West; they are very likely more common in non-Western nations, but little in the way of technical details come out of those quarters.
SKS bayonet, folded (top) and unfolded. 2019. CCA/4.0
Another point in the SKS’s favor is that it has a greater range than the AK-47, with an effective range roughly 100 meters longer than Kalashnikov’s rifle, due to its longer barrel – in ballistics, size really does matter, up to a point.
Finally, the Yugoslavian M59/66 version incorporates a built-in launcher for the world-standard 22mm rifle grenades, which used to be a common feature on many of the world’s military rifles.
The SKS was adopted, in some military capacity, by at least seventy nations, and usually remained in service long after those nations had switched to other weapons, such as the AK47, the M-16 or something else. The SKS, in its many variants, can be found on battlefields around the world, to this day.
American soldier in a training session of rifle grenade launch. Blank grenade fitted in a M1 Garand rifle with the Rifle Grenade Launcher, M7. 1944. US Army photo.
So – after the above information, why would this be the rifle I would pick, if I could only have one rifle?
First, it checks the widest number of boxes: it is fully capable as a hunting rifle for virtually any game I would consider hunting; I have neither plans nor desires to go hunting for bears or moose…and were I to run into either – that’s why I have ten rounds.
Next, it is semi-automatic in operation. This is a real point, because as a semi-automatic, it automatically extracts, ejects and chambers a new cartridge on its own, until the magazine is empty. With other weapons, including lever-actions like the Winchester ’94, or bolt-actions like the Mauser, Enfield, Mosin-Nagant, Carcano, etc., manually working the action usually involves breaking the shooter’s grip on the rifle, forcing them to realigned their eyes to the sights. Semi-automatics like the SKS and M1 Garand eliminate this issue.
Next, is its cartridge. While any gaggle of shooters will argue endlessly over the merits of “this cartridge vs that”, no one can dispute the effectiveness of the M43 round, now over 75 years old, in both hunting and combat, and its ammunition is relatively common and “cheap-ish” for civilian buyers in the US to lay hands on (at least at the moment). While its range may not be the longest, 400 meters is perfectly sufficient for most uses. Then, there is its sheer simplicity: there are not that many parts to deal with when you need to take it apart, and none of those are particularly small, or easy to lose.
SKS rifle field stripped. 2009. Public Domain.
That pretty much sums up the civilian hunting – and “SHTF” (S*** Hits The Fan) – side of why this would be my go-to.
The other side, obviously, is whether it is still an effective weapon for “military-type” use. True, it is not selective-fire, as modern military rifles are. And, yes, it has “only” a ten-round magazine, versus the 30-round detachable magazines that modern military rifles use. And realistically, do you really need the extra weight of a bayonet, much less a grenade launcher?
So, let’s address the above questions.
First, selective fire rifles (i.e., rifles that can fire in the fully-automatic mode, similar to an actual machine gun) has long been understood to be virtually useless in individual combat rifles – outside of very narrow circumstances – because rifles are too lightweight to lay a predictable pattern of fire, which is what actual machine guns are designed for…“Fully Automatic Machine Gun Fun” is, well, fun, but that’s usually all it is.
Second, is the magazine. If the Reader were to buy, say, an AR-15 or a civilian-legal AK-47, each of those 30-round detachable magazines will run anywhere from (as of early 2024) $9 – $25, each, depending on what you’re buying…and you’re going to need at least three to five of them, because even just going to the range will get very annoying, very fast, if you only have one or two magazines. In contrast, the SKS’s 10-round stripper clips can be reloaded with commercial ammunition if you save the clips, and you can buy military surplus ammunition that comes in sealed “Spam-Cans”, with all of the rounds factory-loaded onto stripper clips.
There is also the relentless controversy over the dreaded “magazine spring ‘taking a set’” – the notion that leaving magazines stored fully loaded for too long will weaken their internal springs over time. Personally, I’ve never had this happen, but I can see the other side of the argument…all of which is irrelevant with the SKS: if its magazine spring is sticking or is weak – replace it.
Because of this, you can load whatever type of field rig you prefer with SKS stripper clips, and they will sit there happily and patiently, waiting for you to use them, until they are so old, they are corroding their cases.
