Electromagnetic Pulse (13 page)

James Woolsey
,
Former Director of the Central Intelligence

Mr. Woolsey previously served in the U.S. Government on five different occasions, where he held Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations—most recently (1993-95) as Director of Central Intelligence. During his 12 years of government service, in addition to heading the CIA and the Intelligence Community, Mr. Woolsey was: Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989–1991; Under Secretary of the Navy, 1977–1979; and General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970–1973. He was also appointed by the President to serve on a part-time basis in Geneva, Switzerland, 1983–1986, as Delegate at Large to the U.S.–Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST). As an officer in the U.S. Army, he was an adviser on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), Helsinki and Vienna, 1969–1970.

Mr. Woolsey currently chairs the Strategic Advisory Group of the Washington, D.C. private equity fund, Paladin Capital Group, chairs the Advisory Board of the Opportunities Development Group, and he is Of Counsel to the Washington, D.C. office of the Boston-based law firm, Goodwin Procter. In the above capacities, he specializes in a range of alternative energy and security issues, focusing on the threat we face as a nation from an EMP.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

Perhaps there is no greater advocate of protecting our nation from the devastating impact of an EMP, than Dr. Peter Vincent Pry.

From the Task Force on National and Homeland Security website:

“Dr. Pry is Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, both Congressional Advisory Boards, and served on the Congressional EMP Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and the CIA.

The Task Force on National and Homeland Security is a privately-funded and operated body with a mandate to educate and help protect the United States from the existential threat posed by a natural or manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP) catastrophe and other threats vital to U.S. national and homeland security that imperil the survival of the American people. A natural EMP from a great geomagnetic storm, a rare but inevitable threat that many scientists fear is overdue and may soon recur, perhaps as soon as the next solar maximum, could collapse electric grids worldwide and all the critical infrastructures – communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water – that sustain modern civilization and the lives of millions. A nuclear EMP attack would inflict a similar catastrophe upon the U.S., slowly killing about two-thirds of the national population, 200 million Americans or more dead within one year, from starvation, disease, and societal collapse. Dr. Pry believes such an attack could be executed by both state and non-state actors, in the latter case through the launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a freighter or other platform off the coast of our country.”

Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy

From the Center for Security Policy website:

“Frank Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.

For twenty-five years, the Center for Security Policy has pioneered the organization, management and direction of public policy coalitions to promote U.S. national security. Even more importantly, the Center’s mission has been to secure the adoption of the products of such efforts by skillfully enlisting support from executive branch officials, key legislators, other public policy organizations, opinion-shapers in the media and the public at large.

The philosophy of “Peace through Strength” is not a slogan for military might but a belief that America’s national power must be preserved and properly used for it holds a unique global role in maintaining peace and stability.

The process the Center has repeatedly demonstrated is the unique ability that makes the Center the “Special Forces in the War of Ideas”: forging teams to get things done that would otherwise be impossible for a small and relatively low-budget organization. In this way, we are able to offer maximum “bang for the buck” for the donors who make our work possible. This approach has enabled the Center to have an outsized impact.”

F. Michael Maloof
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Author, and former senior security policy analyst to the Secretary of Defense

F. Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, has almost 30 years of federal service in the U.S. Defense Department and as a specialized trainer for border guards and Special Forces in select countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

While with the Department of Defense, Maloof was the Director of Technology Security Operations as head of a 10-person team involved in halting the diversion of militarily critical technologies to countries of national security and proliferation concern and those involved in sponsoring terrorism. His office was the liaison to the intelligence and enforcement community within the Office of the Secretary of Defense in halting diversions and using cases that developed from them as early warnings to decision-makers of potential policy issues.

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States, Maloof was detailed back to report directly to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy to prepare an analysis of worldwide terrorist networks, determine their linkages worldwide and their relationship to state sponsors. Before his career at the Defense Department, Maloof was a legislative assistant to various U.S. Senators specializing in national security and international affairs.

George Noory, media icon and advocate of EMP preparedness

George Noory, the host of the nationally syndicated program, Coast to Coast AM, says if he weren’t a national radio talk show host, he’d be in politics. Heard by millions of listeners, Coast To Coast AM airs on I Heart Radio, SiriusXM Satellite, and over six hundred radio stations worldwide.

In 2014, Noory announced a campaign to protect and insulate the U.S. power grid against an EMP event or attack via nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and solar flares, all of which could endanger the lives of millions of Americans. The threat of an electromagnetic pulse event or attack on the U.S. has prompted Noory, host of “Coast to Coast AM,” the most-listened-to overnight radio program in North America, to launch a campaign to prepare a defense.

