Showing posts with label ICBMs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICBMs. Show all posts

January 8, 2022

Discerning The Truth Amid Iran’s Lies

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "Discerning The Truth Amid Iran's Lies."
While people can easily utter falsehoods, like Iran saying that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, the documents and computer drives that Israel captured in 2016 when they courageously raided Iran’s nuclear archive shows that Iran has been pursuing a dangerous nuclear weapons program for decades.

The world has tried to contain Iran for decades: From monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities through the IAEA, to sanctions and covert actions to deter and set back Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and the JCPOA deal to try to contain Iran’s march to nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, nothing has worked, and Iran is intent on getting the bomb.

Moreover, while the costs of a preemptive attack on Iran could be great, the doctrine from former Prime Minister, Menachem Begin that Israel cannot and will not allow countries that threaten Israel’s existence to get the means to carry it out is as true today as in 1981 when Israel took out Iraq’s nuclear reactor in Osirak.
The Jewish people learned from 2,000 years in exile and persecution ending in the Holocaust that killed six million Jews that we must take verbal threats of annihilation supported by facts on the ground against us most seriously. As children of the Holocaust survivors, we must be true to our words of “Never again” and act with courage and determination to confront the enemy covertly and if necessary, with overt action to stop their genocidal pursuit from ever getting off the ground.

(Credit Photo: via https://www.flickr.com/photos/aeneastudio/3657735814 by aeneastudio and adapted by Andy Blumenthal)

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October 2, 2017

From North Korean ICBMs to the Las Vegas Mass Shooter

What do North Korean ICBMs and the Las Vegas mass shooter have in common?

They both target the masses for the maximum fatality count.

North Korea was shown targeting a nuclear attack on major U.S. cities--including San Diego, Austin, Washington DC, and the islands of Hawaii. 

The Las Vegas shooter last night targeted a concert crowded with fans to let loose his automatic rifle killing at least 59 and wounding 527 in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

How about the Boston Marathon bomber that killed three and wounded 260 at the crowded finish line?  

We are living in dangerous, dangerous times. 

And being in a crowd can seriously get you killed. 

Honestly, does it take a genius or a madman to target a large gathering to inflict great pain on the enemy?

Honestly, who hasn't wondered why we don't target the terrorists groups and rogue terror nation states--whether Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Al-Qaeda or Axis of Evil Iran and North Korea--when their militants are violently rallying, burning the American flag, chanting death to the USA, and boldly and defiantly raising their assault rifles high into the air. 

Why do we prefer to go after onesies-twosies in a virtual never ending battle to try and stop the terrorists of the day before they hit our cities and people again, when instead we can take out the evil bunch in more or less one fell swoop and send a no nonsense deterrent message. 

Are we too moralistic to do it to them before they do it to us and we have hundreds of thousands or millions of dead?

I'm not suggesting hitting innocent civilians, but how about an armed, military parade with tanks and missiles or a bunch of crazed terrorists just building up their gumption to do their next dirty massacre against masses of innocent men, women, and children.

The bad guys aren't asking any questions before they hit the World Trade Center or the Pentagon or London or Paris or Tokyo or Jerusalem with guns, knives, bombs, vehicular attacks or even attempted WMD--maybe we shouldn't ask too many questions before we invoke "fire and fury" on their evil ranks and protect our own once and for all. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to JTF News)
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July 11, 2017

Baiting With North Korea and Taiwan

OMG, I can't listen to this politically correct nonsense for the masses on North Korean anymore. 

Yes, North Korea is a nuclear threat and they are ramping up the ante. 

And we are still technically at war with the North Koreans. 

But all the in-the-box ideas for stopping the North Korean threat is wasting everyone's time and efforts. 

Today in the Wall Street Journal, we had everything from telling China that we'll recognize the Axis of evil North Korean regime and sign a peace treaty with them in return for limiting the North Korean missile program and having inspections (because those worked so well in the past or with Iran) or we put the "squeeze" on China by threatening to remove their 328,547 Chinese students from American universities. 

Listen, it's time to face facts:

China will not give up support for North Korea against us, until we would agree to give up support for Taiwan against them. 

Is that really so hard to understand?

No China will not be sanctioned by us or threatened by us economically or militarily--they are a superpower in their own right!

And we cannot expect to ask or force China to stop supporting North Korea, just because we don't like it--in fact, that is exactly the point. 

We don't like it, and that's what China wants in order to push us out of supporting an independent and democratic Taiwan.

So now we are at the root of the choice here for America.

