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The Growing Danger of an EMP Attack
Ah, such a dangerous world. And growing so much more dangerous under this president.
As anybody who isn’t fooling themselves is aware, the Iran deal is a recipe for an Iranian Mullahbomb, albeit after either a period of 10-15 years of good behavior, or bad behavior accompanied by artful sneakiness.
President Obama himself has said that in the latter years of the agreement – even under the U.S. understanding of it, which is not the same as the Iranian understanding – the breakout time to an Iranian nuke would plummet “almost down to zero.”
Yahh, the White House tried to walk it back, but thadeezwadeesed.
I don’t know if the world is going to survive such nuclear proliferation. Neither did previous administrations, who adhered to a no-nuclear-program policy for Iran and other dangerous countries, which Obama has jettisoned.
North Korea is the exception. Both Bush and Clinton failed here, but it was at least a little more understandable. An attack on North Korea could have meant the annihilation of Seoul.
A report in a Wall Street Journal today by missile defense expert Henry Cooper and electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) attack specialist Peter Vincent Fry brought home just how dangerous letting the nuclear genie out of the lamp has become.
North Korea now has nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Intercontinental, get it? West Coast.
Although highly inaccurate, the missiles could be used for a high-altitude EMP attack over the United States in space, which is hard to miss. This would not be pretty:
An EMP strike, most likely from the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space, would destroy unprotected military and civilian electronics nationwide, blacking out the electric grid and other critical infrastructure for months or years. The staggering human cost of such a catastrophic attack is not difficult to imagine.
Get ready for Baltimore on steroids.
Iran, of course, is also working on long-range missiles.
What is your president doing to protect you against these inevitable threats? Not enough, of course. They write:
President Obama has not acted on the EMP Commission’s draft executive order to protect national infrastructure that is essential to provide for the common defense. Hardening the national electric grid would cost a few billion dollars, a trivial amount compared with the loss of electricity and lives following an EMP attack. The U.S. also should deploy one of its existing transportable radars in the Philippines to help the ground-based interceptors at California’s Vandenberg Air Force defend the country against an attack from the south.
Congress hasn’t been doing much better, but presidential leadership and commitment could perhaps overcome congressional inertia.
Congress also has failed to act on the plans of its own EMP commission to protect the electric grid and other civilian infrastructure that depends on a viable electric grid—such as communications, transportation, banking—that are essential to the economy. In recent years, the GRID Act, the Shield Act, and the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act have gained bipartisan and even unanimous support in the House, yet they died in the Senate.
With the federal government AWOL, some states are taking matters into their own hands to prepare for an attack. But the analogy the authors draw is not comforting:
When ancient Rome could no longer protect its empire from barbarians, cities tried to protect themselves by building walls. Now Washington, unable or unwilling to protect its people, is making it necessary for states to build their own defenses against the electromagnetic-pulse barbarians of the 21st century.
Rome is burning. The emperor is not just fiddling, but using his bow to baste on some kerosene. These are deadly serious matters. I fear for this country.
Source: http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2015/05/01/growing-danger-emp-attack/
