What wil happen to the social order in the United States if we get hit with an EMP device?

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I made a longish post under the “world news” category … and got to thinking about this excerpt which I am posting here.

So, the question is what would happen … in the United States (and elsewhere) if the U.S. gets hit with an EMP strike?

Need to blow through all the Washington insiders blowing smoke up your “kilts” and elect people who “might” support spending that does not exceed actual tax collections, and keeping military spending at or above 5% of GDP.

When military spending goes below 5% of GDP, we get hit hard.

Unfortunately, it’s now at 4.4% of GDP and declining fast.

Iran and North Korea are racing to develop a deliverable EMP device, the delivery mechanism and a workable launch capability. You can look it up on the internet. Even Congress, shockingly, is concerned if impotent about an EMP strike.

I read “One Second After” by William Forstchen and it made a big impression on me.

Read the reviews on Amazon. And note that Forstchen has written a lot of interesting books.

So based on reading the news and extrapolating … when do you think the U.S. would be most vulnerable and how bad might it be? And what could be done to prepare and to recover?
 
fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32544.pdf

The link above was provided for informational purposes only.

An EMP attack would be catastrophic. It’s like sending your enemy back to the stone age because many computer devices ( PC, cell phones, cars, trucks) would be rendered unusable. Food distribution would suffer, chaos would follow.
 
We would not be back to the stone age, but we would not be far from it. Computers now control everything down to very simple toys. If we no longer have electricity, running water, traffic lights, television, telephones, police response, hospitals, sewers, grocery stores, and on and on, we have a complete breakdown. It could well be something like the Mad Max movies in no time.

The whole thing would be a real test of our civility. Imagine large cities with no food to be trucked in, with no utilities, essentially nothing, and you have the basis for anything you can imagine. It would quickly devolve to survival by whatever means worked.

May God protect us from such a thing.
 
It should be noted that a catastrophic EMP event could also be generated naturally by a gigantic solar storm. This would actually be worse, because it would affect large parts of the globe.
 
Even a large scale man-made EMP would not be as devastating as everyone thinks, although it would be a serious event. Contrary to popular belief, many cars and trucks would continue to function for a couple of reasons. First, the severity of the EMP drops off rapidly with distance, so the further you were from ground zero, the more likely it is that your electronics would survive. (This applies to ALL things electrical, not just cars.) Secondly, your car already acts like a Faraday cage, although an imperfect one. This is why people don’t get injured in a vehicle when it gets struck by lightning. However, some cars use plastic, and there are gaps, so this alone would NOT be a guarantee that your car’s electronics would survive. However, even if they didn’t, there’s point number three, which is that many cars have a sort of “crippled mode”, where they can run even with the electronics damaged. They would not function optimally, however.

Now, if you knew a weapon like this was coming, it would be easy to protect the power grid. If you simply shut down the power grid for an hour or so until the attack was over, most of it would survive, and the rest would be repairable. This alone would mitigate a huge amount of damage. However, this in and of itself would be a risky move, and wouldn’t be done unless an attack was near certain.
 
Forgive my ignorance, however I thought that the only viable way to produce an EMP pulse of a large enough magnitude to do widespread damage using today’s technology would be a ground level thermonuclear explosion (which a terrorist might be able to do) or a high altitude detonation (which they can’t do).

Is there a way to produce an EMP without a TNE?
 
TheDoctor said:
Forgive my ignorance, however I thought that the only viable way to produce an EMP pulse of a large enough magnitude to do widespread damage using today’s technology would be a ground level thermonuclear explosion (which a terrorist might be able to do) or a high altitude detonation (which they can’t do).

Is there a way to produce an EMP without a TNE?
Click to expand...
Yes, but it’s more difficult and the range is severely limited.
 
The first step: Defend the fuel. And try not to join the Humongous.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
I made a longish post under the “world news” category … and got to thinking about this excerpt which I am posting here.

So, the question is what would happen … in the United States (and elsewhere) if the U.S. gets hit with an EMP strike?

Need to blow through all the Washington insiders blowing smoke up your “kilts” and elect people who “might” support spending that does not exceed actual tax collections, and keeping military spending at or above 5% of GDP.

When military spending goes below 5% of GDP, we get hit hard.

Unfortunately, it’s now at 4.4% of GDP and declining fast.

Iran and North Korea are racing to develop a deliverable EMP device, the delivery mechanism and a workable launch capability. You can look it up on the internet. Even Congress, shockingly, is concerned if impotent about an EMP strike.

I read “One Second After” by William Forstchen and it made a big impression on me.

Read the reviews on Amazon. And note that Forstchen has written a lot of interesting books.

So based on reading the news and extrapolating … when do you think the U.S. would be most vulnerable and how bad might it be? And what could be done to prepare and to recover?
Click to expand...
I find that “what ifs” like this one do me no good and tend to remove any peace of mind that I find through prayer and reception of the Eucharist. Worst-case scenarios just freak me out - it doesn’t even have to include the end of civilization, it can be as simple and mundane as “what if one of my sons gets killed in a car accident,” or “what if hubby’s plane is blown up over the Atlantic?” I get spells of the “what-ifs” especially when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Thinking about all the possible horrors that might happen, IMO, does absolutely no good in the present moment. How could anyone prepare for such an event? The people who survive would have to be extremely brutal and self-interested - probably the narcissists would do well, for they could kill without any thought whatsoever. The rest of us would live only as long as we could defend ourselves and whatever goods we had stored up.

It is a grim thought and I will stick to praying for our nation and our leaders to govern according to God’s will for us.
 
as Rolltide already said, an emp is not a doomsday weapon. i hear that the CIA always test many simulated attacks, some with emps. even if a massive emp hit, the military is prepared and will still be almost completely functionable. not to mention that i believe emps have to be carried by a missile, so that will give us time to emp our attackers back.
 
