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Are nuclear weapons a more dangerous source of EMP than solar storms? (credit: NASA)

Rebuttal to “The EMP threat: fact, fiction, and response”

<< page 1: nuclear terrorism

Shipborne “anonymous” EMP attack

Dr. Butt alleges that state sponsors of an “anonymous” shipborne EMP attack would have to be “suicidally optimistic.” Dr. Butt recommends the United States deter such an attack by relying on nothing but bluff. Such defenses as Dr. Butt recommends against shipborne EMP attack are, indeed, suicidally optimistic:

First, Dr. Butt recommends relying on presumed foreign ignorance of nuclear forensics to deter an “anonymous” shipborne EMP attack, even while acknowledging that nuclear forensics are not yet capable of identifying an attacker. Dr. Butt: “While nuclear forensics are not well enough developed to assuredly ascribe the origin of a nuclear explosion, even their current state of development would, in some measure, dissuade the leaders of a nation from seriously contemplating such an attack.” Dr. Butt forgets that an EMP attack detonates the warhead at high altitude, in outer space—leaving no bomb debris on the ground for nuclear forensics detectives to collect, and so leaving no “fingerprints,” even if forensics could detect them.

Second, Dr. Butt recommends relying on presumed foreign ignorance of DSP satellite capabilities to deter an “anonymous” shipborne EMP attack, even while acknowledging that DSP could not really identify the attacker. Dr. Butt: “Furthermore, the US certainly has data, via its DSP satellites, on the infrared (IR) signatures of the rocket exhausts from the missiles of various countries. Though these signatures are probably virtually identical for the Scud/Shahab/No-dong family of missiles, the nations which may entertain such attacks do not necessarily know whether… the DSP data can discriminate between a KN Nodong versus an Iranian Shahabs…”

The DSP satellite was designed to provide early warning of Soviet or Chinese strategic missile launches, from their known ICBM fields, not to identify the national origins of short- and medium-range missiles. Any competent foreign intelligence service with a public library card would know this, and much else besides about the capabilities and limitations of DSP. In fact, the “signatures” of medium-range missiles from such countries as North Korea, Iran and Pakistan would be virtually identical, as they are all based on North Korea’s Nodong, which itself is derived from Scud missiles of Russian design. Over 30 nations worldwide possess Scud missiles, all virtually identical, that could be used to make an EMP attack.27 Anyone can purchase Scud missiles on the world market. Terrorists in North Yemen have them. Prior to 9/11, an American collector purchased a live Scud, with dummy warhead, for his museum.28

Large Phased Array Radars (LPARs) are the best tools the United States has for meticulous threat assessment against an incoming missile. An EMP attack, because of its abbreviated trajectory, especially if launched from a ship, leaves too little time for warning, let alone identification of the exact make of the missile. An EMP attack launched from the Gulf Coast would avoid LPARs entirely, as there is no radar facing in that direction.

If a rogue state were really concerned about their ship-launched missile being identified as to national origins, they could always buy someone else’s missile. Many of Saddam Hussein’s Scuds and other missiles are missing from Iraq. Some 100 Scuds belonging to the Taliban are missing in Afghanistan, unaccounted for.29 These and other missiles can probably be purchased on the black market.

Finally, rogue states are unlikely to be intimidated by DPS or LPARs, as they have seen US satellites and radars fail in battle during the first Persian Gulf War. The one victory achieved by Saddam Hussein in that conflict was the survival, reloading, and repeated firing of his mobile missile launchers, despite the best efforts of US DPS satellites and AWACs radar aircraft to locate and destroy them. This failure of America’s vaunted technology was seen on television and celebrated throughout the Arab world.

Dr. Butt’s “deterrent” to a shipborne EMP attack, relying on technologies that he himself acknowledges will not work, would gamble the survival of the American people on the presumption that our adversaries are stupid. Even if they are, rogue states can always buy anything they need to know about our defenses from Russia. That is how the Serbs managed to shoot down the “crown jewel” of our Air Force, the F-117 stealth fighter, during the Balkans War.

