The EMP Threat From North Korea Is Real, and Terrifying

pjmedia.com ^ | 4/25/2017 | John R. Moore

[rktman]

While the total wipeout depicted in One Second After is probably exaggerated, the effects could knock out our power grid for months, and destroy critical communications and computer systems. As former CIA chief James Woolsey recently said:

If you look at the electric grid and what it's susceptible to, we would be moving into a world with no food delivery, no water purification, no banking, no telecommunications, no medicine. All of these things depend on electricity in one way or another.

In such a situation, there simply is no way to rule out the possibility that hundreds of millions could die.

[CatQuilt]

I read that (listened to it as an audiobook). It was terrifying. Say good night if you have any long-term chronic disease like diabetes.

[Responsibility2nd]

Not bunk?

You believe some fat kid with a bad haircut and 1970’s technology will kill 90% of us Americans?

Yeah. Ping me when THAT happens.

(rolls eyes)

[Responsibility2nd]

You believe some fat kid with a bad haircut and 1970’s technology will kill 90% of us Americans?

Uh oh. Lil Kimmie has upgraded his technology...

[Blueflag]

The effects of EMP (the *three* types inherent to an extra-atmospheric nuclear detonation) have indeed been tested/ demonstrated. We have NOT of course ever demonstrated the ACTUAL 3-phase effects of a high-altitude nuclear detonation designed for EMP optimization (X-ray emphasis).

Even with the assumption that “One Second After” and similar novels overstate the risk and the damage, I find it reasonable to presume enough of the overall complex infrastructure and supply chain would be sufficiently cascade-disrupted such that the overall ‘just-in-time’/ 3-day supply chain *WOULD* be at least temporarily completely shut down in affected areas.

YOU make the call. I recommend you at worst have a plan to survive 3-hour, 3-day, 3-week, 3-month complete failures of modern infrastructures and supply chains. If longer than 3 months - survival will be feudal. (gallows humor)

The direct effects might pale in comparison to the indirect effects on social stability and civility, even if the direct effects seem ‘minor.’

IMHO.

[proust]

Or pacemaker.

[R_Kangel]

..... Kim Jong’s rockets can only travel a few hundred miles at most .... so why are we panicking? Japan and S Korea are the ones that should actually be worried about this.

[Blueflag]

Yep. Few folks can follow the empirical relationships between frequency, wavelength, and the size of the holes in the RF mesh of a microwave oven ;-)

[Bigg Red]

Common bleach would work just fine.

((
Proportions, please.

[Edward.Fish]

Yeah except that the only current manner to produce an EMP is to explode a nuclear bomb...that has world wide consequences that are far worse than losing the grid

You're wrong, there are non-nuclear methods to create EMP: The Electromagnetic Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction.

[pierrem15]

The threat is somewhat overrated: you need H-bombs to make an effective EMP weapon. I don’t believe NK has them yet.

[Blueflag]

Iran has launch vehicles that work. Bowl head has the warheads (in theory).

FYI - the most plausible scenarios have the missiles launched offshore from ships. They could reach sufficient altitude to generate the three-phase line-of-sight most-damaging EMP effects. Otherwise intra-atmospheric EMPs would be localized and arguably 2-phase. Ground burst, or near-ground burst are far worse fallout risks than EMP risks.

[rktman]

Knock out power to north korea................oh. Never mind. Most folks in NK would never know anything changed.

[PghBaldy]

Perhaps China or Russia could do this, not North Korea.

[silverleaf]

Guns won’t protect you and in fact will make you a bigger target, unless you are out in the wilderness

A survival,stockpile does not have to be large
The first 2-3 weeks depend on shelter and water
An apartment dweller can own a lifestraw and water purification means plus fire making

After that, mobility to move - or the the ability to become invisible while finding what you need including other people to trust

Over time - and once in a safe zone - self care and bartering
Forget gold and silver and cans of beans and bullets
What would a bottle of aspirin or a 10 day course of penicillin tablets be worth ? Pretty easy to conceal and carry

[RFEngineer]

Ok, you’re a tough customer.

