Written by History and Effects of Electromagnetic Weapons Like EMP
EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse. Broadly defined, it refers to any transient burst of electromagnetic energy. It is an occurrence that can have devastating effects on populations within its affected area. Anything wired without good shielding may be susceptible to it, and long-distance wiring can act as an antenna, carrying the damage even further. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation refers to events that could cause a widespread disruption to the power grid as HILFs. HILF stands for High Impact Low Frequency. Also known by names such as black swan events in prepper circles, these occurrences don’t happen frequently, but when they do, they have a high impact on the affected populations. EMP is one of many black swan events, along with things like GMD/CME, nuclear war, pandemic, supervolcano, etc.
Nuclear EMP
The strength and area coverage of the nuclear EMP environments depend on the warhead type and yield, and the altitude and latitude of the detonation. While a surface detonation can produce an EMP as well, known as source region EMP or SREMP, the effects are very localized compared to upper atmospheric detonations. An EMP from a nuclear source detonated at high altitude produces a three-phase pulse. The first wave is the E1 pulse, which is a fast but intense electromagnetic field that induces very high voltages in conductive materials. The voltage breakdown limits of most modern electronics would be exceeded within a fraction of a second if they are not hardened. Most “lightning protection” or consumer-level transient protectors are too slow to respond to it, although commercial transient protectors exist that can handle the speed of an E1 pulse.
As the gamma rays from the detonation penetrate the atmosphere, they collide with air molecules, positively charging ions and recoil electrons. The Earth’s magnetic field acts on these electrons and changes their direction perpendicular to the geomagnetic field. This geomagnetic interaction is what produces the pulse over the affected area. This is known as the Compton effect, named after Arthur Compton. In 1923, he discovered X-rays had longer wavelengths when scattered by free electrons. This was first suggested as a possibility by Max Planck in 1900. In 1925, he was able to demonstrate the effect on a much broader range of elements. William Duane from Harvard attempted to disprove the theories but ended up confirming them.
The gamma rays transfer about half of their energy to the electrons, which cause them to travel in a generally downward speed at about 94% of the speed of light. The pulse typically rises to its peak in around 5 nanoseconds. Decay of the pulse is reduced to about half within 200 nanoseconds. By IEC definition, the E1 pulse is ended 1000 nanoseconds after it begins. The field strength typically saturates at around 50,000 volts per meter. Although there are hints of nuclear super EMP weapons capable of exceeding this threshold, I was unable to find any peer-reviewed information. If a detonation occurred over the continental United States, the peak effects would be witnessed just south of the detonation point due to the Earth’s magnetic field.
The E2 pulse, according to the IEC, occurs between 1000 nanoseconds and 1 second after the E1 pulse began. The E2 pulse has many similarities to the EM field generated by a lightning strike. A close lightning strike can produce higher pulse rates than a nuclear E2 pulse; therefore, it is generally agreed upon that the E2 pulse is the easiest to protect against. The biggest risk with an E2 pulse, according to the US EMP Commission, is that it follows so closely behind the E1 pulse, which may likely damage devices otherwise providing protection against the E2.
The EMP Commission Executive Report of 2004 stated, “In general, it would not be an issue for critical infrastructure systems since they have existing protective measures for defense against occasional lightning strikes. The most significant risk is synergistic, because the E2 component follows a small fraction of a second after the first component’s insult, which has the ability to impair or destroy many protective and control features. The energy associated with the second component thus may be allowed to pass into and damage systems.”
The E3 pulse is MUCH slower, lasting many seconds or even minutes. It is broken up into E3A and E3B, which are the heave wave and blast wave, respectively. This is caused when the magnetic field is being displaced and returning to its original position from the expanding blast and the resulting heated air. The E3 effects are very similar to what would be experienced in a geomagnetic storm or coronal mass ejection, which I’ll go into more detail about later in the article. Geomagnetically induced currents are generated in long conductive systems like our AC power grid, damaging components like transformers. Oddly, the effects resemble DC currents more than what most people would consider a traditional “pulse.” The majority of the damage from the E3 phase of the EMP is focused on AC power grids as they are not designed to handle even quasi-DC currents, especially the delicate transformers.
In 1941, Arthur Compton was asked to submit a report to the Manhattan Project regarding the use of Uranium-235 and the recently discovered Plutonium. He worked alongside people like Enrico Fermi and was eventually put in charge of the plutonium project. The next year his program was absorbed by the Manhattan Project, and he assisted in creating Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor.
