The White House Is Being Warned: North Korea Is Planning A "Devatstaing EMP Attack" On America

Marine Corps veteran Tommy Waller, director of special projects at the Center for Security Policy, has warned President Trump about the EMP threat facing the United States.

"Winston Churchill once said, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it"...

 

The surest way for history to be kind to President Trump is for him to write it, by being the first leader to truly address the existential threat of EMP.

 

The first and foremost thing he must write is an Executive Order establishing his own EMP Commission in the White House - a task force that draws from the experience of the previous EMP Commission."

The grim warning is directed at North Korea and their ambitions to unleash a devastating atmospheric nuclear explosion above the United States that would collapse the nation’s power grid.

Most are aware by now that North Korea has successfully tested ICBM missiles and detonated nuclear devices throughout 2017. Put two and two together, and this is a dangerous cocktail fueling the regime in North Korea. It’s also a perfect recipe for Waller to further his agenda and urge President Trump to create a special commission to prepare for an EMP attack, such as the Manhattan Project in the 1940s in developing the nuclear bomb.

Here is what he had to say:

For those able to execute an unconstrained analysis of today’s threat environment, the single most urgent concern for America is what threatens her electric grid. Without electricity, the America we know today ceases to exist – and our enemies know this.

 

Elites in the U.S. government know this too, but most have chosen to ignore these threats and to ridicule, silence, and stymie anyone willing to speak the truth about them.

Waller also warns the whole system of 16 critical infrastructure components are dependent upon electricity and the idea an EMP could wipe out critical systems would be devastating for the survival of the empire.

America’s 16 Critical Infrastructures range from Water & Wastewater Systems to Food & Agriculture to Nuclear Reactors, Materials & Waste – and all of them depend upon electricity.

 

America’s need for electricity creates the ideal conditions by which an adversary can take advantage of Sun Tzu’s “Supreme art of war,” which is “to subdue your enemy without fighting.”

 

In 1999, with full recognition of this reality and enraged with American policy in the Balkans, Vladimir Lukin (the head of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee) threatened a U.S. Congressional delegation by stating: “If we really wanted to hurt you with no fear of retaliation, we would launch a Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), [and] we would detonate a nuclear weapon high above your country and shut down your power grid.”  

With fear in place, Waller is pushing for the first Executive order, establishing his own EMP Commission in the White House.

What’s very interesting is that the Obama administration already did this by passing an Executive Order on October 2016 preparing the nation for ‘Space Weather Events’, which would contribute to a total power grid collapse.

Here is snippet of section 1 of the executive order:   

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly, some with measurable effects on critical infrastructure systems and technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite operations and communication, aviation, and the electrical power grid. Extreme space weather events — those that could significantly degrade critical infrastructure — could disable large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation. Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.

What’s even more peculiar are that high ranking officials are speculating a total power grid collapse across the United States is nearing,  but as mentioned above the Obama administration’s Executive Order is emphasizing ‘Space Weather Events’. On the other-hand, Waller is stressing that a total grid collapse will be due to a ‘North Korean EMP’.

The question: Who will be right? 

At this moment, the source of the total power grid collapse is unclear and conflicting —all depending on who you talk to, but there is one clear message. A total grid collapse in the United States is coming and it’s evident in the information above. 

In a blog post on Ripon Forum, the magazine of the moderate GOP Ripon Society, Waller wrote:

After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged — nuclear EMP attack.

 

North Korea confirmed the EMP Commission’s assessment by testing an H-Bomb that could make a devastating EMP attack, and in its official public statement: “The H-Bomb, the explosive power of which is adjustable from tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons, is a multi-functional thermonuclear weapon with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack according to strategic goals.”

 

The Pentagon and some states have started to take action to protect the electric grid from an EMP attack, but the administration and Congress have largely shrugged off the concerns, according to EMP advocates.

 

Previous congressional testimony has suggested that 90 percent of humans within the area of an EMP attack would die in a year, either from hunger, lack of water and health care, and violence.

What would the aftermath of an EMP attack look like?

If North Korea Can Kill 90% Of Americans In A Year, Why Did DoD Just Defund The Congressional EMP Commission?

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

At a House hearing yesterday, experts warned members of Congress that a North Korean EMP attack could kill 90% of Americans within one year, calling it an “existential threat.”

But despite this looming crisis, the Department of Defense has decided now was the time to defund the Congressional committee that has been studying the threat since 2001.

The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack has been around for nearly two decades, but their efforts have mostly been restricted to making sure that the U.S. national command authority and U.S. strategic forces could continue to function. Meanwhile “no major efforts were then thought necessary to protect critical national infrastructures.” Apparently, the plan was that our defense would be so effective, no further steps were needed.

This has all changed with recent strides in nuclear weaponry by North Korea. The results of an EMP strike could be apocalyptic.

With the development of small nuclear arsenals and long-range missiles by new, radical U.S. adversaries, beginning with North Korea, the threat of a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the United States. It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue, and give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP. (source)

What a lot of people didn’t know was that just a couple of weeks ago, Sept. 30, 2017, the Department of Defense terminated the funding for the EMP Commission. At the same time, “North Korea detonated an H-Bomb that it plausibly describes as capable of “super-powerful EMP” attack and released a technical report “The EMP Might of Nuclear Weapons” accurately describing what Russia and China call a “Super-EMP” weapon.”  The EMP Commission has been urging EMP preparedness on a national level for 17 years, but no one has been listening, despite alarming strides toward that goal in just the past six months.

Recent events have proven the EMP Commission’s critics wrong about other highly important aspects of the nuclear missile threat from North Korea:

• Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was primitive, some academics claiming it had as few as 6 A-Bombs. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea has 60 nuclear weapons.


• Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea’s ICBMs were fake, or if real could not strike the U.S. mainland. Now the intelligence community reportedly estimates North Korea’s ICBMs can strike Denver and Chicago, and perhaps the entire United States.


• Just six months ago, most experts thought North Korea was many years away from an HBomb. Now it appears North Korea has H-Bombs comparable to sophisticated U.S. two-stage thermonuclear weapons.


• Just six months ago, most experts claimed North Korean ICBMs could not miniaturize an ABomb or design a reentry vehicle for missile delivery. Now the intelligence community reportedly assesses North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons, and has developed reentry vehicles for missile delivery, including by ICBMs that can strike the U.S.1

After massive intelligence failures grossly underestimating North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities, number of nuclear weapons, warhead miniaturization, and proximity to an H-Bomb, the biggest North Korean threat to the U.S. remains unacknowledged—nuclear EMP attack.  (source)

So, for 17 years, this group has been ringing the warning bell and no one has been listening. Now that the threat is at our doorstep, their funding has been pulled. Something doesn’t add up.

The technology exists for a North Korean EMP attack

A successful attack doesn’t even require a Super-EMP weapon. The Commission concluded that even a primitive weapon could successfully render our infrastructure obsolete.

“Therefore, terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack.” (source)

But that isn’t the worst of in. In 2004, two Russian generals told the EMP Commission that their design for a Super-EMP weapon was “accidentally transferred to North Korea.”

Let that sink in. Somehow, North Korea has had their hands on the design for an incredibly powerful EMP weapon for more than a decade. The report says:

In 2004, two Russian generals, both EMP experts, warned the EMP Commission that the design for Russia’s Super-EMP warhead, capable of generating high-intensity EMP fields over 100,000 volts per meter, was “accidentally” transferred to North Korea. They also said that due to “brain drain,” Russian scientists were in North Korea, as were Chinese and Pakistani scientists according to the Russians, helping with the North’s missile and nuclear weapon programs.

In 2009, South Korean military intelligence told their press that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop an EMP nuclear weapon. In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear weapons.

Super-EMP weapons are low-yield and designed to produce not a big kinetic explosion, but rather a high level of gamma rays, which generates the high-frequency E1 EMP that is most damaging to the broadest range of electronics. North Korean nuclear tests, including the first in 2006, whose occurrence was predicted to the EMP Commission two years in advance by the two Russian EMP experts, mostly have yields consistent with the size of a Super-EMP weapon. The Russian generals’ accurate prediction about when North Korea would perform its first nuclear test, and of a yield consistent with a Super-EMP weapon, indicates their warning about a North Korean Super-EMP weapon should be taken very seriously. (source)

The report says that while everyone is focused on the future, when Pyongyang may develop “highly reliable intercontinental missiles, guidance systems, and reentry vehicles”, a North Korean EMP attack wouldn’t require that level of accuracy.

EMP attack does not require an accurate guidance system because the area of effect, having a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, is so large. No reentry vehicle is needed because the warhead is detonated at high altitude, above the atmosphere. Missile reliability matters little because only one missile has to work to make an EMP attack against an entire nation. (source)

It would be a strategic initial strike to take down the American power grid to disable the maority of the country before undertaking any other form of attack.

How would a North Korean EMP attack be likely to occur?

Potential vehicles of attack are submarines or freighters, which could launch an EMP weapon to the relatively low altitude of 30 kilometers over the United States.  Unsettlingly, “even a balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers altitude could blackout the Eastern Electric Power Grid that supports most of the population and generates 75 percent of U.S. electricity.”

A more likely choice would be a satellite.

A Super-EMP weapon could be relatively small and lightweight, and could fit inside North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3 (KMS-3) and Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4) satellites. These two satellites presently orbit over the United States, and over every other nation on Earth– demonstrating, or posing, a potential EMP threat against the entire world.

North Korea’s KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites were launched to the south on polar trajectories and passed over the United States on their first orbit. Pyongyang launched KMS-4 on February 7, 2017, shortly after its fourth illegal nuclear test on January 6, that began the present protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea.

The south polar trajectory of KMS-3 and KMS-4 evades U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radars and National Missile Defenses, resembling a Russian secret weapon developed during the Cold War, called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that would have used a nuclear-armed satellite to make a surprise EMP attack on the United States. (source)

The report goes on to explain that our defense systems are completely unready for any of these scenarios.

There’s a lot of misinformation about the threat of EMPs.

The report counters a great deal of misinformation about the threat of EMPs. While no one really wants to consider the devastating effects, many “uninformed persons posturing as experts” completely deny the possibility. However, the Commission says that the empirical basis for an EMP attack is better established than that of a cyber attack.

They offered numerous examples of hard data regarding the effects of EMPs.

• The U.S. STARFISH PRIME high-altitude nuclear test in 1962 over Johnston Island that generated an EMP field over the Hawaiian Islands, over 1,300 kilometers away, causing widespread damage to electronic systems.


• Six Russian EMP tests 1961-1962 over Kazakhstan that with a single weapon destroyed electric grids over an area larger than Western Europe, proving this capability six times.


• 30 years (1962-1992) of U.S. underground nuclear testing that included collecting data on EMP effects.


• Over 50 years of testing by EMP simulators, still ongoing, including by the Congressional EMP Commission (2001-2008) that proved modern electronics are over 1 million times more vulnerable to EMP than the electronics of 1962.


• “Radio Frequency Weapons were used in separate incidents against the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to falsely set off alarms and to induce a fire in a sensitive area.”


• “In Kzlyar, Dagestan, Russia, Chechen rebel commander Salman Raduyev disabled police radio communications using RF transmitters during a raid.”


• “In June 1999 in Bellingham, Washington, RF energy from a radar induced a SCADA malfunction that caused a gas pipeline to rupture and explode.”


• “In 1999, a Robinson R-44 news helicopter nearly crashed when it flew by a high-frequency broadcast antenna.”


