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Quick Analysis

Three Projects to Save America, Conclusion

Over the past two days, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government examined why rebuilding the nation’s pharmaceutical industry was vital, and how it was time to rebuild the U.S. shipbuilding industry, two of three major projects that could help jump start the U.S. economy, and protect the nation from China’s growing threats. Today, we examine the need to protect the nation’s electrical grid, both as an urgent goal and a good way to help move the economy forward.

In 2018, A declassified report from the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack warned that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have developed the technology for an Electronic Pulse Attack (EMP) against America.  The danger lurks not only from war.  A repeat of the long-overdue “Carrington Effect,” a result of natural sun cycles, could cripple the entire U.S. electronic grid.

Illan Berman, writing for AFPC notes:

“America’s adversaries have invested in the development of EMP weapons. Indeed, every single one of the main state-based threats currently arrayed against the United States (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) has devoted considerable time and effort to the creation of such capabilities. The battlefield readiness of these technologies is shrouded in secrecy, but the devastating effects of an EMP event, should one occur, require that American policymakers take the possibility seriously – and, to the extent that they can, to take steps to guard against it.”

As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government previously reported, In 2017 testimony to Congress about the imminent threat of an EMP attack on the United States, Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), noted:

“In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable.” According to their report, “The damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack…We highly commend President Trump’s new Executive Order “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure” signed on May 11, 2017. We strongly recommend that implementation of cybersecurity for the electric grid and other critical infrastructures include EMP protection, since all-out cyber warfare as planned by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran includes nuclear EMP attack. However, current institutional arrangements for protecting and improving the reliability of the electric grids and other critical infrastructures through the U.S. FERC and the NERC are not designed to address major national security threats to the electric power grids and other national critical infrastructures. Using FERC and NERC to achieve this level of national security is beyond the purpose for which those organizations were created and has proven to be fundamentally unworkable. New institutional arrangements are needed to advance preparedness to survive EMP and related threats to our critical national infrastructures. “We recommend that U.S. military forces and critical national infrastructures be protected from EMP as outlined in the EMP Commission’s classified reports and unclassified reports provided in 2004 and 2008.”

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The Foundation for Resiliant Societies reports that:

“In the near term, the outlook for grid EMP protection is poor because of resistance by electric utilities and low prioritization by government authorities. Of particular concern, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the U.S. electric power industry have chosen not to address the EMP threat, arguing that this is the responsibility of federal security agencies―Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Energy (DOE). FERC and NERC have developed benchmarks for solar GMD but these benchmarks are ineffective against EMP and also fall far short of assuring GMD resilience. We must come to grips as a nation with the EMP/GMD preparedness challenges. The consequences of these threats are preventable. The good news is that the engineering tools are available to protect a meaningful set of high-priority infrastructures. Among the critical infrastructure sectors, EMP risk is highest for the electric power grid and telecommunication grids – attention to these infrastructures alone would bring major benefits to national resiliency and enhance deterrent effects. These infrastructures are the most vulnerable due to their organic long lines, and they are also the most critical to the operation and recovery of the other critical infrastructure sectors. As mentioned previously, if we have to pick one infrastructure to protect, the top choice would be the electric power grid.”

On March 26, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order mandating that the U.S. be protected from the threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could result from either natural causes (a long overdue activity from the Sun) or an attack by an enemy nation. However,  the actual work to accomplish that order has yet to be commenced.

Costs could total up to $30 billion, split up as follows, according to the Foundation.
Electric Generation Plants $23,0000M; Electricity Transmission & Distribution $2,300M; Electric Grid Control Centers $1,390.M;  Telecommunications $1,480M; Natural Gas System $640M; Railroads $1,380M;  Blackstart Plant Resiliency $80M $30,270M.

Over the past three days, the New York Analysis has described three areas of extraordinary need that must be rapidly addressed for the safety of the nation.  Doing so at this critical time would provide a crucial boost to employment and the recovery of the nation from the downturn prompted by the COVID crisis.

Photo:  Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

Trump Moves to Protect US From EMP

The long-neglected threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) disaster which could devastate the United States has finally been addressed. The path to protecting the nation has been set by the White House.

In 2018, A declassified report from the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, warned that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran had developed the technology for an EMP attack against America.  The danger lurks not only from war.  A repeat of the long-overdue “Carrington Effect,” a result of natural sun cycles, could cripple the entire U.S. electrical grid.

In extraordinary testimony  delivered in 2017 to the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and  Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff,  of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) revealed explosive details, including decades of neglect of the menace, how Russia transferred EMP technology to North Korea, and how North Korea already has the capacity to wreck devastation across the United States. 

The two experts noted that . ‘Primitive’ and ‘Super-EMP’ Nuclear Weapons are both EMP Threats. The EMP Commission found that even primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons are such a significant EMP threat that rogue states, like North Korea, or terrorists may well prefer using a nuclear weapon for EMP attack, instead of destroying a city: “Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack. In 2004, two Russian generals, both EMP experts, warned the EMP Commission that the design for Russia’s Super-EMP warhead, capable of generating high intensity EMP fields over 100,000 volts per meter, was ‘accidentally’ transferred to North Korea. They also said that due to ‘brain drain,’ Russian scientists were in North Korea, as were Chinese and Pakistani scientists according to the Russians, helping with the North’s missile and nuclear weapon programs. In 2009, South Korean military intelligence told their press that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop an EMP nuclear weapon. In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear weapons.”

