May 12, 2020—What Goes Around Comes Around

“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill. It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4.” ~President Donald J. Trump

Click here for my April 7, 2020 message that reported this “tweet” in the context of a series of exchanges that included references to the Great Depression and how we got out of it. It’s perhaps worth reading again as we dwell on some history that I well remember, though as a small farm boy.

Recalling that record is pertinent because related mischaracterizations are still being repeated now in an unhelpful political context as “the powers that be” contemplate how to expedite recovery from the current coronavirus epidemic.

For example, I’ve heard repeatedly the claim that “Herbert Hoover got us into the Depression and Franklin Roosevelt got us out” in the context of suggesting that “Donald Trump got us into our current troubles and we need Joe Biden to get us out.” Whatever the political merits of the argument, it oversimplifies and misrepresents what occurred 80 or so years ago. And constructively addressing COVID-19 should be a non-partisan objective.

To help set the record straight, recall that on May 7^th, we celebrated the 75^th anniversary of VE Day, the day Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the allied forces in Europe, less than four-and-a-half years after the beginning of World War II on December 7, 1941. I remember listening as an eight-year-old to the radio reports with my family on that historic day, just as we had done throughout the war — which continued until Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14, 1945 — just three months later.

Consider what was accomplished by American industrial, intellectual and plain stubborn might in less than five years — beginning just over twelve-years after the worldwide Great Depression began with the U.S. Stock Market crash on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929 — and while our fore-bearers were still feeling its pain, including for some of our relatives from the “dust bowl” migration from the Midwest to California. Between Black Tuesday and 1932, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by about 15-percent, as compared to about 1-percent following the “Great Recession” of 2008-9.

By comparison, since the COVID-19 lockdown began, our GDP reportedly has fallen by more than during that “Great Recession,” and our overall unemployment is by some accounts now already greater than the 23-percent peak during over a decade of the Great Depression. And America fared better than some nations, no doubt a contributing factor to the conditions that led to World War II.

When we began to arm to go to war on two fronts, we were so poorly prepared that some of our recruits had to drill with “broom sticks” because we did not have enough rifles.

My Father taught me during and in the aftermath of World War II that it was not the “New Deal” that led to the success of “The Greatest Generation” — and not only by those who went to war, but also those who stayed behind and supported them.

Those essential members included “Rosie the Riviter” — see the above figure that adorned the covers of many magazines during those days — who “manned” the factories that had built automobiles and other things for the private sector to building the guns, tanks, aircraft, ammunition, fuel, etc. to hold off those who attacked us at bay while we played “catch-up” with our enemies of that era and until our boys “over there” could achieve total victory.

But it was our industrial might and the American spirit that made victory possible in less than five years from a standing start. And our relative isolation from our overseas adversaries was essential, to give time for our innovation and determination to enable us to play “catch-up” from our unprepared state. We practiced actively Civil Defense measures regularly and armed ourselves as a contingency in case of an invasion — I still recall these conditions vividly.

Today, that condition no longer applies because we can be mortally attacked in minutes — say with high altitude nuclear explosions that, by themselves, pose an existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat that can shut down our vulnerable electric power grid indefinitely. As I have written often, without electricity most Americans would die within months due to starvation, disease and societal collapse.

This is why employing such an EMP attack is included in the military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. And we remain in our current vulnerable status at our peril.

Meanwhile, we have been doing little to protect our electric power grid, upon which our very survival depends.

As I reported in my last message, President Trump’s May 1, 2020 Executive Order 13920 is a very positive initiative that we should exploit to address this existential EMP threat — and not only to the “bulk-power grid” that includes the nation’s generation plants and transmission lines.

Executive Order 13920 explicitly precluded the Distribution Grid that constitutes 90-percent of the overall grid and delivers electricity to the American people and essentially all of their critical supporting civil infrastructure, e.g., homes, hospitals, factories, communications, water-wastewater, etc. A potentially disastrous omission.

Click here for that message, which I urge you to read again. And while I want to emphasize that omitting the Distribution Grid is a serious error, I want to use this message to inform you about another important issue.

We need to shine a bright light on how the Executive Order is to be managed by the Department of Energy (DOE), which has thus far not demonstrated good stewardship. We must assure they do a better job in the future.

Click here for a discussion that Frank Gaffney had with several colleagues on China’s threat to all we hold dear, including my 10-minute discussion in which I expressed my concern about DOE while also urging “the powers that be” to fully support an initiative for the National Guard to exploit the “lessons-learned” from our Lake Wylie Pilot Study to protect the Distribution Grid throughout South and North Carolina and throughout the nation.

Most notably, the larger message of China’s threat to the electric power grid was illustrated by yesterday’s important article by Joe Weiss on China’s likely strategy and capability for a cyber-attack on our electric power grid — titled “Emergency Executive 13920 — response to a real nation-state cyberattack against the US grid.”

Click here for this important article by this very experienced senior analyst of cyber-attack operations. Among other things, he reports that America has received Chinese-produced large transformers, essential to our grid operations. Moreover, they have been compromised with “backdoors” that can be used to obstruct effective operations of that transformer and, via cascading failures, major portions of the electric power grid.

