Article

2017-09-06 China-Japan-Koreas

How North Korea could wipe out electrical networks across the US with a high-altitude EMP blast

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Posted by JohnQC 2017-09-06 07:25|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 As anyone else with the capability, which the Norks have yet to achieve. Why haven't you taken hardening measures because of others but now with Kimmy you seem to pay attention?

Posted by Procopius2k 2017-09-06 08:41|| 2017-09-06 08:41|| Front Page Top

#2 It would take several weapons to wipe out the US grid system. The effect of one warhead is limited by the size of the weapon and the altitude it's detonated.
Mainly, our cell phones would be fried but our Fleming valve audio amplifiers would be fine.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2017-09-06 09:39|| 2017-09-06 09:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Fleming valve audio amplifiers would be fine

Only if we can use them to order pizza and read the 'Burg.

Posted by gorb 2017-09-06 09:54|| 2017-09-06 09:54|| Front Page Top

#4 Why would we ignore the thing as it rose from North Korea, not shooting it down over China or the ocean?

Posted by trailing wife 2017-09-06 10:19|| 2017-09-06 10:19|| Front Page Top

#5 Everything should have been hardened during the cold war. That it was not says a lot about our elites.

I'm not even talking about the Soviets either, solar storms and other natural things can cause all sorts of damage and our elites shrug and hope and spend the money on hookers or their new estates or whatever.

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-09-06 10:29|| 2017-09-06 10:29|| Front Page Top

#6 A North Korean EMP attack would still be a nuclear attack by an identified adversary, very likely triggering nuclear retaliation.

I'd be more worried about North Korea organizing smaller scale (i.e. a few 100s or 1000s dead) WMD terror attacks on western targets.

North Korea, as a nuclear state sponsor of these attacks could then offer the alternative of paying protection money or getting used to monthly massacres.

If, hypothetically, there was a VX terror attack on Japan or even the US killing 1000s of people and North Korea was the likely state power behind this, only able and willing to maintain implausible deniability, would the US go to nuclear war over this? And what would be the consequences if there was no US response?

North Korea has already crossed the chemical WMD threshold. Nuclear deterrence and the use of WMD offer the not too unrealistic opportunity to turn Western nations into tributary states.

An EMP attack would be outright suicidal.

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2017-09-06 10:55|| 2017-09-06 10:55|| Front Page Top

#7 A misslle launched from a ship in the gulf of Mexico would be impossable to intercept.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2017-09-06 11:29|| 2017-09-06 11:29|| Front Page Top

#8 Don't be all that surprised if/when a North Korean nuclear blast wipes out a large Chinese city. Stranger things in history have happened. You read it first on the 'Burg.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-09-06 13:45|| 2017-09-06 13:45|| Front Page Top

#9 "Everything should have been hardened during the cold war. That it was not says a lot about our elites."

One of the least well informed comments at Rantburg, against stiff competition.

DTRA has spent a lot of time and effort attempting to model EMP potential effects and devise manageable hardening approaches that cost less than the GDP every year. The explosion of electronics everywhere, including related to the power grid(s - there's more than one), and the role of the Internet in SCADA signalling to control the grid, makes this extremely difficult to do.

Posted by Knuckles Slineger2610 2017-09-06 19:57|| 2017-09-06 19:57|| Front Page Top

23:40 Bobby
20:40 phil_b
20:06 ed in texas
20:04 Anomalous Sources
20:03 ed in texas
20:00 AlmostAnonymous5839
19:57 Knuckles Slineger2610
19:55 ed in texas
19:54 AlmostAnonymous5839
19:52 ed in texas
19:46 ed in texas
19:38 Frank G
19:35 Anomalous Sources
19:33 Anomalous Sources
19:32 Fred
19:28 John Frum
19:17 Frank G
18:36 charger
18:10 texhooey
16:39 texhooey
16:39 Silentbrick
16:17 Shipman
16:13 regular joe
16:08 Procopius2k