built

At first glance, the Soviet submarine S-49 looks like a design mistake. While its hull resembles a normal Cold War diesel-electric submarine, its bow appears to have been fitted with a strange pair of enormous “barrels” pointing forward. But the bizarre nose and bug-eyed look was the result of a highly specialized Soviet effort to create a submarine that could test a new generation of underwater weapons. At a time when extreme submarine modifications were in vogue, S-49 stood out for its pioneering work and long service.

S-49 began life as an ordinary Project 633 submarine, known to NATO as the Romeo class. The Project 633 submarines were diesel-electric attack submarines developed for the Soviet Navy in the 1950s and built in Gorky (modern-day Nizhny Novgorod). Since this was hundreds of miles from the sea, submarines built here were transported by river on special barges, then completed and tested at coastal shipyards before entering service.

The early career of S-49 was completely conventional. Its keel was laid in March of 1961, it was launched in July, and commissioned into the Soviet Navy in December.

S-49 initially joined the Black Sea Fleet, was transferred to the Northern Fleet in 1962, and conducted routine submarine operations, including Mediterranean deployments.

In 1969, S-49 returned permanently to the Black Sea Fleet and continued in service as a normal Soviet attack submarine.

By the 1960s, however, faced by the growing threat of the U.S. Navy’s emerging nuclear-powered submarine fleet, Soviet naval engineers were developing a new class of faster, farther-reaching weapons: submarine-launched anti-submarine missiles. These were essentially long-range weapon delivery systems whose purpose was to allow one submarine to attack another far sooner and from much farther away than was practical with a conventional torpedo, allowing the shooter to remain at standoff distance. This was especially vital in a nuclear warfighting context.

A live test of a nuclear-armed U.S. Navy SUBROC submarine-launched rocket — broadly similar in concept to the Soviet submarine-launched anti-submarine missile — gives an idea of its destructive power:

Swordfish Sailor Hat MK57 ASROC ASTOR SUBROC DOE Video #0800046

The Soviet concept combined a torpedo or a depth charge with a missile; the weapon would be launched underwater from a submarine or fired from a surface combatant into the water. After a brief period of submerged travel through the water, it would break the surface, a rocket motor would ignite, and the weapon would fly rapidly — according to available sources at around Mach 0.8 — toward the target area. The weapon could deploy a homing torpedo or a nuclear depth-charge warhead.

In the early 1970s, the Soviet Navy was working on two next-generation anti-submarine missile systems: the RPK-6 Vodopad (Russian for waterfall) was designed around a 533mm torpedo-tube launch system, while the RPK-7 Veter (meaning wind) was a larger 650mm weapon with greater range and depth capability — it could only carry a nuclear depth charge.

In practice, while both Vodopad and Veter could be launched from submarines, surface combatants had only 533mm tubes, so were limited to the Vodopad. The RPK-6 Vodopad had a range of about 20 nautical miles, while the RPK-7 Veter increased this to around 54 nautical miles.

A 2018 video showing the Kirov class nuclear battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy firing multiple Soviet-era RPK-6 Vodopads during a drill:

Пуски ракет-торпед ТАРКР «Петр Великий» в Баренцевом море

There is some confusion about the NATO designations of these weapons. Some sources suggest both Vodopad and Veter were known as SS-N-16 Stallion, others that SS-N-16 Stallion applied to different generations of 650mm anti-submarine missiles, while SS-N-15 Starfish applied to different generations of 533mm weapons.

Needing a test submarine for the weapons, the Soviets chose two Romeo class boats, S-49 and S-11, both of which were converted into the experimental Project 633RV standard.

OTD 1961: S-11, Project 633 ROMEO SS, was launched. Between 1970 & 1972 she and S-49 were converted to Project 633RV 65cm torpedo test sub. pic.twitter.com/cW0FgFRqhH

— AncientSubHunter 🇺🇦 🇮🇱🌻 (@AncientSubHunt) April 15, 2017

Podwodny ,,Star Trek,, ,czyli ,,Romeo,, projekt 633RV.
Pod koniec lat 60. do testowania kompleksów przeciwpodwodnych RPK-7 “Veter” i RPK-6 “Vodopad” przebudowano dwie jednostki typ,,Romeo,,(S-11 i S-49) …. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/rNnwfzUiOG

— StaryOkręt (@Zbignie87752240) July 2, 2023

Between December 1971 and October 1972, S-49 underwent a major reconstruction at Sevmorzavod in Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula.

The modification completely transformed the submarine, the most visible change being the enormous forward superstructure containing two giant external 650mm tubes for the Veter, which were simply too large to fit inside the original Romeo class hull. At the same time, two internal 533mm launch tubes were modified for the Vodopad.

