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.
[…]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.
— Henry F. Cooper and Rudy Boschwitz, April 1 Newsmax column