Tag Archives: EMP

Will Americans Vote for Congressional Gridlock or US National Security?

Originally published on Newsmax.com:

Days before U.S. congressional elections crucial to Trump Administration plans for protecting the U.S. and deterring World War III, Moscow’s new “peace offensive” is trying to mobilize the kind of American voter Vladimir Lenin allegedly once described as “useful idiots.”

Will Americans vote for congressional gridlock or for U.S. national security?

At stake are Trump Administration programs strengthening U.S. military might and homeland security, all long-neglected or opposed by the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats:

— Rebuilding the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines.

— Modernizing U.S. nuclear deterrent forces and their scientific-industrial base.

— Protecting the U.S. electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures from cyber and EMP attack.

— Creating a U.S. Space Force and space-based defenses that could render nuclear missiles obsolete.

But wait! Are these programs really necessary?

Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised: “We have no concept of a preemptive strike.”

“We expect to be struck by nuclear weapons, but we will not use them [first],” Putin said, “The aggressor will have to understand that retaliation is inevitable, that it will be destroyed, and that we, as victims of aggression, as martyrs, will go to heaven.” Whereas Americans “will simply die because they won’t even have time to repent.”

On October 18, according to TASS: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that Moscow and Washington should reaffirm the idea it will be impossible to win a nuclear war.”

Lavrov: “The Americans and we have made two fundamental statements since the Soviet era to the effect nobody can win a nuclear war and for that reason it cannot happen. It might be a good idea to reaffirm this postulate.”

Lavrov criticizes U.S. nuclear deterrent modernization, including the development of a U.S. low-yield warhead to counter Russia’s 10-to-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, as dangerously destabilizing and threatening to “undermine all existing agreements.”

Yet Moscow expects Washington to be OK with Russia’s violations of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, too long tolerated by the Obama Administration, but now challenged by President Trump.

Threatens Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on October 21, U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which now constrains only the United States and NATO, not Russia or China, would be “very dangerous.”

Who would believe such propaganda, be cowed by such threats?

Too many Americans.

Too many Americans belong to the party of “blame America first” and to the party of suicidal appeasement and to the party that fantasizes about former President Obama’s “world without nuclear weapons” beginning with U.S. unilateral disarmament.

For example, according to national security expert Peter Huessy (October 15): “The Princeton University disarmament group, Global Zero, has released a new…report — The End of Nuclear Warfighting — that calls for the unilateral disarmament of more than two-thirds of the U.S. nuclear deterrent and…placing most U.S. warheads in storage bunkers.”

Moscow wants Americans to temporarily forget, until after voting on November 6, dictator Putin’s March 1 televised briefing to the world describing new nuclear super-weapons giving Russia “nuclear superiority” and demanding that the U.S. “listen to us now.”

Moscow hopes voting Americans never read former Director of the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency, Vice Admiral Robert Monroe’s recent article accurately describing Russia’s hyper-aggressive nuclear strategy in The Hill:

Russia makes “no distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons. They consider the full spectrum of weaponry to be available for military use; and they have even gone farther, by establishing a preferred strategy of early (conflict-ending) use of low-yield nukes in all military actions, large and small. For a quarter-century Russia has been focusing their nuclear weapons research and testing on very low yields (say, from ten to 500 tons). During this same period, they have also been researching and testing greater use of fusion, less of fission, possibly achieving pure fusion. These weapons would emit only neutrons and gamma rays, and leave little or no contaminating residual radiation.”

“Their tactics of use would be ones we’ve never seen or thought about. Putin has threatened military action in many areas of Europe, to recover the former Soviet empire. If armed conflict broke out tomorrow, the advancing Russian armor, mobilized infantry, artillery, and tactical aircraft would be preceded by dozens of low-yield nuclear detonations, killing everything, but leaving roads and bridges intact. The war would be over in days or hours.”

Moscow doesn’t want American voters to read the Congressional EMP Commission Chairman’s Report, recently approved for unclassified publication by the Defense Department:

Russian military doctrine “describes the combined use of cyber viruses and hacking, physical attacks, non-nuclear EMP weapons, and ultimately nuclear EMP attack against electric grids and critical infrastructures as a new way of warfare that is the greatest Revolution in Military Affairs in history. Like Nazi Germany’s Blitzkrieg (‘Lightning War’) Strategy that coordinated airpower, armor, and mobile infantry to achieve strategic and technological surprise that nearly defeated the Allies in World War II, the New Blitzkrieg is, literally and figuratively, an electronic ‘Lightning War’ so potentially decisive in its effects that an entire civilization could be overthrown in hours.”

Vote November 6. And don’t be an idiot.

