October 30, 2018—Pending Black Swan Events?

Swans were believed to be white until Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh’s 1697 discovery of black swans in Australia, which profoundly changed zoology. It subsequently seemed obvious that “black swans” had to exist because other animals also had varying colors. So, a “Black Swan” event is an unexpected event, after which experts and even laymen usually conclude: “it was bound to happen . . . similar incidences even have happened before.”

I first wrote about an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) “Black Swan” event almost five years ago. Click here for that article and let’s see how little has happened since then.

First consider lessons from the December 7, 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that was a classic “Black Swan” event in that it was unexpected but should have been expected, notably as concluded after the fact. Five years ago, I observed that a fair question was whether we were courting another “surprise” attack that should be identified and countered while there may still be time to prevent or defend against it.

Regrettably, the answer is still “yes” today, since little if anything has improved the nation’s ability to counter the long ago identified existential threat from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack — or from a naturally certain to occur but infrequent Coronal Mass Ejection/Geomagnetic Disturbance (CME/GMD) event. As discussed below, this manmade and natural threat continues to be unaddressed.

Also, there are other Black Swan threats we have too long ignored — for example, existential threats from space that prompt the need for a Space Force to counter them, as recently proposed by President Trump.

Consider the unheeded warnings of Pearl Harbor for lessons in dealing with these threats.

Pearl Harbor: A Historical Black Swan Example.

In a few weeks, we will remember a day 77 years ago when the Sun rose on Hawaii, followed by that “Black Swan” event: The Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. Those still with us who lived through that event and World War II — the “greatest generation” now in their 90s and their children — can testify from their personal experience about the costs of ignoring the clear warning signs of that attack that failed to be anticipated.

Not only was the “tactical” warning of the attack in progress ignored that fateful morning, Billy Mitchell’s private and particularly public attempts many years earlier were ignored by the U.S. “powers that be” who failed to understand the importance of air power and led to his court-marshal. Over 15 years in advance, he warned of the coming war with Japan and specifically of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Click here and here for discussions of his 1925 court-marshal and his pre-trial testimony before the “Morrow Board,” in which he predicted the rise of Japanese strength and specifically foretold Japan’s Sunday-morning attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. He also argued, accurately until 1944, that aircraft carriers could not operate against land-based aviation. He saw war as global and imminent, and that airpower was the only way to master the situation.

But the powers that be, up to and including the President, refused to listen and ended Mitchell’s career, though he retained his hero status among those who would see his warnings come true after his death in 1936, many who were leaders during World War II and considered him to be the Father of the U.S. Air Force, in which I was pleased to serve.

Mitchell received many honors following his death, including a commission by President Roosevelt as a Major General. He is also the only individual after whom in named a type of American military aircraft, the North American B-25 Mitchell—ironically the aircraft used in America’s April 19, 1942 much lauded retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo, led by Jimmy Doolitle, a protégé of Mitchell’s with whom years later I was privileged to serve on Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Task Forces.

So certain were the military brass of their “remote” safety in Hawaii that they parked all the defensive fighter aircraft together, composing an easy target for the Japanese to attack from the air — but more easily guarded against sabotage, you see. And most of the Pacific Fleet was docked “safely” in the harbor, as the Japanese anticipated.

So we collectively ignored “strategic” warning of an attack on Pearl Harbor as well as “tactical” warning so brilliantly analyzed by Roberta Wohlstetter in 1962. Click here for an Amazon link to her historically important book, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision.

At least in this Black Swan event (Pearl Harbor), we had time not only to recover and with Providential help (e.g., at Midway) defeat the Japanese in the Pacific and the Nazis in Europe.

We may not be so fortunate in the even more catastrophic Black Swan events we are courting by ignoring both strategic and perhaps tactical warning of today’s existential threats.

The Billy Mitchell experience from those days of the Army Air Corps in particular should provide some pause to those now considering the need for a Space Force. And there are the long ignored natural and manmade existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats, at least now identified as looming threats.

Today, consider again the possible EMP Black Swan event. We’ll take up the Space Force issues further in the future.

A Prospective EMP Black Swan Event?

Five years ago, we already had extensively reported on the threat of both manmade and natural EMP events that pose an existential threat to America. My 2013 message focused on the manmade threat — specifically on the, at least now acknowledged, High-altitude EMP (HEMP) threat posed by a ballistic missile attack from Russia, China, North Korea or Iran, which we now know is included in their military doctrines.

These threats have not been countered by either our diplomatic or active defense policies. Don’t just take my word for this claim, click here for Bill Gertz’s Washington Free Beacon article last week titled to say it all: “Russia, China, North Korea and Iran Set for Electronic Attacks on U.S.”

Gertz’s article draws liberally from the EMP Commission Chairman’s recently published very important now public report ,after a year of delays associated with the clearing process within the Department of Defense (DoD).