Either America is willing to negotiate with China for real and in effect compromise our values for democracy and freedom in the world or we can deal with North Korea on our own. 

And dealing with North Korea on our own--without destroying much of South Korea and even Japan in the process--probably means just one (or two) big bangs. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 9, 2015

From Vintage to Modern Threats

Just wanted to share this short video captured of vintage fighter planes flying over the Washington Monument in D.C. on Friday, May 8.

This was in commemoration of 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. 

My father (A'H) used to tell me about when he was in England during the war and the Nazi bombers would fly over and carpet bomb them in a blitzkrieg.

This happened night after night, and so adaptive as people are, they sort of got used to the bombardment, if that is possible to say. 

After a while, instead of taking safety behind closed doors at home, people returned to go to the movies and dancing at night, even while the buildings next door were still being blown up--to the right and the left of them. 

In the morning, those who survived would get up, and see what was knocked down and what still standing. 

Hard to imagine living that way!

Now with new more destructive weapons (WMD, ICBMs, EMPs, etc.), we can only imagine that the destructive aftermath of WW II would be nothing in comparison to what a round III would be like.

It is crucial that we maintain our innovativeness and military superiority and not only offensively to defeat the enemy, but defensively so that we can stop whatever is coming at us whether a dirty bomb in suitcase, an ebola-type virus in an infected person or food, a drone carrying anthrax, or malware over the network.

We have come a long way in the last 70 years technologically, but the risk and stakes have also never been higher. ;-)

(Source Video: Minna Blumenthal)
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November 29, 2014

Soften The Hearts

This last year has shown some difficult negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran.

It seems as if the P5+1 have been doing everything possible to get Iran to stop pursuing dangerous WMD, but that the response is just forever, "No."

So the deadline for a deal was extended once again. 

Many are saying no deal is better than a bad deal--and that certainly makes sense. 

The key is for national and global security to take precedence over any deal for deal's sake.

Everyone desperately wants peace, but it should be a real and lasting and verifiable peace.

Most people are good and want peace, but there are always those extremists who have an irrational hatred and seek nothing but power and destruction, and they says things like they want to "annihilate Israel" or seek to build ICBMs that can reach Europe and America. 

Oh L-rd, please soften the hearts in Iran to agree to a real and lasting peace that safeguards us, and that brings prosperity and betterment to the world. 

Maybe this next extension will be the charm--let's hope and pray.

Note: The characters in the cartoon are fictional and do not intend any disrespect to anyone--simply the hope for a softening of hearts and minds of Iran's leaders, and with that the attainment of a real and verifiable peace with this next round of negotiations. 

All opinions my own.

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September 6, 2014

Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS


Ok, so Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS are a true recipe for global disaster. 

GLOBAL THREATS: With Chocolate Putin, we have the old Cold War back again (or maybe it was never really gone) with nation states facing off and state-of-the-art weapons galore such as thermonuclear ICBMs onshore, offshore, and aloft. And with Lemon ISIS, we have extremists posing a new level of terrorist threats such that we have never seen before with beheadings, crucifixions, and mass killings, and the potential for (very) dirty bombs. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTIMIDATION: While Chocolate Putin still denies his troops are even in Ukraine or that they all along wanted to harbor Snowden, Lemon ISIS tells the whole world they seek to establish a caliphate across the Middle East. Either way the psychological impact is to confuse and scare.

OPPRESSION OF THE PEOPLE: Both Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS declare that the people (along with their territory) in their sights are really wanting it--Ukrainians, Georgians, the Baltic States and Poland want to be Russian and maybe really are, while ISIS declares that good Muslims really want to live under strict Sharia law. The victims are not victims, they are willing participants in their own takeover. 

RULING BY AUTOCRACY: Chocolate Putin and Lemon ISIS rule by dictatorship with a supreme leader or all powerful president, the people must follow or be put in the gulag or hung by a tree limb. Either way, you will obey, freedoms begone, and the collective will be better off for it. 

The list of ingredients and description for world chaos and terror can go on and on here...but the point is that we are facing enemies that are digging in to inflict serious metabolic harm on us. 

While some may like chocolate Putin or Lemon ISIS, the results of closing our eyes to the calorie count will be catastrophic to a peaceful world order. 

(Source Photo for Lemon ISIS is Andy Blumenthal and for Chocolate Putin is here with attribution to jlib)
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March 20, 2014

Fighting Someone Who Doesn't Care

Today, an editorial by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal said it outright about Putin's land grab of Crimea and his view of others' reactions to it, "He doesn't care what they think."

