Zero Hour: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Fiction Series (The Blackout Series Book 2) (32 page)

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense should jointly execute a systematic assessment of the significance of each space system, particularly those in low Earth orbits, to missions such as the continuity of government, strategic military force protection, and the protection of critical tactical force support functions. Information from this assessment and associated cost and risk judgments will inform senior government decision making regarding protection and performance-assurance of these systems, so that missions can be executed with the required degrees of surety in the face of the possible threats.

GOVERNMENT

DHS should give priority to measures to ensure that the President and other senior Federal officials can exercise informed leadership of the Nation in the aftermath of an EMP attack, and to improving post-attack response capabilities at all levels of government.

The President, Secretary of Homeland Security, and other senior officials must be able to manage the national recovery in an informed and reliable manner. Current national capabilities were developed for Cold War scenarios in which it was imperative that the President have assured connectivity to strategic retaliatory forces. While this is still an important requirement, there is a new need for considerably broader, robust connectivity between national leaders, government at all levels, and key organizations within each infrastructure sector so that the status of infrastructures can be assessed in a reliable and comprehensive manner and their recovery and reconstitution intelligently managed. The Department of Homeland Security, working through the Homeland Security Council, should give high priority to identifying and achieving the minimum levels of robust connectivity needed for recovery following EMP attack. In doing this, DHS should give particular emphasis to exercises that evaluate the robustness of the solutions being implemented.

Working with state authorities and private-sector organizations, the Department of Homeland Security should develop draft protocols for implementation by emergency and other government responders following EMP attack, Red Team these extensively, and then institutionalize validated protocols through issuance of standards, training, and exercises.

KEEPING THE CITIZENRY INFORMED

Support to National leadership also involves measures to ensure that the President can communicate effectively with the citizenry. Although the US can improve prevention, protection, and recovery in the face of an EMP attack to levels below those that would have catastrophic consequences for the Nation, an EMP attack would still cause substantial disruption, even under the best of circumstances. Many citizens would be without power, communications and other services for days—or perhaps substantially longer—before full recovery could occur. During that interval, it will be crucial to provide a reliable channel of information to those citizens to let them know what has happened, the current situation, when help of what types for them might be available, what their governments are doing, and the host of questions which, if not answered, are certain to create more instability and suffering for the affected individuals, communities, and the Nation as a whole.

PROTECTION OF MILITARY FORCES

The end of the Cold War relaxed the discipline for achieving EMP survivability within the Department of Defense, and gave rise to the perception that an erosion of EMP survivability of military forces was an acceptable risk. EMP simulation and test facilities have been mothballed or dismantled, and research concerning EMP phenomena, hardening design, testing, and maintenance has been substantially decreased. However, the emerging threat environment, characterized by a wide spectrum of actors that include near-peers, established nuclear powers, rogue nations, sub-national groups, and terrorist organizations that either now have access to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or may have such access over the next 15 years have combined to place the risk of EMP attack and adverse consequences on the US to a level that is not acceptable.

Current policy is to continue to provide EMP protection to strategic forces and their controls; however, the end of the Cold War has relaxed the discipline for achieving and maintaining that capability within these forces. The Department of Defense must continue to pursue the strategy for strategic systems to ensure that weapons delivery systems of the New Triad are EMP survivable, and that there is, at a minimum, a survivable “thin-line” of command and control capability to detect threats and direct the delivery systems. The Department of Defense has the capability to do this, and the costs can be within reasonable and practical limits.

The situation for general-purpose forces (GPF) is more complex. The success of these forces depends on the application of a superior force at times and places of our choosing. We accomplish this by using a relatively small force with enormous technological advantages due to superior information flow, advanced warfighting capabilities, and well-orchestrated joint combat operations. Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability of our technologically advanced forces, and if unaddressed makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.

The United States must not permit an EMP attack to defeat its capability to prevail. The Commission believes it is not practical to protect all of the tactical forces of the US and its coalition partners from EMP in a regional conflict. A strategy of replacement and reinforcement will be necessary. However, there is a set of critical capabilities that is essential to tactical regional conflicts that must be available to these reinforcements. This set includes satellite navigation systems, satellite and airborne intelligence and targeting systems, an adequate communications infrastructure, and missile defense.

The current capability to field a tactical force for regional conflict is inadequate in light of this requirement. Even though it has been US policy to create EMP-hardened tactical systems, the strategy for achieving this has been to use the DoD acquisition process. This has provided many equipment components that meet criteria for durability in an EMP environment, but this does not result in confidence that fielded forces, as a system, can reliably withstand EMP attack. Adherence to the equipment acquisition policy also has been spotty, and the huge challenge of organizing and fielding an EMP-durable tactical force has been a disincentive to applying the rigor and discipline needed to do so.

