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Asia Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Asia Times
Ukraine shows it knows wars are never won in the past
The iconoclastic American general Douglas MacArthur once said that 'wars are never won in the past.' That sentiment certainly seemed to ring true following Ukraine's recent audacious attack on Russia's strategic bomber fleet, using small, cheap drones housed in wooden pods and transported near Russian airfields in trucks. The synchronized operation targeted Russian Air Force planes as far away as Irkutsk – more than 5,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Early reports suggest around a third of Russia's long-range bombers were either destroyed or badly damaged. Russian military bloggers have put the estimated losses lower, but agree the attack was catastrophic for the Russian Air Force, which has struggled to adapt to Ukrainian tactics. This particular attack was reportedly 18 months in the making. To keep it secret was an extraordinary feat. Notably, Kyiv reportedly did not inform the United States that the attack was in the offing. The Ukrainians judged – perhaps understandably – that sharing intelligence on their plans could have alerted the Kremlin in relatively short order. Ukraine's success once again demonstrates that its armed forces and intelligence services are the modern masters of battlefield innovation and operational security. Western military planners have been carefully studying Ukraine's successes ever since its forces managed to blunt Russia's initial onslaught deep into its territory in early 2022, and then launched a stunning counteroffensive that drove the Russian invaders back towards their original starting positions. There have been other lessons, too, about how the apparently weak can stand up to the strong. These include: attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin's vanity project, the Kerch Bridge, linking the Russian mainland to occupied Crimea (the last assault occurred just days ago) the relentless targeting of Russia's oil and gas infrastructure with drones attacks against targets in Moscow to remind the Russian populace about the war, and its incursion into the Kursk region, which saw Ukrainian forces capture around 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. On each occasion, Western defense analysts have questioned the wisdom of Kyiv's moves. Why invade Russia using your best troops when Moscow's forces continue laying waste to cities in Ukraine? Why hit Russia's energy infrastructure if it doesn't markedly impede the battlefield mobility of Russian forces? And why attack symbolic targets like bridges when it could provoke Putin into dangerous 'escalation'? The answer to this is the key to effective innovation during wartime. Ukraine's defense and security planners have interpreted their missions – and their best possible outcomes – far more accurately than conventional wisdom would have thought. Above all, they have focused on winning the war they are in, rather than those of the past. This means: using technological advancements to force the Russians to change their tactics shaping the information environment to promote their narratives and keep vital Western aid flowing, and deploying surprise attacks not just as ways to boost public morale, but also to impose disproportionate costs on the Russian state. In doing so, Ukraine has had an eye for strategic effects. As the smaller nation reliant on international support, this has been the only logical choice. Putin has been prepared to commit a virtually inexhaustible supply of expendable cannon fodder to continue his country's war ad infinitum. Russia has typically won its wars this way – by attrition – albeit at a tremendous human and material cost. That said, Ukraine's most recent surprise attack does not change the overall contours of the war. The only person with the ability to end it is Putin himself. That's why Ukraine is putting as much pressure as possible on his regime, as well as domestic and international perceptions of it. It is key to Ukraine's theory of victory. This is also why the latest drone attack is so significant. Russia needs its long-range bomber fleet, not just to fire conventional cruise missiles at Ukrainian civilian and infrastructure targets, but as aerial delivery systems for its strategic nuclear arsenal. The destruction of even a small portion of Russia's deterrence capability has the potential to affect its nuclear strategy. It has increasingly relied on this strategy to threaten the West. A second impact of the attack is psychological. The drone attacks are more likely to enrage Putin than bring him to the bargaining table. However, they reinforce to the Russian military that there are few places – even on its own soil – that its air force can act with operational impunity. The surprise attacks also provide a shot in the arm domestically, reminding Ukrainians they remain very much in the fight. Finally, the drone attacks send a signal to Western leaders. US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, for instance, have gone to great lengths to tell the world that Ukraine is weak and has 'no cards'. This action shows Kyiv does indeed have some powerful cards to play. That may, of course, backfire: after all, Trump is acutely sensitive to being made to look a fool. He may look unkindly at resuming military aid to Ukraine after being shown up for saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to capitulate without US support. But Trump's own hubris has already done that for him. His regular claims that a peace deal is just weeks away have gone beyond wishful thinking and are now monotonous. Unsurprisingly, Trump's reluctance to put anything approaching serious pressure on Putin has merely incentivised the Russian leader to string the process along. Indeed, Putin's insistence on a maximalist victory, requiring Ukrainian demobilisation and disarmament without any security guarantees for Kyiv, is not diplomacy at all. It is merely the reiteration of the same unworkable demands he has made since even before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. However, Ukraine's ability to smuggle drones undetected onto an opponent's territory, and then unleash them all together, will pose headaches for Ukraine's friends, as well as its enemies. That's because it makes domestic intelligence and policing part of any effective defence posture. It is a contingency that democracies will have to plan for, just as much as authoritarian regimes, who are also learning from Ukraine's lessons. In other words, while the attack has shown up Russia's domestic security services for failing to uncover the plan, Western security elites, as well as authoritarian ones, will now be wondering whether their own security apparatuses would be up to the job. The drone strikes will also likely lead to questions about how useful it is to invest in high-end and extraordinarily expensive weapons systems when they can be vulnerable. The Security Service of Ukraine estimates the damage cost Russia US$7 billion. Ukraine's drones, by comparison, cost a couple of thousand dollars each. At the very least, coming up with a suitable response to those challenges will require significant thought and effort. But as Ukraine has repeatedly shown us, you can't win wars in the past. Matthew Sussex is associate professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Restoration to MacArthur Memorial's 175-year-old dome making headway