An “Electromagnetic pulse” is a burst of electromagnetic energy.  EMPs have the potential to negatively affect technology systems on Earth and in space.  A high-altitude EMP (HEMP) is a type of human-made EMP that occurs when a nuclear device is detonated at approximately 40 kilometers or more above the surface of Earth.  A geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) is a type of natural EMP driven by a temporary disturbance of Earth’s magnetic field resulting from interactions with solar eruptions.  Both HEMPs and GMDs can affect large geographic areas.

To address the potentially existential crisis, President Trump recently signed an Executive Order (EO) “Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses.”https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-coordinating-national-resilience-electromagnetic-pulses/ The EO notes that “An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has the potential to disrupt, degrade, and damage technology and critical infrastructure systems.  Human-made or naturally occurring EMPs can affect large geographic areas, disrupting elements critical to the Nation’s security and economic prosperity, and could adversely affect global commerce and stability.  The Federal Government must foster sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective approaches to improving the Nation’s resilience to the effects of EMPs.”

According to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, “EMPs pose a potential threat to our nation’s critical infrastructure, and this executive order will advance our national goal of increased resilience across all infrastructure sectors. DHS remains committed to working with our interagency partners to ensure a more resilient, prepared America by reducing the risk of  EMP events. DHS is grateful for the president’s leadership on this critical issue and continued commitment to protecting our country and keeping Americans safe.”

The executive order outlines DHS’ lead role in implementing the following activities: 

  • Provide timely information on credible EMP threats and events to stakeholders;
  • Take a risk-informed approach to understand and enhance resilience to the effects of EMP across all critical infrastructure sectors, including coordinating the identification of national critical functions and prioritization of associated critical infrastructure at greatest risk to the effects of EMP;
  • Coordinate response to and recovery from the effects of EMP on critical infrastructure;
  • Consider EMP scenarios as a factor in preparedness exercises;
  • Conduct R&D to better understand and more effectively model the effects of EMP on national critical functions, and then develop technologies and guidelines to protect this critical infrastructure;
  • Maintain survivable means to provide necessary emergency information to the public during and after an EMP event; and
  • Develop quadrennial EMP risk assessments, with the first risk assessment delivered within 1 year of this order.
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The executive order will foster increased resilience to EMP events through better data gathering, testing, risk assessments, and private sector coordination. It directs departments and agencies to coordinate and streamline efforts, while fostering an environment that promotes private sector innovation to strengthen our critical infrastructure.

More must be done. The resources, from both Washington and the private sector, need to be dedicated to the task of hardening the nation’s critical facilities.

Photo: Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

Major Report Outlines Deadly Challenge

A key report  has just been released outlining the extraordinary danger facing America from an electro-magnetic pulse. The troubling study, performed by the Air University-Lemay Center for Doctrine Development and Education, describes the apocalyptic crisis that would arise from an enemy attack, or a natural-occurring event emanating from the sun.

As noted in History.com, “On the morning of September 1, 1859, amateur astronomer Richard Carrington ascended into the private observatory attached to his country estate outside of London. After cranking open the dome’s shutter to reveal the clear blue sky, he pointed his brass telescope toward the sun and began to sketch a cluster of enormous dark spots that freckled its surface. Suddenly, Carrington spotted what he described as ‘two patches of intensely bright and white light’ erupting from the sunspots. Five minutes later the fireballs vanished, but within hours their impact would be felt across the globe. That night, telegraph communications around the world (essentially the only electronics of the period)began to fail; there were reports of sparks showering from telegraph machines, shocking operators and setting papers ablaze.”

If a similar event, also known to scientists as Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) , occurred today, our electronic-dependent nation would, according the study, face dramatic consequences.  The Energy Matters organization  notes that “All we can be certain of is that the Earth will sooner or later be impacted by another major CME, and probably sooner rather than later because major CMEs occur about once every 150 years and the last one – the Carrington Event – occurred 158 years ago.”

Among the most frightening problems would be the meltdown of nuclear power plants.  As the report notes:

“Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to aid distressed nuclear power stations are presently very limited and wholly dependent on logistics that would likely suffer widespread regional or national interruption, thereby inhibiting response and recovery. Where the military is concerned, little planning has been done to mitigate potential impact on service members, installations, or critical missions that could be affected by areas of radiation arising from reactor or spent fuel pool leakage. The national response plan for distributing medications from stockpiles needed to aid recovery efforts is also dependent on logistics for distribution.

“Prolonged loss of power to these critical sites poses a risk of radioactive contamination to the Continental United States with consequentially disastrous impact to the economy and public health. Risks to military and civilian infrastructure and hardware would be similar due to jet-stream winds spreading radioactive materials. In all cases, consequence management of such impacts would be inherently complicated due to a reliance on federal and local logistics which are themselves dependent on EMS.”
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In aftermath of the Second World War, nuclear weapons scientists in the U.S. noticed the detrimental effects of atomic blasts on electronics. America’s early lead in the field of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) came as a result of its head start in this field. The report explains that “EMS is arguably the one domain that can rule them all. Failure to maintain technological dominance or freedom of operations in EMS can diminish or stop a modern nation’s broad civil and defense activities. Based on the totality of available data, the task force contends the second- and third-order effects of an EMS attack may be a threat to the United States, democracy, and the world order.”

