August 3, 2025

Dystopic Newsletter

US Nuclear Saber Rattling – Russia’s turn to be threatened & DEW (Directed Energy Weapons) in Golden Dome Missile Defense

Test of U.S. Navy submarine launch Tomahawk missile -Naval Air Systems Command

After three years of listening to Vladimir Putin's “saber rattle” about the use of nuclear weapons against the West if they intervene in the Ukraine-Russia War, the Trump administration rattled its own nuclear saber, in reply to some highly inflammatory social media posts by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev …

In a surprising move, on Friday, August 1st, President Trump announced on the social media platform Truth Social:

This statement and submarine force deployments cap a week of “maximum pressure” campaign tactics that President Trump has launched against Russia to bring them to the negotiating table, agree to a ceasefire, and end the Ukraine-Russia War.

The opening salvo of the new “Maximum Pressure” campaign began on Monday, July 28th, when President Trump, in a meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington, D.C., stated that he was shortening the deadline for a ceasefire to “10 or 12 days.” Trump had finally reached thet end of his patience, noting, “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth.” (Politico)

Later, President Trump clarified the exact date as August 8^th, that the U.S would place a massive round of secondary sanctions on Russia and, most importantly, anyone who trades with Russia. This was a clear shot across the bow to China, India, and Brazil. All countries that have yet to close their tariff deals with Washington.

Putin, who enjoys making threats but clearly doesn’t enjoy receiving them (As we say in Texas, “he can dish it out but he sure can’t take it”), called upon his faithful regime mouthpiece, Dmitry Medvedev, to make further threats of his own.

On Tuesday, July 29^th, Medvedev posted on X, that Trump was "playing the ultimatum game" and that "Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war … Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country," he futher warned President Trump, "Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!" refering with disdane to the form U.S. President, Joe Biden.

Along the way, Medvedev also made veiled threats that Russia still had its “Dead Hand” nuclear strike capability. Dead Hand is a soviet era system to continue computer-automated nuclear strike orders to Soviet forces even if the entire political and military leadership were killed in a nuclear attack.

Trump ignored the threat and, in his typical ‘Trumpian” rhetoric, leveled some insults at Medvedev. “We'll tell Medvedev, the hapless former president of Russia, to watch his words. He is entering very dangerous territory.”

Some analysis:

• On the repositioning of 2 U.S. Submarines: The US Defense Department has provided no specific details on what class of submarines President Trump has redeployed to threaten Russia. They are likely to be Virgina fast attack submarines with the capability of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles deep within Russia. Similar to the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities several weeks ago. US ballistic missile submarines are always deployed and at the ready in case of any nuclear confrontation. Any change in the rotation of our strategic Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines is highly unlikely.
• Why escalate with a military threat? A “Maximum Pressure” campaign is just that. As my book, How The Hell Did We Get Here? explains, deterrence has elements: soft power and hard power. Trump was very clear about his soft power play of sanctions against all trade with Russia. His movement of two submarines pulls the other level of deterrence, hard power, and at long last counters Moscow's threats and nuclear saber-rattling. Short of actually firing weapons at each other, the US has ratcheted up every aspect of pressure short of war at its disposal
• The Big Question: Are we escalating towards War? In my opinion, we are not escalating towards war. Vladimir Putin is a pathological bully, and it is high time the US made its own counter-threats and put Putin in his place. I'm frankly happy that President Trump has lost his patience and, in his own uncontrolled way, has lashed out at the failure to stop the carnage in Ukraine, which is appalling.

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Not only is the US sending a strong message to Russia, but it is also sending a message to China, India, and Brazil to stop supporting the war or pay a penalty. The obvious goal of this strategy is to isolate Russia and its economy from the rest of the world. China, India, and Brazil can ill afford massive US tariffs remaining in place. When you have leverage, use it or lose it.

How will this all work out? Much like everything President Trump does, we will have to wait and see. With 5000 Russian and Ukrainian military casualties and hundreds of civilian casualties a day, Something had to be done. Agree or disagree with the policy, President Trump is using every lever in his deterrence toolbox to try to achieve peace, and for that, the American people and the world should be grateful.

Trump is using every lever in his deterrence toolbox to try to achieve peace, and for that, the American people and the world should be grateful.

You can find more details about the rhetoric between President Trump and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the following articles:

• Aljazeera: Why is Trump moving nuclear submarines after spat with Medvedev?​
• Wall Street Journal: Trump Positions Nuclear Submarines Following Threats From Former Russian Leader​

Golden Dome Deep Dive – An Introduction to DEW (Direct Energy Weapons)

In late October of this year, I'll be giving a lecture at the Milsat Symposium, which is part of Silicon Valley Space Week, on the technology challenges of Golden Dome, the proposed space-based missile defense system. Over the next few months, as I conduct in-depth research into the various technical challenges of the satellite system architecture for Golden Dome, I'll be sharing that with you, my Dystopian readers.

