The Bunker: A Skyful of Threats

The Bunker, delivered to our subscribers Wednesdays at 7 a.m., is a newsletter from the desk of National Security Analyst Mark Thompson. Sign up here to receive it first thing, or check back Wednesday afternoon for the online version.

This week in The Bunker: The Defense Department’s intelligence shop delivers a list of potential weapons potentially used by potential foes to justify President Trump’s Golden Dumb missile system; hyping the Russian military threat (again!) despite its abysmal performance in Ukraine; Pentagon pill-popping for pilots; and more.

BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

And be broke. Be very broke.

One thing the U.S. military knows how to do is follow orders. Or at least fakin’ it pretty good. So when the president says he wants to build a fiscally and physically impossible wonder weapon to shield the U.S. from all aerial threats (except lost luggage on major American airlines), you can count on the nation’s top military spies to step up and salute. That’s why they have just published what they call a “report” titled Golden Dome for America: Current and Future Missile Threats to the U.S. Homeland.

Actually, it’s not a report. It’s not even an “assessment,” as the Defense Intelligence Agency also calls it. In fact, it’s a one-page infographic (PDF) “to depict threats a sophisticated missile defense system for the United States would defend against,” according to a May 13 DIA press release.

A sales brochure, in other words (it also reminds The Bunker of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! comic he loved as a kid; the parallels are striking). Its centerpiece shows the U.S. as a bull’s-eye, with multi-colored arrows bombarding it from the other side of the globe. Subtle, it ain’t.

Aerial threats to the U.S. “will expand in scale and sophistication” over the coming decade, the Pentagon’s intel pros say. The nation’s leaky intercontinental ballistic missile shield will be worthless against a growing array of Bad Guy wonder weapons. According to the DIA, beyond your garden-variety land-and-submarine-based ballistic missiles, they include this roster of incoming threats:

• Aeroballistic missiles: “A type of hypersonic missile carrying nuclear or conventional warheads that can be launched from air, sea, or ground platforms and combines aerodynamic maneuvers with phases of ballistic loft to extend range.”
• Hypersonic glide vehicles: “A maneuverable aerodynamic body that is typically delivered by a ballistic missile, achieves sustained hypersonic glide at altitudes of 15-50 km, and glides for at least half of its flight to its target.”
• Land-attack cruise missiles: “A missile that flies through the atmosphere, potentially with reduced signatures, that can maneuver extensively in flight and be armed with a nuclear or conventional warhead; some may achieve hypersonic speeds.”
• Fractional orbital bombardment systems: “An ICBM that enters a low-altitude orbit before reentering to strike its target, with much shorter flight times if flying the same direction as traditional ICBMs, or can travel over the South Pole to avoid early warning systems and missile defenses.”

Trump announced May 20 that he wants $25 billion to begin building the shield, and will complete it within three years for $175 billion.

But not to worry. The day before DIA issued its infographic, Trump signed an executive order seeking to lower prescription drug prices. The resulting reduced federal spending on drugs “will easily pay for the Golden Dome,” he said, “and we’ll have a lot of money left over.”

No wonder his companies have filed for bankruptcy six times.

THE THREATS JUST KEEP ON RESUMING

The Russians are coming. Again.

Perspective is generally MIA when it comes to assessing threats faced by the U.S. — and it’s not only from the government. Veteran Washington Post columnist Lee Hockstader wrote May 14 that Europe’s rearmament effort is “badly lagging Russia’s breakneck transition to a war footing.”

Huh?

It was only three years ago that the chattering combat class were stunned by how poorly Russian troops had fared following their invasion of Ukraine. Have we forgotten so soon?

More importantly, things are not getting better for Moscow. Ukraine has “successfully forced Russia to withdraw from northern Ukraine, liberated significant swaths of territory in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts, and blunted the Russian rate of advance across the theater,” the independent Institute for the Study of War noted May 15. “Ukraine is now in a much stronger battlefield position on the battlefield than in April 2022 and the Russian military is much weaker than in the early months of the full-scale invasion.”

As the Soviet Union, Russia’s Cold War military parades sent shivers around the world and fattened the Pentagon’s annual Soviet Military Power books (and budgets) with dire warnings of Moscow’s might during the Reagan administration. Of course, once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, we learned that its military was little more than a paper tiger.

Seems like we need to keep relearning that lesson.

SLEEP CYCLES

Keeping pilots’ eyes open

The U.S. military asks a lot of its pilots. Not only are their jobs technically and physically demanding, sometimes they require bending the time-space continuum to ensure aviators can accomplish their mission. That’s why the military has a medicine-chestful of drugs to keep pilots awake — and to put them to sleep.

“Sustained high-operations tempo over the past several decades, among other factors, has generated persistent demand for the use of pharmacological measures,” the Congressional Research Service reported May 13. “The operational need for these measures and comparative effectiveness with non-pharmacological measures have been the subject of debate in modern warfare.”

While there is no Pentagon-wide policy on the use of such drugs, each military service drafts its own. Among other drugs, Dexedrine, Geldex, Procentra, and Provigil are approved stimulants (known as “go-pills”) “to counter aviator fatigue and improve alertness and performance.”

Ambien, Restoril, and Sonata are approved sedatives (“no-go pills”) “to aid in sleep initiation when an operational need exists.” Side effects can range from addiction to “an increased risk of vehicle accidents,” which is why such pharmaceuticals are prescribed and monitored by flight surgeons. They were implicated in a 2002 U.S. “friendly fire” attack in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers.

Concern over such drug use has led to the Pentagon’s Alert WARfighter Enablement (AWARE) program. It wants to turn such drugs, once in a pilot’s body, on or off using infrared light delivered into the pilot’s brain via “wearable light emitters.”

The ultimate night fight flight light, you might say.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently

→ Better late than never…

Fifteen Army AH-64 attack helicopter crew members who fired the opening salvos in 1991’s Gulf War finally received Distinguished Flying Crosses 34 years after pulling the triggers, Patty Neiberg reported May 16 in Task & Purpose.

→ Define “little”

The Army will “assume a little bit of risk” by building its V-280 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft before prototype testing wraps up, the program manager, Colonel Jeffrey Poquette, told Defense News’ Jen Judson in a May 16 article.

→ Chart attack!

Nine charts by Mike Frankel and Hrisanthi Pickett on the War Horse website May 13 help explain President Trump’s proposed trillion-dollar defense budget.

And a trillion thanks for stopping by The Bunker this week. Consider forwarding this on to curious citizens so they can subscribe here.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Thompson has been covering the Pentagon for more than 45 years.