Concern over America’s diminishing attention to this field has been brewing for decades. Over thirty years ago, warnings were issued by experts about the challenge. “However,” according to the report, “our collective knowledge…is the lowest point in recent history while the risks and threats are possibly the highest given the nature of widening knowledge and capability. The greater part of this institutional knowledge has diminished due to lack of training emphasis, attrition of experts, and focus on other strategic priorities such as counterinsurgencies and regional conflicts. In short, our institutional understanding has atrophied…

“The potential for an adversary to inflict damage on states through…attack has grown significantly. Today, all aspects of society, governance, and security have dependencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. However, power grids, telecommunications, and many command-and-control systems have not been designed to survive a hostile … environment. Once damaged by natural phenomena … or human induced phenomena…it may take months to years to recover…Multiple adversaries are capable of executing a strategic attack that may black out major portions of a state’s grid. An EMP attack affects all devices with solid-state electronics and could render inoperative the main grid and backup power systems, such as on-site generators.”

“Only a shift in public sentiment and government policy—at multiple levels—will result in a protection effort commensurate with emerging EMS challenges and their potential consequences. Therefore, the [task force] recommends the consideration of an executive order similar to the order establishing the Manhattan Project in the 1940s to create comparable momentum.”

Illustration: Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

U.S. Vulnerable to EMP Attack

A declassified report from the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, warns that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have developed the technology for an Electronic Pulse Attacks (EMP) against America.  The danger lurks not only from war.  A repeat of the long-overdue “Carrington Effect,” a result of natural sun cycles, could cripple the entire U.S. electronic grid.

According to the Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz, the report states that “China, Russia, and Iran consider the use of high-altitude nuclear blasts as ‘sixth generation warfare’ that could cripple the ability of U.S. military to wage war using advanced electronic systems for intelligence, navigation, and precision weapons guidance. ‘Nuclear EMP attack is part of the military doctrines, plans, and exercises of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran for a revolutionary new way of warfare against military forces and civilian critical infrastructures by cyber, sabotage, and EMP.’”

As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government previously reported, In 2017 testimony to Congress about the imminent threat of an EMP attack on the United States by Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff, of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP), the two experts noted:

“In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable.” According to their report, “The damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack…

“We highly commend President Trump’s new Executive Order “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure” signed on May 11, 2017. We strongly recommend that implementation of cybersecurity for the electric grid and other critical infrastructures include EMP protection, since all-out cyber warfare as planned by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran includes nuclear EMP attack. However, current institutional arrangements for protecting and improving the reliability of the electric grids and other critical infrastructures through the U.S. FERC and the NERC are not designed to address major national security threats to the electric power grids and other national critical infrastructures. Using FERC and NERC to achieve this level of national security is beyond the purpose for which those organizations were created and has proven to be fundamentally unworkable. New institutional arrangements are needed to advance preparedness to survive EMP and related threats to our critical national infrastructures.

“We recommend that U.S. military forces and critical national infrastructures be protected from EMP as outlined in the EMP Commission’s classified reports and unclassified reports provided in 2004 and 2008. EMP protection of military systems and civilian/military critical national infrastructures can be achieved cost-effectively by a combination of operational procedures and physical hardening. It is not necessary to harden everything. Selective hardening of key critical nodes and equipment will suffice. Threat parameters are 200 kilovolts/meter for E1 EMP and 85 volts/kilometer for E3 EMP. Critical national infrastructures are already adequately protected from E2 EMP, equivalent to lightning.

“We recommend, given the proximity and enormity of the threat from EMP and Combined Arms Cyber Warfare, the President exercise leadership to implement immediate, midterm, and long-term steps to deter and defeat this existential threat.

Immediately:

“We recommend that the President declare that EMP or cyber-attacks that blackout or threaten to blackout the national electric grid constitute the use of weapons of mass destruction that justify preemptive and retaliatory responses by the United States using all possible means, including nuclear weapons. Some potential adversaries have the capability to produce a protracted nationwide blackout induced by EMP or Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare by the use of nuclear or non-nuclear means. A Defense Science Board study Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat (January 2013) equates an all-out cyber-attack on the United States with the consequences of a nuclear attack, and concludes that a nuclear response is justified to deter or retaliate for cyber warfare that threatens the life of the nation: “While the manifestation of a nuclear and cyber-attack are very different, in the end, the existential impact to the United States is the same.”

“We recommend that the President issue an Executive Order, provided to the previous White House, titled “Protecting the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)”. Among many other provisions to protect the nation from EMP on an emergency basis, the Executive Order would instantly mobilize a much needed “whole of government solution” to the EMP and combined-arms cyber threat: “All U.S. Government Departments, Agencies, Offices, Councils, Boards, Commissions and other U.S. Government entities…shall take full and complete account of the EMP threat in forming policies and plans to protect United States critical infrastructures…” Protecting the electric grids and other critical infrastructures from the worst threat—nuclear EMP attack—can, if carried out in a system-wide, integrated approach, help mitigate all lesser threats, including natural EMP, man-made non-nuclear EMP, cyberattack, physical sabotage, and severe terrestrial weather.

“We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to include a Limited Nuclear Option for EMP attack among the U.S. nuclear strike plans, and immediately make targeting and fusing adjustments to some of the nuclear forces needed to implement a nuclear EMP attack capability.