Biggest bang for the buck

Dr. Butt argues that terrorists or rogue states would prefer to use a nuclear weapon “in a simple spectacular ground-burst that will destroy a large part of a city, and not risk the complications—and likely failure—of a lofted EMP strike…” Dr. Butt:

The risk versus reward calculation for both terrorist cells and so-called “rogue” states would almost certainly force their hand to a spectacular and direct ground burst in preference to an unreliable and uncertain EMP strike.

Dr. Butt assumes that smuggling a nuclear weapon into the United States, and detonating the weapon in a city, is much more easily and assuredly accomplished than an EMP attack. But this is not so.

Terrorists and rogue states are surely aware of the greatly improved and ongoing improvements to US port and homeland security, including the deployment and continued development of technologies to detect smuggled nuclear weapons. They are also aware—and have probably experienced first-hand—the ever increasing effectiveness of US and allied intelligence in monitoring terrorist networks and penetrating terrorist cells. Dr. Butt correctly argues that one of the biggest fears of terrorists or their state sponsors would be the capture of their nuclear weapon by the United States. This is far more likely to happen in an operation trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon into a US city, than in an EMP attack. As soon as the vessel or aircraft carrying a terrorist nuclear weapon enters US territorial waters or air space, the possibility of discovery and interception increases dramatically, and continues to escalate with each phase of the operation drawing closer to target: landing, off-loading, transportation. A single phone call to the US Coast Guard or FBI from a CIA or allied agent who has penetrated the terrorist cell would deliver the bomb into US hands.

The phone call might not come from the CIA, but from one of the terrorists themselves. Terrorists and rogue state special forces are not the Green Berets. Loyalty to their cause, or to the cruel regime they serve, might well be compromised by the temptation to sell their nuclear weapon to the FBI for millions of dollars.

Nor are terrorists or rogue state special forces particularly good at the kind of clandestine operations at which the Green Berets excel. The 9/11 Commission found that the terrorists of September 11th made many mistakes, and would have failed if US security was just a little more vigilant.30 Rogue state special forces do not have a good record of carrying out penetrative clandestine operations beyond their borders. For example, Saddam Hussein’s plot to assassinate the first President Bush in Kuwait was discovered by Kuwaiti intelligence, and failed spectacularly. A North Korean plot to conduct sabotage operations in South Korea, by landing special forces in a mini-submarine, when the sub became stranded, ended with the suicides of the operatives, and capture of the sub.31

Dr. Butt thinks terrorists and rogue states will give great emphasis to optimizing the use of a nuclear weapon—hence his argument that an EMP detonation occur at the optimum height of burst, “the sweet spot” in his parlance. If so, terrorists or special forces seeking to blast a city instead of EMP, should prefer to smuggle their nuclear weapon out of a port or airfield into the population center, preferably somewhere high up, as in a skyscraper, to optimize the blast effects against people. A low yield nuclear weapon detonated shipboard, in a port, will kill surprisingly few people, compared to the optimum attack mode. For this reason, the Department of Homeland Security is looking at scenarios where nuclear terrorists offload their weapon from shipboard onto a speedboat, to avoid port security, land on some remote beach, and transport the bomb to a city. The requirements of such an operation permit only a very small terrorist team to deliver the bomb, allow only a single technician to “baby sit” the bomb, which gets bumped and jostled around so much that the technician is indispensable. A lot can go wrong.

And if everything goes right and the bomb detonates successfully after being manhandled across water, beach, and bumpy roads, things can still go very wrong. A nuclear weapon detonated in a city will leave plenty of debris, and is the optimum scenario for successful forensic analysis to identify its origins—a factor Dr. Butt thinks would deter a state actor in the first place. The blast will destroy part of a city, kill thousands of people, but not incapacitate the United States as a military superpower. Such an attack will virtually guarantee that the United States will eventually find the culprit, and destroy him.