Apparently, at least one such transformer is being evaluated in an unidentified government installation, and Joe no doubt will be reporting more on this unfolding story. But his report that a large Chinese transformer was purchased in the first place was startling. And he gave me little comfort when he reported that that the site acceptance testing identified “backdoor” electronics when it was delivered to a U.S. utility.

Obviously, such backdoors are intended to enable damaging attacks. Joe asked, “Could this be considered an act of war?”

In any case, this experience clearly indicates the wisdom of President Trump’s Executive Order, and is clear warning of an important and likely existing threat to our electric power grid. Why in the world did that utility buy such an important grid component from China? No doubt to save money.

I must admit that I had not realized that the United States was so stupid as to allow China to produce these very large transformers for our grid. They take a long time to build — and we do not build them at home. I thought we purchased them from Germany and South Korea — but certainly not from China.

In any case, this experience makes it apparent that we should have a capability to build such vital components of our electric grid in America. Initiating such important manufacturing capability should be one of the initiatives included in an initiative to improve our critical infrastructure, perhaps as part of the Phase 4 initiative suggested by the President’s quote in my initial paragraph above.

Most certainly, we should not depend on China for such vital components of our electric power grid. And there are other electrical components that can be compromised — such as the critical electric components of the operational systems that control our electric grid.

Thus, President Trump’s Executive Order 13920 is urgently important as far as it goes — we just also should include the entire grid, including the portion that actually delivers electricity to the American people and their critical civil infrastructure.

In wrapping up this week’s message, I want to emphasize that we need to pay close attention to how the Department of Energy (DOE) leads the execution of Executive Order 13920. While I don’t wish to point fingers at particular people, I just want to give an example that involves needed testing of Extra High Voltage Transformers against EMP effects — illustrating why I distrust DOE senior management.

As those familiar with our Lake Wylie Pilot Study know, a key partner is one of the nation’s largest energy companies, Duke Energy. Their engineers want to see the EMP threat understood and dealt with. Over two years ago Duke Energy gave a large step-up (13 kV to 230 kV) EHV transformer to Clemson University and the Savannah River National Laboratories (SRNL) for testing against simulated EMP effects. We have never conducted such tests against these vital grid transformers — thousands of which are deployed in the nation’s grid.

And, as I understand it, SRNL paid to ship this ~200 ton transformer (when fully assembled) to North Charleston. It was disassembled and moved from a North Carolina coal plant by a large trailer to board a large rail car for shipment to North Charleston, where, as illustrated below, it now sits idle (and in a deteriorating condition).

For over two years, progress has stalled for lack of less than a million dollars (from DOE headquarters) to “float” it up the Savannah River to an already prepared SRNL site to initiate a planned testing program. DOE management does not seem to be seriously interested in such important testing activities. And I fear DOE Laboratories’ personnel will just engage in more studies rather than undertaking needed efforts actually to protect the grid.

Again, I can’t help repeating an important conclusion by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) after his round table hearing before his Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee last year — a conclusion with which I adamantly agree:

“We have known about the existential threat posed by electromagnetic pulses (EMP) and geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) for decades. Because most people are either unaware of the danger, or view these as very low probability events, there has not been sufficient public pressure to take effective action to mitigate these threats. Instead, we establish commissions and study panels, conduct research, and develop plans to develop strategies. It is way past time to stop admiring this problem, and actually begin to do something concrete to protect our vulnerable electrical grid, control systems, and the ever-increasing array of electronic devices our society has become dependent upon.”

President Trump should assure that his May 1, 2020 Executive Order does not just lead to one more year-long study. Hopefully, the “powers that be” will much sooner find ways to support our Lake Wylie Pilot Study to provide the “concrete” plan that Senator Johnson urged us be pursued.

One important way would be for President Trump to stick to the position he took in my opening paragraph:

“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill. It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4.” ~President Donald J. Trump (Tweet) in early April 2020

Click here for Maggie Miller’s May 8, 2020 article in The Hill, reporting that there is a potential bipartisan support in the House of Representatives for a pertinent Phase 4 initiative — seeking “to gather support for including funds to boost state-level information technology security and modernization efforts in the next COVID-19 stimulus package.”

This sounds like our “state-level,” National Guard managed, Lake Wylie Pilot Study can be fashioned to fit this bill. Click here and here for my April 21 and April 28 messages on the background and elaboration on specific steps in that direction that I recommend.

Bottom Lines.

What goes around comes around, in part because we have again dropped our guard just as we did in the runup to World War II. But today’s threats don’t permit us time to recover after an attack like we did eighty years ago.

With that in mind and in the case of the existential EMP threat, President Trump should assure that his May 1, 2020 Executive Order does not just lead to one more year-long study.

Hopefully, the powers that be will much sooner find ways to support our Lake Wylie Pilot Study to provide the “concrete” plan that Senator Johnson urged be pursued.

There are possibilities for the congress and senate to join forces with the President to make it happen. We need a “Rosie the Riviter” spirit: “We can do it!”

Stay tuned! And let your Representatives in Washington know they need 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. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

Click here to make a tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it High Frontier, 20 F Street 7^th Floor, Washington, DC 20001.

E-Mail Message 200512