Power lost . . . communication down . . . millions die from starvation . . . the United States has just been hit by an Electro-Magnetic Pulse, or EMP. This is not a new Lucas or Spielberg script, a fantasy concocted in the minds of a sci-fi junkie. “The threat of an EMP attack is serious, and the United States is increasingly vulnerable to such an attack,” stated Frank J. Gaffney Jr. during the recent Heritage Foundation seminar, The Case for Missile Defense.
“An EMP attack is produced by detonating a nuclear weapon launched by a ballistic missile. Such a detonation—occurring high above the earth—produces a massive pulse of ionized particles that could damage many electrical and information systems.” (WebMemo published by the Heritage Foundation, Sept. 15, 2008)
American officials are aware that other countries possess the necessary technology for an EMP attack; yet, they do not take the necessary measures to protect against such an attack. “Twenty-five years ago we had nine countries with ballistic missiles, now there are 28,” stated Peter Brooks, the panel head and a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Brooks, referring to his upcoming report The Need for Missile Defense, a Hoover Institution publication, reminded the audience of the “story of the summer . . . IAEA reported that information on a Swiss laptop that was part of the [Abdul Qadeen] Khan network had nuclear weapon designs that would fit the ballistic missile designs of 12 countries. And, we don’t still know how widespread this information was throughout AQ Khan’s network.”
Continuing on the threat that other nations pose to the United States, Frank Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy discussed an important finding in William R. Graham’s commission. (William R. “Bill” Graham chaired the congressionally-mandated commission for evaluating the EMP threat and was the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan.)
“When researching the EMP threat, Bill Graham, spoke with Russian nuclear weapons personnell. [Graham was] told there where really two guys who knew everything about the Soviet EMP. They had been involved in the experimentation and adaptation of this technology for their own offensive purposes and to determine the vulnerability of the Soviet arsenal. The commissioner said, ‘Great we’d like to meet these guys.’ He was told sorry, you can’t, they’re in North Korea.”
Again, American officials are aware that an EMP attack would be, quoting Frank Gaffney and William Graham, “catastrophic.”
Gaffney argued:
“I don’t care if it’s an Iranian EMP problem, North Korean EMP problem, Russian, Chinese, or simply an unidentified third party who’s taking advantage of the widespread availability of scud missiles and nuclear technology. Bill Graham made the point . . . the infrastructure of the United States [would] collapse because everything requires electricity. As one after another loses electrical power, all of these other vital ingredients in the survival, literally the survival of a population that is dependent on that infrastructure, comes unglued. He said the effect over time, of that kind of structural collapse, of the water systems, the transportation systems, the telecommunication systems, the food and medical systems, would lead to the ultimate demise of nine out of 10 Americans.”
Gaffney believes, “It is desirable [to have] a comprehensive missile defense system . . . a ground, air, space, and sea based system . . . We need to adopt the Hank Cooper layered missile defense system.”
Hank Cooper, a fellow panelist and officially known as Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, argued, “The cost and technology is not the issue, it is political view and people with misguided views of militarization in space. We need to move into space to give America the defense system it needs.” Although updating America’s missile defense system has not been a key political issue, “Why would Americans want to update something they feel is working?” asked Jeff Keuter, the final panelist. Keuter, President of the George C. Marshall Institute, believes, “Only when Americans understand that an EMP is a plausible attack will updating our missile defense system become a priority.”
Lance Nation is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