As well as the new launchers, specialized systems included weapon programming equipment, electrical connections for pre-launch testing, fire-control systems, special sealing arrangements, and guide tracks that prepared the weapon during launch.

Essentially a giant underwater weapons laboratory, the Project 633RV allowed engineers to test the entire firing process before the weapons entered service on operational submarines.

Inside the forward section, engineers removed normal submarine equipment and replaced it with test systems. Spare torpedo storage was taken out, and improved sonar equipment and upgraded navigation systems were added.

Overall, the systems were designed to replicate those of Soviet nuclear attack submarines, including those planned for the Project 671 (Victor class) nuclear attack boats.

As well as firing missiles, the modified submarine was equipped to measure launch behavior, weapon performance, effects on the submarine, underwater pressures, guidance system operation, and reliability.

After conversion, S-49 became one of the most important weapons-testing submarines in the Soviet fleet.

In December 1972, S-49 conducted the first Soviet underwater launch of a Vodopad missile-torpedo, from a depth of 50 meters (164 feet).

During 1973 and 1974, 24 successful launches were completed from depths between 50 and 150 meters (164 and 492 feet) and under increasingly demanding conditions.

In 1975, S-49 received an improved deep-water launch system and successfully completed another 22 launches, including one from an unprecedented depth of 240 meters (787 feet).

For S-49, the mission expanded beyond Vodopad and Veter.

In 1977, the submarine participated in testing of the new 3M10 Granat (SS-N-21 Sampson) land-attack cruise missile, a turbofan-powered weapon that was deployed from a launch capsule via a 533mm launch tube. Analogous to the U.S.-made Tomahawk, this was the first missile of its class fielded on Soviet submarines.

From 1977 through 1985, S-49 continued to support Soviet missile-torpedo development.

After a major overhaul between 1986 and 1991, S-49 continued weapons-related duties until 1995, when it was removed from active naval service.

But even retirement did not end its unusual career.

In late 1995, S-49 was transformed again, emerging as PZS-50, a floating battery charging station. The submarine supported the Black Sea Fleet by charging batteries and assisting submarine training activities.

S-49 remained in service as a support vessel into the 2010s, finally retiring around 2019.

#SovietNavy #ColdWar Today, after dock repairs and museumification, the submarine S-49 (PZS-50) of Project 633RV was towed to the Southern Bay of Sevastopol. This is a temporary mooring and in the near future the submarine will be towed to Balaclava. pic.twitter.com/PZ7d0d7jNy

— Capt(N) (@Capt_Navy) November 8, 2021

In May 2022, S-49 became part of the Balaklava Underground Museum Complex, preserving one of the most unusual submarines of the Cold War era in a former Soviet underground submarine base. With Russia occupying the peninsula and engaged in a war with Ukraine, during which Crimea has been repeatedly targeted, the ultimate fate of the boat is by no means certain.

S-49 never fired a missile in anger. But without it, some of the Soviet Navy’s most advanced underwater weapons might never have entered service.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Every election produces a campaign strategist whose victory bestows upon them, for at least a little while, the unofficial title of reigning political genius.

James Carville, Karl Rove, David Axelrod and Stephen K. Bannon have all worn the crown.

For many years, and many election cycles, California’s reigning political genius was Clint Reilly.

In an age before the internet, before social media, before the cable-TV chat shows and before Carville and the like, Reilly came as close to celebrity as a political operative possibly could. He was the subject of fear, admiration, contempt, envy and lengthy newspaper and magazine treatments.

His cherry-red Jaguar, Italian suits, designer eyewear and seaside mansion made Reilly an influencer before there even was such a thing. (A connoisseur of the finer things, he served visitors coffee in bone china when they called on his San Francisco office.)

“It used to be that political consultants and political mechanics were something that only a handful of people thought about,” said Eric Jaye, one of generations of campaign strategists who were trained or inspired — directly or indirectly — by Reilly. “Clint was the original star consultant who made news himself and shaped the political discussion.”

Reilly, a working-class product of Oakland who crossed the Bay and scaled the heights of San Francisco business, culture and politics, died earlier this month at age 79.

For someone who never held political office — a 1999 bid for San Francisco mayor was a notable flop — Reilly wielded considerable influence.

A list of the many Democrats he helped elect — among them Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — reads like a scroll of modern California history. At one time, the sitting mayors of both San Francisco and Los Angeles were clients of Reilly.

He wasn’t flawless as an election strategist. Like any political operative, he had his share of defeats.

Reilly’s particular genius lay in the methodology — vertical integration — he brought to campaigns. Typically, one consultant would handle television advertising, another direct mail, another polling, another big-picture strategy, and so on.