Rogue state leaders, who tend to be paranoid about the loyalty and competence of their own people, considering the above factors, are likely less enthusiastic about smuggling a nuclear weapon into a US city than Dr. Butt.

On the other hand, a shipborne EMP attack eliminates all of the operational risks described above. The ship can be manned with enough security personnel to monitor everybody, to ensure that no last-minute betrayal of the operation occurs. Operating outside US territorial waters greatly reduces the possibility of US interdiction. Ship communications will ensure that terrorist or rogue state leaders can personally oversee and command and control the operation. A freighter can carry as many technicians as are needed to ensure that the warhead and missile are in good working order. Scuds, Shahab-3s, and Nodongs are highly reliable missiles, unlikely to fail. Will the warhead work? Early US atomic bombs, though of experimental design and built with a lot of guesswork, never failed. Fuzing the warhead to guarantee detonation at high altitude can be done easily, with simple, robust, redundant, commercially available technology. The likelihood is probably greater than 90 percent that the warhead will be delivered and detonate at the correct altitude. The EMP effect is inevitable.

The most problematic part of an EMP attack is: will the EMP inflict sufficient damage on critical infrastructures to destroy the United States, to eliminate the US as an actor from the world stage? Even if the EMP attack “fails,” it will probably inflict far more damage, more widespread damage, kill more people, and impose a far more prolonged national recovery than anything that could be achieved by detonating the same nuclear weapon in a city. If the EMP attack “succeeds,” more than two-thirds of the American people could perish within 12 months of the event, and the United States that we know today would probably never recover.

EMP attack offers by far the “biggest bang for the buck.” It is the only nuclear option that offers a prospect for achieving—with a single nuclear missile—the destruction of American civilization.

Dr. Butt fails to mention in his article that Iranian military writings call for making an EMP attack against the United States; that Iran has practiced missile launching from a vessel in the Caspian Sea; and that Iran has detonated several Shahab-3 missiles at high-altitude, as if practicing an EMP attack.

E1 versus E3 HEMP

Dr. Butt’s version of the history of U.S. nuclear tests is heavily skewed to give the reader a false impression that there is no evidence E1 HEMP can damage electronic systems, while E3 HEMP does most of the significant damage. Through this false history, Dr. Butt seeks to convince the reader that low-yield nuclear warheads, that would use E1 HEMP as their primary damage mechanism, pose no threat, while high yield warheads, that produce both E1 and E3 HEMP, are the only nuclear EMP threat. Then nuclear E3 HEMP is dismissed by Dr. Butt on political grounds, because allegedly the only nations capable of mounting a nuclear E3 attack, China and Russia, are our economic partners.

In fact, contrary to Dr. Butt, US nuclear tests produced copious evidence that E1 HEMP can damage or destroy electronics. Over 50 years of testing with HEMP simulators has also proved incontrovertibly that E1 HEMP is a serious threat, in some ways more threatening than E3. The EMP Commission also performed tests using HEMP simulators proving that E1 HEMP, even from a low yield nuclear weapon, can destroy modern electronics.

Dr. Butt’s assertion that E3 poses the greatest threat because it couples to long-lines is misleading. E3 does couple well to long power transmission lines and creates a threat to the large EHV transformers. However, E1 couples well to distribution power lines and low voltage cables (as short as 10 meters) in power substations and creates a threat to the electronic controls that operate and protect equipment, including EHV transformers. Clearly, both E1 and E3 HEMP are important for their coupling to long lines, not just E3 HEMP and geomagnetic storms.

Super-EMP weapons are designed to generate E1 HEMP exclusively, and pose the greatest EMP threat in terms of field strengths. However, even if one accepted Dr. Butt’s arguments, that for physical and political reasons we do not have to worry about E1 HEMP from a nuclear EMP attack, we still need to worry about E1 or its equivalent from a non-nuclear EMP attack. Radiofrequency and microwave weapons are readily available to terrorists on the world market. Although these weapons have a much more limited effective radius than a nuclear weapon, a single such weapon, intelligently used, could blackout a city. A few hundred such weapons, intelligently used, could blackout the entire United States.