• North Korea used a Radio Frequency Weapon, purchased from Russia, to attack airliners and impose an “electromagnetic blockade” on air traffic to Seoul, South Korea’s capital. The repeated attacks by RFW also disrupted communications and the operation of automobiles in several South Korean cities in December 2010; March 9, 2011; and April-May 2012.(source)

The threat is real. So, again, why would the Department of Defense withdraw funding from the Commission that wants to take steps to harden our infrastructure against this possibility?

What would the aftermath of an EMP attack look like?

The Commission cited several examples of real-world electrical grid failures and their catastrophic consequences.

• The Great Northeast Blackout of 2003–that put 50 million people in the dark for a day, contributed to at least 11 deaths, and cost an estimated $6 billion—originated from a single failure point when a powerline contacted a tree branch, damaging less than 0.0000001 (0.00001%) of the system.


• The New York City Blackout of 1977, that resulted in the arrest of 4,500 looters and injury of 550 police officers, was caused by a lightning strike on a substation that tripped two circuit breakers.


• The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965, that effected  (sic) 30 million people, happened because a protective relay on a transmission line was improperly set.


• India’s nationwide blackout of July 30-31, 2012—the largest blackout in history, effecting (sic) 670 million people, 9% of the world population—was caused by overload of a single high-voltage powerline.


• India’s blackout of January 2, 2001—effecting 226 million people—was caused by equipment failure at the Uttar Pradesh substation.


• Indonesia’s blackout of August 18, 2005—effecting 100 million people—was caused by overload of a high-voltage powerline.


• Brazil’s blackout of March 11, 1999—effecting 97 million people—was caused by a lightning strike on an EHV transformer substation.


• Italy’s blackout of September 28, 2003—effecting 55 million people—was caused by overload of two high-voltage powerlines.


• Germany, France, Italy, and Spain experienced partial blackouts on November 4, 2006 effecting (sic)10-15 million people—from accidental shutdown of a high-voltage powerline.


• The San Francisco blackout in April 2017 was caused by the failure of a single high voltage breaker (source)

My mind immediately goes to the down-grid disaster occurring right now in Puerto Rico.

The death toll from such a disaster would be unprecedented:

The result could be to shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans—as the EMP Commission testified over eight years ago.

We’re talking about the deaths of more than 270 million people.

President Trump signed an Executive Order in May called “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure” which will hopefully harden our country against both cyber attacks and EMPs. The Commission provided a list of actionable suggestions on pages 11-14 of this report, but will the steps be undertaken before it’s too late? Especially now that they’re defunct.

How do you prep for something so massive?

It doesn’t seem as though the government is very interested in taking steps to protect our power grid. We can look at what is happening in Puerto Rico as a glimpse of the apocalyptic future that would follow such an attack. Restoring power after an EMP could take multiple years, and things in America would never be the same after a sustained change in our way of life.

The result of an EMP attack would be a protracted blackout that would put at risk the lives of millions of people. Climate control, a lack of off-grid survival skills, looting, lawlessness, lack of medication, starvation, waterborne disease – all of these threats to our survival cannot be overlooked. If you haven’t read the book One Second After, I recommend you do so for a fictionalized yet nonetheless realistic look at life after the grid. If that doesn’t inspire you to prepare for such an event, nothing will.

The best resource for preparing for an attack like this is Disaster Preparedness for EMP and Solar Storms, by Dr. Arthur T. Bradley. A NASA scientist, Dr. Bradley has spent years studying the aftereffects of such a catastrophe. His book dispels many myths an provides realistic, lifesaving information. My personal plan is a low-tech one – I am not spending a fortune on generators and fancy gadgets I wouldn’t be able to use once the fuel runs out.

Preparing for something this massive is beyond the scope of this article. I strongly encourage you to begin researching and create your own low-tech plan. Don’t put it off until you get your perfect homestead in the boondocks or you talk your family members into it. Disasters like this don’t wait for a convenient time – in fact, strategically speaking, the less convenient it is, the more the attacker benefits.

If World War 3 starts off with an EMP, it renders many of our plans moot. We have been warned in the strongest terms possible, but will it be enough?

A "Super-Powerful" EMP Attack: North Korea's Newest Weapon Against The U.S.

The dynamics of the standoff between the US and North Korea have shifted dramatically in the past week.

First, the North started with an unexpectedly sharp provocation - launching a missile over the Japanese island of Hokkaido - before following that up with its sixth nuclear test. Also, judging by the size the earthquake detected in the country’s mountainous North on Sunday morning, North Korea may have been telling the truth when it said it conducted what it described as its first hydrogen bomb test.

And while the North bragged about the weapon’s “great destructive power” in a TV broadcast, what caught analysts’ attention was a mention of a different tactic: detonating  an H-bomb at high altitude to create an electromagnetic pulse that could knock out parts of the US electrical grid.

Here’s WSJ:

“North Korea’s threats against the U.S. now include a tactic long discussed by some experts: an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, triggered by a nuclear weapon that would aim to shut down the U.S. electricity grid.

North Korea’s state news agency made a rare reference to the tactic in a Sunday morning release in which the country said it was able to load a hydrogen bomb onto a long-range missile. The bomb, North Korea said, ‘is a multifunctional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.’”

Unlike a conventional nuke, an EMP blast - think Oceans" 11 - is not directly lethal, and serves mostly to knock out key infrastructure (useful when robbing a casino).

However, it would probably lead to an unknown number of indirect deaths as hospitals and essential infrastructure lose power.

“The idea of an EMP attack is to detonate a nuclear weapon tens or hundreds of miles above the earth with the aim of knocking out power in much of the U.S. Unlike the U.S. atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, such a weapon wouldn’t directly destroy buildings or kill people. Instead, electromagnetic waves from the nuclear explosion would generate pulses to overwhelm the electric grid and electronic devices in the same way a lightning surge can destroy equipment.”

