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June 7, 2005David's (Nuclear) Sling: The EMP Threatby Guest Author at June 7, 2005 6:00 AM
 The Congressional Panel's warning is certainly serious, and Mr. Gaffney's points re: Iran's recent tests of ship-launched ballistic missiles in EMP trajectories adds a chilling dimenson. See also Gary Farber's The Threat from the Sea. EMP: America's Achilles' Heel If Osama bin Laden - or the dictators of North Korea or Iran - could destroy America as a twenty-first century society and superpower, would they be tempted to try? Given their track records and stated hostility to the United States, we have to operate on the assumption that they would. That assumption would be especially frightening if this destruction could be accomplished with a single attack involving just one relatively small-yield nuclear weapon - and if the nature of the attack would mean that its perpetrator might not be immediately or easily identified. Unfortunately, such a scenario is not far-fetched. According to a report issued last summer by a blue-ribbon, Congressionally-mandated commission, a single specialized nuclear weapon delivered to an altitude of a few hundred miles over the United States by a ballistic missile would be "capable of causing catastrophe for the nation." The source of such a cataclysm might be considered the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction" (WMD) - yet it is hardly ever mentioned in the litany of dangerous WMDs we face today. It is known as electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nuclear weapon produces several different effects. The best known, of course, are the intense heat and overpressures associated with the fireball and accompanying blast. But a nuclear explosion also generates intense outputs of energy in the form of x- and gamma-rays. If the latter are unleashed outside the Earth's atmosphere, some portion of them will interact with the upper atmosphere's air molecules. This in turn will generate an enormous pulsed current of high-energy electrons that will interact with the Earth's magnetic field. The result is the instantaneous creation of an invisible radio-frequency wave of uniquely great intensity - roughly a million-fold greater than that of the most powerful radio station. The energy of this pulse would reach everything in line-of-sight of the explosion's center point at the speed of light. The higher the altitude of the weapon's detonation, the larger the affected terrestrial area would be. For example, at a height of 300 miles, the entire continental United States, some of its offshore areas and parts of Canada and Mexico would be affected. What is more, as the nuclear explosion's fireball expands in space, it would generate additional electrical currents in the Earth below and in extended electrical conductors, such as electricity transmission lines. If the electrical wiring of things like computers, microchips and power grids is exposed to these effects, they may be temporarily or permanently disabled. Estimates of the combined direct and indirect effects of an EMP attack prompted the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack to state the following in its report to Congress1: The electromagnetic fields produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics, and information systems upon which American society depends. Their effects on dependent systems and infrastructures could be sufficient to qualify as catastrophic to the nation. If it seems incredible that a single weapon could have such an extraordinarily destructive effect, consider the nature and repercussions of the three distinct components of an electromagnetic pulse: fast, medium and slow. The "fast component" is essentially an "electromagnetic shock-wave" that can temporarily or permanently disrupt the functioning of electronic devices. In twenty-first century America, such devices are virtually everywhere, including in controls, sensors, communications equipment, protective systems, computers, cell phones, cars and airplanes. The extent of the damage induced by this component of EMP, which occurs virtually simultaneously over a very large area, is determined by the altitude of the explosion. The "medium-speed component" of EMP covers roughly the same geographic area as the "fast" one, although the peak power level of its electrical shock would be far lower. Since it follows the "fast component" by a small fraction of a second, however, the medium-speed component has the potential to do extensive damage to systems whose protective and control features have been impaired or destroyed by the first onslaught. If the first two EMP components were not bad enough, there is a third one - a "slow component" resulting from the expansion of the explosion's fireball in the Earth's magnetic field. It is this "slow component" - a pulse that lasts tens of seconds to minutes - which creates disruptive currents in electricity transmission lines, resulting in damage to electrical supply and distribution systems connected to such lines. Just as the second component compounds the destructive impact of the first, the fact that the third follows on the first two ensures significantly greater damage to power grids and related infrastructure. The EMP Threat Commission estimates that, all other things being equal, it may take "months to years" to bring such systems fully back online. Here is how it depicts the horrifying ripple effect of the sustained loss of electricity on contemporary American society: Depending on the specific characteristics of the attacks, unprecedented cascading failures of our major infrastructures could result. In that event, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our nation. The primary avenues for catastrophic damage to the nation are through our electric power infrastructure and thence into our telecommunications, energy, and other infrastructures. These, in turn, can seriously impact other important aspects of our nation's life, including the financial system; means of getting food, water, and medical care to the citizenry; trade; and production of goods and services. The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent on the recovery of others. The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. It is possible for the functional outages to become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population. The destructive power of electromagnetic pulses has been recognized by the United States national security community for some time. The EMP Threat Commission noted that EMP effects from nuclear bursts are not new threats to our nation…. Historically, [however,] this application of nuclear weaponry was mixed with a much larger population of nuclear devices that were the primary source of destruction, and thus EMP as a weapons effect was not the primary focus. As long as the Cold War threat arose principally from the prospect of tens, hundreds or even thousands of nuclear weapons detonating on American soil, such attention as was given to protecting against EMP effects was confined to shielding critical components of our strategic forces. The military's conventional forces were generally not systematically "hardened" against such effects. And little, if any, effort was made even to assess - let alone to mitigate - the vulnerabilities of our civilian infrastructure. As the theory went, as long as our nuclear deterrent worked, there was no need to worry about everything else. If, on the other hand, deterrence failed, the disruptions caused by EMP would be pretty far down the list of things about which we would have to worry. Unfortunately, today's strategic environment has changed dramatically from that of the Cold War, when only the Soviet Union and Communist China could realistically threaten an EMP attack on the United States. In particular, as the EMP Threat Commission put it: The emerging threat environment, characterized by a wide spectrum of actors that include near-peers, established nuclear powers, rogue nations, sub-national groups, and terrorist organizations that either now have access to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or may have such access over the next 15 years, have combined to raise the risk of EMP attack and adverse consequences on the U.S. to a level that is not acceptable. Worse yet, the Commission observed that "some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter." This is particularly true of "terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons, and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety." The same might be said of rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran. They "may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter." Indeed, professionals associated with the former Soviet nuclear weapons complex are said to have told the Commission that some of their ex-colleagues who worked on advanced nuclear weaponry programs for the USSR are now working in North Korea. Even more troubling, the Iranian military has reportedly tested its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile in a manner consistent with an EMP attack scenario. The launches are said to have taken place from aboard a ship - an approach that would enable even short-range missiles to be employed in a strike against "the Great Satan." Ship-launched ballistic missiles have another advantage: The "return address" of the attacker may not be confidently fixed, especially if the missile is a generic Scud-type weapon available in many arsenals around the world. As just one example, in December 2002, North Korea got away with delivering twelve such missiles to Osama bin Laden's native Yemen. And Al Qaeda is estimated to have a score or more of sea-going vessels, any of which could readily be fitted with a Scud launcher and could try to steam undetected within range of our shores. The EMP Threat Commission found that even nations with whom the United States is supposed to have friendly relations, China and Russia, are said to have considered limited nuclear attack options that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack. Indeed, as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, high-ranking members of the Russian Duma, meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, raised the specter of a Russian EMP attack that would paralyze the United States.  What makes the growing EMP attack capabilities of hostile (and potentially hostile) nations a particular problem for America is that, in the words of the EMP Threat Commission, "the U.S. has developed more than most other nations as a modern society heavily dependent on electronics, telecommunications, energy, information networks, and a rich set of financial and transportation systems that leverage modern technology." Given our acute national dependence on such technologies, it is astonishing - and alarming - to realize that:
