Just What I Needed

[Annie]

Something new to worry about:

Mother of All Blackouts
Now there's a new threat to prepare for--an EMP blast that could black out the nation.

Saturday, August 14, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Today marks the anniversary of the blackout that shut down much of the Northeast a year ago. Anyone who lived through that power outage remembers the annoyance of life without lights, air conditioning, TVs, computers and all the other electronic equipment on which a modern society depends. Now, imagine a blackout that lasts for months, or years.
That was the job of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the U.S. from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The commission, created in 2000 to examine the possibility of EMP attack and its aftermath, just delivered a report to Congress. All we can say is, we hope someone in Washington is paying attention.

An EMP attack occurs when an enemy sets off a nuclear explosion high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys the electronics and satellites in its field of vision. For a detonation above the Midwest, that could mean the entire continental U.S.





No American would necessarily die in the initial attack, but what comes next is potentially catastrophic. The pulse would wipe out most electronics and telecommunications, including the power grid. Millions could die for want of modern medical care or even of starvation since farmers wouldn't be able to harvest crops and distributors wouldn't be able to get food to supermarkets. Commissioner Lowell Wood calls EMP attack a "giant continental time machine" that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s.
The Commission notes that little in the private sector is hardened to withstand EMP attack and that the military has only limited protection. After an EMP assault, the nation would be highly vulnerable to secondary attack by conventional forces or a biological weapon.

China and Russia have the capability to launch an EMP weapon--and have let us know it. In May 1999, during NATO's bombing of the former Yugoslavia, members of the Russian Duma, meeting with U.S. congressmen to discuss the Balkans war, pointedly noted that a Russian EMP attack would paralyze the U.S. China recently published an article on EMP in a Chinese-language technical journal. To make sure the U.S. got the message, the article appeared in English.





But it's a relatively unsophisticated EMP weapon in the hands of terrorists that really scares the Commission. All it would take is one nuclear warhead attached to a Scud missile launched from a barge off the U.S. coast to shut down much of the country.
The Commission offers a series of recommendations for reducing U.S. vulnerability. It calls for better intelligence, particularly in coastal waters. Also needed are "vigorous interdiction and interception efforts" such as missile defense. Critical components of civilian infrastructure--especially the electrical power grid--need to be EMP-hardened. Most new units can be hardened for 1% to 3% of cost if done at the time of design and manufacture. Hardening existing systems can cost 10 times as much.

The EMP study, which came out the same week as the 9/11 Commission's report, got little media attention. It deserves more.


Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

OPINION JOURNAL EDITORIAL

 

[gaffer]

EMP has been known about by the military and the government almost from the begining of the atomic age. Its just not widely known by the general public and the media hasn't picked up on it to panic the country. Just another reason for a missile defense system. One nuke high up will only effect a few hundred miles around it. It could effect the power grid but only for a short time.

It would take multiple strikes to seriously cripple the country and you can bet anyone that tries that is going to cease to exist 30 minutes after they launch.

There's a much greater chance of terrorists sailing a ship into a harbor and detonating a nuke then there is of them launching a scud from off shore. Such a launch would be detected and stopped before it could be set off.

 

[krisy]

Either way,it's a very scary thought!!!!

 

[Mr. P]

Well I hope ya got a gun ya'll need it to kill what ya eat...The good news is..
all the liberals will be gone since they oppose gun ownership...
:rotflmao:
Funny that the appeasers will be eliminated by those they support.

 

[wade]

Our emenies don't have the capability to deploy such a weapon, unless you include the former Soviet Union, China, Britian, and (maybe) France. Placing a high yield Nuke that high above the continental USA is no easy trick. And as I recall, it really would take 3 of them to disable the continental USA, each being at least 10 megatons, or one really huge (100+ mt) bomb at higher altitude.

I have concieved of a means by which a very small nuke or a large amount of thermite could be used to wipe out the Southern and Eastern US seaboard, west coast of Africa and S. Europe, and south coast of Great Britian. I'm much more concerned about an attack of this nature... hopefully the terrorists won't think of it!

Wade.

 

[Hobbit]

Hehe, that Wilderness Survival merit badge might just pay off.

I have one question, though. Why do we highly publicize things we're afraid of? STOP GIVING THE TERRORISTS IDEAS.

 

[Annie]

Hehe, that Wilderness Survival merit badge might just pay off.

I have one question, though. Why do we highly publicize things we're afraid of? STOP GIVING THE TERRORISTS IDEAS.

Well the WSJ is pretty widely read. Nonetheless, this info has been out there quite awhile, it was thought the US would use in Baghdad, if I remember correctly they chose not to, after recognizing how degraded their electrical infrastructure already was.

 

[5stringJeff]

Any nation that launched a nuke as an EMP would find themselves at the receiving end of our "nuc-u-lar" arsenal - and not even China and North Korea are that stupid!

 

[Merlin1047]

Well I hope ya got a gun ya'll need it to kill what ya eat...The good news is..
all the liberals will be gone since they oppose gun ownership...
:rotflmao:
Funny that the appeasers will be eliminated by those they support.

Don't think so. They'll be in caves eating mushrooms, bean sprouts and cockroaches.

 

[Hobbit]

Don't think so. They'll be in caves eating mushrooms, bean sprouts and cockroaches.

Nope, cockroaches are nature's creatures, and killing them is a crime.