Jamie Seide
DETONATING a thermonuclear warhead 400km above Washington would instantly fry most of the nation’s power grid — and electronics.
The idea is not about melting a city, set enormous fires and irradiate vast tracks of terrain.
It’s about eliminating a nation’s entire infrastructure in a single flash.
There’s little surprise that North Korean state media has been lauding the power of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
This is where the gamma radiation of a high-altitude nuclear blast interacts with the ionosphere — a blanket of electrons and electrically charged particles surrounding the Earth — to send a series electromagnetic pulses spearing into the ground below.
Once this burst of radiation strikes the ground it can induce strong currents — particularly in electrical cables and phone lines. This can overload and destroy electrical networks, as well as cause delicate circuit boards to fuse.
An entire economy can be brought to a standstill in nanoseconds.
In the words of former director of the CIA James Woolsey, it would bring the United States “to a cold, dark halt”.
ELECTRIC WAR
It’s an effect similar to that of Earth being struck by a serious solar storm, or — at a much smaller scale — when lightning causes a surge in a power grid.
North Korea’s state news agency commented on just such a tactic at the weekend. It follows a series of similar observations about the power of EMP in July.
The latest statement boasts North Korea’s new bomb “is a multifunctional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.”
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/north-korea-threat-emp-attack-can-destroy-a-nations-entire-infrastructure-in-a-flash/news-story/61b9c40ecef93315fcc89fa6af4f6fb8