As to the grenade launcher and bayonet? Well – I certainly hope that I never need to use either of those two features; if that has happened, world civilization has collapsed, and all bets will really be off…But, in the unlikely event that the world has been reduced to that state, I would far prefer to have those feature and not need them, than to need them and have them.
The SKS: You need Simonov’s simple rifle…just, please – don’t “Bubbify” it with Tapco gear.
On January 24th 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement, concerning the right of the State of Texas to defend itself from invasion, because – quoting from the statement – the Federal Government as a body and specifically, the administration of President Joe Biden, have broken the Compact between the Several States and the Federal Government (the foundational concept that underpins the notion of the “United States of America”) by not simply pointedly and openly declining to defend the nation from a literal “invasion” at the southern border, but in actively taking measures to prevent the State of Texas from defending itself.
Abbott specifically cited the Biden administration failing to fulfill its duties under Article IV § 4 of the Constitution, which has now required Abbott, as Governor, to invoke Article 1 § 10 Clause 3 of the Constitution requiring him to take measures to defend the state.
This statement was issued on the heels of a frankly stunning decision by the United States Supreme Court on January 22nd, which allowed the US Border Patrol to remove razor wire barricades emplaced by Texas National Guard troops assigned to defend Texas’ border with Mexico along the Rio Grande River. In effect, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in suborning an invasion of the United States.
The massive influx of illegal aliens is a subject we have discussed here previously. The fairest “neutral” assessment of the impact of illegal immigration comes from, of all places, Wikipedia:
However, given the reactions of “sanctuary cities” – most of them longtime strongholds of the Democrat Party – to having waves of “migrants” dumped (waves that are not even comparable to the numbers being dumped on Texas) on their doorsteps, not just by Republican-led states such as Texas and Florida, but by the Federal Government itself, it is clear that the staggering numbers are having an immediate, clear and disproportionate impact on the nation (leaving aside said migrants frequently complaining bitterly about the aid and shelter they are given, including appeals to citizens to house illegal aliens in churches and private homes).
In response to Governor Abbott’s January 24th statement, many politicians have begun to hysterically demand that President Biden federalize the Texas National Guard to halt the Texas program to stem the flow of illegal migrants, and to restrict them to using the legal crossing points, and to follow the established legal processes.
This situation (which has been building for well over a decade as of this writing), and the breathless demands to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop Texas’ actions, has brought the nation perilously close to an actual “civil war”, for the first time since 1860. This is because, as of this writing, some twenty-five state Governors have definitively stated their support of Governor Abbott and the state of Texas.
Actually federalizing a state’s National Guard against the wishes of their state’s governor has been done before, famously in 1957 in Arkansas in regards to the “Little Rock Nine”. A popular misconception is that a state’s National Guard cannot be federalized without that state’s governor consenting to the mobilization. As demonstrated in Arkansas, this is patently untrue.
The National Guard was created by the Militia Act of 1903, known popularly as the “Dick Act” after its sponsor, Ohio Congressman Charles Dick (R), in response to the severe manpower shortage in the US Army in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the subsequent campaigns against Filipino guerrillas in the Philippines Insurrection (1899-1902).
This latter campaign was hampered by American volunteers – who had been enlisted for a period of two years – insisting on being sent home after the conclusion of the war against Spain. As those who had volunteered specifically for the war against Spain were technically still a part of the Militia of the United States, they could not be required to serve longer than the conclusion of the war unless they specifically volunteered to do so.
This manpower issue came from Article 1, § 8, Clause 15 of the “Militia Clauses” (which includes Clause 16 of the same Article and Section) of the Constitution, which strictly limits the call-up and use of the Militia to executing “…the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions…” As a result, the United States quickly found itself significantly hampered in the Philippines by not having enough troops.
The “Dick Act” was written specifically to bypass the restrictions of the “Militia Clauses”, in order to create a new military entity in the form of the National Guard (and later, the Air National Guard). In effect, the “Dick Act” created a type of reserve formation for the US Army (before the creation of the actual “Army Reserve”), which (ultimately) would be equipped and trained by the US Army, but which be paid for by the states, who would also be allowed to use the military formations within the state, at the discretion of its governor. However, if the Federal government decided that they needed to mobilize the National Guard, they could do so at any time…whether a governor agrees with the Federal government or not, as was demonstrated in 1957, in Arkansas.