Robert Oppenheimer led Project Y, also known as the Los Alamos Laboratory, the following year. Oppenheimer is credited with the development of the first implosion-type nuclear device. After work on a gun-type fission weapon dubbed Thin Man failed because of the spontaneous fission in plutonium, they determined pre-detonation was likely and decided to change directions. Using an alternative design from John von Neumann, an implosion-type device was developed that they named Fat Man. A variant of the gun-type design was also produced, which they called Little Boy. They also began research into the Super, a concept for a hydrogen bomb that would cause a fusion reaction in deuterium and tritium.
On July 16, 1945, a 20-kiloton “Fat Man”-style atomic bomb codenamed “Trinity” was detonated in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This was the first-ever recorded nuclear detonation. The electronics equipment in the area was shielded because Enrico Fermi expected the electromagnetic pulse. “We can understand the difficulty of transmitting signals during the explosion when we consider that the gamma rays from the reaction will ionize the air and other material within hundreds of yards. Fermi has calculated that the ensuing removal of the natural electrical potential gradient in the atmosphere will be equivalent to a large bolt of lightning striking that vicinity. . . . All signal lines were completely shielded, in many cases doubly shielded. In spite of this many records were lost because of spurious pickup at the time of the explosion that paralyzed the recording equipment.”
As part of the greater Manhattan Project, the intentions were to check the feasibility and then the size and effects of such devices prior to using them in combat. The United States dropped destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, killing hundreds of thousands. On April 28, 1958, a helium balloon lifted a 1.7-kiloton weapon to around 85,000 feet before it was detonated. According to the Hardtack-Yucca report, the EMP covered a radius of 350 miles. Although a lot was discovered about the differences between low-altitude and high-altitude EMP, at the time it was dismissed as an anomaly. In August of the same year, Hardtack-Teak, a 3.8-megaton bomb, was detonated at an altitude of 250,000 feet. Due to the large amount of fission debris in the ionosphere, normal reflection of HF radio communication was disrupted.
The USSR called for a ban on nuclear weapons being tested in the atmosphere in 1958 and unilaterally stopped testing. This prompted the United States to also cease atmospheric nuclear tests, but this was short-lived when, on August 30, 1961, Khrushchev, under internal pressure, began testing again. As you can assume, the US began testing again as well. During EMP tests over Kazakhstan, the effects were four times as great due to the proximity to the North Pole.
Starfish Prime was the designation given to a test conducted in July of 1962, where a 1.44-megaton nuke was sent into space 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. The EMP effects from the high-altitude detonation were witnessed nearly 900 miles away in Hawaii, where hundreds of streetlights were damaged. It additionally set off burglar alarms and caused failure to a telephone company microwave link. US satellites Ariel, TRAAC, and Transit 4B all failed as they traversed the radiation line as well. Bold Orion was the first attempt at an anti-satellite weapon, and it was discovered then the usefulness of EMP in space against artificial satellites. Program 437 was the second US satellite disruption program. It began in 1962 and continued until 1975.
The Manhattan Project is highly declassified. A Princeton student named John Aristotle Phillips described how he designed an atomic bomb using unclassified sources for his junior thesis in a book titled Mushroom that he published in the 70s. He estimated the cost to be just over $150,000, the bulk of which would be for about 15 pounds of plutonium. This device would have about half of the destructive capacity on the ground as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The federal government confiscated his paper, and the FBI watched him for a little while. If an underachieving 20-year-old physics student can figure it out, what’s stopping an enemy?
In the spirit of free information, a magazine called The Progressive published their November 1979 issue entitled “The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It—Why We’re Telling It.” The federal government responded by suing to have the content suppressed, and even though a temporary injunction was granted, the Feds ultimately lost. As mentioned with Hardtack-Yucca, a balloon could be used to put the device into the upper atmosphere, removing the need for an expensive and sophisticated missile or rocket.
Non-Nuclear EM Weapons
In 1951, Andrei Sakharov invented and tested the first explosively pumped flux compression generators, compressing magnetic fields by explosives. He called these devices MK (short for MagnetoKumulative) generators. In 1953, his MK-2 project was able to produce 1,000 million amperes. In the 1960s, he became vocal against nuclear proliferation and atmospheric testing. Since then, his work has been picked up by other scientists and engineers. Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48 between the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of California covers a device patented in 1981 for energy research and development work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that builds on Sakharov’s original principles.