These conditions are not entirely surprising. America in peacetime has not traditionally given thought to military preparedness, given our highly efficient economy and its ability to respond quickly when a threat or attack arises. But EMP threatens to strip our economy of that ability, by rendering the infrastructure on which it relies impotent. In short, the attributes that make us a military and economic superpower without peer are also our potential Achilles' heel. In today's world, wracked by terrorists and their state sponsors, it must be asked: Might not the opportunity to exploit the essence of America's strength - the managed flow of electrons and all they make possible - in order to undo that strength prove irresistible to our foes? This line of thinking seems especially likely among our Islamofascist enemies, who disdain such man-made sources of power and the sorts of democratic, humane and secular societies which they help make possible. These enemies believe it to be their God-given responsibility to wage jihad against Western societies in general and the United States in particular. Calculations that might lead some to contemplate an EMP attack on the United States can only be further encouraged by the fact that our ability to retaliate could be severely degraded by such a strike. In all likelihood, so would our ability to assess against whom to retaliate. Even if forward-deployed U.S. forces were unaffected by the devastation wrought on the homeland by such an attack, many of the systems that transmit their orders and the industrial base necessary to sustain their operations would almost certainly be seriously disrupted. The impact on the American military's offensive operations would be even further diminished should units based outside the continental United States also be subjected to EMP. Particularly with the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon has been reluctant to pay the costs associated with shielding much of its equipment from electromagnetic pulses. Even if it had been more willing to do so, the end of underground nuclear testing in 1992 denied our armed forces their most reliable means of assessing and correcting the EMP vulnerabilities of weapon systems, sensors, telecommunications gear and satellites. The military should also be concerned that although the sorts of shielding it has done in the past may be sufficient to protect against the EMP effects of traditional nuclear weapons designs, weapons optimized for such effects may well be able to defeat those measures. Without a robust program for assessing and testing advanced designs, we are unlikely to be able to quantify such threats - let alone protect our military hardware and capabilities against them. If the EMP Threat Commission is correct about the phenomenon of electromagnetic pulse attacks, the capabilities of our enemies to engage in these attacks and the effects of such attacks on our national security, cosmopolitan society and democratic way of life, we have no choice but to take urgent action to mitigate this danger. To do so, we must immediately engage in three focused efforts: First, we must do everything possible to deter EMP attacks against the United States. The EMP Threat Commission described a comprehensive approach: We must make it difficult and dangerous to acquire the materials to make a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver them. We must hold at risk of capture or destruction anyone who has such weaponry, wherever they are in the world. Those who engage in or support these activities must be made to understand that they do so at the risk of everything they value. Those who harbor or help those who conspire to create these weapons must suffer serious consequences as well. To be effective, these measures will require vastly improved intelligence, the capacity to perform clandestine operations the world over, and the assured means of retaliating with devastating effect. The latter, in turn, will require not only forces capable of carrying out such retaliation in the aftermath of an EMP attack, but also the certain ability to command and control those forces. It may also require the communication, at least through private if not public channels, of the targets that will be subjected to retaliation - irrespective of whether a definitive determination can be made of culpability. Second, we must protect to the best of our ability our critical military capabilities and civilian infrastructure from the effects of EMP attacks. This will require a comprehensive assessment of our vulnerabilities and proof of the effectiveness of corrective measures. Both of these may require, among other things, periodic underground nuclear testing. The EMP Threat Commission judged that, given the sorry state of EMP-preparedness on the part of the tactical forces of the United States and its coalition partners, "It is not possible to protect [all of them] from EMP in a regional conflict." But it recommended that priority be given to protecting "satellite navigation systems, satellite and airborne intelligence and targeting systems [and] an adequate communications infrastructure." Particularly noteworthy was the Commission's recommendation that America build a ballistic missile defense system. Given that a catastrophic EMP attack can be mounted only by putting a nuclear weapon into space over the United States and that, as a practical matter, this can only be done via a ballistic missile, it is imperative that the United States deploy as quickly as possible a comprehensive defense against such delivery systems. In particular, every effort should be made to give the Navy's existing fleet of some 65 AEGIS air defense ships the capability to shoot down short to medium-range missiles of the kind that might well be used to carry out ship-launched EMP strikes. Third, an aggressive and sustained effort must be made to plan and otherwise prepare for the consequences of an EMP attack in the event all else fails. This will require close collaboration between government at all levels and the private sector, which owns, designs, builds, and operates most of the nation's critical infrastructure. Among other things, we will need to do a far better job of monitoring that infrastructure and remediating events that could ensue if EMP attacks are made on it. We must also ensure that we have on hand, and properly protected, the equipment and parts - especially those that are difficult or time-consuming to produce - needed to repair EMP-damaged systems. The EMP Threat Commission identified the latter as including "large turbines, generators, and high-voltage transformers in electrical power systems, and electronic switching systems in telecommunications systems." We have been warned. The members of the EMP Threat Commission - who are among the nation's most eminent experts with respect to nuclear weapons designs and effects - have rendered a real and timely public service. In the aftermath of their report and in the face of the dire warnings they have issued, there is no excuse for our continued inaction. Yet this report and these warnings continue to receive inadequate attention from the executive branch, Congress and the media. If Americans remain ignorant of the EMP danger and the need for urgent and sustained effort to address it, the United States will continue to remain woefully unprepared for one of the most serious dangers we have ever faced. And by remaining unprepared for such an attack, we will invite it. The good news is that steps can be taken to mitigate this danger - and perhaps to prevent an EMP attack altogether. The bad news is that there will be significant costs associated with those steps, in terms of controversial policy changes and considerable expenditures. We have no choice but to bear such costs, however. The price of continued inaction could be a disaster of infinitely greater cost and unimaginable hardship for our generation and generations of Americans to come. Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a B.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He acted in the Reagan administration as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, following four years of service as deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear forces and arms control policy. Prior to that he was a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by the late Senator John Tower (R-Texas) and an aide to the late Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D-Washington). He is a columnist for the Washington Times, Jewish World Review and TownHall.com, a contributing editor to National Review Online and a featured weekly contributor to Hugh Hewitt's nationally syndicated radio program. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New Republic, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times and Newsday. Mr. Gaffney resides in Washington, D.C. © 2005. This article was adapted from a speech delivered on May 24, 2005, in Dallas, Texas, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on the topic, "America's War Against Islamic Terrorism." Editor, Douglas A. Jeffrey; Deputy Editor, Timothy W. Caspar; Assistant to the Editor, Patricia A. DuBois. Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College (subcription free upon request), with graphics added by Winds of Change.NET. Note that the opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. JAN 25/06 UPDATE: Armed Liberal, with a different view. "EMP? Don't Lose Any sleep Over EMP This Year." Inclusing calculations from Glasstone & Dolan's "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons," Third Edition. Tracked: June 7, 2005 7:41 AM
Monday Night Overnight Reading from The Word Unheard
Excerpt: For a Tuesday Morning Wakeup, here's some late night reading you may have missed. Joe Katzman at Winds of Change brings us Frank Gaffney, Jr.'s EMP: America's Achilles' Heel. Say it ain't so, Joe! Do you think Frank Gaffney will...
Tracked: June 7, 2005 5:28 PM
Catching my eye: morning A through Z from The Glittering Eye
Excerpt: Here's what's caught my eye this morning: First, the British and now the Czechs have cancelled planned referenda on the EU Constitution. From AFOE. Notes on improving Arabic language news network Al-Hurra from former State Department official John Brow...
Tracked: June 8, 2005 11:27 AM
A Post You Need To Read from The Laughing Wolf
Excerpt: Go read this post on a real nuclear threat right now. Think on it a bit. Years ago I was introduced to Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems (FOBS), Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) and other delights, and the problem has in many...
Tracked: June 8, 2005 12:49 PM
BLOG: Quick Links 6/8/05 from Baseball Crank
Excerpt: *So Dino Rossi's challenge to the Washington governor's election was rejected by the trial judge, and Rossi declinnes to appeal. I agree with John Hinderaker that the legal standard applied by the court - requiring not only proof that the...