“We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to use national technical means to ascertain if there is a nuclear weapon aboard North Korea’s KMS-3 or KMS-4 satellites that orbit over the United States. If either or both of these satellites are nucleararmed, they should be intercepted and destroyed over a broad ocean area where an EMP resulting from salvage-fusing will do the least damage to humanity.

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“We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to harden the FirstNet emergency communications system against EMP.

“We recommend that the President initiate training, evaluating, and “Red Teaming” efforts to protect the U.S. and in the event of an EMP attack to respond, and periodically report the results of these efforts to the Congress.

Mid-Term:

“We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to deploy Aegis-ashore missile interceptors along the Gulf of Mexico coast to plug the hole in U.S. missile defenses. The U.S. has no Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radars or missile interceptors facing south, and is largely blind and defenseless from that direction, including to missiles launched from submarines or off ships, or from a nuclear-armed satellite orbiting on a south polar trajectory.

“We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to develop a spacesurveillance program to detect if any satellites orbited over the United States are nucleararmed, and develop space-interception capabilities to defend against nuclear-armed satellites that might make an EMP attack.

“We recommend that the President direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to launch a crash program to harden the over 100 nuclear power reactors and their spent fuel storage facilities against nuclear EMP attack. Nuclear power reactors typically only have enough emergency power to cool reactor cores and spent fuel rods for a few days, after which they would “go Fukushima” spreading radioactivity over much of the United States.

Long-Term:

“We recommend that the President through his Executive Agent protect elements of the national electric grids, the keystone critical infrastructure upon which all other critical infrastructures depend. Priority should be given to elements that are difficult and timeconsuming to replace. Such elements can be protected from EMP at very low cost relative to the costs of an EMP catastrophe, and paid for without federal dollars by a slight increase in user electric rates. We recommend that a similar approach be taken to key elements of the national telecommunications infrastructure and other national critical infrastructures.

“We recommend the development and deployment of enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons and other means to deter adversary attack on the United States. Enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons, called by the Russians Super-EMP weapons, can be developed without nuclear testing.

“We recommend strengthening U.S. ballistic missile defenses—including deployment of space-based defenses considered by the Strategic Defense Initiative— and that these be designed and postured to also protect the U.S. from EMP attack.”

Photo: Pixabay

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Past U.S. Policy Failures Led to North Korean Crisis

The reality that the entire U.S. mainland, and indeed, much of the world, is now in range of North Korea’s nuclear capability is a sobering one, particularly when combined with the fact that even North Korea’s limited atomic arsenal is fully capable of destroying the entire USA through an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Over the past several decades, the U.S. “gave peace a chance.”  President Bill Clinton tried buying off North Korea with aid.  President Bush largely ignored the crisis as he concentrated  on the Middle East. President Obama reduced the size of the U.S. military. All of those approaches failed.

China has the capability of completely turning off the North Korean economy.  Despite verbally opposing Pyongyang’s atomic program, it has taken no effective steps to do so.  Russia has seen the entire situation as yet another opportunity to take advantage of America.  Both have urged the U.S. to essentially abandon South Korea in return for a denuclearized North Korea, which would be a major victory for China and Russia and the beginning of the end of democracies in the Pacific region and Asia.

Kim Jong Un has observed that, over the past 8 years, the U.S. was kinder to its enemies than its friends.  The entire Obama Mideast policy tilted in favor of Iran, despite that nation’s constant devotion to the policy of “Death to the USA.”  Meanwhile, Obama assisted in the destruction of Muammar Gaddafi, who had given up his nuclear program and turned away from terrorism.  The same thing occurred in Egypt, which under Mubarak had favored peace in the region and a rejection of terrorism.  Obama urged his ouster, and favored his replacement with a Moslem Brotherhood advocate.

From his perspective, Kim’s actions are wholly rational.  He is doing what he has observed led to the enrichment and survival of regimes such as those in Iran, and avoiding the policies of those governments such as that of Libya, which acceded to U.S. demands and were subsequently wiped out. Add to that the fact that, despite the horrors of his regime, he now has China and Russia openly advocating the U.S. abandon its South Korean ally in return for North Korea’s pledge to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, a pledge North Korea has repeatedly violated, and one can easily discern the logic of what Kim is doing.
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After all the years of equivocation by Washington, Kim does not believe the U.S. will take any action, so he feels free to engage in whatever provocation he wishes, assured that he can only gain by aggression, and lose by compromise.

Kim also knows that the state of American politics is such that President Trump will be portrayed by leftist within the U.S. as a warmonger if he takes any military steps against North Korea. Kim is also fully aware that the American military is at its lowest level of strength in many years, a result of the disinvestment that occurred as a result of both Obama’s policies and the sequester.

There are steps short of military action available to Washington.  An attempt must be made to induce China to act more responsibly by beginning to limit the importation of Chinese goods to the U.S. and allied nations. America’s commitment to its Asian and Pacific allies, and the permanence of that commitment, must be made clear through the enhanced placement of military assets in the region.  The U.S. anti-ballistic missile shield should be dramatically strengthened. U.S. powerplants should be hardened against an EMP attack. And, of course, the disinvestment in America’s armed forces must be reversed, even more so than the recent defense budget provides.