“Everything was in-house with Clint and, at least in San Francisco, he was the first to do that,” said Jerry Roberts, who was a scruffy reporter for the city’s alt-weekly when he met a shaggy-haired Reilly more than 50 years ago. At the time, campaigns were a sideline for Reilly, who supported himself selling doodads and other salvaged wares in a movable flea market he operated on Fisherman’s Wharf.

“It was a smart business model,” said Roberts, who went on to lead two major California newspapers.

It made Reilly very rich.

In 1988, he managed what, at the time, was the most expensive political campaign in California history, a $64-million effort by the insurance industry to beat back a Ralph Nader-inspired reform initiative. Reilly lost, but his firm cleared at least $6 million on that contest alone — or about $17 million in today’s dollars.

“So that’s where our premiums went,” one guest observed with a low whistle as he arrived at the state-of-the art headquarters Reilly built not long after the Proposition 103 campaign. (Naturally, he threw an open house; for all his affluence, Reilly never did entirely shake the proletariat chip on his shoulder.)

A onetime seminarian — he left three years shy of being ordained a Catholic priest — Reilly was no saint.

He was hot-tempered, profane and egotistical. He embraced the nickname “Satan,” which a former client affixed after Reilly went to work for an archrival, as a reflection of his reputation for intimidation and mastery of the political dark arts.

In one fit of pique, Reilly took the unheard step of firing a client — Feinstein — via faxed press release because, he said, the former San Francisco mayor lacked the requisite fire to run for governor. The two eventually reconciled, though Feinstein stuck with members of the team that replaced Reilly and helped guide her to successive terms in the U.S. Senate.

If Reilly was at times overbearing — and known for being the kind of hellacious boss who gave employees night sweats — he was also generous and a genuine bleeding heart.

Before his career took off, Reilly volunteered for the United Farm Workers and lived an ascetic life, sheltering in church halls, as he ministered to the poor. Once he established his high-end consulting firm, Reilly retained his political staffers at no small expense, even during the lull between campaigns, rather than hiring and firing them as seasonal workers, which was the norm.

After leaving professional campaign consulting in the mid-1990s, and making a substantial fortune in real estate, Reilly gave prolifically to various charities and assorted civic caucuses. He started a charitable foundation of his own, Bay Scholars, which helps poor and underserved youth attend Catholic high schools throughout the area.

In 1987, when Reilly arguably resided at the height of his power and influence, he took on Pelosi as a client.

She was running for a rare open congressional seat in San Francisco and, though well known in political circles as a prodigious Democratic fundraiser and high-level activist, Pelosi was a blank slate to many voters. Reilly came up with a slogan that played on Pelosi’s Washington connections and many important friendships: “A voice that will be heard.”

More than that, he made a key tactical decision in the waning days of the campaign.

Pelosi was one of 14 candidates, several of them well-known Democratic officeholders. Ignoring Pelosi’s objections, Reilly sent out a mail piece to the city’s vastly outnumbered Republicans suggesting that a Democrat was bound to win the congressional seat and arguing that Pelosi was the best — or, at least, not the worst — of the bunch.

On election day, Pelosi lost the Democratic vote to Harry Britt, who succeeded Harvey Milk on the Board of Supervisors after Milk’s assassination. Still, Pelosi prevailed, by less than 4,000 votes out of nearly 108,000 cast. The winning margin was her Republican support.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Qatar’s Father Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani has died at the age of 74.

During his 18-year rule, Sheikh Hamad reshaped the energy-rich country’s domestic and global footprint.

When he assumed power in 1995, Qatar’s economy was limited in size and relied mainly on oil, while the vast gas wealth of the North Field site was still in the early stages of development.

In less than two decades, Qatar became the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the owner of one of the largest sovereign wealth funds and one of the countries with the highest per capita incomes.

This transformation was not just an oil or gas boom fuelled by rising energy prices, but an overhaul of the country’s economic model that was underpinned by a strategy of investing natural resource wealth in building productive assets, financial institutions, infrastructure and human capital.

The economic shift did not begin with Sheikh Hamad’s assumption of power. It was preceded by his appointment in 1989 as chairman of the Supreme Council for Planning, the body then responsible for formulating Qatar’s economic and social policies, which allowed him to oversee the preparation of development programmes before he came to power.

Here, we take a look at Sheikh Hamad’s economic legacy that helped transform Qatar from a small Gulf economy to a major and influential player in global energy and investment markets.

How gas changed Qatar’s economy

The development of the North Field, the world’s largest natural gas field, marked the true starting point of Qatar’s economic transformation.

The decision to accelerate investment and expand gas liquefaction projects during the second half of the 1990s changed the country’s position in the energy market and propelled it towards global leadership.

Qatar went from exporting its first LNG shipment in 1996 to becoming the world’s largest exporter of the commodity in fewer than 15 years.