In the worst possible scenario, regional power grids could be offline for months, potentially costing many deaths as people would eventually start running out of necessities like food and medicine. Lawmakers and the US military have been aware of the EMP threat for many years, according to WSJ. IN a 2008 report commissioned by Congress, the authors warned that an EMP attack would lead to “widespread and long-lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of US society.”

In a report published last month, the Hill noted that the North could choose to carry out an EMP attack on Japan or South Korea as a more politically acceptable act of aggression. Such an attack could help the North accomplish its three most-important political goals, the Hill said.

“North Korea has nuclear-armed missiles and satellites potentially capable of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. EMP is considered by many the most politically acceptable use of a nuclear weapon, because the high-altitude detonation (above 30 kilometers) produces no blast, thermal, or radioactive fallout effects harmful to people.

EMP itself is harmless to people, destroying only electronics. But by destroying electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures, the indirect effects of EMP can kill far more people in the long-run than nuclear blasting a city. In this scenario, North Korea makes an EMP attack on Japan and South Korea to achieve its three most important foreign policy goals: reunification with South Korea, revenge upon Japan for World War II, and recognition of North Korea as a world power.”

Scientists first discovered a hydrogen bomb’s ancillary EMP capabilities after testing one in the Pacific in the early 1960s.

“When the U.S. tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific in 1962, it resulted in lights burning out in Honolulu, nearly 1,000 miles from the test site. Naturally occurring electromagnetic events on the sun can also disrupt power systems.

A 1989 blackout in Quebec that came days after powerful explosions on the sun expelled a cloud of charged particles that struck earth’s magnetic field.”

Some experts who spoke with WSJ said it would be impossible to guarantee success during an EMP attack, since the weapon would need to detonate with near perfect accuracy.

“Skeptics generally acknowledge that an EMP attack would be possible in theory, but they say the danger is exaggerated because it would be difficult for an enemy such as North Korea to calibrate the attack to deliver maximum damage to the U.S. electrical grid. If it a North Korean bomb exploded away from its target location, it might knock out only a few devices or parts of the grid.”

The North Korea said its hydrogen bomb had explosive power of tens of kilotons to hundreds of kilotons – so of course if it landed to close, or the attack was mishandled in other ways, what was meant to be an EMP attack would result in a nuclear strike. At least one expert said using an EMP attack would make little sense when the North could cause much more destruction with a nuclear ground attack.

“Others say that even if North Korea had the technical capability to deliver a damaging electromagnetic pulse, it wouldn’t make strategic sense to use it because Pyongyang could wreak more destruction with a traditional nuclear attack directed at a large city.

A rogue state would prefer a “spectacular and direct ground burst in preference to a unreliable and uncertain EMP strike. A weapon of mass destruction is preferable to a weapon of mass disruption,” wrote physicist Yousaf M. Butt in a 2010 analysis.”

Luckily, if US military authorities truly fear an attack, there are some long-term steps the US could take to minimize the effectiveness of an electromagnetic pulse attack. Defenses could be bolstered inexpensively by designing electrical-grid components to withstand sudden pulses, just as the grid already is protected against lightning strikes. The US could also build backup systems that could step in for the principal electrical grids in an emergency.

If the North’s latest nuclear test, conducted early Sunday, didn’t involve a hydrogen bomb, the weapon used was at least close to it according to US officials. It was the North’s first nuclear test since late last year, and also the first since tensions between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump began escalating shortly after his inauguration. China, Japan, South Korea and the US have already condemned the attack, with China and South Korea threatening to work with the Security Council to bring more onerous sanctions against the defiant North.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump in a series of tweets hinted that he was frustrated with diplomatic measures, which he referred to as “appeasement.” We imagine there are more than a few generals whispering in his ear about the potential success rate of a surgical strike.

* * *

Finally, here is a repost from July 2014, in which hedge fund legend Paul Singer, head of Elliott Management, said that "there is one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence" - an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).  Three years he may be proven correct.

From: "The "Most Significant Danger" According To Elliott"s Paul Singer"

EMP: THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DANGER

While these pages are typically overflowing with scary or depressing scenarios, there is one risk that stands way above the rest in terms of the scope of potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence. Even nuclear war is a relatively localized issue, except in its most extreme form. And the threat from asteroids can (possibly) be mitigated.

The risks associated with electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, represent another story entirely. It can occur naturally, from solar storms that send “coronal mass ejections,” which are massive energetic bursts of solar wind, tens of millions of miles in a mere few hours. Or it can be artificial, produced by a high-altitude (at least 15 miles) explosion of relatively low-yield (even Hiroshima-strength) nuclear weapons.

Different initiators of EMP have different pulses and different effects. But the bottom line is that EMP fries electronic devices, including parts of electric grids. In 1859, a particularly strong solar disturbance (the “Carrington Event”) caused disruption to the nascent telegraph network. It happened again with similar disruptions in 1921, before our modern power grid came into existence. A NASA study concluded these events have typically occurred around once per century. A repeat of the Carrington Event today would cause a massive disruption to the electric grid, possibly shutting it down entirely for months or longer, with unimaginable consequences.

Only two years ago, the sun let loose with a Carrington-magnitude burst, but the position of the earth at the time prevented the burst from hitting it. The chances of additional events of such magnitude may be far greater than most people think.

The artificial version of EMP, a kind of nuclear attack, would require between one and three high-altitude nuclear explosions to create its effect across all of North America. It would not cause any blast or radiation damage, but such an attack would have consequences even more catastrophic than a severe solar storm. It could not only bring down the grid, but also lay down a very intense, very fast pulse across the continent, damaging or destroying electronic switches, devices, computers and transformers across America.