Dr. Butt advocates protecting only against E3-like fields, that would be generated by a geomagnetic storm, because he believes geomagnetic storms pose the only “real” EMP threat. It should be noted that the protection from geomagnetic storms also provides protection from the E3 HEMP. In addition, it would cost little more to protect against E1 HEMP from nuclear or the E1-like fields from non-nuclear weapons—which are also real threats.

Dr. Butt’s statement “that geomagnetic storms, on occasion, can induce more powerful pulses than the E3 pulse even from megaton type nuclear weapons” is completely wrong. The peak fields that might be produced from a once-a-century “great” geomagnetic storm might reach 20 V/km. Megaton class nuclear weapons can exceed this level. But only about 1 V/km is needed to create serious problems in power grids and long-line communications.

Dr. Butt fails to credit the EMP Commission with pioneering the work on the threat from a “great” geomagnetic storm in 2001. The EMP Commission was warning about the low-frequency electromagnetic threat to the power grid from a geomagnetic storm fully eight years before the National Academy of Sciences study independently verified the work of the EMP Commission.

Methodology

Dr. Butt makes much of the fact that there are still individuals who disagree with the EMP Commission’s threat assessment. Dr. Butt’s methodology appears to assume that any dissent from the EMP Commission automatically proves that the commission is wrong. But there will always be those who disagree with any Commission’s findings—no matter that the methodology, research, and analysis are excellent—just as there are those who disagree with the 9/11 Commission, the WMD Commission, or any other commission one cares to name.

The best any commission can do is to hear all points of view, rigorously and fairly examine everyone’s arguments and data, fully and fairly debate the facts, and come to a consensus judgment, submit that judgment for review by expert individuals and institutions, and based on everything learned from this process, arrive at a final consensus, if possible. This the EMP Commission did, and achieved a consensus among the commissioners, who represented a wide array of backgrounds and viewpoints. There will always be those who disagree with the EMP Commission.

Nonetheless, the EMP Commission’s threat assessment and recommendations—the product of eight years of intensive research and analysis unprecedented for this issue—represents the best work so far produced by this nation on EMP, and is the best informed basis for national security policy.

On another point of methodology, Dr. Butt’s philosophy of doing nothing to protect our nation from nuclear EMP attack is based on his belief that rogue states and terrorists would never attempt an EMP attack. Uncertainty about the effectiveness of EMP, Dr. Butt argues, would deter terrorists and rogue states from making such an attack because, as Dr. Butt puts it, they are not “suicidally optimistic.” But one of the things we know for sure about terrorists and rogue states is that they are literally “suicidally optimistic.” Terrorists and rogue states have demonstrated repeatedly that they are willing to take tremendous risks, even commit suicide, in order to achieve their objectives. The 9/11 terrorists took enormous operational risks, and literally committed suicide, as did Afghanistan’s Taliban, committing regime suicide to support the 9/11 operation. Saddam Hussein took suicidal risks, which ultimately cost his life, to invade Kuwait and then to defy the United States and United Nations on WMD inspections. Iran is taking suicidal risks by supporting international terrorism, waging a clandestine war against America in Iraq and against Israel, and defying virtually the entire world by pursuing nuclear weapons. North Korea is taking suicidal risks by exporting missile and WMD technologies, and provoking virtually the entire world with its nuclear and long-range missile tests.

Rogue states like Iran and North Korea are willing to run suicidal risks because they believe their own propaganda—that they are at war with a United States determined to destroy them. From their perspective, they have nothing left to lose, sooner or later will be destroyed, unless they can find a way to deter or defeat the United States. EMP, for all its uncertainties—and those uncertainties are not nearly as great as Dr. Butt would have readers believe—may well look like the answer to such desperate characters.

