KILLER TOO

Canadian, Australian climbers die on Pakistan's K2, world's 2nd-highest mountain

FILE - A photo of K2, the world's second-highest mountain, is displayed on a cell phone in Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Munir Ahmed
The Associated Press
 July 28, 2022 

ISLAMABAD -

An Australian and a Canadian mountain climber died last week in northern Pakistan while attempting to scale K2, the world's second-highest mountain, officials from the two countries said Thursday.

The death of Matthew Eakin was announced by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which expressed its "condolences to his family and friends." His body was found through drone video on Thursday.

Canada's foreign affairs department said in a statement that it was aware of the death of a Canadian in Pakistan. It provided no further details, citing privacy reasons and only saying that officials were "providing consular assistance to the family".

Earlier, a Pakistani mountaineering official and the Canadian Press said the body of Richard Cartier, who went missing in a separate incident on the same mountain on July 19, had finally also been spotted by a search team on K2. Cartier was 60 and an experienced climber.

K2, on the Chinese-Pakistani border in the Karakorum Range, has one of the deadliest records, with most climbers dying on the descent, where the slightest mistake can trigger an avalanche and become fatal. Only a few hundred have successfully reached its summit. In contrast, Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, has been summited more than 9,000 times.

Eakin's devastated friends posted tributes on social media to honor him, saying his death was a huge loss to the mountaineering community. One friend, Felicity Symons, said about their 23 years of friendship: "I will always see your smile in the clouds. Rest easy my dear friend on the mountains you loved."

Karrar Haidri, the deputy chief of the Pakistan Alpine Club, which coordinates search and rescue missions with Pakistan's government and military, confirmed the deaths of Eakin and Cartier.

"We extend our condolences to the friends and family members of the Australian and Canadian climbers who died on K2," Haidri told The Associated Press.

Also last week, a third climber, Ali Akbar Sakki from Afghanistan, died on K2. Sakki suffered a heart attack while trying to scale the summit, Haidri said.

The Canadian Embassy in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Dawn, one of Pakistan's English-language newspapers, reported earlier this week that the two climbers had been spotted between Camp 1 and Camp 2 on K2 after they both went missing on July 19 in separate incidents.

K2 is also among the coldest and windiest of climbs. At places along the route, climbers must navigate nearly sheer rock faces rising 80 degrees, while avoiding frequent and unpredictable avalanches.

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Pakistani mountaineer Samina Baig flashes a victory sign while she poses for a photograph outside a hotel, in Skardu, Pakistan, on June 17, 2021. Baig from Pakistan and another from Iran appear to be the first females from their countries to reach the top of K2, one of the world's highest and most dangerous summits, a mountaineering official said Friday, July 22, 2022. (AP Photo/M.Z. Balti) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Munir Ahmed

July 22, 2022·

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A woman from Pakistan and another from Iran appeared to be the first from their countries to scale K2 on Friday, the world's second-highest mountain and one of the most dangerous summits, a mountaineering official said. A second Pakistani woman scaled the summit minutes later.

Samina Baig, a 32-year-old from a remote northern village in Pakistan, was the first to hoist her country's green and white flag atop the peak of the 28,250 foot-high (8,610 meter) K2.

Iran's Afsaneh Hesamifard followed shortly after and was hailed for her achievement in Farsi-language posts on social media. According to Iranian media, she became only the third woman to scale Mount Everest in May.

The two were among several women to successfully reach K2's peak on Friday, according to Karrar Haidri, chief officer of the Pakistan Alpine Club, which helps coordinate the climbs from the government side and responds in the event of an emergency.

Haidri said a second Pakistani female climber, Naila Kiyani, was among the team of women to reach the top of K2 but it appears that Baig had scaled the summit a few minutes earlier.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif congratulated both Pakistani women, saying they proved that women were not behind men in the sports of mountain climbing. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan congratulated the Pakistani women on Twitter while the Iranian diplomatic mission in Pakistan tweeted congratulations to Hesamifard.