Click here for my October 9, 2018 message that also referred to that important report by Dr. William R. Graham, among the nation’s most knowledgeable experts, if not the most knowledgeable expert, on the EMP threat and how to counter it.

He was on the team that first recognized the importance of EMP in the early 1960s, contributed directly to developing methods to protect our most important strategic military systems against it and served for 17 years as Chairman of the Congressionally mandated EMP Commission that has consistently warned of the existential EMP threat to our critical civil infrastructure, regrettably ignored by our nation’s leaders.

To emphasize how lackadaisical has been the collective federal government’s response to this existential threat, consider just a few points listed in my December 11, 2013 report (with my updating current comments underlined in parenthesis):

We have long had “Strategic Warning.”
- The U.S. demonstrated HEMP effects on “ancient” vacuum tube electronics nearly 1000 miles from our 1962 Starfish Prime test in the South Pacific — today’s solid state electronics are much, much more vulnerable to HEMP. (Even better data were obtained by the Soviets in their 1962 high altitude tests over populated areas — and recent analysis by our most competent scientists on the EMP Commission indicate that for years we have underestimated the magnitude of HEMP effects.}
- At considerable expense during the Cold War, the U.S. hardened its key military electronic systems to HEMP to assure the President could retaliate after a Soviet HEMP attack on the U.S. This capability was at the heart of our deterrent policy.
- Post-Cold War discussions with Russia validated this investment — their high altitude tests were actually more extensive than ours and they included HEMP in their attack plans. (We now know that China, North Korea and Iran also include EMP in their strategic attack plans. Moreover, senior Russian military leaders have noted they had “accidentally” passed how to build “Super EMP weapons” to North Korea., no doubt also shared with Iran.)
- We continue to harden our strategic military systems but have done little or nothing to harden our civil critical infrastructure — especially the electric power grid, upon which the viability of most other critical infrastructure depends.
- The Congressionally mandated nonpartisan EMP Commission reports warned of the devastating consequences of such an attack in 2004 and in 2008 provided previously classified information to back up these conclusions in a comprehensive report. (The EMP Commission was again reinstated, and after months of stalling by Department of Defense (DoD) officials, had 6-months to update their findings which, after another year of staling, have been cleared for public release in several important reports. Click here for their listing on a webpage paid for by the EMP Commission Chairman, given DoD refusal to publish them on a government webpage.)
- The EMP Commission identified the electric power grid vulnerabilities as being critically important, deserving remediation immediately — its Chairman testified that unless these vulnerabilities were rectified, starvation, disease and social collapse from a HEMP attack could lead to the death of most Americans within the following year. (This warning in 2004 and 2008 testimony has been reiterated by the most recent Commission, but has so far been unheeded. Meanwhile, Congress disbanded the first EMP Commission over a year ago and mandated a new commission be formed, but as yet none has been charted.)
- Russia has shared its nuclear and ballistic missile technology with China, North Korea, Iran and, at least via the cacophony of proliferation if not directly, with others. This includes information that helps North Korea develop nuclear weapons to maximize EMP effects. For example, close collaboration between North Korea and Iran has benefited both — of course with help from Russia and China. (Subsequent events have reinforced this observation. Note the above reference that Russia years ago shared how to build low-yield Super EMP nuclear weapons with North Korea.)
- Iran has collaborated with North Korean and attended North Korean tests, which some believe were intended to demonstrate advanced designs that could easily be adapted for ballistic missile or satellite delivery to create HEMP effects. (Both North Korea and Iran have orbited satellites that could carry such nuclear weapons that can approach the United States from the South. And they have also have ICBMs.)
- Iran has pursued an extensive ballistic missile development program—including testing in the late 1990s that knowledgeable observers associate with an interest an HEMP attack from a seagoing vessel.
- A ten-day maneuver exercise in the summer of 2011 launched some 14 ballistic missiles of various ranges, after which Iran’s then Defense Minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, boasted: “The war games…show Iran’s great capability in designing, producing and using various kinds of missiles based on domestic knowledge. This showed that the sanctions imposed had no effect on Iran’s missile program.”
These activities bridge into more recent (2013) potential “Tactical Warning” events that may signal an eminent attack. (Happily has not happened.)
- The last bullet above suggests a certain irrelevance of current debate over sanctions in the broader context of the ongoing ill-advised negotiation with Iran on its nuclear weapons development programs.
- Last year (in 2012), North Korea and Iran launched satellites to their south, traveling over the South Polar regions, which could easily have been directed over the U.S. in their initial orbit at an altitude to optimize HEMP effects over the entire continental U.S.
- Recently (in 2013), Iranian Naval Admiral Afshin Rezayee said Iran’s Navy plans to deploy warships in the Atlantic.
- Previously, Iranian officials have observed their ships can threaten U.S. coastal cities — particularly from the Gulf of Mexico.
- Meanwhile President Obama signals his willingness for Iran to continue with a “Modest nuclear enrichment program” . . . whatever that means, it must drive the Israelis up the wall. (President Trump withdrew from the subsequent terrible Iran Deal negotiated by the Obama administration, a major step forward in my view. But we have the legacy of billions of released funding for Iranian mischief.)

