Think The Unthinkable And Prepare For It

The threat posed by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) was once considered by the mainstream as simply the stuff of science fiction or lone nut jobs living in rooms lined with tin foil. But people are now coming to understand that an EMP — whether from natural causes or a weapon — poses a real threat to America's electronics and could send the country into a new Dark Age. Even the corporate media is on board, as the mainstream mouthpiece USA Today imagined in a recent article "What a US electric grid attack looks like." Hint: It would "come from a hostile power using a nuclear weapon targeting the special vulnerability that comes with electricity and computerization. The hostile power would not target cities, as in the past, but instead would detonate a nuclear bomb high in the atmosphere, creating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)." The Hill writes: "US would be wise to prepare for EMP attacks on its cities." Even the Huffington Post wrote about "Understanding North Korea's EMP Threat." The possibility of and EMP has even knocked congress out of its self-absorbed stupor. The House has decided to reactivate a disbanded committee that was originally created to devise counter measures against a possible electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by North Korea. An EMP could come from the sun as well. Solar flares, or coronal mass ejections, can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems. A large burst of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers. These huge flares have caused blackouts in the past. This just happened in September when two massive solar flares lit up the surface of the sun. Even though their energy was not directed at the Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center the flares resulted in radio blackouts. High-frequency radio experienced a "wide area of blackouts, loss of contact for up to an hour over [the] sunlit side of Earth," and low frequency communication, used in navigation, was degraded for an hour. In 1989, a relatively low level storm from the sun knocked out power for 6 million people in eastern Canada and the U.S. for 12 hours. Imagine what a nuke detonated in the upper atmosphere could do. There are reports that Iran and North Korea — which are being goaded into war footing by neocon warmongers, despite their posing no threat to the U.S. mainland so far — have nonetheless been working on an EMP weapon that could be launched from a ship or barge off the American coast. An EMP would shut down the nation's power grid, silence communications and render everything containing electronics — from hand-held games to cell phones to airliners — inoperable. Water would cease to flow as pumping stations shut down. Grocery store shelves would be bare within hours. The banking system would crash. Those in poor health depending upon machines to stay alive would be dead in minutes. Within days the weak and infirm would be dead from dehydration. As the crisis grew, riots would ensue and people would turn on one another. As an example for how bad it could get, remember the islands in the Atlantic ocean that were in the paths of hurricanes Harvey and Irma this past summer. Some of those islands have no people living on them anymore, and the ones that do — even the U.S. protectorate of Puerto Rico, are suffering terribly. According to The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. must take steps to: Prevent the threat. Regardless of the mitigation and response measures, a massive EMP impact could have a devastating impact on the United States. Washington must pursue an aggressive protect-and-defend strategy, including comprehensive missile defense; modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and adopting proactive nonproliferation and counter-proliferation measures, both unilaterally and in partnership with allies. Provide resilience. Measures must be adopted to ensure the resilience of the U.S.-Canadian electrical grid and telecommunications systems, including developing limited redundancy and identifying means for the timely replacement of essential damaged parts or their rapid substitution. Plan for the unthinkable. The U.S. must have robust pre-disaster planning — with practical exercises that include top officials who rehearse a wide variety of contingency scenarios — that integrates federal, state, local, private-sector, nongovernmental organizations, and international support. Protect the capacity to communicate. The U.S. must have the means to establish assured emergency broadcast as well as interactive communications both within the U.S. and across the globe. An EMP strike can easily obliterate America's electrical, telecommunications, transportation, financial, food, and water infrastructures, rendering the United States helpless to coordinate actions and deliver services essential for daily life. In the words of former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, EMP "is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies." Of all the things that government is considering, this is one concern that must be front and center. And expecting that Congress will screw it up — as they do most everything else — it's something that everyone must prepare for themselves. How to prepare? Consider what life will be like when your electronic conveniences — and necessities — are no longer available. Then store food, water, medicines, sundry items, guns and ammunition — and gold and silver for the barter economy that will develop. These are things that we warn about that many of our readers do not take seriously. But the time to prepare is now. One small example is that I have repeatedly advised to store food. It is not only basic to life, survival, and barter, but in time it will be classed as hoarding and will be a criminal act if caught. I will share with you the following list of items that I have in my food storage: Salt, water in gallon jugs, Clorox and Lugols iodine for disinfecting and purifying water (six drops per gallon of water), brown and white sugar, dry beans and pastas of all kinds, chili, mayonnaise, coffee, sardines, tea, olive oil, rice, baked beans and pork and beans, cereal, canned soups, kraut, salmon, canned white tuna in water, food bars, a few frozen dinners, olives, pickles and treats (chose those you like), minimum amount of cake mix, flour, cornmeal, seasonings for cooking, dried and canned milk, all paper products, cleaning products, basic patent medicines such as cough medicine, cough drops, Tylenol, eye drops. One of the best foods to store is vacuum sealed dry foods of all kinds. These will last for years and years. If you can't imagine being hungry in the midst of chaos then you will probably ignore this suggestion and others I make regarding true health and wealth, but you won't forget them. And they will haunt you if you fail to take action. But if you envision our possible futures, you will survive and prosper in the years ahead. Remember, my advice is to always prepare sooner rather than later. I will keep talking to you about the need for all types of preparedness in future Alerts. But in case you missed it, follow this link for a complete survival guide. Yours for the truth, Bob Livingston Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™

EMP Is The Real Threat, Yet Congress, The News Media, Are Quiet As Mice. Are They Afraid To Tell Us?

HOW A NORTH KOREAN ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE ATTACK COULD KILL MILLIONS AND TURN AMERICA INTO A POST-APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND

North Korea can now reach New York and Washington DC

Michael Snyder | Economic Collapse - NOVEMBER 29, 2017 240 Comments 

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This is why North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile is so important. 

North Korea had test fired a total of 22 missiles so far this year, but this latest one showed that nobody on the globe is out of their reach.  In fact, General Mattis is now admitting that “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world”, and that includes the entire continental United States.  In addition to hitting individual cities with nukes, there is also the possibility that someday North Korea could try to take down the entire country with an EMP attack.  If the North Koreans detonated a single nuclear warhead several hundred miles above the center of the country, it would destroy the power grid and fry electronics from coast to coast.

I would like you to think about what that would mean for a few moments.  Suddenly there would be no power at home, at work or at school.  Since nearly all of our vehicles rely on computerized systems, you wouldn’t be able to go anywhere and nobody would be able to get to you.  And you wouldn’t be able to contact anyone because all phones would be dead.  Basically, pretty much everything electronic would be dead.  I am talking about computers, televisions, GPS devices, ATMs, heating and cooling systems, refrigerators, credit card readers, gas pumps, cash registers, hospital equipment, traffic lights, etc.

For the first couple of days life would continue somewhat normally, but then people would soon start to realize that the power isn’t coming back on and panic would begin to erupt.

The intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea just launched traveled almost 1,000 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 4,500 kilometers.  We have been told for decades that this would never be allowed to happen, but now it has happened…

This is concerning for one big reason: according to General Mattis, the North Korean ICBM “went higher, frankly, than any previous” and “North Korea can basically threaten everywhere in the world.” This was confirmed by North Korea missile analyst, Shea Cotton, who cited Allthingsnuclear author David Wright, and who told the BBC that the initial estimates of the ICBM test mean that North Korea can now reach New York and Washington DC.

If we had been working hard to develop our anti-missile technology all these years, this wouldn’t be a problem.

But at this point we are way behind the Russians in this regard, and there is a very real possibility that a missile launched by the North Koreans could make it through the very limited anti-missile defenses that we do have.

Once upon a time, discussions about a North Korean EMP threat were mostly hypothetical, but now that has completely changed.  North Korea has clearly demonstrated that they are able to deliver such an attack, and last September Kim Jong Un publicly admitted that North Korea intended to develop this capability…

But most reporters missed a key threat that appeared at the bottom of Kim’s public statement, when he bragged that North Korea had harnessed “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack according to strategic goals.”

So now we know. Launching an electromagnetic pulse attacks against its enemies is one of North Korea’s strategic goals. And for North Korea, the United States is the top enemy.

And like I said earlier, all it would take would be a single well placed nuclear detonation to fry electronics from coast to coast.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful bomb detonated at an altitude of 249 miles would wipe out all electronics in the US, save the southernmost top of Florida and the easternmost states – as well as affecting Canada and Mexico.

Without power, nothing would get distributed.  That means that very rapidly there would be no food, no water and no medicine available in your community.  An article posted by Fox News this week used the term “post-apocalyptic” to describe what we would be facing…

It all starts to sound very post-apocalyptic when you realize this means no lights or other electric-powered devices in homes and businesses, no water filtration, no regional food hubs, no transportation grid – none of the things we take for granted in modern civilization.

Like I stated earlier, things would be relatively fine for a few days, but then once everyone realizes that the power isn’t coming back on there would be chaos on a scale unlike anything we have ever seen before.  The following comes from an article by Mac Slavo…

The first 24 – 48 hours after such an occurrence will lead to confusion among the general population as traditional news acquisition sources like television, radio and cell phone networks will be non-functional.

Within a matter of days, once people realize the power might not be coming back on and grocery store shelves start emptying, the entire system will begin to delve into chaos.

Within 30 days a mass die off will have begun as food supplies dwindle, looters and gangs turn to violent extremes, medicine can’t be restocked and water pump stations fail.

So what kind of a “mass die off” would we be talking about?

Well, some of the top experts in the field believe that “up to 90 percent of all Americans” could end up dead if the power outage lasted long enough…

William Graham, chairman of the former EMP commission and its former chief of staff, Peter Vincent Pry, warned the hearing that such an attack could “shut down the US electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of up to 90 percent of all Americans.“

Others believe that the figure would be lower, but pretty much everyone agrees that the death toll would be in the millions.

This is one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities, and our power grid could be hardened against an EMP attack for just a few billion dollars.  This is something that I am pushing very hard for, but right now it is just not a priority for our leaders in Washington.

In fact, they have actually pulled funding from the commission that was looking into the EMP threat…

On Sept. 30, the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse to the United States of America shut its doors after a failure to secure funding from Congress.

Sometimes I find it difficult to come up with the words to describe how incredibly foolish Congress is being.

An EMP attack is a greater threat than ever before, and yet Congress didn’t even want to come up with a little bit of funding for the commission that was working on a plan to protect us.

This is yet another example that shows that we need new leadership on Capitol Hill, because right now the people that we have “representing” us in Washington seem to be completely and utterly clueless about almost everything.

This IS The Real Threat From North Korea!

Congress Receives Bone-Chilling Warning About the Results of a North Korean EMP Attack

BY DAVIS
ON OCTOBER 16, 2017 AT 10:45AM

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As tensions between the United States and North Korea have increased over the past several months, many experts have come forward to talk about the devastation that a nuclear war between the two nations would cause.

Speaking before the House Committee on Homeland Security, two members of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, chairman Dr. William R. Graham and chief of staff Dr. Peter Vincent Pry painted a very dire warning about North Korea, The Daily Wire reported.

During their testimony, Graham and Pry emphasized to Congress that if North Korea were able to detonate an EMP over the United States, it could cause a nationwide blackout and kill millions.

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Put in the most basic terms, an EMP is a pulse that knocks out all electronics, from the power grid to your cell phone, rendering them completely useless. Almost all electronic devices subject to an EMP would need to be replaced — something that would take years.

Graham and Pry noted that Ambassador Henry Cooper, the former Director of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, had some shocking numbers for Congress about what an EMP could do to the United States.

“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,” Cooper wrote in September 2016.

Just stop to consider that for a second — 90 percent of all Americans could die. That’s almost too horrifying to comprehend.

EMPs can come from both nuclear weapons, or from separate devices. The experts’ two testimonies noted that North Korea could launch such an attack using a conventional missile or from their satellites.

“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,” the experts stated.

You can read their full testimony here.

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There are ways of hardening our electric grid to defend from an EMP burst — the only problem is that such measures would cost billions of dollars, and thus have not been seriously considered.

If you want a real world example of what it would be like to have no power, look no further than Puerto Rico. The island has been without power for almost a month, and it will likely be several more months before all power is restored.

Now just imagine that happening all across the United States — except with no FEMA to come to the rescue. There would be a complete breakdown of law and order. There would be no food, no running water and no medical services.

Millions would die, and this country as we know it would simply cease to exist. EMPs are a serious threat, and both President Donald Trump and Congress need to take them seriously.

If North Korea Wants To Beat The US, A Nuclear Air Blast Creating An EMP Attack, Would Work

Getting ready: Pentagon to protect electric grid from massive attack

by Paul Bedard | Apr 14, 2017, 9:04 AM 

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Amid warnings that North Korea and Iran have plans to take out parts of the U.S. electric grid through a cyber attack or atmospheric nuclear blast, the Pentagon is taking steps to both protect the nation's communications and power lifeline.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has charged BAE Systems to map a system that can detect a cyber attack and gin up an alternative communications network for military and civilian use if the grid is fried, according to Defense Systems, the online newsletter.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey has been warning for years that the grid is extremely vulnerable, and recently the Pentagon and some states have taken the warning seriously. Woolsey and former EMP Commission chief of staff Peter Vincent Pry have pointed a finger at North Korea, which is now threatening the U.S.

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DARPA's focus is on thwarting a cyber attack, but Pry and Woolsey have also warned that North Korea or Iran could attack the grid with an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the East Coast that will disable the grid and that could end up leading to the death of 90 percent of those in the East.

The DARPA plan presented in Defense Systems has several elements react to attack.

First, it would include ways to sense an imminent attack that would trigger protections. And if damaged, it would have an alternative way for communications killed in the attack to continue in a backup system — key for the military and presumably the financial system.

It won't be ready until 2020.

In a statement, DARPA said it is "interested, specifically, in early warning of impending attacks, situation awareness, network isolation and threat characterization in response to a widespread and persistent cyber-attack on the power grid and its dependent systems. Potentially relevant technologies include anomaly detection, planning and automated reasoning, mapping of conventional and industrial control systems networks, ad hoc network formation, analysis of industrial control systems protocols, and rapid forensic characterization of cyber threats in industrial control system devices."

The program is dubbed Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems. Defense Systems talked with a BAE official who said, "The purpose for this program is to provide a technology that quickly isolates both the enterprise IP network and the power infrastructure networks to disrupt malicious cyberattacks."

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.co
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