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The Mermaid City is known for its historic landmarks and structures, but it takes continued preservation efforts to keep them standing tall, and now, there's a focus on the MacArthur Memorial, with special attention to its beloved cupola, currently under construction. MacArthur Memorial artifact a finalist for conservation prize The memorial itself was constructed between 1847 and 1850, serving as Norfolk's very first City Hall and Courthouse. And 1964 was the year it officially transitioned to become the MacArthur Memorial by the city of Norfolk. But atop the site is its most prominent fixture — its 175-year-old dome. 'The interior of the space right beneath the dome is now the final resting place of general of the Army Douglas MacArthur and his wife, Jean MacArthur,' said MacArthur Memorial director Amanda Williams. Restoration to the dome began last November and is financially backed by the city of Norfolk. It was designed by Thomas U. Walter, a notable American architect of the 19th-century, and also, the brains behind constructing the dome of the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. 'The dome is one of the great historic structures in Norfolk, and the work is basically to conserve that 175-year-old structure and make sure that we can maintain it in its glory for another 50, 100 years,' she said. 'And so, it's basically just repairing wood that's rotted, painting, and just again, making sure that we preserve it in the way that it was constructed.' The curved structure is 50 feet high and houses what's called General MacArthur's resumé . The dome plays a monumental part in what attracts more than 130,000 visitors a year, especially on holidays like Memorial Day. 'It's a list of some of the major accomplishments and jobs that he held throughout his 52-year Army career. And it's a very, very impressive list,' Williams said. 'General MacArthur's career took him all over the world, and there are a lot of people that come to Norfolk, really to see this museum and to kind of pay their respects to the general and his legacy.' The dome restoration project is expected to be completed in the fall of this year. The MacArthur Memorial at 198 Bank St. in Norfolk is free and open to the public year-round from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. For information on the site's Memorial Day holiday events, click . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Metro
05-05-2025
- General
- Metro
How did World War II end – and why do Europe and the US mark different dates?
This week marks 80 years since Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, bringing the Second World War to an end in Europe. The war killed an estimated 75 million people, including troops and innocent civilians, across 30 different nations. And while populations in Europe were able to welcome the end of the fighting in May with joy and relief, it continued for several more months in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. So how did the war come to an end, and why does the US mark a different date to Europe? Here is all you need to know. World War II ended in 1945 after six years of fighting – but the exact date varies depending on what country you are from. Unlike World War I, which is generally agreed to have ended with the armistice signed on November 11 1918, different 'theatres' of conflict came to an end at different times. In Europe, the war concluded on May 8, which is annually celebrated as Victory in Europe Day (or VE Day). That was the date when the German Instrument of Surrender was signed in Berlin by representatives of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the US, the UK and France. In Russia, the end of the war is celebrated on May 9, as time zones meant the document was actually signed the following day local time. Other parts of the world, including the US, place a greater weight on September 2 when the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on board USS Missouri. Since this brought an end to the final theatre, Victory over Japan Day (or VJ Day) marks the official conclusion of World War II. In Europe, the war ended following the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops, Adolf Hitler's suicide, and Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8. The Nazis were defeated around a year after the UK, France, the US, Canada, and other allies launched the largest seaborne invasion in history in Normandy, France – known as D-Day. Over the following 11 months, two enormous military forces approaching from the east and the west eventually wore the Axis powers down. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In the rest of the world, World War II ended when U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan's formal surrender aboard the US battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. More Trending The war between the US and Japan had started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The Japanese surrender in 1945 occurred after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, respectively. It remains the only two times such weapons have been used in an armed conflict: more than 150,000 people were killed, with countless more suffering the effects for years afterwards. However, the idea of surrender was still fiercely debated by the Japanese government and military top brass, with the decision only being made by Emperor Hirohito on August 15. Follow Metro across our social channels, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Share your views in the comments below MORE: Queen tells veteran how her 'lucky' dad survived being shot in face during war MORE: I ate like a WWII Land Girl for a week to see if it helped me muster the Blitz spirit MORE: Is VE Day 2025 a bank holiday in the UK?
