Threat Posed by Electromagnetic Pulse (Emp) to U.S. Military Systems and Civil Infrastructure: Hearing Before the Military Research and Development Subcommittee of the Committee on National Security, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress...
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Very good. iii, [1], 123, [1] pages. Illustrations. Wraps. H.N.S.C. No. 105-18. Wayne Curtis Weldon (born July 22, 1947) is an American politician. He served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2007, representing the 7th district of Pennsylvania. Weldon was vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee. He was also the co-chair of the Duma-Congress Study Group, the official inter-parliamentary relationship between the United States and Russia. The first witness was Gary Smith, the director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Congressman Bartlett had asked him to advise him on the subject of this particular hearing, the electromagnetic pulse produced by a high-altitude nuclear explosion, and the implications for defense systems and capabilities and for the civilian infrastructure. His staff had completed a limited assessment based on a review of the literature, an examination of the tenets and interviews with responsible and knowledgeable professionals in the field. He was there to present the results of that assessment. They have found that the phenomenon is very real and is well understood by the nuclear weapons effects community; that our strategic systems and their command, control and communications infrastructure have been designed and built to survive and operate effectively in such an environment; that there would likely be pronounced effects on the civilian infrastructure from an EMP; and that it is probably not feasible to completely protect the entire infrastructure from the effects of an EMP. The Chairman opened with remarks, including, The subcommittee is meeting here today to explore in more detail EMP effects on our military systems and the civilian infrastructure, how confident we are that we can predict these effects, our potential vulnerabilities, what policies and practices guide our efforts to protect our systems, and the steps we have taken and can take to ameliorate these vulnerabilities. EMP can be generated in several ways, but the widest effects are caused by a high-altitude nuclear blast, although we will ask questions about other than nuclear blasts causing EMP. All of us here understand that the threats posed to our military systems and civilian infrastructure by high-altitude EMP are not new. Atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950's and 1960's revealed a number of then unanticipated results, including electrical and communications disruptions hundreds of miles from the test sites. There may be, however, new dimensions in vulnerabilities that we need to look at more carefully. In the 1950's, electronic systems used vacuum tubes, not very sophisticated, but resistant to EMP. Today, computers with more and more microcircuits packed into smaller and smaller chips are key to the efficiency of virtually all commerce in the United States. These have much more computing power, but are also much more sensitive to disruption and more easily disabled by EMP. As our reliance grows, so does our potential vulnerability. Likewise, potential military vulnerability may be growing. The revolution from military affairs has brought with it a much greater dependence on information technologies. The ability to generate raw data, process it into usable form, and communicate information to the right people and systems is critical to military success, yet the sensors, computers and communications assets essential to this revolution could be vulnerable. For example, 95 percent of our military communications go through commercial channels. Are we confident that EMP will not disable or disrupt these commercial communications systems? How confident are we that the military could continue to communicate effectively if commercial systems were disrupted or completely disabled by EMP? How thoroughly do we protect our weapons systems from EMP? Are we confident they will continue to function? At the same time our...