This comes to the point of the whole matter, which is how do you fight an adversary that just doesn't give a [you know what]?


If one side is arguing what's right based on international laws, mores, and the ethics of human rights and freedom, how does that stack up with an adversary that disseminates misinformation [oh, are those our troops on the ground?] and thumbs their nose at the world to get what they want?


Maybe fighting fair is wonderful from a legal standpoint, but it sure looks challenging on the ground. 


Putin is daring anyone to do anything...heck, he's got thermonuclear ICBMs and a veto at the U.N. Security Council. 


BTW, if a security council member is the one doing something wrong, why in those matters, do they still get a veto???


Anyway, this is a very dangerous game of cat and mouse, and if everyone fought this way, the doomsday clock would be ticking very close to midnight, indeed.


Many times in history, a Goliath has swung a big ugly sword, but even a David--and we are not a David, but a world superpower--came to the fight with a sligshot and still won. 


Notice though, David still came to the fight!


We can win by doing the right thing, but we cannot run away, because as Hitler showed us--appeasement does not work!


Give a finger and next goes the hand, arm, and torso.


Now already are reports that Putin is threatening to derail the P5+1 negotiations with Iran as well. 

Yesterday, I read in Businessweek about overspending, that it's better to get a haircut now, than have a beheading later.


Perhaps, this applies to national security matters as well?


We can't be the policeman/woman of the world, but Snowden is snug in "Mother Russia" and now so is Crimea. 


(Source Photo: here)

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February 1, 2014

We're Dead And We Don't Even Know It

We all know the frightening threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) heading over the ice caps--from Russia, China, and even North Korea someday) and landing in our "backyards" destroying life as we know it. 

But what The Washington Beacon reports about the arms race to new ultra-high speed missiles means we are probably dead already and don't even know it. 

These new missiles being developed by China, Russia, India, and the U.S. are designed to be so fast, so small, go so low ("ground-hugging), and be so maneuverable with precision guided systems that they may completely evade all our missile defenses (long-range interceptors, medium-range sea and land-based interceptors, and short-range, near target interceptors).

China tested one of these on Jan. 9--it would sit atop an ICBM and "then glide and maneuver at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound from near space en route to its target."

It "takes off towards its target from near space, or less than 62 miles from earth."

Traveling at Mach 10 or 7,680 miles per hour, the warhead would hit accordingly to my calculation in under 30 seconds!

These hypersonic weapons can be loaded on the last stages of ICBMS, submarine missiles, aboard strategic bombers, on cruise missiles, and even on surveillance drones. 

This is the "hypersonic arms race" and the winner has asymmetric warfare advantage and can take out their opponent before the other guy even knows what hit them.

The good news is that the U.S. is testing the Lockheed HTV-2, Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, capable of Mach 20 (13,000 mph), and within the next 10-15 years we expect "rapid kill" to be able to "attack any location on earth within an hour." 

Note: the diameter of the earth is only 7,926 miles so if we can achieve Mach 20, it will actually only take us about 36 minutes!

So conventional missile defense is a bust, which leaves kinetic weapons and lasers (high-speed hit-to-kill capabilities) as our last defensive hope, as Ian Easton of the Project 2049 Institute said, "If there is a great power war in this century, it will not begin with the sound of explosions on the ground and in the sky, but rather with the bursting of kinetic energy and the flashing of laser light in the silence of outer space."

What follows though is anything that gets through these defenses rings will destroy everything down here before you would even have enough time to read this post.

In a sense, we're all dead already, and this is a very small foreshadowing testament. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Jonathan McIntosh)
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December 13, 2013

With The Courage Of The Maccabees


This is a phenomenal speech by Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United Nations on October 1 2013. 

Some highlights from the speech:

- Iran is building underground uranium and plutonium enrichment facilities, using advanced centrifuges, conducting enrichments to near dangerous levels, and developing the ICBMs to deliver the nuclear weapons. 

- Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the map and chants death to Israel and America.

- Iran is smiling and negotiating, while positioning themselves for a dash over the nuclear finish line. 

- Iran is seeking to provide meaningless concessions and empty promises in return for sanctions relief.

- Nuclear weapons in the hands of the rogue regime of Iran makes nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger.

- Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear weapons in the hands of a rogue regime that threatens to wipe them off the map.

- If Israel is forced to act alone, it will and in so doing be safeguarding many other nations as well. 

- A bludgeoned Jewish people left for dead [after the Holocaust] will defend themselves with the courage of the Maccabees and not compromise on security. 

