September 5, 2017—EMP Threat: Keep the Commission!

North Korea’s state news agency KCNA News for the first time reported on Sunday that the “explosive power” of the hydrogen bomb was “adjustable from ten kilotons to hundreds kiloton [sic.];” and that the weapon was described as “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke … which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP [electromagnetic pulse] attack according to strategic goals.”

Too few people have recognized this gathering storm, long ago identified by the congressionally mandated Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, the EMP Commission. Click here for the EMP Commission webpage and links to its 2004 and 2008 reports.

The Commission is nearing the end of its most recent term, just as we are finally beginning collectively to understand the existential threat the EMP commission identified and reported to a closed session of congress in 2004 and then publically in 2008. In spite of clear warnings, the federal government has thus far failed to live up to its oath “to provide for the common defense,” at least insofar as the EMP threat goes.

Moreover, the House of Representatives now has threatened to disband the Commission and form a new one — assuring a major delay when its seasoned oversight is most needed, especially given North Korea’s recent most unwelcome activities.

Hopefully, the Senate conferees to consider the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will block this most unwise House initiative and reinstate the team that brought us this far — and this time place it within the White House with a direct line to the President to assure that the dysfunctional federal government gets its act together.

Consider a bit of recent history — just the past three months — supporting this recommendation to which I’m a first-hand witness. And more, much more can be supplied.

On June 8, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published my article, “North Korea Dreams of Turning Out the Lights,” with a subtitle emphasizing that Kim Jong Un did not need a perfect missile; “detonating a nuke above Seoul — or L.A.— would sow chaos.”

Click here for this article that began by observing that conventional wisdom held it would be years before North Korea could credibly threaten the United States with a nuclear attack — conventional wisdom that I disputed as now justified by recent events.

I wrote that conventional thinking was that Kim Jong Un’s scientists were still testing only low-yield nuclear weapons, and had yet to place them on ballistic missiles capable of reaching America’s West Coast.

After noting that North Korea already had tens of nuclear weapons, according to true non-governmental technical experts — e.g., click here, I noted that Kim Jong Un was surely close to achieving his goal, for example to enable detonating only one of these weapons 40 miles above Seoul to inflict catastrophic damage on South Korea’s electric power grid, leading to a prolonged blackout with deadly consequences.

Since then, the Defense Intelligence Agency is reported to have concluded that North Korea may have up to 60 nuclear weapons. Click here for one of several reports of this recent acknowledgement. I would argue such weapons may be delivered by North Korea’s recently demonstrated intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to pose this EMP threat to all Americans. And they would not have to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere to do so.

Kim Jong Un also could deliver an existential EMP attack from one of North Korea’s satellites approaching the United States from our mostly undefended South, as my High Frontier messages have repeated warned for several years. Click here for links to past discussion of such a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS), a concept pioneered by the Soviets in the 1960s.

Still, our “powers that be” have slept on.

Maybe the events of this past week are awakening at least some of our “powers that be.” They certainly herald a day of reckoning — despite the continuing claims of some alleged “experts” that North Korea still has a way to go before it achieves an existential threat to all we hold dear.

Below is a widely circulated photo of Kim Jong Un handling at least a “mock-up” of the hydrogen bomb claimed to have been tested underground on September 3, 2017. Here he is mocking how it would fit into the nosecone of one of North Korea’s ballistic missiles.

There is little remaining dispute that North Korea has demonstrated a nuclear weapons capability — and the means of delivery of that capability to attack South Korea, Guam, Hawaii and even the United States, though some still dispute how far that threat might reach across America.

As noted in the first figure above, it need not reach the East Coast to create the existential EMP threat across America. Reaching the middle of the country would do just fine, from North Korea’s perspective.

Kim Jong Un indeed may today choose to turn “out the lights” in numerous locations important to U.S. security interests, including the survival of most Americans.

Yet, some still claim that we have time because North Korea must still prove its nukes can reenter the earth’s atmosphere before it will choose to attack us — in spite of the fact that a detonation above the atmosphere can pose an existential EMP threat.

At a minimum, the alleged experts should pay some attention to North Korean spokesmen who, as noted above, have claimed “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke … which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”

So, at least the North Koreans recognize their potential ability to achieve an existential threat to all Americans, contrary to the view that this EMP threat is not yet an existential threat. Such alleged “experts” ignore long-standing warnings of the congressionally-appointed EMP Commission in 2004 and 2008.

