Do I Really Have To Worry About EMP?
An electromagentic pulse, or EMP, is a split-second burst of energy that occurs when a nuclear device is detonated high in the atmosphere. A Department of Homeland Security
disaster guide for the public explains an EMP “acts like a stroke of lightning but is stronger, faster and shorter.”
Pretty serious stuff, and I’m not denying it’s impact. My question is… where on my worry chart should this threat be placed? And, I’ll admit, the fact that Gingrich and Huckabee are headlining a September EMPACT conference doesn’t inspire confidence.
“I’ve believed for a long time that EMP may be the greatest strategic threat we face,” Gingrich said in a taped message to air at the conference, “because without adequate preparation its impact could be so horrifying that we would, in fact, basically lose our civilization in a matter of seconds.”
I’m all for preparedness, but it seems my idea of preparedness (making electronic equipment and electrical components resistant to EMP and keeping adequate spare parts on hand, and in the proper location, to enable prompt repairs to be made.) and Newt’s differ greatly. (Notice his use of the word horrifying again.)
“It’s based on fact, it is accurate, and it’s horrifying, and we have zero national strategy to respond to it today,” Gingrich said. He laid out a vision in which three small nuclear weapons detonated at the right altitude would eliminate all electricity production in the United States. Which is why, he concluded, “I favor taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites. ” [emphasis mine]
I’m seeing an agenda. I’m also getting a strong sense of déjà vu, a sort of “the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud” moment.
Tags: EMPACT, Huckabee, Newt Gingrich
liberbill’s comment was redacted due to possible copyright infringement issues.
– nemski
Newt’s comments are absolutely correct.
I attended a bipartisan Capitol Hill briefing in June on Missle and Strategic Defense. The possibility and impacts of an EMP attack were discussed.
An EMP attack will render all electronic devices and communications useless. An EMP attack does not necessarily have to come in the form of a attack from a missile or other lethal weapon. It may conme from debris in space that penetrate our atmosphere.
I encourage everyone to read the non-fiction novel, ONE SECOND AFTER by WILLIAM R. FORSTCHEN.
But dude,it must be important! Newt read it in a sci-fi novel once! They don’t let you put things in fictional novels unless they’re really important. Which reminds me….I have to go look up Stephen King’s number. My car has been acting a little funny lately…..
Newt Gingrich sees the greatest strategic threat in whatever his donors pay him to see.
I can’t search right now, but I bet you could find this rhetoric from some other fearmonger in the 50’s or 60’s and from a Reagan-sanctioned fearmonger in the 80’s.
So it is repeats — a variation of the Commies will nuke us argument designed to funnel more funds into Defense budgets that will spend money on more bombs and planes.
And do take note — Newtie’s threat doesn’t come with a price tag to “fix” the problem.
I encourage everyone to read the non-fiction novel, ONE SECOND AFTER by WILLIAM R. FORSTCHEN.
Non-fiction? Are you kidding me?
Publishers Weekly:
In this entertaining apocalyptic thriller from Forstchen (We Look Like Men of War), a high-altitude nuclear bomb of uncertain origin explodes, unleashing a deadly electromagnetic pulse that instantly disables almost every electrical device in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Airplanes, most cars, cellphones, refrigerators—all are fried as the country plunges into literal and metaphoric darkness. History professor John Matherson, who lives with his two daughters in a small North Carolina town, soon figures out what has happened. Aided by local officials, Matherson begins to deal with such long-term effects of the disaster as starvation, disease and roving gangs of barbarians. While the material sometimes threatens to veer into jingoism, and heartstrings are tugged a little too vigorously, fans of such classics as Alas, Babylon and On the Beachwill have a good time as Forstchen tackles the obvious and some not-so-obvious questions the apocalypse tends to raise.
Newt’s comments are absolutely correct.
Which comments? His acknowledgment that an EMP attack would be devastating, or his conclusion that therefore we should pre-EMPtively attack NK and Iran?
Because, you know, one can agree to one without agreeing to the other.
Remember, Jason believes that Mike Protack is a future office holder also. Clearly, the line between fiction and non-fiction is blurred for him.
I’m sure Newt thinks spending money to get Americans health care is just too much. I’m sure he supports spending untold trillions on protecting us from EMPs by launching a couple more pre-emptive wars.
anon is right. Being enslaved by our Alien Overlords would suck, too, but it doesn’t mean we should start randomly blowing up planets. Yes, an EMP attack would be bad, but there are about 500 more likely scenarios for us to worry about, starting with global climate change.
