If other countries have the technology to launch an EMP...?

Question

Ten miles off of our shores, and I heard it was legal for them to get this close to our shores, then why aren't we doing more to change international laws so that our country can be protected? It seems as if the big shots in the White House are not even interested in protecting the American people! I have heard that this technology has the ability to knock out the power for a long time coast to coast. Is this true?

Answer 1

Electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) has been around for a long time, so you've got some catching up to do here. EMP occurs when ever something really BIG throws a lot of radiation around. It could be "the atomic bomb" or it could be a bomb designed simply to create EMP -and in the future it could be a "directed energy" device - a "ray gun."

Enforcement of off-shore territorial rights is the responsibility of each country to do for itself. The international laws say that the limit is 12 miles, unless you claim more, which some countries do. But there's no one around to enforce those laws, other than the countries themselves. And obviously, if someone is at war with somebody else, neither observes any territorial limits of any kind.

Protecting against EMP is basically more of a technological challenge than anything else. Military equipment is "shielded" from it, but the power grid is not and cannot be unless we bury everything under the ground in a thick pipe with metal all around it -and that would include our TV's and radios -not a likely scenario. The exposure is no worse than the exposure to being blown to smithereens by nuclear weapons; arguably, it might be a better deal because EMP doesn't hurt people -unless they have pace-makers. And so, if North Korea had some way to zap the power grid over here, that old Kentucky Squirrel rifle over the mantle will still work just fine. But your car won't start. Bummer.

But what your getting at has a sort of dark side in terms of technological vulnerability. The technologically advanced countries have the most at risk, because so much technology relies on electronic circuits. But the "backwards" countries, like N. Korea, don't have all that fancy stuff, so if he hit THEM with EMP about the only thing that would stop working is the color TV is the "Dear Leaders" rec room.

But not to worry; no one has YET come up with a way to deploy EMP by itself over a wide radius; you've gotta set off a bomb somewhere, and we ARE on the lookout for bombs.

I hope.

Answer 2

No it would only be very short term most things not on a grid would be working again in minutes. It would cause alot of trouble but the effort to do so would be harder to accomplish than someone trying to sneak in a dirty bomb.

Answer 3

you cant protect space