By 2010, production capacity had risen to 77 million tons per year, according to data from QatarEnergy and the International Energy Agency.

The impact of this boom was not limited to increasing revenues; it also cemented Qatar’s position as a strategic partner in global energy security, especially for the economies of Asia and Europe.

Data from Qatar’s Amiri Diwan reflect the scale of the transformation witnessed by the energy sector, as the added value of the hydrocarbons sector rose from 11 billion Qatari riyals (about $3bn) to 403 billion riyals (about $110.4bn) during Sheikh Hamad’s rule.

Unprecedented economic growth

The gas boom was directly reflected in the performance of Qatar’s economy, which became one of the fastest-growing in the world during the first decade of the millennium.

World Bank data cited by Bloomberg showed Qatar’s economy grew more than twentyfold during Sheikh Hamad’s reign, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising from about $8bn in 1995 to about $199 billion in 2013.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy also recorded the highest growth rates in the world during that period, with real growth reaching 18 percent in 2006 before rising to 26.2 percent in 2011, as LNG production projects came onstream.

From gas boom to capital export

The economic transformation did not stop at increased production or revenues, but it also extended to the way wealth was managed.

As part of building a system to manage financial surpluses, Qatar in 2001 established the Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment under the chairmanship of Sheikh Hamad.

The council was tasked with diversifying domestic and foreign investments “with the aim of developing Qatar’s financial reserves and diversifying sources of income”, according to the Qatari Amiri Diwan.

Four years later, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) was established to manage the financial surpluses generated from oil and gas exports.

Sheikh Hamad implemented a policy based on allocating part of the energy revenues to long-term investment, with the aim of building sustainable sources of income beyond natural resources.

QIA quickly became one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, acquiring stakes in companies such as Barclays and Volkswagen, as well as the United Kingdom-based Harrods department store in 2010.

Qatar’s investment policies expanded to cover almost every continent – from investments in football clubs, to global economic institutions, to London’s Shard skyscraper, among others.

The authority’s assets are now estimated at more than $500bn, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, making it one of the world’s largest government investors.

Qatari citizens’ rising living standards

The economic growth was reflected in welfare indicators.

According to the World Bank and the IMF, Qatar during Sheikh Hamad’s reign became one of the countries with the highest GDP per capita in the world.

It exceeded $90,000 in terms of purchasing power parity, as it expanded spending on housing, education and health and recorded a steep decline in unemployment rates to very low levels.

Experts believe the rise in income was not solely the result of higher energy prices, but also stemmed from expanded government investment and the creation of jobs linked to energy and infrastructure projects.

Investment in people

In parallel with energy investments, Qatar also moved towards building a knowledge-based economy.

One of the first development decisions after Sheikh Hamad assumed power was the establishment of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development in August 1995 to serve as the main arm for investment in education, scientific research and innovation.

The country later attracted international universities including Georgetown, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon, in a move seen as part of a strategy to prepare for the post-oil and gas phase.

The health sector also saw significant expansion through the development of Hamad Medical Corporation and the establishment of new hospitals and specialised centres as part of efforts to improve the quality of public services and keep pace with population growth.

At the same time, the country’s economic openness, coupled with a policy of strengthening its position as a financial and commercial hub in the region, turned the expanding capital of Doha into an increasingly important centre for international economic and investment conferences.

The World Cup and the economy of the future

Gas revenues during Sheikh Hamad’s rule were not limited to financing Qatar’s budget, but were also used for massive infrastructure investments.

That period saw the launch of projects such as Hamad International Airport, Hamad Port, Lusail City and modern road networks, alongside projects that later formed the foundation of the Doha Metro.

These works helped transform Doha from a small Gulf city into a global urban hub, providing the foundation that enabled Qatar to become the first Arab and Middle Eastern country to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

After the country won the right to host the major football tournament, its infrastructure and construction sector witnessed a major boom as the government approved huge spending plans exceeding $200bn in infrastructure, including roads, stadiums, railway lines and the construction of a new airport and port.

An ongoing economic legacy

In 2008, the state launched Qatar National Vision 2030, a strategic plan aimed at building a knowledge-based economy with the goal of ensuring continued prosperity for future generations.

This vision, which continues to serve as the governing framework for economic policies, reflects a direction that began under Sheikh Hamad based on transforming natural wealth into a foundation for sustainable development.

And if the development of the gas industry was the starting point for Qatar’s economic transformation, the most prominent legacy of Sheikh Hamad lies in transforming exceptional energy revenues into long-term development tools.

Through the establishment of institutions such as the Supreme Council for Economic Affairs and Investment and QIA, the launch of Qatar National Vision 2030 and investments in education and infrastructure, Qatar moved from an economy dependent on oil exports to a model that combines energy strength with global investment influence.