Doomsday: The Threat Posed by Russia’s New Nuclear Superweapon

13 June 2018          

For Immediate Release

Contact: Clare M. Lopez 202-719-2423

Russia is currently testing a new super superweapon whose advertised mission is to destroy U.S. coastal regions, ports, and aircraft carriers by detonating an immense thermonuclear bomb underwater to raise nuclear tsunamis and spread radioactive fallout. Dubbed “POSEIDON,” the weapon is an unmanned, nuclear-powered drone submarine that can travel intercontinental distances. Reportedly, POSEIDON may be able to defeat U.S. anti-submarine capabilities by utilizing artificial intelligence, speed, stealth and elusiveness to deliver a 100-megaton warhead, which would be by far the most powerful nuclear weapon in existence.

According to Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, one of America’s foremost authorities on nuclear threats, Russia may have one or more other, strategically ominous missions in mind for POSEIDON, however.  For example, it could also serve as a formidable “hunter-killer” for the purpose of destroying deployed U.S. ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) upon which the nation depends for the most survivable “leg” of our deterrent Triad.

Another, no less frightening application would be possible if POSEIDON’s immense warhead were deployed aboard a new Russian Satan heavy intercontinental ballistic missile: It could generate an immense high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon sufficient to paralyze U.S. forces – including SSBNs deep underwater – as well as knock out this country’s electric grid in one deadly blow.

Whatever it mission, Dr. Pry argues compellingly that POSEIDON underscores the urgency for the United States to “harden [its] critical infrastructures, deploy space-based missile defenses, modernize strategic forces, and develop new generation nuclear weapons.” Through such entirely measures, the U.S. can impress on Russia and its president Vladimir Putin our commitment to maintaining a national defense second to none – and, with luck, thereby reestablish the sort of credible deterrent that could make possible an improved and peaceable relationship with Russia.

Upon the release of this newest of the Center’s Occasional Paper series, CSP President, Frank J. Gaffney noted:

Dr. Peter Pry has rendered yet-another public service by laying bare the dangerous asymmetries between Vladimir Putin’s modernized and increasingly formidable strategic arsenal on the one hand and America’s obsolescent one on the other. With characteristic clarity and attention to detail, he has made clear the urgent need for a comprehensive U.S. response so as to return our nation to the necessary posture of peace through strength.

“POSEIDON: Russia’s New Doomsday Machine” is available for purchase in Kindle and paperback. It can also be viewed and downloaded for free in PDF format below:

DOOMSDAY 20180624

Possible EMP attack not taken lightly

The following is an excerpt from an article originally appearing on ONENewsNow

A national defense analyst and former Reagan Defense Department official warned that the U.S. remains very vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from North Korea.

Recently, the Atlanta airport was shut down for 10 hours by an electrical fire that affected millions of travelers across the country. And just three months after Hurricane Maria, parts of Puerto Rico are still without power.

Frank Gaffney – who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security during the Reagan Administration and now runs the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC – says that those two illustrations point out the importance of securing the country’s electrical grid. The website Stopemp.org provides details.

Gaffney stressed that the North Koreans have explicitly threatened to use an EMP weapon to destroy America’s electrical grid.

“If that electromagnetic pulse option is available to them, it could be devastating in our country,” Gaffney pointed out. “Imagine your life without electricity for a couple months – let alone possibly years. You may not have a life – I  the truth of the matter be known – so it’s not something to be undertaken lightly, and what I’ve been arguing for is not going to military war with North Korea, but it may have to be done as messy as it will be.”

Gaffney impressed that an EMP attack could be launched by short-range missiles.

“By putting them on a tramp steamer and sailing in near our shores, it’s entirely possible that two satellites that they have orbiting the United States and the rest of the planet could do just that – and [North Korea] may be equipped to do it even as we speak,” he alerted Americans.

Gaffney also impressed that an EMP attack against the U.S. would be a catastrophe that would make Atlanta’s and Puerto Rico’s afflictions pale by comparison. Another website, Securefreedom.org discuses measures to ensure that such  rogue nations as North Korea and Iran will not infringe on the freedom of Americans.

Possible EMP attack not taken lightly

The following is an excerpt from an article originally appearing on ONENewsNow

A national defense analyst and former Reagan Defense Department official warned that the U.S. remains very vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from North Korea.

Recently, the Atlanta airport was shut down for 10 hours by an electrical fire that affected millions of travelers across the country. And just three months after Hurricane Maria, parts of Puerto Rico are still without power.

Frank Gaffney – who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security during the Reagan Administration and now runs the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC – says that those two illustrations point out the importance of securing the country’s electrical grid. The website Stopemp.org provides details.

Gaffney stressed that the North Koreans have explicitly threatened to use an EMP weapon to destroy America’s electrical grid.