Golden Dome, currently in the concept and system definition phase, is to create an integrated air and space defense system to protect the United States from today’s modern ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missiles, and all other airborne threats. The goal of the Golden Dome for America, proposed by President Trump, would create a layered and integrated interlocking system of multi-domain systems that would allow the United States to protect against an adversary’s ability to threaten U.S. territories.

By now, based on the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran, you should be familiar with existing layered terrestrial air defense systems: U.S. Navy AEGIS, Israeli Arrow 3, U.S. THAAD, U.S. Patriot, Israeli David’s sling, and Israeli Iron Dome. Golden Dome will layer in a new set of space based capabilities

• SpaceX Starshield: The $1.8 billion multiyear program to develop and deploy several hundred intelligence/communications satellites called Starshield. Starshield represents a revolution in satellite intelligence gathering and communications, creating orbital layers of highly survivable satellites. This system will be the new “global brain” of Golden Dome, providing C4I: Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence functions. Starshield is now incorporated into a larger Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) under Golden Dome
• Space-based Weapons. Likely combination of interceptor missiles and Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). Two types of DEW will likely be pursued: Laser and Electromagnetic ( thing EMP – Electromagnetic Pulse). A laser weapon would be extremely effective in the vacuum of space which eliminate all the atmospheric limitations

Acronyms: BMC3 = Battle Management Command Control and Communications, CCMDS= Combatant Commands, IR = infrared

A collection of cutting-edge technologies will need to be developed to both deploy and maintain the space segment of Golden Dome, these include:

• Satellite orbit constellation design – orbit heights, Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) and/or LEO and orbital planes
• Optical/Laser secure inter-satellite links and ground segment links
• In-orbit refueling of satellites to maintain station keeping and extend orbital lifespan, especially for Kinetic and DEW weapons platforms
• Kinetic interceptors (missiles)
• Power sources for DEW weapons – likely based on nuclear battery vs solar cell technology
• Power storage for DEW weapons
• Counter anti-satellite technologies - satellite autonym and self defense

We will be examining these critical cutting-edge technologies over he coming weeks.

For this week, I’d like to take an excerpt on the motivation for DEW missile defense from Chapter 8: Missile Defense: Deterrence through Protection of my book, How The Hell Did We Get Here?

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Terrestrial Directed Energy (DE) weapons have begun active deployment in the Navy, Army, and Marines. The issue these new weapon systems address, especially low cost per engagement ($ per shot) and nearly unlimited weapons magazine depth, applies to the future Golden Dome space weapons. Read on …

What’s Next: Directed Energy Weapons for Terminal Point Defense

Missile defense is expensive. Interceptor costs range from $111M to engage an ICBM with a GBM midcourse interceptor missile (Reif and Bugos 2021) to roughly $20,000, at the low end, for a short-range Iron Dome Tamir missile (MDAA 2024). It is no wonder that US military planners pursued a limited shield for national coverage and provided more extensive theater weapons for high-value civilian and military installations and equipment only. We can’t really afford to do anything more comprehensive.

Directed energy weapons (DE) completely change that equation. The US is pursuing antimissile and air systems energy with an estimated cost of 3.50 dollars per shot based on Rafael Iron Beam (MDAA 2024) and an unlimited ability to shoot without reloading or resupply (aka unlimited magazine depth).

The army, navy, and air force are pursuing a coordinated roadmap and technology advancement using two DE technologies: HEL (high-energy lasers) and HPM (high-power microwave).

HEL systems are being developed for short-range air defense for counter-unmanned aircraft systems and counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar missions. HPM weapons are jammer systems on steroids and create a focused EMP (electromagnetic pulse) effect to knock out enemy electronics and communications systems. The much lower cost per shot and functionality on an unlimited magazine depth make these systems attractive. However, DE systems have limitations that are not faced by standard kinetic weapons. Rain, fog, and smoke from the carnage of modern warfare can reduce the range and effectiveness of DE systems. For this reason, the deployment of DE systems will complement, not replace, standard kinetic weapons.

The US currently fields HEL weapons under 100 kW beam power. This current generation of weapons was specifically developed to defend against drones, mortars, and short-range rockets. Low-cost weapons like drones can’t be cost-effectively countered by larger, more expensive antimissile/air defense systems like Patriot or Iron Dome. With costs approaching 3.50 dollars a shot (MDAA 2024), a 100 kW DE HEL weapon offers enough energy to destroy swarmed drones or salvos of other lightly armored weapons with less than a second of dwell time on each target. While powerful enough to destroy lightly armored weapons, such as drones, the 100 kW energy level is insufficient to engage more heavily constructed cruise missiles or large aircraft (Sayler et al. 2024).

In conjunction with the US, Israel is developing an equivalent HEL system. Rafael the manufacturer of Iron Dome, will field a 100kW DE HEL weapon called Iron Beam (Rafael; n.d.).Iron Beam is expected to complement the Iron Dome System. Deployment is imminent and will likely occur by the time you read this book. At any rate, deployment can’t come soon enough, given the situation in the Middle East.

By 2030, the US Defense Department predicts that it will begin to field weapons with nearly 500 kW (Sayler 2024) beam power that can engage larger land and sea attack cruise missiles (conventional or nuclear-armed), aircraft, and, interestingly enough, armored vehicles.

