ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE AND AMERICAN SECURITY By Eric Hannis
http://www.afpc.org/files/february2012.pdf One of our nation's most glaring national security "Achilles Heels," the
threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) incident, has received new
attention of late in the popular media as well as the Republican
presidential debates. This focus is certainly welcome, but it is far from
typical; beyond a small circle of think tanks and policy wonks inside the
Washington Beltway, few people even know that this threat exists.
So what is an electromagnetic pulse? An EMP is a burst of electromagnetic
radiation that is usually caused by either a very high yield explosion-such
as a nuclear detonation - or by a natural solar eruption that periodically
emanates from our sun. If the explosion or solar burst is strong enough, the
resulting high energy electromagnetic fields can produce electrical voltages
so intense that they can destroy electrical components used in everyday
items, such as computers and communications equipment, as well as large
infrastructure equipment and transformers used in our electric grid.
New salience
The EMP threat has been known for some time. During the Cold War, we were
aware that the Soviets maintained an EMP attack plan in their portfolio of
nuclear options. Our primary deterrent to such a Soviet EMP attack was the
same as for other scenarios at the time: simple nuclear retaliation. We knew
that were this attack to be used, it would likely be only one adversary
launching it. It was an effective and logical deterrent.
But in the intervening decades, we have become ever more dependent on our
information technologies (IT) and computer-based infrastructure systems,
thus making us an even more appealing and likely target for an EMP attack.
In addition, since nuclear and missile technologies have spread to even more
unpredictable and "rogue" nation states, relying solely on a strategy of
nuclear deterrence is increasingly insufficient.
The stakes are grave indeed. One successful high altitude EMP detonation has
the capability to disable electronic systems that could result in our
population plunging back into the 18th century overnight. While immediate
and direct deaths from an EMP detonation would be minimal, associated long
term mortality would be very high. Multiple successful detonations above the
continental United States could potentially result in the entire nation
becoming completely incapable of utilizing any Eric Hannis is Executive
Director at Etherton and Associates, a defense consulting firm, as well as a
Lt Col in the Air Force reserve. Previously, he was the Military Legislative
Assistant to Rep. Randy Forbes, Chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee's Readiness Subcommittee.
technologies dependent on electricity. Very quickly, our just-in-time and
highly efficient infrastructure systems that supply food, energy, and
transportation would be rendered inoperable. Hospitals and emergency
services could be incapacitated. Water would not flow, vehicles would not
run, and food would spoil and go undelivered. The result would be
starvation, disease, and lawlessness on a scale not experienced in modern
times.
The capability to deliver an EMP attack, moreover, is expanding. Whereas
decades ago only a handful of states possessed the capability to create an
electromagnetic pulse event, today the associated knowledge has become more
diffuse - and the ability to do so more widespread.
Two of the three nations that were named by the Bush administration as
members of the "Axis of Evil," North Korea and Iran, are known to be
developing capabilities to launch EMP attacks. North Korea is developing
several technologies that could allow it to launch an EMP attack.1 These
include long-range nuclear-capable missile technologies, according to recent
testimony to Congress by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Moreover,
according to South Korean military officials, North Korea is in the process
of finishing the development of a "Super-EMP" nuclear warhead. Although it
lacks an ICBM capability, Iran too could cause devastating harm to the U.S.
through a ship-launched EMP attack. The Iranian regime is known to have
conducted missile launches off surface vessels in the Caspian Sea - tests
that bear a striking resemblance to EMP launch exercises.2 But EMP attacks
need not be launched directly by an adversary nation-state.
Iran, or another rogue state, could use a proxy organization to launch a
missile from a freighter in the Atlantic. Moreover, we also have known for
some time that non-state terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda have been
urgently trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
However, an attack is not the only way that an EMP event could happen. Many
scientists believe there is a strong chance that impending solar eruptions,
called "coronal mass ejections" (CME), have the potential to cause the
same effects as an EMP detonation on terrestrial systems. In fact, many
scientists believe the question is not "if" such storms will occur, but
"when." Solar storms of strong magnitude erupt in 11-year cycles, and our
sun's solar storm activity is expected to peak in 2013. One of the biggest
threats from a CME event is the potential damage it could cause to our
electric grid. Power surges caused by solar particles can destroy giant
transformers. The costs from the loss of power to our most vulnerable east
coast cities for even weeks or months could easily reach the billions of
dollars. And even if the CMEs that occur between now and next year do not
cause massive disruptions or damage to our electric infrastructures, our
continued and increasing reliance on electronic systems One successful high
altitude EMP detonation has the capability to disable electronic systems
that could result in our population plunging back into the 18th century.
overnight.
means that we will be even more vulnerable during the next 11-year cycle of
solar storms.
A lagging response
While we clearly are aware of these current EMP threats, both natural and
man-made, what have we done to prepare our nation? The answer,
unfortunately, is very little.
The United States first began to seriously address the current EMP threat
through the establishment of a formal commission (known as the Commission to
Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack)
back in 2001. Following years of study, this blue-ribbon panel produced a
thorough analysis of the potential effect of EMP attacks, and provided the
government with concrete steps needed to safeguard our nation.3 Yet to date,
very few of the Commission's recommendations actually have been
implemented.
In its recommendations, the Commission focused its attention on a quartet of
basic steps necessary to prepare for and deter an EMP incident. These
include:
Infrastructure hardening
Hardening our infrastructure systems and post-incident planning will allow
our most important systems to function after an EMP incident. It will also
make us a less appealing target, signaling to hostile nations that they
would only be able to hamper us temporarily - and then only at potentially
catastrophic retaliatory cost.
