RUTHFULLY YOURS

Lyle J. Goldstein is Professor of Strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the United States Naval War College in Newport RI.
The world has held its breath over the last two months. For nuclear strategists and specialists in the field of international security, this boiling predicament on the Korean Peninsula has been less an occasion for fatalist joking than a grim spectacle of just how dangerous and destabilizing the process of nuclear proliferation can be in any situation, let alone one in which both “players” in an asymmetric rivalry are inclined toward bombast, ambiguity, and risk-taking. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/here-what-chinese-scholars-think-about-the-north-korea-22145?page=show

When Donald Trump first took office, he and his national security advisors quickly reached the conclusion that China is the key to resolution or even just managing the volatile situation on the Korean Peninsula. In this conclusion, the 45th president was not actually wrong. He simply underestimated the difficulties and complexities involved, including the imperative for Washington to make some very hard choices in order to ease the crisis.

China is best positioned among all the powers of Northeast Asia to wield both sticks, and more importantly carrots, to manage a peaceful resolution of the North Korea nuclear crisis. In this space, I have repeatedly argued for the prioritization of the North Korean nuclear issue within U.S. foreign and defense policy circles, as well as within U.S.-China relations. However, such a policy would require a close understanding of Beijing’s complex and often contradictory approach to Pyongyang. This approach has a significant geo-economic dimension, likely involves calculations with respect to Chinese interests in the Arctic, could require some “rebalancing” toward Pyongyang, as well as a certain understanding of how military scenarios could unfold from a Chinese perspective on the Peninsula—all themes I have explored in previous editions of this Dragon Eye series.

Still, it has not been possible to develop a relatively comprehensive typology of Chinese assessments regarding the Korean nuclear issue. But that is now almost realizable thanks to the diligent work of a Chinese postdoctoral researcher named Zhou Xiaojia [周晓加] at Fudan University of Shanghai. This academic published an ambitious survey of “The North Korean Nuclear Issue and the Perspectives of Chinese Scholars” [朝鲜核问题与中国学者的观点] in the May/June 2017 issue (No. 3) of the international relations journal Peace and Development [和平与发展]. This edition of Dragon Eye will summarize Zhou’s survey in the hopes of contributing to enhanced U.S.-China mutual understanding on this most vexing, yet important issue for global security. Zhou’s initial estimate is both crisp and profound: “Chinese scholars do not agree” [中国学术界看法不一].

Zhou’s first cut on the issue concerns the underlying reasons or responsibility for the current crisis. One group of scholars seems to blame the inherent difficulties of achieving cooperation, according to this survey. Thus, Fan Jishe [樊吉社] explains that given the twin goals of denuclearization and preserving stability, the problem lies in that Washington prioritizes the former, while Beijing prioritizes the latter. Another scholar Yang Xiyu [杨希雨] suggests that the major divide between China and the United States is that Beijing has always accepted North Korea’s right to peacefully develop nuclear energy, while Washington never did. The scholar Li Kaisheng [李开盛] sees no basis for cooperation because of different interests and a fundamental lack of strategic trust between Beijing and Washington. Li explains that one of the major restraints on the United States possible use of force against North Korea has been “China’s opposition and even [the possibility] of Chinese counter-attack” [中国的反对甚至反击]. He also straightforwardly explains that China will not accept the removal of the North Korean ruling regime, because that would mean U.S. military power directly on China’s border and the loss of China’s “strategic buffer” [战略缓冲地带]. Taking a rather less confrontational approach, the scholar Zhu Qin [朱芹] observes that the Six Party Talks failed because trust and punishment mechanisms were lacking. She also notes that those talks tended to consistently favor the stronger parties over the weaker parties, leading to increasing alienation by the latter. The scholar Cheng Xiaoyong [程晓勇] emphasizes the role of China and Russia insisting on preserving stability on the Korean Peninsula. That trend is further reinforced, he explains, by South Korea’s likewise strong aversion to the use of force.

It seems illogical for self-described “progressives” to turn a blind eye to the misery of fellow females forced to endure the kind of unimaginable treatment documented by best-selling authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi.

