By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Strategic Defense: A new report says the United States must develop robust missile and space defenses to counter China. If you think the current economic crisis is something, imagine the effects of a nuke over Iowa.
Imagine a world in which you can't get money from your bank or can't get a loan. You can't get money from your ATM even if it's within walking distance. You can't drive to one because your car won't work. No, it's not what would happen if the Congress doesn't pass a bailout bill.
This is a small snapshot of what would happen if a hostile power detonated a nuclear weapon high over the United States generating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would fry virtually every circuit and electronic device in the U.S., sending America and its economy back a century or more in time.
In the 1995 James Bond flick 'GoldenEye,' Agent 007 fights to prevent an arms syndicate from hijacking a Russian 'GoldenEye' satellite weapon to fire an electromagnetic pulse against London in order to cause a global financial meltdown. We may soon see life imitating art unless we heed the warning of a draft report by the secretary of state's International Security Advisory Board.
The ISAB report addresses the growing threat from China but could apply equally to a rearming and resurgent Russia and an ambitious and soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. To avoid increasing vulnerability, the report says, 'the United States will need to pursue new missile defense capabilities, including taking full advantage of space.'
There is also a new threat whereby a single nuclear weapon could paralyze the U.S.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in June, Assistant Secretary of Defense James Shinn noted that China is working on EMP weapons that can destroy electronic systems. Shinn told the committee that 'We are, as you know, and as the Chinese also know, heavily dependent on sophisticated communications, satellite communications, in the conduct of our forces.'
We are also dependent, as the Iranians also know, on electronics in the conduct of the world's largest economy. Iranian military literature is full of references to the damage a high-altitude nuclear blast could do to the U.S. and its economy.
'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked at the 'World Without Zionism' Tehran conference in 2005. 'But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved.' He added that Iran had a strategic 'war preparation plan' for what it called 'the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization.'
A simple Scud missile, with a nuclear warhead, could be fired from an inconspicuous freighter in international waters off our coast and detonated high above the U.S. It would wreak near-total devastation on America's technological, electrical and transportation infrastructure. With the explosion masked as a terrorist attack, Iran could plausibly deny any responsibility.
Iran has practiced launching and detonating Scuds in midflight, launched from ships in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of its Shahab-3 ballistic missile, a test consistent with an EMP attack. Iran only needs a nuke.
The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, established by unanimous consent of the House and Senate, released a report on the same day as the 9/11 Commission report, which blamed those attacks, in part, on a lack of imagination on our part.
The report told us of how millions could die as hospital systems shut down, as rail and air traffic control systems collapsed. Farmers would be unable to harvest crops and distributors couldn't get goods to market. Energy production would cease. Computers and PCs would become large paperweights. Telephones, even cell phones, wouldn't work. Food in refrigerated warehouses would rot, and clean water would be scarce.
It would indeed be the jihadist dream of 'death to America.' It could happen all too soon, unless we harden our infrastructure against EMP attack and develop a more robust multilayer missile defense.
An undefended EMP attack would make the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a fond memory. Is Congress listening?
