Over a decade ago, I joined three other well-informed technologists to warn of Iran's threat to attack the U.S. with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
Though such an attack has not happened . . . and two of my co-authors are deceased, our early warning remains valid today . . . perhaps even more so, as an extension of reasons that we then recounted:
Iran already had orbited satellites and could deploy missiles with intercontinental range capability over the South Polar regions and approaching the U.S. from our then undefended South.
The orbits of these satellites were at altitudes that could enable a detonation to create an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) over the lower 48 U.S. states with devastating effects, including a "protracted blackout of the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures."
Seven years earlier, in 2008, Mohammed ElBaradei, then Director of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), noted that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon within 6-months.
On June 20, 2014, former IAEA Deputy General Olli Heinonen reported Iran could build a nuclear weapon within 2-3 weeks . . . based only on Iran's then known capabilities.
Furthermore, the IAEA had discovered Iran had experimented with implosion technology needed for sophisticated nuclear weapons that could fit on Iranian missiles.
Iran reportedly cooperated with its ally North Korea in its underground testing, thereby gaining experimental evidence and perhaps validation of its nuclear designs for weapons to be delivered by its ballistic missiles launched southward toward our then undefended South . . . missiles that had previously launched satellites that passed over the U.S.
Given these and other concerns, we recommended that the "Holes in the National Missile Defense need to be patched and the U.S. nuclear deterrent modernized."
And we urged regime change by "ousting Iran's oppressive mullahs through popular revolution."
In those days, there was an active EMP Caucus, led by proactive members of the House of Representatives, reflecting serious congressional concerns about this threat, and urging congressional actions to counter it.
A revival of such a concerned congressional coalition would be most welcome to those of us still concerned about this threat to all we hold dear.
To be sure, we have made considerable progress in defending against this existential threat.
Perhaps most important is the fact that we are no longer defenseless against the threat from missiles launched toward the U.S. from the South . . . or any other direction.
For example, our Aegis Cruisers and Destroyers, and Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems, provide significant sea-based and land-based defenses for us and our allies from a ballistic missile attack from almost any direction.
And President Trump's "Golden Dome" offers the possibility of a global defense, especially in space deriving from Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) lessons three decades ago.
However, recent reports suggest that its leaders are failing to meet my October 20, 2025 challenge that "Golden Dome's Management Should Give Priority to Space Defense."
I warned that the overall Golden Dome leadership "should not be in Huntsville with its well-known bias toward the massively expensive ground-based defenses, the most expensive, least effective way to defend large areas of the U.S. and its allies globally."
So, it's not surprising . . . at least to me . . . that since the president's Golden Dome leadership was indeed located in Huntsville, recent reports are that its conclusion is that space-based defenses are too expensive and the main investments are proliferating more expensive defenses on the Earth's surface.
The Huntsville empire was overruled during the SDI era, and furthermore, so was the Air Force Space Command when my predecessor as SDI Director, USAF Lt. Gen. George Monahan, formed a Brilliant Pebbles Task Force to manage the effort, reporting directly to him.
President Trump should recall President Reagan's wisdom in appointing an independent, competent leader (regularly reporting to him) to assure the usual bureaucratic pressures do not corrupt his most important Golden Dome initiative.
Fmr. Amb. Henry F. (Hank) Cooper, a PhD engineer with a broad defense and national security career. He was President Ronald Reagan’s chief defense and space negotiator with the Soviet Union and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) director during the George H.W. Bush administration. Read more Henry F. Cooper insider articles --- Click Here Now.
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