The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
More than a year after that deadline, the study hasn’t been released and its status remains unclear. [Editor’s note: In June the state released the executive summary of the report.]
After repeated efforts to pry loose the document through Freedom of Information Law requests, activists are urging Cuomo and local officials to do something. Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), formed as the pipeline plans took shape, is among the groups that will take part in an “interfaith climate vigil” for Feb. 25 outside Cuomo’s Mount Kisco home.
Known as the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) project, the 42-inch pipeline began operation in January 2017 despite opposition from environmentalists and scientists who argued that a high-pressure pipe cannot be safely snaked through 2,300 feet of a nuclear power complex, much less one, like Indian Point, in an earthquake fault.
Although Indian Point is scheduled to close by spring 2021, critics contend that dangers of a pipeline accident will remain because spent radioactive fuel will be stored at the facility indefinitely.
Constructed by Spectra Energy, AIM is a link in a system to carry natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania into New York, beneath the Hudson River, and across Putnam County into Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the pipeline, although critics contend that its decision was based on erroneous data.
On Feb. 1, Philipstown resident Paula Clair asked the Town Board to call for the study to be released, saying that “we who live close to the nuclear plant have a right to know” of the hazards. Clair, who sits on the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, said that the proximity of the gas pipeline to spent nuclear fuel means that “if there was an explosion or a fire, it would be a catastrophe.”
A draft resolution she proposed noted that a radioactive release caused by an explosion could “render Philipstown uninhabitable for generations.”
Philipstown Supervisor Richard Shea agreed that the study, paid for with taxpayer funds, should be released, and promised that the board would consider passing a measure soon. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem” approving it, he said.
Susan Van Dolsen, co-founder of SAPE, said her organization has been attempting to get a copy of the study through FOIL and other means since mid-2016, without success. Instead of the study, the state sent stacks of emails and other items, often of dubious relevance, she said, with large portions blacked out.
Sandy Galef, who represents Philipstown and Beacon in the state Assembly and serves on the task force looking at the impact of Indian Point’s closure, also wants the assessment released.
In a Jan. 19 letter to Cuomo, she reminded the governor that she had previously asked to see the document, which, she said, becomes especially important as the task force looks at possible re-uses of Indian Point after its nuclear operations cease. “I don’t think we can move forward without all possible information,” she wrote.
As of Thursday (Feb. 22), the governor’s office had not responded to questions posed a week earlier by The Current about the study. The state Office of General Services, which oversaw the contract for the study, on Feb. 14 referred inquiries to the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, which also did not respond.
A Brahmos launcher during a rehearsal for the India’s 2011 Republic Day Parade. In 2021, an India Brahmos missile test misfired into Pakistani territory, sparking concerns of escalation between the rival nuclear powers. (Press Information Bureau)
Southern Asia — India, Pakistan and China — is the only place on earth where three nuclear-armed states have recently engaged in violent confrontations along their contested borders. As a USIP senior study group report concluded last year, the problem of nuclear stability in Southern Asia is getting harder to manage because of geopolitical changes, such as rising India-China border tensions, as well as evolving military technologies, including growing nuclear arsenals and more capable delivery systems. Unfortunately, in the time since that senior study group completed its work, little has happened to revise its worrisome conclusion or to prevent the most likely triggering causes of a nuclearized crisis in Southern Asia. To the contrary, there are some good reasons to fear that the situation in Southern Asia has even deteriorated over the past year.
No One Wants Nuclear Escalation — But it Can Still Happen
To be clear, just because states invest in nuclear weapons and delivery systems does not mean that a crisis or war is imminent. Leaders in China, India and Pakistan have always viewed their nuclear arsenals primarily as tools of deterrence, less for practical warfighting than to convince adversaries of the extraordinary costs that a war would risk. Nor do any of the region’s leaders take their nuclear programs lightly; all feel tremendous incentives to keep their arsenals safe and secure and to build systems of command, control and communications intended to prevent accidents, unauthorized use or theft.