It is far too easy to portray the North Korean regime as being irrational.  Each action it has taken has had a proven track record of success—all of it leading to the current and very real crisis and threat of nuclear attack.  Until the United States clearly demonstrates to Kim and his allies in Beijing and Moscow that there will be dire consequences, the world will move ever closer to nuclear war.

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America faces Imminent, Major Threat from an EMP Attack, Part 3

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its presentation of key excerpts from the explosive testimony to Congress about the imminent threat of an EMP attack on the United States by Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff,  of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

In the event of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States, a widespread protracted blackout is inevitable.

Even if North Korea has only primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons, and likewise if other states or terrorists acquire one or a few such weapons, and the capability to detonate them at 30 kilometers or higher-altitude over the United States, as the EMP Commission warned over a decade ago in its 2004 Report: “The damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.”

What Is To Be Done?

We recommend establishing an Executive Agent – a Cabinet Secretary designated by the President – with the authority, accountability, and resources, to manage U.S. national infrastructure protection and defense against EMP and the other existential threats described above. Current institutional authorities and responsibilities–government, industry, regulatory agencies—are fragmented, incomplete, and unable to protect and defend against foreign hostile EMP threats or solar super-storms.

We encourage the President to work with Congressional leaders to stand-up an ad hoc Joint Presidential-Congressional Commission, with its members charged with supporting the Nation’s leadership and providing expertise, experience, and oversight to achieve, on an accelerated basis, the protection of critical national infrastructures. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) have for nearly a decade been unable or unwilling to implement the EMP Commission’s recommendations. A Presidential-Congressional Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection could engage the Free World’s preeminent experts on EMP and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare to serve the entire Government in a manner akin to the Atomic Energy Commission of the 1947-74 period, advising the Administration’s actions to attain most quickly and most cost-effectively the protection essential to long-term national survival and wellbeing. The United States should not remain in our current state of fatal vulnerability to well-known natural and man-made threats.

We highly commend President Trump’s new Executive Order “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure” signed on May 11, 2017. We strongly recommend that implementation of cybersecurity for the electric grid and other critical infrastructures include EMP protection, since all-out cyber warfare as planned by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran includes nuclear EMP attack. However, current institutional arrangements for protecting and improving the reliability of the electric grids and other critical infrastructures through the U.S. FERC and the NERC are not designed to address major national security threats to the electric power grids and other national critical infrastructures. Using FERC and NERC to achieve this level of national security is beyond the purpose for which those organizations were created and has proven to be fundamentally unworkable. New institutional arrangements are needed to advance preparedness to survive EMP and related threats to our critical national infrastructures.

We recommend that U.S. military forces and critical national infrastructures be protected from EMP as outlined in the EMP Commission’s classified reports and unclassified reports provided in 2004 and 2008. EMP protection of military systems and civilian/military critical national infrastructures can be achieved cost-effectively by a combination of operational procedures and physical hardening. It is not necessary to harden everything. Selective hardening of key critical nodes and equipment will suffice. Threat parameters are 200 kilovolts/meter for E1 EMP and 85 volts/kilometer for E3 EMP. Critical national infrastructures are already adequately protected from E2 EMP, equivalent to lightning.

We recommend, given the proximity and enormity of the threat from EMP and CombinedArms Cyber Warfare, the President exercise leadership to implement immediate, midterm, and long-term steps to deter and defeat this existential threat:

Immediately:

We recommend that the President declare that EMP or cyber-attacks that blackout or threaten to blackout the national electric grid constitute the use of weapons of mass destruction that justify preemptive and retaliatory responses by the United States using all possible means, including nuclear weapons. Some potential adversaries have the capability to produce a protracted nationwide blackout induced by EMP or Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare by the use of nuclear or non-nuclear means. A Defense Science Board study Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat (January 2013) equates an all-out cyber-attack on the United States with the consequences of a nuclear attack, and concludes that a nuclear response is justified to deter or retaliate for cyber warfare that threatens the life of the nation: “While the manifestation of a nuclear and cyber-attack are very different, in the end, the existential impact to the United States is the same.”

We recommend that the President issue an Executive Order, provided to the previous White House, titled “Protecting the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)”. Among many other provisions to protect the nation from EMP on an emergency basis, the Executive Order would instantly mobilize a much needed “whole of government solution” to the EMP and combined-arms cyber threat: “All U.S. Government Departments, Agencies, Offices, Councils, Boards, Commissions and other U.S. Government entities…shall take full and complete account of the EMP threat in forming policies and plans to protect United States critical infrastructures…” Protecting the electric grids and other critical infrastructures from the worst threat—nuclear EMP attack—can, if carried out in a system-wide, integrated approach, help mitigate all lesser threats, including natural EMP, man-made non-nuclear EMP, cyberattack, physical sabotage, and severe terrestrial weather.

We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to include a Limited Nuclear Option for EMP attack among the U.S. nuclear strike plans, and immediately make targeting and fusing adjustments to some of the nuclear forces needed to implement a nuclear EMP attack capability.
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We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to use national technical means to ascertain if there is a nuclear weapon aboard North Korea’s KMS-3 or KMS-4 satellites that orbit over the United States. If either or both of these satellites are nucleararmed, they should be intercepted and destroyed over a broad ocean area where an EMP resulting from salvage-fusing will do the least damage to humanity.

