by Bobby Akart
Such a scenario is challenging enough, even before the uncertainty of achieving the desired HEMP effect, is taken into account. This is just the kind of complexity and uncertainty that well-trained terrorist operatives seek to avoid in an operation. A ground-level nuclear detonation in a city, such as New York or Washington, would be more likely to cause the type of terror, death, and physical destruction that is sought in a terrorist attack, than could be achieved by a non-lethal EMP. Because of this, it would be far simpler for a terrorist group looking to conduct a nuclear attack to do so using a device such as a Radio Frequency Weapon, than it would be using a sophisticated warhead.
Make no mistake: the threat of an EMP attack is real. Modern civilization depends heavily on electronics and the electrical grid for a broad range of vital functions, and this is truer in the United States, than in most other countries. A HEMP attack or a substantial geomagnetic storm could have a dramatic impact on modern life in the affected area. However, as we've discussed, the EMP threat has been around for more than half a century. Despite the fact that there are some technical and practical variables that make a HEMP attack using a nuclear warhead highly unlikely, rogue nations are working diligently to obtain the technology. When considering the EMP threat, it is important to recognize that it exists as one of many threats, including related threats such as conventional nuclear warfare and targeted, small-scale RFW attacks. The world is a dangerous place, full of potential threats. Some things are more likely to occur than others. As a nation, there is only a limited amount of funding to monitor, harden against, try to prepare for, and manage them all. It is easy to fall into the trap of attempting to defend against everything, although the practical result is that Washington’s ineptitude will end up defending against nothing. Focused and rational prioritization of the threats we face as a nation is essential to the country’s defense.
Hardening national infrastructure against an EMP—whether man-made or naturally occurring solar flares, is undoubtedly necessary. The country is beginning to open its eyes to the fact that there are very real weaknesses and vulnerabilities in America's critical infrastructure — not to mention in our society overall. Our political leaders must strike a delicate balance between focusing on this very real threat, and spending resources on other potential collapse events.
Chapter Nine
The Players
Who is capable of carrying out the threat?
We have now established that the nuclear EMP threat is not merely theoretical–it is a clear and present danger. A nuclear EMP attack is the perfect asymmetric weapon for state actors who wish to level the battlefield by neutralizing the great technological advantage enjoyed by the U.S. military forces. EMP is also the only means whereby rogue states or terrorists could use a single nuclear weapon to destroy the United States, and prevail with a single blow.
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have already incorporated EMP attacks into their military doctrines, and openly describe making EMP attacks against the United States.
Rogue states and terrorists could use any type of missile, including short-range missiles that can deliver a nuclear warhead, to exact a catastrophic EMP attack on the United States. Iran has tested ship-launched EMP attacks using Scud missiles. Scud, a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is now in the possession of a dozen countries, including Vietnam, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.
The capabilities of other nations’ technologies have grown in the last several years, resulting in an increased likelihood that our enemies could develop advanced EMP weaponry. It is widely known that both Russia and China already have this capability. Now, Iran and North Korea may not be that far behind. Iran, for example, is believed to have simulated a nuclear EMP attack several years ago, using short-range missiles launched from a freighter. Meanwhile, analysts claim that North Korea has acquired the blueprints to build an EMP warhead, possibly from Iran or China.
In July of 2013, a North Korean freighter attempted to pass through the Panama Canal undetected from the Gulf of Mexico with two nuclear-capable missiles in its hold. Three months earlier, in April of 2013, the Chong Chon Gang vessel stopped sending its tracking signal to the Automatic Identification System, used worldwide by seagoing vessels. On May 31, it suddenly reappeared on the AIS. The day after, it passed through the Panama Canal and once again, disappeared from the AIS system for forty-five days.
The irregularities of the ship’s travel caused Panamanian officials to seize the ship as it attempted to go back to North Korea via the Panama Canal. There was a violent confrontation between the North Korean crew and the Panamanian officials trying to inspect the ship. When the ship was ordered to anchor, the North Korean crew refused. The crew attempted to sabotage the ship by cutting cables on the cranes that would be used to unload the cargo.
When the crew refused to raise anchor and move the vessel as instructed, the authorities were forced to cut the anchor loose. Immediately, a struggle ensued during which the captain of the Chong Chon Gang feinted a heart attack and then attempted to commit suicide.
The Panamanian seizure revealed the following cargo:
· 240 metric tons of weapons
· Russian designed Radar/Control systems for missile launching
· Two Russian-made MiG-21 aircraft
· Plane engines and motors
· Live munitions and ordnance, including the parts needed to make two nuclear-capable missiles.
Both Iran and North Korea have been actively pursuing nuclear EMP weaponry. They have successfully orbited a number of satellites that could evade U.S. early warning radars. If these orbiting satellites are carrying nuclear warheads, they could easily deliver a HEMP to the proper altitude to impact the entire continental U.S.
