A very small preview of a potentially catastrophic disaster that could devastate the United States and destroy the majority of its population has been seen in recent events in several states.
Attacks on six electrical substations in North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington State have left tens of thousands of people without power in those areas. The problem will be resolved as resources from across the nation will be utilized to restore power.
It is a limited problem, but events resulting from natural causes or an enemy attack could disable power, computers and more throughout the entire nation in a matter of seconds. The damage would not be repairable. The entire electrical generating resources of America could be eliminated, and there are no immediate replacements.
The effects would be calamitous. Without power, and without the means to move people and goods (an EMP would also render all trains, planes, and automobiles useless, since all those modes of transportation rely on both electronics and computer systems) or the means to pump water, approximately 90% of the American population would die of starvation and thirst within a relatively short period of time. Those dependent on the miracles of modern medicine, including pacemakers and other devices, would face an even quicker death.
It could take decades to replace the destroyed power structure.
In September of 1859, a geomagnetic storm from the sun wreaked havoc in the small amount of electronics in use at the time, causing fires in telegraph stations.
A 2020 joint study by the University of Warwick and the British Antarctic Survey, reported in the journal EarthSky, used historical data to extend scientists’ previous estimates of the likelihood of space super-storms. “These storms may originate with solar flares, seen to erupt explosively on the sun during years of high solar activity. …The new work shows that what the scientists called “great” super-storms occurred in 6 years out of 150. An event such as the 1859 Carrington Event has a 0.7% chance of occurring each year.”
The effect, known as an “electromagnetic pulse” or EMP, could also result from an enemy attack. The federal EMP Commission warned that “The high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold our society seriously at risk and might result in defeat of our military forces… What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter—they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons, and are motivated to attack the US without regard for their own safety. Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter…Certain types of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons can be employed to generate potentially catastrophic EMP effects over wide geographic areas, and designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century.”
A study by the Gatestone Institute found that “…an EMP attack from a single 10-kiloton nuclear weapon — of the type now in North Korea’s arsenal — could cause cascading failures…An EMP, detonated at an altitude above 30-70 kilometers, could be delivered by a short-range missile fired off a freighter, hundreds of kilometers off U.S. shores.”
According to the Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz, the report states that “China, Russia, and Iran consider the use of high-altitude nuclear blasts as ‘sixth generation warfare’ that could cripple the ability of U.S. military to wage war using advanced electronic systems for intelligence, navigation, and precision weapons guidance. ‘Nuclear EMP attack is part of the military doctrines, plans, and exercises of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran for a revolutionary new way of warfare against military forces and civilian critical infrastructures by cyber, sabotage, and EMP.’”
The Trump Administration had warned of the danger, but no concrete actions were taken, and the Biden Administration has not followed up.
Illustration: Pixabay