Dr. Butt’s methodology focuses on uncertainties about the effectiveness of an EMP attack. But he never asks an equally or more important question—how certain are we that our critical infrastructures and very existence as a society would survive an EMP attack? The adversary’s confidence in EMP attack is not more important than our confidence in the survivability of our infrastructures. We know that the critical infrastructures, including the keystone infrastructure—the national power grid—are unprotected from EMP. We know the national power grid is extremely fragile, because of age and reduced reliability margins, and is often operating on the edge of failure.

Uncertainty about our surviving a nuclear EMP attack does not logically support Dr. Butt’s recommendation that we do nothing to ensure our survival. The EMP Commission’s view is that nuclear EMP attack is one of a small number of threats that could potentially be so catastrophic that—regardless of conflicting opinions about the likelihood of the threat—the United States cannot afford to be vulnerable. Since the existence of the nation is at risk, the United States must do whatever is necessary to protect itself from EMP. Likewise, the United States must do whatever is necessary to protect itself against other potentially catastrophic threats—all forms of nuclear terrorism, biological warfare, chemical warfare, cyber attack, and a “great” geomagnetic storm. In the EMP Commission’s view, the priority of these threats should not be in competition for resources. Just as the body needs air, water, and food, all three, to survive; so the minimum requirements of national security policy should be protection against these several threats that are potentially capable of destroying our civilization.

Other errors

Dr. Butt tries hard to mislead readers that Department of Defense and other authoritative Commissions disagree with the EMP Commission, and do not regard a nuclear EMP attack as a threat—by quoting outdated or obsolete opinions. For example, Dr. Butt quotes General Marsh dismissing the EMP threat in 1997—four years before the establishment of the EMP Commission.

Dr. Butt misrepresents the views of the 2009 Strategic Posture Commission on the EMP threat, implying that the Strategic Posture Commission disagrees with the EMP Commission. Dr. Butt: “The 2009 Strategic Posture Commission puts it more delicately by saying that ‘the Commission is divided over how imminent a threat this is…’” Dr. Butt quotes the Strategic Posture Commission out of context. The Strategic Posture Commissioners are unanimous that EMP is a threat, disagreeing only over whether the threat is immediate or longer term. In fact, the Strategic Posture Commission independently arrived at the same consensus view as the EMP Commission—that terrorists and rogue states could inflict a catastrophic EMP attack on the United States. The Strategic Posture Commission urges immediate implementation of EMP Commission recommendations to protect the national power grid. According to America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States:

Lastly, the United States should take steps to reduce the vulnerability of the nation and the military to attacks with weapons designed to produce electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects. We make this recommendation although the Commission is divided over how imminent a threat this is. Some commissioners believe it to be a high priority threat, given foreign activities and terrorist intentions. Others see it as a serious potential threat, given the high level of vulnerability. Those vulnerabilities are of many kinds. U.S. power projection forces might be subjected to an EMP attack by an enemy calculating—mistakenly that such an attack would not involve risks of U.S. nuclear retaliation. The homeland might be attacked by terrorists or even by state actors with an eye to crippling the U.S. economy and American society. From a technical perspective, it is possible that such attacks could have catastrophic consequences… The EMP Commission has recommended numerous measures that would mitigate the damage. The Stimulus Bill of February 9, 2009, allocates $11 billion to DOE for “smart grid activities, including to modernize the electric grid.” Unless such improvements in the electric grid are focused in part on reducing EMP vulnerabilities, vulnerability might well increase.32

Dr. Butt misrepresents the official position of the Department of Defense on the EMP threat. The Secretary of Defense and his representatives have notified the Congress by letter and in hearings that the department concurs with the EMP Commission’s threat assessment, and will implement the commission’s recommendations. A new directorate has been created within the Office of the Secretary of Defense dedicated to EMP protection. Military training events and exercises were held in 2010 featuring EMP scenarios. Under the FY2009 National Defense Authorization Act, the Defense Department is required to report to Congress until 2015 on progress toward implementing the EMP Commission recommendations.