In the context of the hysterical demands of partisan political hacks, this would mean that President Biden would have to declare the State of Texas to be in rebellion against the United States – something that has only happened once in United States history – in order to force the Texas National Guard to disregard the orders of its state Commander in Chief in the face of an active invasion of their state.
Stop, and consider that implication.
If President Biden were to take such an ill-advised action, that would place the Texas National Guard in the position of obeying either the Federal Government – and allowing a massive invasion of their home state by massive numbers of “military-age males” who certainly did not walk north from homes in Mexico, or Central or South America, because “economic asylum seekers” do not buy airplane tickets from Africa to Mexico, in order to walk north…
…Conversely, the Texas National Guard could refuse orders to federalize. This would constitute “Mutiny”, under Article 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ, the legal code of the US armed forces), at the very least. This would place the Federal government in the position of having to arrest up to 19,000 peopleen masse.
In like manner, there would then be the question of the reactions of the various states and governors who have expressed their solidarity with Governor Abbott’s actions…
This perilous situation is the ultimate outcome of decades of neglect, political pandering and the abject failure of successive Federal governments to execute the most basic of their duties, duties that the Several States voluntarily allowed the Federal Government to maintain authority for, as a condition of their joining the Federal Union in 1789. Leaving aside the obtuse legalities of this situation, the reality is that the American Left – led primarily by the Democrat Party – has driven the nation to a potential breakpoint, where the States may well declare the sitting Federal Government to no longer be a legitimate body. Such an action could go in several directions, none of them good, and all of them highly dangerous.
And while pundits and armchair-warrior-gamers may believe the nearly incoherent ramblings of President Biden, the reality is that the United States military and law enforcement establishments are not able to enforce any nationwide martial law order; in fact, it is questionable if they could enforce such an order over any large metropolitan area, given what happened the last time Federal troops were deployed under “Operation Garden Plot” was engaged.
…In the end, this writer has no solution to this problem, other than telling the Federal government to do its job in securing the borders of the United States, which it has consistently failed to do for over forty years.
The alternatives are not desired by any sane person.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
There are wars, and rumors of wars, all over the world as 2024 dawns. Russia and Ukraine continue to bludgeon each other relentlessly. Israel’s war against Hamas grinds on, threatening to expand into the southern territory of Lebanon under the control of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group. To the south and east, the Houthis in Yemen are waging a “pin-prick war” that has diverted some 12% of the world’s commercial shipping, forcing extensive delays and threatening to log-jam global trade on a scale that rivals the dislocations of the COVID pandemic, as their backers in Iran rattle their own sabers and threaten the oil export structure of the Persian Gulf.
Across the Red Sea from Yemen, wars rage in Sudan and Ethiopia, while Ethiopia’s own actions threaten wars with Eritrea and Somalia. To the north, Egypt and Jordan – for different reasons – are on the verge of internal collapse. Throughout the rest of Africa, nations struggle with internal, interminable and seemingly unsolvable issues, with many states facing continued attacks from radical jihadist militias. In Myanmar, the military government is clinging to power by its proverbial fingernails. In South America, Venezuela continues to threaten the annexation of Guyana, while Bolivia and Ecuador are the new battlegrounds in the war of the drug cartels.
Naturally, with all of these long-running – or suddenly appearing – conflicts, most of them remote, obscure and obtuse to outsiders, there are other conflicts that get lost in the shuffle…but those conflicts are no less important; in fact, many of them are not petty in any way, with the victims not simply being on the short end of the stick, but who were actively abandoned to the whims of ‘realpolitik’.
The war in Kurdistan is just that kind of conflict.
The wars and depredations inflicted on the Kurdish people for over one hundred years have largely been caused by the West, primarily Britain and France…but the United States hasn’t helped. And that war continues, not only against Syria and Turkey, but against Iran.