This blueprint still forms the basis of the state’s economic policies that are being pursued to this day by Sheikh Hamad’s son and successor, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The leader known as Qatar’s father emir was able to redefine his nation’s position on the political map of the Middle East.

From a tiny state struggling to survive to a country punching above its weight with soft power, wealth and influence felt in the region and beyond, Qatar and its success story were propelled by late Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Sheikh Hamad, who died on Sunday aged 74, was able to redefine Qatar’s position on the political map of the Middle East, moving it from the margins of the Gulf to regional prominence in the political, diplomatic, national and humanitarian fields, relying on his vision that transcended the country’s modest size and narrow borders.

Those who knew Sheikh Hamad said he was aware, even before assuming power in 1995, of his country’s lack of traditional elements of strength and understood the need to invest in soft power.

From the early days of his reign, he implemented enormous projects in education, health, scientific research and sports in addition to the vital energy sector, transforming his country’s wealth into international diplomatic weight and not merely a source of prosperity for his own people. The former emir also understood the power of media when he created Al Jazeera, one of the most successful news channels in the Arab world, which later transformed into a powerful media network.

Qatari diplomacy led fruitful mediations in complex disputes and conflicts across a vast geographic expanse from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa.

Doha brought together leaders in Lebanon in 2008, concluding a historic agreement that quelled the risk of another civil war. Qatar sponsored negotiations that lasted 30 months between the Sudanese parties over the Darfur crisis, culminating in 2011 in the signing of the Doha Document for Peace.

Qatar continued to sponsor dialogue between Hamas and Fatah, the two sides in the Palestinian divide, and settled disputes in Yemen and Somalia and between Eritrea and Djibouti in a rare diplomatic model.

During the Father Emir’s era, Qatar established the Al Udeid military base, which hosts the largest United States military force in the Middle East. Not far from it, Doha hosted the leadership of Hamas, a stance that prompted some residents to describe Sheikh Hamad as the “emir of the resistance” when he visited southern Lebanon in 2010 to inspect villages that had been rebuilt with Qatari funding after the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war.

He was the first Arab leader to visit the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the Israeli war in 2012, announcing from there the launch of housing and reconstruction projects with a grant worth $400m.

Qatar’s mediation role remained shielded from affecting its political principles, especially the Palestinian cause, considering it had to maintain open communication channels with all parties to the conflicts, including Israel.

The Gulf state supported the “Arab Spring” revolutions, and it adopted policies that explicitly backed the right of the region’s peoples to freedom and dignified lives.

The Qatari project during the father emir’s era was not focused solely on economic modernisation but also built an independent political identity capable of regional and international influence.

Sheikh Hamad left his post in 2013 after his vision for Qatar became a reality, and during the era of his son and successor, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, he witnessed Qatar’s transformation into an energy and mediation power.

For nearly six months, Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government has tried to project a different image: less ideological, more administrative; less revolutionary, more technocratic. The earthquakes became the first real test of whether that transformation ran deeper than economic policy. It didn’t. Faced with the country’s worst humanitarian disaster in decades, the Venezuelan state reverted almost instinctively to the habits it had spent 25 years learning.

The earthquake handed Delcy Rodríguez something politics rarely does: a chance, however limited, to soften public perceptions of her government. Nobody expected it to prevent the earthquake or even manage it flawlessly. The bar was much lower than that. Venezuelans expected a government that communicated at least somewhat honestly, remained visible, welcomed help wherever it came from, and, above all, stayed out of the way of those trying to help. Instead, many of its decisions seemed almost designed to produce the opposite effect, leaving an already angry public even angrier.

For the crucial first hours after the earthquake, Venezuelan civil society largely filled the vacuum left by the state. By the time the government moved to reclaim the space it had forfeited, the nature of its response had become clear. The emphasis was no longer on expanding the rescue effort, but on reasserting control over it. The government’s administrative response had been slow. Its political reflexes were anything but that.

Why?

The obvious explanation is incompetence. Of which there was certainly plenty. But incompetence alone cannot explain why a government whose political identity has been built on the appearance of public support repeatedly embraced decisions that seemed to generate even greater public anger. Something deeper appears to have been at work.

Responding to earthquakes requires a very particular kind of approach. Unlike ordinary governance, disaster response cannot be centralized for long. Every collapsed building becomes its own command center. Every neighborhood develops different priorities. Every rescue team faces different engineering challenges. Governments do not succeed because they directly coordinate thousands of decisions. They succeed because they remove obstacles that allow thousands of other people to make good decisions simultaneously.

As civil society increasingly assumed functions the state could not perform, it also threatened to accumulate visibility, legitimacy, and influence outside government control.

