EMP's

Yes the EMP phenomenon is real. A nuke detonated above the atmosphere would cause some real problems for unprotected systems. Most non-military systems are not protected from EMPs. The article and Sen. Kyl are exaggerating the effects a little bit. It wouldn’t wipe out the electrical grid of the whole US, just parts of it and it would be back up in a few weeks. Sure some real hardship but defeat? Then there is the problem of getting a nuclear tipped SCUD into the US, Mexico or Canada. Not like the Iranians can launch a missile at the US since the effective range of a highly modified SCUD missile with an unsophisticated nuclear payload is about 300-450 miles.

The problem with this scenario is that no terrorist in their right mind would do anything so stupid. Terrorists are out for razzle-dazzle. A nuke going off in NYC or DC and killing hundreds of thousands of people and leveling the city is way more headline catching than annoying people for a few weeks because the power is out and their credit cards don’t work. All the data is recoverable since the EMP won’t affect the storage medium unless it is all RAM, and its not.

However, there are other ways of generating EMPs than with a nuclear weapon. It involves a fair amount of explosives and engineering know how, but from what I have read about it, it’s not too tough. You don’t get the same city-scale EMP pulse but a few of them in good locations could cause some serious annoyance, like shutting down the stock market for a few weeks etc. Sure it would be a pain in the butt, but I have always contended that a dozen or so snipers shooting people randomly at the grocery store or elementary schools would cause more panic and genuine terror than the more spectacular attacks.