While the Kurdish nation has been noted as a separate and distinct people since the 11th Century, when the term “Kurdistan” was noted by the Seljuk Empire, it was only after World War 1, and the last, vile gasp of debased European imperialism – the Sykes-Picot Agreement – that the real agony began.
Neither Kurdistan nor its people were given more than lip service by Britain and France. Bolshevik (Communist) Russia repudiated any Russian claims associated with the agreement after the revolution that unseated the Tsar, as they had far more pressing problems. The signatories, channeling previous agreements covering African and Asia, cavalierly split what they, themselves, knew to be ethnically Kurdish areas between themselves to rule. While subsequent, limp-wristed treaties “graciously” allowed for the possibility of a Kurdish state (despite several Kurdish states being organized from 1918 to 1930), the European powers threw up their hands in 1923, and washed their hands of the Kurdish areas, for the most part, with the Treaty of Lausanne, which made no mention of the region at all, condemning the Kurdish people to be split between what is now Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Kurd’s only ally of significance was Winston Churchill, who argued for a separate Kurdish state, but his political influence in the 1920’s was very limited, compared to what it would become in later decades.
Lt Col Francis R. Maunsell’s map, Pre-World War I British Ethnographical Map of eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and western Persia, 1910. Kurdish regions are in yellow. Library of Congress.
The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres was a draft treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Principal Allied Powers. It was ultimately shelved because of Turkish non-ratification and was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne. Map by User:Zero0000 CCA/4.0
But the Kurds wouldn’t give up.
The Kurds sent a delegation to the San Francisco Peace Conference of 1945, which would form the United Nations, to argue for an independent state; they were, of course, refused. But, armed Kurdish groups continually waged low-level guerrilla wars against the states they had been relegated to; the wars’ ferocity depended on how intense the ruling government’s programs to suppress Kurdish culture were at the time.
However, this would occasionally swing into full-on war crime territory, as happened in the Halabja Massacre of 1988, when the Kurdish village was attacked with lethal “war agent” chemicals weapons, primarily mustard gas, but also with a mix of nerve and blood agents. It is generally assumed that Saddam Hussein’s government was responsible for the attack, although allegations have long been made against Iran.
When the 1991 Persian Gulf War ended, US President George H. W. Bush made casual, off-hand remarks, that left many in Iraq – including the Kurds – believing that if they rose up to overthrow Saddam Hussein, they would get at least some help from the United States. Unfortunately for them, the Kurds in the north and Shi’a Iraqis in the south read far too much into the first Bush’s words, and were left stunned (assuming they lived) then they rose up…and the United States barely lifted a finger, seemingly completely surprised that the subject peoples of a brutal dictatorship might actually have the gall to rise up in armed revolt against said brutal government.
The absolute cheek of little people.
Shamed into doing something, though, the Bush administration launched “Operation Provide Comfort” to protect Kurdish refugees fleeing the Iraqi Army units not destroyed fighting the United States and its allies in Kuwait.
Quite unintentionally, this would be the first real break for Kurdish autonomy since 1918. The strict limiting of Iraqi military abilities against the Kurds left the northern people able to organize in safety, and begin building a formal military organization, the Peshmerga, from scattered guerrilla forces. While remaining in “recognition limbo” – without formal recognition as a sovereign state – the Kurdish authorities could not legally purchase military weapons on the open world market, forcing them to develop a “cottage industry” for making weapons, alongside reusing weapons captured from Iraqi forces when the government in Baghdad drags its feet on providing any, buying weapons on the black market and the occasional under-the-table crumbs offered by a scattering of Western states.
With the overthrow of Saddam in 2003, and the resulting upheaval in the aftermath, this organization became much more formalized and professional, at least compared to where it had been. It still has serious internal issues, a reflection of thirty-odd years of disordered and fragmented political organization, leading to a fragmented command and operational structure.
Kurdistan deserves better, not least because they have carried the United States water in the region with little return for their money. Kurdistan, from 2003 onwards, made themselves into a safe area for the US and its allies, doing what it could against Al Qaeda-aligned jihadist groups, for very little return.
Kurdistan remains split between four nations, with no prospect of real help from anyone else. Syria, still embroiled in its decade-and-a-half long civil war, has no intention of allowing its Kurdish regions to leave the country; the autonomous region known as “Rojava” formalized in 2018 is nothing more than a convenience for Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus.
