Russia and China have the ability to destroy the U.S. power grid and degrade military capabilities with a nonkinetic first strike—not only through the electromagnetic effects of nuclear and nonnuclear weapons, but also by means such as cyberattacks.
In November 2011, the late Dr. Peter Vincent Pry was appointed the executive director of the United States Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board dedicated to protecting America from EMP, cyberattack, terrorist acts of mass destruction, and other threats to critical civilian infrastructure on an accelerated basis.
In 2008, the Commission concluded that nine of every ten Americans would be dead, from a variety of causes stemming from an EMP attack.
At the time, urgent consideration was given by the task force to protect the grids across state lines.
In August 2021, Pry’s task force released Blackout Warfare: Attacking the U.S. Electric Power Grid, a Revolution in Military Affairs. Despite the serious threat identified in the report, no action to harden the grid has taken place since that time.
Electricity and communication infrastructure can be totally disabled by an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. This is a deliberate detonation or deployment of a weapon designed to release a massive, sudden burst of electromagnetic energy. This energy radiates outward at near the speed of light, inducing high voltages and currents in conductive materials like wires and microchips. These massive surges instantly overheat and fry internal circuitry, rendering unshielded computers, communication gear, and power systems completely useless.
While an EMP poses no direct health threat to the human body, it is considered a catastrophic threat to modern civilization because it can instantly paralyze critical civilian infrastructure.
Chinese and Russian military doctrines outline the use of EMP weapons. Both states possess the capability to produce EMP attacks in conjunction with cyberattacks.
In his report Blackout Warfare, Pry notes, “Washington does not understand the threat from EMP/CME, focusing almost entirely on cybersecurity, largely ignoring the other major threat vectors against electric grids—sabotage and EMP.”
The Congressional EMP Commission report states: “Combined-arms cyber warfare, as described in the military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, may use combinations of cyber sabotage-, and ultimately nuclear EMP-attack to impair the United States quickly and decisively by blacking-out large portions of its electric grid and other critical infrastructures.”
Although an executive order—“Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses”—exists and is intended to make national EMP preparedness a priority, very little progress has been made.
More Than a Threat
In 1859, a geomagnetic solar storm called the Carrington Event occurred. A massive CME erupted from the sun effectively disrupting all telegraph key communications across the world and destroying many. The CME melted the electrically powered telegraph keys and started a series of fires. In 1921, from 13 to 16 May, a CME knocked out telegraph keys, telephones, and other communication networks around the world. That CME was severe enough to start multiple fires, thanks mostly to switchboards bursting into flames. And in March 1989, the entire province of Quebec, Canada, suffered an electrical power blackout stemming from a CME. In 2012 a massive CME erupted from the sun, missing the Earth by just nine days.
The U.S. electrical infrastructure has suffered 721 known physical and cyberattacks in the past decade. One such attack was an attack by gunmen in 2013 in Metcalf, California. According to Pry, the attackers were never caught, and no one was arrested. Multiple government agencies were concerned the attack was a dress rehearsal for a larger-scale attack. One year later, the Metcalf substation was hit again when a fence was breached, and tools were stolen. Nothing has been done to increase the security posture of the compound. And in December 2022, substations in North Carolina, Washington State, and Oregon were attacked in manners similar to Metcalf.
EMP Weapons
Anyone can manufacture EMP weapons using commercial equipment and designs from the internet. These weapons can produce upward of 100,000 volts per meter, albeit only over short distances. High-powered microwave weapons are also a threat and can project EMPs out to 10 kilometers. Suitcase EMP generators can even be purchased online—no license required! A coordinated attack on the U.S. power grid against multiple facilities with such weapons would threaten the security of millions of Americans and the military. And Russia, in particular, has demonstrated an ability to shut off its adversaries’ lights through the use of cyberattacks.
A coordinated physical attack on multiple targets and facilities from a state or non-state actor must be considered an imminent threat. An attack on an unprotected civilian grid could result in a long-term blackout event. Since 99 percent of the military depends on the civilian electric grid and food and water infrastructure, the military could be severely crippled.
As Pry notes: Totalitarian and authoritarian states see international relations as a “zero-sum game” in which there are winners and losers, the living and the dead. Economics is not the highest priority for totalitarian states. Their highest priority is total control over the world, whatever the cost, because they believe that any nation not their slave is a potential threat and war is inevitable. Totalitarian states want to be the last man living and make everyone else a slave or dead. That is why they are willing to do anything to crush their enemies and win.