Comments
#1 from Mark Buehner at 6:59 am on Jun 07, 2005
Yawn. Y2K crisis part 2. First, AQ cant seem to get a guy with a rifle into a mall in Des Moines these days, im not particularly worried about them detonating a strategic nuclear weapon several hundred miles above the US. Second, it would be traceable. Nuclear weapons produce isotopes specific to their origin. While we might not have an instant match, the process of elimination would do. Finally, im highly skeptical about the actual impact. The power of an EMP is directly related to its energy output (obviously). A small Nagasaki type bomb simply doesnt seem likely to do the kind of worst case damage being talked about. This strategy was widely wargamed in the Cold War as a first strike option, and inevitably a very large multi-megaton warhead (or multiple) was expected. Im far more worried about a couple of barges being sunk in Boston Harbor or a few gallons of VX being sprayed into Times Square. Joe! Say it ain't so, Joe! Does Frank (he prefers I call him that) really know what he's getting into here? Now my head really hurts. Seems I've heard something similar to this before. What's the difference between me & Frank Gaffney really? I mean aside from that stupid little writing skills thing and the oft over-rated 'knowledgebase' from study and experience... Forget that...where was Frank when I needed him??? Oy. My head hurts now. Mark, thanks for the comment. Agree that other terrorist threats are more likely. Having said that: [a] This isn't about al-Qaeda; [b] In the 1997 Congressional testimony which included the displayed map, Ulrich and Wood were both saying 1 megaton+ to cover the entire USA with 10kV/sq. meter at the periphery, and noted Soviet doctrine as around 10 MT. On the other hand, there was this exchange:
By large regions, they means 600+ mile radius. Lots of other good exchanges there. [c ] Finally, re: tracing isotopes and deducing origins. I know you can do that from physical nuclear material. Can it be done from the after-effects of a nuclear bomb detonated high in the atmosphere? That strikes me as a significantly harder task, and I don't know if it's possible. Perhaps we have a reader who can enlighten us RE: how that works, or if it does.
#4 from GoatGuy at 9:35 am on Jun 07, 2005
Hmmm... © Isotopic determination - can only be determined with accuracy by having samples of the left-overs from a country's presumably underground testing - FROM the same "run" of nuclear material, the same "lot number". There is such a high degree of variation between isotope levels in nuclear material of the plutonic type - even day to day! - that isotopic signature analysis is more of a pipe dream than a reality. [c+] however, the other aspect (again besmirched by statistics and design changes) that does give a relatively constant signature is the design of the device. Its physics. No one can actually tell you how a device was built in detail by sifting through the post-explosion detritus, but one CAN say that "this looks like another one of them things we sampled last week, Guthrie." More or less. [b] regarding power and EMP: the intensity of local field modulation is a function of the inverse-square of distance TIMES the sin() horizon angle. Or to say it a different way, at very shallow horizon angles (near the limits of the "horizon" ring), not only is the field diminished by 1/r˛, but also by sin(small-angle). Not very strong except at the lowest frequencies. [b+] Pulses - be they electromagnetic or acoustic, seismic or bathynic, become unshaped as they propagate, the long waves remaining in phase the longest, and the shorter (higher frequency) wavelengths gradually getting out of phase, cancelling their accumulated pulse intensity. Another way to look at it is that the pulse "smears out" with distance. Its fascinating to "hear" the sound of close versus distance seismic signatures. See usgs.gov [a] Finally, I believe the conjecture of a LOT of power being required is accurate. Physics conservation-of-energy is the Old Hag That Cannot be Cheated. 1e15 [total] joules bursts forth from a 25 kiloton weapon. Without extensive espionage or testing, no country is going to covertly produce megaton-class devices. Assuming something on the order of 10% conversion efficiency [total to EMP], and a radius of a thousand miles (1600km), then you're talking a deposition of some [1e14 / 7e6] = 1.4e7 joules/km˛. That really isn't a big number. Underneath, of course, the situation is going to be a bit different. All this changes of course, if the enemy fenigles a way to secure a functioning but mothballed high-yield Soviet weapon and delivery system. It isn't unthinkable, give the desparate view of the former Soviet Union's current bag of countries. All of which are derivatve nuclear powers. Megaton class weapons would have a profound effect, both mechanically (firestorms) and electronically (50 km detonations) due to close-field EMP. Quite fairly areas the size of New England or the Gulf Coast, or the entire District of Columbia + 300 miles could be shut down. The biggest issues are that [unreferenced in the article] that with the sudden and essentially complete automatic shutdown of the electrical grid and feeder utilities due to EMP overload of critical everything's, given the interconnectedness of the grid, there probably isn't a rational plan for bringing the whole thing back up in an orchestrated fashion. I'd bet whole swathes of the affected grid would be down for days, if not weeks. Especially given that there really aren't dozens-to-hundreds of spare transformers, capacitors and circuit-breakers at the 10 to 500 megawatt level just sitting around waiting to be put in service. Doesn't bode well, if any enemy figures out how to serve up a megaton weapon. Yet, it would be and must be recognized as well as utterly suicidal. Think Japand & Pearl Harbor. America couldn't respond immediately. In fact we couldn't properly respond for weeks and months. But when we did, there was a particular cold fury in the action to beat down Tojo, and do so spectacularly. The Bombs helped of course. I'm pretty certain that America would take a month or five to measure the return stroke. I simply wouldn't want to be innocent OR guilty in an openly hostile anti-American country. Not pretty. But what if, again, the Pakistanis sell one to the Ruskies and the Ruskies turn around and sell one of their own to the Iranians (or some such contorted way of logic?) Who is the perp? Who do you hit? Paris, just to remind everyone that European apologetics got us into this fine kettle of fish to beging with? [Sarc but not too much] In any case the EMP issues presented is a bit overblown, especially given the limitations of ANY of the third world's delivery vehicles. GoatGuy
#5 from Dan Dare at 10:08 am on Jun 07, 2005
Yes a gamma ray spectrometer in space could identify the isotope composition of a high altitude nuclear explosion. Airborne gr spectrometer units are used to survey for natural radiogenic minerals. The best thing is if the West switches to an increasingly underground or submarine all-optical-fibre telecoms infrastructure which is relatively invulnerable to EMP.
#6 from Dan Dare at 11:05 am on Jun 07, 2005
Also one other thing occurs to me.
#7 from Trent Telenko at 12:39 pm on Jun 07, 2005
I found this via google last night Physics of the EMP An electromagnetic pulse starts with a short, intense burst of gamma rays produced from nuclear detonation. The gamma rays interact with the atoms in air molecules through a process called the Compton effect, wherein electrons are scattered at high energies, thus ionizing the atmosphere and generating a powerful electrical field. The strength of the EMP depends highly on the altitude at which it is released. At altitudes above 30,000m, it is the strongest. It is also significant at surface or low altitude bursts, but is not as effective between the two extremes. Effects of an EMP Although the electric field created from an EMP lasts for only a short time, its effects can be devastating. It is predicted that a single high altitude burst 200 miles above Kansas could propagate an EMP enveloping the entire United States. Electrical systems connected to things that can conduct current like wires, antennas, and metal objects will suffer significant damage. EMP effects on electronics include interference of radio frequency links, irreparable damage to microcircuits, and even the disabling of satellites. Fortunately, electronic equipment that is turned off is less likely to be damaged. Protecting Against EMP Electrical equipment is "hardened" to protect itself from an EMP. The basic concern of protection is cutting down the outside EMP level. Metallic shielding is used to route EMP fields away from vital electrical components. If it is also connected to a cable, transient protection like surge protectors, wire termination procedures, screened isolated transformers, protective enclosures, spark gaps, and filters are used to protect at the point of entry. To protect against EMP in an indirect way, other methods are used, such as increasing immediate backup units and avoidance (i.e. keeping equipment out of range of EMP bursts).
