I was reading Bill Gertz’s article on the EMP threat [that’d be the worry that a king-size nuke would trigger an electro-magnetic pulse, frying every electronic for miles around — ed.], thinking, I wish someone else would point out that the article is a steaming pile of horseapples.”
Nick Schwellenbach from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has done just that, drawing on his excellent article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists entitled EMPty Threat and another called The Next Fake Threat.
Gertz is promoting War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, by Frank Gaffney. Gaffney was a member is tight with many of the members of the EMP Commission, which Schwellenbach points out was … well just read this section from EMPty Threat: [sub. req’d]
[In Congressional testimony, EMP Commission Staff Member Peter] Pry also quoted a passage from an Iranian political-military journal as supporting evidence that Tehran believes the key to defeating the United States is an EMP attack:
“Advanced information technology equipment exists which has a very high degree of efficiency in warfare. Among these we can refer to communication and information gathering satellites, pilotless planes, and the digital system. … Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command and decision-making center. Even worse, today when you disable a countrys military high command through disruption of communications you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. … If the worlds industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate within a few years. … American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot.
The EMP Commission, as it turns out, has squeezed much mileage out of this quote. In a PowerPoint presentation delivered in October 2004 at James Madison University, EMP Commission Chairman William Graham also cited the Iranian article to argue that “Potential Adversaries Know About EMP.” Ditto [Rep. Roscoe] Bartlett, who included a variation of the same quote on a chart that he presented before the House of Representatives in June.Just one small problem—the article never mentions EMP, or for that matter nuclear weapons. Titled “Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars,” the author offers a brief overview of contemporary Western thinking on information warfare, focusing on such issues as internet hacking, computer viruses, and disrupting communications. The article does indeed envision American soldiers unable to find food or fire a single shot—but this is not due to an EMP attack, but rather the result of enemy infiltration of information networks. As it turns out, the EMP Commission didnt need to look all the way to Iran to quote this material. The Iranian author credits the information to the Washington Post.
The blog Bouphonia did the leg work on how the EMP Commission misused this quote, after I sent along the FBIS translation of the source (read it for yourself).
– Jeffrey Lewis, Crossposted at Arms Control Wonk.com
THERE’S MORE: In this PowerPoint presentation, delivered in October 2004 at James Madison University, EMP Commission Chairman William Graham also cited the Iranian article to argue that “Potential Adversaries Know About EMP.”
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the funnier things I read over at “Garfield Ridge” was his prescient takedown of all “scoops emanating from Mr. Gertz…
Hits include:
Source: CIA Is Staffed With Carnies, Pygmies
Donald Rumsfeld Thinks Al Qaeda Leaders “Smell Funny.”
The Russians: They Still Suck.
North Koreans Are Angry About Something Or Another, Threaten War.
Heh.
Smolinsky:
Just added a link to it in the main story. Genius.
nms
As an emp scientist, I have seen all sides of the threat debate. The thing to remember is that there is very little physical evidence that suggests EMP is a viable threat. Most are simulation based and are highly sensitive to initial parameters.
Most ground-based military systems are hardened (at a high cost) and most modern microelectronics are actually self-shielding due to their small size/surface area. In fact, most crappy routers can withstand remarkably voltages before failure.
The EMP commission was staffed mostly by corporate scientists and dtra types who are looking for funding.
The typical EMP threat scenario is from a 1 + megaton old-school fission, fusion, fission bomb, not some jury-rigged 3rd world–fairy dust inspired low yield bomb. Good luck fixing one of those to you SCUD. Try an atlas rocket. Also, the real threat altitude is ~30 km, not several hundred miles. Not a lot of atmosphere that high for compton currents. EMP is generated by atmospheric asymmetry–you need an atmosphere for that! So, I don’t know what kind of right-wing retard wrote that wash times article, but they should leave the science to the grown-ups.
A few weeks ago I saw an article on the Iranian space program and the phrase “orbital EMP weapon” passed through my mind. Was it something to worry about in the next ten years?
A little Googling turned up a few relevan facts; the size and yeild of the earliest atomic bombs (which it seems reasonable to base assumptions of an Iranian weapon on), the yield of the Starfish shots, and the throw weight of Iran’s launch systems.
What I came up with jibes completely with divide_by_zero’s comment- Iran needs to upgrade their spacelift capability AND develop second- or third-generation nuclear weapons before they can threaten a large swath of the US.
They would have better luck using the highly questionable freighter Scud, or maybe a weapon loaded on a high-flying cargo aircraft. (Good luck bringing THOSE off.)