K2, on the Chinese-Pakistani border in the Karakorum Range, has one of the deadliest records, with most climbers dying on the descent, where the slightest mistake can trigger an avalanche and become fatal. Only a few hundred have successfully reached its summit. In contrast, Mount Everest has been summited more than 9,000 times.

Separately, Haidri said Afghan climber, Ali Akbar Sakki, died on Thursday due to a heart attack while attempting to scale K2. He was part of the team of climbers who reached its summit Friday.

Considered extremely difficult to climb, K2 is not only the second-highest mountain after Mount Everest, its ascent and descent are considered much more challenging that the world's highest.

K2 is also the coldest and windiest of climbs. At places along the route, climbers must navigate nearly sheer rock faces rising 80 degrees, while avoiding frequent and unpredictable avalanches.

The latest record comes a day after Nepalese climber Sanu Sherpa set a new mountaineering record for twice reaching the peak of each of the world's 14 highest mountains.

Earlier this month, Pakistan's military airlifted two Pakistani climbers, including the man who became the youngest to scale K2 to safety after the pair went missing during an expedition scaling Nanga Parbat, known as “Killer Mountain” because of its dangerous conditions.

One of the greatest (SIC) financial historians alive says central bankers have been incompetent for decades and inflation is our ‘big hangover’

Will Daniel
Fri, July 29, 2022 

Who or what is responsible for the rampant inflation plaguing the global economy?

President Biden has argued the key culprit is Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine, going so far as to call the current rise in U.S. consumer prices “Putin’s price hike.”

On the other hand, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says that high inflation is a result of the toxic combination of supply-chain issues brought about by the pandemic, COVID-19 lockdowns in China, the war in Ukraine, and the strong labor market.

But Edward Chancellor, a financial historian, journalist, and investment strategist who has been described as “one of the great financial writers of our era,” argues central bankers are to blame. In his view, central banks’ unsustainable policies have created an “everything bubble,” leaving the global economy with an inflation “hangover.”

Chancellor explained his theory, which is presented in his new book, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, in a recent interview with The Market’s Mark Dittli.

“There’s always the idea that speculative bubbles are formed around the invention of a new technology,” he said. “What I’m doing in my book is leaving aside the tech aspects and the psychological aspects of bubbles, and concentrating solely on the monetary underpinnings. What I argue is that when interest rates are pushed down too low, people are driven into speculative endeavors and chase returns.”

To understand Chancellor’s argument, we have to take a step back to the years following the Great Financial Crisis. After 2008, inflation in most developed nations was low, and central banks around the world were more concerned with ensuring a global economic recovery and the negative impact of deflation.

As a result, interest rates were held at historically low levels, and some central banks, like the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, instituted a controversial policy called quantitative easing (QE), which involves buying government bonds and mortgage-backed securities in hopes of increasing the money supply and spurring lending and investment.

Chancellor explained how during these first rounds of QE, the money the Fed created “never fed through to the real economy,” leading central bankers to ignore inflation and become “complacent.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, however, and QE was ramped up again, it was a different story. Central banks around the world cut interest rates and “printed collectively around $8 trillion.” The issue this time was that the money was used to “finance roughly the same amount of government spending,” which contributed to “the largest peacetime deficits in history.”

On top of that, near-zero interest rates and excess liquidity in the financial system encouraged investors to buy risky assets, creating an “everything bubble,” as evidenced by the extreme rise in tech stocks, cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, and even collectibles like baseball cards in 2020 and 2021.

“And, surprise, surprise, we now have rising and unstable inflation,” Chancellor said. “We are now waking up to a big hangover from this monetary extremism.”

Chancellor argues that central bankers believed they could maintain near-zero interest rates and QE without causing a rise in consumer prices because inflation had remained so low, for so long.

