To All,
Good Thursday morning December 28.
To update some information for the service for tomorrow for Joe Zahalka. We will line up in Lane 3. His Grave site is sec 3 site 129.For future reference. I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow.
Regards,
Skip
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/
December 28
1905—The dry dock Dewey leaves Solomon's Island, MD, en route through the Suez Canal to the Philippines to serve as repair base. It is the longest towing job accomplished at the time, guided by the tug Potomac, a pair of colliers Brutus and Caesar, and the store ship Glacier, arriving at its destination nearly six months later, July 10, 1906.
1941—Rear Adm. Ben Moreell, chief of Bureau of Yards and Docks, requests construction battalions be recruited.
1944—USS Dace (SS 247) attacks a Japanese convoy off Cape Varella, French Indochina and sinks supply ship Nozaki and damages Chefoo Maru.
1982—USS New Jersey (BB 62), the first of four Iowa-class battleships, is recommissioned for the third time after her original 1943 commissioning.
1990—USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and USS America (CV 66) Carrier Battle Groups deploy from Norfolk, VA, for the Middle East to join Operation Desert Shield.
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This Day in World History: December 28
1688 William of Orange makes a triumphant march into London as James II flees.
1694 George I of England gets divorced.
1846 Iowa is admitted as the 29th State of the Union.
1872 A U.S. Army force defeats a group of Apache warriors at Salt River Canyon, Arizona Territory, with 57 Indians killed but only one soldier.
1904 Farmers in Georgia burn two million bales of cotton to prop up falling prices.
1920 The United States resumes the deportation of communists and suspected communists.
1927 U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg suggests a worldwide pact renouncing war.
1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt states, "The definite policy of the United States, from now on, is one opposed to armed intervention."
1936 Benito Mussolini sends planes to Spain to support Francisco Franco's forces.
1938 France orders the doubling of forces in Somaliland; two warships are sent.
1946 The French declare martial law in Vietnam as a full-scale war appears inevitable.
1948 Premier Nokrashy Pasha of Egypt is assassinated by a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood because of his failure to achieve victory in the war against Israel.
1951 The United States pays $120,000 to free four fliers convicted of espionage in Hungary.
1965 The United States bars oil sales to Rhodesia.
1968 Israel attacks an airport in Beirut, destroying 13 planes.
1971 The U.S. Justice Department sues Mississippi officials for ignoring the voting ballots of blacks in that state.
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OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT Thanks to the Bear
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Skip… For The List for Monday, 25 December 2023 through Sunday, 7 January 2024… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT I (1968-1972)… Weeks 7 & 8…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for December 1968…
Christmas Season 1968: historic events, painful losses and heroic sacrifice…
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft. ……Skip
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "Thursday 28 December
December 28: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=2678
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear's Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
Vietnam Air Losses
Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Servicemembers Killed in the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend last week and I forgot to forward. The site works, find anyone you knew in "search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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FROM: Joe C.
SUBJ: TENTH NIGHT OF OPERATION LINEBACKER II
SUBJ: 10th Night of OLB II
Sixty B-52s from U-Tapao supported by 99 tactical aircraft attacked the SAM sites around Hanoi while two waves hammered the Lang Dang railway yard on the northeast railway again. You will hear more about the effectiveness of B-52 accuracy and devastation in an after action report following the eleventh night, heh, heh.
Unfortunately, an RA-5C Vigilante was hit by an air-to-air missile from a MiG caught fire and crashed into the sea. The pilot was rescued but the NFO was killed.
No B-52s were lost and the crews reported that fewer SAMs were fired than on previous nights.
28 B-52s from Andersen AB were also sent to other targets to spread cheer in Southeast Asia on that same night.
One man from the RA-5C was KIA. A toast to Navy Lieutenant Michael Firestone Haifley. Hear, Hear!
Joe
P.S. Tomorrow will be the last of the LB II email series. My sources of information were Chris Hobson's "Vietnam Air Losses", The Eleven Days of Christmas, by Marshall Michel III and "Palace Cobra" by the late Ed Rasimus, RIP. All are highly recommended additions to any air warrior's library. Only don't lend them to anybody or you'll never see them again.
