America's Vulnerability: EMP

Senator Jon Kyl chose Real Clear Politics as his outlet for an article on a profound chink in our anti-terrorist defense, an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack -- interesting because it not only shows the incredible growth of blogs as an information medium, but also because if we were hit by such an attack, none of us would be sitting at our little electronic computers, getting our news over the Internet.

Of course, we wouldn't be getting our news from newspapers or broadcast either, since they, too, are elecricity-dependent. Until we recovered, America would be back to the Town Crier -- and as we know from the cyber-warfare campaigns that proceeded our attack in Iraq, a power without communications is a power without power.

Kyl points out that the US is much more vulnerable to an EMP attack, which would wipe out electrical systems, because we are more dependent on electricity than the countries that would want to attack us. An attack on our electrical system would be terrible indeed:

Essentially those in the affected area would find themselves transported back to the United States of the 1880s, for months if not years - a threat that might sound straight out of Hollywood, but is very real. FBI Director Robert Mueller has confirmed new intelligence that suggests Al Qaeda is trying to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. Iran has surprised intelligence analysts by describing the mid-flight explosions of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea as "successful" tests. North Korea exports missile technology around the world; SCUDs can easily be purchased on the open market for about $100,000 apiece. And Russia's rusting nuclear arsenal is highly vulnerable.

The attraction of an EMP attack to a terrorist organization is in its simplicity. Hitting a particular target, like a city, is difficult with a SCUD. But it is relatively simple to simply launch one, off a seagoing freighter for example, and detonate it at the right altitude.

The best defense: Destroy access to nuclear weapons and nuclear capability. Continue to improve our missile defense systems (over Dem opposition). Then line up a lot of generators.