“And why was it low? Because of their sound monetary policies. They referred it back to themselves! And now, the moment inflation goes out of control, they say: ‘Oh, it’s not our responsibility, it has to do with Ukraine, or supply chains, or China’s lockdowns,’” he said.

Chancellor went on to argue that central banks’ actions have facilitated speculative trading, instead of a focus on real economic growth. It’s an unsustainable monetary policy that just won’t work moving forward, he said.

“Who knows, perhaps we will all be a bit more grown-up in the future. What we need is a better understanding of economics and finance. So that we can live in a world where finance is mainly used for allocating capital for productive purposes rather than generating speculative paper profits,” he said.

Although central banks worldwide have begun raising rates this year to combat inflation, Chancellor fears they may revert to their old ways—and he argues if they do, capitalism itself could be at risk.

“The alternative is a world in which what we have seen over the past 12 years is a prelude to ever greater central planning of economic and political life. If we were to go down that route, I would say that capitalism as we know it would not survive.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Bill Ackman calls carried interest loophole an 'embarrassment' after new tax bill

Alexandra Semenova

·Reporter

Fri, July 29, 2022 

Washington Democrats may have found an unlikely ally in their bid to end a long time tax rule enjoyed by some of Wall Street’s richest executives: hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.

The Pershing Square Capital founder on Thursday slammed the so-called carried interest “loophole” – a tax treatment that allows private equity and hedge fund managers to pay a reduced tax rate on their share of gains from fund investments.

"The carried interest loophole is a stain on the tax code," Ackman said in a tweet. "It does not help small businesses, pension funds, other investors in hedge funds or private equity and everyone in the industry knows it."

"It is an embarrassment and it should end now."

Ackman’s tweets come after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) reached an agreement this week on sweeping fiscal legislation that, among other issues, takes aim at the carried interest tax preference, which Democrats have lobbied to end for 15 years as part of efforts to reform tax law.

Current tax rules allow a share of investment managers’ incomes, if held for longer than three years, to be classified as a capital gain, which is taxed at roughly 20% instead of the 37% top rate on ordinary salary and wage income.

Critics argue that treating carried interest earnings as ordinary compensation allows wealthy Americans to unfairly defer and reduce the taxes they pay, while proponents argue it encourages long-term investment.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters following the Senate Democrats weekly policy lunch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

"Over 74% of private equity investment went to small businesses last year,” American Investment Council president and CEO Drew Maloney said in a statement. “As small business owners face rising costs and our economy faces serious headwinds, Washington should not move forward with a new tax on the private capital that is helping local employers survive and grow.”

The deal would see carried interest taxed as regular income if passed, and is estimated by Senate Democrats to generate $14 billion in revenue over the next ten years.

The latest aim at Wall Street’s favorite tax rule comes after a separate bill proposed last year that attempted to end the tax break, the Carried Interest Fairness Act, failed to advance.

Other ultra-wealthy proponents in favor of changing the rules so that private equity and hedge fund managers pay higher taxes include Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

How the U.S. may be overemphasizing the decline in GDP

How our 'GDP complex' prevents us from asking — happiness or growth?: Morning Brief

Andy Serwer with Dylan Croll
Sat, July 30, 2022 

All the hand-wringing this week over whether or not the U.S. economy has fallen into recession lacked an important consideration: What if the measure of GDP we're all focused on is itself massively flawed?

It’s a heretical question, because there’s a 'GDP complex' at work here.

There's an entire apparatus — economists, bankers, government officials, and prognosticators — of folks whose livelihoods are predicated on measuring GDP, maintained as the be-all and end-all method for measuring a country’s economic, or even societal, health.

And, of course, GDP growth is never quite 'right.' It’s either too fast or slow, and these parties are always ready to help fix things.

Leaving aside the experts’ deficiencies in predicting or fixing, by fixating on GDP this august group often misses items like sustainability and quality of life.

