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“Anyone capable of launching a nuke into orbit isn’t going to waste it on trying to maybe create an EMP but would go for complete destruction of nuking cities instead.”

I disagree. A couple of nukes properly tuned for EMP and delivered to the right place could kill 90% of the population in a year - from starvation, disease, fighting for resources, etc. Lots cheaper than dozens of missiles, which will kill less people and leave the US wounded but alive as a force in the world.

Either way, the launching nation ends up as radioactive slag, but if you’re insane and want to destroy a First World enemy, EMP is the way to go.

Just one or two nukes launched off the coasts with only a reletively short range missile would set the country back 100-200 years.
An enemy wouldn’t need an ICBM or a delivery vehicle capable of placing a satellite into orbit.

An EMP attack is a very real threat.

Other posters on this thread have shared some very good information about an EMP strike.

I wouldn’t disregard what they say until you have done some research on your own.

The US government did an in depth study on EMP and reached the conclusions that others have posted here.

A report about the study is available as a PDF online for for you to read here:

http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf

Like with so many other issues, our government is good at collecting valuable data and bad at taking meaningful action based on that data.

Here is something to consider:

OPERATION STARFISH PRIME

In July 1962, the US carried out the Starfish Prime test, exploding a 1.44 megaton bomb 400 kilometres (250 mi) above the mid-Pacific Ocean. This demonstrated that the effects of a high-altitude nuclear explosion were much larger than had been previously calculated. Starfish Prime made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a microwave link.

Starfish Prime was the first success in the series of United States high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962 known as Operation Fishbowl. Subsequent tests gathered more data on the high-altitude EMP phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse

Remember - in 1962 we didn’t have the electronics we have today. No electronc car ignitions or fuel injection, no cel phones, no computers running the electric grid, no computerized inventory control or store point-of-sale registers, etc.