This is pure speculation and plans are in place for the United States, for example, to employ aircraft against enemy installations with an onboard EMP device. Electronic equipment on satelites have already been hardened against the EMP resulting from a relatively nearby nuclear detonation.

Pick up a copy of The E-Bomb by Doug Beason, which reads like a compilation of briefing documents.

Peace,
Ed
 
Monte_RCMS said:
I made a longish post under the “world news” category … and got to thinking about this excerpt which I am posting here.

So, the question is what would happen … in the United States (and elsewhere) if the U.S. gets hit with an EMP strike?

Need to blow through all the Washington insiders blowing smoke up your “kilts” and elect people who “might” support spending that does not exceed actual tax collections, and keeping military spending at or above 5% of GDP.

When military spending goes below 5% of GDP, we get hit hard.

Unfortunately, it’s now at 4.4% of GDP and declining fast.

Iran and North Korea are racing to develop a deliverable EMP device, the delivery mechanism and a workable launch capability. You can look it up on the internet. Even Congress, shockingly, is concerned if impotent about an EMP strike.

I read “One Second After” by William Forstchen and it made a big impression on me.

Read the reviews on Amazon. And note that Forstchen has written a lot of interesting books.

So based on reading the news and extrapolating … when do you think the U.S. would be most vulnerable and how bad might it be? And what could be done to prepare and to recover?
Click to expand...
More serious hypothetical, what if someone destroys our power grid?
While it sound impossible it isn’t, many new plants can be severely damaged through the computers, get turbines that are off to turn on and have the connect at a lower RPM, this causes that generator to be destroyed and the sudden power drop destroys the others in the plant. Do this to enough power plants and you’ve destroyed the grid. By the way, there are no back up generators, and the queue for the places that make them is 18 months and they take about six weeks each to make.

What happens to society without power for a year and a half?

🍿
 
Dakota_Roberts said:
More serious hypothetical, what if someone destroys our power grid?
While it sound impossible it isn’t, many new plants can be severely damaged through the computers, get turbines that are off to turn on and have the connect at a lower RPM, this causes that generator to be destroyed and the sudden power drop destroys the others in the plant. Do this to enough power plants and you’ve destroyed the grid. By the way, there are no back up generators, and the queue for the places that make them is 18 months and they take about six weeks each to make.

What happens to society without power for a year and a half?

🍿
Click to expand...
Without power our country would return to the days of the “Wild West” or the “Dark Ages”. Very ugly scene.
 
The most likely scenario would be for a tubby non-descript ship to sail to within 50 miles of the U.S. coastline and fir a missile straight up and detonate a specially designed thermonuclear warhead a couple of hundred miles straight up.

The electromagnetic pulse would fry every electrical device out to the staight-line/visual horizon unless it was specially protected with a Faraday cage or similar device.

One or two such detonations at the U. S. Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts would wipe out all electrical devices, computers, etc.

The severity is up for discussions.

Electrical grid, car and harvesting equipment ignitiion and timing and fuel systems, gas stations and refineries, electrical generation, airliner controls, radar, even back-up generators and the internet … would be questionable in most scenarios.

All of the literature strongly suggests that North Korea and Iran are working on design and testing of the warheads, missiles and launch systems.

There are differences of opinion as to whether the misslie warhead would be detonated outside U.S. territory or over U.S. territory. In the book, “One Second After”, a warhead is launched from the Gulf of Mexico and detonates over the midwest U.S.

We have some anti-missile capability, but it is located in Alaska aimed at warheads launched toward the U.S. in an over-the-North Pole trajectory. There are questions as to whether it would survive the next round of budget cuts.

Rebuilding the electrical components that get fried could take a couple of years.

Food and medical supplies, however, would run out in a month. Drinking water would also be quesionable.

And the scenario is probably the most likely, given the hostility of Iran and North Korea and some of their “friends”.
 
Dakota_Roberts said:
More serious hypothetical, what if someone destroys our power grid?
While it sound impossible it isn’t, many new plants can be severely damaged through the computers, get turbines that are off to turn on and have the connect at a lower RPM, this causes that generator to be destroyed and the sudden power drop destroys the others in the plant. Do this to enough power plants and you’ve destroyed the grid. By the way, there are no back up generators, and the queue for the places that make them is 18 months and they take about six weeks each to make.

What happens to society without power for a year and a half?

🍿
Click to expand...
Yup.

The SCADA* system is vulnerable and cyberwarfare has been ongoing for a number of years with a number of national groups. You can research it on the internet. SCADA is a generic name for the computerized controls of our electric systems, water systems, pipeline systems for natural gas and oil, etc.

All of the literature and the trade publications talk about it, but protection from both EMP and cyberwar tactics is expensive. And the wonks seem to want more inter-connections and more internet links and more internet acces rather than less or less vulnerable.

Just one minor example: New Mexico lost natural gas for heating last winter because the EPA insisted they use electrically operated compressors instead of compressors that could be powered from the natural gas in the pipelines. When electrical power was lost due to storms, they also lost their compressors and thus also lost their locally developed natural gas for heating.

You can look up SCADA on the internet and also SCADA vulnerabilities. It’s a hot topic for discussion, but not here on CAF and it should be. Very important. Maybe not a philosophical subject, but certainly a component of our societal makeup. Even if it is more nuts and bolts than just words … but the discussion is important.

SCADA = Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA
 
I have been reading apocolyptical books for some 35 years. So far, not one has occurred. And the books tend to be pedantlically utopic/dystopic.

So I quit reading them and don’t think about these things. A person could go nuts trying to be prepared for every barely possible scenario out there.

Sufficient unto the day…
 
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