June 23, 2020—Address the Growing EMP Threat from China and Others!

“China’s military doctrine regards nuclear HEMP [High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse] attack as an extension of information or cyber warfare and deserving highest priority as the most likely kind of future warfare.” ~Dr. Peter Vincent Pry in China: EMP Threat

My colleague Peter Pry has long been an advocate for protecting our electric power grid from attack — whether from physical, cyber or EMP attack. Click here for his important June 10, 2020 report that focuses on the existential EMP threat posed by China. I urge you to examine his excellent review of this all too real threat to our important military systems as well as our critical civil infrastructure.

It is particularly timely to address this threat as China seems intent on going back on its previous agreements, as with Hong Kong; and fostering hostile confrontations with its neighbors, such as most recently with nuclear-armed India, long conflicted with a nuclear-armed Pakistan — a very dangerous situation.

And nuclear armed China is not the only one posing an EMP threat, including to the United States and our overseas military forces. For example, the evolving situation in nuclear armed North Korea is a growing danger. And don’t forget North Korea’s ally, Iran, which some believe also may have nuclear weapons. And of course there is Russia.

Dr. Pry is exceptionally well informed on the EMP threat, having served for 17 years as the Executive Director of the Congressional EMP Commission that published reports in 2004, 2008 and 2017 that provide the most competent source of information on this existential threat to all we hold dear.

Sadly, that threat has been underestimated and/or ignored by the lackadaisical “powers that be” of the Washington establishment. And regrettably the EMP Commission was disestablished in 2018 by stupid actions generated by congressional staffers, some of whom still obstruct efforts to address this existential threat.

The Department of Defense (DoD) hosted the EMP Commission, given the DoD’s early role in assessing the EMP threat and hardening our most important military systems against it.

And even though it hosted the EMP Commission, DoD has not even maintained a library for access to those important reports, let alone personnel with the quality of previously recognized expertise.

So, another long-time colleague and EMP Commission Chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, purchased a webpage to provide those reports to the public — at http://www.firstempcommission.org/ that is also linked to in the right-hand column of our webpage — www.highfrontier.org .

Regrettably, these EMP Commission reports inform our readers that not only China poses an existential threat to all Americans — but that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all include EMP in their military doctrine to pose an existential threat to the United States. And the Washington establishment seems oblivious to this warning.

To illustrate how the Washington establishment has ignored this threat, note that three years ago EMP Commission Chairman, Dr. Graham — who was President Ronald Reagan’s Science Advisor and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) — informed Secretary of Department of Energy (DOE) Rick Perry, of these threats and a number of other issues.

Click here for that informative April 20, 2017 letter, to which Dr. Graham was not even shown the courtesy of a response from anyone in the DOE.

And in addition to warning Secretary Perry about the threat, Dr. Graham also identified a number of issues where the DOE was performing poorly.

For example, he noted the Commission’s concern about a “profoundly erroneous” intelligence community assessment of the EMP threat — “perhaps the worst work ever produced on EMP” that grossly underestimated the threat, “despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

I’m not sure this incorrect assessment has since been corrected.

This alone was an important assessment that should have attracted the interest of the Secretary of Energy and his staff, given that the DOE Laboratories play a significant role in influencing such important matters that affect operations of energy companies responsible for our electric power grid. Dr. Graham aptly called out such “misleading and erroneous” studies.

And now, DOE Laboratory technologists proliferated throughout the federal government seem intent on “reinventing the wheel,” seeking to relearn what expert technologists like Dr. Graham learned decades ago, beginning in the early 1960s when we served together at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory (AFWL), studying nuclear weapons effects and how to protect our most important military systems against them.

In those days, we could scarcely get the time of day on that important subject from the DOE Labs; they were much more interested in designing and testing nuclear weapons — rather than understanding their effects on our strategic systems.