Nevertheless, because even a single nuclear detonation could be massively destructive, U.S. policymakers have an obligation not to accept these sorts of logical assurances passively or uncritically. Accidents do happen. India’s misfire of a Brahmos missile test into Pakistan last year proved that point perfectly. No matter how well designed, nuclear systems are complicated and involve the potential for human or technical error. When something does go wrong, overreaction by opposing forces is less likely when they have a greater degree of confidence in, and knowledge of, the other side. Reliable and secure communications — in the form of hotlines — can help, but only to the point that they are actually used in a timely manner. Apparently, India failed to do so during the Brahmos incident.
Fear, hatred and other emotions can cloud human judgment, especially in the heat of a crisis when information is imperfect and communication difficult. Reflecting on his own experience of crisis management in Southern Asia, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo recently wrote that he does “not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.” The question — for Pompeo and current U.S. policymakers — is what more they are doing now to prepare for the next crisis.
Fortunately, a February 2021 cease-fire agreement between India and Pakistan holds, supplemented at times by a widely rumored “backchannel” dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad. Then again, it is a measure of the low level of our collective expectations for India-Pakistan relations that the bare agreement not to actively shoot artillery shells across their border and to participate in sporadic, secret talks is considered progress.
The Terrorism Tinderbox
A return to serious India-Pakistan crisis could be just one terrorist attack away. Not even when Pakistan suffered devastating floods last summer could leaders in Islamabad and New Delhi create sufficient political space to open basic commodity trade. Hostile rhetoric is high, and there is reason to anticipate it could get far worse over the coming year as national leaders on both sides prepare for elections. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has learned he can whip up domestic political support from tough talk and cross-border retaliation. In Pakistan, neither civilian nor army leaders can afford to look weak in the face of Indian attacks, especially when they face jingoistic (if transparently opportunistic) criticism from ousted prime minister Imran Khan.
The prospect of anti-Indian terrorism is also growing. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan shows no greater commitment to eliminating terrorist safe havens than it did in the 1990s, and Pakistan’s will (and capacity) for keeping a lid on cross-border terrorism will be tested as it faces heightened security and economic pressures at home. In addition, India’s repression of its Muslim minority community, especially in Kashmir, is simultaneously a reaction to past anti-state militancy and nearly guaranteed to inspire new acts of violence.
No matter the specific cause or circumstances of anti-Indian militancy, Modi’s government is likely to attribute culpability to Pakistan. That, in turn, raises the potential for an emotionally charged crisis that could, under the wrong circumstances, spiral into another India-Pakistan war.
Nor can Pakistan afford only to worry about its border with India. Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated drastically ever since the Taliban swept back into power. Rather than controlling Afghanistan through its favored militant proxies, Pakistan is suffering a surge in violence on its own soil, most recently the devastating bombing of a police mosque in Peshawar claimed by the anti-state Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Such violence, along with national political turmoil, environmental calamity and economic crisis, will raise concerns among some in the United States about threats to the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear enterprise. Sadly, that will probably lead Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division — the guardians of its nuclear arsenal — and other Pakistani military leaders to fear a phantom threat of American military intervention rather than to address actual causes of the Pakistani state’s fragility.
India-China Tensions Rise
Events along the contested border between India and China hardly inspire confidence that New Delhi and Beijing have found a path back to normal relations after their bloody border skirmishes of 2020. To the contrary, the prospects of rapid military escalation have grown, principally because both sides have positioned greater numbers of more lethal forces close to the border. Before 2020, relatively small, unarmed Chinese and Indian patrols routinely risked coming into contact as they pressed territorial claims on the un-demarcated border. This was dangerous, but extremely unlikely to escalate rapidly into a serious military encounter. In early December 2022 hundreds of Chinese troops attacked an Indian camp in what could not possibly have been an unplanned operation. With tens of thousands of troops stationed not far away, conventional military escalation is far more plausible than it was just a few years ago.
