Remember July 9 Lessons! l High Frontier

On July 9, 1962 — 53 years ago— the United States detonated a 1.4 megaton nuclear device 240 miles above Johnston Island in the South Pacific. The immediate effects of Starfish Prime were felt 900 miles away in Hawaii and damaged our satellites early in our venture into space following the Soviet Union’s 1957 “Sputnik” that shocked America into action. Its consequences prompted a far-reaching response that remained highly classified until only seven years ago. Most Americans remain oblivious to the existential threat to all we hold dear posed by largely ignored lessons learned from that fateful day. Time to wake-up!

First, let me thank a colleague, who shared a 2012 Discover Magazine article by Phil Plait, “The 50^th anniversary of Starfish Prime: the nuke that shook the world.” Stephen Volandt, Co-Founder/VP of Auroros Incorporated in Raleigh, North Carolina is among a growing number of Americans concerned about the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat and are trying to wake up Americans to do something about it. Click here to read the article—well worth your time. Among other things, it includes a link to a video of interesting visual effects.

I have previously mentioned the importance of Starfish Prime and encourage you to review my October 22, 2013 message, which also listed misconceptions about the EMP threat, as provided by another colleague, Dr. George Baker.

See below for a brief summary of these effects along with the news report in Hawaii…

A Key Misperception.

One of the most important misperceptions is that a nuclear weapon with a large yield, like the Starfish Prime 1.4 megatons, is required to produce debilitating EMP effects—this is untrue and our adversaries know it. Indeed, low-yield nuclear weapons can be designed to maximize the EMP—the Soviets/Russians have done so and most likely shared that knowledge with others, e.g., China, North Korea, etc.

This is why colleagues and I believe that North Korea’s low-yield underground tests may have been to prove out their design of an EMP weapon rather than a fissile as others believe. If so, North Korea has demonstrated its capability to launch an EMP attack on the United States by placing one of these devices on one of its satellites launched over the South Polar regions to be detonated over the United States. We have no defense against this threat today.

North Korea may, probably has, shared this knowledge with its partner Iran. Indeed, some of us believe we should consider Iran to be capable of delivering the same kind of attack today. Click here for a Newsmax article that I co-authored with Dr. William R. Graham (Chairman of the congressionally mandated EMP Commission which has published the most authoritative reports on EMP), Fritz Ermarth (Former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council) and Peter Vincent Pry (Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security).

In particular, Dr. Graham had firsthand knowledge of Starfish Prime data (at the time)—and EMP effects from other nuclear tests and related simulation experiments. I was privileged to serve with him at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in the 1960s, and also to seek to avoid debilitating EMP effects that often fouled our efforts to make measurements on subsequent nuclear tests. These effects are quite real.

Response to an Uninformed Chorus.

However, many widespread misperceptions persist—including doubts that a serious threat really exists, as illustrated by a recent Slate article entitled “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Pulse?” That article, allegedly co-authored by knowledgeable folks, lampooned the threat and those who seek to awaken the American people and their representatives to the threat and what can be done about it.

Whatever their purpose in writing this poorly researched article, these co-authors apparently have little technical knowledge of EMP and cannot hold a candle to genuine experts such as those who served on the EMP Commission and who are concerned about the threat. Thus, let the reader beware when reading such articles insofar as technical matters are concerned related to the EMP threat.

Better to listen to the views of Dr. Graham, who in addition to chairing the EMP Commission is a bona fide nuclear weapons effects expert with firsthand involvement in assuring our most critical strategic systems and associated command, control and communications systems could survive and operate through an EMP event. I could add personal testimonies for most other members of the EMP Commission, whose reports I take as the gold standard for technical expertise on EMP effects.