Let’s see what the Newties have to say about actually dealing with the threat. I suspect it will be “Trillions for foreign aggression, not one penny for EMP hardening at home (or manufacturer mandates).
Actually EMP hardening is somewhat at odds with energy efficiency; as circutry gets smaller and more efficient it becomes more vulnerable to radiation.
EMP knockouts don’t have to come from nukes; less drastic EMP events affect electronics all the time with solar flares and electrical storms.
EMP is the greatest strategic threat we face?
Really? Really? Not our dependence on foreign oil?
Jason
Not sure what briefing you attended, but 90% of the material being spread about EMP attacks is alarmist rather than factual. Yes, it actually describes what would happen in a massive EMP surge, but the problem is that everybody who discusses it ignores several salient facts:
1) This is a model-based rather than reality-based conversation. Such a surge has never been produced nor its propagation studied in a high-altitude nuclear detonation because–thankfully–there haven’t been any to study. There are a lot of reasons to believe there is a necessary threshold of explosive power to detonate a widely propagating EMP surge, and we don’t know what it is.
2) William R. Fortschen is a mediocre to good science fiction/alternative history novelist who is also often Newt Gingrich’s fictional ghost-writer. The scenarios presented in one second after are highly speculative and not supported by most physicists; they are about as truthful as the scenes in movies about asteroid impacts. The novel in question was written specifically as a polemic to support Newt’s political position.
3) Even if you assume that our propagation and intensity models are correct out of the box (they almost never are), the only EMP tests that have ever been run have involved much larger surges than a North Korean nuke is likely to produce. Most of the doomsday scenarios have not examined the question of the effectiveness of “accidental and incidental shielding” which was the subject of a technical paper at a conference I recently attended. This suggests that, even if such surges are actuall propagated as advertised, as much as 30-40% of our infrastructure will be significantly shielded.
EMP is a significant issue, but the largest issue is the potential loss of unsaved data and damage in the immediate area beneath a tactical yield nuclear weapon. There are studies (some of which are no being de-classified) that show our own research into a potential EMP first-strike against our own enemies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and–admittedly with the primitive nature of Soviet electronics being a factor–we gave it up as to difficult to do and unreliable in its predictable outcome.
So Newt’s position reflects more, IMO, a political wedge issue than a legitimate strategic position.
This subject was covered last month on NPR, and the cost to make our entire electronic infrastructure (both defense and civilian) impervious was around $250 million, if I’m remembering correctly. And it would create work for Americans.
The Republicans stripped it out of the stimulus bill.
They’d rather go bomb something than take the easy fix.
(By the way, bombing Iran and North Korea won’t take away the threat. A small device can be made by a terrorist; it doesn’t take a nation. According to scientists, a small detonation within the US in a major city could wipe out major sections of our electrical grid without killing a single US citizen. And the grid would be out for up to three years.)
Wish I had a link to the NPR stuff — it was quite good. And it wasn’t from a fictional novel.
Actually PM, creating a widespread EMP effect requires a high-altitude blast, which requires missile technology as well as a nuke. Nuking a city would be bad enough but the effects would be mostly confined to that city.
In all seriousness, there is one part of the EMP discussion that should be kept in mind. The most likely source of an EMP “attack” is the sun. Abnormally high solar activity can and has affected systems in space and here on Earth. That should, and does, get attention from real experts. What Newt is doing is like worrying about a full scale firebombing of the US by Al-Qaeda, when we should be worried about forest fires.
This is the answer to the charge that a piddling nation like NK or Iran getting a bomb doesn’t constitute an existential threat to the US. It still doesn’t, of course, as neither could mount a follow-up invasion or anything.
You’d have to be comatose to overlook the Freudian overtones here.
We must attack the Sun!
Is this what you were looking for, PM?
Steve,
For the record, I attended a briefing with the Institute of Foriegn Policy Analysis. Here is the their white paper: http://www.ifpa.org/pdf/IWG2009.pdf
It is at this event where an EMP attack was discussed by members of our national military and federal elected officials.
An EMP is absolutely a strategic defense issue. Practically nothing today is not conducted without the aid of electronics or technology.
Money and currency is transitted globally over computer networks. Our hospitals leverage technology for diagnostics and keeping patients alive. Our energy and transportation infrastructure are controlled by computers.
An EMP attack will resemble the paralysis of our infrastructure comparable to the 2003 Northeast Blackout. Only it will not come back.
For your education:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/An-EMP-attack_-Thinking-the-unthinkable-8016721-51601427.html
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32480
I agree, anon. The sun is a threat. We can’t be too careful.