During normal times, governments can afford to centralize decisions and insist that major initiatives pass through official channels. Earthquakes punish those instincts. Rescue operations cannot wait for permission, and civil society and the private sector suddenly become indispensable partners in the state’s response. The democratic governments (like the one overseeing Venezuela’s “transition”) that perform best recognize this early, spending the first critical hours empowering society rather than attempting to direct every aspect of the response themselves. For twenty-five years, chavismo taught its institutions almost the opposite lessons.

The government could not lead the humanitarian response with the effectiveness the moment demanded. Society therefore began leading significant parts of it instead. Volunteers organized rescue brigades. Churches became shelters. Journalists became emergency information networks. Engineers inspected damaged buildings. Diaspora organizations coordinated donations. Foreign rescue teams rapidly became the public face of many rescue operations. None of this was unusual. This is how major disasters are managed around the world.

What was unusual was the kind of state confronting the disaster.

Every major political crisis reinforced the same institutional lesson: autonomous organization reduced the state’s control over society. Independent organization was rarely viewed as something to harness, but was something to supervise. NGOs are suspected of serving foreign interests, until proven innocent. Independent journalists and universities are seen as political adversaries. Neighborhood networks are just three doritos away from becoming opposition structures. Enemies abound in the schizophrenic chavista view of societal organization. Because for a chavista state that has banked its continuous survival on complete, centralized control, such a degree of civil organization represents an extinction level threat.

Those lessons make sense for a political system primarily concerned with its own survival. They become profoundly maladaptive during natural disasters. Thus, the humanitarian response itself gradually became part of the government’s problem. As civil society increasingly assumed functions the state could not perform, it also threatened to accumulate visibility, legitimacy, and influence outside government control. Administratively, this strengthened Venezuela’s response. Politically, it displaced the government from the center of its own national emergency. Most democratic governments would welcome that trade-off. 

What authoritarian systems find difficult to tolerate is not civilian participation itself, but civilian participation they neither direct nor control. The rescue volunteers were not political activists. The churches distributing food were not organizing protests. The programmers building databases of missing persons were not preparing electoral campaigns. Yet institutions do not respond only to intentions; they respond to patterns. For a security apparatus that had spent years dismantling decentralized civic networks, from the humanitarian aid operation of 2019 to the comanditos of 2024, the potential may have mattered more than the differences.

Search-and-rescue operations have become increasingly militarized, with rescue crews at the Tahití building reportedly prevented by the military from reaching survivors for hours.

Seen through that lens, what initially looked like a series of political blunders begins to look more like institutional habit. Faced with a humanitarian emergency it lacked the capacity to fully manage, the government fell back on the institutions it trusted most: those responsible for regulating information, supervising autonomous actors, and maintaining political control. Much of the administrative state had long ceased to be valued primarily for its capacity to govern, functioning instead as an instrument of patronage and political management, while the coercive apparatus remained the regime’s principal institutional investment.

Faced with the limitations of both its own incompetence and the state it had spent decades constructing, havismo has increasingly resorted to the tactics with which it is most familiar. Survivors who expressed their anger at the government’s lackluster response, such as Wilmer Cruz, have reportedly been arrested. Search-and-rescue operations have become increasingly militarized, with rescue crews at the Tahití building (Caraballeda, La Guaira) reportedly prevented by the military from reaching survivors for hours. Intelligence agencies such as the DGCIM have been deployed to intimidate the families of victims, while, as the Sky News Trump 100 podcast reported, authorities have obstructed reporting from Caracas.

For months, the debate surrounding Venezuela’s transition has centered on whether chavismo was truly changing or merely adapting. The earthquake suggests the answer is both. Markets can be liberalized. Diplomatic priorities can shift. Revolutionary rhetoric can soften. Institutional instincts are far more resistant to change because they are built over decades of incentives, routines, promotions, and crises.

The earthquake did not create those instincts. It merely forced the government into a situation where it could no longer avoid relying on them.

Every state becomes good at what it repeatedly practices. The chavista regime spent twenty-five years investing in political control rather than disaster response; in supervising society rather than empowering it; in preserving power rather than preparing for catastrophe. When the country’s greatest humanitarian emergency in decades arrived, society responded with the institutions it had built to save lives. The state responded with the institutions it had built to preserve power. The earthquake did not force the Venezuelan state to choose between control and effective governance. That choice had been made long before the ground began to shake.

Passing “Go” has become especially lucrative for mobile game publisher Scopely.

The Culver City-based Scopely launched “Monopoly Go!” in 2023, betting fans of the classic board game would flock to a mobile version aimed at casual gamers.

