Protecting our critical civil infrastructure against EMP threats would play an important role in deterring such an attack, and the Pentagon’s failure even to mention that role in its Nuclear Posture Review illustrates a serious gap in our overall strategy and plans to protect the American People. And the problem is bigger than in the Pentagon. The President should take this issue on by an appropriate White House initiative. Read Full Story
A growing number of Americans are concerned that the once highly classified threat from an electromagnetic pulse is still not being addressed, even though the Pentagon has known about it for a half-century and most essential matters were made public in the 2008 EMP Commission report. Our civil infrastructure was never hardened, except for communication systems to assure connectivity from the President to our strategic forces. Read Full Story
“NORTHCOM was born because of the 9/11 attacks for there was no commander of the homeland. But we are not the commander in charge of defending against terrorist attacks for that is the mission of the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice. We are a supporting command to them in dealing with terrorist threats.” ~ Admiral William Gortney, Commander of Northern Command (NORTHCOM) Read Full Story
“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” … Will Rogers Read Full Story
The first step in solving any problem is identifying it! Read Full Story
The Pentagon recently announced that Raytheon will receive a $700 million contract to prep the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado for the return of US Aerospace Command, built in the 1960s to respond to a Soviet nuclear strike; this new plan is to help counter a possible EMP attack by a rogue nation. This explicit acknowledgement of the EMP threat is a most welcome development. Hopefully, the U.S. “powers that be” will also take complementary steps to assure the survival of the American people in case of such an attack—and here are some hopeful signs this may be possible. Read Full Story
We will be adding key policy briefs as we progress.