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THIS IS A GREAT REPEAT BUT MINE IS STILL ON BACK ORDER
One Hundred Million of these Remotes are on Back Order!
This is a great one cowboy could only find this one You can skip the add and don't worry about the language it is universal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_KdWFRRiI
Awesome video. Hilarious
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Thanks to Carl
'From the archives
Navy SEAL Team 6 founder Richard Marcinko dead at 81
(A REAL Rogue Warrior!! In one of his books, he called TAD "traveling around drunk"! It is actually Temporary Additional Duty. Interesting that McRaven was PC as a JO. My NSA boss enjoyed Marcinko's books too, and we often talked about how he used Operational Security in his ops. Very few leaders at the time were aware of OPSEC. I do not remember his side of the story about the defrauding charge, but I would bet that instead of using the slow procurement BS to obtain special hand grenades, he just did it on his own. Then the PC crowd wanted to set an example of his "culture of wrecklessness". Highly recommend his books! Again, a REAL warrior!!)
How SEAL Team 6 founder Richard Marcinko shaped America's modern-day special operations forces
Richard Marcinko, founding commander of the storied Navy SEAL Team 6, set the stage for special operations forces as we know them today.
BY MAX HAUPTMAN | PUBLISHED DEC 27, 2021 1:41 PM
Richard Marcinko, the rough and tumble first commander of the Navy's storied SEAL Team 6, passed away Saturday at his home in Virginia, the National Navy SEAL Museum announced on social media. He was 81 years old.
Already a highly decorated officer with more than a decade of service in the SEALs, in 1979 Marcinko was one of two Navy representatives on a Joint Chiefs of Staff task force assembled to help develop a rescue plan during the Iranian hostage crisis. The subsequent mission, Operation Eagle Claw, was disastrous, leaving 12 casualties and seven aircraft and helicopters destroyed or abandoned in Iran. It's aftermath, however, would see Marcinko at the forefront of an emerging mission for America's special operations personnel.
In 1980, Marcinko was selected by the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, to build a new SEAL unit dedicated to rapid response, hostage rescue, and counter-terrorism operations.
While special operations have grown immensely in the decades since, at the time it was an underutilized and undermanned aspect of the military.
The now iconic name – SEAL Team 6 – started as a bit of Cold War-era deception. At the time, there were only two active SEAL Teams. Marcinko designated his new unit "six," hoping that the Soviet Union and other nations would greatly overestimate the size of the Navy's special operations community.
Marcinko led the unit from 1980-1983, hand picking new members from across the Navy's existing SEAL Teams and Underwater Demolition Teams. As commander, Marcinko helped establish the aggressive, hard-charging culture of his new unit, and made little effort to conceal its maverick nature, openly flaunting rules and regulations. In his autobiography, "Rogue Warrior," Marcinko wrote of the importance of drinking together and often as a fixture in building Team 6's solidarity.
Marcinko's personality and the nature of the unit weren't for everyone. Adm. William McRaven, who would later go on to lead Special Operations Command and oversee SEAL Team 6 during its famous raid against Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was drummed out of the unit after disagreeing with Marcinko over what he perceived as a culture of recklessness.
Over the ensuing decades, SEAL Team 6, nowadays known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, would continue to live up to Marcinko's rogue reputation, taking on some of the nation's most dangerous and secretive missions. From Operation Anaconda, to the MV Maersk Alabama hijacking, to the aforementioned bin Laden raid, the unit's exploits have been recounted again and again, and made the focus of dozens of movies and books.
Marcinko retired from the Navy as a commander in 1989, going on to become a best-selling author and motivational speaker and military consultant. His 1992 autobiography "Rogue Warrior," as well as its subsequent sequel "Rogue Warrior: Green Team" sold millions of copies and are filled with countless exploits from a lifetime spent at the forefront of the special operations fight. Marcinko later used the Rogue Warrior brand for a series of eight bestselling novels, co-written with Jonathan Weisman, according to Marcinko's Amazon author profile.
Marcinko's career was also not without its troubles. In 1990, he was convicted of defrauding the government over acquisition prices for hand grenades and sentenced to 21 months in prison, eventually serving 15.
