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An EMP attack could put the majority of transformers across the country out of commission

Our understanding of war is mired in the past. We’ve comforted ourselves that MAD (mutual assured destruction) will stop even rogue regimes from launching nuclear strikes for fear of massive retaliation from the U.S., but how do you riposte an EMP strike? With Hiroshima on steroids and the obscene human wreckage that entails? Even Donald Trump would quail at the moral imbalance. Russia has figured that out. During the war in Bosnia, a U.S. congressional delegation to the Balkans was openly taunted by the Russians, saying (essentially, according to a witness’s testimony), “All we have to do is launch one ballistic missile over your country and conduct an EMP attack and that would be the end of America.”

Re-enacting ancient Cassandra’s prophetic role on EMPs is a “thankless task,” according to Peter Pry, a former staff member of the American House Armed Services Committee, who has dedicated the best years of his life to urging action on the EMP file in the U.S. His cautionary tale on the frustrations of crying wolf to no avail when there really is a wolf is one of the highlights of the book. “It’s very politically incorrect to be trying to raise awareness about EMP,” Pry told Furey. The more vocal he became in pointing out weaknesses in government policies under Obama, the more his career suffered. He and his wife literally lost their family farm over his activism.

The irony in all this is that a few hundred million dollars, a mere bagatelle in the scheme of things, in replacement and additional parts to our utilities system—notably metal Farraday cages that in a further irony bear a striking theoretical resemblance to conspiracy theorists’ tinfoil cone hats—could preclude most potential EMP damage. Amazingly, though, as Furey discovered in his research, in Canada there “has never been a single attempt to introduce legislation to protect the grid. The north is fully exposed.”

Who wants to be remembered as prescient after a horrific fact? The poet Francis Bacon nailed it when he wrote, “Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy.”

National Post

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