We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to post Aegis ships in the Gulf of Mexico and near the east and west coasts, to search for and be prepared to intercept missiles launched from freighters, submarines, or other platforms that might make a nuclear EMP attack on the United States. U.S. National Missile Defenses (NMD) are primarily located in Alaska and California and oriented for a missile attack coming at the U.S. from the north, and are not deployed to intercept a short-warning missile attack launched near the U.S. coasts.

We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to harden the FirstNet emergency communications system against EMP.

We recommend that the President initiate training, evaluating, and “Red Teaming” efforts to protect the U.S. and in the event of an EMP attack to respond, and periodically report the results of these efforts to the Congress.

Mid-Term:

We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to deploy Aegis-ashore missile interceptors along the Gulf of Mexico coast to plug the hole in U.S. missile defenses. The U.S. has no Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radars or missile interceptors facing south, and is largely blind and defenseless from that direction, including to missiles launched from submarines or off ships, or from a nuclear-armed satellite orbiting on a south polar trajectory.

We recommend that the President direct the Secretary of Defense to develop a spacesurveillance program to detect if any satellites orbited over the United States are nucleararmed, and develop space-interception capabilities to defend against nuclear-armed satellites that might make an EMP attack.

We recommend that the President direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to launch a crash program to harden the over 100 nuclear power reactors and their spent fuel storage facilities against nuclear EMP attack. Nuclear power reactors typically only have enough emergency power to cool reactor cores and spent fuel rods for a few days, after which they would “go Fukushima” spreading radioactivity over much of the United States.

Long-Term:

We recommend that the President through his Executive Agent protect elements of the national electric grids, the keystone critical infrastructure upon which all other critical infrastructures depend. Priority should be given to elements that are difficult and timeconsuming to replace. Such elements can be protected from EMP at very low cost relative to the costs of an EMP catastrophe, and paid for without federal dollars by a slight increase in user electric rates. We recommend that a similar approach be taken to key elements of the national telecommunications infrastructure and other national critical infrastructures.

We recommend the development and deployment of enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons and other means to deter adversary attack on the United States. Enhanced-EMP nuclear weapons, called by the Russians Super-EMP weapons, can be developed without nuclear testing.

We recommend strengthening U.S. ballistic missile defenses—including deployment of space-based defenses considered by the Strategic Defense Initiative— and that these be designed and postured to also protect the U.S. from EMP attack.

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America faces Imminent, Major Threat from an EMP Attack Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues its presentation of key excerpts from the explosive testimony to Congress about the imminent threat of an EMP attack on the United States by Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff,  of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

EMP Threat From Satellites

While most analysts are fixated on when in the future North Korea will develop highly reliable intercontinental missiles, guidance systems, and reentry vehicles capable of striking a U.S. city, the threat here and now from EMP is largely ignored. EMP attack does not require an accurate guidance system because the area of effect, having a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, is so large. No reentry vehicle is needed because the warhead is detonated at high altitude, above the atmosphere. Missile reliability matters little because only one missile has to work to make an EMP attack against an entire nation. North Korea could make an EMP attack against the United States by launching a short-range missile off a freighter or submarine or by lofting a warhead to 30 kilometers burst height by balloon. While such lower-altitude EMP attacks would not cover the whole U.S. mainland, as would an attack at higher-altitude (300 kilometers), even a balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers altitude could blackout the Eastern Electric Power Grid that supports most of the population and generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity. Or an EMP attack might be made by a North Korean satellite, right now.

A Super-EMP weapon could be relatively small and lightweight, and could fit inside North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3 (KMS-3) and Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4) satellites. These two satellites presently orbit over the United States, and over every other nation on Earth– demonstrating, or posing, a potential EMP threat against the entire world.

North Korea’s KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites were launched to the south on polar trajectories and passed over the United States on their first orbit. Pyongyang launched KMS-4 on February 7, 2017, shortly after its fourth illegal nuclear test on January 6, that began the present protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea.
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The south polar trajectory of KMS-3 and KMS-4 evades U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radars and National Missile Defenses, resembling a Russian secret weapon developed during the Cold War, called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that would have used a nuclear-armed satellite to make a surprise EMP attack on the United States.

Ambassador Henry Cooper, former Director of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, and a preeminent expert on missile defenses and space weapons, has written numerous articles warning about the potential North Korean EMP threat from their satellites. For example, on September 20, 2016 Ambassador Cooper wrote: U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) interceptors are designed to intercept a few North Korean ICBMs that approach the United States over the North Polar region. But current U.S. BMD systems are not arranged to defend against even a single ICBM that approaches the United States from over the South Polar region, which is the direction toward which North Korea launches its satellites…This is not a new idea. The Soviets pioneered and tested just such a specific capability decades ago—we call it a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)…So, North Korea doesn’t need an ICBM to create this existential threat. It could use its demonstrated satellite launcher to carry a nuclear weapon over the South Polar region and detonate it…over the United States to create a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP)…The result could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans—as the EMP Commission testified over eight years ago.

Former NASA rocket scientist James Oberg visited North Korea’s Sohae space launch base, witnessed elaborate measures undertaken to conceal space launch payloads, and concludes in a 2017 article that the EMP threat from North Korea’s satellites should be taken seriously: …there have been fears expressed that North Korea might use a satellite to carry a small nuclear warhead into orbit and then detonate it over the United States for an EMP strike. These concerns seem extreme and require an astronomical scale of irrationality on the part of the regime. The most frightening aspect, I’ve come to realize, is that exactly such a scale of insanity is now evident in the rest of their ‘space program.” That doomsday scenario, it now seems, has been plausible enough to compel the United States to take active measures to insure that no North Korean satellite, unless thoroughly inspected before launch, be allowed to reach orbit and ever overfly the United States.