Marcinko was born on Nov. 21, 1940, in the small, eastern Pennsylvania town of Lansford. Enlisting in the Navy in 1958, he would rise through the ranks and eventually make his way to a SEAL team in 1966.
In 1967, Marcinko deployed to Vietnam with SEAL Team 2, participating in a raid at Ilo Ilo Island which the Navy described as one of its most successful operations in the Mekong Delta. During a second deployment, which came during the Tet Offensive in 1968, Marcinko led his SEAL platoon in house-to-house fighting, later rescuing several American nurses and schoolteachers trapped in a nearby hospital. Marcinko would go on to be awarded four Bronze Stars, a Silver Star and a Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry, according to the National Navy SEAL Museum.
On Sunday, Marcinko's son wrote on Twitter that, "his legacy will live forever. The man has died a true legend."
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
Egypt's Library of Alexandria, possibly built around the fourth century BCE, was reputed to hold the wealth of humankind's accumulated knowledge in the ancient world. That makes "Alexa" an inspired choice for the name of the voice-activated virtual assistant that debuted with the Amazon Echo smart speaker in 2014. Yet this was hardly the only name strongly considered by Alexa's developers — nor even the favored choice of the company founder who pushed to bring the project to life.
As told in Brad Stone's Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, the project's speech-science team had specific criteria for an appropriate "wake word," a vocal signal that would bring the virtual assistant to life. This word needed to have a distinct combination of phonemes — units of sound — and be at least three syllables, to diminish the likelihood of the program being accidentally triggered by everyday conversation. Bezos, the hands-on head honcho, offered several suggestions: "Finch," the title of Jeff VanderMeer's fantasy detective novel; "Friday," the helpful companion of Daniel DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe; and "Samantha," the enchantress played by Elizabeth Montgomery in the hit 1960s sitcom Bewitched. Bezos also came up with "Alexa," but seemed especially attached to "Amazon," reasoning that it could spark favorable feelings toward the company.
Despite the objections of his staff, Bezos clung to "Amazon" as a wake word until finally giving the go-ahead for the switch to "Alexa" a few weeks before the 2014 launch. As the company now proudly notes, the virtual assistant's name "was inspired by the Library of Alexandria and is reflective of Alexa's depth of knowledge." Yet certain Alexa-infused products offer the option of changing the wake word, reminiscent of that great learning center of antiquity, to one of a small list of replacements that still includes the choice of "Amazon."
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How a complex language helped the U.S. in WWII
During WWII, the U.S. coded messages in the Navajo language
Diné bizaad is an Indigenous language primarily used by the Navajo, or Diné, people of the American Southwest. Not only is the language complex, but it's traditionally passed down orally. During World War II, the United States military used this to its advantage by recruiting Navajo people fluent in both English and Diné bizaad, dubbed "code talkers," to transmit secret messages among Allied forces.
The U.S. military wasn't the first to use the tactic — members of Cherokee, Lakota, and other nations used their native tongues to evade German detection in World War I. The Marines, however, established the first formal training program for code talkers, and 29 Navajo completed the training in 1942. Recruits developed and memorized a two-part secret code inside a guarded room. The first part used 26 Diné bizaad words to stand in for letters of the English alphabet. The next part was more complex, and required making up hundreds of terms for English words that didn't have a direct translation — for example, "iron fish" for "submarine," and "humming bird" for "fighter plane."
Even after recruiting more trainees into the program, the Marines struggled to find enough soldiers fluent in both languages to scale the program. But where code talkers were deployed, they passed along information with incredible security and accuracy. The Navajo Marines provided a valuable and often dangerous service to the U.S. military and its allies, but ironically, many had attended government or church-run boarding schools where they were punished for speaking languages other than English. After the war, the code talkers and their service went completely unacknowledged for decades. Their mission stayed classified until 1968, in case the military wanted to use the code again. In 2001, the original 29 code talkers were finally awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and the rest were awarded the Congressional Silver Medal.
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Thanks to Felix ...
The next time you're on the highway and behind a semi take notice of the horizontal bar that is in the rear of the trailer. It's called "The Mansfield Bar''.
Here's why it has the strange and dubious name.