The reason for that is rooted in a regard for “multiculturalism” in which anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are considered more vital than the victimization of women.

There is, of course, never any mention of the “people who suffered under Eastern colonialism,” such as the Iranian victims of the current regime, or the victims of al-Qaeda and ISIS, or the nearly 11,000,000 Muslims killed since 1948. Of these, 90% by other Muslims; only 3% by Israel.

In spite of repeated and verified accounts of the physical and sexual abuse of women and girls throughout Muslim parts of the world, Western feminists at best remain silent, and at worst supportive of the male oppressors.

It seems illogical for self-described “progressives” to turn a blind eye to the misery of fellow females forced to endure the kind of unimaginable treatment documented by best-selling authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi. The reason for that is rooted in a regard for “multiculturalism” in which anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are considered more vital than the victimization of women.

In such a value system, the highest priority is the ultimate goal of destroying pluralistic and democratic Western values, which the far-left views as a euphemism for conservative, capitalist, colonialist, imperialist ideals that must be eradicated. They do not even bother to realize that throughout history, Muslim conquests — not even speaking of Asia — but of the Christian Byzantine Empire, the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Greece, Spain and Northern Cyprus have been even more repressive, brutal and absolute. According to this “liberal,” essentially totalitarian, worldview, the United States and Israel are what the Iranian ayatollahs call the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan,” while radical groups and regimes that oppose America and the Jewish state are supposedly allies.

It is thus that Judith Butler, professor of comparative literature at University of California, Berkeley and a “gender and third-wave feminist queer theorist,” justifies her support for Islamist terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which she referred to at a 2006 anti-Israel teach-in as “social movements that are progressive… part of a global Left.”

This view is exactly upside-down and backwards. Hamas, the Sunni terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite terrorist group based in Lebanon and with a foothold in Syria, are not only mass murderers, but would subject Butler herself to Sharia (Islamic) law and deny her all human rights, let alone those associated with her womanhood and lesbianism. Butler is living in a fantasy world if she considers radical Islamists “progressive” in any shape or form.

As far back as 2001, Bronwyn Winter, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Faculty of Arts International and Comparative Literary Studies program, noted that the “‘multiculturalist’ discourse… legitimates even the most fundamentalist Islamic voices in the name of ‘cultural difference.'”

European leaders accepted the transformation of parts of their countries into enemy territories. They see that a demographic disaster is taking place. They know that in two or three decades, Europe will be ruled by Islam.

Ten years ago, describing what he called “the last days of Europe,” the historian Walter Laqueur said that European civilization was dying and that only old monuments and museums would survive. His diagnosis was too optimistic. Old monuments and museums might well be blown up. Look nowhere else than what the black-hooded supporters of “Antifa” — an “anti-fascist” movement whose actions are totally fascistic — are doing to statues in the United States.

The terrorist attack in Barcelona received the same reaction as all the large-scale terrorist attacks in Europe: tears, prayers, flowers, candles, teddy bears, and protestations that “Islam means peace “. When people gathered to demand tougher measures against the rising influence of Islamism across the continent, they were confronted by an “anti-fascist” rally. Muslims organized a demonstration to defend Islam; they claimed that Muslims living in Spain are the “main victims” of terrorism. The president of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Societies, Mounir Benjelloun El Andaloussi, spoke of a “conspiracy against Islam” and said that terrorists were “instruments” of Islamophobic hatred. The mayor of Barcelona, ​​ Ada Colau, cried in front of the cameras and said that her city would remain an “open city” for all immigrants. The governor of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, used almost the same language. Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a conservative, was the only one who dared to call jihadist terrorism by its name. Almost all European journalists said Rajoy’s words were too harsh.