Although there is still a long way between remote mountain warfare and a nuclear crisis, at least some Indian security officials anticipate a future of more routine border violence as troops on both sides become more entrenched. China and India are also jockeying in the Indian Ocean, where China’s increasing naval presence and influence with India’s smaller neighbors feed Indian insecurities and encourage New Delhi to seek countervailing defense ties with Quad partners (Japan, Australia and the United States) as well as other naval powers, like France.
Against this backdrop of tensions, China’s growing nuclear, missile and surveillance capabilities will look more threatening to Indian nuclear defense planners. New Delhi may even come to fear that China is developing a first strike so devastating that it would effectively eliminate India’s retaliatory response and, as a consequence, diminish the threat of its nuclear deterrent. In response, India could seek to demonstrate that it has thermonuclear weapons capable of destroying Chinese cities in one blow as well as more nuclear submarines capable of evading China’s first strike.
A ‘Cascading Security Dilemma’
Not only would those Indian moves raise serious policy questions for the United States, but they would demonstrate the region’s “cascading security dilemma,” by which military capabilities intended to deter one adversary tend to inspire dangerous insecurities in another. When India arms itself to deter China, Pakistan perceives new threats from India and will likely pursue enhanced capabilities of its own. In a worst-case scenario, Southern Asia could be entering an accelerated nuclear arms race in which uneven waves of new investments in capabilities and delivery systems will alter perceptions of deterrence and stability in dangerously unpredictable ways.
All told, U.S. policymakers have at least as many reasons for concern about strategic stability in Southern Asia as when USIP launched its report last spring. Old triggers for escalation, like terrorist attacks against India, persist, while newer storms are brewing. As that earlier report explained, Washington cannot solve Southern Asia’s troubles alone, but neither can it afford to stand aloof or to downplay their seriousness.
NATO needs to address the fact that deterrence can no longer be seen as just a bipolar equation when it comes to nuclear weapons | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Maximilian Terhalle is a visiting professor of strategic studies at the London School of Economics (LSE IDEAS). Kees Klompenhouwer is a former Ambassador of the Netherlands.
The euphoria in NATO surrounding Finland’s new membership demonstrates a grim reality: Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has searingly exposed Europe’s strategic vulnerability.
With only a handful of strategic thinkers engaged with the nuclear problem, for years this issue has gone largely unnoticed, and curiously, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s departure from power has faded his threats to leave NATO from European memory. As the 2024 U.S. presidential election may once again result in an isolationist Republican victor, however, doubts regarding Washington’s nuclear defense commitment to Europe may well soon return.
Meanwhile, China’s revisionist ambitions — a bipartisan concern for the U.S. — are stretching America’s role of security guardianship to an extent that the U.S. could eventually be obliged to make some hard choices. And as intimated by former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s succinct response of “No, Sir!” when asked whether America could fight two major wars simultaneously, these choices wouldn’t be to the advantage of European security.
As such, deterrence can no longer be seen as just a bipolar equation — and it’s time NATO addresses this fact.
In addition, China is currently aiming to increase the total number of nuclear warheads at its disposal from 400 to 1,000 in the next few years, it’s nuclear rise thus starting to shape a tripolar set of deterrence equations. This isn’t only undermining the notion of nuclear strategic parity and making U.S. deterrence much more difficult to manage, but it’s also contributed to the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which had limited the number of short- and intermediate-range — or sub-strategic — nuclear weapons in Europe, and a similar fate may now await the New START treaty too.
At the same time, Russia has been modernizing its sub-strategic nuclear arsenal as well, and consolidating its nuclear superiority when it comes to Europe. While Moscow now has 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads targeting the Continent; Europe has at its disposal merely 100 U.S. free-fall bombs that can be delivered by so-called dual-capable aircrafts (DCA) — i.e. fighter jets that could carry nuclear bombs into Russia. Otherwise, the United Kingdom has some 225 strategic nuclear warheads carried by submarines, while France has 290 strategic nuclear warheads of which approximately 50 are medium-range air to surface missiles (ASMP) — but that’s it.
