I have written several articles on the danger of any EMP attack on the United States already, but yesterday I ran across what I think is the best scientific description and analysis of the three components (E1, E2, and E3) from a nuclear EMP that I have read.
The article is, “EMP Attacks—What the U.S. Must Do Now“, by James Carafano, Ph.D. and Richard Weitz, Ph.D. What is said in this article is founded on well documented information. The article gives 48 references.
Here is the opening paragraph from this article (bold emphasis mine).
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack represents one of the greatest threats imaginable—to the United States and the world. An EMP occurs when a nuclear device is detonated high in the atmosphere—a phenomenon of which America’s enemies are well aware. The electromagnetic discharge can permanently disable the electrical systems that run nearly all civilian and military infrastructures. A massive EMP attack on the United States would produce almost unimaginable devastation. Communications would collapse, transportation would halt, and electrical power would simply be non-existent. Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine. Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is integrated with the U.S. power grid. Without the American economic engine, the world economy would quickly collapse. Much of the world’s intellectual brain power (half of it is in the United States) would be lost as well. Earth would most likely recede into the “new” Dark Ages.
That paragraph does not shock me because I have read that an EMP would be a complete national catastrophe many times before. Even so, I found information in this article that even I did not know until now. For example, I did not know that a Faraday cage or a grounding device will not protect electronic equipment from the E1 first phase of an EMP.
Apparently, the only way to protect electronic equipment from the E1 (free-field energy) pulse is if specialized technology is integrated into the equipment when the competent is manufactured. Even then the electronic device could fail if the EMP was stronger than the shield.
The article also gives a hair curling detailed analysis of what would happen in the U.S. after a successful EMP attack.
We were quite stupid to have put ourselves in such a vulnerable position where our very survival is totally dependent on electronics and the national electricity grid. It even borders on insanity and a death wish, because it was well known that both our electronics and the national grid could be taken from us in seconds by a hostile nation with nukes or even a solar CME. It seems that we allowed those that would increase our productivity to trump common sense and national security.
We know that Russia and China have the capabilities to deliver an EMP attack against the United States. Perhaps the real reason for the recent submarine missile launch off of our west coast was to show that we had no defense. Had the missile been directed toward over the U.S. and had it had a nuclear warhead on it, most of us might already be dead by now.
Americans should have received the message and demanded a response from government. However, most of our people believe the disinformation fed by our government through government controlled medias. So, most Americans still think this foreign missile launch was an airliner contrail.
The only defense we now really have against a nuclear EMP is our own nuclear response against those that might attacked us. But, our own nuclear weapons capability is aging and diminishing with every new arms reduction treaty. What we have left can still do great damage to a nation like Russia or China, but it would not totally destroy those nations. Both Russia and China are actively developing vast underground shelters for such an eventuality. They are not doing this for no reason. The facts are that after we carried out our initial retaliation, our country would have no further capabilities to continue to wage war from the homeland and to protect our cities from further attacks.
No matter what your view of who Babylon the Great is in Revelation, you should understand that an EMP could reduce a great city or a great nation to nothing in one day. And yes, the cities would burn because there would be no water or fire trucks to put out the fires and the EMP itself would start many fires. So, I would not rule out that a nuclear or solar EMP destroys Babylon the Great of Revelation.
We also better keep in mind that Iran and North Korea are also trying to develop nuclear EMP capabilities. Nor, can we totally discount an Islamic bomb from Pakistan delivered into the hands of Islamic terrorists. For these reasons alone we cannot allow North Korea and Iran to continue their nuclear weapons programs. We have no real choice but to take out those capabilities if they proceed. We also need to keep a very close eye on developments in Pakistan.
Those on the Far Left that think that Iran and North Korea are not a threat to America are a bunch of fools. Somehow, those on the Far Left think they will escape the destruction when the American system is destroyed. The reality is that they will be the first to reap their own folly in any fall of America because they disproportionally depend on government and live in the big cities. If they put us in a position where a nuclear EMP is feasible, only a small remnant are likely to even survive in the big cities.
The article goes into great detail about how an EMP would impact America, so I suggest you read that article for all the gruesome catastrophic details.
This paper also tells of four things that America needs to do to minimize the threat:
- Prevent the threat. Regardless of the mitigation and response measures, a massive EMP impact could have a devastating impact on the United States. Washington must pursue an aggressive protect-and-defend strategy, including comprehensive missile defense; modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and adopting proactive nonproliferation and counterproliferation measures, both unilaterally and in partnership with allies.
- Provide resilience. Measures must be adopted to ensure the resilience of the U.S.–Canadian electrical grid and telecommunications systems, including developing limited redundancy and identifying means for the timely replacement of essential damaged parts or their rapid substitution.
