“Even such a ‘limited’ EMP impact would be devastating.”
I agree. But in this context you have to define what you mean by “devastating.” There’s some hype studies out there that talk about 90% of the US population being killed, which is utterly ridiculous.
Maybe an EMP over the northeast would fry most computers in a 700-1000 km area. That’s not proven, but maybe that would occur. Still, that would leave buildings, roads, bridges, etc intact, and the world would not doubt rush in a lot of replacement computers to protect the US economy.
Realistic analysis of non-extreme scenarios is interesting.
But “OMGWTFBBQ we’re all gonna die!” is so much more...fun...to consider.
Seriously, there are some here who believe an EMP attack would be as or more devastating that an actual nuke strike on a city. Utter nonsense as you state.