[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

That's not what the EMP Commission says:

http://empcommission.org/

"What is significant about an EMP attack is that one or a few high-altitude nuclear detonations can produce EMP effects that can potentially disrupt or damage electronic and electrical systems over much of the United States, virtually simultaneously, at a time determined by an adversary."

[backwoods-engineer]

Agreed.

Also, it does NOT take a fusion warhead to create a massive high-altitude EMP powerful enough to destroy the power grid.

There is nothing special about the fusion warhead that generates the Compton effect; all you need is a massive gamma source, with a well-defined particle density, at the proper alitude so that the geomagnetic field can interact with the Compton currents. With engineering of the bomb casing (e.g., a uranium tamper), this can be done with a conventional fission bomb, albeit a large one. With a SCUD missile, I think it is feasible for a non-state actor to EMP us, with a barge-launched stolen Russian compression-fission weapon.

Sorry to disagree, but I'm an electrical engineer who used to be in the electric power measurement industry, and I'm pretty well-read on EMP for my own preparedness purposes.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— That’s not what the EMP Commission says: -—

I’ve read that the “failed” Iranian rocket tests have “failed” at the EMP detonation altitude.