- Plan for the unthinkable. The U.S. must have robust pre-disaster planning—with practical exercises that include top officials who rehearse a wide variety of contingency scenarios—that integrates federal, state, local, private-sector, non-governmental organizations, and international support.
- Protect the capacity to communicate. The U.S. must have the means to establish assured emergency broadcast as well as interactive communications both within the U.S. and across the globe. An EMP strike can easily obliterate America’s electrical, telecommunications, transportation, financial, food, and water infrastructures, rendering the United States helpless to coordinate actions and deliver services essential for daily life. In the words of Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, EMP “is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies. The time to prepare is now.
All are easier said than done. Just providing the necessary resilience would be an enormousness effort that would take many years. I do not have any short term solution for an EMP other than maybe we should decentralize our infrastructures, build some strategic regional stockpiles, and get our politicians to get off their butts to protect our ultra high voltage transformers and generators from the E2 and E3 components of an EMP.
This can be done at reasonable cost through the installment of various safety devices. We could and should have already started on this project to protect our transformers, but Congress attached the funding for this project to some totally unrelated bill that did not pass. So, this minimal program will not even begin until our legislators quit playing games.
The long term solution for electronics might be a completely different type of computer chip. One with computing based more on light or biology rather than electrical circuits might take care of the problem. I know that these computing devices are under development, so I would expect them to start appearing in computers in 5 to 10 years. Then by 2025 most of our computing devices might no longer be vulnerable to an EMP attack.
Also, more widespread use of fiber optics will keep open communication channels. So, by 2025 an EMP probably will not be as grave a threat to computing and critical communication devices, but it still would be a grave threat to transformers and electrical generation if we still had not taken the action necessary to protect them.
Anyway, it is long overdue that we take this EMP threat quite seriously and come up with real solutions. Even if man were to somehow eliminate all nuclear weapons in the world a large solar EMP is still a regular natural occurrence. It happens about every 100 years.
So, unless people want to see “The Day the Earth Stood Still” play out in real life, they need to get their representatives working on a cure for this electronics dependency disease that America has developed.
Nevertheless, having said all that, I hope you do realize that our government has not even been following the recommendations of their own hired experts. Therefore, for the next 15 years or so, America is only one EMP attack away from complete national catastrophe.
Going back to your earlier posts, if there is an EMP, I feel it’s possible that it will be planned by ‘the elite.’ The world economy collapses and the Jews take the blame and move back to Israel for the final ‘final solution’. Who knows?! Jesus is Lord and tells me not to worry about tomorrow. Sounds OK to me.
I don’t buy it. The Western elite do not control Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Nor, do they control Islam. One of the reasons why there are great wars prophesied in the end times is that they are turf wars. The spiritual powers that rule over the kings of the North, South, East, and West will all war against each other for control. A house divided cannot stand.
Christians need not worry about tomorrow, but a American nation that is out of the will of God does.
Don-
Why do you think this hasn’t happened yet? We’re so vulnerable and it sounds like a relatively cheap way to destroy us.I can see perhaps why another nation state hasn’t tried (retaliation) but an EMP attack sounds like something terrorist groups would love to exploit.
They wouldn’t even to knock out the whole country’s grid-just a portion(the Northeast? Southeast? etc.)would cause tremendous havoc and probably precipitate some sort of collapse.
Do you agree? Or am I missing something?
Sincerely,
Chris
York County, PA
P.S. Keep up the good work!
The Soviet Union did not try to launch an EMP during the cold war because they would have been destroyed. Also, our infrastructure during the height of the cold war was not so dependent on electronics. China did not have the capability until recently and right now they would rather let the wealth of the U.S. help them develop from a third world nation to a superpower. Russia and China are only a danger now if we get in a conflict with them over something.
If terrorists had the nuclear weapon and the means and know how to launch an EMP they would. Because they have not, tells me that they do not have the capability. That could change if a nation state uses a terrorist group as a proxy to carry this out.
I agree that a regional EMP would also be a national catastrophe. At the very least it would bring massive riots, martial law and debt default. But, because there would be aid coming from other parts of the nation the blackout would be weeks rather than months or years and the death toll would mostly be limited to those killed in the riots and those in hospitals on life support. People probably would not starve to death.
Does the E1 affect items plugged in / powered on or everything in the atmospheric path? Also, I think the E1 affects mostly computer chip (IC) items, but unfortunately that is pretty much everything (appliances, particularly). Further damaging to the country, low tech / non-IC appliances are practically non-existent; The “green” and “hi-tech” influences clearly have a death wish. Since Washington won’t do anything, it’s pretty much over; Pure survival comes down to water/food/shelter/personal-security, which is short term; Medium term requires sustained food production and water delivery, which is unlikely. Thus, long term is a non-issue – if you make it that far, you get the gold star.
