Electromagnetic pulse attacks are one of the most alarming threats facing the western world.
There are two reasons for that:
#1. The damage the attack would actually do, would be extreme. Look around you at all the things you use every day. How many of them contain electronics? An EMP attack would destroy them all – and it would also destroy most of the infrastructure you rely on. Utilities, traffic signals, the railways and much more would all be wrecked by electromagnetic pulse. So, using such a weapon against the aging and overly-taxed United States power grid could quickly wreak havoc and ultimately cause millions of deaths in America.
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#2. The second reason is that, politically, they’re a weapon that’s very easy to use for blackmail. After all, an EMP attack on the USA wouldn’t directly kill anyone. As the famous Don Cheadle noted in the ever-relevant Ocean’s 11, this new weapon “is a bomb — but without the bomb”.
So, sure, thousands of people would die as transportation, medical and water purification systems failed, but nobody would be killed by the actual weapon. Would the USA be able, politically, to retaliate with a nuclear strike when the enemy had “only” detonated a weapon in space, a couple of hundred miles above the country? After all, the explosion wouldn’t even be in US airspace – that ends at an altitude of 50 miles. Would Congress agree to incinerate North Korean cities in reply to a “soft” attack like an EMP? In a sane world they would, because a big EMP would do more damage to the USA than actually nuking a single decent-sized city would, but the indirect nature of an EMP attack makes it a gray area.
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Unfortunately the risk of an EMP attack by a rogue state, especially North Korea, is increasing fast. In fact Pyongyang announced in September that they’ve developed a weapon that’s suitable for using as a high-altitude EMP, and they’ve made enough technological progress recently that this claim has to be taken seriously.
Now, experts reporting to the House Committee on Homeland Security are urging the federal government to develop its own EMP capability as a deterrent. If the USA could reply in kind to an EMP attack, instead of having to escalate to nuclear strikes on actual ground targets, a potential attacker will know that a counterstrike is almost inevitable.
What’s caused this is the realization that, when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, most people have been seriously underestimating the threat. The Pentagon now think the Stalinist regime already has around 60 nuclear warheads, and can reach the USA with them. So far, North Korea doesn’t have a missile capable of reaching the contiguous states, and even if they developed one it wouldn’t have the accuracy to hit even a large target like a city. The problem is, if they opted for an EMP attack, that doesn’t matter.
To devastate a huge chunk of the USA with an EMP, all the North Koreans have to do is get a warhead to detonate somewhere in a target area hundreds of miles across. That doesn’t need much in the way of technology to achieve. Building a rocket capable of carrying the warhead is a brute-force problem; it’s just a matter of packing enough fuel into a big enough steel tube, and there’s no need for sophisticated guidance systems. As long as the rocket can be relied on to go in the right direction, a clockwork timer is literally good enough.
Even worse, they wouldn’t necessarily even need a big rocket. A nuclear-armed satellite could be launched into low Earth orbit, then commanded to detonate as it passed over the USA. Alternatively, weapons could be suspended from balloons and released so high-altitude winds would carry them across North America. Warheads could even be launched by SCUD-type missiles from commercial ships off the US coast, to explode at high altitude several hundred miles inland. There are lots of options; what matters is that, however the attack was launched, it would be devastating.
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It wouldn’t be hard for the USA to develop its own EMP capability, allowing any country that attacked in this way to get a rapid dose of its own medicine. In fact, a software edit would probably allow current strategic weapons – Trident II sub-launched missiles or Minuteman-III ICBMs – to detonate a warhead at high altitude. Modifying warheads to create a much greater EMP effect wouldn’t be much harder; the USA already knows how to do that. It’s most likely that modified weapons would be launched by Trident, which can carry up to twelve warheads – that would allow an attacker to be blanketed with relatively small weapons, each devastating electronics and power cables over a radius of hundreds of miles.
If the Pentagon decides to build this capability the chances of a hostile nation launching an EMP attack at the USA go way down; it might be politically risky for a president to nuke another country in response to a “non-lethal” attack on infrastructure, but nobody can complain if the USA retaliates like for like.