We must attack the Sun!
I guarantee if the Neocons thought they could get defense contracts out of it, they’d try. I can already see Bill Kristol writing a scathing rebuke of the sun, telling us all that it is “The Greatest Threat Our Country Has Ever Faced.”
It starts out…
“The sun is responsible for much death and disease, including cancer and heat exhaustion. How many people have been blinded by the sun? And what’s with not being able to look directly at the Sun, does the Sun think it’s God or something?”
Jason
Unfortunately, all the technical papers I could send you to [as opposed to the Washington Examiner or Human Events] are either still in paper-only format or are in gated sites.
They differ significantly with you on what is known about generation, propagation, and consequences of an EMP pulse.
Nor is the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis exactly an unbiased source.
And O’Neill provides as “education” an editorial from a 3rd rank wingnut paper and a story from wingnut central.
The science fiction recommendation was the better one, you know.
Cassandra,
That is because the winguts care about defending our country. Liberals do not.
Pandora — Yes! Thank you. It makes for good reading…and it does say in the lede that it wouldn’t require “killing people”, but that might be a reference to the sun’s involvement in all of this.
Anon — Here’s the quote:
“Rep. BARTLETT: Well, no, we’re worried about terrorists too, because any nuclear weapon, even a small, crude one and a Scud launcher, which they can buy for about $100,000, and any Tramp steamer, and they can launch this weapon.
“They couldn’t shut down the whole country. They couldn’t get that far with a Scud, but they could shut down all of New England, which would be Katrina at least 10 times over. ”
It doesn’t sound to me like it needs a high altitude blast or a major country’s support for the technology.
JO: I suggest you defend the country personally. In Afghanistan.
Given who (and how) is responding in defense of EMPACT… I’m not upping the threat level on my “worry chart.” Which isn’t to say this shouldn’t be a concern. It is to say – that Republicans seem addicted to fear. It really is all they have.
J.O. – Bite me.
Well no — wingnuts care about being scared of something and transferring as much money to Halliburton and Lockheed as possible. Iraq had nothing to do with defending this country.
Nothing.
And you don’t even want to pay for your wars.
You were better off on the scifi defense.
Jason O’Neill supports Protack. ‘Nuff said.
Although… I do love UI’s response to J.O.’s faux patriotism – the standard wingnut response whenever they’ve lost an argument.
Think how many of our records are now paperless, stored electronically only; we’re not sure yet whether stored but inactive electronic records would survive, or to what extent they’d be damaged. How would you know how much you, or anyone else, had in his bank accounts?
On top of that, a tremendous amount of our business is now conducted electronically, and that would all come to a standstill until the systems could be restored.
A major EMP attack would be the equivalent of returning our country to 1950s technology, but lacking a great deal of the documentation which supported our economy in the fifties.
Didn’t we do this for Y2K?
Then perhaps, Dana, our time and money would be better spent developing technology that protected our, um, technology, instead of launching into attacks on other countries. Why is the first choice of Republicans always war?
Isn’t 12/21/2012 a more imminent threat? 😉
BTW, the handle today is in honor of our recently-established defense plan against that agent of terror, the Sun. El Sol es El Diablo!!!
The oppressed population of the Sun will greet us with flowers and dancing. It will be a cakewalk – we’ll attack at night.
LOL! You’re having too much fun with this, anon! But your points are valid.
Why is the first choice of Republicans always war?
Careful, pandora, vis a vis Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Colombia and several other locations the current administration isn’t looking a whole lot better on the issue of military interventionism…..
If “a nuclear device is detonated high in the atmosphere”, do you care if the EMP kills you, before the shock wave does?
Delacrat – the shock wave won’t reach you, and the EMP wave won’t hurt you. It will only hurt your electronics. By definition a blast that is low enough to directly hurt you will not distribute EMP effects very far.
I hate to be the wet blanket here, but I heard from a guy who heard from a guy who heard from a guy, that it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to attack the sun because the Constitution doesn’t specifically give the Congress that power. Therefore, only the STATES individually could attack. Florida would never go along — they’re The Sunshine State for Crissakes.
You’re either with us or against us, Florida!
Smitty, good point. We’ll also have to declare war on the Mayan calendar.
Given Jason O’Neill and Dana’s response, should not talking points now be call thinking points?
EMP is a valid concern, here is one from South Korea. The Russians also have pursued this option.