Jayne Mansfield (left), photoshopped in this picture beside her daughter Miriska Hargitay (the TV actress who plays the tough detective on Law and Order SVU), was arguably the most beautiful actress in Hollywood at the time of her untimely death in 1967 on a dark highway outside of New Orleans.
Mansfield, three other adults and her three-year-old daughter who was asleep on the rear seat were coming into the city from a promotional appearance she had earlier that day in Mississippi.
They encountered a mosquito fogging truck ahead emitting a thick white fog that obscured the highway and caused other traffic to slow. The driver of Mansfield's car swerved into another lane without slowing down where a slower moving semi was also masked by the fog.
With no time to slow down the '66 Buick Electra ran under the rear of the trailer, decapitating all four adults in the car. Jayne's daughter Miriska survived with nothing but a scar on her forehead which she carries to this day (makeup must cover it for the TV cameras).
Because of the popularity of Mansfield at the time, equal to, or greater than Marilyn Monroe, and the gruesome and horrific severity of the crash that made all the news for months. The ICC soon after mandated that all trailer manufacturers building semi trailers for operation in the U.S. would have a rear bumper to prevent similar deaths. The technical name is the Rear Underrun Protection System, but to this day it's called the "Mansfield Bar '' in the trucking industry and her namesake bar has undoubtedly saved many lives since.
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Thanks to Barrell I am one of this group and remember everything on this list….skip
This special group was born between 1930 & 1947 = 16 years.
In 2022, the age range is between 75 & 92!
Are you, or do you know, someone "still here?"
Interesting Facts For You:
You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.
You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war that rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.
You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans.
You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available
You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the "milk box" on the porch. The Good Humor ice cream truck coming through the neighborhood.
You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.
You saw the 'boys' home from the war, build their little houses that they were so happy with.
You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you "imagined" what you heard on the radio and you read library books.
With no TV until the 1950s, you spent your childhood "playing outside" There was no Little League. Many kids walked to school.
There was no city playground for kids. You organized neighborhood baseball and football games on vacant lots. You rode your bike everywhere.
The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.
On Saturday mornings and afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.
Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).
Computers were called calculators; they were hand-cranked.
Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
'INTERNET' and 'GOOGLE' were words that did not exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening. Kids read comic books.
The Government gave returning Veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.
Loans fanned a housing boom.
Pent-up demand, coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility
The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.
Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
You weren't neglected, but you weren't today's all-consuming family focus.
They were glad you played by yourselves until the street lights came on.
They were busy discovering the postwar world.
You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future although the depression poverty was deeply remembered.
Polio was still a crippler.
You came of age in the '50s and '60s.
You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.
The second world war was over and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.
Only your generation can remember both a time of great war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.
You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better...
You are "The Last Ones."
More than 99 % of you are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times!"
Amen! It's great being part of the 1% ….Special Group!
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This Day in U S Military History December 28
1835 – Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army. On December 23, 1835 two companies of US troops, totaling 110 men, left Fort Brooke under the command of Maj. Francis L. Dade. Seminoles shadowed the marching soldiers for five days. On December 28 the Seminoles ambushed the soldiers, and killed all but three of the command, which became known as the Dade Massacre. Only three white men survived; Edwin De Courcey, was hunted down and killed by a Seminole the next day. The two survivors, Ransome Clarke and Joseph Sprague, returned to Fort Brooke. Only Clarke, who died of his wounds a few years later, left any account of the battle from the Army's perspective. Joseph Sprague was unharmed and lived quite a while longer, but was not able to give an account of the battle as he had sought immediate refuge in a nearby pond. The Seminoles lost just three men, with five wounded. On the same day as the Dade Massacre, Osceola and his followers shot and killed Wiley Thompson and six others outside of Fort King.
1867 – U.S. claims Midway Island, first territory annexed outside Continental limits. The atoll was sighted on July 5, 1859, by Captain N.C. Middlebrooks, though he was most commonly known as Captain Brooks, of the sealing ship Gambia. The islands were named the "Middlebrook Islands" or the "Brook Islands". Brooks claimed Midway for the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which authorized Americans to occupy uninhabited islands temporarily to obtain guano. On August 28, 1867, Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna formally took possession of the atoll for the United States; the name changed to "Midway" some time after this. The atoll became the first Pacific island annexed by the U.S. government, as the Unincorporated Territory of Midway Island, and administered by the United States Navy. Midway is the only island in the entire Hawaiian archipelago that was not later part of the State of Hawaii.
