January 29, 2019—Wake Up America!

High-altitude EMP (HEMP) attacks would produce no blast or other immediate effects harmful to humans, but would damage life sustaining electronics so that millions could die from its long-term collateral effects that black-out our national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures. Such attacks are regarded by enemy military planners as a relatively easy, potentially un-attributable means of inflicting mass destruction and forcing opponents to capitulate.

In my opinion, the most competent U.S. reporter on defense matters, Bill Gertz, published two very important Free Beacon articles last week that all should read with more than a bit of interest. Taken together, they should make it apparent to even the dumbest among us that our leaders must move rapidly to “provide for the common defense” that we now urgently need and that they are sworn to provide.

The first dealt with the accelerating threat from China on the viability of our space systems upon which we have become critically dependent. Its ominous title “Pentagon: Chinese Military Training with ASAT Missiles” heralds what should have long been recognized as a goal of China’s strategic plans and long pursued programs. Indeed, Gertz has long reported on China’s now obviously metastasizing threat developments. See, for example, his The China Threat—How the People’s Republic Targets America, published in 2000 by Regnery Publishing, Inc.

The second, titled “China, Russia Building Super EMP Bombs for ‘Blackout Warfare’,” gives China equal billing with Russia, long recognized as posing an existential threat to all Americans. This important article also makes clear that our leaders have long ignored the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat — even though we have known for a half-century of that threat and how to counter it.

Furthermore, I agree with Michael Pillsbury that China actually “constitutes, by far, the biggest national security challenge to America’s positions in the world today,” and strongly recommend that all read his most informative book, The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, which is based on his decades of related study.

Moreover, thoughtful reading of these two articles makes clear that we face an existential threat not only from Russia and China. North Korea, Iran and even terrorists also pose the same threat if they can get their hands on a few nuclear weapons and can launch them to be detonated over the United States to shut-down our electric power grid for an indefinite period. That would return us to a 19^th century existence without the food and water that then sustained a population of about a tenth of Americans alive today.

Without electricity, many millions would undoubtedly die from starvation, disease and societal collapse.

Let me elaborate briefly by digging down into the implications of these recent Gertz articles by commenting on his sources and their credibility.

His primary source for the first was an authoritative December 2018 report from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), Competing in Space, on which he bases several important observations and adds his own thoughts:

Chinese military forces have deployed and are training with multiple units armed with anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles that can destroy scores of American satellites;
China and Russia have developed and are further developing, testing and deploying an array of space systems and training to challenge U.S. space superiority — especially by destroying U.S. and allied space systems in low earth orbit, threatening intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and communications operations;
Both employ offensive cyber capabilities and electronic warfare to gain/maintain military advantage — and are researching and developing and modernizing their cyber capabilities and electronic warfare assets. Both use ground- and space-based sensors to search the skies for foreign satellites.
Among the emerging space-based anti-satellite threats are space-based interceptors to crash into satellites, complex space robots capable of grabbing or crushing satellites by maneuvering close by, and jammers, lasers, chemical sprayers, and microwave weapons.
They can threaten multiple attack options — cyber, electronic, or directed-energy weapons; anti-satellite missiles; or space-based weapons — to achieve a range of damaging effects to important operations such as communications, command and control, missile warning, nuclear detonation detection, weather, and GPS for the world;
China is also developing satellite systems for potentially warfighting missions, including support for navigation and communications — including the world’s first quantum communications satellite, with three others planned. Quantum communications are advertised to be hardened against jamming or interception.
Such integrated advanced space and counterspace technologies can support warfighting strategies to challenge U.S. superiority and position themselves as space powers — including to:
- Jam global navigation and communications satellites used for command and control and naval, ground, and air forces, including drones.
- Target intelligence satellites to prevent locating, monitoring, and tracking enemy targets, like mobile missiles. Lasers can temporarily blind imagery satellites and other strategic sensors.
- Shoot down satellites, like the Chinese missile test in 2007 that destroyed an orbiting weather satellite that created debris that will threaten other satellites for decades.
- Use orbiting robot satellites that conduct sophisticated maneuvering near other satellites as part of space warfare capabilities.
- Conduct physical attacks on satellite ground stations and infrastructure supporting space operations.

While China and Russia develop new space arms to achieve military goals, they actively promote a ban on space weapons to slow or prevent the United States from matching their space warfare systems — feigned objectives also advocated by U.S. arms control community — with the hope of politically derailing our development activities; and
Other nations are expected to join the space arms race by building systems to wage war against American satellites.

In reviewing China’s past anti-satellite (ASAT) testing, Gertz quotes “defense officials” as saying that as few as two dozen ASAT missile strikes, China could cause major disruptions in U.S. military operations that are heavily dependent on satellites for communications, intelligence, and precision guidance for missiles and bombs. He also quotes Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats’ congressional testimony that China’s destructive anti-satellite weaponry would probably “reach initial operational capability in the next few years,” and that China’s military units had carried out “initial operational training” with ground-launched ASAT missiles.