"[GDP] is a shortcut, it's not comprehensive enough," economist Mohamed El-Erian told me recently. "It’s a cognitive trap. We've all gotten used to measuring things by GDP, and we're having a huge problem getting out of that. Also the nature of GDP growth is important. Is it inclusive? It’s a useful measure, but it is just a tiny perspective into an economy."

Mohamed El-Erian speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

"What we are now concerned about has to do with the quality of the output of our economy, the quality of the food we eat, the quality of the air we breathe," says David Pilling, author of the 2018 book "The Growth Delusion," which explored our societal obsession with economic growth. "The only way of increasing the GDP of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, is to play it twice the speed so you can have more of it."

Before you accuse me of going crunchy granola on you, know that we do look beyond GDP in some instances.

Example: The fastest way for a factory to grow is to keep costs as low as possible which means dumping toxic waste in the nearby river. Sure we don’t do that today, but we could do much more.

Questioning GDP, though, begs an even more fundamental question: Does an economy need to grow? It's a point that’s been debated at least as far back as John Stuart Mill in the mid 19th century. More recently Herman Daly, a former senior economist for the World Bank, has been a leading voice in the 'steady state' movement, which he spoke to in a recent New York Times interview.

There’s a ton of interesting stuff in there from Daly, like: "Earth is not expanding. We don’t get new materials, and we don’t export stuff to space. So you have a steady-state Earth, and if you don’t recognize that, well, there’s an education problem."

Holistic socio-economic models haven’t been widely adopted of course, with some notable exceptions.

In 1972, Bhutan abandoned GDP as its measure of economic progress and replaced it with…happiness. The Guardian reports: “[Bhutan] has championed a new approach to development, which measures prosperity through formal principles of gross national happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and natural environment."

Much has been written about the Bhutanese experiment (here and here) and there are shortcomings, but even its critics have to acknowledge its successes. New Zealand, for its part, now has a "Wellbeing Budget."

Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge poses with his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge in front of the Paro Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan, April 15, 2016. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

Vox notes: “To Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the purpose of government spending is to ensure citizens' health and life satisfaction, and that — not wealth or economic growth — is the metric by which a country’s progress should be measured. GDP alone, she said, 'does not guarantee improvement to our living standards' and nor does it ‘take into account who benefits and who is left out.'"

"The really important thing which New Zealand understands is that subjective well-being data can be used to unlock the policy situation," says John Helliwell, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia.

Some U.S. economists scoff Bhutan and New Zealand (or is it Aotearoa?): "Fringe economies," kind of stuff. These same dismal scientists disparage Italy, Spain, and France too, which to my mind have budgeted — inadvertently to a degree — along these lines for centuries. And as I pointed out, they’re decent places to live too.

GDP is hardly a hallowed metric, nor is it infallible.

On the first count, remember that up until 1991, we used to use GNP (gross national product) to measure the economy. As for fallibility, look to Ireland and its "Leprechaun economic" episode — a phrase coined by Paul Krugman after the country reported GDP growth of 26.3% in 2015, the result of massive tax sheltering schemes by multinational companies, in particular, it seems, Apple.

Two years later, Ireland replaced GDP with Modified GNI (Gross National Income).

But the "GDP complex" doesn’t have to resort to such extremes to win at this game.

Fixing low or non-growing GDP through fiscal policy (cutting taxes) and monetary policy (cutting interest rates) disproportionately helps the shareholder class, which includes the aforementioned economists, bankers, government officials, and prognosticators. Those tools do not directly address life expectancy, infant mortality, drug addiction, murder, and suicide rates. No country obsesses more over GDP data than the U.S., and yet our quality of life relative to other countries (see here and here) is a shocking embarrassment.

"GDP is weighted toward the people whose incomes are higher. It's their experience that is dominating the GDP," says Richard Easterlin, professor emeritus of economics at USC. "In the case of happiness, it doesn't matter whether you're a shareholder, or farmer. Each of you counts the same."