If you have seen the modern remake of the movie Ocean’s Eleven, you might remember seeing a van with the device in the back that was capable of turning off power to Las Vegas. Curtis Birnbach, President of Advanced Fusion Systems, built a real-life version of the system, also able to fit inside a van. In a presentation, he discussed how the device he produced, when tested at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, was able to deliver a 35,000 volts per meter electric field and was able to penetrate a chamber that offered 120db of shielding with only two degrees of attenuation. What’s more is that he built the device with about $20,000 and an understanding of physics. This is not inaccessible technology by any means. The technology to produce an EMP exists and is available to anyone with a basic understanding of how electricity and magnetism work.
The US EMP Commission conducted an experiment on 25 vehicles it received on loan from the DOD. Because the vehicles were on loan, it was imperative for the EMP Commission to not destroy them. The power was slowly increased only until the first sign of disruption. For this reason, all but one vehicle was able to be restarted. The information about the makes and models and how they failed is not publicly available. It can be assumed that the results from this test are not adequate to determine the failure rate of modern vehicles.
ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a pair of massive Marx generators capable of producing up to 5 megavolts of electrical potential in a pulse with a rise-time in the 100-nanosecond range. In the 90s, Sandia took what they learned from Trestle and developed the Z Machine, capable of 40 megavolts and 50,000 gigawatts. Since then, they have upgraded the system to 290,000 gigawatts, which is high enough to actually study nuclear fusion at the point of detonation. Equipment like this in the private sector would be the first step in helping people protect their electronic equipment from the threat of EMP. The Soviets had similar testing apparatus constructed, called the Istra High Voltage Research Center.
Boeing’s Phantom Works, in cooperation with others like Raytheon, has produced CHAMP, which stands for Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project. In October of 2012, the technology was tested in the high desert of Utah on targets containing running computers, surveillance systems, and other electronics. The test, with the weapon mounted on an AGM-86 Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile, was a complete success, shutting down all seven of its intended targets and even the camera filming the test. The Air Force is now working to miniaturize the device so it can be deployed on a JASSM-ER missile. Technically, the CHAMP device would not have to be on a missile but could be on a drone or fighter jet as well.
Coronal Mass Ejection
On September 1, 1859, a geomagnetic disturbance resulted from a coronal mass ejection from our sun. The Carrington Event was named after Richard Carrington, who made the first observation of the strange sunspot activity. At the time, the only major electric network was the telegraph system, but systems across North America and Europe failed and shot sparks, igniting fires all over the place. Auroras as far south as the equator were reported to be seen the next day or two later. In 1989, an unexpected geomagnetic storm triggered an event on the Hydro-Québec power system that resulted in its complete grid collapse within 92 seconds, leaving six million customers without power.
On July 23, 2012, the Earth dodged a few CMEs by less than a week. The STEREO solar satellite clocked one of the CMEs traveling between 1,800 and 2,200 miles per second as it left the sun. This caused panic as it was the fastest CME ever recorded by STEREO. If the Earth had been in the line of fire, you could expect to see the following signs. First, the X-rays and UV would hit us within minutes. Some radios and GPS systems would experience blackout from the ionization happening in the upper atmosphere. Minutes to hours later, highly energized electrons and protons would follow, knocking out the electronics in satellites. Then, around a day later, the CME with its magnetized plasma would arrive, capable of sending much of the planet into a years-long blackout, disabling everything plugged into the grid.
Basic modern conveniences like running water would be affected because most water treatment relies on electric pumps. Manufacturing would halt, and the economy would plummet. People would be desperate inside of a week. The cost to recover from such a hit would reach $2 trillion and take years to replace transformers, according to a study by the National Academy of Sciences. In February 2014, physicist Pete Riley published “On the Probability of Occurrence of Extreme Space Weather Events” in Space Weather. In the report, he concluded that the likelihood of being hit with a CME rises 12% every decade.
Through observations of other stars the size of ours, scientists have observed coronal mass ejections 10,000 times the size of the Carrington Event. If we get hit with something that big, our atmosphere will light up like a fluorescent bulb, and we will surely perish quickly. Unlike the E1 and E2 phases of the nuclear EMP, a GMD/CME takes out the grid, but small circuits not connected to AC power should be fine.