Time Magazine
29-04-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
Chinese Australians, Previously Scorned, Are Now Courted as Nation Nears Tight Election
It was deep into World War II when Mark Wang's father, who worked for China's military intelligence, left Shanghai to meet with U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in Melbourne, Australia. Since China had no functioning consulate in the city, they chose to talk in the home of a prominent local businessman, whose family had first emigrated from China in the mid-1830s. In between discussions on how best to expel the Axis Powers from China, the pretty daughter of his host caught the older Wang's eye. 'It was love at first sight,' says Mark Wang, the CEO of the Museum of Chinese Australian History in Melbourne, of his parents' first meeting. 'And that's why I'm here!' It's a sweet anecdote that also illustrates how the fates of Australia, China, and indeed the U.S. have long been intertwined. While Australia has been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples for at least 65,000 years, the first European settlers arrived in 1788, with the first Chinese following just 30 years later. It was not always a harmonious melding with periodic race riots culminating in the 1901 White Australia Policy, which effectively halted legal migration from Asia to the self-styled 'Lucky Country.' After that policy was repealed in 1975, Chinese immigration ebbed and flowed corresponding to the various crises that blighted the continent, from the Vietnam War, Tiananmen Square massacre, and recent crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong. Today, persons of Chinese heritage comprise some 5.5% of Australia's 26 million people. 'The Chinese-Australian community are major contributors to our cultural life, economy, business, to every aspect,' Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told TIME in a February interview. 'Chinese Australians have been a large part of our multicultural community for 200 years.' And they may prove pivotal to Australia's future as federal elections approach on Saturday. Polls have Albanese's center-left Labor Party neck-and-neck with the opposition right-leaning Liberal-National Coalition, with observers believing a hung parliament—whereby no party reaches the 76 seats required to form government—remains a likely outcome. The tight race has led to a surge in political advertising and campaigning on popular prominently Chinese-language apps such as WeChat and Red Note targeting marginal, multicultural constituencies in recent weeks. Since January, the RECapture Project has found more than 220 authorized Liberal ads on WeChat and about 35 for Labor. Even non-ethnic Chinese candidates have embraced the platforms, sharing videos of themselves eating Sichuan hotpot and drinking bubble tea. Fan Yang, a University of Melbourne research fellow who leads RECapture, says that campaign posts are often sophisticated and appear tailored with the help of outside agencies. 'Red Note is known for lifestyle and e-commerce, which means political content is less prioritized by the platform algorithm,' she says. 'One way that politicians navigate the algorithm is to approach third party influencers to increase their online visibility.' The fact that some neighborhoods with the highest proportion of ethnically Chinese voters are also the closest fought is galvanizing this strategy. The Labor-held ultra-marginal Sydney seat of Bennelong has around 30% residents of Chinese heritage and is now notionally Liberal due to a redrawn boundary. According to RECapture, Liberal candidate Scott Yung has appeared in more than 100 authorized ads since January. Meanwhile, Sydney's Bradfield constituency has the fifth largest population of ethnically Chinese voters nationwide and has been inundated with WeChat ads for both main parties' candidates as well as independents. Attack ads targeting both party leaders have also proliferated as the election draws near. Still, the brazen courting of Chinese Australians—both Albanese and Coalition leader Peter Dutton have been recently filmed enjoying Chinese meals on the campaign trail—is a welcome departure from Australia's last federal election in 2022, when anti-Chinese sentiment had reached an unfortunate peak amid a severe chill in Sino-Australian relations as well as COVID-related racism. According to a 2021 report by the Lowy Institute, almost one in five Chinese Australians reported being physically threatened or attacked in the previous year. The pandemic marked a crescendo, but anti-Chinese bigotry had been building since around 2016, when then Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull ordered an investigation into alleged Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference, leading to an Espionage and Foreign Interference Bill the following year. A slew of high-ranking local and national politicians were subsequently accused of being in the pay