PrairiePundit

  Epoch Times: The United States is  vulnerable  to attack from an  electromagnetic pulse  ( EMP ), according to experts. Such an attack could devastate the nation’s power grid and  wipe out  vast swaths of the population. “The risk of an EMP attack on U.S. infrastructure is very high, particularly in this international environment,” said Sam Kessler, a geopolitical adviser at North Star Support Group, a multinational risk management firm. The news comes amid growing concerns about the Chinese regime’s  expanding military capabilities  and its alleged development of first-strike nuclear capabilities. An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy that disrupts communications and damages electronic equipment. An EMP can be created by  nuclear  missiles, radiofrequency weapons, and natural phenomena such as geomagnetic storms. While any nuclear weapon can create an EMP, specialized EMP weapons such as so-called  super-EMP bombs ...

Bill Gertz: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran Set For Electronic Pulse Attacks on U.S. Declassified report warns of dangers from electromagnetic pulse Russia and China are already believed to have such a capability as part of an overall strategy for attacking the US. Such an attack would cripple much of the US electric grid.

Paul Bedard: President Trump became the first national leader to call for protecting the U.S electric and communications grid against an electromagnetic attack like one practiced in North Korea. Deep in his new national security strategy released this week, he made good on a campaign promise to move quickly to make the fixes that proponents have long called for. Two of the chief advocates, William R. Graham and Peter Vincent Pry, executives of the nation’s first Congressional EMP Commission, said in a statement, “President Trump understands, even if everyone in his administration does not, that ‘strategic stability’ and ‘longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China’ are best maintained — not by a policy of mutual vulnerability — but by a policy of ‘Peace Through Strength.’ Protecting the nation from all missile threats and EMP should be the cornerstone of a ‘Peace Through Strength’ policy.” The duo claim that protecting the grid would not be expensive and could done f...

Next Big Future: The US military replaced its Humvees in Afghanistan and Iraq, with heavier, better armored vehicles because of the threat from roadside bombs. But that approach may not work In a high-tech conflict, argues manufacturer AM General. You might want to go back to the Humvee. Why? Because it’s simpler. There are no electronic engine controls, no electronic braking, no circuitry that a sophisticated enemy could hack with malware, scramble with directed microwaves, or fry with the electromagnetic pulse from an atomic bomb or other source. Two years after losing the contract for the next-gen, high-tech Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), AM General is doubling down on the Humvee and making a virtue of its simplicity. Sure, the company has upgraded the vehicle since its introduction back in 1984 with more powerful engines, tougher transmissions, and stronger frames. That increased the maximum weight of a fully-loaded Humvee from 9,000 lbs to 14,000 lbs now, dramatically inc...

UPI: North Korea obtained "electronic bombs" from Russia capable of jamming electronic signals and disabling technology on enemy planes, ships and missiles, according to a Japanese newspaper. The Sankei Shimbun reported Thursday North Korea's cutting edge technology was sourced from Russia, and in past periods, the former Soviet Union. Pyongyang had claimed it possessed electromagnetic pulse, or EMP technology, capable of neutralizing radar and satellite from detecting North Korean targets. That claim is supported by a report in 38 North published in June, stating the Russians may have "accidentally" transferred the design of Russia's super-EMP warhead to North Korea before 2004. The Sankei reported Russian engineers in the collapsed Soviet state of the '90s began to help overseas contacts with obtaining native technology, because they had no other source of income in a failing economy. In 2009, South Korea's military said Russian scienti...

Washington Free Beacon: North Korea for the first time this week revealed plans for using its nuclear arms for space-based electronics-disrupting EMP attacks, in addition to direct warhead ground blasts. The official communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, published a report Monday on "the EMP might of nuclear weapons," outlining an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack produced by detonating a nuclear warhead in space. "In general, the strong electromagnetic pulse generated from nuclear bomb explosions between 30 kilometers and 100 kilometers [18.6 miles and 62 miles] above the ground can severely impair electronic devices, electric machines, and electromagnetic grids, or destroy electric cables and safety devices," said the article authored by Kim Songwon, dean of Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang. "The discovery of the electromagnetic pulse as a source of high yield in the high-altitude nuclear explosion test process has given it recogni...

Fuel Fix: The potential for a major cyber attack against the nation’s power grid is “at an all time high,” Gerry Cauley, president of the grid operators group North American Electric Reliability Corporation, warned during a Senate hearing Tuesday. While acknowledging hackers had yet to shut down power to U.S. power customers, Cauley pointed to a 2015 attack in Ukraine that resulted in 225,000 customers losing power for several hours. “We will never be complacent. The risk is very real,” he said. His comments came during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, part of a long-term push by the federal government to bolster security at the nation’s power plants and substations to prevent attacks like those that have recently struck Europe. The Department of Energy continues to work on developing what Patricia Hoffman, acting assistant secretary at the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, called “an ecosystem of res...

IBD Editorial: Iran Is Serious About Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Warfare ... The American Foreign Policy Council's Amanda Azinheira wrote of the risks in Defense News on Wednesday: "A nuclear warhead detonated 18 miles off the ground anywhere over the eastern seaboard could collapse the whole eastern grid, which generates 75% of the country's electricity. The recovery time from a nationwide EMP event might be anywhere from one to 10 years. In the meantime, tens of millions of Americans would likely die from starvation and/or societal collapse." ... The more you learn about this deal the worse it looks. 

BBC: A British company has demonstrated a prototype device capable of stopping cars and other vehicles using a blast of electromagnetic waves. The RF Safe-Stop uses radio frequency pulses to "confuse" a vehicle's electronic systems, cutting its engine. E2V is one of several companies trying to bring such a product to market. It said it believed the primary use would be as a non-lethal weapon for the military to defend sensitive locations from vehicles refusing to stop. There has also been police interest. ... "The RF [radio frequency] is pulsed from the unit just as it would be in radar, it couples into the wiring in the car and that disrupts and confuses the electronics in the car causing the engine to stall." He did not provide other specifics. However, the Engineer magazine has reported the device uses L- and S-band radio frequencies, and works at a range of up to 50m (164ft). Some experts the BBC has spoken with suggested that turning off the engine in t...

Peter Vincent Pry: ... North Korea has already successfully tested and developed nuclear weapons. It has also already miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and has armed missiles with nuclear warheads. In 2011, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency , Lt . General Ronald Burgess , testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for ballistic missiles. North Korea has labored for years and starved its people so it could develop an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States. Why? Because they have a special kind of nuclear weapon that could destroy the United States with a single blow. In summer 2004, a delegation of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon — a Super-EMP warhead. Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will gene...