Any person or organization that supports the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement is a dupe, stooge, or enabler for Hamas, even if the individual or organization does not condone terrorism. The Russian Federation's threats to use nuclear weapons for purposes other than self-defense, along with Communist China's threats to start a war with Taiwan, show also that BDS supporters are de facto foreign and domestic enemies of the United States. This is because the United States and Israel may well rely on their mutually developed missile defense programs for their very survival, and anything that undermines our relationship with Israel is therefore an existential threat to our own nation, NATO, and our Pacific allies as well as Israel.

It is important to mention up front, however, that de facto is not the same as de jure (by law). It is not a crime to be a de facto enemy of the United States. Advocacy of BDS, and even advocacy of Hamas's violent agenda, is not the de jure crime of material support for terrorism because "material" is exactly that; money and/or weapons as opposed to words. One must ask, however, whether some BDS supporters are taking untraceable cryptocurrency from the Russian Federation and/or Communist China under the table to undermine the security of the United States itself.  Neither the Russian Federation nor the Chinese Communists want us to acquire or develop the technology necessary to shoot down their nuclear weapons.

Vladimir Putin and his supporters have talked openly about using nuclear weapons for purposes other than self-defense. Putin has boasted that his new Sarmat II missile can reach the United Kingdom in three minutes, and that one can wipe out most of England. Here is Dmitry Kiselyov threatening to drown the UK in a nuclear tidal wave. Russia and the former USSR have actually had the means to annihilate England for more than 60 years, but Russia is not going to act on this unless it can also eliminate the Vanguard-class submarine the UK always has on patrol, along with its forty-eight nuclear warheads that can reach Moscow and Saint Petersburg within half an hour. This is the only language the world's aggressors understand.

Putin has also bragged about how hypersonic nuclear weapons can evade missile defenses, and even fly over the South Pole to evade the Distant Early Warning System. The latter is not a new concept either because the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System was mentioned decades ago, but this is why NATO needs Israel's Iron Beam and Arrow 3 missile defense technology. Anybody and anything that interferes with US-Israel cooperation is therefore a de facto, albeit not de jure, foreign or domestic enemy of the United States.

Arrow 3 (photo credit: US Missile Defense Agency)

Israel's Iron Beam is an anti-missile laser that costs only pennies per shot, and directed energy beats hypersonic any day of the week. Its current range is only about four miles, which makes it effective against terrorist rockets but not intercontinental ballistic missiles. If, however, its range can be extended to allow surface-to-space engagements, it will make Putin's and Xi's new missiles obsolete before they are even deployed.

The Arrow 3 is even more impressive, although the cost is up to $3 million per unit. The Arrow 3 is itself hypersonic, capable of exo-atmospheric (surface to space) engagements, and also capable of guiding itself to the desired target while ignoring decoys. The ICBM's target does not even have to be known before an Arrow 3 is launched against it, because the defensive missile will effectively figure everything out for itself.

Israel, for some reason, intends to deploy only two dozen of these, which are probably far too few given threats by the violent theocrats in Tehran to annihilate Israel and even attack the United States. As Vladimir Putin has more than six thousand warheads, though, the United States can and should buy enough Arrow 3s to deal with them all. $30 billion dollars would, for example, procure 10,000 Arrow 3s, and the cost might come down markedly with mass production.

We also need to revisit our old civil defense programs and copy what Israel and Finland are already doing. We must assume that at least some Russian or Communist Chinese warheads will get through any missile defense to reach American cities, and bomb shelters can mitigate their effects enormously. The old "Duck and Cover" video is meanwhile well worth watching because Japanese who acted instinctively on its advice (even though it had yet to be created) survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks with few if any injuries while those next to them died or suffered horrific injuries. The fact that dictators in Russia, Communist China, and Iran are talking openly about using nuclear weapons for aggressive purposes makes these discussions necessary and other issues, such as climate change, pale in comparison to what these dictators say openly they intend to do.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. He or she is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.