of the Chinese government. The election of U.S. President Donald Trump on a Sinophobic ticket and his subsequent railings against the 'China virus' and 'kung flu' also helped normalize anti-Asian sentiment, say local community members. In October 2020, Liberal senator Eric Abetz sparked outrage when he asked three Chinese Australians called before the chamber to discuss non-White parliamentary under-representation 'whether they are willing to unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship' in what one of the participants subsequently denounced as a 'McCarthyist' loyalty test. Of course, anti-Chinese sentiment goes back to Australia's Gold Rush period. In 1855, the state of Victoria imposed a £10 levy on every Chinese immigrant arriving in the colony. To circumvent this 'poll tax,' many Chinese immigrants landed in South Australia and then walked the over 350 miles to Melbourne, which on the back of the mining boom was soon to become the richest city in the world. In 2017, Jimmy Li, president of the Chinese Community Council of Australia Victoria Chapter (CCCAV), helped organize a walk to retrace this epic journey to raise awareness of the historical injustice. 'One of the proudest aspects of Australia is our multiculturalism,' he says. 'People live peacefully together, maintain their cultures, but also we connect, interact, and work together.' It's a view that has broad public support, with a 2023 survey finding that nearly 90% of respondents believed that 'multiculturalism has been good for Australia.' Indeed, an internal review by the Liberal Party following their 2022 election defeat found that many Chinese Australians—which had traditionally backed the party—had shifted their support due to geopolitical tensions and the COVID backlash. Under the Albanese government, bilateral relations have warmed significantly, and Dutton has also toned down his hawkish rhetoric, saying last year that he was 'pro-China and the relationship we have with them.' Still, the pall of Chinese interference continues to dog this election. In recent weeks, both Yung, the Liberal Bennelong candidate, and independent lawmaker Monique Ryan have had to fend off allegations of CCP backing. The question remains how to get more Chinese Australians actually into political life rather than simply being courted by the nation's establishment. While Chinese Australians are active in philanthropy and local politics, the cohort remains underrepresented at the federal level. 'It's a work in progress,' says Yan Ma, a CCCAV committee member. 'Politicians from every part of every spectrum who care about multicultural communities are actively recruiting Chinese speaking or Chinese background staff members. So that's a good sign.'
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The accidental Word War II victory of a little PT boat that could
The motor torpedo boat (MTB), also known as the patrol torpedo (PT) boat, has acquired its own special swashbuckling aura since the American Civil War, when a Union boat armed with spar torpedoes sank the Confederate ironclad Albemarle. Such exploits made for thrilling literary, film and television fodder, but the public image of the PT boat speeding along, dodging enemy shellfire to sink an enemy warship several times its size, was, in fact, the exception to the rule. More often, the boats lay in ambush in coastal waters, scouting enemy forces or engaged in rescue operations. Two U.S. Navy PT boat captains awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II were both cases in point: Lt. Cmdr. John Bulkeley received his for evacuating Gen. Douglas MacArthur from the Philippines in March 1942, while Lt. Arthur Preston, spending three hours in Japanese-held waters off Halmahera, rescued a downed aircraft carrier pilot on Sept. 16, 1944. In contrast to those exploits, little is known about Lt. Isadore Michael Kovar, save for a rare action in which, virtually by chance, he and his crew scored the most significant hit by an American PT boat on a Japanese warship. Kovar's moment came on the night of Oct. 24, 1944, when two separated Japanese battle groups were making their way toward the American beachhead on Leyte via the Surigao Strait. The U.S. 7th Fleet's support force was aware of the oncoming enemy and assembled on the northern tip of the strait to engage them. Awaiting the Japanese first, however, were 39 PTs under Cmdr. Selman Bowling, taking up stations in 13-boat sections along the strait. The PT boat crews welcomed the prospect of action, but their primary task was to lay low and report whatever they saw coming. As night fell, they, rather than aircraft, served as the eyes of the 7th Fleet. On Oct. 24, a PT section lying off Bohol Island got radar contact. Instead of immediately reporting their discovery, however, the PTs advanced to attack. At three miles from their intended targets, they came under gunfire from the destroyer Shigure. The Battle of Surigao Strait was on. As