Seems like survival planning must be 100% electric-free.
don, this is off topic but last night i was thinking about something and i thought that you could explain it. It’s about Babylon, it is said that babylon is modern day iraq from what i remember, so it says that it will be the financial center for the antichrist and that it will be the financial center of the world. But how can that happen if iraq is like a stone age today, it is not developed or anything, so if the antichrist is to appear soon as many say, how can it be the center? The whole country needs to be rebuilt and i don’t see any huge buildings like we have in the US. It just tells me that his arrival is still in the future, and the timeline of evens doesn’t fit right.
Hi, I decided to delve in to these “reports”… I’m still going through it, but a number of statements, particularly relating to the E1 pulse and the faraday ineffectiveness did not sit right with me (as if any of this should “sit right” with anybody).
The Nov 2010 report is a bit “talking out of both sides of the mouth” sort of thing… On the one hand, it’s stating the devistating effect of the E’s (E1, 2 and 3 in succession) and then they talk about how the telecommunication network would be overloaded by cell phone users… Huh? Sorry, that’s a fallacy.
I did much more digging through the commission reports and the initial statement about faraday ineffectiveness and the focus of that statement is, and I quote — “The simulation
testing provided an opportunity to observe the interaction of the electromagnetic energy
with equipment in an operational mode.”
There’s the tell tale sign, at the end: “IN AN OPERATION MODE”; Of course. In other words, it’s plugged in. Note – having things plugged in and turned off is not enough.
I’m still on the belief that things that are unconnected and sealed (e.g., foil wrapped), if not also grounded (a la copper down rod, et al) – will likely be protected. I understand static shock (both E1 and E2 aspects), but static shock going through a fully sealed encapsulation is questionable;
I plan to keep reading as much scientific / technical evidence I can, but, regardless, I think a pure survival strategy must go on the assumption of a complete lack of electrical support whatsoever; Thus, any electrical capability should be considered “icing on the cake”;
Note – solar power is futile if not completely worthless; About the best it can do is extremely low watt activity; I have been experimenting with a 205W brand new / state of the art panel and I can tell you first hand that solar power is futile at best.
Hi, Not to belabor, but here is another quote from the “big report”:
While their critical electronic elements are usually contained
within some sort of metallic box, the enclosures’ service as a protective Faraday
cage is inadequate. Such metallic containers are designed only to provide protection from
the weather and a modicum of physical security. They are not designed to protect the
electronics from high-energy electromagnetic pulses, which may infiltrate either from the
free field or from the many antennae (cable connections) that compromise electromagnetic
integrity.
So, in other words, the Faraday scenario they are referring to is not only “plugged in” / “connected”, but also allowing for ‘free field’;
The foil wrapped encapsulation, on the other hand, is neither… It’s not plugged in / connected (other than a possible ground — literally, as in copper pole in the earth), and the foil blocks the ‘free field’ (literally). Of course, it must be sealed. Might even try a double wrapping.
Now maybe an argument would be made about strength… but the E’s are essentially “static”;
I just needed to get to the bottom of what they were inferring and there doesn’t appear to be anything I see that invalidates some of the seal/ensapsulation techniques (hey, foil and duct tape are cheap);
Speaking of cheap – the commission reports numerously state that hardening et al is a modest investment cost; Deep breath. Washington is on the verge of collapse of it’s big control bent if it doesn’t stand up and stand up NOW (the reports pretty much hint at this, using the Haiti example).
Bob, your right it is off topic and I do not want to take that rabbit trail here. My views on Babylon are in the following article.
http://www.thepropheticyears.com/reasons/babylon.htm
Creig, keep researching if it is important to you. It could be that they are wrong about some things. Also, don’t assume the congressional commission report has it all correct either.
There are all kinds of variables because nobody knows what the strength and extent of the EMP would be. A lot depends on the weapon(s) placement, the sophistication, the initial strength, the distance that your are located from the EMP and atmospheric and earth surface conditions. Also there are various natural degrees of hardening against a spike in any device.
I think they were assuming that all equipment would not be destroyed but what would survive would be overwhelmed by overuse.
Hi, Yes, the bulk of the report is focused on the big picture… there is not much on “personal survival”… Frankly, I don’t see much about “personal survival” and EMP – from a science standpoint; The 208 page report has an EMP simulation environment … it’s outdoors (they have pictures). Interestingly, they fired at a SCADA/PLC and they deemed it a failure, but here’s where it gets interesting… “one port was dead, one port was degraded and one port was working”… Hmmmm… So, I consider that to be a fair amount of success, frankly. I would have though the unit would be completely dead. Now, from the picture, you can see that they have lines and they are firing directly at the devices, albeit through various building enclosures;
There are several items of concern to me et al:
A. short term survival without power, where short term could be 1 year
B. the return of power – let’s call this the medium term.
So, when B). above comes around, what’s working and what’s dead? In my mind, I’m thinking you have what you have; You won’t be able to get any more of anything, at least without GOV/state voucher et al. Or you have political influence to get things; Much black market of course;
Everything comes down, in my opinion, to what possessions you have at hand and what you can make work; Appliances and vehicles are paramount at that point;
As for A)., it should be clear that it all comes down to what you possess and can make work while there is no power. Water and food and shelter – pure and simple.
