Electro-Magnetic Pulse: The Ultimate Terrorist Attack

Many people have never even heard of an electro-magnetic pulse let alone know the life-changing effects such a pulse could have on them.

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 or man-made and can occur as a radiated, electric or magnetic field or a conducted electric current, depending on the source. (source)

A naturally an EMP is a sudden pulse of energy, a prime example being a lightning bolt. The sun can also throw out a kill-shot, a massive pulse of electromagnetic energy that can fry anything run by electricity the moment it comes within range of the earth.

The Carrington event was the classic example cited by most scientists but few people realise we had a near-miss far more recently. on July 23rd 2012 a massive solar storm narrowly missed earth…very narrowly. Had it hit this storm, which was larger than the Carrington event would have blasted the hemisphere it hit back to the Stone Age. 

The force of the impact ionizes the atmosphere creating a massive amount of highly energetic electrons that destroy electronic equipment and fuse wires everywhere within reach of the plasma cloud. Think everything electrical fried, and fried beyond repair, replacement being the only option. Replacing transformers takes months at a minimum, years if enough need to be replaced. For an item that can take a year to produce replacing dozens of them is a monumental tax, especially if the plant that makes them in your own country is no longer operational because it too got fried!

Sadly, there are weapons that can create a man-made EMP. A nuclear device exploded in the air is all it takes… the technology exists.

A nuclear device detonated up to 500 miles above the earth’s surface could generate an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) with a “devastating” effect on power supplies, telecommunications and other vital systems, the Commons Defense Committee said. It warned that countries such as Iran – which is resisting international pressure to end its nuclear programme – and even eventually some “non-state actors” could acquire the technology to mount such an attack, in a scenario akin to the plot of the 1995 James Bond film ‘GoldenEye’.

Terrorists could also build a “crude” non-nuclear EMP weapon, with the power to cause disruption over a more limited area. But despite the vulnerability of the UK to such an attack, the committee accused the Ministry of Defence of appearing “complacent” and “unwilling to take these threats seriously”…

The committee said the Government currently rated the probability of a high-altitude EMP attack as “low”, although it acknowledged that the impact would be severe.

However, an official EMP commission in the United States found “rogue states” such as Iran and nuclear-armed North Korea were well aware of the potential for such an attack.The Iranians in particular were reported to have conducted missile tests which appeared to simulate the effects of an EMP nuclear strike. (source)

The EMP Commission was set up in the United States to assess the threat posed by EMP weapons. The main points they are tasked to consider are:

• The threat from potential hostile states who have or may acquire nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles required to deliver an EMP attack over the United States.
• How vulnerable is the United States to an EMP attack? Emergency preparedness relating to civilian and military infrastructure.
• Should an EMP attack occur how long would the recovery period be and does the United States have the capability to recover from such an attack?
• The cost and feasibility of hardening certain civilian and military systems from an EMP attack.

The Commission produced a report in 2008: Critical National Infrastructure that covers all aspects on an EMP attack on the United States. Chapter one page one states:

…it is important to realize that the vulnerability of the whole — of all the highly interlocked critical infrastructures — may be greater than the sum of the vulnerability of its parts. The whole is a highly complex system of systems whose exceedingly dynamic and coordinated activity is enabled by the growth of technology and where failure within one individual infrastructure  may not remain isolated but, instead, induce cascading failures into other infrastructures.