After the attack in Barcelona, Spain, when people gathered at the site to demand tougher measures against the rising influence of Islamism across the continent, they were confronted by an “anti-fascist” rally. Pictured: “Anti-fascists” beat a man who they claimed is a “right-wing sympathizer” at Las Ramblas, Barcelona, on August 18, 2017. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Mainstream European newspapers describing the horror once again sought explanations to what they kept calling “inexplicable”. The leading Spanish daily newspaper, El Pais, wrote in an editorial that “radicalization” is the bitter fruit of the “exclusion” of certain “communities,” and added that the answer was more “social justice”. In France, Le Monde suggested that terrorists want to “incite hatred”, and stressed that Europeans must avoid “prejudice”. In the UK, The Telegraph explained that “killers attack the West because the West is the West; not because of what it does” — but it spoke of “killers”, not “terrorists” or “Islamists”.

Anti-terrorism specialists, interviewed on television, said that the attacks, carried out across the continent at an ever-faster pace, will become deadlier. They noted that the original plan of the Barcelona jihadists had been to destroy the Sagrada Família Cathedral and kill thousands of people. The specialists parroted that Europeans will just have to learn to live with the threat of widespread carnage. They did not offer any solutions. Once again, many said that terrorists are not really Muslims — and that the attacks “had nothing to do with Islam”.

Many leaders of Western European countries treat Islamic terrorism as a fact of life that Europeans must get used to — as some kind of aberration unrelated to Islam. They often avoid speaking of “terrorism” at all. After the attack in Barcelona,​​ German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a brief reproach about a “revolting” event. She expressed “solidarity” with the Spanish people, and then moved on. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted a message of condolence and spoke of a “tragic attack.”

In the current crisis, governments, NGOs, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. The Jews during the Second World War — most of whom were turned away, turned in, or betrayed by all European governments — were not so fortunate.

All of Europe’s efforts have been devoted to rescuing migrants: on borders, at sea and in cities that host asylum centers. Such distinctions, however, are apparently not enough: the immigration question must become a new ideology, like a religion. That seems why there is an orchestrated attempt by large segments of the establishment to turn Europe’s rescue operations into a “new Holocaust”. Questioning them must become a taboo. Even Pope Francis, who compared a center for migrants to “concentration camps”, adopted this nonsense.

Despite Muslims historically having been the most aggressive colonizers, Europe’s élites have come to idealize them due to a mix of demographic decline, misconception of Islam, self-hate for the Western culture and a fatal, romanticized attraction for the decolonized Third World people.

What is the best way to shut down the debate on immigration? By heightening the language to levels impossible to be debated. That is what has been happening in the new — and false — trend of comparing the waves of migrants arriving in Europe to Jews during the Holocaust.

Recently, Franco Berardi, the Italian author of a play in Germany, “Auschwitz on the Beach”, charged Europeans with setting up “concentration camps” on its territory. One line in the performance was, “Salt water has replaced Zyklon B” — a reference to the poison gas used by the Nazis in World War II to exterminate Jews. After protests from the Jewish community, the play was cancelled. Adam Szymczyk, the director of the Documenta exhibition, defined the show as a “warning against historical amnesia, a moral wake-up call, a call to collective action”. This response, while true for the mass-murder of Jews, is a grotesque distortion of what has been happening in Europe for the last three years. On the contrary, governments, non-governmental organizations, bureaucrats, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. The Jews during the Second World War — most of whom were turned away, turned in or betrayed by all European governments — were not so fortunate.

Auschwitz on the Beach?
In the current crisis, governments, NGOs, charities and the media have all embraced migrants in the millions, and welcomed them with open arms. Pictured: The Greek Red Cross helps an Afghan migrant who just arrived from Turkey with an inflatable boat on Lesvos Island, Greece, on December 13, 2015. (Image source: Ggia/Wikimedia Commons)

The current misrepresentation was first formulated by Sweden’s deputy prime minister, Asa Romson. “We are turning the Mediterranean into the new Auschwitz”, she said. Since then, this sham comparison has entered into the European mainstream, and the death of six million Jews has been turned into an ideological platform — a parable of human suffering — to justify importing even more unknown migrants. Even Pope Francis, who compared a center for migrants to “concentration camps”, adopted this nonsense.

Jewish organizations in the US rightly condemned the comparison. David Harris, Executive Director of American Jewish Committee, said: “The Nazis and their allies erected and used concentration camps for slave labor and the extermination of millions of people during World War II, there is no comparison to the magnitude of that tragedy.”

