“Certainly, we do not want for things to get to a military conflict . . .” but: “If they [North Korean leaders] elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, that option [a military response] is on the table.” ~ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Reuters, March 17, 2017 Read Full Story
“We propose to rebuild the key tools of missile defense, starting with the Navy cruisers that are the foundation of our missile defense capabilities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. As we expand our Navy toward the goal of 350 ships, we will also procure additional modern destroyers that are designed to handle the missile defense mission in the coming years.” ~ Then Candidate Donald Trump, September 2016 in Philadelphia Read Full Story
“We propose to rebuild the key tools of missile defense, starting with the Navy cruisers that are the foundation of our missile defense capabilities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. As we expand our Navy toward the goal of 350 ships, we will also procure additional modern destroyers that are designed to handle the missile defense mission in the coming years.”
Candidate Donald Trump, September 2016 Speech in Philadelphia
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Last week two important ballistic missile defense (BMD) tests demonstrated significant improvements in the Navy’s Standard Missile that either is or will be deployed at sea on our and Japan’s Aegis BMD ships — and on land as the interceptor of the Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland. These same interceptors also should be charged with defending Americans at home from ballistic missiles launched from off-shore vessels, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Read Full Story
“But I don’t want to go among the mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the [Cheshire] cat, “We’re all mad here. I’m Mad, you’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the cat, “or else you wouldn’t have come here.” ~ Lewis Carol, Alice in Wonderland. Read Full Story
As the clock winds down on the near-term destiny of the terrible Nuclear Deal with Iran, a long-standing threat from Iran’s ally, North Korea, again raises its ugly head. Will we pay attention? Or also continue to ignore it and its ties to Iran? Read Full Story
America’s current missile defense strategy is “not sustainable,” according to Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Deputy Director USAF Brig. Gen. Kenneth Todorov. As reported by Sydney J. Freedberg in June 18’s Breaking Defense, he correctly emphasized that we can’t keep buying multi-million-dollar interceptors to shoot down adversaries’ ever-growing arsenals of much cheaper offensive missiles; we have to find a better way involving fewer Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) and more investment in R&D. Read Full Story
We remain vulnerable to the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat that is posed by rogue states and jihadi terrorists. Time’s awasting, but we have relatively inexpensive ways to counter this threat beginning immediately if only the “powers that be” wake up and take the needed actions. Click here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERKJKeMik0k) for Johnny Cash and June Carter and 2 minutes of “Times A Wastin.” Read Full Story
On his trip to the Pacific Rim, President Obama should set the stage for almost immediately ending America’s current vulnerability to the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat posed by North Korea’s Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) capability. Beyond unilateral measures—the U.S. could deploy a TPY-2 radar in the Philippines to help defend them from North Korea and to empower our Aegis ships in the Pacific and our ground-based interceptors in California to shoot down a FOBS attack before it reaches U.S. Territory. Read Full Story
Iran, like North Korea, has demonstrated an ability to launch nuclear weapons into low earth orbit over the South Polar regions. Last year, they launched a monkey into space in such a trajectory, reportedly in a 4400 pound capsule that could easily carry a conventionally designed nuclear weapon into orbit. If they launched a much lighter “EMP” nuclear weapon possibly in the North Korean inventory, they could achieve substantially higher orbits. (Detonation of either weapon over the U.S. could lead to the death of several hundred million Americans within a year.) These facts, coupled with geographic realities, make defending against an Iranian FOBS more difficult than is the case for North Korea. And the Iranian Mullahs may be more inclined to attack “the Great Satan” than is North Korea’s Dear Leader. We can and should quickly end our vulnerability to both emerging if not existing threats. Read Full Story
We will be adding key policy briefs as we progress.