Is it possible to have strong GDP growth and high quality of life across a society?

Some might argue that we used to in the United States — though huge portions of our population had a paucity of civil rights back in those "good old days." Singapore perhaps, but it also has limited civil liberties.

So, which would you rather have: strong GDP growth and poor quality of life for a majority of citizens, or find another measure that helps raise all ships?

I think I’m on board with the latter.

Jon Stewart goes to war on Twitter with Ted Cruz over veterans' healthcare: 'I'll go slow cuz I know you only went to Princeton and Harvard'

Sarah Al-Arshani,Cheryl Teh
Sat, July 30, 2022

Ted Cruz (L) and Jon Stewart (R) are embroiled in an all-out Twitter war over veterans' healthcare — specifically, the former's 'No' vote on the PACT Act.

Comedian Jon Stewart and GOP Sen. Ted Cruz have gone to war on Twitter over the PACT Act.

Cruz was one of several Republican lawmakers who blocked the bill in the Senate.

The bill would have expanded healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.

Comedian Jon Stewart lashed out at GOP Sen. Ted Cruz on Twitter over a veterans healthcare bill.

Stewart initially uploaded a clip addressing inaccuracy to a response Cruz gave on why Republicans blocked the PACT Act, a bill that would have expanded healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. Cruz was one of several Republican lawmakers seen fist-bumping after the bill was blocked.

Cruz said while he supports the PACT Act, the dispute is over Democrats "playing a budgetry trick," by taking "$400 billion in discretionary spending and shifted it to mandatory spending."

Stewart replied by pointing out that "it's no trick."

"Ah dearest Theodore. I do appreciate you and @JesseBWatters trying to rally the forces of misinformation to try and kill more vets…but not tonite sweetie. I'll go slow cuz I know you only went to Princeton and Harvard…" Stewart tweeted. Stewart was likely referring as well to Fox News host Jesse Waters' segment on him on "Jesse Waters Primetime," where Waters claimed the comedian's blame on Republicans for the PACT Act not passing was "misguided."

"Everything in the government is either mandatory or discretionary spending depending on which bucket they feel like putting it in. The whole place is basically a fucking shell game," Stewart said. "And, he's pretending that this is some new thing that the Democrats pulled out, stuck into the bill and snuck it past one Ted Cruz."

Poking fun at Cruz, Stewart added: "Now, I'm not a big city Harvard educated lawyer, but I can read. It's always been mandatory spending."



In a response video, Cruz called Stewart a "funny guy."

"I appreciate your engaging on issues and public policy," Cruz said in a video attached to his tweet.

He said that the "facts matter" and that he believes in taking care of veterans and alleged that the "accounting gimmick" by Democratic lawmakers would have been "irresponsible" in light of inflation.

"And I'll say this also, Jon, if you actually want to see this bill pass, if you're not just playing partisan politics, it may not be the best idea just to scream expletives at people who support the bill that you want to see passed," Cruz said.



Stewart has been a vocal proponent for healthcare for veterans, and spent years advocating for the cause on Capitol Hill. He gave an emotional speech to Congress in 2019 where he recounted how he and friend — 9/11 first responder Ray Pfeifer — knocked on doors to speak to lawmakers who dodged their questions or turned them away.

Stewart this week hit out at Republican senators for blocking the advancement of the PACT Act, which would have expanded access to health care for veterans exposed to burn pits and toxic contaminants.

"This is corruption at its finest. And sadly, these are the people that fought and defended their right to this fuckery," Stewart told reporters on Capitol Hill. "If this is America First, America is fucked," Stewart said.

We're Not Stupid: Twitter Users Agog Melania Trump Says She Was Clueless On Jan. 6

Mary Papenfuss

July 22, 2022·

Twitter wags were still gagging Friday over Melania Trump’s claim that she had no idea people were storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and were battling to jettison the results of the presidential election her husband lost.

