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 The National Republican Party added this statement to its Platform in 2016: “A single nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over this country would collapse our electrical grid and other critical infrastructures and endanger the lives of millions. With North Korea in possession of nuclear missiles and Iran close to having them, an EMP is no longer a theoretical concern — it is a real threat. Moreover, China and Russia include sabotage as part of their warfare planning. Nonetheless, hundreds of electrical utilities in the United States have not acted to protect themselves from EMP, and they cannot be expected to do so voluntarily since homeland security is a government responsibility. The President, the Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the States, the utilities, and the private sector should work together on an urgent basis to enact Republican legislation, pending in both chambers, to protect the national grid and encourage states to take the initiative to protect their own grids expeditiously.” We live in a world where technology is crucial for our survival. Most of our everyday activities, from flipping a switch to make the lights come on - to obtaining our food, depend on technology developed over the years. Advanced technology has resulted in invisible infrastructures that make our lives easier and our lifestyles more comfortable. So…What if I told you that in a matter of minutes, one event could simultaneously damage transportation systems…industry and manufacturing…telecommunications and computers… banking and finance…and the infrastructures for food and water throughout the US... Given this event, virtually all 1,000+ Jetliners in the skies over the U.S at any given time… carrying about 500,000 passengers…would crash. That…Satellite navigation and communication systems would be knocked out…as would ground and air traffic control systems…necessitating any surviving aircraft land "blind."
Cars, trucks, trains, and traffic control systems would be damaged…Most vehicles would be rendered inoperable. In any case…all vehicles would stop operating when they ran out of gasoline. This event…would render gas stations inoperable and paralyze the infrastructure for synthesizing and delivering petroleum products and fuels of all kinds…Industry and manufacturing would be paralyzed. This event… would immediately damage safety control systems resulting in widespread industrial accidents… including gas line explosions…chemical spills…fires at refineries and chemical plants…producing toxic clouds. Seven days after the commencement of this event, emergency generators at nuclear reactors would run out of fuel. The reactors and nuclear fuel rods in cooling ponds would likely meltdown and catch fire…as happened in the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan. The 104 U.S. nuclear reactors, located mostly among the populous eastern half of the United States…could cover vast swaths of the nation with dangerous plumes of radioactivity. Cell phones, personal computers, the internet, and the modern electronic economy that supports personal and big business cash…credit…debit…stock market…and other transactions and record keeping…would cease operations. Worst of all, there will be no running water…and about 72 hours after the commencement of this event… when emergency generators at the big regional food warehouses cease to operate…the nation's food supply will begin to spoil. What is the event that can cause all this destruction? …It is called an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. Yes, this could really happen….An EMP attack is America’s “Achilles heel”, and everyone around the world knows it. It is only a matter of time before someone uses an EMP weapon against us, and at this point we are pretty much completely unprepared. A nation that does not know how to live without technology…would be almost entirely stripped of it. The EMP Commission estimates that within one year of this event, as many as 9 of 10 Americans will die through starvation…disease…and societal collapse. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP), also sometimes called a transient electromagnetic disturbance… is a short burst of electromagnetic energy. Such a pulse's origination may be a natural occurrence (Coronal Mass Ejections or Solar Flares)…or man-made (cyber-attack or nuclear detonation)…and can occur as a radiated, electric, or magnetic field…or a conducted electric current…depending on the source. A nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation created by a nuclear explosion. The resulting rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical and electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. The specific characteristics of any nuclear EMP event vary according to several factors…the most important of which is the altitude of the detonation. While operationally, a nuclear EMP…Coronal Mass Ejection…or cyber-attack are very different…in terms of the consequences…the existential impact to the United States is the same. For a scale comparison, a lightning strike is around 11,000 volts…and the power grid is protected against this level of impact. However, an EMP E1 wave impacts with 50,000-200,000 Volts/square meter…that energy will be absorbed and back-fed into the grid, melting down transformers and other parts of the grid…unless they are hardened to absorb or avoid this impact. Large transformers (~35 in Utah, ~3,000 in the US) are custom manufactured and can take 12-18 months to build. While these used to be made in the US…we are now mostly dependent on a few friendly countries to export them…including Germany and South Korea. These lead times represent our greatest vulnerability. The nuclear EMP threat is not merely theoretical – it is real, and a clear and present danger. It is the perfect asymmetric weapon for state actors who wish to level the battlefield by neutralizing the great technological advantage enjoyed by U.S. military forces. EMP is also the only means whereby rogue states or terrorists could use a single nuclear weapon to destroy the United States and prevail with a single blow. Here is something to think about… Asymmetric warfare plays a central role in Iranian military theory. Iran’s armed forces appear to be focusing on the development of niche capabilities that play to Iranian strengths…manpower, strategic depth and a willingness to accept casualties… while exploiting the weaknesses of their adversaries…who are regarded as risk averse… casualty sensitive…and heavily dependent on technology. Because EMP kills electronics directly…but people indirectly… EMP is regarded by Iran as a Shariah compliant use of a nuclear weapon. "Passive Defense" and other Iranian military writings understand nuclear EMP attack is the most efficient way of killing people…through secondary effects…over the long run. The rationale appears to be that people starve to death… not because of EMP…but because they live in materialistic societies so dependent upon modern technology that materialism and technology have been elevated to the status of a false God. People die of their sins… So, to Iran, successful deployment of an EMP against the US is divine justice. In 2009 the congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States…whose co-chairmen were former Secretaries of Defense William Perry and James Schlesinger… concurred with the findings of the EMP Commission and urged immediate action to protect the electric grid. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences…the Department of Energy… the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission…and the National Intelligence Council reached similar conclusions…that a nuclear EMP attack would be catastrophic…and that protection is achievable and necessary. Russia, China and North Korea have already hardened their grid…and Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have incorporated EMP attacks into their military doctrine…while openly describing EMP attacks against the United States…Indeed, Iran has practiced ship-launched EMP attacks using Scud missiles…which are in the possession of scores of nations and even terrorist groups. All of these nations practiced recovering from an EMP attack recently in Joint Military exercises. The Legislative history of hardening the Grid is frustrating…In 2010 the US House of Representatives…unanimously passed the GRID Act which would have fixed the issue for about $3Billion; but the Senate Energy committee gutted it and replaced hardening the grid with clean energy tax credit legislation… In Congress…bipartisan bills with strong support…such as the GRID Act and the SHIELD Act… that would protect the electric grid from nuclear and natural EMP, have been stalled for a decade…blocked by corruption…and lobbying by powerful utilities. Several States (TX, FL, AZ, CA and ME) have a similar history of one body unanimously passing Legislation…only to see their peers undo the effort…usually in Committee. ME actually did pass Legislation, but utilities declared it unworkable because it lacked the standards and technical guidance, they maintained they needed. In response to this inaction, the National Republican Party added this statement to its Platform in 2016: “A single nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over this country would collapse our electrical grid and other critical infrastructures and endanger the lives of millions. With North Korea in possession of nuclear missiles and Iran close to having them, an EMP is no longer a theoretical concern — it is a real threat. Moreover, China and Russia include sabotage as part of their warfare planning. Nonetheless, hundreds of electrical utilities in the United States have not acted to protect themselves from EMP, and they cannot be expected to do so voluntarily since homeland security is a government responsibility. The President, the Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the States, the utilities, and the private sector should work together on an urgent basis to enact Republican legislation, pending in both chambers, to protect the national grid and encourage states to take the initiative to protect their own grids expeditiously.” So far only the US nuclear Triad (land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles), the Pentagon, White House, and some critical military C4I facilities (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) have been hardened to the standards established by the Department of Defense (MIL-STD-188-125-1) in July 1998…which is still in use currently (2021). That military publication is unclassified…and the Utah EMP Task Force has a PDF version of this available to anyone who desires a copy. States have a duty to their citizens to fill the gap in homeland security and public safety when the federal government, and the utilities, fail. State governments and their Public Utility Commissions have the legal authority and the moral obligation to, where necessary, compel the utilities to secure the grid against all hazards. Additionally…State governments have an obligation to help, oversee and ensure that grid security is being done right by those utilities who act voluntarily. States can protect themselves from the worst-case cyber scenario by following the "all hazards" strategy recommended by the Congressional EMP Commission. If transformers are protected with surge arrestors against the worst threat…nuclear EMP attack…they would be unharmed by the worst possible overvoltage that might be system generated by any computer virus. Installing blocking devices…surge arrestors…faraday cages and other proven technologies would protect the grid from the worst natural EMP from a geomagnetic super-storm. Yet Washington remains gridlocked between lobbying by NERC and the wealthy electric power industry on the one hand…and the recommendations of the Congressional EMP Commission and other independent scientific and strategic experts on the other hand. The States should not wait for Washington to act…but should act now to protect themselves. In 2018, the Utah Republican Party’s SCC (State Central Committee) approved a Resolution to Harden the Utah & US Electrical Grids sponsored and presented by Bob McEntee, former USAF Aviator & Strategic War Planner who sits on the SCC as a CD-1 Rep for Weber County. Bob has been a driving force behind the Utah EMP Task Force efforts to lobby our state legislature on this issue. The Resolution states: “Resolved that the Utah Republican Party calls upon its Federal and State delegations respectively to urgently pass legislation to harden the Utah and US electrical grids.” Personal preparedness for an EMP attack or solar event is possible…but difficult. The best place to start is by making a plan of what you'll need in the event of a crisis and start purchasing items a little at a time. To further research preparedness…you should be looking up topics such as lists of food to store, survival supplies, ways to store water, firearms to purchase, how to reinforce your house, communication devices, etc. While Hardening the grid would make an attack by an adversary less likely…any small thing you can do to prepare will improve your chances of making it through an EMP attack. The Good news is:
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