-Source- The Washington Free Beacon-
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are preparing nuclear electronic pulse attacks from space in a future conflict to cripple the U.S. military and plunge the United States into darkness, according to a declassified study.
"The United States critical national infrastructure faces a present and continuing existential threat from combined-arms warfare, including cyber and manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, and natural EMP from a solar superstorm," says a recently published report from the congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack."
Once largely a concern of a Cold War surprise attack from Russia to shut down American nuclear forces communications, the spread of nuclear weapons has increased the danger of disruptive EMP attack from a nuclear burst in the upper atmosphere.
"Within the last decade, newly nuclear-armed adversaries, including North Korea, have been developing the ability and threatening to carry out an EMP attack against the U.S.," the report said.
"Such an attack would give countries that have only a small number of nuclear weapons the ability to cause widespread, long-lasting damage to U.S. critical national infrastructures, to the United States itself as a viable country, and to the survival of a majority of its population."
The report, containing redactions requested by the Pentagon, was written by William R. Graham, EMP commission chairman who is regarded as one of the foremost experts on EMP. Graham helped discover the phenomenon after a 1962 U.S. atmospheric nuclear test near Hawaii.
EMP is a burst of electromagnetic energy from a solar storm or nuclear blast capable of disabling or destroying electronic devices over wide areas. Read more
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