“Protecting and defending the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures from cyber and EMP could be accomplished at reasonable cost and minimal disruption to the present systems that comprise U.S. critical infrastructure. This is commensurate with Trump Administration plans to repair and improve U.S. infrastructures, increase their reliability, and strengthen homeland defense and military capability. Continued failure to address the U.S. vulnerability to EMP generated by a high-altitude nuclear weapon invites such an attack.” ~ EMP Commission 2017 Executive Report

This past year has been enormously frustrating for those of us who have long understood and warned about the existential threat posed by entirely possible electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks, included in the military doctrine and plans of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. 

Most frustrating of all has been the lethargic support to the EMP Commission in its most recent formation, especially by the Department of Defense (DoD). In spite of its longstanding knowledge of this threat and how to counter it, DoD delayed the Commission startup, its progress and even publication of its reports; e.g., after a snail-paced DoD six-month review DoD eventually cleared the first three of 10 reports anticipated to be unclassified. Even then delays in posting publically those three reports continued.

Consequentially, Dr. William R. Graham — Chairman for 17 years of the EMP Commission that congress foolishly disestablished last year — has formed his own webpage to provide faster public access to these important reports once they are appropriately cleared.  His website is http://www.firstempcommission.org/. There you will find the Commission’s Executive Summary and two other key recent reports along with links to the Commission’s 2004 and 2008 reports.   Seven more reports are expected to be posted once they clear DoD’s snail paced review process.

In particular, the Commission’s Executive Summary observes that the Intelligence Community has grossly understated the EMP threat, and reports that the peak of the low-frequency EMP component is three-and-a-half times that being advanced to guide the nation’s electric power industry’s efforts to harden the electric power grid. These matters should receive immediate attention.

Thanks to Dr. Graham’s initiative assuring timely publication of the Commission reports and prodding from Assistant Secretary of Defense Guy Roberts, the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) advanced its previous estimates of additional weeks to provide access by the private sector to two reports today: Click here for the Executive Report and click here for the Report on the Low Frequency EMP component. 

The past interminable DoD delays and more delay by congressional staff while congress considers the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 are likely to continue under a proposed new and most likely less competent EMP Commission. 

Hopefully, President Trump will head off these likely counterproductive consequences with an immediate Executive Order establishing a Commission in the White House under the National Security Advisor to provide a “Whole of Government” response to the EMP threat. A key problem, as identified in the Commission’s reports, is that no one is in charge with authority to provide such an integrated response to protect the American People from a truly existential threat.

Click here for more discussion and additional details from Dr. Graham’s webpage—for the past cleared EMP Commission reports and its future ones whenever seven more unclassified reports complete the DoD’s lethargic review process.

Pass 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.