#8 from Trent Telenko at 12:58 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Consider for a moment the effect on 'fly by wire' wide body commercial airliners like Airbus when EMP wipes out their flight computers via propagation through radio and navigation antennas. Literally hundreds of wide body passenger jets will go down minutes after nuclear EMP device goes off over American skies. More than 10,000 people will die in crashes, and perhaps many multiples of that. On the ground you will have every moving car truck or bus that has electronic ignitions and computer controlled fuel injection die. Most of those vehicles have power steering, so when the engine dies, drivers will lose control. That will kill and injure tens of thousands more. Operating major petrochemical refineries will be destroyed as the electronic controls of the oil cracking process and electrically powered manual back ups all go down mid-process. With no controls, the uncontrolled cracking process will destroy the refineries. There will be no emergency medical. police or fire service in all of this since telecommunications, transportation and power all died in the same instance. This means major fires will grow our of control and spread until natural barriers block them. Consider for a moment the implications of several fully fueled wide body passenger jets going down in the Southern California country side in fire season. An EMP attack of sufficient magnitude could kill half a million Americans directly and indirectly through things like heat stress for the tens of thousands of elderly and heart patients denied air conditioning and medications as the transpoirtation system shuts down for weeks. Think the recent hot French summer that killed 15,000 elderly, times 20.
#9 from John Farren at 12:58 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Interesting. But if the yield range we're talking about is 1 to 10 megatons, that's thermonuclear range. As Goat Guy says, that rules out the NorKs and the mullahs. For some time to come anyway. A nasty potential threat, then, but not an imminent and urgent one. H-weapons means all you have to worry about are China, Russia, France and the UK.
#10 from Trent Telenko at 1:15 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Dan Dare, Surge protectors are aimed at protecting from lightning strikes. They have a different and slower signature than the surge from EMP. A circuit built to protect from EMP provides protection from lightning, not the other way around. Being Chemical Engineering my field, I can say something about oil refineries. They have multiple, redundant and fail-safe control systems (eg valves shutting off mechanically if the power fails). A total electric failure wouldn't be pretty for sure, but neither so catastrophic as depicted. Ah, there are refinery control systems using fiber optics cable for data transmission, which are much less sensitive to EMPs. Also FBW aircrafts have some manual backup controls - maybe not all of them, tho. One day my car was left without any hydraulic oil in the power steering, but it was still controllable. Thanks, Fabio. IIUC, however, the ability of fallback systems in vehicles and planes to take over after EMP fries electronics depends very much on the model in question. For instance, while a smaller car may be manually steerable, a larger one travelling at high speeds might not. Similarly, while there are instances of A10 pilots landing their aircraft using hydraulic controls alone, transcontinental commercial aircraft are unlikely to be controllable this way - they are too large, heavy and sophisticated. Their fly-by-wire systems are designed for electronic redundancy, but not for the simultaneous loss of all electronics at once. NOTE: for those unfamiliar with the term, a fly-by-wire plane is not an aerodynamic glider. It flies due to constant wing adjustments by the computerized flight control systems. When these totally fail, FBW planes drop like rocks rather than glide towards earth.
#13 from Mark Buehner at 2:54 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Hmm, im still a bit skeptical of the real world impact such an attack would have. Certainly critical military installations have been hardened in expectation of such an event (I seem to recall NORAD being built inside a giant Faraday Cage). The civilian impact I suspect would be largely confined to the power grid, a minor version of which we saw in the East Coast shutdown a few years ago. I suspect the EMP effect has been largely hypothesized in ideal conditions, how the atmosphere and topography would affect the weapon in practice is probably so complex as to be unknowable without some pretty radical testing that isnt going to happen. Basically the engineer in me rebels at the idea of a bomb the size of a bus burning out every electronic circuit on an entire continent. I'll gladly bow to Goat's knowledge and second the idea that a regional disaster would be more likely and a more effective attack. Politically, this brings us back to deterrance. My idea for a doctrine (that may be de facto in practice actually [no thanks to me :)]) is to make it clear, either publically or privately, to any and all rogue nuclear seeking states that any attack on the US and our interests that cannot be immediately traced back to anyone will be responded to by holding all rogue regimes equally and completely responsible. Hence Iran and NK both get the big nuclear finger, no questions asked. Thats a pretty good incentive not to develop nukes, Im not sure KJI want to rely on the good will and sanity of the Mullahs, and vice versa. Not even the most ambitious dictator will be happy about being at the mercy of whoever the least stable tyrant in the world.
#14 from Robin Burk at 2:57 pm on Jun 07, 2005
America couldn't respond immediately. In fact we couldn't properly respond for weeks and months. So you're assuming we don't have ballistic missile subs around the world any more? or doctrine on how commanders should respond to a total loss of radio communications with the mainland coupled with reports from allies?
#15 from lurker at 3:01 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Unless an enemy figures out how to launch a ballistic missle from a location outside their country without detection then there's a huge deterrent effect. The EMP comes with a return address to the point of launch. Perhaps a country might consider such a nuclear attack on the US a good idea, but they would have to seriously consider odds of their total destruction. There is also a difference between permanent damage and temporary disabilitation of electronic devices; and local structures/conditions may lower or enhance the effects of the pulse. I think Mark is right, there is no way to tell exactly what will happen without testing. I disagree on the definition of FBW given above: jetliners are all aerodinamically stable; the FBW system does convert the input from the controls in electrical impulses which are processed through a flight computer (to remain inside the flight envelope and prevent other indesiderable occurrences) and then routed to actuators at the various control surfaces and engines that will effectively move the parts involved. Indeed, and Airbus 330 succsfully glided to the ground after suffering an almost-total power failure: http://www.aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20010824-1
#17 from Tom Holsinger at 4:31 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Mark, The altitude the device detonates at is more important than its yield. Yield takes precedence only when the device is detonated within a fairly narrow altitude range. I believe a 15kt device detonated at 150km altitude will do much more EMP damage than a 900kt device detonated at 35km. What really does the damage is the energy in the earth's magnetic field (according to Telenko, who worked on Air Force Two, the Van Allen belts are involved to a major degree in EMP effects), which is "displaced" by the energy from the device's yield and is picked up by all the antennae aka electrical circuits on Earth, which includes those in cell phones, cars, etc.
#18 from Tom Holsinger at 4:45 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Dan Dare, Surge protectors won't make a bit of difference. What does is whether a particular elctronic item is turned on at the time of the pulse. A laptop operating on battery power at the time of the pulse is more likely to be totalled than an otherwise unprotected desktop computer which is turned off. The electrical circuits in hand calculators and cell phones will act as antennae for purposes of EMP. If they're turned on when it hits, the odds of their being totalled are many orders of magnitude greater than if they're turned off. Being connected to the electric power grid is certainly a major factor in vulnerability here, but not to anywhere near the degree of difference between being turned on or off, or how many electrical circuits there are in the device (effective size of "antenna surface"). Laptops are more vulnerable than hand calculators because the former are bigger and have more circuits.
#19 from Trent Telenko at 4:57 pm on Jun 07, 2005
FabioC This is the incident at your link: Air Transat Flight TS236, was en route at FL390 when at 05:36 UTC, the crew became aware of a fuel imbalance between the left and right-wing main fuel tanks. Five minutes later the crew concerned about the lower-that-expected fuel quantity indication, decided to divert to Lajes Airport in the Azores. At 05:48 UTC, when the crew ascertained that a fuel leak could be the reason for the possible fuel loss, an emergency was declared to Santa Maria Oceanic Control. At 06:13, at a calculated distance of 135 miles from Lajes, the right engine (Rolls-Royce Trent 772B) flamed out. At 06:26, when the aircraft was about 85 nm from Lajes and at an altitude of about FL345, the left engine flamed out. At 06:39 the aircraft was at 13,000 feet and 8 miles from the threshold of runway 33. An engines-out visual approach was carried out and the aircraft landed on runway 33. Eight of the plane's ten tyres burst during the landing. This plane still had battery power and its flight controls were unaffected by the dual engine flame out. In the case of an EMP attack, the digital flight controls, cabin CRT and liquid crystal displays, all three flight control computers and the microprocessor controls at the flight actuators would be fried. So would the radio, the navaids and intercom. So would the digital engine control unit for the turbo fans. All at once.
