Dear Members and Friends,
The State of Hawaii is rolling out a state of preparedness plan today for the civil defense of American citizens living and locating in Hawaii for their self-defense from a potential North Korean Ballistic Missile attack (link).
“We do not want to cause any undue stress for the public,” Vern T. Miyagi, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency administrator said in a statement reported Thursday by the state’s news media, but “we cannot wait to begin our public information campaign to ensure that Hawaii residents will know what do if such an event occurs.”
The full plan for that campaign will be unveiled Friday, according to Hawaii News Now. Miyagi, a retired Army general, agreed. He said in April that an attack is, “a low probability. … But then, so, we have to keep a lookout for that. That’s why we’re talking about updating the plan. It’s an awakening.”
It is beyond rational safe reasoning and unnecessary risk for the Americans living in Hawaii that the Hawaiian Federal Delegation (link) unlike its State Delegation (link) is not demanding emergency and contingency operations planning of additional U.S. missile defense capability for the State of Hawaii to better defend and better deter North Korea making Hawaii safer. This would have to include emergency operationalizing of PMRF (Pacific Missile Range Facility) with its Aegis Ashore Site, use of Aegis BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) ships assigned to the Pacific Fleet, additional AN/TPY-2 discriminator sensors at PRMF and in the Pacific.
It is acknowledged today that priority, funding and planning by the federal government of deploying a Medium Range Discrimination Radar (MRDR) in Hawaii scheduled for 2022 at the earliest and developing the next generation RKV (Redesigned Kill Vehicle) tipped GBI (Ground-Based Interceptor) interceptor to come operational at the earliest 2021 will much better defend Hawaii than it is today. That is three to four years between now and then with an escalating and seemingly unstoppable North Korea in both intent and ballistic missile capability, the United States of America must have contingent operational plans with emergency operational capability to better defend Hawaii throughout and over the next four years or more (link).
It is important to note that the U.S. government has done this before when it comes to operationalizing PMRF against North Korea while mitigating the risks to PMRF and the community while continuing to test at PMRF. In 2009 under President Obama and Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declared PMRF in Hawaii to be emergency operationalized against a North Korea ballistic threat to Hawaii that was significantly less capable of what North Korea has today. The THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system which has not shown proven capability to defeat an ICBM nor does it have requirements to do so was operationalized in PMRF in 2009 with its AN/TPY-2 radar and launcher full of interceptors by Secretary Gates with the full support of Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inoyue. The THAAD battery at PMRF simultaneously continued to test its capability at the PMRF range while being operational against North Korea.
Located on PMRF today is the 450 million dollar Aegis Ashore site and launcher, the exact same capability that is fully operational in Romania defending parts of Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles. This Aegis Ashore site at PMRF is scheduled for one more live SM3 Block 2A test this year where the site will go fully operational proving out ballistic missile defense against Iran for most of Europe in the upcoming deployment of the Aegis Ashore site in Poland. The Aegis Ashore Sites, all three of them operate on Baseline 9 which enables them all to launch from remote launchers such as Aegis BMD ships and land based VLS (Vertical Launch Systems) and even THAAD is possible as well as forward-based discriminating sensors such as the SBX (Sea-Based X-Band radar) and AN/TPY-2 radars that can be near or far from the Aegis Ashore site.
Having a second and third layers of defense for Hawaii underneath the GBIs from Alaska, that have a short one shot window opportunity and a long way to go, would make Hawaii the safest state in the United States against the North Korean ballistic missile threat. These second and third layers of the SM-3 Block 2A and SM-6 which have inherent capability to defeat ICBMs can be provided with relative ease to the Aegis Ashore site at PMRF with already trained U.S. crews that are being deployed to Romania and Poland Aegis Ashore sites. These same layers can also be provided by one or more of the U.S. Navy’s Aegis BMD ships but the cost of taking the ship off of its already over demanded missions in the Pacific and the cost of running a close to a 300 crew of a $2.5 Billion Aegis BMD multi mission destroyer or cruiser limiting itself to a one mission picket duty of Hawaii is simply exponentially more in factors of 100 of the already paid for Aegis Ashore site at PMRF with no more test missions scheduled after this year manned by a 20 person crew.
If your the Hawaiian Tourism Board and the Hawaiian Federal Delegation, it is far better to be the safest state in the United States against North Korea than to be the least defending state implementing civil defense plans to be prepared for survival from a North Korean Ballistic missile attack.
Perception is deterrence or not whether it’s from tourism or from the North Korean Leader.
Awaken.
