The EMP Threat

Cyber Warfare Could Bring The Total Collapse Of Society, Rampant Diseases And Mass Starvation

BY  STEFAN STANFORD 

Cyber Warfare Could Bring The Total Collapse Of Society, Rampant Diseases And Mass Starvation By Dr. William R. Graham, Ambassador R. James Woolsey And Dr. Peter Vincent Pry for All News Pipeline

America’s Achilles Heel Might Be The Target Of The Greatest Revolution In Military Affairs In History, Rendering Obsolete Most Traditional Instruments Of Military Power

President Donald Trump deserves America’s gratitude for his Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses, signed on March 26, 2019. This White House executive order, coordinated with all relevant departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, culminates 20 years of effort by scientists and strategists to protect the national electric power grid and other life-sustaining critical national infrastructures—for example, communications, transportation, business and finance, food and water—from the existential threat of a natural or manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

EMP threatens the foundations of modern electronic civilization that sustains the lives of millions:

Natural EMP from a solar superstorm could blackout electric grids and critical life-sustaining infrastructures worldwide. 

Nuclear EMP attack from the high-altitude (30 kilometers or higher) detonation of a single nuclear weapon could blackout electric grids and critical life-sustaining infrastructures for much or all of the continental United States. 

Non-nuclear EMP weapons (such as radiofrequency weapons), available to terrorists and criminals, can be used singly to pose localized threats, or in larger numbers to make a coordinated attack that could blackout the national U.S. electric power grid.

EMP is considered the ultimate “cyber weapon” in the military doctrines and plans of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, that describe a revolutionary new way of warfare combining EMP, cyber-attacks, and sabotage of electric grids and critical infrastructures to achieve victory.

The White House EMP Executive Order responds to the blue ribbon Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, established by Congress in 2001, that has been warning that:

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power. In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure. An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation. While national planning and preparation for such events could help mitigate the damage, few such actions are currently underway or even being contemplated.”(EMP Commission Executive Report, Assessing the Threat from EMP Attack, July 2017)

The EMP Commission, comprising the Free World’s foremost scientific and strategic experts on EMP, in their Executive Report Assessing the Threat from EMP Attack (July 2017) describes threats from combined-arms cyber warfare, a nuclear EMP attack, solar storms, cyber-attack and sabotage.

Combined-arms cyber warfare, as described in the military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, may use combinations of cyber-, sabotage-, and ultimately nuclear EMP-attack to impair the United States quickly and decisively by blacking-out large portions of its electric grid and other critical infrastructures.

 Foreign adversaries may aptly consider nuclear EMP attack a weapon that can gravely damage the U.S. by striking at its technological Achilles Heel, without having to confront the U.S. military. The synergism of such combined arms is described in the military doctrines of all these potential adversaries as the greatest revolution in military affairs in history—one which projects rendering obsolete many, if not all, traditional instruments of military power.

All of several threats must be considered:

Solar superstorms can generate natural EMP over remarkably wide areas. Recurrence of the Carrington Event of 1859 is considered by many to be inevitable. NASA estimates the likelihood of such an event to be 10 to 12 percent per decade, making it very likely that Earth will be affected by a solar superstorm within a matter of decades. Such an event could blackout electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures, putting at risk the lives of many millions. 

Nuclear EMP attack might be conducted with only a single nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude or with a few weapons above 30 kilometers. These could be delivered by satellite, by a wide variety of long- and short-range missiles, including cruise and anti-ship missiles, by a jet doing a zoom-climb, or even by a high-altitude balloon. Some modes of attack could be executed relatively anonymously, thereby impairing deterrence. 

Russia, China, and North Korea now have the capability to conduct a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. All have practiced or described contingency plans to do so. Terrorists or other less sophisticated actors also might mount a nuclear EMP attack if they have access to a suitable nuclear explosive. For missile delivery, no re-entry system or accurate missile guidance would be necessary. 

Cyber-attack, using computer viruses and related means, might be able to blackout much of the electric grid for extended intervals. According to U.S. Cyber Command, Russia and China currently have such capability and it may be only a matter of time before other adversaries also gain a similar capability.

The U.S. electric grid could be sabotaged by damaging extra-high-voltage (EHV) transformers using rifles, explosives, or non-nuclear EMP or directed energy weapons. Attacking less than a dozen key substations could result in protracted and widespread blackout, according to the public statements of a past Chairman of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). At least one substantive rehearsal of such an attack may have already taken place, at the Metcalf substation in the San Francisco Bay area.