Chime in… I still feel that Don made a quintessential statement: “we’re in autumn/fall and winter is around the corner”… So, to me, it’s now or never to get your act together. I’m even scheduling a roof job next April.
Take care
can you imagine how crazy the world would get if the USA could not doing anything for a couple years? we would probably have to withdraw our troops from the middle east as well as from other parts of the world where they are stationed to deal with the chaos at home. i can easily see china taking over Taiwan. then north Korea starting war with the south. Iran and Syria would probably do something stupid like attack israel followed by Russia trying to gain more control of its smaller neighbors. the list just goes on.
Hi, thought I’d throw one more monkey wrench out there… The E1 will damage / disable the various surge protectors, and then a moment later the E2 destroys the equipment that would have otherwise been protected by the surge protectors; So, even if you have non-digital appliances, they would otherwise be destroyed. Now, I am putting surge protectors on various things – after all, all of this is speculation. As Don points out, the variables and variances are great.
The reports also make it clear that inaction by Washington invites the adversaries. I figure, sort of like Art Model moving The Browns moving to Baltimore just as the big-$$$ door is about to close, this will be attempted.
Even the mitigation strategies are to avert the worst case only.
And as Jim points out, the world will get very crazy.
After reading more on the E1 + E2, I decided I should probably make the minor investment of getting surge suppressors for various appliances, that I could (washer, fridge, freezer). The “tab” style are rather convenient; I got a couple ACE ones (ACE brand, cheaper), and I also got a couple while I was near Best Buy (“Monster”, about double the price of the ACE ones, for about the same protection – 1080 joules).
Now, the “Monster” ones spout “dual mode”, meaning protection against “secondary” surges. That might handle the E2. The ACE ones have a different feature – they simply shut off / shut down after the first surge (e.g., the E1). I think the ACE one might be better (albeit, the instruction guide says “replace”… fine by me, in that they did their job, for less than half the price of the “Monster”).
Who knows for sure, of course.
As for the 240 VAC stuff (e.g., dryer, stove, heating/ac), I have not seen anything cheap, short of “hardening” your fuse box. Which I might entertain. Again, EMP or other catastrophe, things are likely going to come down to what you have in your possession.
Sounds to me like your spending a lot of money for nothing. If the electricity is out all those appliances are not doing to do you any good.
My electric company will put a whole house surge protector on at your meter for less than $10 a month. We have one installed because we were getting a lot spikes because we are at the end of a line. They guarantee replacing any appliances within the house if it hereafter dies from a surge.
Don,
I have read many of your articles and just love your site. I have gotten so much insightful information that I have been able to pass along to my friends and family. Thank you. This is the first time I have ever commented on any site online….I have been wondering what you think would happen to children and schooling if there should be an EMP attack? I homeschool my children in a liberal, progressive state in the Northeast. Do you think states would still require children to be enrolled in school after such a crisis? I sure hope there would be less regulations, but I am not sure what would happen.
I would think that they would have a school holiday for the duration, but Each state and locality might be entirely different. Thanks for checking in Jen
Don,
An EMP would be devastating to our country. But I think the if another country EMP’s us, then we will EMP them (M.A.D. with EMP’s). If a terrorist does it, we’ll just figure out which nation sponsored them and then EMP that nation. I hope our Defense Department and CIA are on top of this! I think I’ll hang on to my old car (no electronic ignition).
That would not be an appropriate response it would not be M.A.D. because other countries are not dependent on a huge national grid like we are and they are not dependent on a high tech electronic infrastructure like we are.
An EMP on someone like Iran or N Korea would have little impact on the leadership and their day-to-day infrastructure. Russia and China would have more problems but they are much more survival to an EMP than we are.
If we know of a nation that caused an EMP and it resulted in the death of 10 to 250 million Americans the response of our military would be the destruction of that nation. That would occur with or without the blessings of a CONUS civilian command structure that might not even be functional. That is one reason why we have subs with nuclear missiles and alternate command posts.
An EMP is deff the scariest thing to think about. I’m not a professional about EMP because I haven’t know about them for that long, but I have done some research on them and I’ve listened to some radio shows on the internet about different stuff that has to do with an EMP and it is really informational. If you guys want the link this is it:http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ — I just really felt like I should share this link with you guys because you’ve got a really great conversation going and I wanted to let you in on this blog. This radio blog is every Wednesday and they usually have a guest on it talking about stuff that has to do with EMP. This Wednesday Tom Popik is going to be on it. He’s a principal author of a petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hope this information is helpful:) !