By 2035, directed energy weapons will be able to engage ballistic missiles and, more importantly, hypersonic missiles. With a beam strength in the 1 MW (Sayler 2024), the range and destructive power will have reached a point to replace short-range systems like Iron Dome. The cost per shot will be reduced by twenty to fifty times compared to an interceptor missile, and have a functionally unlimited magazine. At that point, the economics of attack versus defense will switch to the defender, and the window for vulnerability to massed attacks will close.

A US Navy View of Combined DE and Kinetic Weapons for Missile and Air Defense

A recent Congressional Research Service report from March 2024 (O'Rourke 2024) provided an interesting unclassified glimpse into the need for combined directed energy and standard kinetic missile systems. Both China and North Korea are building up an array of short and medium-range missiles. Their plan was to overwhelm the missile defenses of US Navy carrier task forces and Japan’s Aegis-equipped destroyers.

The Navy is concerned that massive missile and drone attacks will force US carrier battle groups to stand off out of range of these weapons, limiting the fleet’s operating range and effectiveness. This is especially true of conflicts in the Taiwan Strait, with little more than one hundred miles separating mainland China and Taiwan. Carrier battle groups must operate behind Taiwan, using the island as a natural barrier. Naval task forces and carrier groups heading toward Taiwan would face a barrage of medium-range anti-ship missiles and drones (UAVs) as they head into battle.

This is not at all a far-fetched scenario. A historical precedent for overwhelming a fleet’s defenses is Japan’s massive kamikaze attacks. On October 25, 1944, the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines marked the first use of massed kamikaze attacks by the Empire of Japan. Over five thousand kamikaze pilots died in the attacks, destroying thirty-four US Navy warships, including the escort carrier St. Louis (National World War 2 Museum 2024). In the age of modern naval warfare, missiles and UAVs armed with sophisticated radar, infrared, and optical sensors and artificial intelligence would replace kamikaze pilots and planes with even more deadly effectiveness. This lesson is not lost on the Chinese, who have been analyzing mass drone attacks against the US Navy carrier battle groups.

To defend against a massed attack, the US Navy has invested heavily in layered defensive kinetic weapons to protect its ships. These defense weapons include (Trevithick 2024; CRS 2024):

• Aegis SM-3 missiles for long-range engagement (US Navy destroyers carry from fifty to ninety SM-3 missiles depending on weapons complement)
• Phalanx Close-in Weapons Systems (CIWS)—A radar-guided Gatling gun firing seventy-five rounds a second with an effective range of less than two kilometers

SeaRAM CIWS, which combines a Phalanx CIWS with 11x Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) with an effective range of less than ten kilometers These incredibly effective defensive weapon systems have a single weakness: a finite magazine depth. A Congressional report noted that with a limited magazine depth, CIWS systems can only “shoot down only a certain number of enemy UAVs and anti-ship missiles before running out of SAMs and CIWS ammunition—a situation (sometimes called ‘going Winchester’) that can require a ship to withdraw from battle, spend time travelling to a safe reloading location (which can be hundreds of miles away) and then spend more time traveling back to the battle area” (CRS 2024, 2). If the magazine depth issue were not daunting enough, these weapons are expensive and suffer from what the Navy refers to as a highly negative cost exchange ratio. Put another way, the cost to shoot down an enemy weapon is many times more expensive than the enemy weapon itself.

Adding direct energy weapons, specifically a HEL weapon from the US Navy’s solid state laser (SSL) program, to a ship’s antimissile and air defense completely changes the situation. As the congressional report goes on to explain, “SSLs offer a potential for dramatically improving the depth of magazine and the cost exchange ratio.” (CRS 2024, 3). The specific advantages are

Depth of magazine: SSLs are electrically powered, drawing their power from the ship’s overall electrical supply, and can be fired over and over, indefinitely, as long as the laser continues to work and the ship has fuel to generate electricity.

Cost exchange ratio: Depending on its beam power, an SSL can be fired for an estimated marginal cost of $1 to less than $10 per shot (much of which simply is the cost of the fuel needed to generate the electricity used in the shot).”

In 2022, the US Navy deployed its new HELIOS (high-energy laser with an integrated optical dazzler and surveillance) on DDG-51 Flight IIA destroyers. Initially deployed with a 60 kW-class high-energy laser, HELIOS can be upgraded to 150 kW and is designed to counter drones and small attack boats (a serious issue in the water around the Middle East). The system includes a dazzler. A dazzler is a directed-energy weapon intended to temporarily blind or disorient its target (human eyesight or electronic sensors) with intense directed radiation (O'Rourke 2025).

HELIOS marks the beginning of the initial deployment of an effective DE Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) to augment the existing Phalanx and SeaRAM CIWS weapons in US Navy destroyer squadrons. The US Navy’s next-generation guided-missile destroyer, scheduled to debut in 2028, is slated to deploy next-generation 150kW/600kW caliber DE weapons.

That’s a wrap for this week …

Dystopic- The Technology Behind Today's News

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