Electromagnetic Pulse Attack

starlight777

starlight777

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Sep 12, 2013
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Electromagnetic Pulse Attack
http://www.heritage.org/issues/missile-defense/electromagnetic-pulse-attack


An EMP is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by the rapid acceleration of charged particles. An EMP attack has the potential to decimate America’s electrical and technological infrastructure, effectively sending the U.S. back to the 19th Century. As society grows more reliant on electronic devices, so its vulnerability to an EMP attack.
 
Before the Lights Go Out: A Survey of EMP Preparedness Reveals Significant Shortfalls
http://www.heritage.org/research/re...p-preparedness-reveals-significant-shortfalls
Abstract: An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) over the United States could end modern life in America overnight. Whether caused by an enemy attack (a nuclear device detonated above the atmosphere) or by a natural phenomenon (a geomagnetic storm), an EMP can cause entire regions of the country to lose electricity—permanently. Despite the EMP Commission’s recommendations in 2004 and 2008, hardly any progress has been made in protecting the country from an EMP attack and its catastrophic results. The U.S. must prepare to deal with an EMP—now.
While the ability of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to inflict catastrophic damage on U.S. infrastructure has been a known fact for decades, insufficient efforts have been taken to mitigate the threat. A survey of congressional, federal, state, local, and international measures to deal with the threat reveals more complacency than action.
 
The Growing Threat From an EMP Attack
A nuclear device detonated above the U.S. could kill millions, and we've done almost nothing to prepare.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/jame...-growing-threat-from-an-emp-attack-1407885281


In a recent letter to investors, billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Singer warned that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, is "the most significant threat" to the U.S. and our allies in the world. He's right. Our food and water supplies, communications, banking, hospitals, law enforcement, etc., all depend on the electric grid. Yet until recently little attention has been paid to the ease of generating EMPs by detonating a nuclear weapon in orbit above the U.S., and thus bringing our civilization to a cold, dark halt.

Recent declassification of EMP studies by the U.S. government has begun to draw attention to this dire threat. Rogue nations such as North Korea (and possibly Iran) will soon match Russia and China and have the primary ingredients for an EMP attack: simple ballistic missiles such as Scuds that could be launched from a freighter near our shores; space-launch vehicles able to loft low-earth-orbit satellites; and simple low-yield nuclear weapons that can generate gamma rays and fireballs.

The much neglected 2004 and 2008 reports by the congressional EMP Commission—only now garnering increased public attention—warn that "terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or a military base, they may gain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack."

The EMP Commission reports that: "China and Russia have considered limited nuclear-attack options that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack." The report further warns that: "designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century."

 
What would a successful EMP attack look like? The EMP Commission, in 2008, estimated that within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown.


What is lacking in Washington is a sense of urgency. Lawmakers and the administration need to move rapidly to build resilience into our electric grid and defend against an EMP attack that could deliver a devastating blow to the U.S. economy and the American people. Congress should pass and the president should sign into law the Shield Act and CIPA as soon as possible. Literally millions of American lives could depend on it.
 
understand if this happens it would years, years before it could be fixed

When the lights go out forever…
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/13/when-the-lights-go-out-forever/comment-page-1/
It would come with almost no warning. Without any immediate signs as to why, the lights go out, cars stop dead, telephones cease to function, everything with a microchip in it fails, and most of it all never works again.

In the wake of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States, part or all of the country is thrust back into the 1860s but with 10 times the population. The threat is real, it is pressing, and the United States is doing little to address it.
It strikes many Americans as a fanciful prospect, almost cheesy apocalypse porn, to suggest that something as simple as the destruction of the nation’s power grid could thrust the United States into the dark ages. But those who have investigated this prospect are not rolling their eyes to the threat as are so many of the country’s sophisticates.

In The Wall Street Journal opinion pages on Wednesday, former CIA director James Woolsey and CIA veteran and congressional EMP Commission member Peter Vincent Pry warn of the threat posed by an EMP attack on the United States.

Recent declassification of EMP studies by the U.S. government has begun to draw attention to this dire threat. Rogue nations such as North Korea (and possibly Iran) will soon match Russia and China and have the primary ingredients for an EMP attack: simple ballistic missiles such as Scuds that could be launched from a freighter near our shores; space-launch vehicles able to loft low-earth-orbit satellites; and simple low-yield nuclear weapons that can generate gamma rays and fireballs.


“What would a successful EMP attack look like?” they ask. “The EMP Commission, in 2008, estimated that within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown.”
This is a rather antiseptic way of phrasing at the die out which would accompany an EMP attack. Those deaths occur in the immediate wake of this attack due to starvation, thirst, lack of medical care and viable pharmaceuticals, exposure, and mass violence. In the ensuing months, with governmental services having broken down entirely, fiefdoms arise. Conflict over scarce resources becomes commonplace. The globe, faced with the almost immediate withdrawal of American military power, descends into war as competing powers rush to fill the vacuum.
 
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