There is no way to stop a naturally occurring EMP, and nuclear proliferation, combined with advances in weapons delivery systems, make the artificial version a distinct possibility, so the dangers are very real.

What can be done about this risk? Critical elements of the power grid and essential electronic devices can be hardened. Spare parts can be stockpiled for other, less critical hardware. Procedures can be developed as part of emergency preparedness so that the relevant government agencies and emergency response NGOs are ready to respond quickly and effectively to an episode large or small.

Why are we writing about EMP? Because in any analysis of societal risk, EMP stands all by itself. Congressional committees are studying this problem, and federal legislation is laboriously working its way through the process. We think that raising people’s consciousness about what should be an effort by both parties to make the country (and the world) safer from this kind of event is a good thing to do.

A North Korean EMP Attack: The Dark Possibility

Authored by Shannara Johnson via HardAssetsAlliance.com,

As the tension between North Korea and the US continues to grow, the possibility of war is rapidly evolving into a probability. Now some military experts worry that an attack via EMP (electromagnetic pulse) on the US mainland might be a feasible option for Pyongyang.

The signs are certainly there: Having recently completed the ninth missile test of 2017, Kim Jong-un promised to send the US an even bigger “gift package.”

Adding to Kim Jong-un’s antics and inflammatory rhetoric, the recent death of American college student Otto Warmbier after his 17-month imprisonment in North Korea has certainly fanned the flames of antagonism between the US and the rogue regime.

Han Tae Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, firmly rejected the accusation of misconduct and declared North Korea operates “according to our national laws and according to international standards.”

To add insult to injury, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) also denies any wrongdoing or torture of Otto Warmbier—even going as far as to say North Korea is the “biggest victim” in this situation.

EMP: Is This The Real Threat?

Most analysts believe North Korea is not yet capable of a direct missile strike on the US mainland, but Kim Jong-un’s dogged determination to make this a reality is quite disconcerting.

Some experts believe that the more realistic threat at this point in time is an EMP attack. To make that happen, all North Korea has to do is launch a low-yield nuclear missile from a submarine, ship, or even by balloon and explode it at high altitude, above the atmosphere.

The potential result: a blackout of the Eastern grid that supplies 75% of power to the United States.

If an EMP attack did take place, it would be beyond anything we have seen before. The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, which was established by Congress in 2001, estimates that within 12 months following a nationwide blackout, “up to 90% of the US population could perish from starvation, disease, and societal breakdown.”

Electronic Armageddon

In practical terms, a catastrophic blackout would be worst in cities, because it would instantly deprive the population of access to drinking water, refrigeration, heat, air conditioning, and telecommunication. Food stores would be looted within a matter of days, and gas stations would cease to function without electricity.

Without Internet access and power, all commerce and advanced methods of communication would stop. There would be no TV, radio, phones. Credit card transactions and cash withdrawals at banks would be impossible. Paper money would become worthless, and Bitcoin would cease to exist, along with the stock market.

Newt Gingrich, speaking at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources earlier this month, said an EMP attack “would send us back to the 18^th century.”

But that’s not the only problem. If no outside help arrives, within days, chaos begins to reign. Civilization is a rather thin veneer that humans have acquired over centuries, a mask covering our hard-wired survival instincts. Once the mask slips, it could mean the end of the world as we know it.

We Are Ill-Prepared For An EMP Attack

US politicians and major utilities have kicked the can down the road when it comes to EMP preparation. Edison Electric estimates that shielding transformers for the US grid system could cost $20 billion.

Granted, American power companies have been studying ways to protect our electronic grids against attack, but tangible results are slow in coming.

The only current option after an EMP attack would be to replace damaged or destroyed transformers. However, says Scott Aaronson, managing director for Cyber and Infrastructure Security at Edison Electric, replacements for those transformers must be procured from foreign suppliers, which could take up to 18 months.

Peter Vincent Pry, leader of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, believes North Korea is closer to launching an EMP attack than many analysts believe. He wants Congress to work harder and cut the red tape to allow the innovation necessary to mitigate the threat.

In Pry’s opinion, an EMP attack would ultimately kill more Americans than a direct nuclear blast could. His book, The Long Sunday, describes several plausible EMP attack scenarios.

Pry thinks that “the first nation to use nuclear weapons today—even a rogue state like North Korea or Iran—will immediately become the most feared and credible nuclear power in the world, a formidable force to be reckoned with, and perhaps the dominant actor in a new world order.”

Is there a sensible way to prepare for an EMP attack?

Maybe not, but stocking some food, water, fuel, and batteries for emergencies is always a good idea—as well as owning a stash of gold coins as hard assets.

While “you can’t eat gold,” as some preppers say, it is the only kind of money that has prevailed over the millennia.

Retired Green Beret Fears The Final Government Objective: Enslave Or Kill Us All

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

In the world situation, we are all aware of the “hot spots,” such as North Korea, Syria, and Ukraine that could escalate into a full-blown regional war and then expand even further, either on their own or with “assistance” from governments and oligarchs alike.  We also have seen a rekindling of the tensions that existed during the first Cold War and the shaping of a new Cold War with Russia.  Meanwhile, with all foreign policy in shambles and diplomatic ties in a limbo-vacuum, the U.S. government has adjusted its pace domestically.  The President was sworn in with a tide of almost “messianic” fervor; however, 6 months has elapsed with little change evident and many of his reforms stopped dead in the water for the time being.

Domestically the U.S. government was instituting and initiating “reforms” at a running pace under Obama.  The reforms were actually removals of more and more of our liberties.  This pace has slowed down, but has not ceased.  Read the article Senate Bill: Travelers Must Register Cash and Digital Amounts Over $10K or Face 10 Years in Prison and Full Asset Seizure.  Labeled Senate Bill 1241, this nefarious totalitarian measure also contains provisions for wiretapping anyone suspected of “drug trafficking or money laundering” to fit the bill for asset seizure and further torment by the government.

