August 29, 2017—Shut the Back Door!

An old adage is that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Hopefully, that adage is true and can illustrate an apparent existential threat to all Americans that North Korea already poses. It is not a new threat — North Korea years ago demonstrated its inherent capability to deliver that threat, once it gains sufficient nuclear weapons. Now we know Kim Jong Un has the nuclear weapons to execute that existential threat with plenty left over, even while our preparations to counter it seem minimal. We should urgently correct this mistaken set of priorities!

Everyone seems focused on North Korea’s ramped up ballistic missile testing, last week with launches of three short range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. First, these recent tests were reported as failures, then perhaps not. Then last evening North Korea launched a ballistic missile over northern Japan.

In any case, these tests illustrated again that North Korea poses a threat to Japan or, with sufficiently longer range missiles on a track they could reach U.S. territory in Guam — or if sufficiently long range on more northward tracks, Hawaii or even the United States.

Click here for my August 15 message which included the figure below, illustrating these tracks of North Korea’s now acknowledged serious threat to Americans and our friends and allies, with its nuclear armed ballistic missiles including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Today, I want to discuss a different pathway from North Korea toward U.S. territory — one that heads southward from North Korea and approaches the United States from our South. This is a pathway that North Korea has tested previously (in 2012 and 2016) with its earlier long range ballistic missiles, notably to launch satellites into orbit.

Thus, North Korea years ago demonstrated it could put satellites into orbit that can carry nuclear weapons — especially light weight nuclear weapons. And the Intelligence Community reported recently that North Korea now may have 60 such nuclear weapons.

Detonation of even one of these nuclear weapons over the United States would create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could shut down the U.S. unhardened electric power grid for an indefinite period, and the consequent collapse of our just-in-time economy would lead to the death of most Americans in a matter of months, due to starvation, disease and societal collapse.

As illustrated below, these southward launches avoid overflying land and the rocket drops its stages into the international ocean areas away from land. These are, to be sure, sound safety measures when placing satellites into orbit. But . . .

So far as I know North Korea’s satellites still regularly pass over the United States, going from South to North, about every hour and a half. But what if they — or future North Korean satellites — carry nuclear weapons?

Hopefully, our intelligence community can assure us that currently orbiting North Korean satellites do not carry nuclear weapons. But how will we assure that future North Korean satellites are not launched carrying one of the nuclear weapons we now know it has?

Answer: we need to insist on inspecting future North Korean satellite payloads and, if Kim Jong Un does not comply, be able to shoot down such threatening launches. We know how to back up this threat technically — but are we prepared politically to do so?

Click here for my early discussion over three years ago on this issue of dealing with the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System” (FOBS) threat that is a legacy of Cold War developments in the 1960s. And click here for links to my more recent messages dealing with the FOBS threat from North Korea — and Iran, which also has launched satellites to the South.

Remember that a single nuclear weapon could be detonated when passing above the United States to create an EMP that shuts down our entire electric power grid for an indefinite period. Without electricity, most Americans would die within months.

This existential threat can and should be met with clear measures to deter it, and to counter it if deterrence fails.

Note that the threatening North Korean satellite launches overfly a lot of open international waters, where our Aegis BMD ships are or easily can be. And they now have the inherent capability to shoot down these North Korean satellites, provided their crews are trained and prepared to do so, including with prior authorization to engage.

I must say, the recent mishaps of two of our nearby Aegis BMD Destroyers, with a major loss of crew after being rammed by another vessel, does not suggest confidence in the current state of proficiency and preparedness of our crews, and especially their leaders. See below.

Clearly, our Navy must get its act together! Especially if our Aegis BMD ships are to be given such an important mission as protecting the American people against the existential EMP threat.

We need to advance other supplemental ways to counter this threat as quickly as possible.

Click here for an August 24, 2017 Newsmax article that I coauthored with Dale Tietz, who managed the Raptor-Talon program during my days as Director of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Raptor was a High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Talon was a ballistic missile interceptor based on then cutting edge SDI technology.

Though the Clinton administration cancelled this important program (along with many others), the HALE UAV effort was transferred to NASA, and the solar cell powered Helios version set a high altitude record. See below.

Dale and I urged Defense Secretary Mattis to revive key SDI programs, which are now clearly needed to confront the growing threat from growing and technologically advanced ballistic missile threats.

We should institute immediately a major initiative to revive the most cost-effective BMD development that has been dormant for almost 30 years, because of the “political correctness” instituted by the Clinton administration and perpetuated ever since. That important program was developing “Brilliant Pebbles” space-based interceptors.

Reinitiating such an innovative, accelerated space based interceptor program will take several years to reach fruition, and we urged that an immediate revival of SDI’s Raptor-Talon architecture that takes advantage of the major advances in HALE UAV technology already in use in our military activities in the Middle East and elsewhere.

We believe we could have modern Talon operational versions within a matter of months if the “powers that be” really want it in a hurry.

Moreover, as I reported in Newsmax yesterday, we could almost immediately prepare our Air Force and Navy fighter planes to patrol over international waters with a capability to intercept North Korean ballistic missiles within the atmosphere.

Click here for that important message that I hope will bring a quick favorable response from the Trump administration.

Bottom Line.

North Korea has geared up to present America with an existential threat.

We are focused on protecting against most of Kim Jong Un’s threat ballistic missiles, but possibly have left open an approach he might take to kill most Americans by detonating a nuclear weapon on a satellite that approaches us from the South.

North Korea demonstrated this possibility years ago — but we have made no apparent counter response.

We have largely ignored threats from the South while giving attention to other possible attack pathways. We need to shut that back door! And we know how to do so!

So, stand by and see what our leaders do — and take the time to press them to act!

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them.

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