Many tweets in response to the news were along the lines of: We’re not that stupid.

The former first lady insisted she was taking inventory at the White House that day and was too busy to pay attention to the news, her husband or the violent crowds of Donald Trump supporters two miles away.

She was fulfilling an “obligation to record the contents of the White House’s historic rooms, including taking archival photographs of all the renovations,” Melania Trump said in a statement Thursday.

The former first lady offered the explanation nearly 19 months after the U.S. Capitol attack and following the recent release of an alleged text message exchange with Stephanie Grisham, her former chief of staff. As the attack was underway, Grisham asked Trump to issue a tweet denouncing the violence. Melanie Trump replied, “no.” Grisham also addressed the text message in her book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” published in September 2021.

“I can dispute every single thing that she said [on Thursday] with emails, with texts,” Grisham told CNN on Thursday.

Many Twitter critics had already made up their minds.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

NO SUCH THING

Japanese carmakers race to champion ‘green’ combustion engines

The roaring noise of racing car engines filled the air, as the final round of June’s Fuji 24-hour endurance race in Japan kicked off to cheers from 20,000 spectators. The race, on a track near Mount Fuji, is part of the Super Taikyu Series, a big endurance race series for commercially available vehicles.

But before all the cars set off, two carmaker rivals met at the event to discuss the outlook for net zero carbon emissions in the automotive industry. Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who took the wheel as “Morizo” to race Toyota’s Corolla model himself, was joined by Ashwani Gupta, chief operating officer at Nissan, which was taking part with carbon neutral fuel for the first time. The Toyota Corolla has a hydrogen engine, while Nissan’s Z sports car uses fuel made from bio-raw materials.

And their appearance showed how, as other carmakers pivot to electric vehicles, Toyota and its Japanese rivals are also exploring alternative routes to net zero emissions — which maintain use of the internal combustion engine.

Toyoda welcomed the efforts of Nissan, which is already a pioneer of electric vehicle technology: “It is reassuring to have more friends in this initiative to show there are many options for carbon neutrality.” Gupta responded that Nissan wants to “boost the industry by competing while co-operating”.

Carmakers globally may be shifting to electric vehicles, but defenders of the combustion engine, such as Toyoda, argue that it could ultimately provide a more sustainable route for the transition from petrol cars. Critics, however, counter that carmakers cannot afford such detours when trying to address causes of climate change.

Testing the tech: Toyota’s hydrogen Corolla at the Fuji endurance race

Recognition of the need for speed in developing the necessary technology is one reason Toyota tried out a hydrogen engine in the endurance race: the time pressures of the sport help it to keep up the momentum.

This was the second year that Toyota took part in the endurance race with a hydrogen-powered vehicle that emits no carbon dioxide. It al­ready has a standard hydrogen model in the form of fuel-cell car Mirai.

Other Japanese carmakers are testing green energy sources to power internal combustion engines.

The Nissan Z car’s biofuel, for example, is made from raw materials such as waste food and wood chips. Explaining the switch to biofuel for the race, Gupta said: “We expect to gain valuable knowledge to develop highly competitive engines for carbon neutral fuels.”

REGARDLESS OF THE FUEL IT USES

Russia's Yasen-class missile subs have impressed and worried NATO for years, and now Moscow may build more of them


Christopher Woody
July 22, 2022·

Russian Yasen-class submarine K-560 Severodvinsk.

Russian Ministry of Defense

Russia is considering building more of its Yasen-class guided-missile subs, according to state media.


Those subs and the advanced cruise missiles they carry have worried US and European commanders.


Over the past decade, military leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have kept a close eye on the Yasens.

Since Russia's first Yasen-class nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, Severodvinsk, entered service in late 2013, two decades after its construction began, other subs of the class have followed at quicker intervals, and Russian leaders are now considering adding even more of these subs to a fleet that has already impressed and worried NATO commanders with its ability to avoid detection and strike at valuable targets.

