Help me out here.
By what mechanism will an EMP be delivered?
My understanding is only a nuclear explosion can create enough electrical energy to disrupt components miles away from the actual explosion. And it has to be high-altitude to have the coverage required. It’s not like Achmed could blow up a nuke backpack from his rental SUV.
If so, we already have Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) well publicized to our potential enemies that a missile or bomber attack on our nation will be answered with full-on counterstrikes, even before the potential nuclear explosion arrives to EMP us to the stone age.
MAD has actually kept us safe for 50+ years. The biggest danger is a potential enemy thinking they can survive a nuclear war, at least the leadership, while completely destroying ours.
I just don’t see missiles being lobbed at us without a massive response. And frankly, if we wait to “see” who it is from or what is the purpose, we’re already dead.
Any attack requires a massive response on our potential enemies. Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and Iranians, to name a few.
Guess what? They all know this. The only ones we need to worry about are the mad mullahs of Iran, and even so, the Russkies better keep a leash on them, because if they want an Armageddon, Russia will be nuked, too.
Except neither the Chinese or Russians accept the docrine of MAD. They’ve both developed offensive proxies to launch first strikes against the US and Europe respectively. The strikes would be aimed at the C&C, land and air strategic assets. Only SLBMs would be capable of responding and would be depleted attacking the proxy. At that time China and Russia invoke their mutual defense treaties with these countries and launch a full attack upon the US and Europe.
In reality China is the only one which likely still intends to do this. They realize they cannot compete with Western culture so they must destroy it to achieve global ascendency. They don’t want to just defeat us militarily. They want to replace us. They require our complete destruction.