They want to know everything you have, everything you’re doing, everywhere you’re going, and track you in real time with your happy cellular telephone.

We may appear to digress, now, but this next item is chillingly interrelated to the information previously mentioned.  Another article by a neuroscientist, a Miss Shelly Fan.  The government has been working on technologies such as this one for some time.  Here is the first step, in Miss Fan’s article Forget Police Sketches: Researchers Perfectly Reconstruct Faces by Reading Brainwaves.

There you have it, straight out of George Orwell’s “1984,” where Winston Smith was confronted and tortured by O’Brien.  The latter informed Smith there were two problems for the State (Oceania) to overcome: How to kill off hundreds of millions in an instant, and how to know exactly what a human being is thinking.  Well, here we are.  If they can pattern facial recognition technology to create sketches of people from the human mind, how long will it be before they can take your thoughts and formulate words or other images…even place them on a screen and store them for later use.  Will such a thing hold up in a court?  Probably not.  Nowadays, they don’t need probable cause to snag you…only “reasonable suspicion,” and they can doggedly pursue you across the ends of the earth.

Each week or even more often, we are seeing more technological advances, along with more Draconian, totalitarian edicts termed “legislation.”  Here we see the enemy of the people in the form of a tyrannical state that has abused its powers and privileges afforded it by the Constitution and the vote of the people.  Here we see an almost bankrupted government, running on the fumes of Fiat currency and the treaties made in the birthing of the vampiric Petrodollar…a medium created with the Saudis that (as evidenced by Qatar) they may very well be the ones to plunge the stake through the heart of the vampire.  Here we see the last stages of a Republic’s collapse into totalitarianism.

The almost omnipresent police state…the federalization local and state police departments and Sheriff’s departments, the fusion centers, the data collection facility in Utah, the steadily-hatching CCTV “chickadees” popping up on every corner, in every gas station, public building, and convenience store.  It is a well-known fact that before an empire slips completely into tyranny, it enslaves, torments, brutalizes, and kills its citizens.  Foreigners come and go, illegally and with a passport, carte blanche: Americans are the ones subjected to the scrutiny when they travel.  An empire can’t have its subjects…taxpaying, system-supporting subjects…going “off” the reservation, now, can they?

If there is a war, I have stated (and stand by the assertion) in previous articles that the war will be initiated with an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack.  Stefan Stanford penned a brilliant article entitled, This ‘Game Changer’ Could Lead to 270 Million Dead Americans and Foreshadows a Massive False Flag on the Horizon.  Stefan’s belief is that an EMP may be too severe for TPTB to recover from without losing a great deal of their assets.  He expostulates an excellent theory that it will be a controlled cyberattack that accomplishes exactly what the EMP attack would, minus the recovery time.

He also mentioned the show “Revolution” that had a couple of seasons and then was discontinued abruptly and for no reason when the ratings were good…a show that had a cyberattack that brought down the whole shooting match as its theme.  Readers also undoubtedly recall the “Jericho” series that lasted only 2 seasons that had nuclear devices exploded in 23 American cities to collapse the country and usher in a new era of chaos and “warlord” type engagements between factions claiming to be “the” legitimate government. Stefan and I are in complete agreement with the fact that these cancellations are way too obvious when you consider the predictive programming policies carried out by the U.S. government and Hollywood, the puppet-lackey of the State.  The scenarios are too feasible to be discounted. 

In the meantime, the public plods through the day, dulled to the everyday events that lead us closer to the corral, and eventually into the cages.  We need to focus upon these changes as they are made and keep abreast of what is happening.  Such measures are neither “cheap,” nor are they instituted by our wonderful Congressional members for no reason.  It would be a lack of reason to discount such actions as anything other than plans for the future…their plans to rule it, as well as their plans to “deal” with us.

Next Generation Risks, Part 1: "Super EMP" Attack

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

The global financial system’s ever-increasing leverage pretty much guarantees another crisis in coming years - unless it’s pre-empted by new weapons that can, in theory, shut down entire national banking systems, thus screwing up the best-laid plans of today’s savers and investors.

This series will consider some of them, beginning with the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. From The Wall Street Journal:

Pyongyang doesn’t need a perfect missile. Detonating a nuke above Seoul—or L.A.—would sow chaos.

In 2001 Congress established a commission to study the danger of an electromagnetic pulse generated by the detonation of a high-altitude nuclear weapon. It concluded that while there would be no blast effects on the ground, critical electricity-dependent infrastructure could be rendered inoperable. The commission’s chairman, William R. Graham, has noted that several Russian generals told the commissioners in 2004 that the designs for a “super EMP nuclear weapon” had been transferred to North Korea.

Pyongyang, the Russian generals reported, was probably only a few years away from developing super EMP capability. According to Peter Vincent Pry, staff director of the congressional EMP commission, a recent North Korean medium-range missile test that was widely reported to have exploded midflight could in fact have been deliberately detonated at an altitude of 40 miles.

Was it a dry run for an EMP attack? Detonation at that altitude of a nuclear warhead with a yield of 10 to 20 kilotons—similar to those tested by North Korea—would produce major EMP effects and inflict catastrophic damage to unhardened electronics across hundreds of miles of surface territory. It is a myth that large yield nuclear weapons of hundreds of kilotons are required to produce such effects.

Although some analysts have dismissed the possibility of a successful North Korean EMP attack—either on South Korea or the United States—several factors could make it a more appealing first-strike strategy for Kim Jong Un’s nuclear scientists than a direct, missile-delivered nuclear strike. For one thing, accuracy is not a concern; the North Koreans simply need to get near their target to sow chaos. Nor would they need to worry about developing a reliable re-entry vehicle for their ballistic missiles.