Unfortunately, however, the federal agencies charged with post-incident
planning and hardening of our electric grid have failed to move beyond the
theory and discussion phase. The Department of Energy (DoE), likewise, has
done little to prepare for an EMP incident. While hardening our entire
electric grid is unrealistic, DoE could do much to mitigate the effects of
an EMP incident by establishing plans, in coordination with industry, on how
to most efficiently restore electric power after an EMP incident. Yet it has
failed to do much of anything in this regard. This is true even though
experts estimate that it would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars
to protect our 300 largest transformers, and less that $1 billion to harden
an additional 3,000 smaller transformers - a comparatively small price to
pay in order to stem the potential loss of life and destruction of our
infrastructure and economy that would result from an EMP attack.
Communicating during an EMP event
The responsibility for developing civilian protocols for command and control
in the event of an EMP attack largely falls on the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). Since its inception in 2001, the EMP Commission has provided
many actionable recommendations to DHS in regard to planning and incident
response. DHS, however, shows no indication of working to develop solutions
to the shortfalls specified in the recommendations. In fact, an EMP threat
scenario has not even been included in the Two of the three nations named by
the Bush administration as members of the "Axis of Evil," North Korea and
Iran, are known to be developing capabilities to launch EMP attacks.
DHS's "National Planning Scenarios," its list of the nation's most
critical threat scenarios, despite the potentially catastrophic nature of
such an event.
Hardening of defense and space systems
Unlike DHS and DoE, the Department of Defense (DoD) has begun to undertake
many of the steps recommended by the EMP Commission, particularly the
hardening of electronic components used in critical weapon systems. In
particular, DoD has been making investments in hardening our strategic
weapons systems, such as the nation's nuclear forces.4 In addition, it has
started to invest in enhancements that provide for electronic hardening
during upgrades of existing conventional weapon systems such as bombers and
fighter aircraft.5 However, these steps are still early ones; much of our
conventional force still remains vulnerable to an EMP attack. And the
military's increasing use of commercial electronic technologies, which have
no hardening characteristics, make vulnerability to EMP an escalating
problem.
Defending against EMP and EMP-capable attack A key component to our EMP
defenses is the ability to intercept incoming ballistic missiles. The
Commission correctly asserts that a viable missile defense system is our
nation's best deterrent to an EMP attack. While neither the Bush nor Obama
administrations did enough to harden our infrastructure, the differences on
missile defense are starker. During the Bush administration, our Ballistic
Missile Defense (BMD) capabilities advanced through several programs with
the capability to protect the homeland from an EMP attack (including the
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and the Airborne Laser).
The Obama administration, by contrast, has done considerably less. Despite
unveiling a new four-phase missile defense plan in September 2009, it began
to make large cuts to the missile defense budget beginning in FY2010. In
addition, the Obama administration has cancelled or delayed the fielding of
systems that held much potential to defend against EMP attacks. The DoD's
Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, released in early 2010, indicates
that the Obama administration is retreating on the fielding of the
ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) systems to defend the U.S. and Europe
against potential ballistic missile attacks. While the Bush administration
planned to field 44 ballistic missile interceptor systems in the U.S. and 10
in Europe, the Obama administration is planning to field just 30 systems in
the U.S. and none in Europe.6 In addition, the ABL program was cancelled by
the Obama Administration back in 2009. Lastly, the Obama administration, via
the New START Treaty, has limited our future missile defense options as part
of its attempted "reset" of relations with Russia.
Steps toward a solution
Over the last few years, responding to these deficiencies, Congress has
fielded several legislative initiatives to address our shortfalls in EMP
incident preparation and infrastructure hardening. As of yet, however, no
EMP-focused bill has yet been sent to the President for signature.
The so-called SHIELD Act (Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity
from Lethal Damage Act) is one of the better plans currently under
consideration. It would amend the Federal Power Act by encouraging
cooperation between industry and government to mitigate vulnerabilities in
the electric grid and develop solutions to current shortcomings associated
with a major EMP event. The SHIELD Act, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks
(R-AZ), calls for the establishment of protection standards and hardware
fixes (such as the hardening of large transformers and other key elements of
the nation's power infrastructure). Another attribute of the SHIELD Act is
that it does not rely solely on government for a solution, but rather
depends on a partnership of government and industry to achieve its goals of
protecting American electric infrastructure.
If passed, the legislation would eliminate many of our vulnerabilities to an
EMP event, whether caused by an attack or by nature. Moreover, the SHIELD
Act's bipartisan list of supporters shows that threat of an EMP attack is
one of very few issues that unites both Republicans and Democrats in this
highly-polarized Congress.
Time to act
Our federal government, through the EMP Commission, has now studied the
threat posed by EMP for over a decade. Policymakers in Washington now need
to move beyond theory, and into practice.
This means expending the appropriate resources to harden our military and
civilian infrastructures. It also requires building the redundancies and
communication capabilities that would make it possible for America to
weather an EMP event more or less intact. The proposals outlined in the
SHIELD Act provide a blueprint for doing so. We now need our federal
government and agencies to at long last take the EMP threat seriously, and
begin to protect against it. ●
1 U.S. Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report,
February 2010, 4-6,
http://www.defense.gov/bmdr/docs/BMDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10%200630_for%20web.p
df.
2 Dr. William R. Graham, Testimony before the House of Representatives
Committee on Armed Services, July 10, 2008,
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/GRAHAMtestimony10JULY2008.pdf.
3 See Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States
from Electromagnetic (EMP) Attack, vol. 1: Executive Report, 2004,
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf.
4 Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), Operation and
Maintenance Overview Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Estimates, February 2011, 131.
5 Department of the Air Force, "Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2012
Budget Estimates," Justification Book Volume 3, Research, Development, Test
& Evaluation, Air Force, Volume III - Part 1, February 2011, 46, 48, 49,
647.
6 Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, 16.
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