U.S. Urged to Rapidly Prepare for Electromagnetic Pulse Attack

The United States is vulnerable to a devastating electromagnetic pulse event caused by a high-altitude nuclear blast or solar super-storm, according to a recently published book.

Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst and author of the book EMP Manhattan Project, is urging the government to rapidly harden the U.S. electric power system against EMP similar to the three-year crash program to build the first atomic bomb in 1942.

"Today the United States and the world faces another existential threat—from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) catastrophe that can be caused by nature or man, and topple the technological pillars of modern electronic civilization," said Pry, who served on a congressional EMP commission in the early 2000s.

The book contains fresh assessments of the EMP threat produced by a more recent congressional commission last year that concluded the United States would suffer millions of deaths from a major EMP incident.

EMP was discovered in the 1960s during above-ground nuclear tests. The tests showed a nuclear blast created a pulse capable of disrupting or destroying electronic devices over large areas, in some cases over 1,000 miles away.

The latest EMP commission found the United States is confronted with "a present and continuing existential threat from naturally occurring and man-made electromagnetic pulse assault and related attacks on military and critical national infrastructures."

An EMP event would produce an electric power outage over large areas of the country that could last for a year or longer.

"An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation," the commission stated in its July 2017 report.

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