An Intel Alert So There Is No 21st Century Pearl Harbor
Countless books about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor show that hard intelligence was there in bits and pieces but was not acted on correctly. On that day of infamy, the Navy caught a strategic break because its carriers were at sea. The Army Air Corps was not so fortunate.
A strategic mistake was made at Pearl Harbor by the Army commander, Lt. Gen. Walter Short. Responding to a war alert, he ordered Army Air Corps planes parked closely together in tight rows rather than dispersed, to guard against individual saboteurs who might sneak onto the airfields. That decision left the aircraft sitting ducks for the strafing and bombing runs of the Japanese attack.
Now another fragmentary intelligence alert, a 21st Century “Pearl Harbor” type, is in the making. A Mexican news publication reported on October 4–5, 2026, that in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexican Army and National Guard personnel seized:
- 15 drones and 15 controllers
- 15 rolls of fiber-optic cable for drone control
- 42 improvised explosive devices
- Batteries and other drone equipment
The equipment was found at a camp associated with organized crime, according to Mexican news reports.
The evidence supports concern about increasingly sophisticated attacks, but it does not yet prove that cartels possess military-grade, long-range killer drones comparable to the most advanced systems used in Ukraine. YET!
Arrayed against this threat is General Gregory M. Guillot, USAF, the current Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command. As NORTHCOM describes him:
“The General is a senior air battle manager with more than 1,380 flying hours in E-3B/C/G and RC-135V/W/S aircraft. His area of responsibility includes air, land and sea approaches and encompasses the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and the surrounding water out to approximately 500 nautical miles.”
https://www.northcom.mil/HomelandDefense/
His geographic challenge is therefore significant: add 1,000 nautical miles to our southern border and it comes to some 3,000 miles of battle space to defend.
So far, the Pentagon’s response to these widely dispersed attack vectors from our southern border is the creation of the Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401), as Secretary Hegseth described it:
To ensure that American airspace remains secure, Secretary Hegseth directed Secretary of the Army to formally establish the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) — a new, unified team that will bring together our best talent from across all agencies to counter these threats and restore control of our skies.
“We’re moving fast — cutting through bureaucracy, consolidating resources, and empowering this task force with the utmost authority to outpace our adversaries,” said Secretary Hegseth.
All well and good, but recall that one of the biggest miscalculations in defending against an incoming threat was made by the Army commander at Pearl Harbor.
Putting the Army in charge, first as the program of record for directed-energy research and now of a joint task force, is an organizational choice. But in my opinion, covering 3,000 miles is much more an Air Force mission. The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force do not yet have a formal, full-scale program of record for a production directed-energy weapon system, though they are actively moving toward one.
My March 15, 2026, American Thinker article warns of what can come:
History suggests it always takes time for a new threat to be properly recognized and defended against. One successful mass-casualty drone strike on American soil would instantly become an “all hands on deck” moment. The question is whether we wait for that attack or prepare before it arrives.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/the_iranian_war_can_come_home.html
Currently the U.S. has the technology to identify and track incoming airborne threats. Killing them is the challenge. Americans should not have to awaken to a headline or a congressional hearing telling them that our fighting forces could sense and track the threat, which we now mostly can, though it can always be better, right up to the moment it killed them.
So far, JIATF-401 is going much more toward point-defense research than wide-area shooter coverage. Our drone-killing technology can include kinetic weapons, even down to shotguns, and directed energy: both lasers and high-power microwaves/EMPs.
The Pentagon on Monday named four directed-energy weapons for a homeland counter-drone pilot, the first systems the military will field and test at U.S. bases under a program ordered by Congress.
The pilot is run by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, or JIATF-401, the Army-led organization set up last year to coordinate counter-drone work across the military and other federal agencies.
Point and limited-area defense is a very necessary combat function, and the U.S. Army is very forward-thinking on this important mission, especially for fixed high-value targets. Its announced research is to be commended and supported.
“High-energy lasers and high-powered microwave systems are tools that can be effectively used in a layered drone defense,” Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the task force director, said in the release. “This pilot program will test these capabilities in an operational environment so we can understand how best to integrate and sustain them to defend the homeland.”
However, a quip from my fighter pilot days: “It’s the unseen missile that kills you.” Now we have a very good chance to see the incoming combat drones but cannot kill them. With the capability to penetrate over 3,000 miles into America and target undefended, high-value civilian targets deep in our homeland, we have a very serious emerging problem: a potential Pearl Harbor.
The obvious objection is: why would the cartels declare kinetic war on America? Here is one reason: how much would Iran pay them to do it? Iran is known for getting stooges to do its dirty, killer work.
Because of such a wide-area threat, the Air Force should be in the lead.
The Air Force must lead in developing cost-effective, workable solid-state laser weapons, with sufficient funding to achieve immediate operational capability. This urgency stems from the Air Force’s hard-earned and valuable research experience in directed energy. Lessons learned in the air domain can subsequently inform Navy applications for sea-based platforms, but the Air Force should spearhead this effort given its existing expertise and the relative ease of testing and deploying airborne systems.
Our future security belongs to those who can see and act faster than their adversaries. The strategic integration of directed-energy weapons, particularly solid-state lasers, into Air Force operations represents not a luxury but a necessity. The combination of directed energy, Kill Web architecture, and trusted AI creates a synergistic capability greater than the sum of its parts — precisely what the multiplicative nature of the Payload Utility Function illustrates.
The operational imperative is clear. Airborne platforms equipped with directed-energy weapons can provide protective overwatch for vulnerable naval assets, engage swarms of unmanned vehicles, counter hypersonic threats, and perform numerous other missions impossible with conventional kinetic weapons.
The Air Force’s unique position, combining relevant research experience, suitable platforms, and operational flexibility, makes it the logical service to lead this transformation.
The Strategic Imperative of Directed Energy in USAF Airpower