Over the past decade the danger of electromagnetic pulses has been steadily growing, but US responses have not kept pace with the threat. A serious strategy is urgently required, writes Richard M. Harrison.
The ability to recognise and respond to threats just over the horizon is justifiably considered part of the collective job description of US defence planners and members of Congress. However, all too often US defence planning falls short of anticipating strategic trends, let alone crafting clear and comprehensive policies to address them.
The sorry state of US policy vis-à-vis the danger of electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) is a case in point.
The causes of an EMP can be manifold, and its effect devastating. A catastrophic EMP can originate as the result of a nuclear weapon detonated 25-250 miles above the Earth’s surface or, to a lesser degree, from a solar flare and resulting geomagnetic storm. In either event high-energy particles are sent radiating toward Earth, and their interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field results in severe damage to electrical infrastructure below.
The United States has been aware of the EMP phenomenon for some time. In 1962 the US military conducted a highaltitude nuclear detonation test 250 miles above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, codenamed ‘Starfish Prime’. Although Hawaii is 870 miles away, there were small but measurable effects on electrical systems and communications equipment there.
Unlike the ‘Starfish Prime’ incident, an EMP event occurring close to the US homeland would be devastating. As explained by EMP expert Dr George Baker: “Hawaii was on the faint edge of the Starfish EMP field pattern, not in the high-intensity
epicentre, so EMP effects were lessened to a degree. And today, the US relies on highly vulnerable microelectronics to drive telecommunications and data networks and lifeline infrastructures.” Baker’s analysis underscores the reality that over the past 50 years the US has become far more dependent on technology and, therefore, vulnerable to an EMP.
That danger is very real and it is growing. Not all that long ago a large-scale man-made EMP threat was a low-probability, high-risk event because only China and Russia had the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead, via a long-range missile or from a ship off the US coast, to the required altitude above the heart of the US homeland to generate an EMP.
This is not the case today. As former CIA Director Jim Woolsey outlined in testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in May, during the past decade US adversaries such as North Korea and Iran have steadily pursued technologies capable of manufacturing such an attack.
However, despite the long lead times necessary to ready the defence of the nation, no serious government action has been taken to date in response. To the contrary, EMP has become something of a political punching bag, with opponents ridiculing the idea of such an event and lambasting those who think otherwise.
But serious experts understand the threat. In 2001 Congress authorised funding for a blueribbon panel of scholars and scientists to study the nature of the EMP threat, the vulnerability of the United States, and the nation’s capability to recover from an attack, as well as to provide recommendations to guard against the threat.
Task force
That task force, known as the EMP Commission, returned a stark finding: “EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. … It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of US society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power.”
The EMP Commission is hardly the only body to warn of this phenomenon. The Department of Defense Science Board has a task force dedicated to ensuring vital military systems are designed and built to survive an EMP. Moreover, reports from both the Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories have echoed the danger to US national critical infrastructure that could be posed by an EMP event.
US responses have not kept pace with the threat, however. Despite the EMP Commission’s recommendations, the White House has not actively attempted to address the threat by authorising the hardening of national critical infrastructure or by erecting an effective missile defence capable of destroying incoming missiles with nuclear warheads aimed at the United States. Congress has done more; if adopted, the 2013 SHIELD Act authored by Congressman Trent Franks would provide measures to protect “bulk-power systems” by diminishing the effects from EMP attack and geomagnetic storms. However, it remains stalled in Congress, a victim of partisan politics.
Such gridlock could have catastrophic consequences. The threat of EMP is growing. The United States needs a serious strategy to mitigate the threat, both through the hardening of critical infrastructure and through the creation of robust defences against ballistic missile attack. Policymakers need to take action now, before time runs out.
Richard M. Harrison is Director of Operations and Defense Technology Programs at the American Foreign Policy Council of Washington, DC