The Report Concludes Tomorrow.

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America Faces Imminent, Major Threat from an EMP Attack

The most significant existential threat to the United States comes from a potential EMP assault.  In extraordinary testimony  delivered this month to the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, and  Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, chief of staff,  of the Commission to Assess the Threat to America from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) revealed explosive details, including decades of neglect of the menace, how Russia transferred EMP technology to North Korea, and how North Korea already has the capacity to wreck devastation across the United States. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government has reviewed the information and provides key excerpts.  

On September 30, 2017, the Department of Defense, after withholding a significant part of the monies allocated by Congress to support the work of the EMP Commission for the entirety of 2016, terminated funding the EMP Commission. In the same month, North Korea detonated an H-Bomb that it plausibly describes as capable of “super-powerful EMP” attack and released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing what Russia and China call a “Super-EMP” weapon.

Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress to continue the EMP Commission. The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would replace the existing EMP Commission with new Commissioners. Yet the existing EMP Commission comprises the nation’s foremost experts who have been officially or unofficially continuously engaged trying to advance national EMP preparedness for 17 years. And today, as the EMP Commission has long warned, the nation faces a potentially imminent and existential threat of nuclear EMP attack from North Korea.

Recent events have proven the EMP Commission’s critics wrong about other highly important aspects of the nuclear missile threat from North Korea: –Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was primitive, some academics claiming it had as few as 6 A-Bombs. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea has 60 nuclear weapons. –Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s ICBMs were fake, or if real could not strike the U.S. mainland. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea’s ICBMs can strike Denver and Chicago, and perhaps the entire United States. –Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea was many years away from an HBomb. Now it appears North Korea has H-Bombs comparable to sophisticated U.S. two-stage thermonuclear weapons. –Just six months ago, most experts claimed North Korean ICBMs could not miniaturize an ABomb or design a reentry vehicle for missile delivery. Now the intelligence community reportedly assesses North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons, and has developed reentry vehicles for missile delivery, including by ICBMs that can strike the U.S.

After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged—nuclear EMP attack. North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack, and in its official public statement: “The H-Bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons, is a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”
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Just six months ago, some academics dismissed EMP Commission warnings and even, literally, laughed on National Public Radio at the idea North Korea could make an EMP attack.

Primitive and “Super-EMP” Nuclear Weapons are Both EMP Threats The EMP Commission finds that even primitive, low-yield nuclear weapons are such a significant EMP threat that rogue states, like North Korea, or terrorists may well prefer using a nuclear weapon for EMP attack, instead of destroying a city: “Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack.

In 2004, two Russian generals, both EMP experts, warned the EMP Commission that the design for Russia’s Super-EMP warhead, capable of generating high intensity EMP fields over 100,000 volts per meter, was “accidentally” transferred to North Korea. They also said that due to “brain drain,” Russian scientists were in North Korea, as were Chinese and Pakistani scientists according to the Russians, helping with the North’s missile and nuclear weapon programs. In 2009, South Korean military intelligence told their press that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop an EMP nuclear weapon. In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear weapons.

The Report Continues Tomorrow.

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Puerto Rico’s Electrical Problems a Sign of Things to Come

The media glosses over the root cause that inhibit attempts to rebuild Puerto Rico after the ravages of the latest hurricane. It’s important to understand that cause, because the same mistakes could someday affect the entire United States.

While some circulate an incorrect narrative that the Trump Administration was less enthusiastic about addressing Puerto Rico than either Florida or Houston, the truth is rather different.

Washington has provided a substantial amount of assistance. According to Gov. Ricardo Rossello, “Puerto Rico officials continue to work closely with the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and with state partners through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact…We have over 12,000 — almost 13,000 — DoD personnel in Puerto Rico, over 4,000 Puerto Rico National Guard and EMACs together. There’s an expectation of 3,000 more to come to Puerto Rico in the next couple of weeks as well. The U.S. Navy hospital ship, the USS Comfort, has also been sent to the Island. The Department of Health and Human Services is using the Emergency Prescription Assistance program to provide care for upwards of 500,000 residents.”

Some have described the Pentagon’s efforts as “Militarizing” the reconstruction effort, a move necessary because in a number of the Island’s 78 municipalities, local officials have failed to provide an efficient effort.

Clearly, however, Puerto Rico’s recovery is not moving as rapidly as that of Florida or Houston. The reasons have to do with both geography and politics.

The most obvious fact is that Puerto Rico is, of course, an island, so transportation from the mainland must face an additional hurdle. The ability of nongovernmental assistance, the extraordinary efforts of private citizens who came from states adjacent to Texas and Florida,  to rush to the aid of those in need is very sharply reduced. The complications do not end there.  As noted in the official Puerto Rico website,  unlike the flatlands of Houston and Florida,  “The island of Puerto Rico has surprising geographical diversity with some 60% of the island’s terrain being very hilly… The top four highest mountains in Puerto Rico are Cerro Punta, Rosa, Guilarte and the Tres Picachos. They range from 3093 to 4389 ft. The mountainous interior is formed by the Cordillera Central Range and this is formed by a central mountain chain ranging from Mayaguez to Aibonito.”

