In considering the potential merits of U.S. President Donald Trump's Golden Dome initiative, note events from several decades ago, after President Ronald Reagan learned that his only choice if the United States was under nuclear attack was to respond-in kind with a nuclear attack . . . a condition called "Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD).
Reagan was very unhappy with that "mutual suicide pact," intended to assure our survival, given that the Soviets would be deterred . . . but it had been accepted nuclear doctrine, and he knew that doctrine would be hard to change.
His closest staff understood his concern and sought to change that strategy to one providing alternative responses to defend against all but a massive nuclear attack.
In his early meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Reagan gained their support and constituted a major study involving many of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers to consider alternative defensive measures, leading to the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.
And he appointed former astronaut and NASA Associate Administrator (and eventually USAF Lt. General) James A. Abrahamson as the first SDI director.
Thus, "space" played a major SDI role from its beginning . . . with the full backing of his Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger.
Notably, Reagan often recalled meeting during his California governor days with Edward Teller, the distinguished physicist of the Manhattan Project days who invented the H-Bomb.
And Reagan was aware of comprehensive researc hand development efforts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL), originally founded to emphasize Teller's efforts. LLNL formed a division to focus on SDI efforts, exploring both Kinetic Energy (hit-to kill) and Directed Energy (Laser) technologies.
Most novel was Brilliant Pebbles, which promised a "near-term" space-based intercept capability, based on then (late-1980s) existent commercial technology.
Teller prompted a meeting with Reagan to discuss its merits, and he was impressed . . . and Abrahamson’s End-of-Tour report recommended a major effort to demonstrate the Brilliant Pebbles viability.
The resulting efforts were resisted by many in the press and especially MAD advocates . . . as had been the case from the beginning of the SDI effort, when some technologists and politicians ridiculed SDI as just "another unrealistic idea" dreamed up by Reagan . . . and they labeled the entire enterprise as "Star Wars" . . . a label picked up by the Soviets, though they knew better.
We co-authors were closely involved in these formative matters, initially as neighbors in northern Virginia back in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s: Boschwitz as a Minnesota senator and Cooper in the State and Defense Departments under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Initially, critics mocked the idea of a bullet hitting another bullet by calling it "science fiction." And after that capability was demonstrated by a ground based defensive interceptor, they tried to block that capability for other basing modes considered by SDI, largely because the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty banned them. That bias continued even after President G.W. Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002.
But the Soviets understood the West's superior technology might develop such effective defenses, giving SDI significant negotiating leverage.
Recall when they met in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 1986, Reagan walked out rather than give up SDI efforts to consider space-based defenses, as Mikhail Gorbachev demanded.
That leverage eventually led to the first arms control Treaties ever to produce major reductions in offensive nuclear weapons . . . the 1987 INF and 1991 START Treaties.
Nevertheless, congressional opposition has blocked development of those important systems, even until today.
President Trump's Golden Dome offers a possibility for revival . . . and is often met with the same hostility.
"Brilliant Pebbles" small satellites stationed in orbit could monitor the heat of offensive ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons beginning early in their launch and "boost" phase above the Soviet Union. Thus, such a space-based system had many opportunities to intercept nuclear-armed Russian missiles, even over Russian territory.
That is still true today, and a constellation of, say a thousand, Brilliant Pebbles could be developed and deployed well within the funds already appropriated for President Trump's Golden Dome . . . along with the needed command and control infrastructure needed for a full constellation, and including a follow-on space-based Directed Energy (Laser) system, for which most funding should be dedicated. Specifics of this approach were previously elaborated.
Note: Without anything to stop it, even a single nuclear-armed missile could pass above the atmosphere to attack the United States and detonate as it re-enters the atmosphere, creating an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) . . . a surge of electricity that could bring down America’s entire electric grid. (For background and reports, see the 2001 Congressional EMP Commission webpage.)
Without electricity, most Americans could perish for lack of essential goods and services.
The Iranians are very aware of EMP . . . have written about it.
And even if they understand we will respond, the mullahs say they have no fear of death.
These thoughts recently went through our minds and surely through the minds of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
EMP and other radiation effects from high altitude nuclear explosions has been recognized since the South Pacific nuclear tests in the early 1960s . . . that turned out the lights and other electronics 900 miles away in Hawaii and damaged most of our satellites of that era.
It's time that America protect itself.
Rudy Boschwitz, U.S. Senator (R-Minn. - 1978-1991), was U.S. Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission (Geneva, Switzerland - 2005) and President George H.W. Bush's emissary to Ethiopia (1991). Henry F. Cooper was U. S. Ambassador and Defense and Space Negotiator with the Soviet Union under President Reagan and SDI Director under President George H.W. Bush. Read more of Ambassador Cooper's Insider articles — Click Here Now.
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