The United States is unlikely to attempt to rein in the extreme excesses of Turkey’s operations in its own Kurdish areas, nor the northern parts of Syria and Iraq. This is because Turkey, as a member of NATO, is vital to European security…even as the Turkish state keeps expanding its influence throughout the world.
Likewise, Iraq is not about to allow its own Kurdish areas to actually leave, as that would remove a large oil-producing area from the country, fundamentally weakening the shaky government in Baghdad.
And then – there is Iran.
The mullahs in control of Iran view its Kurdish population as a useful foil that allows them to accuse any number of nations of trying to undermine them, while occasionally killing people wholesale to intimidate all of its ethnic minorities.
Now, however, with wider wars exploding throughout the region, as well as the rest of the world, the faint glimmer exists that the Kurds may soon have a chance to finally establish themselves as an organized state. The chances are remote, and it will be neither easy nor bloodless, but the chance is there.
The question is: Can the Kurd’s leadership come together to capitalize on the opportunity?
If they can, the United States should help make it happen – that’s not “imperialism”. That’s helping your actual friends, who have sacrificed to help you in the past, with no prompting.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
It would seem that 2024 is off with a bang, if the Reader will forgive the pun.
Beginning on October 7th of 2023, of course, Hamas launched its suicidal Don Quixote war with Israel, showing that the debased savagery of the Islamic State is alive and well. Shortly after, on October 13th, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abey Ahmed announced what can only be termed a policy of “lebensraum” for Ethiopia, demanding free access to the Red Sea. And, as if on cue, the Houthi rebels in Yemen began attacking any unarmed commercial vessels they could draw a bead on in the nautical chokepoint of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, controlling the southern access point to the Red Sea.
Now, as the second week of January 2024 closes, Iran has entered the fray, seizing the oil tanker St. Nikolas off the coast of Oman, in the Arabian Sea, significantly widening the security problem – and potential naval combat area. Iran’s explanation for the seizure is a flimsy claim to Iranian ownership, a claim even flimsier than the excuse of the Houthi’s for attacking ships in the Red Sea.
Obviously, as we reported last week, all of this military action has begun to significantly impact world commerce, as increasing numbers of shipping lines abandon the critical Red Sea route, opting for the much longer transit around the Cape of Good Hope.
The question for most Readers is, obviously, “Where is the US Navy in all of this?” Good question.
The United States Navy is, unquestionably, the most powerful navy the world has ever seen. Disputing that statement is, frankly, ludicrous. The United States currently operates more aircraft carriers for fixed-wing operations than the rest of the world, combined…and this is before the various US Marine Corps aviation squadrons are added to its figures. It operates some seventy-six Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, regarded as the most capable destroyer class ever designed. Likewise, the US Navy maintains amphibious and supply forces that no other nation can match, giving it a truly global reach. It is not an exaggeration to say that a US Navy carrier battle group can deploy more firepower to a region than can be mustered by most nations’ entire militaries.
So – handling the Houthi’s, or even Iran, should present no great trouble for the United States, right?
Well…it’s complicated.
While the United States does, indeed, have a vast and capable military, like the armed forces of Great Britain before it, it has a major problem. It is not really a question of how good your weapons are; the greatest warship ever designed is completely useless if it isn’t where you need it to be, when you need it to be there.
The US military, and specifically the US Navy, cannot be everywhere at once. Aside from the chronic, military-wide problems with both recruiting and retention of personnel, the political leadership of the United States has, for the preceding forty years or so, almost uniformly failed to make even reasonably good choices in economic, military, social and foreign policy decisions. These failed policies have led to critically short numbers of personnel in almost all of the armed services, which translates into too few forces being available to deal with multiple threats. Indeed, while the US Navy, as of 2019, had some four hundred and eighty ships in commission, it could only deploy about two hundred and ninety.
What does this mean in the modern day, of January 2024?
As US and Western industry still struggles to supply the war in Ukraine, that situation is now worse, as the limited supply of ammunition is further divided to support Israel in its war against Hamas. Added to this, is the double threat from Iran and it’s Houthi proxies, a threat that is already damaging world commerce.