While it seems likely that China and Russia are achieving military space capabilities, we still seem muscle bound while debating whether we need a “Space Force” dedicated to dealing with this growing threat. (Not to mention the associated hypersonic threat with which we are playing “catch-up.”) The Obama administration ideologically opposed responding to this threat, and President Trump’s Space Force Initiative — that would centralize dealing with this threat — faces continuing opposition, in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

In contemplating this important Gertz article, it should be understood that such “space warfare” would not remain in space. For example, loss of our Global Support System (GPS) and other space systems would impact police, firefighters, and paramedics and prevent rapid response to emergencies; news, long-distance telephone, satellite television, and internet service also would be unavailable. Retail stores and gas stations would be unable to communicate with banks to handle purchases and critical services.

These impacts could come by a strategy involving a combination of hostile acts, e.g., from a combination of physical and cyberattack strategies. Most notable, in my opinion, would be an attack including electromagnetic pulse (EMP) — and that is the subject of Bill Gertz second article to which I referred at the beginning.

Gertz’s important observations were derived from the reports of the now-defunct Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack (or EMP Commission) that revealed details on how nuclear EMP weapons are integrated into the military doctrines of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

From my perspective, Gertz did not include the most consequential observation — namely that his important article had to wait for over 18-months for the Department of Defense to release to the public the EMP Commission’s important reports (dated July 2017) on which he based his important article.

Such bureaucratic obstacles have kept the nation at significant risk. Moreover, it should be understood that these important reports are now available from a private webpage www.firstempcommission.org, presumably because the federal government doesn’t see it within its purposes to inform the public of the existential EMP threat.

Moreover, congress in its stupidity disbanded — without due thanks from the representatives of the American people — the commission that had served for 17 years, warning the American people, and most importantly the federal authorities sworn to “provide for the common defense” per the U.S. Constitution.

So, now we await an Executive Order from President Trump, hopefully to deal more effectively with this existential threat.

I urge all our High Frontier followers to review these important reports and make your views known to your representatives. We may have little time to protect the American people from this existential threat as is made clear by the past EMP Commission.

Gertz reports that the EMP threat to North America, as well as military operations around the world, “is part of the military doctrines, plans, and exercises of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran for a revolutionary new way of warfare against military forces and civilian critical infrastructures by cyber, sabotage, and EMP. . . . This new way of warfare is called many things by many nations: In Russia, China, and Iran it is called Sixth Generation Warfare, Non-Contact Warfare, Electronic Warfare, Total Information Warfare, and Cyber Warfare.

High-altitude EMP (HEMP) attacks would produce no blast or other immediate effects harmful to humans, but would produce three types of EMP waves in nanoseconds to seconds to so damage electronics that millions could die from the long-term collateral effects of EMP and cyber-attacks that cause protracted black-out of national electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures. Gertz reported that the EMP Commission viewed that such attacks are regarded by enemy military planners as a relatively easy, potentially un-attributable means of inflicting mass destruction and forcing opponents to capitulate.

In 2004, EMP Commissioners first testified to a closed session of Congress that a single nuclear weapon can potentially make an effective EMP attack against a target the size of North America . . . and that any nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 30 kilometers [18.6 miles] or higher will generate a potentially catastrophic EMP. It repeated this observation in a 2008 unclassified report and additional associated testimony, including within the past 18 months. Still with little avail, with no thanks as congress disbanded the commission in 2017. And the First EMP Commission webpage again reiterates its warning.

Moreover, Gertz reports that Super-EMP bombs can produce gamma rays that generate a peak EMP field of 200,000 volts per meter — enough to fry strategic communications and intelligence systems. China, Russia, and probably North Korea are said to have these arms, according to the commission. (Commissioners were told by Russian generals many years ago that Russia had passed how to build Super-EMP weapons to North Korea.)

The United States has no super-EMP weapons in its nuclear arsenal. The bombs do not require accuracy and the weapons do not require a re-entry vehicle, heat shield, and shock absorbers required for nuclear warheads detonated in the atmosphere above targets.

The declassified First EMP Commission reports observe that such weapons can be delivered through a variety of means including satellites, long- or medium-range missile; short-range missiles launched from a freighter; from some cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles; from jets or a commercial jetliner; or a meteorological balloon. They provide graphics showing how nuclear detonations triggered 18.6 miles to 248 miles above the earth will produce targeted electronic waves stretching up to 1,500 miles. Portions of the report were redacted in hopes for preventing adversaries from learning U.S. electronic vulnerabilities.

The above figure is from the primary report discussed by Gertz (authored by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, who served as Staff Director of the EMP Commission). It considered several attack scenarios: e.g. showing how:

Iran could use a single nuclear weapon fired on a medium-range missile to black out Israel, Egypt and Israel together, or Saudi Arabia without creating blast damage;
China could use EMP weapons to plunge the island of Taiwan into electronic darkness and disable aircraft carrier strike groups sailing to defend Taiwan from a mainland attack;
North Korea might detonate a nuclear weapon over Japan. Both Japan and Taiwan are heavily reliant on electronics that are vulnerable to EMP;
Russia might detonate a super-EMP weapon over Europe to throw NATO and the continent into darkness and create chaos as well;
The Islamic State might acquire a nuclear weapon from North Korea or Iran along with a short-range missile and loft it into space and detonate over Italy; and
EMP scenarios involving Russian strikes among others on Canada and the United States, perhaps in conjunction with conventional precision strikes.

