Tag: North Korea

Hawaii missile mistake alert

What if the missile attacks were real?

On By gyonas4 Comments

In January, an early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warned people in Hawaii of an incoming ballistic missile attack. Less than an hour later the warning was revoked, but the mistake started a panic. More importantly, what if the missile attack were real?

Several commentators have dealt with the question of what if the missile attack on Hawaii had been real. Our military would have known almost immediately that a real missile was launched and on its way. The flight time from North Korea would have been 18 minutes and in that time we could activate our responses and send our interceptors on their way. But does that mean that the probability of stopping the attack was so high that there was no reason for fear? One commentator, without even mentioning defense, suggested that people should duck and cover. That was the “method” for surviving nuclear attack that we practiced when I was in junior high school. kids ducking under desks

Others in the military have written that our missile defenses would be activated and interceptors would be launched and could destroy a single attacking missile.  This assumes that our deployments are effective, the right decisions could be made in time, and that the response would be to launch enough interceptors to increase the probability of successful defense. But what if the first missile was really only one more test and the missile landed harmlessly in the ocean? Or maybe this was part of a strategy of seeing how fast and how well we could respond? And what if the intercept really was successful? Would we then retaliate or just send a warning?

But such issues have always been on the table during the decades of deterrence-Reagan on Time Magazinebased strategy. That is until Ronald Reagan questioned the entire basis for our survival. He asked if we could develop a high-tech defense based on assured survival instead of assured destruction. His idea was totally out of favor with all of his strategic weapons advisors who believed that the threat of total mutual guaranteed annihilation would be the only way to achieve deterrence.

Now all of that seems to be no longer acceptable and nuclear weapons proliferation is a growth industry. Our new nuclear posture review is calling for more modern low-yield nuclear weapons to strengthen deterrence since Russia and China have adopted this approach. The argument against assured destruction is that deterrence is no longer credible if the other side has developed more usable low-yield nukes and is increasingly relying on them for deterrence. So the argument is that by making our ability to wage nuclear war more credible, our deterrence is more credible. No more talk of irrevocable destruction of society.

But what about Reagan’s 1983 concept of reducing the nuclear stockpiles and creating more credible defense? As I explain in my book “Death Rays and Delusions,” the needed technology was way off in the future and we were not ready to move in this revolutionary direction. But now 35 years later we have made dramatic progress in sensors, platforms and interceptor missiles so effective defense should be taken more seriously than crawling under desks.

North Korean anthrax threat leaves U.S. with six options

On By gyonas2 Comments

As the new year dawns, the United States faces the issue of what to do about North Korea. Although North Korean leaders have denied charges of building facilities to produce deadly microbes and labs that specialize in genetic modification, the discovery that a North Korean defector tested positive for anthrax antibodies has raised fears that Kim Jong Un’s regime is developing lethal biological weapons. So how should the U.S. respond?

Getty imagesAs I see it, our country has at least six options and 2018 is likely to be the year we decide what road to take. The options consist of the six Ds: deterrence, defense, deals, destruction, deceit and delay. We faced a similar decision at the height of the Cold War when I was in the middle of the muddle of what to do about the Soviet Union, as I describe in my recently published book, “Death Rays and Delusions.”

During the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan had charged my team with the goal of creating ballistic missile defense. At the time, none of us knew that the Soviet Union had not only aggressive programs in both offensive missiles and missile defense, but also had a very secret manufacturing and deployment program in biological weapons including warheads for their giant SS 18 missile.

While we debated the six Ds, the Soviets pursued strategies for spreading anthrax along with a nuclear strike. I had assumed that we had already made a deal with the Soviets to ban biological weapons, and I only became aware of the biological weapon threat when a letter containing a few grams of anthrax spores arrived at the Hart Senate Office Building.

In 2001, I walked out of a long meeting in the Hart Senate Office building and ran into yellow police tape in the corridors. Waiting police hurriedly ushered me and my colleagues out of the building and informed us that the building had been contaminated by a small envelope containing a few grams of anthrax spores.  Several days later, when I had already returned to Albuquerque, I received a message to get a nasal swab and start an extended treatment of Cipro, which turns one’s tongue black. The treatment was supposed to be effective if started immediately after exposure, but if delayed by a few days, death was certain. Of course, several days had already passed when I received the message. Fortunately, I was not infected but five people died from inhalation and infection. Another 17 became infected but survived. There was wide spread disruption and the cleanup cost was $27 million.

Caution Bio Warfare

This encounter with biological weapons clearly demonstrated the extent of this danger. I can’t imagine what a surprise attack spreading tons of anthrax spread over our major cities would do. The combination of a biological and nuclear strikes could only have one purpose–to kill us all.

In retrospect, during my time working with the Strategic Defense Initiative, we mostly engaged in delay in decision making, coupled with a certain amount of deception. Right now, the most likely D may not be one the big six. Instead the U.S. may turn to another D… denial.

hacker

The ultimate missile defense problem

On By gyonas2 Comments

My previous blog posts have focused on lasers, missiles and physical counter measure evaluation. Complicated topics to tackle, however, those are easier to deal with than the fundamental question about making the split second decision to pull the trigger and launch the defense system. The decision would have be made in the unavoidable uncertainties of real war. There are estimates that multiple interceptors would be launched to stop a single attacker, but what if that first attack is a fake? Other analysis suggest a shoot, look, shoot approach to manage the rapidly changing battle or maybe the system is not fully operational or needs to adjust to surprises.

An obvious counter measure to missile defense would be the use of deception and the creation of doubt and confusion. If the attackers can exhaust the defense in an initial salvo, then the real attack could go ahead without any interruption. With the war unfolding in seconds and minutes, much of the process will have to be controlled by computers.

The first step in the attack could also focus on disruption of battle management decision-making software. How can we test that software to determine if it has not already been hacked? Is there a hidden virus ready to be triggered before or during the attack? Ultimately these issues are fundamental, and as I said in my book “Death Rays and Delusions,” software is hard, but at the time I had no idea how vulnerable our information technology would become.

It now appears that even with the most secure hardware and software, the insider, through sloppy procedures or malicious intent, can open the gates to our information systems or insert a virus that would not appear until the moment of attack. So the ultimate success of defense hinges on being able to trust the humans who create and manage the defense software.