1941 – Chief of Bureau of Yards and Docks requests that construction battalions be recruited. The need for a militarized Naval Construction Force to build advance bases in the war zone was self-evident. Therefore, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell determined to activate, organize, and man Navy construction units. On 28 December 1941, he requested specific authority to carry out this decision, and on 5 January 1942, he gained authority from the Bureau of Navigation to recruit men from the construction trades for assignment to a Naval Construction Regiment composed of three Naval Construction Battalions. This is the actual beginning of the renowned Seabees, who obtained their designation from the initial letters of Construction Battalion. Admiral Moreell personally furnished them with their official motto: Construimus, Batuimus — "We Build, We Fight."
1972 – After 11 days of round-the-clock bombing (with the exception of a 36-hour break for Christmas), North Vietnamese officials agree to return to the peace negotiations in Paris. The Linebacker II bombing was initiated on December 18 by President Richard Nixon when the North Vietnamese, who walked out of the peace negotiations in Paris, refused his ultimatum to return to the talks. During the course of the bombing, 700 B-52 sorties and more than 1,000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped an estimated 20,000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between Hanoi and Haiphong. During the ensuing battle, the North Vietnamese launched their entire stock of more than 1,200 surface-to-air missiles against the U.S. planes. Fifteen B-52s and 11 other U.S. aircraft were lost, along with 93 flyers downed, killed, missing or captured. Hanoi claimed heavy damage and destruction of densely populated civilian areas in Hanoi, Haiphong, and their suburbs. The bombing resulted in the deaths of 1,318 in Hanoi. While some news reporters alleged that the U.S. was guilty of "carpet bombing" the area (deliberately targeting civilian areas with intensive bombing to "carpet" a city with bombs), the bombing was intended to focus on specific military targets. The Linebacker II bombing was effective in bringing the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. When they returned to Paris, the peace talks moved along quickly. On January 23, 1973, the United States, North Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed a cease-fire agreement that took effect five days later.
2004 – Insurgents launched multiple attacks on Iraqi police across the dangerous Sunni Triangle, killing at least 33 police officers and national guardsmen. 12 of the policemen near Tikrit had their throats slit.
2004 – Insurgents lured police to a house in west Baghdad with an anonymous tip about a rebel hideout, then set off explosives, killing at least 29 people and wounding 18.
2014 – The United States and NATO formally ended their war in Afghanistan with a ceremony at their military headquarters in Kabul as the insurgency they fought for 13 years remains as ferocious and deadly as at any time since the 2001 invasion that unseated the Taliban regime following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
None this Day but here is one that is memorable
Thanks to George
Foley interview URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp1Q-2hGO_A&list=PLykQsswYygf_301ysGp7miirFcLC14IIT&index=10&t=164s
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for December 28, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
28 December
1942: Capt Robert O. D. Sullivan, first aviator to fly 100 times across the Atlantic Ocean, completed his 100th trip by flying from New York to Portugal. He made his first flight on 28-29 January 1938 from New York to Marseilles, France. (24)
1943: VIII Bomber Command formed a "Radio Countermeasure Unit," with 24 specially-equipped heavy bombers to support bombing missions. (4)
1952: KOREAN WAR. An SA-16 crew of the 3d Air Rescue Squadron picked up a downed pilot in the Yellow Sea north of Cho-do. He was in the water less than three minutes. (28)
1957: Capt James E. Bowman (U. S. Army) set a 30,335-foot world altitude record for helicopters in a Cessna YH41 Seneca at Wichita. (24)
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Thanks to Brett
2023: A Geopolitical Review
Rodger Baker
Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at Stratfor
Dec 27, 2023
As 2024 approaches, we look back at the previous year and consider the top five events as measured by geopolitical impact.