All of Europe’s efforts, in fact, have been devoted to rescuing migrants: on borders, at sea and in cities hosting asylum centers. Such distinctions, however, are apparently not enough: the immigration question is apparently supposed to become the new ideology, like a religion. That is why there seems an orchestrated attempt by large segments of the establishment to turn the rescue operations into a “new Holocaust”. Questioning them must become a taboo.

Yazidis, Alevis and women in the region are also being abused by Turkish authorities, and dozens of Kurdish journalists who have publicized this have been imprisoned.

This hatred of Christians and Kurds in Turkey is not restricted to government officials. It is widespread among the public, as well, and expressed extensively on social media.

The situation of minorities in Turkey and their persecution by Turkey — a member of NATO and perpetual candidate for EU membership — must be told as often and as loudly as possible.

Since 2015, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been attacking Kurdish-majority areas in the country.

A 2017 World Heritage Watch report details the destruction of one such town, Suriçi (Sur), as follows:

“[C]urfews were declared six times for several days each from September 2015. These curfews were 24-hour-a-day blockades and led to clashes between Turkish state forces and Kurdish rebel groups, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people and serious destruction of the affected area. The last ongoing curfew from 11 December 2015, accompanied by the use of heavy military weapons such as tanks, mortar and artillery by the government, was the most devastating one. Numerous historical buildings and monuments – as well as the integrity and authenticity of Suriçi – suffered damage and destruction.”

The clashes have taken their toll on Turkey’s Christian population, which is caught in the crossfire. According to a November 2016 report in The Armenian Weekly,

“The past year has been a living hell for the hidden Armenians of Turkey. The civil war between the Kurdish resistance guerrillas and the Turkish army has resulted in massive destruction in southeastern and eastern Turkey. Most of the buildings in the region have been bombed or burnt by the army and police forces, followed by complete demolition and razing of the damaged buildings… with only a few mosques, police stations, or government buildings left standing.

“Entire neighborhoods have disappeared, reduced to rubble. The Surp Giragos Church in Diyarbakır has escaped the fighting relatively intact structurally… But the Turkish security forces have used it as an army base, desecrating the church, burning some of the pews as firewood, with garbage and smell of urine everywhere.”

A similar report, from August 2017, appeared in the Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos. According to the report, “Armenian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians have not been able to worship in their churches for the last three years.” This is because virtually the entire town — and all Christian properties belonging to the indigenous Armenian, Assyrian (Syriac), Chaldean and Protestant communities — was included in an expropriation plan adopted in March 2016 by the Turkish cabinet. Among the Christian properties expropriated are the Armenian Catholic, the Chaldean Mor Petyun and the Armenian Surp Giragos churches.

In response, the Surp Giragos church — whose members claim that every time they visit, they see that the structure has suffered additional damage — filed a lawsuit against the Turkish State Council. Other Christian foundations are also engaged in litigation to stop the expropriation, but the suits are still pending.

Surp Giragos is the largest Armenian church in the Middle East. According to Agos, its bell tower was destroyed by artillery fire during the 1915 Armenian genocide (at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, precursor to the Turkish Republic), because it stood taller than the minaret of a nearby mosque. After it was expropriated from the Armenian community during the First World War, it was initially used as a cotton storage warehouse. It remained in ruins for nearly a century, until being restored in 2011 and reopened to worship with the support of the Kurdish-administered Diyarbakır municipality.

North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un has called President Trump’s bluff. After conducting a succession of ballistic missile tests, including two ICBM tests in July and its most recent ballistic missile test over Japan, the rogue regime carried out its sixth nuclear test this past weekend. It reportedly was at least four times more powerful than the previous nuclear test North Korea conducted last year. North Korea acted despite strident warnings from President Trump, enhanced demonstrations of U.S. and its allies’ joint military prowess in the region, and increased sanctions imposed collectively by the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally by the United States.