And then – there is Communist China…more on that, later.
Many people fail to grasp the impact of world shipping. Like it or not, everything you rely on is tied into global commerce in some way. Even if nothing you directly interact with physically transits the Red Sea, the major delays created will affect the prices of the everyday item you pay for. Likewise, the rising interest and insurance rates caused by the fighting will impact the Reader in a very real way, as those industries have to spread out the damage.
The end result of actions like this, is universally bad for the capabilities of a nation’s military forces, overall, as it significantly hampers military initiative, in favor of rigid obedience to political dogma – translation: Scare your military enough, and they will be too busy avoiding being shot by your political officers to fight your actual enemies.
However, there are many forms of warfare, and Communist China has learned that throwing money at a problem can make that problem either go away, or at least not bother it…and undermining an enemy while doing so is icing on the cake.
The bottom line? The West is failing. It is failing partially from it’s own success, but mostly from too many decades of throwing pasta at walls to see what sticks. The desire for profit beyond the dreams of avarice has led to a simultaneous weakening of Western industry, and to “good enough” levels of technological and industrial capacity leaking out to nations and groups who hate the West.
In a word: they hate you. It’s not so much that they hate you, personally – but they hate the society you grew up in, and are more than happy – and capable – of burning the world to the ground to spite you.
As of this writing, there are two hundred and ninety-seven days to the 2024 election. One way or another, you need a plan for what happens when we get there.
Assuming, of course, that we get there.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
In the week before Christmas of 2023, there are several large-scale wars going on, with several more potential wars in the making: Russia-Ukraine; Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah; the ongoing offensive of pro-democracy rebels closing in on the fascist junta in Myanmar/Burma; the never-ending battles across the African Sahel region, and the potential Venezuelan invasion of Guyana.
But, lurking in the background is another potential conflict, one that may be impacting and aiding the neo-con agenda: Ethiopia vs. Eritrea.
Ethiopia is unique in history, as the only African state that was never colonized by any European power. Although conquered and occupied by Italy in the years immediately preceding World War 2, that occupation was short-lived, as the country was fully liberated from Italian rule by 1943.
A truly ancient state, Ethiopia maintained its status as an imperial monarchy until 1974, with the Communist revolution that placed a brutal Marxist-Leninist government in charge of the country. This government would, in turn, be deposed in another revolution in 1989, as part of the wave of Communist states around the world that collapsed as the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact imploded, leaving Communist “economies” to wither on the vine.
In the aftermath of the Derg’s collapse, Ethiopia was left unable to stop a popular referendum in one of its most critical provinces – Eritrea – that resulted in that state becoming independent in 1993. While this may seem like a random “factoid”, it is actually of enormous significance.
Eritrea – long part of Ethiopia – occupies the coast of the Red Sea, and as such, was Ethiopia’s only access to world commerce…and after a series of wars in the 1990’s and early-2000’s, Eritrea has effectively blocked Ethiopia from using its Red Sea ports. With a population of over one hundred and seven million, Ethiopia ranks 13th in the top fifteen nations in the world by population – and is the only one of those states that is completely landlocked.
This translates to Ethiopia being forced to pay exorbitant, even “extortionate”, fees to export its goods to market through its only access to the Red Sea, via the Port of Djibouti, which handles an estimated 95% of Ethiopia’s foreign commerce.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, takes this issue seriously…seriously enough, that he made statements on the 13th of October of 2023, that explicitly underlined Ethiopia’s ‘right to access’ to the Red Sea. Understandably, this rattled every other nation in the “Horn of Africa”, all of whom are vastly outnumbered in both population and military capacity by Ethiopia.
These remarks came less than two weeks after the Hamas terror attacks on Israel that commenced on October 7th. As a result, the wider world – obviously – paid little the comments little attention. But then, the Iran-backedHouthi rebels in Yemen chose to insert themselves into that conflict on the side of Hamas, on October 19th…clearly a coincidence, surely.
