>> A very good look at this is a book by my friend Bill Forstchen, called “One Second After,” about an EMP blast. It was #1 on the NYTimes for a while. Terrifying. <<
Double amen to that. Can’t be stressed too much.
On the other hand, if you read some of the EMP-related threads on FR over the past couple of years, you’ll “learn” that all discussion of EMP is simply part of a big plot to generate more government expenditure, sorta like glow-bull warming. That kind of attitude is deeply distressing, to say the least.
Anyway, I think the danger from a solar storm is only half of the story. The Iranians almost certainly will be able to generate multiple EMP’s over the USA within a few years, by launching relatively small nukes on Scud missiles from unobtrusive cargo ships a few hundred miles offshore in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf. The upshot could be that 90% of the US population might starve to death. So, the Iranian dream of “death to America” would literally come to pass.
There are lots of mitigating steps we could take to head off the twin existential threats of solar EMP and Iranian-made EMP. And the costs would seem to be fairly modest. But almost nobody in the ruling class pays attention. Why can’t we take this stuff seriously? Beats me.
Bill went on a jihad so to speak, talking to DoD people, Intel people about hardening.