The Faraday Cage Myth
Michael Faraday observed that a shielded box can block an electric field. For his demonstrations, he used a dynamo and essentially static electricity. Because of the low amps, it made for dramatic visuals, but he didn’t even need to ground the cage. Grounding, if implemented improperly, can have a worse result than not grounding at all. The Department of Defense has worked to “shield” its sensitive command and control electronics. MIL-STD-188-125 establishes minimum requirements for hardening of ground-based fixed structures from an event like a HEMP. It is specific to protecting communication systems, unfortunately, and provides little to no value to implementing protections to the power grid. It is completely dependent on Faraday’s principles.
The term “shielded” can provide a false sense of hope, as illustrated above with the tests performed by Curtis Birnbach in New Jersey. He makes a point to remind us that Faraday was unaware of phenomena like mirror image waves across boundaries, evanescent fields, electromagnetically induced transparency, etc., all of which can allow signals to pass through a Faraday shield. Some EM pulse signals induce currents on external conductors—such as wires and antennas—which then go through to the system’s interior. Other signals may couple to exterior metals, which reradiate to the internal conductors. Signals can also enter through any holes in the exterior of the system.
I see frequently on YouTube people wrapping cardboard boxes with aluminum foil. They claim 40-50db of shielding, then proclaim a Russian nesting doll approach, suggesting a Faraday cage inside of a Faraday cage, and then testing effectiveness using low-power handheld radios. STOP THAT! Let’s assume you use something more powerful than a handheld. Even using an FM radio at 100 kHz and powered by 10,000 watts, a mile away your power would be reading about 1.23 mW/m², and the peak electric field is going to be around 0.68 V/m. It would have to increase 73,500 times the FM signal to reach the peak amplitude of a HEMP E1 pulse.
MuMetal is an alloy with very high magnetic permeability, comprised mostly of nickel and some iron, copper, and chromium or molybdenum typically. A protective seamless shield made from this material is better than steel or aluminum against EM fields, but it would have to be quite thick to resist the high power of an EMP. It is recommended to still use the nesting technique and place your items to be protected inside of several insulated layers. The material you use to insulate your shielded enclosure is as important as the material used to absorb and direct the magnetic field. Consider using something like a seamless thick glass box for insulation.
Our Current AC Power Grid Is Extremely Vulnerable
The grid is vulnerable because it is efficient. When Tesla won the AC vs. DC debate, we ended up with fewer power stations. While this is convenient for transmitting power over distances and delivering power to the end users of that electricity, it also has some drawbacks. While there are thousands of substations, the grid could be wiped out if a dozen or so substations at key nodes went down. These substations are typically protected by a chain-link fence at best. Full recovery of infrastructure could take up to 10 years after experiencing damage from a centrally detonated HEMP or other nationwide grid vulnerability.
Strategic hardening of key nodes that could cause cascading failure on the grid first could be a great start to progressive implementation. The people in charge and capable of improving the defenses of our infrastructure are passing the buck right now, blaming each other and wasting time. This is a tangible and critical threat, and this response is beyond reckless. On September 30, 2017, the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America (or EMP Commission) was shut down indefinitely. This occurred despite the commander of United States Strategic Command warning 10 days earlier that America is unprepared to deal with EMP.
The reality is, we know EXACTLY HOW to protect our substations and transformers, and the technology is available to those who can afford it in the private market to prevent calamity. We simply have to make it a priority! The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), along with much of the energy industry, appear to prefer to maintain the current vulnerabilities. The Electric Power Research Institute, in conjunction with a few other organizations, seems to be still taking this issue seriously, though. EPRI announced in March of 2017 that it has begun working on a state-of-the-art EMP testing facility.
In order to properly shield current substations, they would have to be torn down and rebuilt to allow for the space required to implement effective technologies. Even if redesigned and updated with proper hardening, constant maintenance would have to be done to check for potential problems. In the entire world, it would be a reasonable educated guess that there are about 100 transformers produced a year. If an HEMP was strategically detonated above the US, how long would it take to replace 300-4,000 or more? How would we get them where they need to go? Just replacing one is a daunting task when the rest of the infrastructure is still functioning.