“If that electromagnetic pulse option is available to them, it could be devastating in our country,” Gaffney pointed out. “Imagine your life without electricity for a couple months – let alone possibly years. You may not have a life – I  the truth of the matter be known – so it’s not something to be undertaken lightly, and what I’ve been arguing for is not going to military war with North Korea, but it may have to be done as messy as it will be.”

Gaffney impressed that an EMP attack could be launched by short-range missiles.

“By putting them on a tramp steamer and sailing in near our shores, it’s entirely possible that two satellites that they have orbiting the United States and the rest of the planet could do just that – and [North Korea] may be equipped to do it even as we speak,” he alerted Americans.

Gaffney also impressed that an EMP attack against the U.S. would be a catastrophe that would make Atlanta’s and Puerto Rico’s afflictions pale by comparison. Another website, Securefreedom.org discuses measures to ensure that such  rogue nations as North Korea and Iran will not infringe on the freedom of Americans.

The Swan Song of the EMP Commission

Former Congressman Curt Weldon – The only member of congress who held simultaneously the vice chairmanship of the house armed services committee and house homeland security committee, and who was also responsible for giving the United States national missile defense recently stated:   “Only Washington bureaucrats could be so stupid they would terminate the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, also known as the Congressional EMP Commission — just when North Korea threatened to attack the United States with EMP.”  Indeed, on 30 September 2017, this Commission – and the multi decades worth of experience of its members – expired.   Yesterday, the Commission’s Chairman – Dr. William R. Graham – and its Chief of Staff – Dr. Peter Vincent Pry – testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency about the incredible and imminent threats facing the U.S. electric grid and made extraordinarily wise recommendations for addressing these threats.   Let’s hope and pray that these recommendations are taken to heart by members of that committee. To read the testimony for yourself visit: www.securefreedom.org

The Blackout Next Time

Originally posted at Townhall.com

During and after Hurricane Harvey, a chemical plant suffered repeated explosions. Because the power went out. Beaumont, Texas was without drinking water. Because the power went out. Gasoline prices across the nation have spiked, thanks to oil refineries going off line. Because the power went out.

Now, we are being told that Hurricane Irma has knocked out the power for Puerto Rico for between four and six months, with repercussions that may prove not just burdensome but life-threatening for large numbers of the island’s residents. Far less powerful hurricanes have taken down the electric grid in parts of Florida and it is anybody’s guess how long and how widespread that problem will be after what’s being called a “nuclear storm” assaults most, if not all, the peninsula, and perhaps beyond.

If all these naturally precipitated nightmares were not enough, North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, has explicitly threatened to destroy the rest of the U.S. electricity infrastructure with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. Should that happen, blacking out large parts of the continental United States for a protracted period of a year or more duration, the chairman of a blue-ribbon congressional committee has estimated that 9 out of 10 Americans will die.

Because the power went out – and stayed out.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

The conclusion made plain by such developments from the recent past and immediate future is that the most critical of all critical infrastructures – the nation’s bulk power distribution system, better known as the grid – is not resilient. Indeed, it is dangerously vulnerable to both naturally occurring disasters and deliberate enemy action.

If this insight is news to you, it is not to our government. In fact, a compilation of the executive summaries of 11 different studies performed by or for the Feds shows that, whether the grid is subjected to devastating physical sabotage, cyberattacks, man-induced EMP or intense solar storms, the effect could be the same: the end of this country as we know it.

That’s the very, very bad news. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

For over 50 years, the U.S. military has been protecting high value assets against such threats to our strategic forces and the communications systems that command and control them. We know how to do it and understand that it can be accomplished reasonably quickly and cost-effectively using such techniques as surge arresters, shunts and Faraday cages.

Unfortunately, to date very little has been done measurably to enhance the grid’s resiliency. There’s plenty of blame to go around. And none of the reasons why we remain needlessly vulnerable stand up to scrutiny – not the irresponsible indifference of the utilities who own 85 percent of the grid; not the Pentagon’s refusal to view this as the national security peril it is; not the fecklessness of federal regulators, executive branch officials and lawmakers – can be allowed to continue to render us catastrophically vulnerable to the power going out catastrophically.

Consequently, several steps are in order – immediately:

First, that blue-ribbon panel, the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse Threat Commission, needs to have its mandate extended well beyond its planned termination date at the end of this month. Otherwise, all other things being equal, the nation’s most eminent, authoritative and valuable resource on grid vulnerability will be lost when it is arguably needed most. A perfect opportunity to re-up the EMP Commission will occur this week when the Senate considers the National Defense Authorization Act.

Second, the Commission’s previous recommendations for enhancing grid resiliency – dating back to 2004 – should be adopted and aggressively implemented by President Trump and/or the Congress. There is simply no time to waste.

