As long as we have nuclear missiles on submarines, and assuming the Chinese haven’t hacked those, we should be fine. Anyone who tried an EMP attack on the US would pay the same price as if they tried to nuke us. So no one will do it. Just like with nukes.
The danger from nukes since the end of the cold war has always been the risk that a small one is set off in a major city and we don’t know who did it. That could be done with an EMP too, perhaps, but it would not kill anyone, and would only affect one city. To get the whole US, it has to be set off from space or on reentry. And if they did that, we would know where it came from.
A couple of scud delivered nukes from a freighter in the Gulf would cripple half the US and there would be no way to determine who to retaliate against. What if it was determined ISIS is responsible (one of the more likely scenarios) blowing up the Middle East doesn’t help to feed 175 million starving Americans. Telling ISIS you will destroy the Middle East more than likely wouldn’t deter them either.
The problem is the country would still be broken, really broken for decades. A real dark age literally and figuratively would descend.
Tridents are why I sleep at night. Every government in the World knows they are out there.
So, we not only have Tridents, and satellite detection with hardened bunkers (even the President's), we would know where a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke fuel came from pretty quickly. That's also no big secret to anyone thinking nuclear attack.
Just read while researching nuke detection that the Port of Los Angeles installed in 2017 a new radiation detecting conveyor system that ALL containers pass through. Sure there are more planned in other major ports.
I'm sorry to read so much here that implies our military nuke experts are so dimwitted.
yeah...I’m more worried about another carrington event
I’ve heard telegraph lines melted in some cases and that some operators were able to still send messages despite disconnecting their power supplies.