But politics, and bad planning, have a lot to do with the ongoing plight, as well.

President Obama’s stimulus cost $792 billion dollars. Supposedly, $41.4 billion went to energy programs, including $4.4 billion to modernize the electrical grid.  Puerto Rico received about $6.5 billion of that.  The question is: Why were critical energy needs, both in Puerto Rico and nationwide, left totally unaddressed?  Throughout the United States, the crucial issue of protecting the electrical grid from an EMP attack was ignored.  In Puerto Rico, protecting the island’s fragile and outdated electrical infrastructure from the effects of a hurricane was not addressed. Despite all that, President Obama claimed he couldn’t find “shovel ready jobs” to invest his stimulus dollars in.  Those funds, instead, went to sources that provided less benefit to the economy than they did to the political fortunes of the Obama Administration.
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Recently, The Hill  noted that “Puerto Rico was a catastrophe of corruption, mismanagement, incompetence and ignorance long before the added misery wrought by Hurricane Maria, which exposed to the world what was there to be seen all along: an island ill-prepared for a sunny day, much less a stormy one. For at least a decade, the media has been sounding the alarm about the crumbling infrastructure and financial mismanagement of Puerto Rico. But it all fell on deaf ears. Let’s flashback to August 2014, when Reuters reporter Luciana Lopez showed that Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was teetering on insolvency. The power company relied too heavily on expensive oil and was plagued by aging infrastructure dating back to the 1960s, a bloated workforce, and a billing system that was arbitrary and difficult to justify.”

For far too long, critical electrical infrastructure problems have been ignored. This challenge includes both the facilities themselves, and the security surrounding them.

Rebecca Smith, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reported:

“The U.S. electric system is in danger of widespread blackouts lasting days, weeks or longer through the destruction of sensitive, hard-to-replace equipment. Yet records are so spotty that no government agency can offer an accurate tally of substation attacks, whether for vandalism, theft or more nefarious purposes. Most substations are unmanned and often protected chiefly by chain-link fences. Many have no electronic security, leaving attacks unnoticed until after the damage is done. Even if there are security cameras, they often prove worthless. In some cases, alarms are simply ignored.”

Add to that analysis the near-imminent threat of an EMP attack by North Korea or other potential opponent, which could, quite literally, destroy all electrical generating capacity in the nation for well over a year, resulting in devastating casualties.

Beyond security, America’s electrical infrastructure is simply outdated. The American Society of Civil Engineers  reveals that “Much of the U.S. energy system predates the turn of the 21st century. Most electric transmission and distribution lines were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s with a 50-year life expectancy, and the more than 640,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in the lower 48 states’ power grids are at full capacity. Energy infrastructure is undergoing increased investment to ensure long-term capacity and sustainability; in 2015, 40% of additional power generation came from natural gas and renewable systems. Without greater attention to aging equipment, capacity bottlenecks, and increased demand, as well as increasing storm and climate impacts, Americans will likely experience longer and more frequent power interruptions.”

Puerto Rico’s dilemma may be a harbinger of things to come.

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Defense Myths that Endanger America, Part 4

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government reveals the myths clouding the debate over American national security, in this final installment of our four-part series.

Myth: The U.S. armed forces are capable of handling any combination of threats that occur.  In 2012, the Obama Administration abandoned the long-held policy of having a U.S. military equipped to fight a two-front war.  Inexplicably, this was done at the same time that it was becoming increasingly evident that the alliance of China and Russia, as well as the cooperation in missile and nuclear technology between Iran and North Korea, was becoming increasingly evident.  Other than as an excuse to transfer defense dollars to more politically popular domestic

programs, there has never been an adequate explanation of the reasoning behind this controversial decision. This has become a larger issue as the threats from North Korea become more dangerous and frequent.  It would be naïve to believe that if it were necessary to deploy additional American forces, for example, on the Korean peninsula, that Iran would not take advantage of U.S. weakness in the Middle East, or that Russia would not expand its aggression against Ukraine.

A Heritage study found “that the U.S. needs a military that is large enough and has a sufficient range of capabilities to cover multiple major military contingencies in overlapping time frames… Such a capability is the sine qua non of a superpower and is essential to the credibility of our overall national security strategy.” However, as reported by the New York Times  and Atlantic monthly  “The U.S. military of the future will no longer be able to fight two sustained ground wars at the same time.”

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A landmark study by the American Enterprise Institute in 2014  noted: “The defense budget cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, coupled with the additional cuts and constraints on defense management under the law’s sequestration provision, constitute a serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States. Not only have they caused significant investment shortfalls in U.S. military readiness and both present and future capabilities, they have prompted our current and potential allies and adversaries to question our commitment and resolve.

The U.S. National Intelligence Council , “…Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP, population size, military spending, and technological investment…” Beyond major powers such as China and India, non-nation state actors such as terrorist groups will have significant access to extraordinary means of destruction and disruption. “A wider spectrum of instruments of war—especially precision-strike capabilities, cyber instruments, and bioterror weapony—will become accessible. Individuals and small groups will have the capability to perpetrate large-scale violence and disruption—a capability formerly the monopoly of states.”

The debate about what constitutes an adequate defense budget must be based on facts as they are, not on what we would like them to be.  So far, that has not been the case.