If you get a chance, it is worth watching the whole thing.
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May 22, 2013

Blackout Nation

We are reaching an exciting but dangerous phase of technology adoption where our dependence is virtually complete. 

From mobile to social computing, from telecommunications to transportation, from industrial systems to electronic health records, from banking to eCommerce, from homeland security to national defense--we are dependent on technology.

But while technology proliferates everywhere, so do the risks. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (16 May 2003) in an article called "The City That Runs On Sensors" talks about how initiatives like IBM's smart-cities is bringing sensors and technology to everything running our towns--"Smart [city] innovation is improving our economic fabric and the quality of our life."

The flip side is an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal by former CIA director James Woolsey and Peter Pry who served on the congressional EMP commission warning how "A single nuke exploded above America could cause a national blackout for months" or years (stated later in article)

They write that "detonating a nuclear weapon high above any part of the U.S. mainland would generate a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse" (EMP)--and that this "would collapse the electric grid and other infrastructure that depends on it."

This would be a national blackout of epic proportions that would impact all areas for 21st century sustainment of 311 million lives. Think for yourself--what would you be able to do and not do without the computers and telecommunications that you use every day? 

Woolsey and Pry call for a preemptive surgical strike, for example, to prevent North Korean development of an ICMB capable of inflicting a nuclear EMP strike, but you can imagine other nations that pose a similar threat. 

While be beef up our Cyber Corps and attempt to strengthen our tools, methods, and configurations, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to securing cyberspace. 

Cybersecurity is more than just protecting us from malware infiltration and exfiltration--because the whole IT system that our society is built on can be wiped out not by cyber attack alone, but rather by collapsing the very electronic infrastructure that we rely on with a pulse of electromagnetic radiation that will fry the very circuits that run our devices. 

While we build firewalls and put up intrusion detection and prevention guards and establish a court system of antivirus and spamware to put away violators and so on, how shall we prepare for a pulse attack that can incapacitate the electronics underpinnings--security and all? 

"Star Wars" missile defense, preemptive action, and hardening of critical infrastructure are all security options--it costs money to keep the IT lights on, but better to pay now, then pay catastrophically bigger later. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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March 30, 2013

Planning For The Next Big One

I saw the movie Olympus Has Fallen, where the North Koreans attack the White House and take the President and the National Security Council hostage. 

While the acting was a "B" at best, the creativity of the attack and the action was an "A".

The attack begins with a stolen Air Force modified AC-130 with side-mounted Gatling guns unleashing hell on the streets of Washington, D.C. and the White House, followed by suicide bombers creating a breach in the gates, RPG's blowing up the security towers, 40 commandos storming though, and more Gatling guns hidden in the sides of two garbage trucks taking out our finest, the Secret Service agents that protect it. 

There is plenty of subterfuge as the North Koreans posing as the security detail for the South Korean leader visiting at the White House make their way into the Presidential bunker, and there's even a countdown to a potential nuclear holocaust by detonation of our own Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in their silos by the terrorists.

It was so upsetting to see the Secret Service agents overwhelmed by the North Korean's vicious attack--being literally mowed down trying to protect the President and White House. It was also wrenching to see them throw the American Flag from off the White House, as well as terrorize and nearly kill the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense in order to get the codes to access our nuclear missiles to shut them down and then blow them up. 

There is a saying that "Generals are always trying to fight the last war," and this is the feeling you get when you see this brazen dastardly attack on the central pillar of our political power base--where we are taken by surprise and the White House and President are held in foreign hands on our own soil. 

These types of movies are great action, but also a wake-up call to our security professionals to think out of the box---yes, even like Hollywood--about what such a creative attack could look like. 

I remember after 9/11, when everybody seemed to be saying that no one could've ever imagined something like this happening to us with airplanes being used as weapons, yet the movie "Executive Decision" with Kurt Russell in 1996 posed just such a scenario with an airplane loaded with a bomb and poison gas hurtling towards the east coast. 

Years ago, as robotics and drones started to take anchor, I wondered out loud how prepared we were for armored robot(s) or commandos in robotic exoskeletons making just such a brazen attack. 

Science fiction today is real threats of tomorrow. We may not be there just yet, but how creative are we in really thinking and planning for the next big ugly surprise. 

I say get out your most outrageous thinking caps and let your mind run wild with the worst scenarios you can imagine, and then figure out what you will do about it--rather than waiting for the bad guys to figure it out for you! ;-)
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