Where were Bush and Obama?

In National Review, William Graham, James Woolsey, and Peter Vincent Fry warn us about EMP and thank President Trump for issuing an Executive Order requiring the bureaucracies to deal with the threat.

...EMP, like a super-energetic radio wave that can destroy all kinds of electronics across a region as vast as North America with a single weapon, could in the long run kill far more Americans through its indirect effects than nuclear bombing of a city. Fatalities estimated from a protracted nationwide blackout lasting one year range from 67 to 90 percent of the U.S. population, due to starvation, disease, and societal collapse.

Nuclear deterrence may not prevent an EMP attack, which can be executed anonymously using a balloon or a private jet or by doing a zoom-climb, with a short-range missile launched off a freighter (as practiced by Iran), or by satellite (as practiced by North Korea). Retaliatory threats are credible only if you know who attacked.

...EMP also blinds, at the speed of light, satellites, radars, and other National Technical Means used for threat assessment and identifying attackers. Super-EMP weapons now possessed by Russia, China, and probably North Korea could generate 100,000 volts/meter or more, greatly exceeding the U.S. military hardening standard (50,000 volts/meter) and potentially paralyzing U.S. nuclear and conventional retaliatory capabilities.

Terrible as the consequences of a nuclear EMP attack on the United States would be, a natural EMP from a solar superstorm, such as a recurrence of the 1859 Carrington Event, could be even worse, potentially collapsing life-sustaining critical infrastructures — electric grids, communication, transportation, business and finance, food and water — worldwide:

The great news is that President Trump has issued his “Executive Order on Coordinating National Resilience to Electromagnetic Pulses” (March 26, 2019), which implements core recommendations of the EMP Commission, requiring that: “The Federal Government must foster sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective approaches to improving the Nation’s resilience to the effects of EMPs.”

The EMP Executive Order describes a program for protecting electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures that shall be, as recommended by the EMP Commission, run from the White House.

One of the biggest obstacles to achieving national EMP preparedness is buck-passing by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), and utilities. No one wants to take the lead on protecting critical infrastructures from EMP, and everyone has plausible arguments why responsibility belongs to someone else. Now the EMP Executive Order requires DHS, DOD, DOE, and the utilities to work together on national EMP preparedness — under White House supervision.

The recent foot-dragging and erroneous DHS “National EMP Strategy” (October 9, 2018) — reluctantly drafted by DHS only because Congress tried to compel them to do something about EMP in the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act — would have continued studying EMP until 2028. In contrast, President Trump’s EMP Executive Order moves like lightning.

...President Trump’s EMP executive order is an opportunity for the U.S. government and private sector to achieve national EMP preparedness quickly, within two to three years. But “the swamp” may yet win. Obama holdovers and career bureaucrats, the electric-power lobby, and ignorant media “instant EMP experts” will do everything in their power to derail Trump’s plan to make America safe from EMP.

Shortly after issuance of the EMP executive order, a spate of articles appeared claiming that EMP is not a real threat, or the threat is overblown.