Moreover, Russia has now developed a hypersonic glide missile that’s nuclear capable and with a range of 2,000 kilometers, against which there is apparently no current effective defense.
Crucially, this combination of China’s aggressive nuclear weapons program, Russia’s growing sub-strategic nuclear superiority over Europe, and possible renewed American isolationism would spell the erosion of the U.S. nuclear umbrella’s global credibility, pushing nations in East Asia and Europe to come up with national solutions — something that would effectively spell the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the cornerstone of nuclear arms control.
This means that China is essentially changing the strategic calculations that NATO allies have to make.
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has searingly exposed Europe’s strategic vulnerability | Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images
As U.S. and Chinese political rhetoric have escalated, diplomatic relations between the two great powers have dangerously deteriorated. China now also appears determined to exercise sovereign control over Taiwan and the Western Pacific — something that will be difficult to deter. And though neither side is yet militarily ready for a direct confrontation, if diplomacy and statecraft fail, a military confrontation over Taiwan will become more likely — not least since the U.S. president has pledged to intervene directly in such a case, despite formally recognizing China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.
In such a scenario the U.S. would then have to withdraw military assets from Europe, and European allies would be called upon to provide the bulk of the conventional force in the European theater to defend and deter against Russia.
Thus, NATO now needs to think much harder about how to prepare the alliance prior to such a worst-case scenario, and this reevaluation needs to include the question of what the alliance should do in the nuclear realm — a question so far left untouched.
And critically, rethinking NATO’s nuclear strategy in this way will likely lead to the alliance abandoning some of the axioms it now holds.
For instance, based on global American strategic supremacy, the very idea of autonomous European defense has long been considered detrimental to the vital transatlantic link. However, with global strategic challenges growing fast, this principle is no longer tenable. And while addressing this will be a major political challenge, there’s an undeniable need for a new approach that strengthens NATO by compensating for foreseeable gaps in the transatlantic nuclear deterrence posture.
Three mutually reinforcing paths could provide a way forward here: First, upgrading the U.S. contribution to European sub-strategic nuclear deterrence, modernizing weapons and enlarging the number of DCA-capable nations in Europe. Second, starting a new dialogue on how the independent French and British deterrents could fit into this strategy. And third, nonnuclear European allies’ strengthening their conventional forces to support NATO’s overall deterrence strategy, including the link to U.S. nuclear deterrence.
Given today’s growing challenges, now is the time for NATO to adapt its concept of “peace through strength.” And in order to do so, it must rethink its nuclear deterrence strategy — there is no time to waste.
Members of the Republican Study Committee introduced six bills to prevent President Joe Biden’s administration from entering back into a nuclear deal with Iran.
The bills seek to enforce further sanctions on Iran and look to stop the Biden administration from entering into a new Iranian nuclear deal or back into the previous one that started under President Barack Obama in 2015.
One bill would expand and strengthen sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the primary branch of the Iranian military. Another one would prohibit Biden from lifting sanctions on Iranian terrorists unless those entities can prove they have stopped engaging in terrorism. Another bill would use an executive order from the Obama administration to sanction Iran’s government leaders, police, security forces, and the IRGC.
The bill that would significantly hinder any hope the Biden administration has of entering into a nuclear deal with Iran is by Rep. John James (R-MI). His bill, the Address Iran’s Malign Posture Act, would label any nuclear agreement between Biden and Iran as a “formal treaty,” which would require it to receive congressional approval.
The package was put together by the committee’s National Security Task Force, which includes the task force’s chairman Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Reps. Pat Fallon (R-TX), Bryan Steil (R-WI), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Cory Mills (R-FL), and James.
If the bills make it to the floor, they should have no problem passing out of the Republican-controlled House. But, in the Senate, they face a less clear path because Democrats have the majority.
The move comes after Axios reported Biden is considering a “freeze-for-freeze” agreement with Iran in which the U.S. would freeze some of the sanctions on Iran, and in return, Iran would freeze part of its nuclear program. The Washington Examiner reported that the U.S. has not ruled out revitalizing an Iranian nuclear deal.
