TUCSON, Ariz., Jan 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- For decades, the U.S. has relied on the threat of nuclear retaliation to deter an attack on our homeland—but what if it comes at our southern border?

Leaving aside the moral question, deterrence is inapplicable to many current threats. Drug trafficking through a largely open 2,000-mile border is so lethal that it has been called a form of chemical warfare. First responders have been hospitalized because of contact with minuscule doses of fentanyl. And many of the 5,000 on-duty Border Patrol agents are diverted by having to care for children who are brought in illegally in overwhelming numbers.

Law enforcers warn that embedded in the mass of migrants are determined terrorists as well as gang members and other violent criminals. Once inside, these militants could coordinate attacks like the horrific 2004 school siege in Beslan, Russia. 

Against such "asymmetric warfare," missiles and aircraft carriers are irrelevant. But while the press and Congress are preoccupied with political attacks on the Commander-in-Chief, what is the state of our military? In his State of the Nation speech in Moscow on Mar 1, 2018, Vladimir Putin boasted of new Russian systems, including nuclear-powered and hypersonic cruise missiles.

In a talk at the 2018 meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, Dr. Donald Miller stated: "Putin's speech…publicly ended U.S. military supremacy. The United States is no longer the world's technologically superior superpower. Russia is."

Gen. John Hyten, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told Congress: "We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such [hypersonic] weapons against us…." Are U.S. aircraft carrier groups only useful against small, defenseless nations?

How well do Russian-made air defenses protect Syrian targets against the U.S. Air Force? Perhaps it is wise not to test them. Are U.S. defenses better than on 9/11 in 2001, when they apparently failed to protect Manhattan and the Pentagon against hijacked civilian aircraft?

"The US. needs to set political squabbles aside and come together to protect our citizens and our freedom against enemies foreign and domestic," stated Physicians for Civil Defense president Jane Orient, M.D.          

Physicians for Civil Defense distributes information to help to save lives in the event of war or other disaster.

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com

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SOURCE Physicians for Civil Defense