Conventional wisdom aside, a North Korean EMP attack on the U.S. may also not be far-fetched. “North Korea could make an EMP attack against the United States by launching a short-range missile off a freighter or submarine or by lofting a warhead to 30 kilometers burst height by balloon,” wrote Mr. Graham earlier this month on the security blog 38 North. “Even a balloon-lofted warhead detonated at 30 kilometers altitude could blackout the Eastern Grid that supports most of the population and generates 75 percent of US electricity. Moreover, an EMP attack could be made by a North Korean satellite.” Two North Korean satellites currently orbit the earth on trajectories that take them over the U.S.

This is not mere theory. In 1962 the United States detonated a 1.4-megaton nuclear warhead over the South Pacific, 900 miles southwest of Hawaii. Designated “Starfish Prime,” the blast destroyed hundreds of street lights in Honolulu, caused electrical surges on airplanes in the area, and damaged at least six satellites. Only Hawaii’s undeveloped electric power-transmission infrastructure prevented a prolonged blackout. It was the era of vacuum-tube electronics. We are living in the digital age.

Some conclusions

Lots of actors in addition to North Korea have this capability. And we can’t stop it. Preventing a nuke-laden plane or balloon from detonating miles above a populated area is hard to the point of impossibility.

Banking and brokerage networks would be shut down – possibly for a long while – by such an attack, which means no access to ATM machines or credit card readers. People without ready cash would be stuck without access to life’s necessities. Meanwhile cars, which have in recent years become rolling computer networks, won’t run, making it hard to get to distant supplies.

The fiat currency of a system shut down in this way might or might not hold its value. This is uncharted financial territory so it’s not certain that cash under the mattress will be of use. And forget about cryptocurrencies in this scenario. Virtual money evaporates when the network on which it circulates goes down.

The solution?

Start upgrading to hardened electronics as part of a basic prepping program. That’s beyond the technical scope of this article, but Google it and you’ll find plenty of resources. And hold precious metals in small enough denominations to use as currency. One of history’s lessons is that gold and silver remain valuable whatever else is going on. If we’re destined to spend a few months back in the Middle Ages, spendable money will make the experience a lot more manageable.

Is The US Prepared For A Nuclear EMP To Shut-Down New York City?

Authored by Peter Pry, chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, op-ed via The Hill,

Since Sept. 11, 2001, analysts have been increasingly concerned terrorists might steal, buy, build, or be given a nuclear weapon — and the War on Terrorism would become a nuclear war. The Department of Homeland Security’s National Planning Scenario #1 is detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb, in a location such as New York City or Washington, D.C. 

Many experts warn an act of nuclear terrorism is not a question of if, but when.

Until the recent protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea, relatively less attention has been paid to the increasing possibility of nuclear war between nations. India and Pakistan are widely regarded as the most likely candidates for a nuclear conflict between states.

Although North Korea, Russia, and China have all made nuclear threats against the United States recently, in the case of North Korea and Russia repeatedly, most analysts dismiss these as mere “bluster” and “nuclear sabre rattling” not to be taken seriously. One day, perhaps soon, this may well prove to be a fatal mistake for millions.

In the West, generations of leaders and citizens have been educated that use of nuclear weapons is "unthinkable" and the ultimate horror. Not so in Russia, China, and North Korea where their nuclear capabilities are publicly paraded, missile launches and exercises are televised as a show of strength, an important part of national pride.

Whereas the U.S. nuclear deterrent is kept low-profile, almost invisible, and its utility and legitimacy much debated, Russia and China run TV documentaries describing how they would win a nuclear war with the United States.

The "international taboo" on nuclear warfare is one-sided and far more likely to have a psychologically paralyzing effect on the U.S. and its allies than on Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack would be perfect for implementing Russia"s strategy of "de-escalation," where a conflict with the U.S. and its allies would be won by limited nuclear use. It"s their version of "shock and awe" to cow the U.S. into submission. The same kind of attack is viewed as an acceptable option by China and North Korea as well.

An EMP attack would be the most militarily effective use of one or a few nuclear weapons, while also being the most acceptable nuclear option in world opinion, the option most likely to be construed in the U.S. and internationally as "restrained" and a "warning shot."

Because EMP destroys electronics instead of blasting cities, even some analysts in Germany and Japan, among the most anti-nuclear nations, regard EMP attacks as an acceptable use of nuclear weapons. High-altitude EMP attack entails detonating a nuclear weapon at 30-400 kilometers altitude — above the atmosphere, in outer space, so high that no nuclear effects, not even the sound of the explosion, would be experienced on the ground, except EMP.

An EMP attack will kill far more people than nuclear blasting a city through indirect effects - by blacking out electric grids and destroying life-sustaining critical infrastructures like communications, transportation, food and water - in the long run. But the millions of fatalities likely to eventually result from EMP will take months to develop, as slow as starvation.

Thus, a nation hit with an EMP attack will have powerful incentives to cease hostilities, focus on repairing their critical infrastructures while there is still time and opportunity to recover, and avert national extinction. 

Indeed, an EMP attack or demonstration made to "de-escalate" a crisis or conflict is very likely to raise a chorus of voices in the West against nuclear escalation and send Western leaders in a panicked search for the first "off ramp."

Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran in their military doctrines and training regard EMP attack as part of all-out cyber warfare, not necessarily as nuclear warfare. 

Our proximity to a nuclear war may be suggested by the simple fact that analysts can now imagine many more possible pathways to a nuclear conflict today than was the case during the Cold War, then dominated by a more or less stable relationship between two nuclear superpowers, the U.S. and USSR.

Today, simply reading the newspapers reveals another possible nuclear confrontation regularly, for those with eyes to see.

For example, it was reported this week that the U.S. will deploy Patriot missiles to the Baltic states for a NATO exercise in July—just before Russia’s big annual military exercise ZAPAD-17 (WEST-17) that usually employs 100,000 troops to practice an invasion of NATO. What could possibly go wrong?