Your hatred for Gingrich shows your immaturity towards a significant issue.
from http://www.stratfor.com
South Korea: EMP Threat Factored Into Defense Plans
June 24, 2009 | 0942 GMT
South Korea is moving to protect “major defense facilities” against the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from North Korea, Yonhap reported June 24, citing a source. An EMP, which is generated by a nuclear explosion, could paralyze South Korea’s high-tech weapons systems, depending on the strength or altitude of the blast. Seoul reportedly is planning improvements to defense systems out of concern that Pyongyang might detonate a nuclear device with a disabling EMP ahead of other types of “aggression.”
Mike Protack
Okay, given Jason O’Neill, Dana and Mike Protack’s response should talking points now be called thinking points?
Seriously, to non-thinkers out there, Gingrich said “EMP may be the greatest strategic threat we face.” Aren’t their other issues that “may be the greatest strategic threat we face.” Come on, this thinking exercise is not that difficult.
But Mike, what I think we all want to know is, what do the CBO and the Mayo Clinic think about EMPs?
“So Newt’s position reflects more, IMO, a political wedge issue than a legitimate strategic position.”
NO, REALLY? YA THINK? 😉
And Protack noticed that the primary target of an EMP would be South Korea, not America, and that South Korea is already doing something about it. But that’s not how Newt and the noisemongers spin it, of course. Nor do they advocate for further nuclear disarmament talks with Russia. INTERESTING.
This fits the mold perfectly. Find something that nobody understands and is very complicated. EMPs, or health care reform, of even how America could elect an African American president. Then spread the fear — lots and lots of fear. Wait for all the dim bulbs to go crazy and presto – the Republicans win again. Read Naomi Klein.
Where’s Evan to round out the local douche patrol? Oh, yeah, he got himself banned.
Yes, nemski is right. In all seriousness, the science behind the EMP threat is sound. I don’t dispute that. What I do disagree with is how imminent and realistic a threat it is. It just serves as an excellent example of how some on the right will take a minor fringe issue and make it The Biggest Thing Around.
The ironic thing, is that I enjoy sci-fi and alternate history books, and I have a feeling I might actually like Newt’s buddy’s book. But I’m not ready to build our national defense around it.
The biggest threat to our nation is ignorance (Thanks No Child Left Behind) and stupidity.
Mr. Shallow Bench’s reference also says that South Korea is shoring up its “major defense facilities” from EMP threats — looking to protect their ability to fight back, not in preserving their ability to do on-line banking.
Rebecca, are you criticising Ted Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind Legislation?!? Have you no shame? He isn’t even in the ground yet.
Rebecca is just following the Wellstone model…he wasn’t in the ground either.
So I guess you disagree with the editors here who are already pushing govt controlled malhealthcare in Teddy’s name? Have they no shame?
You must tell us one day, Tom, what it feels like to be so painfully ignorant and so painfully gullible to what your radio handlers tell you to say.
We still won’t give a damn, but we’d enjoy another opportunity to point and laugh at you though.
now cassy, he didn’t need a radio to read pandy’s comment that Kennedycare would be a fitting tribute.
Tom, Actually I was mocking rebecca for not knowing who authored No Child Left Behind.
This makes sense is you realize that when Newt says “(We would)lose our civilization in a matter of seconds” he means, “(I would) lose my bowel control in a matter of seconds.”
How come WINGNUTS is not an option on the Poll?
Give it up, anoni. Didn’t you guys get in trouble with Nancy and Ron Reagan Jr. for using Ronald Reagan to justify the Iraq War?
“I would observe that my father never felt the need to wrap himself in anybody else’s mantle. He never felt the need to pretend to be anybody else. . . .
“This is their administration. This is their war. If they can’t stand on their own two feet, well, they’re no Ronald Reagans, that’s for sure,” he (Ron Reagan Jr.)fumed.
At least we know where Kennedy stood on health care.
Our nation and world’s greatest strategic threat is ignorance.
Our nation and world’s greatest strategic threat is ignorance.
Right. So, let’s not bury our heads in the sand. The simple fact is, historically, nation-states are in a never-ending search for new ways to alter the course of history, in their own perceived interest; from the catapult, to the bow and arrow, gun, aircraft carrier and atomic bomb. Rest assured, the Russians and Chinese (financed by U.S. debt) are developing new military technologies, as, hopefully, are we. Since the modern military relies heavily on computers, it stands to reason that EMP devices are being developed.
Nations that ignore the IMP threat do so at their own peril. Technology changes, but man doesn’t (see An Essay on Man by Pope, or any of Horace’s Episodes).
‘Hope and change,’ aka wishing, is not a viable defense.
Here’s that NPR link previously mentioned…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111889490