Imagine a single weapon that, if detonated 25 miles above Maryland, could damage and destroy electronic systems across the entire state, including neighboring Washington, D.C. Imagine if power grids were rendered inoperable, and damage to computers, motors and other electronic systems caused widespread failure of telecommunications, banking and finance, transportation, emergency services and the infrastructures for providing food and water to the population. Imagine if these systems, indispensable to the sustenance of the economy and human life, were suddenly knocked out of operation for weeks, months or even years.
Clearly, such a scenario would be catastrophic, for Maryland and for America.
The bad news is that such a weapon exists, and terrorists, rogue states and other potential adversaries of the United States know about it. It is called “electromagnetic pulse” and can be generated by any nuclear weapon — even a primitive, first-generation nuclear weapon such as Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of international terrorism, might build.
Iranian military writings describe making a catastrophic EMP attack on the United States. Any nuclear weapon detonated above 25 miles altitude will generate an EMP. The weapon could be lofted by a missile fired off a freighter to conceal the identity of the attacker, a launch mode practiced by Iran. The higher the altitude, the wider the area of effect, so the same weapon can have its EMP focused on a “small” target, like the state of Maryland, or a “large” target, like the entire United States.
The EMP itself is like a superenergetic radio wave, harmless to humans in its direct effects, but nonetheless capable of mass murder by destroying the systems necessary to sustain life. EMP is a high-tech means of killing people the old-fashioned way, through starvation and disease.
The good news is that the United States can be defended from an EMP attack relatively quickly and at reasonable cost. Moreover, protecting the nation from an EMP attack would also protect critical national infrastructures from other threats such as cyber-warfare, sabotage, hurricanes or natural disasters.
Maryland Rep. Roscoe Bartlett has led the way in educating policymakers and the public on the EMP threat, and on practical solutions. He established a congressional commission, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack. Bartlett nominated, and the secretary of defense appointed, as chairman of the EMP Commission, William R. Graham, former science adviser to President Reagan, and the nation’s foremost expert on EMP. The EMP Commission — that should be known as the Bartlett Commission — is working with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security on cost-effective measures for the protection and timely recovery of critical national infrastructures from EMP attack.
The work of the Bartlett Commission led to private-sector and state initiatives to protect the people of Maryland from an EMP attack. Maryland’s Instant Access Networks sponsored a study by Baltimore’s Sage Policy Group on the consequences of an EMP attack focused on the Baltimore–Washington corridor and made recommendations that could be implemented by Maryland state and local governments to mitigate and recover from an EMP catastrophe. The Maryland state legislature has considered developing contingency plans to address the EMP threat.
The Bartlett Commission has proposed recommendations that, over a five-year period and at a reasonable cost, would enable the United States to prepare, train, protect and recover its infrastructures against an EMP attack, as well as from other threats. Most of the commission’s recommendations do not require any expenditures on hardware, but entail education about EMP and incorporating its effects as a scenario into existing contingency plans. Planning to cope with EMP effects using existing emergency personnel and resources will go a long way toward canceling EMP as a catastrophic threat.
The United States can be protected from the catastrophic consequences of an EMP attack, and very inexpensively compared with the assets at risk, but it will require cooperation and planning by federal, state and local governments and the private sector. The Maryland EMP initiatives should serve as a model that other states can follow. Maryland is to be applauded for showing the way forward to the rest of the nation.
For the Bartlett Commission report, click here.
Peter Vincent Pry is a national security expert who serves as a consultant to the EMP Commission. His e-mail is [email protected].