The problem is, it might take years for even the simplest weapons program to work its way through the Washington bureaucracy, so even if a decision was made tomorrow there isn’t much chance of the capability existing before about 2023 at the earliest – and a deterrent doesn’t work until the weapons actually exist. But it might come to life sooner than everyone expects. Keep reading…
If the North Koreans know that the USA can’t retaliate with EMP weapons now, but will be able to in a few years, they might just be tempted to get their attack in before America can reply to it. That’s quite a low risk strategy; if they launch a successful EMP it’s going to delay the US program by years, or maybe kill it off altogether – it depends how much damage their attack does. This isn’t a reason to not build an American EMP weapon; the risk exists already, and the USA has to be able to deter it. What it does mean is that there’s a trade-off; the USA has to accept a higher risk of EMP attack for a few years, in exchange for it dropping sharply once the country is able to reply in kind.
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What the US government has to do is identify the simplest way to build an EMP capability – even if it’s not perfect – and get it into service as fast as possible. Then a better one can be developed, if necessary. What we have to do is take another look at the precautions we’ve taken against EMP and make sure they’re up to the job – because the risk of an attack looks like it’s quite a bit higher than it seemed to be just a few months ago.
But given the last few years’ international and national rise of turmoils, the US together with the private company Boeing, had decided to “bring to life” such an weapon that would make an EMP attack actually a preventable homeland security catastrophe. So, after years of discussions and failed experiments, Boeing has announced that it successfully tested an electromagnetic pulse missile capable of disabling electronics without affecting structures. The Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) was tested by a Boeing Phantom Works/U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate team on October 16 at the Utah Test and Training Range. This American military project is an attempt to develop a device with all the power of a nuclear weapon but without the death and destruction to people and infrastructure that such a weapon causes. Theoretically, the new missile system would pinpoint buildings and knock out their electrical grids, plunging the target into darkness and general disconnectedness.
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Click porn. I think Mr. Mason is ill informed in regard to u.s. capabilities!]
I believe you may be correct since this type of weapon was tested a few years ago.
My daughter worked at a University some time ago and we were talking about things I had seen. These were sent to me on a Navy computer. Some scrambled. They were amazing. She told me I would be amazed by things she had seen. Both she and the Navy person told me when you hear about it it is old hat, even the way I heard about it. We are way further into the future than we know.
As it should be. Our potential enemies do not need to know all of our bag of tricks..nor do the American people! Not everyone who calls themselves Americans are loyal to this country or its people. I know I sleep better at night knowing that we have the most lethal military on the planet and anyone that would threaten this country should have there head examined if not it could get blown off just ask Bin Laden he found out.
THIS IS SO TRUE WE NEED TO PREPAIR BEFORE ITS TO LATE!
I think Bruce Willis in Armageddon had the right idea…. The American Military are “sitting in rooms thinking sh*t up” that we haven’t even the foggiest notion of yet. I agree with some of the others, if we are just now hearing about some new tech… it’s probably 20 or so years old and refined to a point where we would truly be amazed.
I also believe that if I knew something about a weapon I was not supposed to know, I would be dead by the next day and not from natural causes.
Mr. Mason…I am in agreement with Farmer. Do you really believe that the United States hasn’t had this capability for much longer than the NKoreans????
Please do some research first. The US has had nuclear EMP-designed weaponry for decades. CHAMP is not a bomb, but rather a non-nuclear method for taking out the electronics at one or mulitple point targets without disrupting surrounding areas. It is generally shot in something like a cruise missile, but its effectiveness is on the selected targets along its path rather than its final impact location.
I myself just heard about this from a good friend while discussing EMP threats.. again I sleep better at night knowing that the USA has the Baddest military in the world. Now if we could just come up with something like that to disrupt a Hurricane before it wreaks havoc on innocent lives. Ideas??
In response to “After all, an EMP attack on the USA wouldn’t directly kill anyone.”: I have always assumed that the wires in my chest (4 of them up to 15″+ long) would act as antennas and that I would be dead from either the EMP zap or heart problems within minutes. I also assume that anyone else with embedded medical electronics (auditory, pain pumps, insulin pumps) would get fried or have their implants fail as well. In addition, if you are on a freeway at 70+ mph and your electronics driven vehicle goes hay wire, I bet a few people don’t survive .Pilots flying airplanes that are not protected and are heavily reliant on electronics are going to be dead-sticking it to the ground. With just a little consideration, I suspect there would be a lot of instantaneous (or nearly so) deaths.
