By Serene Hamsho
President, Offshore Wind Academy
On December 23, the Offshore Wind Academy issued a formal statement in response to the Department of the Interior’s decision to pause multiple offshore wind projects already under construction on national security grounds. That statement raised concerns about the technical basis, process integrity, and proportionality of the action taken. This article expands on those concerns by examining the underlying technical record.
Claims that large scale offshore wind projects pose an unmitigable national security risk due to radar interference are not supported by current defense system architecture, established mitigation practices, or decades of operational experience in the United States and allied countries.
Radar interference from wind turbines, commonly referred to as clutter, is a real and well understood physical phenomenon. Rotating blades can generate Doppler returns, and turbine towers can create static reflections. These effects were first studied in depth during early onshore wind deployment in the early 2000s and have since been extensively modeled for offshore environments by the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, NATO research bodies, and allied militaries.
The relevant question is not whether clutter exists, but whether it meaningfully degrades national defense capability. Modern air and maritime surveillance systems are explicitly designed to operate in complex electromagnetic environments that already include terrain, weather, sea clutter, commercial infrastructure, and dense civilian traffic. Offshore wind does not introduce a novel class of interference relative to these existing conditions.
Contemporary defense architectures do not rely on single radars operating with static detection thresholds. They use layered sensing and data fusion across multiple platforms, including primary and secondary radar, ADS-B, AIS, electro-optical sensors, satellite data, and intelligence feeds. Signal processing techniques such as adaptive clutter mapping, Doppler discrimination, track correlation, and probabilistic classification are standard practice. These methods allow systems to suppress turbine related returns while maintaining or improving detection and tracking of legitimate targets.
The frequently cited concern that increasing detection thresholds to reduce clutter would cause radars to miss real targets reflects a simplified and outdated model of radar operation. Modern systems dynamically adjust across space, time, frequency, and sensor inputs. In operational settings, mitigation is implemented in ways that preserve situational awareness rather than degrade it.
Regulatory process further undermines the justification for a construction pause. Offshore wind projects do not reach construction without extensive federal review. The projects affected by the pause were evaluated through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s permitting framework, which includes formal consultation with the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, the FAA, NOAA, and intelligence stakeholders. Radar impact assessments, navigational safety analyses, and national security considerations are embedded in this process, with mitigation measures imposed as conditions of approval.
Pausing projects after construction has begun raises a fundamental question. If the cited risks are inherent and unmitigable, why were these projects approved following years of interagency review. If the risks are newly identified, the public deserves a clear explanation of what has changed in the threat environment or technology baseline since approval, supported by unclassified technical justification where possible.
Offshore wind also differs materially from onshore wind in ways that generally reduce radar impact. Offshore projects are typically located farther from critical air defense installations, operate in more uniform electromagnetic environments, and are easier to model due to open sea line of sight conditions. Turbine locations are fixed, charted, and continuously monitored, which simplifies integration into surveillance and defense planning.
International experience reinforces these conclusions. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway operate extensive offshore wind fleets alongside advanced air defense and naval surveillance systems. These nations face real security threats and operate modern militaries. None have concluded that offshore wind presents an unacceptable or unmanageable national security risk. In many cases, offshore wind farms coexist with naval exercise areas, radar installations, and active defense operations.
It is also important to distinguish between theoretical vulnerability and demonstrated operational impact. Publicly available assessments have not shown offshore wind projects causing loss of situational awareness, degraded defense readiness, or mission failure. Where localized issues have been identified, they have been addressed through targeted technical mitigation, radar upgrades, or operational coordination, not construction halts.
National security and energy security are interdependent. Abrupt regulatory interventions after capital has been deployed introduce instability into sectors that depend on long term planning, predictable permitting, and trusted federal processes. That instability affects domestic manufacturing, port infrastructure, specialized vessels, workforce development, and allied supply chains, all of which are themselves components of national resilience.
If legitimate security concerns exist, the appropriate response is targeted technical mitigation, transparent interagency coordination, and evidence based safeguards. A blanket pause on projects already under construction, justified by generalized references to long known phenomena, does not align with the technical record or established defense practice.
National security is best served by rigorous engineering, credible process, and proportional response. Offshore wind, when governed responsibly and informed by decades of technical experience, is compatible with those principles.