Dr. Butt asserts the following: “Although the EMP Commissioners have offered a Chinese-language PowerPoint presentation outlining the effects of EMP devices as evidence that China has an interest in such weapons, this presentation is actually of Taiwanese origin… and it is not pertinent to any official Chinese military document.” No member or staff of the EMP Commission has ever misrepresented the Taiwanese PowerPoint on EMP as originating from the People’s Republic of China. However, Taiwan is an excellent source of intelligence on China, just as Israel is on the Middle East, and South Korea is on North Korea. The briefing, from Taiwan’s National Defense University, alleges that China has developed Super-EMP weapons, having very low yield, working from nuclear weapons design information stolen from the United States. There is no dearth of Chinese military doctrinal writings on EMP and its efficacy against the United States.33

Dr. Butt’s reliance on the work of Sandia Labs examining the vulnerability of nuclear power plants in the early 1980s, nearly 30 years ago, is misplaced, as the work is now obsolete. Digital controls were not as prevalent then, or as vulnerable to E1, as they are today.

Dr. Butt’s statement that the “Earth’s magnetic field varies across the globe and also varies with time at a given location” apparently confuses the geomagnetic field created by the Earth’s core with the very minor variations in the geomagnetic field by the telluric variations (typically a few nT). The geomagnetic field variation induced by a geomagnetic storm or nuclear E3 HEMP can be on the order of several thousand nT.

Finally, Dr. Butt describes Dr. Peter Vincent Pry as one of the EMP Commissioners. Dr. Pry was not an EMP Commissioner, but was on the Commission staff.

Endnotes

1. Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, Volume 1, Executive Report (Washington D.C.: 2004) hereinafter EMP Commission Executive Summary and Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Critical National Infrastructures (Washington, D.C.: April 2008) hereinafter EMP Commission Report. The EMP Commission Executive Summary and parts of the EMP Commission Report may be viewed on www.empactamerica.org.

2. For the powers of the EMP Commission see Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act, FY2001, Public Law 106-398, Title XIV. For the Commission’s methodology and coordination with other departments, agencies, and national laboratories see EMP Commission Report, p. A-2.

3. Dr. Nikolai Sokov, “Russia: Status in Trends in Substrategic (Tactical) Weapons Deployment,” NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative: February 1999). Gunnar O. Arbman and Charles L. Thornton, Russia’s Tactical/Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons, Part I: Background and Policy Issues, FOI-R-1057-SE (Stockholm, Sweden: Swedish Defense Research Agency, November 2003).

4. EMP Commission Report see Chapter 1 “Infrastructure Commonalities” pp. 1–15, Chapter 2 “Electric Power” especially pp. 29–43.

5. Ibid, see for example “Historical Insights” pp. 41–43.

6. Unclassified information and modern technology has made so easy the task of nuclear weapons design that, by the 1970s, even a college student could design an atomic bomb, as a school project warning against the dangers of nuclear proliferation. See: John Aristotle Phillips and David Michaels, Mushroom: The Story of the A-Bomb Kid (New York: William and Morrow, 1978). Design information for a thermonuclear weapon—an H-Bomb—could not be stopped from publication by the Supreme Court in 1979. See: Timothy Curran, “Article About Hydrogen Bomb Put Under Restraining Order,” Associated Press and Eugene Register-Guard (March 10, 1979), p. 3A. “The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It—Why We’re Telling It,” The Progressive (November 1979).

7. See for example Bill Gertz, “N. Korean Nuclear Materials Are Found In Libya,” Washington Times, National Weekly Edition (February 7–13, 2005), p. 1.

8. “Israel’s Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview,” The Risk Report, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Washington, D.C.: The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, July–August 1996).

9. See interview with Sam Cohen in Christopher Ruddy, “Bomb Inventor Says U.S. Defenses Suffer Because of Politics,” Tribune Review (June 15, 1997).

10. David Albright, “Swiss Smugglers Had Advanced Nuclear Weapons Designs,” ISIS Report (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Science and International Security; June 16, 2008).

11. Hearing, U.S. Senate, Statement of Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security (March 9, 2005), p. 5.

