The Air Force EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon was recently revealed in a joint release by the U.S. Military and Boeing. The high-tech weapons system has eased fears in some Americans, and prompted concerns by others.
Maybe the general public finds the EMP weapon comforting—on some level maybe I do—but the prepper in me sees a lot of red flags associated with the new high-tech weapons system. Although I have serious and deeply-held concerns regarding our massive federal government, I consider myself a patriot and respect our service members to the very deepest depths of my core.
My worries about the Air Force EMP weapon stem not from some government conspiracy mindset or fears that our dedicated Air Force members will put American infrastructure and businesses in their sights. My concerns evolved merely by taking a common sense look at the recently unveiled high-tech EMP weapons system. If we have the technology to shoot EMP blasts at our enemies, how long will it be before they have the capacity to direct the same type of destruction right back at us? I believe in American exceptionalism, but it would be pure arrogance to believe we will always be the only nation to boast such high-tech weaponry.
The Air Force EMP weapon is called CHAMPS, or Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project. Being one who focuses on power grid issues, I see the CHAMPS technology as yet another possible threat to the electrical grid.
Boeing and the United States Air Force have confirmed that they are testing an EMP weapon that is reportedly so accurate it can target even a specific building.
An EMP weapon used against the aging and overly-taxed United States power grid could quickly wreak havoc and ultimately cause millions of deaths in America.
Senior military personnel, lawmakers, intelligence analysts and government officials believe the Obama administration is not taking the threat of an EMP attack seriously enough. The EMP Commission warned Congress that “an EMP attack could potentially disrupt the food infrastructure over a large region encompassing many cities, for a protracted period of weeks to months.”
The problem is compounded because supermarkets typically carry only enough food to provision the local population for one to three days. Supermarkets “replenish their stocks on virtually a daily basis from regional warehouses that usually carry enough food to supply a multi-county area for about one month,” a commission report added.
Excerpt from the United States EMP Commission statement about the domino effect an EMP attack would have on the United States:
“The primary avenues for catastrophic damage to the nation are through our electric power infrastructure and thence into our telecommunications, energy, and other infrastructures. These, in turn, can seriously impact other important aspects of our nation’s life, including the financial system; means of getting food, water, and medical care to the citizenry; trade; and production of goods and services. The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent on the recovery of others.”
“We’re not quite up there with Star Trek and Star Wars movies, but this is definitely advancement in technology to give us an opportunity to do things we couldn’t do before,” Air Force Research Laboratory CHAMPS Leader Peter Finlay said during an interview with CNN.
In 2012 Boeing announced that the company had its first successful test for the CHAMPS EMP weapon. A test conducted at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico reportedly successfully disabled electronics in a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range. Boeing also maintained that the weapon also permitted them to make “multiple selective high-frequency radio wave strikes” against several targets during the same mission.
“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” Boeing Phantom Works CHAMP Program Manager Keith Coleman said. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive. We hit every target we ever wanted. We prosecuted every one. We’ve made science fiction, science fact.”
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said this about electromagnetic pulse threats:
“9/11 was a wake-up call that enemies of the United States were looking to launch massive attacks. What if the government in North Korea or Iran really thought that the world would be so much a better place and that they themselves would be so much more likely to go to heaven if they could just kill as many Americans as possible? These guys lust after mass destruction.”
Woolsey added the federal government was not seeing the big picture clearly. The former CIA director said that both China and North Korea present problems that the United States has still not fully grasped. He considers the rogue nation of North Korea extremely dangerous.
Heritage Foundation defense and strategic analysts urged Congress to develop, test and field United States defenses against EMP attacks, including enhanced ballistic missile defenses able to counter short-range missiles which carry EMP warheads.
Detonating a ballistic missile with an EMP head, while still at a high altitude, would allow energetic particles “released during the explosion” to “disable, damage or destroy all unhardened electronic devices within the line of sight of the detonation,” the analysts said in a report.
A report on the website Foxtrot Alpha claimed that a similar EMP weapon was “secretly used” to destroy electronics in enemy vehicles by the United States Military during hostilities in Libya.
Excerpt from the Foxtrot Alpha report:
“The Pentagon’s Counter-Electronics High-Power Advanced Microwave Project (CHAMP) has been one of the sci-fi like weapons programs that has the ability to change warfare as we know forever. Now it looks like the CHAMP has found an ideal delivery vehicle, the stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range.
The whole idea behind CHAMP is to be able to destroy an enemy’s command, control, communication and computing, surveillance and intelligence (C4SI) capabilities without doing any damage to the people or traditional infrastructure in and around it. In other words, it can eliminate a facility’s effectiveness by destroying the electronics within it alone, via a microwave pulse, without kinetically attacking the facility itself. Think of it as the mother of all less than lethal weapons. “
What do you think about the Air Force EMP weapon and the dangers posed to the power grid if an enemy of America develops similar weaponry?