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For Americans, war is usually something that happens “out there”—in other countries, far from their shores. They watch it like a show on television and the Internet while eating burgers and popcorn. They should start thinking of it as something that can be experienced “here.” The next enemy may bring conflict to the United States of America.

It is especially important to think about this during a real war of the Russian army on the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine. In which fierce battles take place and thousands of civilians and soldiers on both sides of the conflict are killed. Russia behaves like a “gopnik”, thinking that everything is allowed to it and this state is ruled by the crazy King Putin. Who really went crazy, judging by his behavior and actions. Russia will suffer economic losses in this war of unprecedented scale, which will throw the state and its people back to the standard of living of the last century, without technology and modern development of society.

We should now think about future conflicts where American territory will not be a refuge. The United States is entering an era of homeland vulnerability in which technological advances enable geopolitical adversaries—not just terrorist groups—to wage war within America itself.

Yes, the US has been attacked before. The British burned Washington during the War of 1812. The Japanese attacked Hawaii, then a US territory, in 1941. The September 11 terrorist attacks led to massacres in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

But these episodes are so memorable because they are exceptions. For the most part, the combination of power and geography has given the United States greater internal security than almost any other major country. Since the Cold War, the United States has fought terrorist attacks, but the states it has targeted, especially Iraq and Serbia, have been unable to respond in kind. It is necessary to take into account the current situation regarding the war in Ukraine, where America fully supports the troops in Ukraine with sanctions, intelligence and military weapons. Russia has nuclear potential and this puts the whole world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. 

This changes everything in many ways.

First, the number of rivals that could threaten the United States with nuclear weapons in a conflict is increasing. China, which has traditionally had a small and vulnerable nuclear arsenal, is rapidly expanding it. Beijing wants to make sure it can hit the US in a conflict over Taiwan or any other flashpoint. North Korea is on the verge of having, or may already have, nuclear-tipped missiles that can hit US targets. Moreover, North Korea has repeatedly threatened to launch a nuclear strike on the US territory of Hawaii. 

In my opinion, Hawaii can be considered one of the most dangerous places on the planet right now, precisely because of the geographical location of the state of Hawaii, which is the most distant place from all continents on which there is a US military base. America, in Russia’s war with Ukraine, defends a tough policy of not interfering in a direct clash on the battlefield with Russian troops. Why? Let’s consider this option for the development of the war in Ukraine: the crisis of the war is intensifying and for some reason, perhaps provocations from Russia or China, and America and NATO troops are entering into direct conflict with Russia. The US Army and the NATO bloc are technologically clearly superior to Russia’s weapons. What can the Russian leadership do in such a situation! How do you think? 

They may want to launch a preemptive strike   on Western targets. What place in the world can they choose? New York, London, Paris, Berlin… I think definitely not. Otherwise, this will cause enormous casualties among the civilian population in the region, which will amount to millions of lives and will also cause direct damage to the Russian environment. And he will unleash a third world war in which there will be no winners! 

Preventive war ( Latin praevenio  – ahead, warn) is a war that is started in the belief that a future conflict is inevitable, and the main goal of which is to get ahead of aggressive actions on the part of the enemy. A preventive war is started to prevent the enemy from changing the balance of power in his favor. 

And I believe that the Hawaiian Islands are one of the most obvious targets for a preemptive strike. Yes, there will be many victims. But precisely because of the remoteness of the Hawaiian Islands from the mainland, this will cause minimal damage and possibly stop a nuclear war in the world. I am also considering other possible targets for Western military bases that are based on islands in different regions of our planet. 

 America’s rivals would still have strong incentives not to carry out such nuclear attacks, not the least of which would be the threat of devastating US nuclear retaliation. But today, unlike during the Cold War, they can also strike the US homeland in a less apocalyptic and therefore more feasible way.

Both Russia and China have or are developing the ability to strike U.S. targets with conventional warheads mounted on long-range missiles—whether cruise missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, or perhaps intercontinental ballistic missiles. There is growing concern that China could use swarms of small drones launched from container ships to hit targets on the US West Coast or Hawaii.

These attacks will likely not cause catastrophic destruction. But they could disrupt U.S. logistics, communications and mobilization during a conflict—or simply give Moscow or Beijing a way to deter or retaliate for U.S. strikes on Chinese or Russian soil.

The most likely form of attack on the United States would not involve overt violence at all. Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure or financial systems can disrupt daily life and disrupt any response to aggression on the other side of the world. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack that caused gas shortages on the East Coast last spring was a frightening experience for the world. 

Why does the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack matter?

As shown in a map of the company’s operations, the outage of systems that support and manage pipeline operations and fuel distribution affected large areas of the United States. 

At the time of the attack, concerns about supply shortages sent gasoline futures to their highest levels in three years. Demand is up, but drivers are being urged not to panic buy as it could impact prices, which were already up six cents a gallon due to the pipeline disruption last week. 

Now look at what is happening right now in the USA and European countries with prices for gasoline, gas and other energy resources in connection with sanctions against Russia. Ordinary US residents already in March 2022 experienced a significant increase in gasoline prices, which will automatically entail an increase in prices in stores as this is related to the logistics of delivering groceries and food to stores (and so on). Of course, the Western world will cope with this situation, perhaps easing sanctions against Venezuela or Iran and their oil reserves will stabilize the situation, but this also takes time…

Imagine a repeat of cyber attacks, but on a much larger scale, in the midst of a major international crisis over Taiwan, Ukraine or the Baltics.

Such attacks would be of interest to Russian and Chinese planners. They can be clouded by ambiguity in a way that direct military strikes cannot. They can sow internal unrest without directly causing huge numbers of civilian deaths. They can slow down the US at the outset of a conflict, when Beijing or Moscow are rushing to achieve their military goals in Ukraine, Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific. And they could pose tough questions for American policymakers: Is Washington willing to use force to stop aggression in distant places if it could lead to painful vulnerabilities at home?

There is no perfect solution to this dilemma. Missile defense, for example, can help protect key targets, but it is too expensive and unreliable to provide any comprehensive protection. The best the United States can do is mitigate national security weaknesses through a combination of defense, offense, and resilience.

This will require larger and more systematic investments in what was once called “civil defense”—hardening critical infrastructure, logistics facilities, and communications networks against digital disruptions. Washington will need to do a better job of marketing its peacetime ability and willingness to retaliate against state-sponsored cyberattacks. This will force adversaries to consider how the United States might respond to larger attacks—whether physical or digital—in wartime.

However, there is no escaping the fact that absolute protection is an illusion. Accepting the higher likelihood of attacks on the United States and developing the economic and social resilience needed to fend them off may be the price of global influence in a world where geography provides no immunity.

This will be hard for Americans to hear. This could spark a heated debate about the costs and benefits of America’s global presence. But it is better to start this debate now than for Americans to recognize their new vulnerability only after the conflict has begun.

As for the state of Hawaii, we need not to panic but to be prepared for new possible realities of this world. We, in turn, prepare and develop projects for bomb shelters that can be built on the islands privately on our own plot of land or on municipal property. It is also necessary to consider tunnels in the mountain ranges on the islands as a future possibility of shelter from a possible military attack. We are looking for partners, investors and like-minded people in Hawaii, the USA and other countries of the world to implement our security projects. 

Nika Vidi

Hawaii.bio contact@hawaii.bio