Finally, the commitment expressed by Mr. Trump and legislators on both sides of the aisle to upgrade America’s infrastructure must begin with a commitment to design, build and operate a new grid featuring modern electrical power plants, transformers, control systems, etc., that are “hardened” against the various military and natural perils we confront today and will face tomorrow.

We are all on notice: A failure to act now leaves us in unacceptable, even mortal peril when, not if, the power goes out.

Consequences of North Korean EMP Attack ‘Could Be Truly Nation-Ending’

Originally posted at Breitbart.com

Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney discussed the North Korean nuclear missile crisis with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily.

Gaffney said “it may or may not be true today” that North Korea can launch a nuclear warhead with intercontinental range, “but it’s for sure the case that that’s imminent, if not actually true now.”

“The problem is, of course, that when you have that kind of capability in the hands of this kind of regime, it does pose a mortal threat to the United States,” he warned. “I am of course concerned that even one of their less-powerful atomic weapons could be used to destroy a city or devastate part of our country.”

“The really worrying thing, which Kim Jong-un has now made explicit, is the distinct possibility long warned about by me, and members of our Secure the Grid Coalition – Jim Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence; Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House; Ted Cruz, senator; and many others – is an electromagnetic pulse attack,” he said.

Gaffney said such an attack “could conceivably be unleashed on us at any time, perhaps by a nuclear weapon, maybe not even a thermonuclear weapon but an atomic weapon on one of their satellites from a vantage point in space that would rain down immense amounts of electromagnetic energy that would destroy – not just damage, not just turn off temporarily, but destroy – large parts of America’s absolutely vital electric grid.”

“The consequences of that could be truly nation-ending,” he said. “This not hyperbole. This is the result of a whole series, 11 at least, of studies that the United States government has performed over the years, that if the grid goes down – it could be because of sabotage, it could be cyberattack, it could be because of solar storms of a very intense kind, but electromagnetic pulse man-induced through these nuclear weapons is one of the ways most efficiently to take out America.”

“If Kim Jong-un has that capability, I believe that is indeed an existential threat to America and to its people. We have to be clear about that, and we’ve got to be about the business of protecting this vital, critical infrastructure immediately,” he urged.

Gaffney explained that EMP attacks involve “interaction between what’s called gamma rays that are unleashed by a nuclear weapon in space, and the upper atmosphere, which results in intense electromagnetic energy being unleashed.”

“Everything in line-of-sight of that detonation will be exposed to three phases of pulse,” he continued. “A very short phase, which can fry electronic devices, microcircuits, and the sort. The second phase is a medium length. It’s kind of like lightning. We’ve done a pretty good job of protecting our assets against that. The third is the long wave phase, and that can be transmitted into things we really care about, like high voltage transformers critical to the functioning of the grid or generators for that matter, through the high-voltage power lines that go across this country. They serve as perfect antenna for this kind of pulse.”

“Some people poo-poo this. The most serious, the most competent, the most informed group in the country on electromagnetic pulse and the threats that it poses has been in business since the early 2000s, the Congressional EMP Threat Commission. I urge every one of your listeners to just go look at this commission’s work,” he said.

“If you understand the physics of this, and the United States military, by the way, has understood the physics of this since the early 1960s, you realize this is no joke. This is no drill. This is no exaggeration. This is truly, as I say, a mortal threat to our country. We know what to do to protect our grid. That commission has been recommending action on this for about 15 years. We have to get about it because the country – and truly, tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans’ lives – are on the line,” Gaffney said.

“Nuclear war of the kind that we’ve worried about in the past, particularly from the Russians, now the Chinese, cannot be dismissed. In fact, both of those countries are expending enormous amounts of money to build not only new nuclear weapons and delivery systems, including hypersonic and maneuvering weapons that are designed to defeat what limited missile defenses we have at the moment,” he pointed out.

“So it’s not to say that is not a problem. It’s a problem that is actually getting worse, even though we choose to avert our gaze from it. Barack Obama was insistent we were going to rid the world of nuclear weapons, starting with ours. We pretended that the Russians and the Chinese and so on didn’t matter, even the Iranians, who we’ve now helped move a ‘great leap forward,’ if I can use that expression, towards the bomb,” he said.

“But the thing about EMP is, as I say, conceivably a single nuclear weapon detonated in space high over the United States could do the job of an enormous nuclear laydown,” Gaffney warned. “That just means it’s that much easier. The trouble is, this isn’t just speculation. Kim Jong-un, in his remarks accompanying the announcement about this H-bomb, explicitly has threatened the United States with a devastating electromagnetic pulse attack. We ignore this at our extreme peril.”