12. Russia: Nuclear Response to America Possible Using Super-EMP Factor CEP 20061108358006; Aleksey Vashchenko, “A Nuclear Response to America is Possible,” Zavtra (November 1, 2006).

13. Kim Min-seok and Yoo Jee-ho, “Military Source Warns of North’s EMP Bomb,” JoonAng Daily (September 2, 2009).

14. EMP Commission Executive Summary, p. 2.

15. Patrick E. Tyler, “As China Threatens Taiwan, It Makes Sure U.S. Listens,” New York Times (January 24, 1996).

16. See for example: David Brunnstrom, “Russian Doctrine Does Not Reflect Real World: NATO,” Reuters (February 6, 2010). Dr. Mark Schneider, The Nuclear Forces and Doctrine of the Russian Federation, No. 0003 (Washington, D.C.: National Institute Press, United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, 2006). Dr. Mark Schneider, The Nuclear Forces and Doctrine of the People’s Republic of China, No. 0007 (Washington, D.C.: National Institute Press, United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, November 2007). INOBIS, Conceptual Provisions Of A Strategy For Countering The Main External Threats To Russian Federation Security (Moscow: Institute of Defense Studies, October 1995).

17. See for example: Dr. Mark Schneider, The Emerging EMP Threat To The United States, No. 0006 (Washington, D.C.: National Institute Press, United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, November 2007).

18. Ibid, p. 3. EMP Commission Executive Summary, p. 2.

19. “Missiles In Kaliningrad Will Affect Security In Lithuania,” Lituanica (November 9, 2008). Philip P. Pan, “Russia Gives Obama Brisk Warning: Kremlin Plans Missiles Targeting NNATO If U.S. Defense Shield Proceeds,” Washington Post (November 6, 2008).

20. EMP Commission Executive Summary, p. 2.

21. Vaschenko, op. cit. General (ret.) Vladimir Belous, “Preparing for the Second Coming of ‘Star Wars,’” Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye (April 13, 2007); translated in Russian Considers Missile Defense Response Options CEP20070413330003.

22. Dr. William Graham, “Graham: Invisible Nuclear Threat,” Washington Times (September 2, 2008).

23. For a different point of view on state transfer of nuclear weapons to terrorists see: Glenn Kessler, “N. Korea Says It Has Nuclear Arms; At Talks With U.S., Pyongyang Threatens ‘Demonstration’ or Export of Weapon,” Washington Post (April, 25, 2003), p. A1. Bill Gertz, “N. Korea Would Sell Nukes To Terrorists: Report Reveals 2005 Statement,” Washington Times (February 5, 2008), p. A3.

24. “Lieberman, Collins Examine Threat To The Homeland From Nuclear Terrorist Attack,” Press Release, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (Washington, D.C.: April 2, 2008).

25. World At Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: December 2008) and WMD Commission Report Card (Washington, D.C.: January 2010).

26. America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009), pp. 90–91.

27. National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat, NASIC-1031-0985-06 (Ohio: Wright-Patterson AFB, March 2006), pp. 4–6.

28. “Tank Collector Hits Snag with Scud Missile,” Lodi News-Sentinel (October 3, 1998), p. 5.

29. Arms Control Association, Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories, Fact Sheet (Washington, D.C.: September 2007).

30. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York, London: W.W. Norton and Co., 2004), Chapter 8.

31. David Van Drehle and R. Jeffrey Smith, “U.S. Strikes Iraq for Plot to Kill Bush,” Washington Post (June 27, 1999), p. A1. Nicholas D. Kristof, “North Korea Threatens the South Over Killing of Soldiers From Sub,” New York Times (September 28, 1996).

32. America’s Strategic Posture op. cit., pp. 90–91.

33. See for example: Shen Weiguang, World War, The Third World War—Total Information Warfare (January 1, 2001) translated in FBIS CPP20000517000168. Schneider, The Emerging EMP Threat op. cit., pp. 5–7.


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