by Robert M. Traxler
President Trump bombed the uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, Bravo!
We were bombarded with stories about Iran sending nuclear missiles to a city near you, killing hundreds of thousands to a million of our friends and neighbors. That could have happened, but strangely that would not be a worst-case scenario. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon would be far worse in damage and loss of life.
The same weapon, the same 40 kilotons of atomic bomb that could destroy large parts of an American city detonated 40 to 100 miles above western Missouri or eastern Kansas, could (according to a joint congressional investigative committee) kill more than 100 million Americans within a few months after the detonation and up to 300 million a year after detonation.
Most Americans live in cities that need electricity for basic needs such as water and sanitation. Without the ability to resupply, food would run out in a week and disease and dehydration would kill massive numbers of Americans. Toss in violence and fire and the numbers shoot up.
How would that happen?
For starters, the EMP would fry our electrical grid. Especially vulnerable are the transformers, which we do not make in our country; tens of thousands of them would be overloaded by the energy wave. Most aircraft will fall out of the sky, as the electronics need to “fly by wire” to control our aircraft would be instantly fried, rendering the pilots no different than any passenger. Indeed, anything with a microchip or microprocessor would be useless. Planes, trains and automobiles, fire trucks, ambulances, police vehicles will not work, and no, your cell phone will not work. Medical devices in hospitals will not work; a hospital would not have the ability to even take your temperature.
So, what is an EMP? It is an energy wave, something like a microwave or a radio wave, only vastly stronger and faster, as they are fueled by a nuclear explosion. An EMP can naturally occur, like the Carrington Event, which was the most powerful solar storm (sunspot/solar flares) on record. It occurred between Aug. 28 and Sept. 2, 1859, with the most intense activity Sept. 1–2, 1859. It was caused by a massive coronal mass ejection(CME), a burst of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, that struck Earth’s magnetosphere.
In 1859 the only thing electric was the telegraph system, which was fried. The world little noted nor long remembered the Carrington Event. Smaller solar events have happened since then.
An EMP also occurs when a nuclear device is detonated; one large or a small number of smaller devices could destroy our nation. No airplanes, trains or automobiles with microelectronics needed for operation, darn near all vehicles built after 1985. Look to our daily activities and anything we use with a microchip would not be functioning.
No communications, no light, heat, air conditioning, no water pumps, stoves, refrigerators, clocks, radios, televisions; roads would be blocked by abandoned or wrecked cars and trucks. People would not be able to travel more than a few miles a day away from home to staff vital services, and we would run out of food in stores in a week or less.
When Pakistan developed an atomic weapon, the Islamic world rejoiced, calling it the Islamic bomb. No one is sure how many weapons they have, but estimates are around 170 and many are higher. It is not out of the question to see them loaning a few to terrorists. A nuke used as an EMP weapon would not be traceable to the nation that built it, so there would be no fear of retaliation from our nuclear triad.
If Iran launched missiles they currently have from a commercial freighter 12 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, they could easily reach the area and altitude needed to maximize an EMP weapon, destroying our nation. The range of Iran’s most advanced missile is presently 950 miles, and they have tested using commercial cargo vessels as launching platforms.
The attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran set the program back, according to whomever you listen to, anywhere from a few months to a few years. Logic dictates that if the United States could develop a nuke from scratch in 1943 to 1945 using 80-year-old technology, any nation could develop one today in a few years.
Perhaps we need to spend time and assets on hardening our nation from an EMP event. My opinion.
Iran has never attacked the United States in the histories of either nation. This is irrational boogeyman fearmongering from Bob. There are 1,001 more pressing issues facing the US than an imaginary boogeyman. Let’s focus on getting the severely undereducated garbage character fascism out of our country so we can someday again get back to the real issues we need to address, like socialized healthcare, affordable education, and environmental stewardship.