(YAHYA HASSOUNA/AFP via Getty Images)
As geopolitical analysts, our primary task is to look to the future. But with the turning of the year, it is also instructive to take stock of the previous year and consider what events had the largest geopolitical impact. Some things are obvious: The Oct.7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli response in Gaza, for example. Others seem significant at the time, but are more marker than inflection point, such as the hullabaloo surrounding a certain Chinese balloon over the United States that saw one of the year's most mismatched dogfights as an F-22 took on the unarmed dirigible.
Several trends also emerged in 2023 that won't make our top five list this year, but that were still certainly significant, such as the erosion of support for ESG-driven investment strategies (especially in the United States and the United Kingdom) or the calming of Latin America's "pink tide" (as exemplified by the election of a libertarian president in Argentina). And there were numerous runners-up. These included the seizure by Azerbaijan of Nagorno-Karabakh, highlighting Russia's continued decline in the Caucasus. They also included the Shan militia entry into the Myanmar civil war, raising concerns of the Balkanization of Myanmar and drawing Chinese political intervention. And they included the Venezuelan referendum on Essequibo, the expansion of the BRICS bloc and the Wagner Group's failed drive on Moscow.
In narrowing the list for this year, we looked at the scope and scale of the actual or potential future impact, preferencing events and issues that had broader reach and lasting implications. Our shortlist includes emerging technologies, economic challenges and, not unexpectedly, conflict.
5. The EU Reaches a Compromise on AI Restrictions (Dec. 8)
Only a few weeks past the first anniversary in November of the release of ChatGPT, the European Union compromised Dec. 8 on a new Artificial Intelligence Act that seeks to erect controls on the rapid expansion and adoption of AI tools worldwide, motivated by the growing use (and misuse) of generative AI. ChatGPT and its various spinoffs and competing systems have shaken up education, raised new fears of AI challenges to white-collar jobs, and facilitated a new wave of mis- and dis-information around the globe. Generative AI tools make spoofing imagery and video much easier for anyone, including nefarious actors, intensifying trends toward selective disbelief in information flows and potentially exacerbating widening political and ideological rifts in many democratic nations while strengthening the hand of information control in more autocratic areas. Governments have responded by scrambling for advantage in the development and deployment of AI tools and to establish regulations to control, or at least manage, their use. The European Union AI Act will likely be approved in 2024 and enter effect in 2025. The act may constrain AI development in the Continental bloc due to its stringent reporting and transparency requirements, and the compromises that led to the act highlight divergent views inside the European Union on the balance between innovation, economic opportunities, information security and personal rights in a microcosm of global differences on the issue.
4. The Netherlands and Japan Join U.S. Semiconductor Restrictions on China (Jan. 27)
At a meeting in Washington in late January, Japan and the Netherlands agreed to impose export controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, moving into alignment with U.S. restrictions in place since October 2022. In June, the Netherlands announced its new restrictions, followed by Japan in July. Washington has identified technology as a key component of its competition with China, highlighting both the economic and military significance of advanced microchips. Overall, Washington gained more traction this year with its European and Asian partners on restricting semiconductor trade with China, limiting Beijing's access to more advanced chips and strengthening concerns regarding the growing division of global technology development. In response, Chinese firms sought alternative paths to manufacture chips (like SMIC's 7 nm chips rolled out in a Huawei phone), and Beijing engaged in countermoves against U.S. companies such as Micron. China also enacted restrictions on gallium and germanium exports, as well as graphite, key minerals for semiconductor and electric vehicle battery industries, exploiting China's critical role in mineral supply chains and keeping alive fears of the impact of decoupling or even derisking efforts in U.S.-China trade. Adding Japan and the Netherlands — the two most important countries outside the U.S. producing equipment for semiconductor manufacturing — makes U.S. export controls on China more effective, closing some of their loopholes. It also gave China an incentive to begin striking back against the United States and others with retaliatory moves given it now faces a growing global, not just U.S., front against its tech sector.