#20 from Tom Holsinger at 4:58 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Lurker, Buried in the article is the following; "Even more troubling, the Iranian military has reportedly tested its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile in a manner consistent with an EMP attack scenario. The launches are said to have taken place from aboard a ship - an approach that would enable even short-range missiles to be employed in a strike against "the Great Satan."
#21 from Trent Telenko at 5:35 pm on Jun 07, 2005
>What really does the damage is the energy in The Van Allen belts in low earth orbit are where many of the high energy particles from the sun are shunted into what amounts to huge magnetic containment field. A nuke going off a that altitude disrupts the earth's magnetic field and lets many of those particles loose into the upper atmosphere which has results like the aurora borealis at the North Pole. The energy from that nuclear blast also causes the earth’s magnetic field to “reverberate.” The combination of an ionized upper atmosphere and reverberating magnetic fields block high frequency radio communications because high frequency radio cannot be bounced off the blast induced interference. The combination will continue to induce large power spikes through antennas and power grids like the aurora borealis or sun spots are known to do at higher latitudes. (Another affect is that a large fraction of the energetic particles from the nuclear blast are captured in the Van Allen belt and proceed to destroy low altitude satellites passing through them.) How long and how intense these effects are depends on a number of things like weapon yield, altitude and “solar weather” conditions, most of the technical info I read on this is from 15 years ago and assumed a scenario of 1000(+/-) megaton exchange between the USA and the Soviet Union that started with multi-megaton EMP attacks off the east and west coasts from sub launched ballistic missiles about 3-7 minutes into the attack. The environment that the 747 nuclear command plane was intended to survive in.
#22 from GoatGuy at 6:17 pm on Jun 07, 2005
A few more misconceptions around here... The field strength, axis and time-domain effects of EMP are about the same as that experienced from a nearby garden-variety lightning strike. The local EMP within a 50 meter radius exceeds 10 kilovolts per meter, easily. The magnetic component momentarily can exceed 3 kilooersteds at the same radius. So, how many pieces of electronic and electrical equipment go kapoo when a lightning strike happens close by? Like in say Florida, the L&T capital of the world... ahem. Almost nothing fries. Not cell phones, not stereos, not cars, not planes. Not power steering, not refrigerators, not ovens, not computers. Not nuthin', mostly. Telephones are prone to being blasted to flinders because they're direct-connected to the outside lines. But they are all protected by thick lead shields [triple effect: rats don't like to chew on 'em, they don't rust or significantly degrade, they can be fused with solder at low temperatures, so also protect against water.] No, EMP is best described as a LARGE SCALE effect. Long power lines, longwave antennas, the steel frames of large buildings, anything that conceivably acts as an antenna ... is vulnerable to the induced current. But even then, only if connected to ground. This is why planes don't go tumbling out of the sky every few hours - they are intrinsically faraday shields, and although there's a plane somewhere being struck by lightning about every hour or so, being subject to enormous magnetic and electrical fields ... their electronics is built to handle it. There is nothing about EMP which is any different. Therefore the most vulnerable element is the power grid. One gigantic antenna, ultimately also connected to ground through innumerable transformers, ballast capacitors and ground loops. [Much to my amazement, much of the "old America" - Pennsylvania, Western New York, almost everyplace in the rust belt - uses a wiring system where only ONE conductor appears to go into step down transformers. How? Because the other conductor is the ground itself. Now, talk about vulnerable systems...] The more pressing effect of a high altitude mid-kiloton nuke would be the lethal wash of neutrons and gamma rays at high altitude, coupled with the distinctly real over-pressure effects and thermal pulse. [One must assume that if it is outside of the facility of an aggressor to cobble together a thermonuke, it is also outside their purview to craft a potent enough 3-stage missile to lob what can only be a remarkably heavy primative warhead up to 300 or 400 kilometers.] 50 kilometers is probably tops. In fact, it makes more sense to go for a much lower airburst: EMP isn't anywhere near effective enough, and terrorism is about making big ugly splashes. A 150 kilometer stratospheric detonation is almost a 'technical feat', while causing power outages, would largely be seen as a "whew, we got it relatively easy that time, Gunther" move. In contrast, a 3 kilometer airburst above any major city would pretty much wax the metropolis both through immediate effects - overpressure damage, neutron flux, x-ray and gamma-ray exposure, but also through secondary (firestorm, thermal shock, toxic atmosphere) and tertiary effects (radiation sickness, isotopic contamination of huge swaths of metroscape, infrastructure collapse, starvation, overload of medical facilities). In fact, the quaternary processes would be most dementing and debilitating to our august country: martial law, summary executions, the Police state, political collapse, economic collapse (short term), cessation of civil services and rights, staving off opportunistic disease, opportunistic sleeper-cell point-terrorism (think, "shooting holes in as many regional transformers as possible, in the lawless mayhem that follows an attack"), etc. Stock market? Right. Yet too, the thing to remember is although Europe probably imagines that they would get off with nothing more than a bad headache and a nasty case of the heebiejeebies, what they fail to realize is that international shipping commerce would effectively cease as of the following morning. America has the power to keep every ship on the planet from moving either into or out of every port. We have the ability to ground every airline, to break every satellite and fiber optic communications channel on the planet. The Internet? The Internet would be viewed as the most uncontrollable and potent tool in the hands of the forces of destruction and evil. It would simply be shut down. Forceably. Hell, in the aftermath of the Twin Towers debacle, the Internet was almost unusable. And in the meantime the NorKs have become the most fecund source of information viruses and other pests. What else might they have up their sleeve? It is for these reasons that I think the entire discussion of "EMP" as the bogey is just juvenile to an extreme. A nuclear attack on this country shuts down the world. For an unknowable period of time, while we take measure and with extreme exactitude make examples of the diseased underbelly that had the audacity to think that America is really weak enough to be toppled by such an inept action. GoatGuy
#23 from Trent Telenko at 6:25 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Iran military journal eyes Posted: April 29, 2005 WASHINGTON – In the latest evidence Iran is seriously planning an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., an Iranian military journal has publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world's lone superpower. Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security. In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars," the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees. "Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot." WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure. The report was published first in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter by WND's founder. Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships. "A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack against the United States."
#24 from Tom Holsinge at 7:10 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Damocles Over The Persian Gulf Iran’s mullah regime will have the power to do a Samson act concerning Persian Gulf oil once it has nuclear weapons deliverable by even short-range ballistic missiles. It can simply fire one at a slight angle to detonate as a 10-30kt EMP device high (50-150km altitude) over Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in its northwestern corner closest to Iran. That would fry all the electronics controlling oil pumping, and destroy all refineries, over an area several hundred miles across. Persian Gulf oil exports, including Iran’s, would cease for years. This would bring about a world-wide depression. I feel the mullahs would use such a device, if available, in the event of an American invasion, and quite possibly if their regime was going down to internal revolt. At that point they would face certain defeat and probable slaughter at the hands of their own people, so they’d have nothing whatever to lose. GoatGuy, Appreciate the technical contribution. I do find it hard to set your blithe dismissals against the conclusions of a bipartisan Congressional panel that summoned a number of expert witnesses, and appears to have come to a different conclusion. Mind you, a number of your points appear to be contradicted in the House testimony linked earlier. Apparently, the EMP figures from the US tests DID fry quite a few things, for instance. Likewaise, the ability to lob a warhead more than 50 miles using existing SCUD systems (150 miles is apparently very attainable), let alone more modern rockets. So maybe that's part of the disconnect. There are varying opinions re: EMP's effect, and it would probably be worthwhile to begin doing some research and compilation around that area. I suspect the result would be a useful public/ open intel resource. I'll add that your last paragraph is reasonably well taken, unless the Democrats are in charge of course in which case all bets on serious action are off. Taking the measures you describe would tank a large portion of the US economy, however, not just immediately but for years. I'll suggest to you that the US may find it prudent not to take a few of those actions, even under those circumstances. The more sailient point is the amount of cleanup damage and disruption that would accompany these actions, and the long term cost it would exact. Threats are always arrayed in a cost:probability matrix, which explains why people are a bit jittery anout living next to nuclear power plants even though accidents are incredibly rare. EMP seems the fall under the "enormous cost" heading in a way that may even exceed a city strike. When you're talking about the deterrence posture of a rogue state with nukes, and asking how they could employ their assets for maximum damage, EMP seems to come up often, and from sources more credentialed and technical than Mr. Gaffney. Personally, I happen to like "Mark Buehner's Godfather solution in #13.