“I implore all individual states, the President and members of Congress to immediately develop a plan to protect our power grid,” said Noory. “The preservation of our great nation and the lives of its people are critical.” The goal is to protect and insulate the U.S. power grid against an EMP event or attack from a solar flare, nuclear weapon or ballistic missile, all of which could endanger the lives of millions of Americans, according to Noory.

Chapter Eleven
The EMP Commission

The EMP Commission

Through the warnings of Representatives Franks and Bartlett, Congress finally began to recognize the potential threat of this powerful nuclear phenomenon. Congress established the EMP Commission under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2001 in order to provide an independent assessment of this threat against the United States. The authorizing provision directed that the EMP Commission investigate and report to Congress its findings and recommendations for the United States concerning four aspects of the EMP threat:

The duties of the EMP Commission, among other things, included assessing the following:

1. The nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years

2. The vulnerability of United States military and especially civilian systems to an EMP attack, giving special attention to vulnerability of the civilian infrastructure as a matter of emergency preparedness

3. The capability of the United States to repair and recover from damage inflicted on United States military and civilian systems by an EMP attack

4. The feasibility and cost of hardening select military and civilian systems against EMP attack.

The Commission is charged with identifying any steps it believes should be taken by the United States, to better protect its military and civilian systems from EMP attack.

Multiple reports and briefings associated with this effort were produced by the EMP Commission including the often cited Critical National Infrastructures Report.

According to the Commission report, protecting the United States against the evolving EMP threat will require a mix of active defenses, passive defenses, and policy changes. Specifically, the United States should:

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Develop a clear policy about how it would respond to an EMP attack. An adversary may be emboldened to use EMP because the U.S. has no clear retaliation policy. As the commission's report makes clear, an EMP attack could devastate both civilian and military assets without harming humans--in the short term. An adversary could therefore, calculate that the United States would respond less severely to an EMP strike than it would to a more traditional attack that results in physical destruction and casualties. That makes EMP very attractive. It could carry decreased risk but promise great reward. By itself, a policy guaranteeing significant retaliation may not deter all hostile groups from using EMP, but it may deter some. Better yet, a policy to retaliate combined with other actions--such as installing active defenses, increased passive defenses, and assuring military survivability--would decrease the likelihood of an EMP attack against the United States because such measures would make a strike less likely to succeed. If it did succeed, the consequences for the United States would be minimal. Thus, the value of an EMP strike would be significantly reduced, but the risk of launching an attack would be greatly increased because the U.S. would not only have a policy to retaliate, but also the capability.

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Protect the vital nodes of America's power grid and telecommunications systems. Much of America's power grid and telecommunications systems is vulnerable to EMP attack. In the near term, hardening America's entire critical infrastructure is not feasible. However, protecting those elements of U.S. infrastructure that would be essential to any post-EMP recovery (e.g., large turbines, generators, high-voltage transformers, and electronic telecommunications switching systems) is possible. These major nodes are not only critical to the nation's power-grid and telecommunications capability, but would be extremely difficult and timeconsuming to rebuild or repair. Protecting these critical infrastructure nodes may be expensive in the near term, but it could save the nation significantly in both money and lives in the future.

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Conduct a national vulnerability assessment and prepare a national recovery plan. Although protecting the nation's entire electronic and telecommunications systems against EMP strike is unreasonable, protecting some of those assets is possible. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should work with the private sector to identify which parts of the nation's power grid and telecommunications infrastructure are critical to preserving the nation's core capabilities. These assets would also be the most essential to recovery efforts in a post-EMP environment. By protecting these nodes, the United States could significantly reduce the time needed to recover from an attack. Additionally, DHS should develop a contingency plan for recovery from an EMP attack that would minimize confusion.

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Retrofit portions of the U.S. armed forces to ensure EMP survivability. The United States' military must end its nearly complete vulnerability to an EMP strike. This glaring hole in U.S. defenses is a liability that America's adversaries will surely exploit if it is not corrected. As with civilian infrastructure, hardening America's entire military apparatus against EMP is prohibitively expensive. However, the nation should invest the resources to retrofit enough of the military's land, sea, and air assets to guarantee any potential adversary that the U.S. will be able to respond comprehensively to any kind of attack. Hardening military equipment against EMP costs approximately 10 percent of the original cost of the equipment. While this is high, it is a necessary expense given the risk.

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Begin building military systems that are engineered with EMP protections. Although retrofitting against EMP is extremely expensive, engineering EMP resistance into a system from the beginning adds only about 1 percent to the system cost. Given that so much of military equipment is already old and that force transformation will result in many new systems and platforms, now is an opportune time to begin dealing with this problem. In addition to saving money by incorporating EMP resistance into new systems instead of retrofitting existing equipment, America's transformed military will increasingly rely on many sophisticated electronic networks and systems. A successful EMP strike against U.S. forces that disrupted or destroyed these systems would effectively turn America's technological advantage into a distinct liability.