The authors of the Slate article may claim credentials on policy matters, but cannot hold a candle to at least two former Secretaries of Defense (James Schlesinger and William Perry) and members of another bipartisan congressionally mandated commission, the 2009 Strategic Posture Commission, which they chaired. This commission also examined the EMP threat and backed up bottom lines of the EMP Commission. Chapter 10 of this commission’s report dealt with EMP, a portion of which follows:

“[T]he United States should take steps to reduce the vulnerability of the nation and the military to attacks with weapons designed to produce electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects. We make this recommendation although the Commission is divided over how imminent a threat this is. Some commissioners believe it to be a high priority threat, given foreign activities and terrorist intentions. Others see it as a serious potential threat, given the high level of vulnerability. Those vulnerabilities are of many kinds. U.S. power projection forces might be subjected to an EMP attack by an enemy calculating—mistakenly—that such an attack would not involve risks of U.S. nuclear retaliation. The homeland might be attacked by terrorists or even state actors with an eye to crippling the U.S. economy and American society. From a technical perspective, it is possible that such attacks could have catastrophic consequences. For example, successful attacks could shut down the electrical system, disable the internet and computers and the economic activity on which they depend, incapacitate transportation systems (and thus the delivery of food and other goods), etc.

“Prior commissions have investigated U.S. vulnerabilities and found little activity under way to address them. Some limited defensive measures have been ordered by the Department of Defense to give some protection to important operational communications. But EMP vulnerabilities have not yet been addressed effectively by the Department of Homeland Security. Doing so could take several years. The EMP commission has recommended numerous measures that would mitigate the damage that might be wrought by an EMP attack . . .”

While apparently these commissioners were divided on how much time we have to address the threat (in 2009), their bottom line was consistent with the more comprehensive EMP Commission’s: “The United States is highly vulnerable to attack with weapons designed to produce electromagnetic pulse effects.” Their associated recommendation was that “EMP vulnerabilities should be reduced as the United States modernizes its electric power grid.”

From my perspective, now, six years later, we are not even taking these minimal steps—and I stand with those who believe the existential threat is in fact eminent.

Why Are We Ignoring the EMP Threat?

If I am correct, why is there so much confusion?

I believe a major reason is that most of the pertinent technical and policy community was unaware of the effects for almost a half century following their discovery in 1962. (Actually, we learned following the end of the Cold War that the Soviets/Russians actually learned more from their late-1961 better planned high-altitude test series that broke the 1958 moratorium than did we from our reactive “hurry-up” experiments in the South Pacific—of which Starfish Prime was one.)

These effects were highly classified until the Pentagon made public the most important information in response to the congressionally-mandated EMP Commission, which made those facts public in 2008. Click here to review their unclassified 2004 and 2008 reports—as well as testimony by the commission’s chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, who in his last government post served as President Reagan’s Science Advisor.

Note that this unclassified material was released just a year before the 2009 Strategic Posture Commission report quoted above. One highly respected individual, Dr. John Foster—a nuclear weapon designer, former Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and former Pentagon Director of Defense Research and Engineering—served on both commissions.

Bottom Lines.

There is no doubt that the EMP threat is real and I believe initiatives to deal with it it warrant urgency.

Not least among the reasons for urgency is that I believe, as noted above, we should consider that Iran may already have nuclear weapons—whatever is the formal view of the Intelligence Community. If so, Iran could place a nuclear weapon on one of its satellites launched over the South Polar regions and detonate it over the United States to create an existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could kill most Americans within a year.

As previously reported, Iran’s military writings indicate they well understand and include plans to do just that to bring “the Great Satan” to its knees. Alternatively, Iran might provide one to ISIS, which is reportedly seeking nuclear weapons, to send our way via a ship that detonates it in one of our harbors—or launches it on a SCUD (They might purchase one for a few million dollars.) to create an EMP that could kill most Americans within a year.

Near Term High Frontier Plans.

We will continue working with South Carolina folks to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to the existential threats to the electric power grid.

We expect support from Cong. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) whose district includes my SC farm. He is a member of the Congressional EMP Caucus seeking legislation to counter the EMP threat. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) represents my neighboring district and indicated over last weekend that he wishes to join the EMP Caucus.

South Carolina’s Adjutant General, Major General Robert E. Livingston, Jr. and the state’s National Guard understand and want to deal with threats to the electric grid. In future plans with him and others, I will be emphasizing efforts to assure a viable role of the nuclear power reactors that produce 60-percent of South Carolina’s electricity.

We are expanding our efforts to neighboring and other states. A growing number of Americans share our concerns about the lack of action on many fronts in Washington and the need for local folks to get engaged. There are growing opportunities to share High Frontier’s message both in Washington, locally and elsewhere.

In July, I will be traveling to speak to conferences in New Hampshire and Louisiana and to participate in a joint US-UK conference in Washington.

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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