#26 from Dan Dare at 7:24 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Goat Guy, OK so this is my question. Now my desktop PC is inside a steel case.
#27 from Tom Holsinger at 8:14 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Goat Guy, You said too much. I don't know how much you know about EMP, but you are clearly out to lunch on nuclear weapons effects in general. This statement of yours was the tipoff: "The more pressing effect of a high altitude mid-kiloton nuke would be the lethal wash of neutrons and gamma rays at high altitude, coupled with the distinctly real over-pressure effects and thermal pulse." The inverse square law applies to direct blast, thermal pulse and prompt radiation effects. Little, if any prompt radiation from a high-altitude mid-kiloton range nuke would reach the ground due to distance (and no neutrons), and thermal pulse would be greatly attenuated just by distance. Blast would be negligible as it is propagated by air pressure and there is very little air pressure at high altitude. Your expertise in this discussion has become an issue.
#28 from GoatGuy at 8:15 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Katzman, et alia: I feel honored that you have countered, above. Thanks. In response to the Congressional discovery and focus, I can only point out that the Congressional inquiry into the Discovery conflagration dithered for WEEKS before that one lone extraordinary logician and scientist, Dr. Feynman took a hank of the sealing-ring material, dunked it in his glass of ice-water, and discovered, lo' and behold, that it lost all useful resilience at it got near freezing. Suddenly, in a stroke, the congressional hearing was nearly over. Congressional (or senatorial) hearings have persecuted our own American citizenry for fabricated and imagined Communist leanings, per the monkey trials of the McCarthy era. Bogeys imagined, few-to-none found. A lot of people were behind the work though. Who to believe? Or Scopes. Or ... well, you get the drift. Joe, I'm a thinker first, a scientist second, an electrical engineer and computer scientist third. I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of EMP vulnerable "things" in our world, that would fail. But the most spectacular will be the big things, the things with long pickup wires and metal parts. No contradiction to Congress there. I really do think that the EMP effects of a smallish nuke though are just overwrought. The enemy really doesn't have the ability to make a truely gargantuan weapon AND lob it high into the stratosphere. And a small one lobbed only a few score kilometers up isn't going to produce appreciable EMP except locally. I kind of think that the mad Mullahs are working on high-altitude detonations either to effect the scenario outlined by Tom Holsinge / Democles #24, or some other geo-strategic action that doesn't put them dead-square in the target zone for a Samson-option retribution. Finally, EMP seems to come up often precisely because it is in vogue. A nuke trucked to the Hoover dam and unceremonously dumped in the drink would was out millions of square miles of country. A nuke at the port of Oakland would contaminate most of the Silicon Valley, as well as critically "poke the eye" of American shipping interests. I dare say that not a single ship would get into this country for years. Invest in flip-flops, there's going to be a run on the Chinese products! [tongue in cheek] I choose to use a cavalier style, to remind us that we're all a bunch of amateurs. I don't like the Samson option, but I understand it. I don't like the absurd escalation of the Three Conjectures, but I understand them. I don't like all the talk about EMP, because it more readily passes the 'conspiracy theory test' than any other conjecture. [Is complicated, is full of unknowns, cannot really be tested, is a 'clean solution' on the surface, and is generally in vogue to talk about.] I mean, lets get real here: while granted there weren't LGF's and WoC's into which the blognuts such as moi could spout their opine, I also don't think that there was a think-tank, blue-ribbon panel, a congressional or CIA or NSA or even executive briefing that seriously considered a scenario including a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and what was undoubted an aborted attempt at the White House itself. Yet, it happened. Even today it seems complicated, messy, full of all sorts of things that suggest [to some weak minds] that there was a conspiracy behind it, that the planes had missiles superglued to their undersides, that UFO's were seen flying away at high speed, and that there were warnings to all Jews to stay away, since the Mossad had realized there was no other way to get Americans to become involved in a gut way in Middle East security without shaking them to the core. Oh yah, and that the buildings were intentionally deconstructed by pre-placed explosives, for how else can you explain that they fell essentially straight down, only seen otherwise in demolitions of old massive buildings by specialists? Yada, yada, yada. Take care all. Stock up on iodine tablets. They never go bad. GoatGuy
#29 from GoatGuy at 8:38 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Holsinger - And I had the impolitic of just quoting you. Well. Laugh's on me. I didn't say WHAT height constitutes "high altitude". There definitely IS a thermal-pulse component directly below the burst. I'm painfully aware of the inverse-square laws, my friend. Taken that into account. Fast neutrons have a surprisingly long mean-free-path through low nuclear density materials such as AIR. The neutron flux I was referring to was also that at high altitude. Like, that which would wash over aircraft already up there, and the neutrons and gamma rays that would essentially radiate out unstopped away from the earth and through both the ionosphere and beyond. However, in the spirit of why I write here, I admit freely that I'm not a nuclear scientist, that I may well be off by an order-of-magnitude in my estimates, and that I welcome anyone to "show their work", rather than impune my credibility. GoatGuy
#30 from Trent Telenko at 9:27 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Joe, Here is another google search result with EMP and Hawaii in the search terms: http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp-terror.htm ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE RISKS AND TERRORISM Other Subjects: General Definition - Electromagnetic pulse In addition to other effects, a nuclear weapon detonated in or above the earth’s atmosphere or alternatively an E-Bomb (see below) can create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a high-density electrical field. EMP acts like a stroke of lightning but is stronger, faster and briefer. EMP can seriously damage electronic devices connected to power sources or antennas. This include communication systems, computers, electrical appliances, and automobile or aircraft ignition systems. The damage could range from a minor interruption to actual burnout of components. Most electronic equipment within 1,000 miles of a high-altitude nuclear detonation could be affected. Battery powered radios with short antennas generally would not be affected. Although EMP is unlikely to harm most people, it could harm those with pacemakers or other implanted electronic devices. An Air Force spokesman, who describes this effect as similar to a lightning strike, points out that electronics systems can be protected by placing them in metal enclosures called Faraday Cages that divert any impinging electromagnetic energy directly to the ground. Foreign military analysts say this reassuring explanation is incomplete. What can be done? See Web Site on Faraday Cages (http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp_and_faraday_cages.htm) and also latest news in Washington Times August 19, 2003 commentary ("The blackout next time"). From: http://www.physics.northwestern.edu/classes/2001Fall/Phyx135-2/19/emp.htm
#31 from Trent Telenko at 9:33 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Joe, This is another hit from the same google search. It is a 1988 paper on EMP from the Global Security web site. I clipped a relevant section below: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1988/CM2.htm EMP is a pulse of electromagnetic energy of extremely short The first, surface burst electromagnetic pulse (EMP), occurs The second type, high-altitude EMP (HEMP), is the most However, this type of nuclear explosion also produces a vast The third type of EMP is source region EMP (SREMP). This is The last type of EMP is system generated EMP (SGEMP). SGEMP Although the EMP effect was known to exist during the EMP is of great concern today. As the field of electronics has The significance of these power surges is demonstrated when (1) EMP pulses much more rapidly. Pulse time for (2) Each field strength can differ radically. Lightning (3) EMP pulses are of short duration--usually less than a (4) Lightning occurs at much lower frequencies and in This fact is especially significant when considering EMP's The system of degradation from EMP results in either a Most susceptible to EMP are those components with low voltage Another necessary variable to consider is the collection of EMP A vast array of collectors form a huge grid over the entire Most commenters have assumed that in the event of an EMP attack whose source was identifiable we would launch a massive counterattack. But would we? Even in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, there were strong segments of opinion who opposed taking effective action against the Taliban. The Afghanistan operation was pretty minor compared with a nuclear retaliation strike that would kill millions of people--most of them, of course, totally innocent. If a nuclear weapon were detonated in a major American city, then I think we would retailiate in kind, no matter what administration was in power. But if an EMP attack were launched, and the administration in power were a Democratic one, I'm not so sure. More to the point, the mullahs might not be so sure. While all the physics and electrical engineering are true, I'm having a difficult time imagining anyone in Iran who had decided to use a nuclear weapon deciding to toss it into space to make sparks and kill TV's and PC's. It just doesn't seem consistent to me. If someone had decided to use one, I think they'd like to see a crater in a city. David Foster, you may be right but I suspect that any President would be compelled to retaliate massively. Look at it this way: any EMP attack would be accompanied by thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths. It's not just computers and electronics but everyone whose life depends on computers and electronics. Everyone who's on a life-support system (computer-controlled these days). Many people in airplanes. How about cardiac pacemakers?