Nk has nuclear devices. It has rocket tech sufficient to polar orbit a satellite

It shares tech with Iran.

An EMP can be caused by even a small nuclear device. It need not even be accurate.

Do not assume NK is completely incompetent.

They aren’t.

[Zathras]

Nonsense.
I wish these idiots would do just a bit of research.

1) You need a thermonuclear detonation to create any sizable EMP
2)The higher in the atmosphere, the detonation occurs, the higher the EMP.
3) Large EMP effects only occur with +1MT detonated over 100 miles altitude.

This is part of the reason the Spartan program was canceled.
Sprint would still have worked as the warhead was ~1kt and lower in the atmosphere.

NK has no serious thermonuclear warheads. Only boosted technology limited to 40kt max
Existing yields have been more in the 1kt range.

[Travis McGee]

EMPing

[Carthego delenda est]

“Or pacemaker.”

Old becomes new again... A suit of Chainmail

[Ancesthntr]

Thanks, guys (not rktman), for being living, breathing examples of Normalcy Bias.

FYI (and for anyone else out there who doesn’t know what that is), Normalcy Bias is that point of view that paralyzes an individual (and, perhaps an entire society) into inaction because some potentially disastrous event “has never happened before, and therefore could never happen.” Yeah, until it does.

Examples: Rome and the Barbarians - few Romans, even among the elites with supposedly superior knowledge, believed that a bunch of barbarians who wore animal skins and lived in tents could come even remotely close to defeating Roman legions in the field, let alone sacking Rome...until Rome burned, courtesy of said animal-skin-wearing and tent-residing barbarians.

Germany and WW2 - Few believed that a Germany devastated by the mass casualties of WW1 and the collapse of its economy in the inter-war years would not only attempt to invade “invincible” France with “the world’s best army,” but would race through/around the vaunted Maginot Line and defeat France AND the British Expeditionary Force (some 350,000 men) AND the Belgian and Dutch armies in 6 weeks...until they did it, and with extremely light casualties, to boot.

The Holocaust - few believed it possible that any nation, let alone a “modern” and “cultured” nation like Germany, a nation of composers, artists, engineers and lawyers, would purposely set out to mercilessly wipe out the adherents of an entire religion (among many other so-called “undesirables”) during an attempt at world conquest...until the evidence showed that Germany did exactly that.

Pearl Harbor - few believed it possible that the “slant-eyed, backwards Japs” could pull off a sophisticated plan to wipe out a large part of the US Pacific Fleet...until they did it.

9/11 - few believed that anyone would ever purposely fly passenger jets into buildings full of people...until 19 Moslem terrorists did it, murdering some 3,000 innocents.

Barrack Obama - few believed that a half-black, Moslem-sympathizing, uber-Leftist candidate espousing the “fundamental transformation” of America could ever be nominated for President, let alone be elected, let alone be RE-elected after a disastrous first term...until the skeazy, Leftist, Moslem SOB actually did it.

Maybe if you actually understood that for any nation that can construct nuclear weapons, and which can also launch a rocket into space, conducting an EMP attack on ANY country is not that difficult. Read the linked article, and also this article for some insight: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/could_north_korea_destroy_the_us.html Note that even several Russian nuclear scientists admit that the Soviet designs for an EMP-enhanced warhead were (inadvertently) released to the Norks.

It is a time-tested axiom of human affairs that underestimating one’s rivals or enemies is a fatal conceit. I would rather ascribe great competence and evil intent to an adversary/enemy and prepare for the worst, than to don a pair of rose-colored sunglasses and poo-poo a potential civilization-ending attack because I was too arrogant and/or intellectually lazy to consider that “the barbarians” could possibly harm our “superior” civilization. As shown by the examples above, the arrogance or laziness of many others has led to disaster before, as it surely will do so again.

[Travis McGee]

Whether it’s an EMP attack, a kinetic attack, a cyber attack, or a solar ejecta, electricity has evolved into becoming our life support system.

I laugh when folks say it would take months to fix everything back to okie-dokie. In weeks our cities would be in flames and only cannibals would be left.