Discovery fellow John Wohlstetter opens his book, The Long War Ahead and the
Short War Upon Us, with a catastrophe scenario in which the Iranians use
EMP -- electromagnetic pulse -- technology against the United States.
Disguised as a tanker, a ship releases a missile from international waters
off the Atlantic coast. It detonates approximately 300 miles above Kansas.
No one instantly dies, vaporized by the mini-sun, no one is ignited in
flames from the blast's thermal pulse, no buildings collapse due to the
blast's immense over-pressure shock wave. But the lights goes out and
computers crash by the millions, from Boston to Phoenix, from New York to
Washington, DC, to Los Angeles and San Francisco, from Miami to Seattle.
Seventy percent of America's electrical grid is fried by the powerful pulse
of electromagnetic energy that suddenly surges through the American electric
power grid. With a 360 degree radius of 1,470 miles from the detonation
point, the pulse disables America from coast to coast.
It would seem that the danger is being heard. An editorial in the Wall
Street Journal this morning echoes many of Wohlstetter's concerns:
Iran may already have the capability to target the U.S. with a short-range
missile by launching it from a freighter off the East Coast. A few years ago
it was observed practicing the launch of Scuds from a barge in the Caspian
Sea.
This would be especially troubling if Tehran is developing EMP --
electromagnetic pulse -- technology. A nuclear weapon detonated a hundred
miles over U.S. territory would create an electromagnetic pulse that would
virtually shut down the U.S. economy by destroying electronic circuits on
the ground.
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