The North Korean example illustrates the warning issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. He said, “At any given time, there’s any number off our coast—coming, going, on transporter-erector-launchers, and they simply erect it, fire off a ballistic missile, put it down, cover it up. Their radar signature is not any different than fifty others in close proximity.”
Capability + Desire > The Inverse Relationship
As we wrote in Cyber Warfare, there is an inverse relationship between the capability to launch, and successfully detonate, a nuclear delivered EMP weapon and the desire to do so.
CHINA
China leads the way in EMP research and application
While China calls the potential use of an EMP weapon against U.S. interests its ace, officials inside the Department of Defense have declared such a threat to be reckless and irresponsible. Further, the Chinese military has publicly stated their intentions to use a nuclear EMP as part of a one-two punch to knock out all defensive electronics of its adversaries, including Taiwan or any U.S. military assets in the region.
In response, the Department of Defense attempted to quell the threatened use of an EMP by China. Reports quoted an unnamed source as saying, “the Department is unaware of any increase in the threat of a deliberate destructive use of an EMP device. Further, any reporting to the contrary by those without access to current threat assessments is both reckless and irresponsible.”
But even the Department of Defense has admitted that our country’s intelligence resources lack the technical means to monitor the development of the nuclear weapons programs of other nations, or terrorist organizations. Working in concert with the Defense Science Board, a committee of civilian experts appointed to advise the Defense Department on the growing threat of biological, chemical, and nuclear weaponry, the DOD has placed a greater emphasis on defense strategies for advanced ballistic and cruise missile threats that carry a HEMP payload.
The report of the DSB, whose civilian members hold high-security clearances, warned that there has been an increase in the capabilities of existing nuclear states, especially China, and a horizontal proliferation in the number of states and non-state actors possessing or attempting to possess nu
clear weapons. These factors led the DSB to observe that monitoring for proliferation should be a top national security objective.
Shashoujian: China’s Assassin’s Mace Concept
China's military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, or its expansion into the South China Sea. The lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse and high-powered microwave weapons revealed are part of China’s shashoujian, or assassin’s mace arsenal—weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to level the playing field with U.S. military forces.
Microwave weapons could be used to shut down enemy radar, communications, computers and other electronics, in an opening salvo. The weapons also could jam electronics of attacking aircraft and anti-radiation missiles, and as an anti-satellite weapon, degrade sensitive satellite electronics systems. Pentagon reports on China's military in the past, made only passing references to the assassin’s mace arsenal. China and Taiwan have been at odds politically for sixty-five years. For years, Beijing has continuously threatened to bring the Taiwanese under its control using military force, or otherwise. For use against Taiwan, China could detonate at an EMP at a relatively low altitude of twenty miles to confine the EMP effects to Taiwan, and minimize damage to electronics on China’s mainland. As the Chinese military seeks an advantage in the area of EMP warfare, the world has taken notice. According to reports, China boasts that its assassin’s mace electronic weapons are part of a trump card, based on unique, new technology that has been developed in high secrecy. Experts believe the trump card would be useful if the Chinese have developed new low-yield, possibly enhanced, EMP warheads.
According to analysts, China recently conducted EMP tests on mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, and monkeys, that produce eye, brain, bone marrow, and other organ injuries. It's clear that the real purpose of the Chinese medical experiments is to learn the potential human effects of exposure to powerful EMP and high-powered microwave radiation. One has to wonder whether the medical research also appeared useful for China's military in making sure that their newly developed EMP arsenal designed for use against Taiwan and any targeted U.S. aircraft carrier, would not push the U.S. across the nuclear-response threshold.
Also, China’s HEMP capability could be used as a bluff, intended to dissuade the United States from defending Taiwan with U.S. Naval forces. Experts argue the bluff scenario would include China’s announcement of a resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing, warn of tests during a specified period, and then attacking Taiwan’s infrastructure with conventional forces. China, would then the U.S. response; e.g., whether the U.S. carriers were deployed to defend Taiwan.
China’s Super-EMP
Military strategists have long predicted that the first attack in China’s Assassin’s Mace arsenal would be a Super-EMP. Newly declassified defense intelligence reports reveals that it is already in production. “There is also evidence that China is developing, or has already developed, super-EMP nuclear weapons that generate extraordinarily powerful EMP fields, based partly on design information stolen from the United States,” says Dr. Peter Pry, president of the group, EMPact America.
Super-EMP nuclear weapons can exceed the 50,000-volt limit associated with an E1 blast by the nearly instantaneous release of a burst of much higher gamma radiation levels than are known to be produced by these new second-generation nuclear weapons. According to Dr. Pry, Super-EMP weapons can destroy even the best protected U.S. military and civilian electronic systems.