EMP durability should be provided to a selected set of tactical systems such that it will be practical to field tactical forces that cannot be neutralized by an EMP attack. The Department of Defense must perform a capabilities-based assessment of the most significant EMP threats to its tactical capabilities and develop strategies for coping with these threats in a reliable and effective manner.

Overall, little can be accomplished without the sustained attention and support of the leadership of the Department of Defense and Congress. This will require the personal involvement and cooperation among the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Service Chiefs, and the appropriate congressional oversight committees in creating the necessary climate of concern; overseeing the development of strategy; and reaffirming the criticality of survivable and endurable military forces, including command, control, and communications (C3) in updated policy guidance, implementation directives, and instructions. Congressionally mandated annual reports from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on the status and progress for achieving EMP survivability of our fighting forces will emphasize the importance of the issue and help ensure that the necessary attention and support of the DoD leadership continues.

APPENDIX A THE COMMISSION AND ITS METHOD

The Commission used a capability-based methodology to estimate potential EMP threats over the next 15 years.
¹The objective was to identify the range of plausible adversary EMP attack capabilities that cannot be excluded by prudent decision makers responsible for national and homeland security.

Bases for this assessment included current intelligence estimates of present and near-term military capabilities; current and past engineering accomplishments (what are adversaries likely to be capable of achieving, given accomplishments in other programs at comparable stages of development?); and trends impacting adversary military capabilities through 2018. In line with its capabilities-based approach, the Commission did not attempt to establish the relative likelihood of EMP strikes versus other forms of attack.

Intelligence community organizations and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapon laboratories (Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia) provided excellent technical support to the Commission’s analyses.
²The Institute for Defense Analyses hosted and developed technical analyses for the Commission. While it benefited from these inputs, the Commission developed an independent assessment. Views expressed in this report are solely attributable to the Commission.

The Russian Federation (RF) has a sophisticated understanding of EMP that derives in part from the test era when the Soviet Union did high-altitude atmospheric tests over its own territory, impacting civilian infrastructures. To benefit from Russian expertise, the Commission:

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Sponsored research projects at Russian scientific institutions.

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Hosted a September 2003 US/RF symposium on EMP at which presentations were given by Russian general officers.

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Sponsored a December 2003 technical seminar on EMP attended by scientists from the Russian Federation and the United States.

The Commission also reviewed additional relevant foreign research and programs and assessed foreign perspectives on EMP attacks.

In considering EMP, the Commission also gave attention to the coincident nuclear effects that would result from a detonation that produces EMP, e.g., possible disruption of the operations of, or damage to, satellites in space.

Different types of nuclear weapons produce different EMP effects. The Commission limited its attention to the most strategically significant cases in which detonation of one or few nuclear warheads could result in widespread, potentially long-duration disruption or damage that places at risk the functioning of American society or the effectiveness of US military forces.

In addition to examining potential threats, the Commission was charged to assess US vulnerabilities (civilian and military) to EMP and to recommend measures to counter EMP threats. For these purposes, the Commission reviewed research and best practices within the United States and other countries. Early in this review it became apparent that only limited EMP vulnerability testing had been accomplished for modern electronic systems and components. To partially remedy this deficit, the Commission sponsored illustrative testing; results are presented in the full text of the Commission’s report.

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APPENDIX D

PREPPER’S CHECKLIST

From
www.FreedomPreppers.com

PREPPERS CHECKLIST

Preppers who are not adequately prepared place added risks on the people who rely upon them. A well-organized Prepper Checklist with assigned responsibilities will maximize your odds of survival. Your Prepper Checklist is a list of functions, or capabilities that you need to provide for in each of the survival categories. A comprehensive prepper checklist acts as both a shopping list of items that you need to get or put into a kit and a to-do list. This Prepper Checklist accomplishes both.

A Preppers Checklist is always evolving. Your Preparedness Plan will change as your knowledge and skills advance. This Preppers Checklist allows for the individual needs of each Prepper while still accomplishing common goals.

The list is broken up into general categories to help keep things organized. You can learn more on
FreedomPreppers.com

Prepper Basics are the minimum requirements of preparedness that you should strive to accomplish as fast as possible. They are the basic levels of preparedness that a new prepper starting out should achieve as soon as possible. Advanced Preppers levels allow for surviving longer durations and/or increases the capacity of your prepper group.