When this powerful nuclear bomb test is coupled with North Korea’s successful test launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles and with intelligence reports indicating that North Korea has mastered the capability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that can fit onto its missiles, the regime appears to be closer than ever to presenting a credible nuclear threat to the United States mainland. It still has one problem to solve in order to successfully launch direct nuclear strikes on U.S. cities – missile re-entry into the atmosphere. However, without even bothering about re-entry, North Korea may already have the capability today to detonate a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere, generating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could virtually destroy the US.’s electrical grid and communications systems. An EMP attack would affect transportation as well as critical food, water and medical supplies. Millions of people could die as a result. North Korea has in fact threatened just such an attack.

In short, the U.S. and its allies are facing a very serious threat of catastrophic proportions from an erratic megalomaniac, with limited options to prevent it from becoming a grim reality at a time of Kim Jong-un’s choosing.

President Trump responded to North Korea’s latest nuclear test provocation via his usual channel of choice, twitter. The president first tweeted: “North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States…..” He also announced that he was meeting with his White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and military leaders at the White House to discuss North Korea.

After then criticizing China for not doing enough to stop North Korea and criticizing South Korea for its “talk of appeasement with North Korea,” President Trump ramped up the pressure on any countries still doing business with North Korea. He tweeted: “The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.” China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and principal supplier of oil, would seem to be the main target of this threat.

China condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test and urged North Korea to “stop taking erroneous actions that deteriorate the situation.” It has previously backed the United States in voting for the toughest economic sanctions resolution yet at the UN Security Council, and has in fact curtailed some trade with North Korea. Yet Kim Jong-un remains unfazed.

Following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, advertised by Pyongyang as an ICBM-ready hydrogen bomb, it was good to hear Defense Secretary James Mattis talking tough. But that won’t stop North Korea from building nuclear missiles. It won’t stop North Korea’s threats against the U.S. and our allies. I’d wager it won’t even interfere with Kim Jong Un’s enjoyment of his apparently ample meals.

Mattis stressed Kim’s peril in his remarks on Sunday, when he said: “Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response.” Mattis added the backhanded threat that “we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely, North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”

But does Kim have any reason to think the U.S. would exercise those options?

North Korea has long been a geyser of threats, including its threat last month to use the U.S. territory of Guam for missile practice, its launch last month of a ballistic missile over Japan, and its threat accompanying Sunday’s nuclear test that it could use thermonuclear weapons for a “super-powerful EMP attack.”

The U.S., Japan and South Korea have responded with shows of force, but like a multitude of displays done before, the de facto message is one of great muscle but no will to fight. None of that force has been used to strike North Korea. Kim holds Seoul hostage, and America, while groping for a solution to North Korea’s rapidly compounding threats, has no appetite to risk a replay of the carnage of the 1950-1953 Korean War, potentially amplified by nuclear weapons in the hands of Pyongyang.

With the caveat that I have no inside information, it’s intriguing to imagine what’s going on right now in Kim Jong Un’s head. He’s a young tyrant, now in his mid-thirties, who inherited power upon the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011. Some young men inherit a family fortune. Kim inherited supremacy over a totalitarian ruling party, fully accessorized with a nation state, a gulag, a nuclear weapons program and one of the world’s largest standing armies — with artillery already dug in to threaten the fat prize of capitalist Seoul, with its population of 10 million South Koreans just the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.

Since inheriting the keys to this grotesque family estate, Kim has presided over four of North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date (one in 2013, two in 2016 and the latest this Sunday). Under his rule, North Korea has amassed a nuclear arsenal estimated by various experts to be in the double digits, perhaps now including thermonuclear weapons. On Kim Jong Un’s watch, North Korea has advertised its pursuit of the ability to launch nuclear missiles from submarines, and acquired the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads and mount them on missiles. In July, North Korea succesfully tested two ICBMs. And, as mentioned, in August North Korea threatened the U.S. territory of Guam and launched a missile over Japan. And of course there was the test on Sunday of what North Korea celebrated as a hydrogen bomb.

