Pax Americana, Technological Readiness and broken weapons systems

[davidbfpo]

Do any trusted allies produce or have produced these weapons, for example, the Czech Republic? Surely the unit cost will be far greater if made in the USA. As for the disparaging remarks about the international arms trade they made me smile.

[AdamG]

This neatly transcends Einstein's "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Back off to high earth orbit and drop a big stick on 'em.

The 107-country Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 prohibits nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons from being placed in or used from Earth's orbit. What they didn't count on was the US Air Force's most simple weapon ever: a tungsten rod that could hit a city with the explosive power of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

https://www.businessinsider.com/air-...n-force-2017-9

[AdamG]

You folks will love this one...

In 2008, the statutory Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack delivered over 100 recommendations to Congress to protect the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures — including communications, transportation, energy, business and finance, food and water. We were hopeful the job would get done.

Following an EMP attack, 326 million Americans could not long survive bereft of the electronic civilization that sustains their lives. EMP would be a civilization killer. In 2008, the statutory Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack delivered over 100 recommendations to Congress to protect the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures — including communications, transportation, energy, business and finance, food and water. We were hopeful the job would get done.

Following an EMP attack, 326 million Americans could not long survive bereft of the electronic civilization that sustains their lives. EMP would be a civilization killer. The EMP commission reports are “good news,” because they prove there is no excuse for the nation to be vulnerable. Electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures can be protected — affordably. For example, the 2008 report estimates that the electric grid’s bulk-power system can be hardened to survive for a few billion dollars.

So, in 2008, when the EMP Commission delivered what we thought then was our final report to Congress, we were hopeful America soon would be protected.

However, by 2015 — 20 years after the first open congressional EMP hearing in 1995 — the U.S. Government Accountability Office testified to Congress that not a single major recommendation of the EMP Commission had yet been implemented. Not one.

https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersec...-for-americans

[AdamG]

By Bill Gertz, from January 24, 2019

Several nations, including China and Russia, are building powerful nuclear bombs designed to produce super-electromagnetic pulse (EMP) waves capable of devastating all electronics—from computers to electric grids—for hundreds of miles, according to a newly-released congressional study.

A report by the now-defunct Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, for the first time reveals details on how nuclear EMP weapons are integrated into the military doctrines of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

The report discloses how those states could use EMP attacks in theaters of battle in the Middle East, Far East, Europe, and North America.

https://freebeacon.com/national-secu...ckout-warfare/

See also http://www.firstempcommission.org/up..._july_2017.pdf

[AdamG]

The Army has beefed up the firepower of some of its Stryker fleet in Europe, with 30mm cannons on some and others with remote-firing Javelin missiles, making it better ready to take on light armored and armored threats. But adversaries are finding other ways to attack the platform — with cyber.

The annual report from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation for the Defense Department provides a detailed overview of Army, Navy and Air Force programs. The Army section contains two dozen systems with reviews and recommendations.

Two of those reports look at the Stryker-Dragoon and the Stryker CROWS-J, or Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station – Javelin and notes that both have “cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be exploited.”

The vulnerabilities highlighted in the report were not simply revealed in testing.

While little detail is shared as to what vulnerabilities were exposed, which adversary exposed them or when this occurred, the shared language for the two systems and another comment point to something common in the hardware, not the new weaponry, on the Stryker.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-...nned-vehicles/

[AdamG]

Iranian military leaders disclosed on Thursday that their intelligence operatives had infiltrated a U.S. Army Command Center and commandeered control of several American drones flying through Syria and Iraq.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force, released information and photographic evidence that Iran claims as proof it was able to take control of several U.S. drones.

This would not be the first time Iran commandeered such sensitive technology. Tehran assumed control of a downed U.S. drone several years ago and claimed that it had siphoned both information and technical data.

https://freebeacon.com/national-secu...ndeers-drones/