What A Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do, (Wall Street Journal)…Brian T. Kennedy, November 24, 2008
Pg. 19

Why the U.S. needs a space-based missile defense against an EMP attack.

Think about this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York or Los Angeles launches a missile from its hull or from a canister lowered into the sea. It hits a densely populated area. A million people are incinerated. The ship is then sunk. No one claims responsibility. There is no firm evidence as to who sponsored the attack, and thus no one against whom to launch a counterstrike.

But as terrible as that scenario sounds, there is one that is worse. Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and the missile explodes 300 miles over Chicago. The nuclear detonation in space creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Gamma rays from the explosion, through the Compton Effect, generate three classes of disruptive electromagnetic pulses, which permanently destroy consumer electronics, the electronics in some automobiles and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, water-pumping stations, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication and no ability to provide food and water to 300 million Americans.

The EMP Threat , Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2008 , Pg. 10

Imagine you’re a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.

The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you’re prone to nightmares, don’t read it before bedtime.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth’s atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It’s what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill.

The commission’s list of horribles is 181 pages long. The chapter on food, for instance, catalogs the disruptions up and down the production chain as food spoils or has no way to get to market. Many families have food supplies of several days or more. But after that, and without refrigeration, what? The U.S. also has 75,000 dams and reservoirs, 168,000 drinking water-treatment facilities, and 19,000 wastewater treatment centers — all with pumps, valves and filters run by electricity.

Getting everything up and running again is not merely a matter of flipping a switch, and the commission estimates that many systems could be out of service for months or a year or more — far longer than emergency stockpiles or batteries could cover. The large transformers used in electrical transmission are no longer built in the U.S. and delivery time is typically three years. “Lack of high voltage equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and recovery,” the commission notes.

Many industries rely on automated control systems maintained by small work forces. In emergencies — say, during a blackout — companies often have arrangements in place to borrow workers from outside the affected area to augment the locals and help with manual repairs. After an EMP attack, those workers would be busy in their home regions — or foraging for food and water for their families.

The commission offers extensive recommendations for how industry and government can protect against the effects of an EMP attack and ensure a quicker recovery. They include “hardening” more equipment to withstand an electromagnetic pulse; making sure replacement equipment is on hand; training recovery personnel; increasing federal food stockpiles; and many others.

If not, our vulnerability “can both invite and reward attack,” the commission’s chairman, William Graham, told Congress last month. Iran’s military writings “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States,” he said. James Shinn, an assistant secretary of defense, has said that China is developing EMP weapons. The commission calls an EMP attack “one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences.” The threat is real. It’s past time to address it.

Report On Nuclear Security Urges Prompt Global Action, (Washington Post)…David E. Hoffman, Nov 18, 2008.

When armed men attacked South Africa’s most closely guarded nuclear facility a year ago, they penetrated the detection systems at the perimeter, cut through an electrified fence and broke into the emergency control center, shooting one worker there in the chest before escaping.

The Pelindaba facility holds hundreds of pounds of weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium. Although the attackers last November did not steal any of it, the assault highlights what a new report describes as the increasingly global challenge of keeping nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

…The report, “Securing the Bomb 2008,” the seventh annual study from Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is to be released today. The study was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonproliferation organization co-chaired by former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

In an agenda for the incoming administration, the report urges “a global campaign to lock down every nuclear weapon and every significant stock of potential nuclear bomb material worldwide as rapidly as that can possibly be done.” The report also calls for the appointment of a senior White House official with daily responsibility for preventing a nuclear terrorist attack.

Partnering For Cyberspace Security, (Washington Post)…Walter Pincus, Nov 3, 2008.

In two recent speeches that have attracted little notice, Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence, has called for a radical new relationship between government and the private sector to counter what he called the “malicious activity in cyberspace [that] is a growing threat to everyone.”

Kerr said the most serious challenge to the nation’s economy and security is protecting the intellectual property of government and the private sector that is the basis for advancements in science and technology.

Calling for “a fundamental rethinking of our government’s traditional relationship with the private sector,” Kerr said that “a high percentage of our critical information infrastructure is privately owned, and both government and industry must recognize that an individual vulnerability is a common weakness.”

On Nov. 4, Remember 9/11, (New York Times)…Jeffrey Goldberg

The next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America.

Many proliferation experts I have spoken to judge the chance of such a detonation to be as high as 50 percent in the next 10 years. I am an optimist, so I put the chance at 10 percent to 20 percent.