The second sub of the class, Kazan, was laid down in July 2009 and commissioned in May 2021. It was followed by Novosibirsk, laid down in July 2013 and commissioned in December 2021, and Krasnoyarsk, which was laid down in July 2014 and is reportedly set for delivery in late 2022.


More Yasen-class keels may be laid later this year, a person in Russia's defense industry told state media this month, adding that Moscow is considering adding two subs to the nine already built or planned.

Submarines are a relative bright spot in Russia's mixed record of naval modernization. That undersea fleet — and in particular the Yasens, which NATO calls the Severodvinsk class — has made an impression on Russia's neighbors.

"I remember my first meeting with Jim Mattis as defense secretary. The most important thing I brought with me to the meeting was a picture of the Severodvinsk-class submarine because that was so important for us to convey to the US that this was really one of the big strategic challenges that we saw," Ine Eriksen Søreide, who served as Norway's defense minister from 2013 to 2017, said during a Hoover Institution event on Wednesday.

Russian Yasen-class sub K-561 Kazan arrives at its permanent base in the Russian Arctic, June 1, 2021.

Lev Fedoseyev\TASS via Getty Images

Yasen-class subs are just some of the new ships, missiles, and aircraft that Russia has acquired in recent years, but their ability to attack targets on land and at sea make them a particular concern.

With those subs, said Søreide, who was Norway's foreign minister from 2017 to 2021, Russia "can now effectively shut off the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap and by that also hampering the reinforcements to Europe in a situation of crisis."

Norway's coast runs from the Kola Peninsula, where Russia's powerful Northern Fleet is based, to the Baltic Sea, which the Severodvinsk was spotted sailing to this month, giving the country a front-row seat for the development and deployment of many Russian weapons, but Søreide's warning likely didn't surprise US officials.

A 2009 report by the Office of Naval Intelligence assessed the Yasen class as the quietest of Russia's and China's nuclear-powered subs at the time. In 2014, the officer responsible for submarines at US Naval Sea Systems Command said he so admired the Severodvinsk that he put a replica in his office.

"We'll be facing tough potential opponents. One only has to look at the Severodvinsk," Rear Adm. Dave Johnson said at a conference that October. "I am so impressed with this ship that I had Carderock [naval test center] build a model from unclassified data."
'Very highly precise weapons'

The crew of the Russian submarine K-560 Severodvinsk during basic training, March 14, 2018.Lev Fedoseyev\TASS via Getty Images

In addition to being distinctly quiet, Severodvinsk is armed with dozens of cruise missiles capable of attacking warships and land targets. Severodvinsk also test-fired Russia's new Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile in late 2021.

The three follow-on subs are considered Yasen-Ms and are similarly armed but have upgrades that include new sensors, new quieting technology, and a nuclear reactor updated to make less noise.

Those subs' long range and newfound land-attack capability worry NATO military leaders, who see a threat to physical infrastructure, such as ports, that would be vital to resupply and reinforcement.

"For the first time in Russian history, the Russian Navy is able to lay off a European coast or in some cases even the continental United States and present a land-attack cruise missile threat ... with very highly precise weapons," Michael Petersen, director of the Russia Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College, told Insider in 2020.

In a reflection of their concern, NATO navies have in recent years practiced getting convoys across the Atlantic and to disembarkation points in Europe — operations that haven't received much attention since the Cold War.

Shortly after Kazan joined Russia's Northern Fleet in June 2021, Gen. Glen VanHerck, who oversees US military operations around North America, said the sub was "on par with ours."

This spring, VanHerck again cautioned that Yasen-class subs "are designed to deploy undetected within cruise-missile range of our coastlines to threaten critical infrastructure."

"This challenge will be compounded in the next few years as the Russian navy adds the Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile to the Severodvinsk's arsenal," VanHerck added.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY