Whatever was the Pentagon waiting for?
Or were they really waiting this long?:
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.
My guess is that (it’s my fervent hope, anyway) they’re further along with these defenses than the article indicates.
[NOTE: And I hope it doesn’t become clear that I need to start a “North Korea” category.]
The laws of physics indicate that EMP attack is essentially a hoax.
The first EMP attack was by mistake, circa 1962, and the ‘target’ was Honolulu.
In that bygone age, fuses were the normal over current protective devices… circuit breakers being relatively new technology.
The EMP pulse blew fuses all over town. Few folks had spares. So there was a frantic rush to fly in replacements.
There was NO serious damage to the infrastructure. The fuses absorbed the EMP energy — harmlessly.
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Today’s grid is totally dominated by circuit breakers – both large and small.
So an EMP blast would cause them to trip.
An EMP blast will have virtually no impact on most electronics — as their circuit lengths are TOO SHORT.
Circuits absorb EMP energy when they function as antennas.
Metal enclosures — like the hood of your car — block EM radiation — until you reach X-ray/// Gamma-ray frequencies.
But these same frequencies are absorbed by the atmosphere — something crazy. This absorption is the physics behind an atomic blast. Almost all of the blast energy starts out as Gamma rays. These are absorbed by the nearby air. This absorption is so complete that the blast actually goes dark for a micro-second.
Then the fireball expands enough to ‘cool down’ and let light rays through, again. This bright-dark-bright sequence is unique to nuclear bombs as it is driven by Gamma rays. (The VELA series used this to detect South Africa’s atomic detonation.)
So, you see that Gamma rays from a high altitude burst will not reach the ground. In an EMP ‘weapon’ they are supposed to foul up the Earth’s magnetic field and send low frequency effects far and wide.
But low frequencies can’t pass through aluminum or steel. ( Apple’s products are wrapped in aluminum. )
So, EMP nukes are a hoax. I should think that the intent is to get North Korea to go off on a harmless tangent.
Neo, this is an *event* the Globalist cabal of Soros, Obama & Hillary, Kerry & Blair over in the UK and hundreds of those Treaty Of Lisbon signees have. been salivating over for years now. Render the *world* to pre personal communication days and THEY will have us all in the palm of their hands. No popular uprisings like 1776, or the French Revolution. No God given or natural Rights, they ll decide about rights. Heck the Islamists & China & No Korea will readily go along.
blert:
I recall you writing that in the past, and you sound knowledgeable. However, I’ve also read plenty by other people who seem to have some technical savvy and who say otherwise.
One thing that leaps out is that this contract went to BAE Systems (as in the American subsidiary of British Aeropspace PLC–my former employer). I wonder how this fits with Trump’s much ballyhooed EO to buy American-hire American?
I take all of these scare stories with a healthy grain of salt; just as I do the Korean ICMB threat (they did parade containers that may, or may not, have contained missiles). I recall vividly when we portrayed the hollow Russian Navy as metaphorically 10 feet tall. Of course at the time our Navy was also rather hollow as well.
blert,
The1859 Carrington Event is something to ponder.
Whatever was the Pentagon waiting for??
Neo do not forgot these:
Just 45 minutes from attack
Lie After Lie After Lie: What Colin Powell Knew Ten Years Ago
Fueling Terror: The Dangers of Ransom Payments to Iran
Iran have plans to take out parts of the U.S. electric grid through a cyber attack or atmospheric nuclear blast,
Neo, If so worry in your mind or other American today. Assuming Iran planning for this sort of high technical attack far from their doorstep this should more worry for Israel ten times that US. Specially Iranian and Mullahs in Iraq for the last 40 years Iranian & Mullah chant ‘Death to America’ while burning US and Israel flags. Were Obama: ‘Death to America’ Iranians Are ‘Making Common Cause With the Republican Caucus’
Also do not forget this:
I
Obama’s Cash-for-Jihad Program
There is a guy who works for ERCOT (Electricity Reliability Council of Texas) who swims at the same pool as I do, and I asked him whether the Texas grid has protection from an EMP. Remember, the Texas grid is separate from the ones you have in the US. He was very evasive in a way that suggested to me that he was not at liberty to discuss such sensitive issues. So, since then, I have not worried all that much about that particular hazard. Yes there are vulnerabilities, but ERCOT has it wired, so to speak.
I wouldn’t put much stock in existing faraday cages protecting us against an EMP attack. Cars have windows and plastic grills; foil sheets on electronics enclosures are intended to prevent excessive RF energy from leaking out of the device into your home environment and disabling other electronic devices.
Another scary event was the attack on San Jose’s large power grid hub at the south end of the city. A group of attackers using AK-47’s or 30 cal. hunting rifles shot many holes in the casings of the largest tranformers. This caused the oil to leak out, the transformers then overheated and were destroyed.
The politician’s reports blew the event off as gun-nut pranksters; the DOD red-cell team that investigated said that it was almost certainly a test by highly skilled forces. The kicker is that only a few of these sized transformers can be obtained in short notice nation-wide. Any more than that, and months are required to obtain them.
Oldflyer,
Almost everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. NK’s missisle and nuke programs are not an immediate threat, same goes for Iran. But there is always a but. We know both NK and Iran seek the ability to launch nukes to hit distant targets. And, the grid is fragile to a variety of possible attacks.
We need to assess potential threats based upon facts and often murky intelligence. Better safe than sorry.
“Whatever was the Pentagon waiting for?”
After eight years of Obama’s Manchurian Presidency, do you really have to ask?
I keep reading commenters (here and elsewhere) saying the Norks and Iranians are working to develop missile technology that can deliver a nuke to Israel and/or the USA.
Why bother? Put a nuke in a container and deliver it to a seaport and you’ve accomplished the same thing at far less cost and much greater accuracy.
Yes, we supposedly have container inspections and radiation monitors, but I’m sure they can be foiled, either technologically or through human means. With millions of airport workers coming from Somali communities, for example, you already have a back door into US airports.
Or drive a nuke through our southern border on a waybill showing it destined for Canada, and it passes with only light inspection.
Missiles are an expensive means to deliver a package that can be delivered much cheaper, I’m thinking.
See this article by MIT’s TechnologyReview magazine. Some group(s) (probably Russians) have brought down portions of Ukraine’s power grid in two separate incidents in December of 2015 and 2016.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603262/ukraines-power-grid-gets-hacked-again-a-worrying-sign-for-infrastructure-attacks/
See also the book “Lights out” by Ted Koppel about the threat of hacking of the power grid.
Blert, with all due respect, speaking as someone with a PhD in electrical engineering you are blowing smoke. A circuit breaker will not reset if it has been turned into melted metal by a pulse with high voltage and heavy current.
I have looked into the power grid and am horrified to learn that the they use the open internet to form the feedback loop that balances the power plant output and power demand. This has to be done on a millisecond basis. Koppel’s book and the Ukraine incidents show how vulnerable this is to hacking.
Blert is correct. The hysteria about EMP is terribly overblown. A reasonably accurate account of the actual effects of EMP tests conducted by both the US and Soviet Union can be found here:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1549/2
I say reasonably accurate because much of the publicly available information is contradictory. IOW, it is rife with disinformation.
A container nuke only causes local damage. The survivalists in the US are more worried about EMP area of effect hits because it would hit the entire country. The US can absorb a few nukes, they’ll just start creating concentration camps and then retaliate with counter nukes.
If the US receives an EMP attack, and it has to be from a missile that launches it at a high enough altittude for the pulse to cover a large part of the US, then the Leftist alliance can activate their contingency plans to take over. Then you’ll be fighting the Chinese, the Koreans, the Iranians, the Leftist 5th column, the Mexicans, or anyone else that wants a piece of the US.
The problem is that it would take 100-500 megatons to create an emp pulse strong enough to induce enough current to fry all the infrastructure. I haven’t done the calculations though.
Iran and Korea have problems creating warheads with that much yield. Of course, they don’t have problems getting the missile tech, because China has it. Why does China have it? Because Clinton sold it to them… thanks American voters.
Generally speaking, there are technical limitations, and our 21st century infrastructure is definitely vulnerable to extreme damage, especially since it is getting more and more complicated with wireless power transmission. Who knows what the effects will be. If the pulse harmonizes with all these wireless waves in the air, who knows what kind of effects it will have on this region that scientists have no clue about.
The Ark of Gabriel, or as I call it the Ark of Lucifer, is also in Russia. And the ancient pre Divine Flood had better tech than US of 1920s. So the possibility of some third unknown unknown coming in and punching America back to the stone age, is still feasible. Which would make the survivalists content at least.