But EMP experts warn that adversaries could launch directed EMP attacks and cause wide-spread electrical outages; hospitals, traffic lights, gas stations, grocery stores, cell phone towers, all would be affected.
President Trump signed an Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Threats this past March that places the White House in charge of implementing actions to manage the risks of EMPs.
So, what’s the real national security risk posed by EMPs and why should the U.S. government be paying more attention?
Background:
- An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is an intense pulse of electromagnetic radiation that is caused by a rapid acceleration and separation of positively and negatively charged particles in the atmosphere, which creates an electric field.
- Early in the nuclear era, weapons testers discovered that nuclear explosions also cause EMPs—or what they referred to as a “radio flash”—as a result of gamma radiation colliding with air molecules. They also discovered that EMPs rendered scientific and electronic instruments inoperable.
- In the early 1960s, the U.S. recognized the vulnerability of military equipment to EMPs. In 1962, the U.S. detonated a 1.4-megaton nuclear bomb 240 miles over the Pacific. The resulting EMP knocked out street lights and telephone communications in Hawaii, more than 900 miles away.
- The destructiveness of an EMP depends on the altitude of the detonation and the amount of gamma radiation emitted. The higher the explosion, the stronger the EMP and the larger the area affected. Strong EMPs can neutralize power grids, phone lines, electronics, and weapons systems by causing their circuits to crash.
- China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are developing the capability to launch EMP attacks from space, most likely against the United States. The countries likely view EMP attacks as a relatively easy method of inflicting mass destruction on an enemy but without resulting in the immediate loss of life that would be caused by a blast or radiation.
- China’s EMP capabilities have received significant funding increases under President Xi Jinping, and China even has developed “super EMP” warheads. If detonated 20 to 250 miles above the United States, the destruction could radiate 375 to 1,380 miles.
- Since 1995, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an Electromagnetic Pulse Attack has warned Congress of the potentially catastrophic effects of an EMP attack. According to the Commission, a powerful EMP attack could destroy the U.S. power grid and prevent critical infrastructure from operating, which could leave 90% of the population on the east coast dead within a year of the attack.
- The United States does not have protections in place to defend against an EMP attack, and the Commission’s suggestions were not completed before it disbanded in 2017.
- Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Gary Peters (D-Michigan) in February 2019 held a hearing called Perspectives on Protecting the Electric Grid from an Electromagnetic Pulse or Geomagnetic Disturbance.
- The U.S. Air Force has been studying the issue of EMPs for years and has launched the S. Air Force’s Electromagnetic Defense Task Force which has a mandate to develop ‘leading-edge thought on the challenges and opportunities arising within this domain.’
The Cipher Brief spoke with Admiral James ‘Sandy’ Winnefeld (Ret.), and former Chief of Staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, to get their take on the nature of the threat and just how seriously we should be taking it.
Admiral Winnefeld (Ret.) served for 37 years in the United States Navy, retiring in 2015 after serving four years as the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States’ number two ranking military officer.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry served on the Congressional EMP Commission as chief of staff, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and in the CIA. He is author of Blackout Wars: State Initiatives to Achieve Preparedness Against an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Catastrophe
THE EMP THREAT
"EMP can be viewed as simply another form of directed energy, except that it's largely "undirected" as an "area" weapon” says Winnefeld. “The threat of EMP is not taken seriously by many Americans: most are simply not aware of it, and many (if not most) of the remainder view it as something spooky, thinking if it can't reach out and touch you physically, then it must not be real. Thus, like the threat of terrorism at the turn of the century, it will probably require some type of event as a wake-up call, which will be followed by a host of recriminations as to why the threat was not addressed sooner.”
Admiral Sandy Winnefeld (Ret.), Former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
“At the height of the Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un tensions in 2017, many experts dismissed the North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile threat as unrealistic because that nation had not yet successfully tested a re-entry vehicle. However, an EMP event does not require a re-entry vehicle, as the weapon is detonated at high altitude, and it doesn't require a highly accurate delivery. Moreover, the North Koreans hinted at an EMP capability in the midst of the crisis. The EMP threat gained some public exposure at the time, but mostly outside the mainstream media.”
“There is bona-fide controversy over how effective such a weapon would be, partly because of unverified science and partly because North Korean weapons may be too small to cause widespread effects,” says Winnefeld. “However, other threat actors like Russia, could use more effective, larger EMP weapons in a preemptive strike intended to closely control the escalation ladder. For example, a single launch from Russia could be interpreted by the U.S. system as a mistake, and not evoke a massive, immediate response. However, if that one shot is a large EMP weapon, it could be a coup de grace. It makes sense to take the threat seriously.”
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Former Chief of Staff, EMP Commission
“Not only is Russia a viable threat, they clearly included EMP use in their doctrine and in their military writings. They built a whole new way of war around the combination of EMP and cyberattacks. And their official military textbooks talk about it. There's even an Iranian textbook - even though they're not supposed to have nuclear weapons - but there's an Iranian textbook called Passive Defense that talks about using nuclear EMP attacks in combination with cyberattacks against the United States to achieve a swift and decisive victory by attacking our vulnerable Achilles heel.”
“Our high- tech modern capabilities are all electrical, I mean directly or indirectly, everything depends on electricity. Food, water, transportation, communications, everything. That's what keeps 325 million people alive,” says Pry who served as chief of staff to the Congressional EMP Commission. “We thought very hard for 17 years about how to keep 325 million people alive for a year with no food or water. We only have enough food to feed our population for 30 days, and it will begin to spoil in 72 hours when the emergency generators run out of gas, keep the temperature, control systems and the refrigerators systems. There you are. It's a high-tech way of killing people the old-fashioned way.”
Looking Ahead:
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry , Former Chief of Staff, EMP Commission
“The President’s Executive Order is putting this on a lightning fast kind of a timeline that could, if people do their jobs, achieve very significant preparedness against this threat within a few years.”
Admiral Sandy Winnefeld (Ret.), Former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
“Being prepared for this threat will require a gradual but concerted effort to modernize and secure our electrical grid, provide more EMP protections for critical computer systems, and continue developing and fielding limited ballistic missile defenses capable of intercepting a threat before it arrives at a location to deliver EMP effects.”
Read also North Korea EMP Attack: An Existential Threat Today and more national security news, analysis and perspective in The Cipher Brief