China moves to protect its critical infrastructure
Though the U. S. government has been slow to protect America’s electrical grid from a potentially catastrophic electromagnetic event, it appears the Chinese are working to guard their own. Recently, the People’s Liberation Army, the PLA, conducted a drill designed to determine how the PLA will respond in the event of an EMP attack on China. Right now, the most likely suspect would be the United States, in the eyes of the PLA, since Beijing and Moscow seem to be getting even more closely intertwined economically as well as militarily.
These drills, which the Chinese military describes as the largest in their history, have already disrupted flights at major Chinese airports. For example, one of the exercises was a simulated EMP attack targeting communications and radar systems. In the simulated attacks, the PLA training exercise included heavy airstrikes, including electronic disturbance teams, and chemical weapons drills, per the Chinese state run media.
Col. Chen Hong, a former professor at the PLA Air Force College, told The Daily Telegraph that the deployments were unprecedented.
“The exercises show that our nation has the ability to defend ourselves against any invasion,” Col. Chen said. “They are a deterrent to countries around us.”
Because of simulated air assaults, these drills significantly affected flights at Chinese airports near the country’s east coast. The naval portion of the training involved China’s East, North, and South fleets. Also, all airborne and ground missile units of the PLA Air Force were deployed. It was a massive show of strength and intended to send a clear message to the West. China’s preparations could have a deterrent effect on any U.S. attempt to take out communications and air-defense systems with the Pentagon’s arsenal of electromagnetic weapons.
It is apparent from the comments of Chinese officials that the PLA is attempting to develop a counter to such a capability. Success in having such a counter-measure would cripple the surprise capability that U.S. strike aircraft have employed in the past in Iraq, and potentially against communications and missile defenses of a country; such as Iran or China.
To Washington’s credit, it has incorporated the use of EMP weaponry in its arsenal of offensive weapons, and it has taken steps to harden electronics to protect military technologies. However, Washington has been inexplicably negligent in protecting our electrical grid system or the life-staining critical infrastructures that we rely on.
Shouldn’t it be a red flag to Washington that China is going through extraordinary steps to protect its critical infrastructure from an EMP attack? Perhaps our lawmakers should take notice that the thing China fears most about other nations is what other nations should fear most about China.
RUSSIA
Russia Strengthens its Nuclear Forces
Like China, Russia is taking significant steps to protect itself from EMP attacks and to enhance both its first-strike and nuclear response capabilities. In 2015, President Vladimir Putin ordered Defense Chiefs to strengthen Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, amid rising tensions with the U.S. over the global balance of power.
“New weapons should go to all parts of the nuclear triad of air, sea, and land forces,” Putin told his Defense Ministry. He also announced that action must be taken to improve the effectiveness of missile-attack warning systems and aerospace defense.
Russia’s military will have five new nuclear regiments, equipped with modern missile complexes, by the end of 2016, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced during the same meeting. It is believed that more than ninety percent of the Russia’s nuclear forces maintain a permanent state of readiness.
Putin’s moves to reinforce Russian nuclear capabilities are reviving Cold War tensions with the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Washington warned in June of 2015, that the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling is undermining stability in an attempt to intimidate European neighbors. Russia’s nuclear arsenal, its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, prompted Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to call Russia the most pressing threat to U.S. national security.
Putin, in what appeared to be a statement in preparation for a large-scale conflict, said Russia’s military must continue its program of training drills and devote particular attention to the transport of troops over long distances. He further impressed upon his military to prepare their strategic nuclear deterrence and mobility by
preparing to airlift anti-aircraft, missile, and electronic forces.
Russia readies for a large-scale regional conflict
Russia has always been considered a war-like nation. Today, about half of Russian nuclear weapons are new, including modern missiles, upgraded aircraft, and a strengthened submarine capacity. Russia has also expanded its military’s combat capabilities by reinforcing its western and south-western army groups, and building four bases in the Arctic region.
In response, NATO’s troop presence in the Baltic States and central Europe increased sharply in 2015. The U.S. has increased its presence to over two hundred nuclear weapons, situated in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Turkey.
Amid a conflict with NATO member Turkey over the shooting down of a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in late 2015, Putin reacted angrily, ordering defense officials to respond harshly to any threats against Russia’s forces operating in Syria. Any future threats should face “immediate extermination,” he said.
Putin openly claimed that the Russian air campaign in Syria against ISIS and other militants is aimed at protecting Russia from terrorism. In addition, a significant number of airstrikes are being coordinated with both President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, and those of the opposition Free Syrian Army, which has more than five thousand troops fighting terrorists with weapons supplied by Russia, Putin stated.
Russia new Doomsday Command Center – the Ilyushin Il-80 Aircraft
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has successfully placed into operation its doomsday flying command center aboard the Ilyushin Il-80 aircraft. In the case of a full-blown nuclear war, the center is capable of controlling the country’s armed forces and to perform necessary offensive or defensive measures. Russia and the U.S. are the only two nations that have developed a command center of this type.