From international obscurity half a dozen years ago, Kim has vaulted to erstwhile godhood on his totalitarian home turf, and become a celebrity tyrant who makes headlines around the globe. With tactics worthy of Stalin, or Caligula, he has consolidated power — recall the execution in 2013 of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, and the assassination earlier this year, with VX nerve agent, of his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam. Under his rule, North Korea has become a global player in cyber warfare. In the tradition of his enterprising forebears, he continues to cultivate strategic alliances and illicit weapons networks that funnel North Korea’s military wares to the likes of Syria, Iran and their terrorist mascots.

SEOUL—North Korea is making preparations for the possible launch of another intercontinental ballistic missile, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Monday, just one day after Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device far more powerful than any that it has previously tested.

Maj. Gen. Jang Kyung-soo, acting deputy minister for national defense policy, said Seoul had detected signs of activity that suggested North Korea, which conducted its first two ICBM test launches in July, was preparing to launch another ballistic missile.

Gen. Jang didn’t say what the signs of activity were, nor did he give a time frame for a possible launch. But many experts have been preparing for a weapons test around Sept. 9, when North Korea marks the anniversary of its foundation in 1948.
The assessment was echoed by South Korean intelligence officers, who said North Korea could test launch another ICBM toward the northern Pacific Ocean or a submarine-launched ballistic missile, according to lawmakers who attended a closed-door legislative meeting on Monday.
The Threat From North Korea’s Missiles

The intelligence officers also said North Korea could conduct further nuclear tests at any time, based on construction work on two tunnels at its test site that appear to be near completion, these lawmakers said.

The warnings came as South Korea’s Defense Ministry formally said it would proceed with the temporary deployment of four U.S. missile-defense launchers that have become a political hot potato in recent months.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office in May. His platform included opposing his predecessor’s decision to deploy the missile-defense system, called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, in the country. Thaad, which is designed to protect South Korea from Pyongyang’s missiles, is fiercely opposed by China, which says the system undermines its national security.

Mr. Moon suspended the deployment shortly after the U.S. military installed two of the Thaad battery’s six launchers, which made it operational. But North Korea’s recent string of missile launches and Sunday’s nuclear test have pushed Mr. Moon to move ahead with what he has called the temporary deployment of the four remaining Thaad launchers.

On Monday, the Defense Ministry in Seoul said it completed a small-scale environmental impact assessment, a prerequisite for the deployment, and would push ahead with installation “shortly,” without specifying a date.

Separately, Gen. Jang said the U.S. and South Korea are in talks about deploying an aircraft carrier or stealth bombers to South Korea as part of the response to North Korea’s recent actions.CONTINUE AT SITE

North Korea’s threats against the U.S. now include a tactic long discussed by some experts: an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, triggered by a nuclear weapon that would aim to shut down the U.S. electricity grid.

North Korea’s state news agency made a rare reference to the tactic in a Sunday morning release in which the country said it was able to load a hydrogen bomb onto a long-range missile. The bomb, North Korea said, “is a multifunctional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack.”

The idea of an EMP attack is to detonate a nuclear weapon tens or hundreds of miles above the earth with the aim of knocking out power in much of the U.S. Unlike the U.S. atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, such a weapon wouldn’t directly destroy buildings or kill people. Instead, electromagnetic waves from the nuclear explosion would generate pulses to overwhelm the electric grid and electronic devices in the same way a lightning surge can destroy equipment.

In a worst-case scenario, the outages could last for months, indirectly costing many lives, since hospitals would be without power, emergency services couldn’t function normally, and people could run short of food and water.

Warnings about the threat have percolated for many years, including in a 2008 report commissioned by Congress that warned an EMP attack could bring “widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society.”

When the U.S. tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific in 1962, it resulted in lights burning out in Honolulu, nearly 1,000 miles from the test site. Naturally occurring electromagnetic events on the sun can also disrupt power systems. A 1989 blackout in Quebec came days after powerful explosions on the sun expelled a cloud of charged particles that struck earth’s magnetic field.

Skeptics generally acknowledge that an EMP attack would be possible in theory, but they say the danger is exaggerated because it would be difficult for an enemy such as North Korea to calibrate the attack to deliver maximum damage to the U.S. electrical grid. If a North Korean bomb exploded away from its target location, it might knock out only a few devices or parts of the grid. CONTINUE AT SITE