If you like you can substitute “North Korea” for “Iran”, and get the same result: a huge gap between intent and capability
If you really must have something to worry about, consider China or Russia- who are in the opposite position; credible capability, but highly questionable intent.
One other thing- I’ve seen plenty of military comm gear, old and new, and most of it isn’t hardened a’tall aside from strategic systems. (My favorite is the AACE- a room-sized Faraday enclosure supporting two UHF voice transceivers and a SATCOM system.) A real honest-to-Bob EMP would knock most airfields out of commision, for instance.
Noah I dont mean to sound like a cook or idiot but what is your take on HAARP. It is a wierd thing I have heard everyghing from a plasma ball weapon to alien crap to weather control device. Although one that did make some sence to me was that it was basicly a BMD type weapon that would fire huge amounts of EMP or create sometype interference into the upper atmosphere over the North pole (the direction the majority of Soviet missles would be tracking through) and basicly fry thier guidence systems ect… either making them miss, fall short, go wild, or just plain not go off at all fry out. What is this all about? it would make sence why you would not want to talk about such a counter measure proper shielding and just changing trajectory’s would get around it but what do you think? Seems like a lot of money to study the Auro Borialis especially for the military and not NASA
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/missiles-04zi.html
this is a recent spend and would back up the Russian fears from 02′. It also would bring HAARP up to full power.
C-Low:
What do I think of the “High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project”? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve heard a zillion explanations, each one nuttier than the next. But here’s a hintI got the other day, from a well-placed Congressional source: he called Darpa’s “Sleight of Hand” project a “follow-on to HAARP.” And what is “Sleight of Hand”? Here’s something I wrote for Wired News last year…
“A nuclear explosion in orbit could send a cascade of electrons flying through the already electron-rich Van Allen radiation belt, frying satellites’ circuitry… A Darpa program dubbed Sleight of Hand is working on ways to deal with all those extra electrons. The idea, essentially, is to generate an electromagnetic field, pushing the electrons into the atmosphere, where they can be more or less swept away.”
Anyway, here’s some background on HAARP:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/17/0047235&from=rss
http://www.darpa.mil/tto/programs/haarp.htm
nms
Noah
I appreciate it. I dont really understand how it could pull a EMP out of the atmosphere but I am not a scientist. I do still think it is a type of BMD defence. Who knows I think most of these real UFO sightings are mill tech being experimented with. If aliens really came here I just dont beleive they would look at us any better than we look at dolphins in the Ocean yeah some kind of intellegence but if in the way to bad run over. But anyway I dont agree with your politics very often if ever but you do great work on getting the heads up on mill tech I swing by your site daily to see what you got going.
HAARP is a great boogieman for the tinfoil-hat crowd to get riled up about- unlike the Jewish Banker Orbital Mind Control Laser Satellites, it has Congressional funding!
Noah and C-Low, this “Sleight of Hand” business is news to me but at first blush it’s technically feasible. Let’s see here…
HAARP and other ionospheric heaters, and for that matter all radios, are electromagnetic field generators. They spit out huge fields of electrons, and HAARP and its bretheren are capable of steering and positioning these fields with unusual precision.
Now I’ll remind you that electrons are negative charge particles and hence repel each other.
Right- so someone creates an EMP way up in the Van Allen belts, creating a flood of electrons, ready to damage any semiconductors they run into. Sleight-of-Hand Control activates their system, which projects a huge electromagnetic field (i.e. electrons) into space. EMP electrons come up against the electrons of the Sleight of Hand field- and are repelled… down into the atmosphere? (There certainly isn’t anywhere else to go, what with the Van Allen belts.)
As I see it, you’re- in essence- making a bulkhead in the Van Allen belts. Neat, but very DARPA blue sky.
Too bad for whoever is down below, as it might be THEIR semiconductors which bear the brunt if the surge isn’t sufficiently dispersed.
One final note- I recently had a discussion on the Strategypage forums with an engineer who worked with the HAARP on and off. He acknowledged that it *might* be used for remote imaging of underground structures, but suggested it really was primarily used for research… With a secondary “homeland defense” use he wouldn’t name.
I wonder if it wasn’t exactly the “Sleight of Hand” Noah is describing.
If anyone wants to know more about HAARP, you should talk to Dennis Papadopoulos at the University of Maryland-College Park. He’s been pretty involved with the project, according to Jeff.
TBV:
Send me the link to that StrategyPage discussion, willya? defense-AT-defensetech-DOT-org…
nms