In the historic view, the first EMP protected chips I heard of were several decades ago. This was probably in the late 60’s or early 70’s and I would have read about it in Aviation Week and Space Technology. They were being used in some reconnaissance aircraft at the time. So I am adding my vote to: if the DoD new to defend decades ago then they new how to attack decades ago.
I would think people CAN be directly killed by an EMP if they are on life support or have a pacemaker or any other device they NEED to live. EMP goes off, devices in range stop working and those people are dead pretty soon.
If the capabilities with CHAMP is (at least it sounds like) a directional bomb, then in theory they should be able to knock out a rogue missile from anyone while it is still on it way to ground (air) zero. This should make the rogue missile inoperabile. Am I wrong?
It really isn’t a bomb. It’s a high-energy microwave device that creates an EMP. It can be used against multiple point targets over the course of the flight of the missile and appears to be capable of over 100 shots per sortie. It sounds like it should have the capability of being mounted on an aircraft or UAV as well as a missile. One of the advantages to this besides the multi-strike capability is that the beams are tightly directed and can affect specific small areas without affecting the surrounding area, so you can take out C4I without taking out the surrounding infrastructure.
I am trying to EMP proof my generator…does the faraday cage have to be complete…can the floor be the ground?
Should be okay if you ground your faraday cage with a few deep grounding stakes.
everything in the air at the time.
I was adding to jabberwokkis comment
Um like the USA has EMP capabilities. Duh
Stop the bull crap trying to scare people with this crap if its ment to be it will be but don’t be fooled by this. We as American will get sick of of terrorists and we will become worse then there terrorist. You think for one minute that I wouldn’t lay down my life for my family and friends to raise havoc on anyone who theating my way of life. I would fight and fight untill I am dead for my family and my country. Go F yourselfs
What ever are you ranting about?
The Bible says in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Two things here. This is what Jesus was teaching His disciples. So to all my brothers and sisters out here in Christ, this verse should settle any disputes if it’s okay for a Christian to defend their families, innocents like elderly disabled, children, etc. Dont take our word for it, just show them what Jesus taught in this verse and a good verse to memorize!
The other thing is I understand how you feel Vee. We have terrorists in every state. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deceived! Personally I wouldn’t strike first but the defense will be so they couldn’t harm anyone else!
May God bless us all with the wisdom we need to face the imminent danger we’re facing, amen, Chaplain Tim
You do take that quote out of context. To carry a bit further into the verse, John 15: 9-14 says,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”
In laying down your life for your friends, he is referring to the laying down of your life in similar ways to how Jesus himself laid down his life, not through strife and battle, but to be lifted up. If you are to use the Bible in argument, please read the whole passage and not take a single verse and twist its meaning.
Dear Dupin, I don’t disagree with the way you interpret the verse. However it is a deep verse that I believe can serve different applications yet in its original context. Jesus laid down His life for us to DEFEND us from the Fathers wrath, which we justly deserved as sinners. We can follow the example of the Son as He taught, by laying our lives down for each other by defending them from the wrath of Satan who the Bible teaches is the god of this world. I hate war and seek peace but if/when the time comes that Satan has put it in the heart of people to come and attack my family, friends, community, retreat, etc. I, like our Lord, am willing to lay down my life so that others can live or be defended from such atrocities as beheading, rape, etc. I know we can’t save the world like Jesus did to those who accepted His Grace, but we can follow His example and be as Christlike as possible and follow His example while sharing what He taught. Tim
That’s why I WILL NOT surrender my guns to anyone. Good point Chaplin!
The threat of emp isn’t any better or worse now. It’s still a possibility, and will continue to be so. Find a way to deal with the aftermath and you will be ok.
Labienus …. do you have any idea what the “aftermath” might be like?
Even if we did an EMP run on NK I dont think it would affect them too bad, sure the fat boy’s toys wont work but the people are still use to primitive living so life would go on for them.