My book, "The Long Sunday," explores a dozen possible nuclear EMP attack scenarios that could plausibly happen in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and against North America — tomorrow.

Some analysts think the world is on the threshold of a "new nuclear age" where Cold War rules and assumptions about deterrence no longer apply and the likelihood of nuclear use is greatly increasing. The first nation to use nuclear weapons today — even a rogue state like North Korea or Iran — will immediately become the most feared and most credible nuclear power in the world, a formidable force to be reckoned with, and perhaps the dominant actor in a new world order.

Elites Are Orchestrating A Global Catastrophe: "There Are Many Things The President Does Not Know"

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

Following the money is always the key and crucial element to determining the “probable cause/modus operandi” regarding to globalist actions.  Although there are many who believe that President Trump is the panacea to all our problems, even they may perhaps admit that there are forces other than the President that drive our country, as well as the world.  The shadowy cabal of globalists, Bilderbergers, bankers, and other secretive organizations bent on a “union” of totalitarian control are almost too numerous to count.

There are many things the President does not know.  This is intentional on the part of the moneyed interests that control the very fabric of our society.  The interests are corporate, political, and religious: a three-level tier of control over all the facets of human society.  Just as one individual person cannot “dominate” one of these sectors, the sectors themselves cannot dominate.  They are forced into a symbiotic relationship rooted in commensalism, where each of these “parasites” benefits the other two.

The problem lies in the fact that these interests are elitists who believe in the forced imposition of their philosophies upon the masses.  They also believe in “culling the herd,” and maintaining a servile population at minimum levels to carry out all menial labor and industrial production (the Deltas and Epsilons of Huxley’s Brave New World) as they direct.  Patiently these elitists have been awaiting the day when their “1984” society is a reality, crafting and shaping it all along throughout the decades.

The numbers of humanity pose a problem, because they cannot effectively eradicate all necessary without a large-scale plague or a war, and after such an event, the planet itself might be unsustainable.

The key question for them: how to kill off about 6 to 6 ½ billion people without destroying the world?

The most efficient way would be with a limited nuclear war that destroyed enough key targets to minimize postwar effectiveness of the major powers, in a manner that does not irradiate most of the warring nations.  The key to the entire equation is to take down the United States.  The EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) is the weapon of choice.  This would paralyze all the infrastructure, leading to (as so eloquently outlined in the book “One Second After”) mass die-offs and the reduction of populations to pre-industrial societies.

The shielded and stocked communities of the elite could just sit back and allow the populations to destroy themselves and whittle down the numbers.  After a time (most likely already estimated and predetermined), mercenary forces of the elitists could emerge to mop up the remnant, enslaving and subjugating them completely.

The question isn’t whether this is in the works: it is.  The elite have been following such plans as revealed in the Iron Mountain Report, and the moneyed interests have been crafting their plans long before House wrote Philip Dru, Administrator, as he and Wilson created the Federal Reserve and laid the roots for the cancer that is pervasive and underlying the thin veneer of our phony, Hallmark-Card society.

The numerous articles about the millionaires and billionaires forming “intentional communities” and compounds/complexes for the purpose of surviving an apocalyptic event/societal collapse are not inaccurate.  The widespread reports of tunnel complexes, nonstop truck deliveries, and the diversion of taxpayer-funded government resources to secret locations throughout the United States are not inaccurate.  Jesse Ventura was investigating many of these matters before the moneyed interests put a stop to his actions and he retired from the field without fanfare.  Everyone who has exposed or threatened to expose them has either been marginalized or destroyed.  Just as people search for the “one” hero, they are also easily manipulated to focus upon “one” villain, such as a Kim Jong-Un, or a Bashar al-Assad.  Substitute the name “Emmanuel Goldstein” for either of them before the Two-Minutes Hate is conducted.

Fast forward to now.  The bottom line is that when different factors come together “coincidentally” the probability for action by the elites and the point of no return is increased exponentially.

They haven’t ushered in their era yet; they will not until they’re certain they can pull it off, but they will eventually make a play for it.

These power-brokers will not commit themselves in the gamble unless they’re sure of a win.  For this reason, it is important to monitor the hot spots for those convergent points to know when something is likely to occur: when the possibility exists, and the probability increases.  One of those points of convergence is this week.

The North Koreans are supposed to test another nuclear device on or about the 25^th of this month.  “Coincidentally,” that EMP “drill” named Operation Gotham Shield is supposed to run through April 25th, and possibly a little longer.  Coincidentally, there was a power outage in three different U.S. cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City on Thursday.  Coincidentally, Russian bomber and intelligence-gathering aircraft have been flying test runs along the coast of Alaska, for four days straight with the U.S. and even Canada scrambling fighters to intercept.  Coincidentally, the Russians claim to have electronic devices with an EMP-type effect, already used against the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer with Tomahawk missiles back in November of 2014.  Coincidentally, the U.S. naval armada is set to arrive in the waters off the Korean coast on April 26th… right in line with the EMP drill “Operation Gotham Shield.”

All these factors point toward a false flag.  If the opportunity to pull such a false flag off arises, they will seize upon it.  Trolls without number try to disparage this concept… the “nothing has happened yet, therefore nothing will happen” crowd.  The ones who are so certain that all of this is just “fear porn” or a “sham” of some kind…don’t pay their nonproductive and perhaps remunerated redundancies any mind.  The whole point is to be aware of what is going on and try to survive it.

Be that “10^th man” as outlined in the film World War Z, and consider what the herd has been conditioned not to consider, and it might improve your chances to survive what is coming: what the elites have planned and will trigger with a False Flag.

“No matter how improbable it may seem, the tenth man has to start thinking with the assumption that the other nine are wrong.”