Most notably, the EMP Commission’s chairman, Dr. William R. Graham, and others have reported that Russian Generals, EMP experts all, told commissioners in 2004 that the designs for a “super EMP nuclear weapon” had been transferred to North Korea. Pyongyang, these Russian Generals reported, then was probably only a few years away from developing super EMP capability.

Note: That was 13 years ago. And by the way, the Soviet EMP tests of the 1960s were better instrumented than were ours; consequently their experimental data on EMP effects was better than ours. We obtained some of their information from their scientists after the end of the Cold War.

Click here for Dr. Graham’s June 2, 2017 elaborated warning, also referenced in my Wall Street Journal article. Most notably, Dr. Graham also strongly disputed claims by alleged EMP experts that we could and should ignore EMP as an eminent threat. Click here for an August 30, 2017 update and elaboration of these claims in a Washington Times article he co-authored with EMP Commission Executive Director, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry.

They began by noting U.S. intelligence failures: Grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities; number of nuclear weapons; warhead miniaturization; and proximity to manufacturing a hydrogen bomb; and the biggest unacknowledged near-term North Korean threat to the United States — North Korea’s satellites in orbit that can be nuclear-armed for a high-altitude EMP attack that would black out North America for months to years, killing millions.

They emphasized that such an EMP attack doesn’t require accurate guidance systems because the area of effect has a radius of hundreds of miles. No re-entry vehicle would be needed because the warhead would detonate at a high altitude, above the atmosphere. This point appears to be beyond the comprehension of many of our military leaders and other alleged “experts” who appear in the press.

Hopefully, since the intelligence community reportedly has acknowledged that North Korea has tens of nuclear weapons that — I would add — could be “Super EMP weapons,” our leaders and associated “powers that be” will eventually conclude the obvious, that America faces an eminent EMP threat.

Others are publically making this obvious connection. Click here for Sunday’s London Daily Mail article that makes the obvious connection in its title: “How North Korea could wipe out electrical networks across the US with a high-altitude EMP blast.”

I would note that the Daily Mail’s suggestion that North Korea’s recent test involved a 100 kiloton detonation is most likely an underestimate. If widely reported “earthquake magnitude” estimates have been accurate, it seems more likely that North Korea’s underground test demonstrated a weapon yield comparable to some of our strategic nuclear weapons.

And U.S. newspapers are also beginning to take note of the EMP threat, e.g., click here for Jack Encarnacao’s “Electromagnetic pulse attack on grid could ‘cripple’ society” in yesterday’s Boston Herald.

Clearly, everyone seems now to be acknowledging that we need much improved ballistic missile defenses — and I would add, much more than THAAD, an effective terminal high altitude area defense system to which the press gives most note.

Click here for my recent Newsmax articles that deal with these issues and that urge near-term “quick fixes” to our existing missile defense capabilities.

The “powers that be” need to wake up to this existential threat — and the importance of the EMP Commission in achieving competent oversight of all of the government’s thus far lethargic efforts to counter this now most evident threat.

The EMP Commission has been a lonely voice in pointing to this threat for over a decade and recommending appropriate solutions.

As congress returns today to do the nation’s essential business, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conferees should assure the Commission continues its urgently needed role without a break. They should overrule the recommendations of House of Representatives and reinstate the current commission in the White House with a direct connection to the President.

Bottom Lines.

North Korea has geared up to present America with an existential EMP threat. It now exits!

Our federal government has been unfocused and incompetent in protecting against this existential EMP threat, now publicized by North Korean spokesmen.

The NDAA conferees should reject the House-proposed language that disestablishes the EMP Commission, which has clearly identified this existential EMP threat and important faults of the federal government in dealing with it — as well as recommending how the electric power grid should be protected against these effects.

The NDAA conferees should reject the idea of starting over with a new commission, causing a major delay just when North Korea’s actions show we need to move rapidly to rectify our past failure to prepare for this threat.

Instead, the EMP Commission should be reinstated in the White House with a direct line to the President to help him assure an integrated government-wide response to this urgent existential threat to all Americans.

Stand by and see what our leaders do — and take the time to press them to act!

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.

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