3. China Reports Youth Unemployment at 21.3 % (July 17), Qin Gang Replaced as Foreign Minister (July 25)
China's report for youth unemployment figures in June emerged July 15, showing the figure had reached 21.3% for the month, a number expected to climb again in July. But when August rolled around, however, Beijing was no longer publishing youth unemployment figures, citing statistical adjustments. The cessation of data only emphasized China's challenges with rising youth unemployment and its disappointing post-COVID economic recovery. China's real estate market continues to be both a focus of reform and a drag on economic recovery, with more than 40% of China's major developers having defaulted since 2021, according to figures from October 2023. While China's overall 2023 economic growth rate will clock in at around 5%, it comes from a low base rate, and is much less robust than many initially anticipated from a post-COVID rebound. A slower than expected Chinese economy has significant implications well beyond China, as the country is the key trading partner with much of the world and a major source of investment, particularly in infrastructure, for many developing nations. At the same time Beijing struggled with economic confidence, it also saw a series of disappearances and removals of key figures, including Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Defense Minister Li Shangfu (both apparently hand-picked by Xi Jinping), as well as several members of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, which oversees much of China's nuclear weapons. Beijing has provided little information about the political changes, and speculation regarding reports of leaked secrets and internal corruption abound. Chinese leaders had expected to come out of the COVID era in a strong international position, but instead have found their economic efforts lagging, their political house in disarray, and their international space constrained by stronger U.S.-European economic and technology cooperation and strengthening U.S.-Asia security ties.
2. Finland Joins NATO (April 4)
Finland officially joined NATO in 2023, while Sweden's membership remains held up by Turkish politics. The NATO expansion is a direct response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and has seen the strengthening of defensive positions along the northern NATO frontier, from the Arctic through the Nordic countries down through the Baltics. Although there was already cooperation between Finland and Sweden and NATO countries, Finland's membership (and Sweden's impending membership) removes any potential ambiguity and expands the contact zone between NATO and Russia. The Russia-Finland border is around 830 miles long (or 1,340 kilometers) making it the longest land border between Russia and a NATO country. Moscow has announced plans for an expanded force presence along the Finnish frontier, and triggered a brief migrant crisis that prompted Finland to close its border with Russia. In October, the potential risks to the Baltic Sea, now fully encircled by NATO up to the narrow Russian coastline, was once again highlighted when an undersea pipeline and telecommunication cable were both damaged, allegedly by a Chinese cargo ship dragging its anchor along the seafloor. Coming just more than a year after the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic, the incident has reinvigorated European and NATO attention to subsea infrastructure and the importance of security in the Baltic Sea. While NATO expansion remains limited to the northern frontier for the moment, the European Union agreed to open membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova (despite, or perhaps because of, Ukraine's failed summer offensive and the stagnation of the fighting front), and to grant candidate status to Georgia, showcasing the political dynamics that will likely shape any future end to the Ukraine conflict and a post-conflict settlement.
1. Hamas Attacks Israel (October 7)
On Oct. 7, Hamas militants attacked from Gaza into Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 200 civilians. The attack shocked Israel, exposed a major intelligence failure, and led to a major counteroffensive by Israeli forces that has drawn growing international condemnation. Beyond the humanitarian tragedy on both sides, the conflict has suspended the Saudi-Israeli normalization process, which was reshaping intraregional security dynamics, and raised the specter of an expanding regional conflict. Iranian-linked militia in Iraq and Syria carried out additional localized attacks on U.S. forces and interests in Iraq and Syria, and Hezbollah has increased cross-border shelling from Lebanon and expanded its forward-force presence. Houthi forces in Yemen have meanwhile taken a more aggressive approach, attacking shipping in the Red Sea, triggering several major shipping companies to reroute around Africa and leading to a new U.S.-led multilateral maritime operation to protect ships. Outside the region, the conflict has inflamed social divisions between support for Israel and support for the Palestinians, leading to protests, clashes, localized violence and political posturing. Israel's decision to blockade Gaza, and to attack hospitals as part of its counteroffensive, has led to a steady erosion of political support, and is challenging U.S. and European government responses. The U.S. administration is trying to walk a balance between supporting Israel's intent to eliminate Hamas' capabilities and growing condemnation of Israeli actions from within the Democratic Party base and from the international community. Even as Israel advances in Gaza, the unresolved question remains of what form of security and governance for the territory will be acceptable to all parties after the initial conflict winds down, straining internal Israeli government stability and the evolution of U.S. support for Israel.
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