“The RSC has not forgotten about the Biden administration’s continuing attempts to re-enter the Iran deal or enter into an even worse agreement – but the Biden Administration hopes no one is paying attention,” RSC Chairman Kevin Hern (R-OK) said in a statement. “RSC members will not allow him to put more lives at risk. Biden’s weak posture on Iran is empowering bad actors around the world; we must put a stop to it before it’s too late.”
Trump’s main quarrel with the deal was the sunset clause. The limitations of the clause on Iran’s use and development of new technologies for uranium enhancement would begin phasing out in 2025. Trump claimed in 2018 that if the deal were allowed to remain, it would create a “nuclear arms race in the Middle East” in which every country would be rushing to get nuclear weapons by the time Iran was allowed to have its.
Palestinians carry the bodies of Hassan Qatnani, Moaz al-Masri and Ibrahim Jabr, draped in the Hamas militant group flags, during their funeral in Nablus – Copyright AP Photo
By Euronews with AP, EFE • Updated: 04/05/2023 – 16:46
Israeli forces have killed three Palestinian men it suspected were involved in a shooting that killed a British-Israeli woman and her two daughters.
Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank killed three Palestinians wanted in connection with a shooting attack that killed a British-Israeli settler and two of her daughters.
It said that two of the dead had “completely disfigured” facial features “due to the intensity of the shooting”.
The Israeli military said the men were behind an attack last month on a car near a Jewish West Bank settlement that killed Lucy Dee, a British-Israeli woman, and two of her daughters, Maya and Rina.
The initial deadly attack shocked Israelis because it reduced the Dee family from seven members to four. Hundreds of people packed the funerals, and Lucy Dee’s husband has been a recurring figure in Israeli media, calling for national unity amid a deep societal rift.
Israel has been staging near-nightly arrest raids into occupied West Bank villages, towns and cities for more than a year.
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians see the attacks as further entrenchment of Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation.
At least 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the raids began. Just under 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
US Missile Defense Agency successfully shoots down a ballistic missile in space during a test
Editor’s note: What follows is exclusively adapted from a longer essay that was published as a part of the Ronald Reagan Institute’s Essay Series on Presidential Principles and Beliefs which is premised on the conviction that President Reagan’s words and ideas hold important lessons for today. You can find more about the essay series here.
At the height of the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan had the foresight to call upon the nation to support the Strategic Defense Initiative, later known as the “Star Wars” defense system, to protect the United States from a potential USSR missile attack.
Due to fierce Democrat opposition, our nation never fully built out our missile defense capability and doubled down on nuclear deterrence. We have relied upon our adversaries’ fear that our nuclear weapons could destroy them to deter their use of nuclear weapons against us or our allies. The result has been that our cities and populace remain unprotected from a nuclear attack from Russia or China.
Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons.
Concept art shows a hypersonic missile fired from a B-52 Stratofortress off the Southern California coast, Dec. 9, 2022. (Lockheed Martin )
If deterrence is dead, then the concept of mutually assured destruction is obsolete and comprehensive missile defense must be revisited as an essential capability to protect our citizens.
In 1983, Reagan was harshly criticized for his vision, yet in 2023 a layered missile defense system has proven cost-effective and de-escalatory, as demonstrated by the jointly produced and fully functioning U.S.-Israel “Iron Dome.” More federal investments are needed to scale up existing capabilities in the United States to meet the threats from adversaries and rogue states. Unlike in Reagan’s era, threats are now omnipresent and coming from all directions.
In April 2020, Iran successfully launched its first military satellite into orbit. This was a demonstration of Tehran’s advancing capabilities signaling their continued efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can transverse the Atlantic to reach our shores.
A TV screen shows footage of a North Korea missile launch during a news program at the Yongsan Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Jan. 1, 2023. (Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In the Pacific, North Korea continues to expand its missile program and has unveiled several new ICBM and anti-ship missiles in recent years, conducting over 90 launches in 2022 alone.