#35 from Jim Rockford at 10:40 pm on Jun 07, 2005
I'd argue the closest analogy we have is the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. The Germans came close to breaking RAF Fighter Command by attrition, but once they switched to cities and area bombing while countless civilians died, RAF Fighter Command was spared and Operation Sealion (the invasion of Britain) was over. While the effects of any nuclear attack, EMP or otherwise will be severe, our offensive capability including nuclear ballistic subs and Strategic Air Command is still horribly formidable, and while democracies tend to cut off foreign adventures that don't go well (Algeria, Vietnam, etc) they generally don't break much like the British did not break during the Blitz. To me the political reaction would be rally round the flag patriotism, and the desire to ruthlessly end the conflict once and for all no matter how many of the enemy were killed. Even under a Democratic regime; Amnesty International and the ACLU would be brushed aside for a desire to make the deaths stop by killing all the enemy. The biggest check on our own power is internal; a mass casualty attack bigger than 9/11 will have an exponentially larger effect on cutting off those limits; just as 9/11 led to the abandonment of bipartisan Clinton/Bush "restraint" in the face of terrorism; so would another bigger mass attack. Can't you just imagine the reaction from the left, though...many of them would claim that the casualties were our own fault for being so dependent on a technological infrastructure...
#37 from Mark Buehner at 11:32 pm on Jun 07, 2005
Just a reminder to anyone who may be wondering: no matter what happened over the US mainland, a single ballistic nuclear sub is equipped to utterly and completely destroy 2 nations the size of Iran within an hour of being given the order. A number of these subs patrol at all times on routes not known to anyone not onboard, including under the arctic cap. The Soviets couldnt find a way to sucker punch us, Iran certainly wont be able to. Thats not what this is about. The issue is whether Iran or someone else might try this as either a suicide pact or in the unlikely hope that they wouldnt be fingered for it. As to the response such an attack would draw, here is what happened in the 60s when we were testing this exact weapon. It was codenamed Project Starfish in the Johnston Islands in the South Pacific. Apparently it turned the lights out in some places in Hawaii 1500km away, turned the sky bright red as far as Los Angeles, temporarilly destroyed the Van Allen Belt, and rearranged the Belt for a decade. I may go back to vacuum tubes. http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/HAARPbg.html#PS
#38 from a at 11:40 pm on Jun 07, 2005
I don't see where the thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths should come from. EMP will be a big financially(but not so big as talked about) but i doubt that it would be emotional big. An attack on a big city (or just a piece of uninhabited desert) is much more effective. An EMP attack just sounds to me like a big solar flame which would be much more effective if done by a non-nuclear apperatus "a", How many in the U.S. are dependant upon the electric grid for daily survival? People on respirators, oxygen, who need air conditioning to survive where they live, etc. how many people died in France during a heat wave? Thousands is not impossible.
#40 from SAO at 1:01 am on Jun 08, 2005
Oh my! Why is WOC encouraging terrorists to use nuclear weapons? Before they might have been confused about what to do with their mid-yield nukes (the MSM had suggested the Superbowl, DC, Tony Awards...) But now--thanks to rightwing bloggers doing their research-- they've saved literaly hours of time on google. Re the human impact of an EMP attack, think about: traffic lights (many of which have doubtless been converted from electromechanical to more-vulnerable electronic control)...railway signals (ditto)...aircraft (even if the flight controls work, what happens with no nav or communications)..medical equipment (Cat scanners, etc)...lots more. And computer systems outages could be worse than it might initially sound--remember, a commuter airline recently had to temporarily shut down operations completely because of problems with their crew scheduling system. What happens if the truck and rail dispatching systems, combined with the grocery store inventory-control systems, are unusable? David, that's one reason everyone should have emergency supplies: food, water, medicine if you take it, first aid, candles etc. Yes, a successful attack on a major urban area could be bad. But it would be a lot less bad if people were prepared to sit tight for several days.
#43 from GoatGuy at 1:18 am on Jun 08, 2005
Robin, A, and especially Rockford (but further down): This is the thesis presented above, that although an EMP hit would be a technical feat and undoubtedly an awful civic-structural disaster ... it doesn't fit the pattern of Islamic terrorism. With fewer loss-of-life [which has never been much of a motivating factor for a people morally committed to attain paradise by way of suicide-in-the-name-of-Beezelbub], the terrorists of 9/11 could easily have wreaked credible and ominous damage to the U.S. infrastructure in at least a dozen easily imaginable ways. Instead, planes and buildings, gut-wrenching Farenheit 911 images of fanatic sacrifice and all the rest. Lets take a look at this from the rational side: Iran does not really have a delivery mechanism to get a nuke to America to begin with, let alone lobbing one high in the atmosphere for an EMP burst. They do however have the capability of targeting Israel, or Saudi Arabia (whom they're not amused with), or the Gulf. They could target a key NATO trigger country, say Turkey or Greece, perhaps one of the Balkans. So the question I keep coming back to is, how crazy are they? If they're searching for a plausible-deniability mechanism to throw Western civilization into a tail-spin, with our intelligence - I can't see a target that they could hit anonymously or surreptitiously. Our worries of containerized ship delivery are plausible, yet we're much more on the alert now for such action. I have to be honest: I don't see a target for them that they could achieve without it being blatantly obvious that they were the source. And, if they hit a NATO country, it is pretty much a given that we would hit them back. The one thought I keep coming back to is that they're going the route of a conventional Claustwitzian sovereignty positioning: lob their missiles (neutered) all over the place, showing just how far they could reach, eventually leaking to their Arab and other Muslim neighbors that they really have been conducting nuclear tests, and could strike anywhere in their reach at any time. Multiple-y. They're developing their own diesel-electric subs, they're obviously engineering their own missile delivery systems, they've been sending and recovering tens of thousands of bright young minds from Western universities and engineering schools. Iran in my mind is hardly a desparate nation. They're clearly still the intellectual center of the Islamic sphere, they're less interested in fomenting (excuse my analogy) "democratic jihad", but more interested in doing the "republican federal consolidation" regionally. Notwithstanding that the Iranian-on-the-street ranges from dogmatically committed to disillusioned by the mullocracy, theirs is an old country, steeped in tradition, the seat of academic enterprise, and of course the Sunni view of the world. The Iranians desire to amplify their power base, bolster their sovereignty in spite of being surrounded by their old nemesis, America. And they understand fully that the Arab Street as well as most people in power among the Arab World have had the flames of anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism fanned to the point that there really is an opportunity to become the regional power broker. For that they need nukes - even as in the case of the old Soviet Union, there's no one rationally to target. That's my hope - that there is a fairly noble goal behind the effort. Yes, it would mean an incredible power-shift in the Middle East, but I think that it is still something that isn't terrible: for what nation of people can't hope for a return to their long-gone era of glory? Sorry for rambling. Would be interested to hear your thoughts. [PS: Jim, I don't think the Iranians are autocidal enough to risk the Samson response.] GoatGuy Whoever attempted to do this would have to be very sure that the missile didn't go phut over continental USA,the second stage not igniting,the guidance system landing it in Canada or some such common malfunction found in ballistic missilery.There would have to be some redundancy,at least two missiles probably three.A far bigger project than it would seem. SAO, I think that was unworthy of you.