Many strategic experts suggest an EMP attack could be combined with cyber and physical attacks. On April 16, 2013, at the Metcalf power station near San Jose, a small team carried out what appears to be a sophisticated training exercise. Just prior to 1 AM, they accessed and severed underground AT&T fiber optic lines that would have sounded an alarm and allowed emergency services to be contacted. Less than 10 minutes later, L3 communication lines were also cut. It was not until over 45 minutes later that the sheriff was called with a report of gunfire. Shortly after, the first line of transformers had leaked tens of thousands of gallons of oil, causing them to overheat, which triggered an equipment failure alarm to PG&E.
Only a minute prior to law enforcement arriving, surveillance equipment recorded a waving flashlight signaling the end of the attack. Law enforcement arrived to find a locked gate and a quiet scene, so they just left. About an hour later, a representative of PG&E arrived at the Metcalf location and surveyed the damage. It would appear that they intentionally did not cause more disruptive damage, but what they did do still took weeks and millions of dollars to repair. Power had to be rerouted to prevent surrounding areas from being in blackout. Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, stated in 2015, “While we have not yet identified the shooter, there’s some indication it was an inside job.
The Metcalf incident was a wake-up call to utility providers and security and infrastructure experts as well. Not to be outdone, assailants from a cartel calling themselves Knight’s Templar in the Mexican state of Michoacán attacked nine substations, leaving 11 towns in darkness. Two weeks following the Metcalf incident, a North Korean freighter was stopped and searched in the Panama Canal on its return from the Gulf of Mexico. Under a massive amount of sugar, two SA-2 missiles complete with their launchers were discovered. While these missiles were not equipped with nuclear warheads, the incident highlights the potential risks.
Many Cite a 90% Death Rate in the Aftermath of an EMP
Many people cite that 90% of the population will be killed in the aftermath of an EMP. According to Popular Science, this is based on a statement by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who described a novel he had read called One Second After. Bartlett says:
“I read a prepublication copy of a book called One Second After. I hope it does get published; I think the American people need to read it. It was the story of a ballistic missile EMP attack on our country. The weapon was launched from a ship off our shore, and then the ship was sunk so that there were no fingerprints. The weapon was launched about 300 miles high over Nebraska, and it shut down our infrastructure countrywide. The story runs for a year. It is set in the hills of North Carolina. At the end of the year, 90 percent of our population is dead; there are 25,000 people only still alive in New York City. The communities in the hills of North Carolina are more lucky: only 80 percent of their population is dead at the end of a year.”
In certain localities, a 90% death rate from an EMP-only attack is certainly a possibility, but on a national or global scale, it seems a bit exaggerated. An EMP may present itself as the first strike in a full-scale nuclear war, and it may also come with cyberattacks or physical attacks on infrastructure. It’s not just a really long blackout, nor is it some fairytale return to the old way of living now that technology is less useful for a term. Long gone are the pristine countrysides and population scarcity of the 1800s. It would be a radioactive wasteland full of death, disease, and desperation inside of a month, assuming our current lack of infrastructure hardening. Cascading consequences will spill over into a terribly hard-to-manage mess.
Imagine transformers lighting on fire or exploding and catching surrounding structures and other items ablaze. Picture gas lines and storage supplies potentially exploding, and a significant percentage of cars suddenly failing or having severe anomalies causing millions of traffic accidents simultaneously. Emergency dispatch, if still operational at all, becomes overwhelmed with calls. Hospitals lose power, and some patients die or are made worse. People such as diabetics, who require their medication to be refrigerated, will face terrifying prospects. If you have a pacemaker, it is also sadly probably the end.
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) was an attempt to standardize remote communication with controllers in many areas of manufacturing, production, and energy, including our power grid. SCADA is ubiquitous, and most SCADA systems are vulnerable to EMP. Systems like water treatment will be halted. Shortly after, water pressure in municipal supply lines drops, as pumps that require electricity are no longer operating. The ability to flush toilets or get drinking water from the tap will become nothing more than a memory.
What’s worse is that without the pumps running, expect backflow of human waste, medical waste, industrial waste, and other unusable water to run from water purification plants back to rivers and lakes. Within a week or two, millions of people might become sick with waterborne and other poor hygiene-related illnesses. In addition to the need for running water to sustain personal drinking and hygiene requirements, nuclear reactors rely desperately on flowing water to keep their fuel cool. Assuming their backup power sources are not destroyed by the EMP, they can only keep their fuel cool for about a week before meltdown becomes unavoidable.