Near-peer threats present a more systemic challenge than attacks from rogue states. Russia’s ICBM force consists of 310 missiles that can carry upwards of 1,189 warheads. Recent assessments indicate the Russians have stockpiled up to 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons.
We only have ourselves to blame. Our current vulnerabilities are the product of conflicting political priorities and our own shortsightedness as missile defense took a back seat to other national issues after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The focus dissipated for the next decade.
After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration revived missile defense with its deployment of ground-based midcourse defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against intermediate- to long-range ballistic missiles targeting Europe or the U.S.
In 2009, the Obama administration scrapped this plan, opting to adopt a short- and medium-range missile defense architecture instead of an ICBM-focused posture. Then it canceled key parts of its own plan, leaving the U.S. and Europe vulnerable to an array of threats and potential nuclear coercion by adversaries.
But despite a war in Europe and the increasing adversary capabilities, the Biden administration has shown a lack of foresight. In its 2021 Missile Defense Review, President Biden ignored our defense industrial base supply chain issues and emerging technologies such as directed energy.
The consequences of these policy decisions are a current missile defense posture that can sense threats from North Korea and Iran but not China or Russia. It employs a variety of ground, air and sea-based sensor systems to intercept at the midcourse and terminal flight phases, but it is not capable of countering the next generation of nuclear threats, some of which are deployable now.
A Russian navy boat launches an anti-ship missile test in the Peter the Great Gulf in the Sea of Japan on March 28, 2023. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Given advancements by our adversaries, the U.S. and its allies must invest in a modernized, scalable and integrated missile defense system that can sense threats early and intercept them at every stage.
In addition to the sensors that are already in place, we need networked, space-based sensors and radar satellites to track all relevant threats, including hypersonic cruise missiles. We should invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to develop the ability to track and rapidly parse through the information provided by these enhanced sensors to ensure as much decision time and as many interception opportunities as possible.
Finally, projects such as the Glide Phase Interceptor and Glide Breaker show promise in countering hypersonic cruise missiles in their glide phase—the toughest flight phase to intercept. The Biden administration should accelerate this research and testing.
Our adversaries’ advancements require us to invest in scalable, effective defensive capabilities to protect us against any attack from anywhere in the world. With political and financial fortitude, we can protect our sovereignty and citizens. Ultimately, we can achieve President’s Reagan vision of a world free from the threat of mutually assured destruction at the hands of tyrants and rogue actors.
US Missile Defense Agency successfully shoots down a ballistic missile in space during a test
Editor’s note: What follows is exclusively adapted from a longer essay that was published as a part of the Ronald Reagan Institute’s Essay Series on Presidential Principles and Beliefs which is premised on the conviction that President Reagan’s words and ideas hold important lessons for today. You can find more about the essay series here.
At the height of the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan had the foresight to call upon the nation to support the Strategic Defense Initiative, later known as the “Star Wars” defense system, to protect the United States from a potential USSR missile attack.
Due to fierce Democrat opposition, our nation never fully built out our missile defense capability and doubled down on nuclear deterrence. We have relied upon our adversaries’ fear that our nuclear weapons could destroy them to deter their use of nuclear weapons against us or our allies. The result has been that our cities and populace remain unprotected from a nuclear attack from Russia or China.
Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons.
Concept art shows a hypersonic missile fired from a B-52 Stratofortress off the Southern California coast, Dec. 9, 2022. (Lockheed Martin )
If deterrence is dead, then the concept of mutually assured destruction is obsolete and comprehensive missile defense must be revisited as an essential capability to protect our citizens.
In 1983, Reagan was harshly criticized for his vision, yet in 2023 a layered missile defense system has proven cost-effective and de-escalatory, as demonstrated by the jointly produced and fully functioning U.S.-Israel “Iron Dome.” More federal investments are needed to scale up existing capabilities in the United States to meet the threats from adversaries and rogue states. Unlike in Reagan’s era, threats are now omnipresent and coming from all directions.