#46 from Tom Holsinger at 1:56 am on Jun 08, 2005
Dave Foster & Goat Guy, We're talking governments here, not Al Qaeda, so you are correct that deterrence should be discussed. Our retaliatory capabilities are hardened against EMP and so would be capable of "reducing large portions of southern Asia to subsidence level economies and population levels". Such an EMP attack on us would, practically, only be done by a relatively small ballistic missile launched from a ship. This is within the capability of North Korea and will be within Iran's capability within 2-3 years, assuming they can't do it already. And we could quickly identify and locate the ship. But as a practical matter, again, the attack would be a suicide one. I expect the ships involved would be blown up, with or without the advance knowledge of their crews, shortly after the missiles' launch. Dead men tell no tales. And a small nuke used for that purpose would leave nothing identifiable. But as a practical matter once again, we wouldn't wait to identify the perpetrator. We'd go after all potential perps at once to make prevent repetitions of such attacks. Once we're nuked, whether by EMP or a city-buster, all the gloves will come off. Even a Democratic president would do this. It is possible that a nutball regime would both think this "Nuke all the usual suspects" improbable and that it could keep its involvement in such an attack hidden. I tend to doubt that, but wouldn't care to bet my life, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and my children's future on it. Better to take out the potential threats in advance with non-nuclear means. Low level strategic writers called this "deterrence by denial" during the Clinton administration. The Persian Gulf Samson option I described above is, however, not merely possible but likely. Robin Roberts, You have no idea of the economic consequences. We're talking governments here, not Al Qaeda terrorists. The latter think the way you describe in your No. 33. Governments don't - that's one of the reasons they are governments. Dave Shuler & a, More than that. Everyone who depends on medication to stay alive - diabetics, heart conditions, blood pressure, kidney disease, etc. IMO a 25kt EMP device detonated 200 miles over Kansas would produce a first hour fatality count of at least 5,000, and possibly as much as 20,000. Add close to a zero for the first month, and double that again over the next five months. PeterUK, Yes. There would be multiple missiles, not just one, and probably from more than one ship. That is the scenario. Everone, Please note the following from Trent's No. 31. EMP is collected on: "... anything that acts as an electrical conductor (8:5-4-5-8). The amount of EMP energy collected depends on the electrical properties, size, and shape of the material comprising the collector. EMP energy may be transferred from the collector to the equipment directly by a physical connection or indirectly through induction (8:5-8-5-10)." ALL ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS in any electronic equipment act as electrical conductors - that is how electronics works. Personal computers contain more electrical circuits than home refrigerators. The electronic components in cars contain a majority of the electrical circuits in the cars. And they all collect EMP. Their relatively small density limits the amount of EMP they collect relative to electrical wires of the same length, but the vulnerability of modern society to EMP cannot be emphasized enough. Few of your have any idea of how little machinery, let alone electronics, will continue operating AT ALL in an area of several hundred miles across following detonation of a 25kt EMP device at an altitude of 200 miles. As in damn little. Because most machinery is controlled by electronic circuits these days, and the electronics will be gone.
#47 from SAO at 2:03 am on Jun 08, 2005
May be a silly question, but: would an emp attack automatically presume a nuclear response from the US; similiar to other nuclear atacks? Also, anyone else remember GHWB or somebody wanting to EMP Iraq during Gulf I?
#48 from Tom Holsinger at 2:23 am on Jun 08, 2005
SAO, There are differences between "automatic", "certain" and "almost certain" in this context. There has never been, to my knowledge, anything "automatic" about nuclear retaliation by any country against any other country. What "certain" means depends on your definition. It was "almost certain", by any definition, that the U.S. would have used nuclear weapons in retaliation against apparent nuclear attack by the former USSR ("launch under attack"). I don't believe the U.S. government has any such formal plan in mind for covert EMP attack. As a practical matter, I view a nuclear response as highly likely, but it depends on when the EMP attack happens. At the moment there are two likely suspects - North Korea and Iran, so I feel it "almost certain" that we would use nuclear weapons to attack their nuclear weapons and missile facilities within no more than a few weeks of the EMP attack on us, and more likely within a few days. And there is a difference between high altitude EMP attack using a nuclear device, and very short range EMP attack with non-nuclear devices. We developed the latter to test the EMP hardening of military aircraft, Air Force One, etc. There are lots of such devices around now. I'm not aware of any ever having been used. To my knowledge, there were never any discussions of American high-altitude aka nuclear EMP devices against anyone other than the former USSR. In the case of Desert Storm, it would have been plain ridiculous. Our military forces in the Persian Gulf would have been almost totally ruined, Persian Gulf oil production from Saudi Arabian south through Quatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates would have been destroyed, etc. Such discussions took place only in the wet *****s of anti-Americans, if there.
#49 from SAO at 3:24 am on Jun 08, 2005
I guess I'm more interested in what the domestic and international reaction to an EMP attack would be. What kind of retailiation be justified? By whom? The primary benefit of terrorist proxies to rogue states is the diffusion of responsibilty and thus retaliation (in ideal cases for them). Could an EMP attack function in a similiar manner? Hypthetically, say 8 years from now N Korea conducts an EMP attack against the US, claiming "preemptive self-defense," nobody is killed directly but the damage is as Gaffney suggests. I believe in this context it would be difficult for the US to retailiate with (near) ground detonationing nuclear weapons. Of course I have no idea where EMP fits into a "standard" scale of escalation, hence my question.
#50 from Raymond at 3:33 am on Jun 08, 2005
Yes, the only thing even comming close. at an angle, is our low alt carbon filament bombs that short out insulatiors at power substations, and used for the very reason that repair is cheap. Basically saying we wanted their lights out for two days not a few weeks. How nice of us ... used it on serbia remember ? Those with underground infastructure, the damage pentrating munitions make of them wont be so easy to fix. For those wanting to see what nuke and EMP resitant facilities are like, you should study the pages of the old bell microwave system, those old large horn microwave stations with their underground bunkers, that as part of their defenses included a faraday barrier of thick copper sheet.
The primary benefit of terrorist proxies to rogue states is the diffusion of responsibilty and thus retaliation (in ideal cases for them). Could an EMP attack function in a similiar manner? Hypthetically, say 8 years from now N Korea conducts an EMP attack against the US, claiming "preemptive self-defense," nobody is killed directly but the damage is as Gaffney suggests. I believe in this context it would be difficult for the US to retailiate with (near) ground detonationing nuclear weapons.SAO, I don't think you're getting the point. First, there would be many, many deaths. As many as a nuclear weapon detonated in the heart of a city. Second, military targets are (at leas |
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