By 2025, “Monopoly Go!” had accrued $6 billion in lifetime in-app purchase revenue, becoming the fastest free mobile game to do so, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

This summer, the app is expected to reach $8 billion in lifetime revenue, the company says, solidifying “Monopoly Go!” as Scopely’s biggest game and far surpassing the company’s popular “Pokémon Go.” The company declined to disclose its total profits.

Scopely Co-Chief Executive Javier Ferreira.

As overall downloads in the mobile game market have stagnated and in-app purchases and retention become the main drivers of growth, Scopely has hit on an age-old Hollywood strategy — using known franchises and intellectual property to bring out fans.

“These are incredibly durable and long-lasting games that have really passionate communities and fandom around them,” said Javier Ferreira, co-chief executive of Scopely. “We’re in the business of building people’s favorite thing, and that’s a difficult thing to do. The power of [intellectual property] is that, in some cases, that is already their favorite thing.”

The company’s journey toward “Monopoly Go!” began in 2014, when Scopely formed a partnership with Rhode Island-based toymaker Hasbro. Its first collaboration was a Yahtzee mobile dice game that ultimately drew millions of players worldwide (though it was especially popular in the U.S.) and generated more than $1 billion in lifetime revenue.

After that, Scopely approached Hasbro about taking on the “crown jewel” of its board game empire — Monopoly.

Monopoly’s massive global popularity was an obvious draw. But adapting an hours-long real estate transaction game for a casual, mobile audience proved challenging.

Development of what would become “Monopoly Go!” ultimately took seven years, two of which were spent trying to make movement around the board more fun. In that time, the company scrapped two versions of the game; one deemed too competitive, and one that was too complex, Ferreira said.

Developers wanted to capture the “roller coaster feel” of the board game’s highs and lows, while also having simple rules and ensuring a strong social element, he said.

“We couldn’t just copy,” Ferreira said. “We had to reinvent it and re-imagine it, and that’s a complicated, creative endeavor.”

Today, “Monopoly Go!” brings in more than $2 billion in annual revenue and has been downloaded across the globe more than 300 million times.

Now with “Pokémon Go,” which the company owns after acquiring maker Niantic’s game business last year, “Scopely has gone from a successful publisher to one of the defining companies in mobile gaming,” Randy Nelson, head of insights at Appfigures, a mobile app analytics firm.

“The company cracked the code on licensed games years ago,” he wrote in an email. “Its biggest hits work because they’re great games first and recognizable brands second.”

Though the company’s overall game downloads have slowed, its gross revenue has largely increased every year since 2020, according to Appfigures data.

Shortly after Scopely released “Monopoly Go!,” the company was acquired by Savvy Games Group, which is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, for $4.9 billion.

In a statement about the deal, Savvy Games Group Chief Executive Brian Ward touted the success of “Monopoly Go!” as “indicative of Scopely’s ongoing position at the forefront of the global games sector.”

Representatives of the Saudi investment fund are part of Savvy Game Group’s board and do sometimes give some feedback on company initiatives, though Ferreira said the company has remained “very independent.”

The proposed acquisition of gaming giant Electronic Arts by the Saudi Public Investment Fund is not expected to affect Scopely since EA largely focuses on high-budget console and computer games, he said.

As Scopely, now 3,000 employees strong, looks to the future, it has embarked on a number of entertainment partnerships with studios to add franchises such as “The Simpsons,” “Hello Kitty” and Marvel to its mobile game ecosystem.

“They give us access to these universes that millions of people love and are really invested in,” Ferreira said. “We see this as a very strategic part of our business.”

The very first P-8A Poseidon aircraft is now assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 30 (VX-30), the “Bloodhounds.” TWZ was first to report last year that VX-30 was in line to get two P-8As to support long-range missile and other testing efforts. The aircraft will help the squadron address the increasing difficulties it is facing with its aging P-3 Orion aircraft. Only a handful of P-3s remain in service anywhere in the Navy, and are becoming increasingly challenging to operate and maintain.

VX-30 shared pictures of the P-8A arriving at its home base in Point Mugu, California, on its Facebook page last week. Naval Air Station Point Mugu, part of Naval Base Ventura County, sits right on the southern California coast with direct access to the expansive Point Mugu Sea Range. The Navy and other branches of the U.S. military, as well as defense contractors, regularly use the offshore ranges for missile and other tests, which the Bloodhounds support. Aircraft from VX-30 also often deploy to other locations around the world to support test and evaluation activities, including in other U.S. military range complexes in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii and in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

As noted, the P-8A now assigned to VX-30 is actually the very first Poseidon ever built and is also known as T-1. The aircraft, which made its maiden flight in 2009, was used for years to support the Poseidon program. The Bloodhounds are also in line to get the second test P-8A, which is also still referred to as T-2. We will come back to this in a moment.