the PTs zigzagged toward the Japanese, Shigure's searchlight fell on PT-152. One of its shells set the craft afire and killed a gunner. Another shell demolished PT-130′s radio, but it relayed its contact report to PT-127, which radioed it to the PT-boat tender Wachapreague. The information reached Rear Adm. Jesse Oldendorf aboard the cruiser Louisville. Meanwhile, PT-151, PT-146 and PT-190 fought the Japanese with their cannons and torpedoes until driven off. The commander of the lead Japanese battle fleet, Vice Adm. Shoji Nishimura, reported to the leader of the force coming up behind him, Vice Adm. Kiyohide Shima, and to the commander of the lead battle fleet, Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita, that he expected to enter Leyte Gulf at about 01:30 in the morning. 'Several torpedo boats sighted,' Nishimura noted, 'but enemy situation otherwise unknown.' Shortly after 2 a.m., PT-134 tried to attack but was driven off by gunfire while PT-490 tried to attack a destroyer but was hit. PT-493 ran onto the rocks off Panaon Island, where its men were rescued the next morning. The last PT boat attack ended at 2:13 a.m. For the loss of three men dead and 20 wounded, the boats had scored no hits, but they accomplished their primary mission — pinpointing and reporting the Japanese movements. Aided by that intelligence, Oldendorf made final deployments of his destroyers, cruisers and his battleships: Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Maryland and West Virginia. In the slaughter that followed, Oldendorf's ships sank the battleships Fuso and Yamashiro, along with destroyers Yamagumo, Michishio and Asagumo. The heavily damaged heavy cruiser Mogami and destroyer Shigure fled southward. As Shima's force emerged from a rain squall, it was ambushed by PT-134, but the latter's torpedoes missed. A few minutes later, Shima ordered a right turn so that one of his destroyers could stay clear of Panaon Island. As he did so, however, the destroyer was spotted by Lt. Kovar and the crew of PT-137. The PT boat loosed a single torpedo, then took evasive action under a barrage of star shell. Kovar's 'fish' ran deep, traveling right under its intended target but, as luck would have it, ran on, right into the light cruiser Abukuma instead. Struck in the boiler room with 37 crewmen dead and its speed reduced to 10 knots, the sorely battered Abukuma had to drop out of formation. Shima was still proceeding north with his two heavy cruisers, Nachi and Ashigara, when the cruiser Mogami emerged from the fog. Nachi's captain frantically ordered a change in course to 110 degrees, but he had underestimated Mogami's speed (he thought it was virtually dead in the water) and the two cruisers collided. With his flagship's stern damaged and his speed reduced to 18 knots, Shima ordered his column to retire. While the PTs attempted another attack on the destroyer Shigure, they were fought off, leaving PT-321 slightly damaged. However, thanks to the relentless PT attacks, Oldendorf's ships were able to catch up with the slow-moving Mogami. Louisville, Portland and Denver immediately engaged it. Several direct hits rekindled Mogami's fires and Oldendorf moved on to seek other prey. Mogami's speed was down to 6 knots, but it was not quite finished, as PT-491 discovered when it came under its fire. Two torpedoes from PT-491 missed the cruiser, while PT-137 was driven off by its secondary guns. Mogami was not only still full of fight, but had sped up, Kovar reported, to 12 or 14 knots. The loss of more Japanese ships — including all four of Ozawa's aircraft carriers off Cape Engaño — was just the anticlimax to a battle already won by the Americans. And worse was still to come. On the morning of Oct. 25, while the Battle of Leyte Gulf was being decided off Samar, aircraft from Rear Adm. Thomas Sprague's escort carriers were searching for Shima's retiring force when 17 of his TBM-1 Avengers found it west of the Surigao Peninsula. They attacked Mogami and left it dead in the water — for the last time. Destroyer Akebono evacuated the crew and sent it to the bottom with a torpedo. But the Americans weren't done meting out punishment. The Abukuma, limping back to the Dapitan Harbor in Mindanao on Oct. 25, was attacked by B-24 Liberators of the 13th and 5th Air Forces the following morning. Large fires began to swiftly spread throughout the ship before ultimately reaching the torpedo room and blowing a large hole in the light cruiser, which sank, with 250 of its crew, southwest of Negros Island. Abukuma was one of 22 Japanese warships participating in the carrier attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. By the end of the war, only one was still afloat: Ushio, the destroyer that, among other things, had rescued 283 of Abukuma's crew, including its captain. Abukuma was also the largest warship whose demise was credited primarily to a PT boat. For that accidental kill, Lt. Kovar was awarded the Navy Cross.