In view of these facts, it was clear five years ago that once Iran mates nuclear weapons to its ballistic missiles, it could immediately threaten a devastating HEMP attack — from a single burst of an appropriately designed device at a couple hundred miles over the central U.S.

Thus, I believe we should assume this is an existing capability of both Iran and North Korea. In particular, either might double up on attack strategies. For example, one attack from a satellite and one from a vessel in the Gulf of Mexico — both in the context of overall diplomatic and other distractions.

Recall that the Japanese Ambassador was waiting in the Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s office when the Pearl Harbor attack began, seeking diplomatic relief on U.S. imposed trade restrictions. Click here for a summary of key exchanges in that failed diplomatic negotiation.

As noted in my many messages since 2013, the Washington “powers that be” continued to dither throughout the Obama administration, out of ignorance or incompetence. Members of the Executive and Legislative branches collectively failed in their sworn duty “to provide for the common defense.”

Trump’s Way Ahead?

Hopefully, the Trump administration will be taking a very different, much more constructive, approach. And hopefully, leadership will come from the top because of the oft-demonstrated lethargy of the federal bureaucracy, as noted above.

President Trump highlighted his interest in countering the electromagnetic threat…and hopefully his administration will be following through, beginning in the White House. Again, click here for my October 9, 2018 message discussing these issues, and urging that the President issue an Executive Order establishing that leadership in the White House within the National Security Council, because of the past failures of the federal establishment.

To repeat key points of that message, consider again former EMP Commission Chairman Wiliam R. Graham’s valid criticism of the DoD that has:

Failed to transfer much of its technical capabilities and accomplishments to other agencies of the federal government;
Failed to use its knowledge to assist and critique activities of other federal agencies, including the intelligence community;
Failed to declassify EMP environment and effects data and predictions that, while known to U.S. adversaries, are not available to the U.S. public, U.S. infrastructure organizations, and U.S. professional societies that develop specifications and standards for protecting critical national infrastructure;
Failed to obtain the complete archive of Russian nuclear weapons effects data when offered for sale to the U.S. at modest cost in 1996;
Failed to inform the Congress and the public of the present and continuing existential EMP threat to the nation; and
Failed to develop and pursue plans to protect the U.S. from EMP threats.

As he stated, “Overall, for more than a decade, the DoD has been derelict in its duties to lead the country in providing for national defense and security from EMP attack. This dereliction of duty should not be allowed by the leadership of the Administration and the Congress to continue. “

And because of their past demonstrated failures, I would argue against giving the DoD responsibility to lead future efforts to deal with the existential EMP threat, as was directed by the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 (NDAA 2019).

I would next skip to Dr. Graham’s very important conclusion and recommendation on his personal report’s final page:

“That the 2014 Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC) report on EMP is factually erroneous and analytically unsound;” [emphasis added] and

That “the Director of National Intelligence [should] withdraw the JAEIC EMP Report and direct that the [last] EMP Commission critique of the JAEIC EMP Report be circulated to all the recipients of the 2014 JAEIC EMP Report, which is a threat to national security by impeding progress on EMP understanding and protection.”

Since the JAEIC is strongly influenced by the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Laboratories, I would argue they have demonstrated by their irresponsible failure that they at a minimum do not understand the threat; and therefore the DOE should not be trusted to lead future government efforts to deal with the EMP threat to our critical civil infrastructure.

And I agree with Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, that such a task should not be given to the Department of Homeland Security because it has far too much on its plate already and is only beginning to address the congressional directives to deal with the EMP threat.

Thus, I believe this situation demands that the needed “Executive Agent” should be in the White House “with the “authority, accountability, and resources to manage U.S. national infrastructure protection and defense against the existential threat. . .” as Dr. Graham also recommended.

My personal recommendation is that the President should follow the “Marsh Commission” model embodied in a 1996 Presidential Executive Order to recommend an integrated approach to counter the Cyber threat. Click here for several of my previous messages that elaborated on this recommendation. Click here for the complete 1996 Executive Order, which led to the so-called Marsh Commission, after Retired USAF General Robert T. Marsh who chaired the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection — as a salaried position in the White House.

Bottom Lines:

We have understood the existential EMP threat for years, and have had inept leadership in responding to it. Hopefully, President Trump and his team will chart a demonstrably different course.

The telling moment of truth will come if and when he establishes clear White House leadership to chart that course and lead in its execution.

Hopefully, it will be in time to avoid a Black Swan event far more devastating than Pearl Harbor.

Stay tuned.

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.

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