Talk-Polywell.org

choff wrote:If his replacement goes down the exact same path and also drops dead from a mosquito bite, maybe the next guy starts thinking there's a jinx on the war path.

ladajo wrote:Yes, history has shown that 'containment' only works to a point. It is like trying to keep an angry crazy cat in a wet paper bag.
The nutjob thinks that he can carve out a safespace with threats. All he is actually accomplishing is making folks who would normally ignore him, or leave him be, become paranoid obsessives who will eventually (probably soon) lash out in fear.
I see the options as attack now, or shoot down a couple of missiles, then attack later. LFT is not going to stop seeking to be relevant, using his own bizarre definition. There is no containing to crazy angry cat over time.
I think we should put this one down sooner rather than later, as every day we delay raises the price. Again, history has shown...

North Korea's latest nuclear weapons test has renewed fears of a devastating electro-magnetic pulse, or EMP, attack that could wipe out electrical grids across the US.

For the first time, North Korea specifically mentioned the possibility of an EMP attack on the US following Sunday's test of a 100-kiloton weapon, which the regime claims is a thermonuclear bomb.

The weapon could wipe out much of a city, but the pulse from a high-altitude blast could sow chaos and destruction far wider.

North Korea's state news agency warned that the weapon 'is a multifunctional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.'

An EMP is a burst of high-intensity radio waves emitted from nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere that scrambles electronics, much like a sudden power surge can overload a power outlet.

But an EMP is far, far worse. A nuclear bomb detonated high in the atmosphere could knock out the power grid across a huge swathe of the continental US.


WHAT IS A NUCLEAR EMP?


North Korea has specifically threatened an EMP attack on the US for the first time.

Nuclear blasts generate high-intensity radio waves that can disrupt electronics.

These EMP blasts travel along line-of-sight, which means the effects extend only to the visual horizon.

A powerful enough blast at an altitude of 249 miles could impact most of the continental US.

That would leave hospitals without power, civilian and government agencies unable to coordinate, and the fabric of society unraveling fast.


'I think this is the principal, the most important and dangerous, threat to the United States,' James Woolsey, former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995, told the San Diego Union-Tribune in March.

'If you look at the electric grid and what it's susceptible to, we would be moving into a world with no food delivery, no water purification, no banking, no telecommunications, no medicine. All of these things depend on electricity in one way or another.'

The higher the bomb is detonated, the wider the EMP's range of effect.

A bomb detonated 19 miles above the center of the country would affect all of Kansas and Nebraska, almost all of South Dakota, and substantial chunks of surrounding states.

Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful bomb detonated at an altitude of 249 miles would wipe out all electronics in the US, save the southernmost top of Florida and the easternmost states - as well as affecting Canada and Mexico.

That altitude is roughly the orbit of the International Space Station and other low-Earth orbit satellites.

North Korea has already demonstrated its ability to reach this altitude with two satellite launches, in 2012 and 2016, which some experts believe were tests of an EMP launch trajectory.

'EMP is one of the small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences,' William Graham, chairman of the Commission To Assess The Threat To The US From An EMP Attack, told Congress in 2012.

'Our vulnerability is increasing daily, as our use and dependence on electronics and automated systems continues to grow.'

Testimony to the US Congressional EMP Commission stated that in the event of a massive EMP attack on the US using multiple high-yield warheads, around 90 per cent of the American population would be dead after 18 months due to famine, disease, and societal breakdown.

A bomb detonated 19 miles above the center of the country would affect all of Kansas and Nebraska, almost all of South Dakota, and substantial chunks of surrounding states.

ladajo wrote:EMP is more complicated, and not as big a Boogey Man as the media and talking heads paint it. They don't really understand it, so they conflate it.