With many big trucks and inventory control systems no longer functioning, resupply of life-sustaining goods will be heavily impacted. With all the vehicles disabled, if you have one that still works, you could become a huge target for looters and other desperate types. The same goes if you have working lights and alternative power sources that still function after an EMP. Without trucks resupplying stores and without production facilities to stock the warehouses, expect the food supply to be obliterated inside of a month. This is, of course, optimistic, as refrigeration will be sparse.
We do NOT have to wait for the federal government to take action. The grid can be hardened at the state level. In fact, it may be a smarter solution. If each state is an island in the grid, the economy and infrastructure recovery would be more successful with less time and effort following an EMP attack.
Who Would Attack Us and WHY?
At the top of everyone’s list is North Korea these days. Although they are a poor country, they still hate America. If they attack the US, the response would likely be to completely destroy them with ground nukes. It is unclear if Russia or China would back them if they were attacked by the United States. Currently, it appears China is staging troops near the border in anticipation of a pre-emptive strike. They claim they will support us against North Korea, but it is questionable that they have lost their South China Sea geopolitical interests from the Korean War era, which is the last time they staged troops on the border. Also, consider that in 2016 China accounted for 92% of North Korea’s trade. It may be naive to think China would be on our side, despite their economic investment with the US and relatively peaceful relations in recent years. It seems a bigger threat from North Korea comes from its proximity to South Korea and Japan, both of which would not require an ICBM to reach from Pyongyang.
North Korea also has satellites in orbit. Their KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites are on polar orbits, and every 10 days they pass directly over the middle of the United States from the south. Although it is against the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 to put weapons of mass destruction in space, do we expect a rogue state like North Korea to really comply? While it may differ from the Russian Fractional Orbital Bombardment System in that it would not drop a nuclear payload to the surface, a nuclear device on a satellite could have devastating EMP effects. What if it’s floating above us right now and we think it’s just there for communication?
Additionally, two Russian generals warned the EMP Commission in 2004 that Russia’s super-EMP warhead design was transferred “accidentally” to North Korea. Russia was our enemy during the Cold War, and they certainly do their fair share of saber rattling still today. To date, North Korea claims to have tested six nuclear devices since 2006, and it claims the most recent was a more advanced hydrogen bomb. North Korea has ruled out the possibility of negotiating with the US about its nuclear program as long as South Korean and US joint military exercises continue. It is unknown at this time if North Korea has a nuclear weapon stockpile or if it has only produced the devices it has tested.
Russia is certainly a threat regardless of their current diplomatic relationship, as they have the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on the planet. The Russian threat may not be carried out directly by Russians, however. As mentioned above, North Korea has their super-EMP plans, but other risks of equipment and knowledge being leaked are documented. Both the US and Russia (and the former USSR) have lost nuclear weapons and submarines over the decades since the Cold War began. It is possible that these or their plans for construction have been leaked to other nations or to non-state terrorist actors.
Pakistan is another concern for a nuclear threat, despite currently having friendly relations with the US. An Islamic coup is a very tangible concern that could quickly turn this ally into an enemy. A possible solution would be, instead of giving $2–$20 billion to them for 1–10 years, we could harden critical US infrastructure against EMP and GMD. Another concerning country is Iran, as they very well could have had nuclear weapons for the last 15 years.
In writing this article, I listened to nearly 50 hours of presentations and interviews from EMP “experts” and read hundreds of thousands of words on the subject. I am disappointed that I was not able to provide more comprehensive information surrounding the steps needed to protect your electronics from an EMP. At every step in the process, I encountered an overwhelming amount of conflicting information and information based on inadequate data. It seems that the government would prefer to keep things to themselves in the name of such things as national security rather than hand the reins over to the private sector, which is more than ready to begin implementing solutions. The threat is very real, and the consequences of not taking precautions can prove deadly for millions.
Use the information contained in this article and make contact with your federal and state representatives as well as the companies responsible for supplying you with power, water, and other essentials. Press them hard for answers about what they are doing to harden the grid and what kind of timelines you can expect for that implementation. I fear their lack of knowledge on the subject will probably terrify you. If you have more information than I was able to provide here, please share it in the comments or join the discussion on social media.