EMP Vulnerability Invites CatastropheMonday, 05 Aug 2013 09:39 AM
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted long ago that there
is a geopolitical counterpart to Aristotle’s axiom that “nature
abhors a vacuum.” As the author of the terrific book, "Rumsfeld’s
Rules," quipped: “Weakness is provocative.”
A corollary to this rule might be “Vulnerability invites
catastrophe.” For just as bad actors have, throughout history, been
induced to act aggressively when they perceive irresolution or
incapacity on the part of their adversaries, the perception that the
latter have vulnerabilities that might be decisively exploited can
amount to an invitation to doing so — at least in some cases, with
potentially catastrophic consequences.
Unfortunately, America has one such portentous vulnerability: Its
electric grid’s lack of resiliency in the face of electromagnetic
pulse (EMP) events. Widespread EMP can be most efficiently
precipitated by detonating a nuclear weapon many miles above the
United States, unleashing gamma rays that interact with the
atmosphere to expose every unshielded electrical and computer-based
device within line of sight to immensely powerful pulses of energy.
According to a blue-ribbon commission empaneled by Congress in the
last decade to evaluate this EMP threat, the effect of such an
attack — perhaps delivered by a relatively short-range ballistic
missile launched from a ship off a U.S. coast — would be
“catastrophic.” That is because, at present, our grid has not been
“hardened” to withstand such electromagnetic pulses.
As a result, the EMP Threat Commission found that our bulk power
system and particularly its key components — notably, roughly 1,000
large and smaller transformers that are its backbone — would be
damaged or destroyed. This would cause power outages that would be
widespread, protracted, and result in the rapid and enduring
collapse of all other critical infrastructures (food, water,
medical, telecommunications, transportation, finance, etc.)
The commission’s chairman, Dr. William Graham, put a fine point on
the magnitude of the catastrophe. He estimated that within a year of
such a take-down of our grid, 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead.
At least four hostile nations are known to be aware of our acute
vulnerability to EMP effects: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
Three of the four appear to have the means to exploit it. And the
Iranians reportedly are working hard to acquire them.
In fact, as the executive director of the EMP Threat Commission, Dr.
Peter Pry, reported in a briefing last week that the Cuban
nuclear-capable surface-to-air missiles that Panamanian authorities
recently discovered stashed away in the hold of a North Korean
freighter could have been used to mount an EMP attack from the
Caribbean.
If the North Koreans have this capacity, their Iranian strategic
partners will, too, in due course. On that occasion, Dr. Henry
Cooper, who formerly directed the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization, warned that, in addition to a dangerously vulnerable
grid, we have no warning radars or missile defenses looking
southward to protect against such a strike.
To make matters worse, as Michael Del Rosso, the former chairman of
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Critical
Infrastructure Protection Committee, added — even if no hostile
power responds catastrophically to our vulnerability to EMP, a
similar level of devastation can be caused by natural phenomena.
Specifically, intense solar flaring of the kind currently occurring
could, according to an estimate by Lloyds of London, leave up to 40
million Americans without power for as long as two years.
That such a sun-induced occurrence will afflict our planet is not
merely a hypothetical possibility. It is a matter of when, not if.
In fact, the earth’s orbit recently missed by one week
intersecting with the devastating geomagnetic disturbances caused by
a powerful coronal mass ejection.
So great is our vulnerability and so high are the stakes if it is
not promptly mitigated that an informal EMP Coalition has just been
established to raise awareness and campaign for corrective action.
Its bipartisan honorary co-chairs are former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich and former Director of Central Intelligence R. James
Woolsey. And its partners include many of the most knowledgeable and
effective experts, organizations and activists in this field
including: EMPact America, the Electric Infrastructure Security
Council, High Frontier and the Center for Security Policy.
An immediate focus of the EMP Coalition’s efforts is to provide
educational support to legislative efforts at both the federal and
state levels to protect America’s electric grid. The former include
the Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal
Damage (SHIELD) Act, H.R. 2417, sponsored by Reps. Trent Franks,
R-Ariz., and Yvette Clark, D-N.Y. A model for the latter is the
recently enacted Maine State law, LD 131, sponsored by State Rep.
Andrea Boland.
To find out more about these initiatives and how you can help the
Coalition’s vital work, visit
www.StopEMP.org.
Another impetus for action, if any were needed, is the recent
revelation that a top target for foreign espionage in this country
is stealing our radiation-hardened electronics technology.
While there may be multiple factors contributing to such thefts
(notably, others’ ambitions to operate in and exercise control of
outer space — an alarming prospect in its own right), utilizing
these technologies can help potential adversaries be prepared for
EMP. To do no less ourselves, on a comprehensive and national basis,
is truly to invite catastrophe.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is president of the Center for Security
Policy, a columnist for The Washington Times, and host of the
nationally syndicated program Secure Freedom Radio. Read more
reports from Frank Gaffney —
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