And then, on January 1st, Ahmed dropped another bombshell, announcing that Ethiopia had inked a deal with the breakaway Somali province of Somaliland to use their port of Berbera to access the Gulf of Aden – well outside the current shooting gallery – reputedly in exchange of recognition of the breakaway state. This has obviously infuriated Somalia, which has never relinquished its claim to the province, despite the region being de facto independent since 1991 and the region’s independence being ratified in a referendum in 2001.
Now, in the first week of 2024, the Houthi missile attacks and piracy have attracted the attention of major powers around the world, many of whom have joined “Operation Prosperity Guardian”, in an attempt to guarantee safe passage through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait…albeit too late for world shipping giant Maersk, who announced on January 5th that they were ordering all of their vessels not already in the Red Sea to divert around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, to avoid the fighting. While this, alone, will cause serious disruptions to global trade, many more cargo carrier lines are virtually certain to not take the risk and divert their vessels, for the same reason as Maersk. This could easily lead to a reprise of the shipping disruptions that happened at the height of the COVID pandemic.
As a result, there are increasingly serious calls within Washington circles to attack Iran directly, as they are the Houthi’s major source of money and weapons. This would be a Godsend to neo-con chickenhawks desperate to finally get the United States into their long-desired war with Iran…
…Which brings us back to Ethiopia’s moves on its future access to the Red Sea.
Ethiopia has three options: they can a) maintain the status quo, with limited access to world shipping solely through Djibouti’s port; b) conclude their deal to access breakaway Somaliland’s ports; or – c) invade at least part of Eritrea, to capture at least that nation’s port of Assab.
Obviously, the status quo is not working for Ethiopia; if it were, there would have been no need for the deal with Somaliland. Djibouti’s port is increasingly limited in capacity, and has little physical room to expand operations, which will soon severely stunt Ethiopia’s economic output…Conversely, the deal with Somaliland risks war with Somalia, as recognition of Somaliland’s independence would almost certainly gut Somalia’s hopes at stabilizing their nation, which was only reunified in 2012. Somalia would have to launch a military campaign to invade the territory to bring it to heel, presenting Ethiopia with the option of going to war with Somalia in support of a breakaway province, something Ethiopia would be loath to encourage, considering recent history.
As well, invading Eritrea to capture Assab carries significant risks on its own, because – all other things being equal in the absence of the current conflict in the Bab-el-Mandeb – Ethiopia could well face a UN-led coalition of military powers “riding to the rescue” of what has been described as the “North Korea of Africa”.
None of these seem like viable solutions, on their own…Unless the world is focused on a different series of conflicts that would combine to divert attention away from Ethiopia “readjusting” the local map, and allowing Addis Ababa to present the world with a fait accompli in the aftermath of the Houthi’s inevitable neutralization, as well as the likelihood of a massive US-Iran war…
…While the foregoing may sound like the implication of a dastardly plot on Ethiopia’s part, it is not…well, mostly “not.” But, the timeline of Ethiopia’s rhetoric regarding its right-to-access to the Red Sea is certainly suspicious, and indicates some level of foreknowledge of events beginning ion October of 2023, and having active plans and options ready to go.
There are plenty of players in this global chess tournament, and too many “leaders” in the West – and elsewhere – are arrogantly blind to the knives in the dark, thinking that “bit players” cannot harm them.
…Rather like Britain, France and the United States from the 1950’s to the 1980’s.
Word to the wise.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
The Islamic state of Iran has significantly escalated tensions in the Red Sea, by deployingthe warship Alborz to the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait a day after US Navy helicopters drove off Iranian-backed Houthi piratesof Yemen following their attempted seizure of the Singapore-registered container ship Maersk Hangzhou, sinking several Houthi boats and killing an estimated ten pirates, on December 30, according to CENTCOM.
The move by Iran raises the distinct possibility of hostile action between the Iranian vessel and the various, dozen-or-so warships of Operation Prosperity Guardian, assembled in late-December to counter repeated missile and boarding attacks on international shipping, claiming to be countering the Israeli response to the unprovoked attack on its civilians that began on October 7 by the Hamas terrorists operating in the Gaza Strip.
The Freedomist will continue to monitor the situation as it develops.
Updated at 5:50pm CST, with information and links to the attack on MV Chem Pluto.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
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