Gertz notes that Pry’s Commission report indicates that Moscow’s new nuclear strategy that calls for “escalation to de-escalate” a conflict with nuclear arms could involve space-based EMP attacks. Russian nuclear missile submarines could use super-EMP warheads to paralyze U.S. strategic and conventional forces and blackout the national grid.

Gertz/Pry reports that 14 EMP bursts up to 60 miles would create powerful electronic waves for key facilities, including national missile defenses at Alaska and California; the command center at the Pentagon outside Washington; and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado. Other EMP strikes would shut down missile and bomber wings in Minot, North Dakota, F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming and Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana. Bomber wings in Missouri, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Texas also could be blacked out along with nuclear missile submarine bases in Washington and Georgia.

A U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan could lead to Beijing conduct a black-out EMP strike on the lower 48 states that it hopes would disrupt military command and control and communications and knock the United States out of the regional Asian conflict. Even Iran could launch a long-range missile nuclear attack in space over the United States as a way for the Islamic regime in Tehran to destroy what its leaders regard as the “Great Satan.”

If North Korea or Iran covertly supplies the al Qaeda terrorist group with a nuclear weapon, the terrorist group that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon could obtain a short-range mobile missile and fire the nuclear warhead into space above the United States. North Korea, which several years ago covertly transferred SA-10 surface-to-air missiles on a ship after repairs in Cuba, could use a short-range nuclear armed missile to black out the Texas electric grid in a bid to force the United States to halt military exercises in South Korea.

Dr. Pry, a former CIA analyst, notes that “The United States is particularly vulnerable to this new type of warfare, because we have come to rely on information systems and computerized technologies. . . . Much of the administrative information in the armed forces goes through the civilian internet. . . . Ours is the most technologically advanced society, and therefore the most susceptible to attack. What is surprising is that our enemies do not consider an EMP attack to be an act of nuclear war.”

Pry notes that the potential use of EMP attacks is a real danger that is openly discussed in military doctrine writings. He notes that Russian Gen. Vladimir Slipchenko first disclosed Moscow’s intentions for using EMP in his book “Non-Contact Wars” in 2000. “A single low-yield nuclear weapon exploded for this purpose high above the area of combat operations can generate an electromagnetic pulse covering a large area and destroying electronic equipment without loss of life that is caused by the blast or radiation.”

Moreover, in it Pry notes that China’s military doctrine is similar and was outlined in a book on “Total Information Warfare.” Shen Weiguang wrote that “As soon as its computer networks come under attack and are destroyed, the country will slip into a state of paralysis and the lives of its people will ground to a halt.” Shen urged China to build “nuclear electromagnetic pulse” weapons along with cyber weapons to “enable it to stand up to the military powers in the information age and neutralize and check the deterrence of Western powers, including the United States.”

Iran’s doctrine is contained in a military textbook “Passive Defense” that calls for EMP attacks: “As a result of not having the other destructive effects that nuclear weapons possess, among them the loss of human life, weapons derived from electromagnetic pulses have attracted attention with regard to their use in future wars.” North Korea has threatened to use nuclear EMP attacks following its most recently underground nuclear test. State-run North Korean media said the thermonuclear test blast involved tests for EMP strikes.

Bottom Lines.

So, the United States faces a serious, indeed existential, EMP threat from several potential adversaries. Most people, including our alleged leaders who have sworn to provide for the common defense, have ignored it for far too long.

During the Cold War they assumed that the Soviets would be deterred from attacking us because of our threat of nuclear retaliation. That is an overly simplistic view of what is required to deter potential threatening adversaries in today’s world where nuclear weapons are held by numerous adversaries, some of whom may not be so predictable — if indeed the Soviets were.

We need to wake up to this threat, made prominently apparent by Bill Gertz in his excellent article drawn from the EMP Commission. And we need to protect our critical civil infrastructure, particularly our electric power grid. Moreover, since providing such nuclear hardening will take considerable time, we need to deploy more effective ballistic missile defense as quickly as possible.

Most prominent among such defenses should be the based in space, with a modern version of Brilliant Pebbles, the most cost-effective defense concept of the era of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) — 1983-1993. And they should be centerpiece of President Trump’s Space Force Initiative.

This concept was “ready for prime time” in 1990, and should be re-invented ASAP. A great team is forming in the Pentagon that could revive the best of the SDI era and move beyond those advances, based on all that has happened since it ended a quarter century ago.

So, what will President Trump do? Stay tuned for his anticipated Space Force and its “birth pains.” And hopefully sooner, for his Executive Order directing his administration to deal effectively with the EMP threat.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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