The federal government is doing “nothing” to protect against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could wipe out American civilization, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a leading expert on the subject, tells Newsmax.

Originally posted by jtma508
Keep in mind that the real risk from EMP requires a high altitude nuclear detonation of a device in the 10+kt range minimum. And by high altitude I mean really high. No terrorists with a smuggled Russian or home built nuke are going to pull this off. Unless they can get their hands on a ballistic missile as well. The only practical scenario would be for a technologically developed country (Russia or China) to do this. And it would require an outrageous set of circumstances for them to risk the nuclear crapstorm that would come their way if they did. And they know that.

To truly 'wipe out the US infrastructure' would require launches of nuclear devices to very high altitudes. Unless the devices was very large and very high it would require multiples. These launches would be detected almost immediately and the offending countries would be attacked instantly and with overwhelming force. That is our current standing nuclear doctrine. It is published for all nations to see.

Nuclear detonations at lower altitudes would still have an EMP effect but it would be localized requiring numerous detonations to take out the entire US. To EMP the entire country with one detonation would require that detonation to be done at an altitude of roughly 300 miles. You could do it with two at 100 miles altitude and maybe three at 30miles altitude. But getting the devices up that high isn't something easily done.

The scientific principles behind generating a high-altitude EMP are relatively simple. If a nuclear weapon is detonated between 25 miles and 300 miles above the earth's surface, the radiation from the explosion interacts with air molecules to produce high-energy electrons that speed across the earth's magnetic field as an instantaneous, invisible electromagnetic pulse.5

We are entering a period of special vulnerability to EMP in the coming years, with the fictional June 1, 2009 Dark Angel EMP attack marking a point in time that is close to the beginning of a period of years when the U.S. is most likely to be the victim of a pulse attack. (Among Dark Angel fans, June 1, 2009 has long been called the Day of the Pulse.) Most people who have some knowledge in this subject, and who have given some serious thought to the problem, consider the probability of an EMP attack on the United States during the next ten years at somewhere between 20 and 70 percent.