In April 2020, Iran successfully launched its first military satellite into orbit. This was a demonstration of Tehran’s advancing capabilities signaling their continued efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can transverse the Atlantic to reach our shores.
A TV screen shows footage of a North Korea missile launch during a news program at the Yongsan Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Jan. 1, 2023. (Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In the Pacific, North Korea continues to expand its missile program and has unveiled several new ICBM and anti-ship missiles in recent years, conducting over 90 launches in 2022 alone.
Near-peer threats present a more systemic challenge than attacks from rogue states. Russia’s ICBM force consists of 310 missiles that can carry upwards of 1,189 warheads. Recent assessments indicate the Russians have stockpiled up to 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons.
China, however, poses the greatest threat. According to Pentagon analysis, the Chinese Communist Party will likely have a stockpile of nearly 1,500 warheads by 2035 if it continues with its current nuclear buildout and now has more ICBM launchers than the United States. China is also developing a land-attack cruise missile designed to be fired from a launcher disguised as a commercial shipping container.
We only have ourselves to blame. Our current vulnerabilities are the product of conflicting political priorities and our own shortsightedness as missile defense took a back seat to other national issues after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The focus dissipated for the next decade.
After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration revived missile defense with its deployment of ground-based midcourse defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against intermediate- to long-range ballistic missiles targeting Europe or the U.S.
In 2009, the Obama administration scrapped this plan, opting to adopt a short- and medium-range missile defense architecture instead of an ICBM-focused posture. Then it canceled key parts of its own plan, leaving the U.S. and Europe vulnerable to an array of threats and potential nuclear coercion by adversaries.
But despite a war in Europe and the increasing adversary capabilities, the Biden administration has shown a lack of foresight. In its 2021 Missile Defense Review, President Biden ignored our defense industrial base supply chain issues and emerging technologies such as directed energy.
The consequences of these policy decisions are a current missile defense posture that can sense threats from North Korea and Iran but not China or Russia. It employs a variety of ground, air and sea-based sensor systems to intercept at the midcourse and terminal flight phases, but it is not capable of countering the next generation of nuclear threats, some of which are deployable now.
A Russian navy boat launches an anti-ship missile test in the Peter the Great Gulf in the Sea of Japan on March 28, 2023. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Given advancements by our adversaries, the U.S. and its allies must invest in a modernized, scalable and integrated missile defense system that can sense threats early and intercept them at every stage.
In addition to the sensors that are already in place, we need networked, space-based sensors and radar satellites to track all relevant threats, including hypersonic cruise missiles. We should invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to develop the ability to track and rapidly parse through the information provided by these enhanced sensors to ensure as much decision time and as many interception opportunities as possible.
Finally, projects such as the Glide Phase Interceptor and Glide Breaker show promise in countering hypersonic cruise missiles in their glide phase—the toughest flight phase to intercept. The Biden administration should accelerate this research and testing.
Our adversaries’ advancements require us to invest in scalable, effective defensive capabilities to protect us against any attack from anywhere in the world. With political and financial fortitude, we can protect our sovereignty and citizens. Ultimately, we can achieve President’s Reagan vision of a world free from the threat of mutually assured destruction at the hands of tyrants and rogue actors.
May 4, 2023 Iran s not sufficing with one nuclear bomb,” Gallant said during an official visit to Greece. “It has already accumulated enough enriched uranium at the 20 percent and 60 percent levels for five nuclear bombs.”
Soon after Gallant’s remarks, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned a delegation of bipartisan U.S. members of Congress in Jerusalem of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
The Israeli officials’ statements reveal that Tehran’s nuclear program is advancing. While the Biden administration works behind the scenes to revive the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, Republicans in Congress have recently rolled out several bills to curtail the White House’s attempts at waiving sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency previously reported that Iran had gathered enough high but non-weaponized level uranium for four nuclear weapons.
“If Iran enriches to the 90 percent weaponized level it would be a great error, and the price would be heavy and there would be consequences which could inflame the Middle East,” Gallant said.
The Prophecy Blog 