VX-30 already operates a variety of planes specially configured to support test missions, including the aforementioned P-3s. The unit also has KC-130T Hercules tanker/transports, as well as its one-of-a-kind NC-20G and NC-37B jets. The NC-37B was specifically acquired to replace one of the squadron’s NP-3D Orions, a variant nicknamed the “Billboard” because of its heavily modified tail. The NC-20G and the NC-37B reflect a larger push to revamp the Bloodhounds’ fleets in recent years.

Collectively, VX-30’s aircraft are equipped with a mix of radars, cameras, and other equipment to collect imagery, telemetry, and other data during tests. They have communications and data-sharing suites to be able to pass information along to test facilities on land to aid with live monitoring and for deeper analysis.

Aircraft assigned to VX-30 are also used for what is called range surveillance and clearance missions to keep unwanted visitors and errant bystanders out of the way in the air and down below during tests. This is where the P-8As will come in, at least initially.

“Both aircraft will perform the Range Surveillance & Clearance mission as well as dedicated testing for Naval Air Systems Command programs supported by P-3 today,” a NAVAIR spokesperson told TWZ last year. “T-1, the airworthiness P-8 aircraft, will have a radar modification to integrate an APY-10 in the airframe, as one does not currently exist.  This will provide T-1 with a supportable radar configuration and capability that mirrors the baseline P-8 fleet. T-2 will be unmodified.”

Raytheon’s AN/APY-10 is the standard maritime search radar used on the P-8A, and is primarily designed to spot and track vessels on the surface, as well as masts belonging to submerged submarines protruding above the waves. It also has a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mode that allows it to capture still images, even through cloud cover, smoke, and dust, and at night. The SAR mode is one of several capabilities of the P-8As that allows it to be used for surveillance in coastal environments and over land, as well as while flying over open bodies of water.

Standard Poseidon aircraft also have a sensor turret with electro-optical and infrared full-motion video cameras, as well as signals intelligence capabilities, as you can read more about here.

The P-8A’s core capabilities are well suited to the range surveillance and clearance mission. In an unmodified form, the Poseidon’s other sensors might be capable of gathering additional visual and other data during testing, as well.

NAVAIR has also left the door open to potentially modify VX-30’s ‘new’ P-8As in the future to take on an expanded role with the squadron. The Poseidon is based on the Boeing 737 airliner, and offers swap space that could accommodate additional systems down the line. The Navy already operates several more deeply modified P-8s with additional intelligence-gathering capabilities. Those aircraft are notably capable of carrying the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS), a large podded active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, under their fuselages, as you can learn more about here. Boeing has developed other add-on sensor packages for the P-8A over the years, as well.

Unlike the P-3, the P-8A also has the ability to refuel in mid-air via boom-equipped tankers. That is another capability VX-30 might be able to leverage to enable longer-duration flights, whether in support of range surveillance and clearance or other missions.

Overall, the “P-8 will go a long way to enabling range support operations and will provide new opportunities for future developmental programs,” the NAVAIR spokesperson told us last year.

On top of the P-8A’s inherent capabilities, even the older test jets are just younger and more modern, in general, than the P-3s that make up the core of VX-30’s fleet today. The Navy took delivery of its last new-production P-3C variant in 1990, and Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) shuttered the line afterward. This means the very youngest Orion is 36 years old now. As noted, the Navy has been steadily withdrawing Orions from service in recent years.

Several Navy test squadrons do continue to operate P-3s, but that’s becoming an increasingly more complex proposition. This is not just because of the maintenance demands of aging aircraft that are no longer in widespread U.S. service, but also the availability of trained aircrews. As part of the transition of active and reserve Navy maritime patrol squadrons from the P-3 to the P-8, the service no longer has a Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) for the Orion. FRSs are the Navy’s ‘school houses’ that provide training specific to particular aircraft types to aviators and ground personnel before they are sent to operational units. VX-30 now has to do that training in-house.

“The two P-8s will reduce sustainment costs and increase availability over the four P-3 aircraft VX-30 currently flies. P-8s also help alleviate P-3 manning challenges now that the FRS and operational squadrons have all transitioned to P-8 or decommissioned,” the NAVAIR spokesperson told us last year. “P-3 aircraft require a Flight Engineer crew position, and as the P-3 model manager, the return on time invested to train incoming pilots or qualify Flight Engineers in the P-3 is rapidly diminishing for VX-30’s primary missions.”

It remains to be seen whether the configurations of T-1 and T-2 might evolve in the coming years to expand their ability to support testing over the Point Muge Sea Range or elsewhere globally.

In the meantime, T-1’s arrival already marks a new chapter for VX-30 and the Navy’s oldest P-8A Poseidon.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com