In fact, that lack of interest led to the formation of DoD efforts to develop that needed expertise to design our strategic systems to survive such effects — and a major component of that mandate was assigned to AFWL in the mid-1960s — with oversight responsibilities assigned to the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), which in the late 1960s morphed into the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA).

Also in the late-1960s, the AFWL was assigned a charter to conduct independent assessments of most of our strategic systems, including independent simulation development and testing responsibilities, which were subsequently exercised throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including via underground nuclear testing.

Notably, our last underground nuclear test was in 1992 — and DNA morphed into the Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA), refocused on specialized conventional and chemical/biological weapons, along with increased support to verifying our arms control treaties. Then DSWA morphed into the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) with increased focus on arms control and verification matters.

I believe we should consider again forming an independent, technically qualified cadre of nuclear weapons effects experts again to conduct needed tests and validating assessments of our most important military systems and critical civil infrastructure to make sure we know what we are doing.

I am dubious of depending only on theoretical efforts to validate that our most important systems are properly designed, built and operated.

In any case, DOE Laboratory “experts” without such validating experience now may be ignoring the lessons learned by true experts and documented long ago in military standards that have been used to protect our most important military systems — our strategic systems, like our Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), our submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and strategic aircraft — including our strategic bombers and command, control and communication aircraft (and other systems) that are critically important in assuring the President can control those nuclear weapons should we be subjected to nuclear attack.

And theory was never good enough. We demanded realistic testing of these important systems. See below on the left for the “Trestle” built of wood on Kirtland AFB to test our strategic aircraft — in this case a B-52. On the right is a dipole arrangement to test the President’s aircraft, Air Force One.

I can’t overstate the importance of realistic testing to assure that, once hardened, our most important military systems are maintained in a hardened configuration. We learned that this was no small requirement in protecting our strategic systems.

We also sought to avoid designs that would make hardness maintenance and testing difficult. This important lesson should be translated and transferred to designing future elements of our electric power grid.

As we learned early, it is not enough to have a sound design, or sound deployment activities — the “Devil is in the details” and unanticipated flaws were not infrequently discovered after systems were deployed and operating.

In the 1960s and 70s, we also learned tha t it is essential that our strategic systems should be designed, deployed and operated to support sound hardness maintenance assessment and testing activities to assure they do not deteriorate due to oversight and/or careless maintenance operations. If such systems are not regularly tested, I would not believe they are adequately maintained.

Last Friday, my message reviewed our Lake Wylie Pilot Study, which applied such lessons-learned to estimate the cost of protecting the Distribution Grid of York County, South Carolina — and especially Rock Hill which is the fourth largest city in South Carolina and a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. Click here and read again that important message that concluded that the York County Distribution Grid can be protected for a one-time cost of less than $100 per York County citizen.

That’s less that an average family pays monthly for health insurance — and protecting one’s family against an existential threat clearly is much more important than health insurance. Once hardened, it is also imperative that such key infrastructure is regularly tested by an independent expert cadre, just as was a task assigned to the AFWL in the 1960s through the 1980s.

Bottom Lines.

Clearly, it is quite foolish not to protect the grid against EMP — as well as other threats.

As the Washington “powers that be” consider what should be included in the Infrastructure Appropriations being considered by some, serious consideration should be given to our electrical as well as civil engineers; and they should be charged with protecting our vital electric power grid!

Moreover, as I stated last week, following those recommendations for our Lake Wylie Pilot Study is a “concrete approach” that would demonstrate the wisdom of Senator Ron Johnson’s challenge, again repeated below.

“It is way past time to stop admiring this problem, and actually begin to do something concrete to protect our vulnerable electrical grid, control systems, and the ever-increasing array of electronic devices our society has become dependent upon.” ~Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chairman of the Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee

Concurrently, in my opinion, it is essential that the nation’s leadership assign an independent competent authority to conduct regular assessments to assure that the nation’s grid is developed and maintained in an appropriately hardened state. That is a full time job deserving of President Trump’s attention.

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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